William Blum: Rogue State

William Blum: Rogue State

By Expotera
February 09, 2017

From 1945 to 2003, the United States attempted to overthrow more
than 40 foreign governments, and to crush more than 30 populist-
nationalist movements fighting against intolerable regimes. In the
process, the US bombed some 25 countries, caused the end of life
for several million people, and condemned many millions more to
a life of agony and despair. – William Blum

Our leaders are cruel because only those willing to be inordinately
cruel and remorseless can hold positions of leadership in the foreign
policy establishment. People capable of expressing a full human
measure of compassion and empathy toward faraway powerless
strangers do not become president of the United States, or vice
president, or secretary of state, or national security adviser or
secretary of the treasury. Nor do they want to. – William Blum

What our leaders and pundits never let slip is that the terrorists
whatever else they might be-might also be rational human beings;
which is to say that in their own minds they have a rational
justification for their actions. Most terrorists are people deeply
concerned by what they see as social, political, or religious
injustice and hypocrisy, and the immediate grounds for their
terrorism is often retaliation for an action of the United States.
- William Blum

Propaganda is to a democracy what violence is to a dictatorship.
- William Blum

Do you remember the classic example of chutzpah? It’s the young
man who kills his parents and then asks the judge for mercy on
the grounds that he’s an orphan. The Bush administration’s updated
version of that was starting a wholly illegal, immoral, and
devastating war and then dismissing all kinds of criticism of its
action on the grounds that ‘we’re at war. – William Blum

A terrorist is someone who has a bomb, but doesn’t have an
air force. – William Blum

Why don’t church leaders forbid Catholics from joining the military
with the same fervor they tell Catholics to stay away from abortion
clinics? – William Blum

The Soviet Union and something called communism per se had
not been the object of Washington’s global attacks. There had
never been an International Communist Conspiracy. The enemy
was, and remains, any government or movement, or even
individual, that stands in the way of the expansion of the
American Empire; by whatever name the US gives to the enemy –
communist, rogue state, drug trafficker, terrorist. – William Blum

The “trickle-down” theory: the principle that the poor, who must
subsist on table scraps dropped by the rich, can best be served by
giving the rich bigger meals. – William Blum

No matter how paranoid or conspiracy-minded you are, what the government is actually doing is worse than you imagine. – William Blum

The de facto censorship which leaves so many Americans
functionally illiterate about the history of US foreign affairs may
be all the more effective because it is not official, heavy-handed
or conspiratorial, but woven artlessly into the fabric of education
and media. No conspiracy is needed. – William Blum