Who Murders More People --- USA or Terrorists?

[numan]

'
"It was in the early days of the fighting in Vietnam that a Vietcong officer said to his American prisoner: "You were our heroes after the War. We read American books and saw American films, and a common phrase in those days was 'to be as rich and as wise as an American'. What happened?"

An American might have been asked something similar by a Guatemalan, an Indonesian or a Cuban during the ten years previous, or by a Uruguayan, a Chilean or a Greek in the decade subsequent. The remarkable international goodwill and credibility enjoyed by the United States at the close of the Second World War was dissipated country by country, intervention by intervention."
---William Blum
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[numan]

'
Why Terrorists Hate America
"Historical data show a strong correlation between US involvement in international situations and an increase in terrorist attacks against the United States."

Former president Jimmy Carter, some years after he left the White House, was unambiguous in his concordance with such a sentiment: "We sent Marines into Lebanon and you only have to go to Lebanon, to Syria or to Jordan to witness first-hand the intense hatred among many people for the United States because we bombed and shelled and unmercifully killed totally innocent villagers -- women and children and farmers and housewives -- in those villages around Beirut. ... As a result of that ... we became kind of a Satan in the minds of those who are deeply resentful."....
Who killed more innocent, defenseless people? The terrorists...or the Americans in Afghanistan with their AGM-86D cruise missiles, their AGM-130 missiles, their 15,000 pound "daisy cutter" bombs, their depleted uranium, and their cluster bombs?....
If I were the president, I could stop terrorist attacks against the United States in a few days. Permanently. I would first apologize to all the widows and orphans, the tortured and impoverished, and all the many millions of other victims of American imperialism. Then I would announce, in all sincerity, to every corner of the world, that America's global interventions have come to an end....I would then reduce the military budget by at least 90% and use the savings to pay reparations to the victims. There would be more than enough money. One year's military budget of 330 billion dollars is equal to more than $18,000 an hour for every hour since Jesus Christ was born. That's what I'd do on my first three days in the White House. On the fourth day, I'd be assassinated.

emphasis added
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[tecoyah]

Americans kill far more of each other than terrorists ever will. Hell, just Vegas alone would be hard to match.

 

[Polydectes]

Americans kill far more of each other than terrorists ever will. Hell, just Vegas alone would be hard to match.

are you kidding me the attack in New York on September 11th 2001 terrorist killed 3,000 people that was far more than 59.

 

[Iolo]

are you kidding me the attack in New York on September 11th 2001 terrorist killed 3,000 people that was far more than 59.

But about a 195 people a day die by gunshot in the USA every day, as I recollect, just to please the NRA. I'd say you'd soon kill enough to beat 3,000.

 

[tecoyah]

But about a 195 people a day die by gunshot in the USA every day, as I recollect, just to please the NRA. I'd say you'd soon kill enough to beat 3,000.

This is pertinent to what I meant in my post and is a small piece of what we Americans do to each other yearly.

 

[David]

Toddlers have a better kill count than terrorists.

 

[Polydectes]

I don't know why it matters how people are killed and there's a lot of countries that have a higher murder rate than the US. Whether or not it's done by gun who cares?

For instance you have Caracas which is the murder capital of the world murder rates probably about six times that of what it is in the worst city in the u.s. but they have gun control so fat lot of good that does.

 

[David]

I don't know why it matters how people are killed and there's a lot of countries that have a higher murder rate than the US. Whether or not it's done by gun who cares?

For instance you have Caracas which is the murder capital of the world murder rates probably about six times that of what it is in the worst city in the u.s. but they have gun control so fat lot of good that does.

They also don't have a government to enforce those controls though. It's not quite a failed state but it's damned close.

 

[Polydectes]

They also don't have a government to enforce those controls though. It's not quite a failed state but it's damned close.

The US doesn't either.

 

[Iolo]

I don't know why it matters how people are killed and there's a lot of countries that have a higher murder rate than the US. Whether or not it's done by gun who cares?

For instance you have Caracas which is the murder capital of the world murder rates probably about six times that of what it is in the worst city in the u.s. but they have gun control so fat lot of good that does.

It matter a great deal. Terrorists in the USA kill far more people with their bang-bangs than terrorists in the UK armed with knives, as is obvious, surely? Most civilized countries avoid chucking guns around like confetti.

 

[Polydectes]

It matter a great deal.

only if you want to exploit the deaths of people to push some political agenda. The reality is people who are murdered by guns or people who are murdered by any other means are just as murdered and just as dead.

Terrorists in the USA kill far more people with their bang-bangs than terrorists in the UK armed with knives, as is obvious, surely? Most civilized countries avoid chucking guns around like confetti.

The freest societies allow their people do have rights and arts subjects of their tyrannical dictators. And having guns ensures that.

So have all the civilized sophistication in arrogance you want in the UK I prefer to remain a free individual.

 

[numan]

So have all the civilized sophistication in arrogance you want in the UK I prefer to remain a free individual.

There speaks a citizen of the most heavily brainwashed and conditioned society on the planet.

LOOK OUT, KID! THEY KEEP IT ALL HID!
--- Bob Dylan
.

 

[numan]

'
The US not only often installed, but in each case protected, both politically and militarily, and supported with arms, cash and military training, the corrupt dictatorships of:


Abacha, General Sani ----------------------------Nigeria
Amin, Idi ----------------------------------------Uganda
Banzer, Colonel Hugo -----------------------------Bolivia
Batista, Fulgencio -------------------------------Cuba
Bolkiah, Sir Hassanal -----------------------------Brunei
Botha, P.W. ---------------------------------South Africa
Branco, General Humberto ------------------------Brazil
Cedras, Raoul ------------------------------------Haiti
Cerezo, Vinicio ------------------------------Guatemala
Chiang Kai-Shek ---------------------------------Taiwan
Cordova, Roberto Suazo -------------------------Honduras
Christiani, Alfredo ---------------------------El Salvador
Diem, Ngo Dihn ----------------------------------Vietnam
Doe, General Samuel ----------------------------Liberia
Duvalier, Francois --------------------------------Haiti
Duvalier, Jean Claude-----------------------------Haiti
Fahd bin'Abdul-'Aziz, King --------------------Saudi Arabia
Franco, General Francisco -----------------------Spain
Hassan II----------------------------------------Morocco
Hussein, Saddam --------------------------------Iraq
Khan, Yahya-------------------------------------Pakistan
Marcos, Ferdinand -------------------------------Philippines
Martinez, General Maximiliano Hernandez ----------El Salvador
Mobutu Sese Seko -------------------------------Zaire
Noriega, General Manuel --------------------------Panama
Ozal, Turgut -------------------------------------Turkey
Pahlevi, Shah Mohammed Reza -------------------Iran
Papadopoulos, George ---------------------------Greece
Park Chung Hee ---------------------------------South Korea
Pinochet, General Augusto -----------------------Chile
Pol Pot------------------------------------------Cambodia
Rabuka, General Sitiveni -------------------------Fiji
Montt, General Efrain Rios -----------------------Guatemala
Salassie, Halie ----------------------------------Ethiopia
Salazar, Antonio de Oliveira ----------------------Portugal
Somoza, Anastasio Jr. ---------------------------Nicaragua
Somoza, Anastasio, Sr. --------------------------Nicaragua
Smith, Ian --------------------------------------Rhodesia
Stroessner, Alfredo ------------------------------Paraguay
Suharto, General --------------------------------Indonesia
Trujillo, Rafael Leonidas --------------------Dominican Republic
Videla, General Jorge Rafael ----------------------Argentina
Zia Ul-Haq, Mohammed --------------------------Pakistan

And what about the quality of these newly-installed dictators? Well:

Trujillo in the Dominican Republic was a convicted rapist.

In El Salvador, the US installed Roberto D'Aubuisson, whom a US Ambassador called a "pathological killer".

Of Somoza in Nicaragua, Franklin Roosevelt said, "Somoza may be a son-of-a-bitch, but he's our son-of-a-bitch."

An estimated 50,000 killed during the Nicaraguan "revolution", 120,000 exiled and 600,000 made homeless, and this was only the beginning. Nicaragua was one of the few cases where international pressure on Jimmy Carter's government forced the US to abandon military and political support for one of their favorite dictators.

Alfredo Cristiani of El Salvador was famous worldwide for his motto - "Be patriotic-kill a priest".

Ferdinand Marcos - Phippines

The US candidate for Philippines dictator, under President Lyndon Johnson, Ferdinand Marcos began his career in prison at age 21 for the murder of the man who had beaten his father in the local election.

Starting in 1950, the US CIA funded several decades of academic research into “the relative usefulness of drugs, electroshock, violence, and other coercive techniques” to discover a new method of psychological torture - perhaps the most significant revolution in this cruel science during the past four centuries. Instead of a simple physical brutality, these units practiced a distinctive form of psychological torture with wider implications for the military and its society.

The CIA's thousand-page torture manual, distributed to military regimes in Latin America for over 20 years, taught psychological tactics to break down what the Agency called a victim's “capacity to resist”. Through “persistent manipulation of time,” the interrogator can break a victim's will, driving the victim, in the CIA's words, “deeper and deeper into himself, until he is no longer able to control his responses in an adult fashion.”

The CIA created in the Philippines "a closed, tight-knit, psychotic club of martial-law enforcers, and few could rival their psychopathic interrogations."

in 2008, lawyers for Philippine victims of human rights abuses under CIA-supported Marcos said Friday they regretted a U.S. Supreme Court decision overturning lower court rulings that gave the victims the right to money stashed by Marcos in the United States.

Mohammad Reza Pahlevi - Iran

With the support of US President Eisenhower, Allen Dulles used the CIA to topple the elected government of Dr. Mohammad Mossadeq and install the Shah. With Dulles' encouragement, he forced all people to join his party or go to jail. Thousands were imprisoned or murdered. His agents raided a religious school and hurled hundreds of students to their deaths from the roof.

His secret police agency, SAVAK, was created in 1957 and managed by the CIA at all levels of daily operation, including the choice and organization of personnel, selection and operation of equipment, and the running of agents. Torture methods included:

electric shock
whipping
beating
inserting broken glass and pouring boiling water into the rectum
tying weights to the testicles
the extraction of teeth and nails.

Iran under the Shah became a devoted US ally and a base for spy operations on the border of the Soviet Union.

In 2000, U.S. Secretary of State Madeleine K. Albright stated: "In 1953 the United States played a significant role in orchestrating the overthrow of Iran's popular Prime Minister, Mohammed Massadegh. The Eisenhower Administration believed its actions were justified for strategic reasons; but the coup was clearly a setback for Iran's political development. And it is easy to see now why many Iranians continue to resent this intervention by America in their internal affairs."

No Kidding.

P.W. Botha - South Africa

Reagan significantly increased military expenditures and support, but Botha had some bad habits that Reagan ignored:

(1) Cutting off the ears, noses, and limbs of civilians

(2) He would:
round up 10 year old boys
kill their parents in front of them
rape young women while they watched
then recruit them to fight in his army

Mobutu Sese Seko - Zaire

Zaire's first President, Patrice Lumumba, seemed to be too socialist and US companies feared they might lose control of Zaire's cobalt, copper and diamonds.

So the CIA assassinated Lumumba and replaced him with Mobutu, who had been the US's main man in Central Africa. He imprisoned and tortured, but the US Congress continued to reward his work against communism and his warm reception of American corporations.

General Suharto - Indonesia

Suharto was one of the most brutal dictators in history. He ruled for 32 years and continued his savage atrocities under the support of 7 US presidents: Johnson, Nixon, Ford, Carter, Reagan, Bush Sr., Clinton.

President Lyndon Johnson authorised a CIA-organized coup that brought Suharto to power in 1965, and the CIA then supervised while Suharto exterminated three million Indonesian communist party members.

They hacked the alleged subversives to death with machetes. Entire populations of towns and villages were herded to central locations and massacred. Children would be asked to identify communists who would then be executed on the spot.

In addition to the half million people who were killed outright after the coup, another 750,000 were arrested and tortured. Ultimately, one million people died in one of the most savage mass slaughters of modern political history. The US continues to this day to train and arm the Indonesian military with the latest high-tech equipment. The US has also recently opened a new "black" "Peace Medicine" installation in Indonesia that is almost certainly a torture laboratory.
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[Polydectes]

There speaks a citizen of the most heavily brainwashed and conditioned society on the planet.

LOOK OUT, KID! THEY KEEP IT ALL HID!
--- Bob Dylan
.

That could be said to anybody from any country and it would have exactly as much Merit as it does when you say it to me.

 

[arcturus88]

"I don't think Americans are that different from the rest of humanity"

- numan

 

[Iolo]

only if you want to exploit the deaths of people to push some political agenda. The reality is people who are murdered by guns or people who are murdered by any other means are just as murdered and just as dead.


The freest societies allow their people do have rights and arts subjects of their tyrannical dictators. And having guns ensures that.

So have all the civilized sophistication in arrogance you want in the UK I prefer to remain a free individual.

You don't think the number matters? You have the most bullying, ghastly government in the west and the silly bang-bangs. You are also the most arrogant buggers on earth outside 'Israel', which you keep in being.

 

[Polydectes]

You don't think the number matters?

I didn't say that. There are nations who's murder rates dwarf the US per capita.

You have the most bullying, ghastly government in the west and the silly bang-bangs. You are also the most arrogant buggers on earth outside 'Israel', which you keep in being.

Jealous much?

 

[numan]

I didn't say that. There are nations who's murder rates dwarf the US per capita.

Not among the civilized nations.

Jealous much?

That is like a hick from the sticks asking if a resident of "this demi-paradise" if they are jealous they don't live among feuding hillbillies.
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[numan]

"I don't think Americans are that different from the rest of humanity"

- numan

"Americans are just like everybody else --- only more so!"
--- numan
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