When they called us "the Great Satan" - the kind of rhetoric historically used to justify extermination - we shrugged it off. We felt secure in our ability to defend ourselves. And of course the world needs what we have.
But when they invaded and occupied Canada, jailing and torturing any innocent they could be convinced to feel paranoid about, it was harder to remain sanguine. This belligerent adversary with their troops and missiles building miltary bases in the country right next door? Still, we chose to watch and wait.
But then they invaded and occupied Mexico, sending in just about every soldier they had left. Now the savages were on either side of us! They set up a puppet government and began building themselves a palatial embassy. Sat back and let the natives butcher each other over old grievances while focusing on making their obscenely rich ruling class even richer by siphoning off the country's resources. And even as they carried on with this despicable agenda, they touted their righteousness - boasting how they had saved the Mexican people from their corrupt leaders, smugly confident that Allah had uniquely blessed their great nation.
And the provocations only got worse. They arrested US government representatives in the conquered countries, based on unproven charges that they were helping the locals resist the occupying Iranian forces. They stationed the most powerful ships in their Navy in the Caribbean, issuing credible threats to bomb our nuclear plants if we didn't shut them down - in spite of our having every legal right to have them, not to mention the devastating civilian casualties such a barbaric campaign would inflict.
And all this after they had overthrown Eisenhower in the 50s when he wouldn't let them exploit America's agricultural wealth, so they could install the cooperative Joe McCarthy in the White House - who then used the FBI to jail and torture political dissenters! And after they had sold chemical weapons to the Soviets to be used against us in the decade-long war that claimed millions of American lives!
And after all this, we're supposed to accept the world's condemnation for detaining 15 Syrian spies we captured in Chesapeake Bay conducting reconnaissance for their Iranian buddies?
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In case you haven't gotten it yet...
Iran = America
America = Iran
Canada = Afghanistan
Mexico = Iraq in the 2000s
"The Great Satan" = "Axis of Evil"
Allah = Jesus
Caribbean = Persian Gulf
Eisenhower = Mohammed Mosadegh
Joe McCarthy = The Shah
FBI = SAVAK
Agriculture = Oil
The Soviet Union = Iraq in the 1980s
Syrians = Britons
analogy courtesy of Dr. Noam Chomsky