World police ?..Great Country ?...Ford mustang is

I put this under the heading of..Comedy



Like a lot of Americans, each morning in elementary and high school, I to stand up before the U.S. flag, put my hand on my heart, and pledge allegiance to the United States of America. While it was a mindless routine for most of us, the meaning behind the ritual was clear: that the U.S. was exceptional, a beacon of liberty and justice in the world. But after considering the trail of blood, coups and bombs that continues to follow the U.S. flag wherever it flies, it’s safe to say that the U.S. is exceptional in many things; liberty and justice are not among them.

Take the following statistics: Roughly 405,000 people have been killed as a result of the violence and infrastructure damage of the U.S.-led War in Iraq. The U.S. is number two, behind Russia, in its nuclear weapons stockpile, with 7,400 warheads (Third is France, with 300.) The U.S. leads the world in military spending, with more than $7.6 trillion spent on the military and homeland security since 9/11. Washington is also a major threat to its own citizens: the U.S. is the world’s largest incarcerator of people, both in numbers and in proportion to its population, with 2.3 million in prison, 1 million of whom are African American.

Much of the violence around the world today can be linked back to U.S. imperial adventures abroad. The rise of ISIS in Iraq has been traced to the US war in the country. In an article on ISIS leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, the New York Times explained, “At every turn, Mr. Baghdadi’s rise has been shaped by the United States’ involvement in Iraq – most of the political changes that fueled his fight, or led to his promotion, were born directly from some American action.” As far as the recent terrorist attack in France, University of Michigan History Professor Juan Cole writes that one of the attackers was pushed toward “fundamentalist vigilanteism” by the war in Iraq and by Abu Ghraib torture. The wave of drug war-related violence sweeping Latin America is also directly tied to the U.S. role in militarizing the region in the name of the war on drugs, a conflict which since 2006 has taken over 100,000 lives in Mexico alone.