On July 4th, 1776, representatives from thirteen British colonies on the North American continent formally declared their sovereignty and independence from the government they had always known and claimed the right to form their own government as they saw fit.

This group of radicals and soon to be “freedom fighters” (the British would consider them domestic “terrorists” guilty of treason) sighted a “long train of abuses and usurpations” as their moral justification for their actions.  These abuses were legal, of course, but considered immoral by the signers of this declaration and a violation of their natural rights.

As we all know today, this group of underdogs fought the most powerful military in the world, paid a terrible price, but eventually won.  The independence and sovereignty of the thirteen states from the British Empire became official seven years and two months later at the Treaty of Paris on September 3, 1783.

For the most part, I think the Fourth of July holiday has devolved into a day where Americans pause to celebrate the good life – hang out with family and friends, cook out, and watch fireworks – without much thought given to what this day meant, then or now.

Whole libraries have been written about what the fourth of July meant, but a short list will do for now.  It was the triumph of natural rights over legalized oppression.  It was the triumph of the human spirit against an enemy that was by all rights too wealthy, too powerful, too strong, and too sophisticated to contend with.  It was the triumph of the assertion that people have the right to separate from their sovereign and form a government of their own choosing.   It was the triumph of people who wanted to be left alone by a central government as much as possible and be free to live their lives.

So much has changed since then.  The world was not simple or perfect then or now, but I think history is worth pausing and working to remember.

When we do, we will come to the uncomfortable realization that in many ways we have become the imperial tyrant that we once fought against.

The most terrible hypocrisy and racism of the American people is our indifference or willful ignorance of the death, terror, and injustice that we inflict on people around the world, all the while believing that we are the one indispensable nation, the virtuous knights in a dark and dangerous world, the ones holding back the chaos and maintaining world order, the leaders of the free world, the leaders against the global war on terror, and on and on.

Everyone of these beliefs are a tragic joke and the rest of the world knows it – and so should we.  Year after year, poll after poll indicates that the rest of the world believes that the greatest threat to world peace is the United States.  We are the terrorists to be feared the most.  They believe it by a wide margin.  And there are overwhelming reasons for it.

No one bombs more people, destroys more countries, tracks and spies on more people, and overthrows more governments than the United States.  These are bodies, lives, families, and communities that we blow apart on a regular and consistent basis without a second thought, without ever adjusting our self-perception of who we are and the role we play in the world.  Are we okay with this because most of these people don’t look like most of us (do we need a “Foreign Lives Matter” movement?) or that they are far away or we assume if our government is killing them then they must all be bad?  I don’t know.

I do know that they are people who are precious to God.  I do know that we violate the natural rights of these people that our founders believed were given by God to all people and are the basis for our own laws and freedoms.

Historian William Blum (among many others) has put together several lists that all Americans need to familiarize themselves with.

Blum states, “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.”

Here is his list of countries we have bombed since WW2 (we drop thousands, and often tens of thousands, of bombs on people every year):

• Korea and China 1950-53 (Korean War)
• Guatemala 1954
• Indonesia 1958
• Cuba 1959-1961
• Guatemala 1960
• Congo 1964
• Laos 1964-73
• Vietnam 1961-73
• Cambodia 1969-70
• Guatemala 1967-69
• Grenada 1983
• Lebanon 1983, 1984 (both Lebanese and Syrian targets)
• Libya 1986
• El Salvador 1980s
• Nicaragua 1980s
• Iran 1987
• Panama 1989
• Iraq 1991 (Persian Gulf War)
• Kuwait 1991
• Somalia 1993
• Bosnia 1994, 1995
• Sudan 1998
• Afghanistan 1998
• Yugoslavia 1999
• Yemen 2002
• Iraq 1991-2003 (US/UK on regular basis)
• Iraq 2003-2015
• Afghanistan 2001-2015
• Pakistan 2007-2015
• Somalia 2007-8, 2011
• Yemen 2009, 2011
• Libya 2011, 2015
• Syria 2014-2016

Here is his list of countries where we have overthrown or attempted to overthrow foreign governments since WW2 (* indicates a successful removal of a government):

• China 1949 to early 1960s
• Albania 1949-53
• East Germany 1950s
• Iran 1953 *
• Guatemala 1954 *
• Costa Rica mid-1950s
• Syria 1956-7
• Egypt 1957
• Indonesia 1957-8
• British Guiana 1953-64 *
• Iraq 1963 *
• North Vietnam 1945-73
• Cambodia 1955-70 *
• Laos 1958 *, 1959 *, 1960 *
• Ecuador 1960-63 *
• Congo 1960 *
• France 1965
• Brazil 1962-64 *
• Dominican Republic 1963 *
• Cuba 1959 to present
• Bolivia 1964 *
• Indonesia 1965 *
• Ghana 1966 *
• Chile 1964-73 *
• Greece 1967 *
• Costa Rica 1970-71
• Bolivia 1971 *
• Australia 1973-75 *
• Angola 1975, 1980s
• Zaire 1975
• Portugal 1974-76 *
• Jamaica 1976-80 *
• Seychelles 1979-81
• Chad 1981-82 *
• Grenada 1983 *
• South Yemen 1982-84
• Suriname 1982-84
• Fiji 1987 *
• Libya 1980s
• Nicaragua 1981-90 *
• Panama 1989 *
• Bulgaria 1990 *
• Albania 1991 *
• Iraq 1991
• Afghanistan 1980s *
• Somalia 1993
• Yugoslavia 1999-2000 *
• Ecuador 2000 *
• Afghanistan 2001 *
• Venezuela 2002 *
• Iraq 2003 *
• Haiti 2004 *
• Somalia 2007 to present
• Honduras 2009
• Libya 2011 *
• Syria 2012
• Ukraine 2014 *

The United States also exerts an enormous amount of control on other countries and people around the world through all sorts of economic means and through its intelligence agencies.  Most people around the world know that if America decides it is going to bring “democracy,” “stability,” or “freedom” to your region – it’s time to move!

How many of these millions of affected people were or are an existential threat to the United States?  Which countries are more free, stable, and prosperous because of our efforts?  Do you know anyone who has lived through any of these interventions?  Have you heard their stories?

How well has the media informed you about this?  What stories do they tell?  What pictures do they show?  To what end?

The prayer of Americans (the praying Christian ones anyway) on the Fourth of July should certainly be those of gratitude for all that we’ve been given, but our prayers will not be complete without, “God help us!” and “God forgive us!”

I pray that one day there will be a Fourth of July for everyone else – a day when people can breathe easy and celebrate their independence from the American empire.

May that day come soon.

– – – –

I’ll leave you with a few quotes:

“A terrorist is someone who has a bomb but doesn’t have an air force.” – Unknown

 “They know we own their country. We own their airspace… We dictate the way they live and talk. And that’s what’s great about America right now. It’s a good thing, especially when there’s a lot of oil out there we need.” U.S. Brig. General William Looney, Washington Post, August 30, 1999

 “I helped purify Nicaragua for the international banking house of Brown Brothers in 1909-1912. I brought light to the Dominican Republic for American sugar interests in 1916. In China I helped to see to it that Standard Oil went its way unmolested….War is a racket. It is the only one international in scope. It is the only one in which the profits are reckoned in dollars and the losses in lives…I believe in adequate defense at the coastline and nothing else.” – Major General Smedley Butler

 “Secure supplies of energy are essential to our prosperity and security. The concentration of 65 percent of the world’s known oil reserves in the Persian Gulf means we must continue to ensure reliable access to competitively priced oil and a prompt, adequate response to any major oil supply disruption.” From “National Security Strategy of the United States, ” White House publication, March 1990

“With numbing regularity good people were seen to knuckle under the demands of authority and perform actions that were callous and severe. Men who are in everyday life responsible and decent were seduced by the trappings of authority, by the control of their perceptions, and by the uncritical acceptance of the experimenter’s definition of the situation, into performing harsh acts. A substantial proportion of people do what they are told to do, irrespective of the content of the act and without limitations of conscience, so long as they perceive that the command comes from a legitimate authority.” – Stanley Milgram, 1965.

Stanley Milgram was a psychologist who performed a series of experiments that proved conclusively that obedience to authority was so ingrained in the average US citizen they were prepared to cause lethal harm to others when instructed by authority figures to do so. All those who took part were first asked if they would be capable of killing or inflicting severe pain on their fellow human beings. 100% replied categorically ‘no’.

“It is a scandal in contemporary international law, don’t forget, that while “wanton destruction of towns, cities and villages” is a war crime of long standing, the bombing of cities from airplanes goes not only unpunished but virtually uncaused. Air bombardment is state terrorism, the terrorism of the rich. It has burned up and blasted apart more innocents in the past six decades than have all the anti-state terrorists who ever lived. Something has benumbed our consciousness against this reality. In the United States we would not consider for the presidency a man who had once thrown a bomb into a crowded restaurant, but we are happy to elect a man who once dropped bombs from airplanes that destroyed not only restaurants but the buildings that contained them and the neighborhoods that surrounded them. I went to Iraq after the Gulf war and saw for myself what the bombs did; “wanton destruction” is just the term for it.” – C. Douglas Lummis, political scientist (The Nation, September 26, 1994, P.304)

 “We never see the smoke and the fire, we never smell the blood, we never see the terror in the eyes of the children, whose nightmares will now feature screaming missiles from unseen terrorists, will be known only as Americans.” Martin Kelly

“We have no honorable intentions in Vietnam. Our minimal expectation is to occupy it as an American colony and maintain social stability for our investments. This tells why American helicopters are being used against guerrillas in Colombia and Peru. Increasingly the role our nation has taken is the role of those who refuse to give up the privileges and pleasures that come from the immense profits of overseas investment.” Martin Luther King, Jr., April 4, 1967

“The enormous gap between what US leaders do in the world and what Americans think their leaders are doing is one of the great propaganda accomplishments of the dominant political mythology.” Michael Parenti, political scientist

“Americans cannot escape a certain responsibility for what is done in our name around the world. In a democracy, even one as corrupted as ours, ultimate authority rests with the people. We empower the government with our votes, finance it with our taxes, bolster it with our silent acquiescence. If we are passive in the face of America’s official actions overseas, we in effect endorse them.” Mark Hertzgaard

“America cannot have an empire abroad and a Republic at home.” Mark Twain

“Four sorrows are certain to be visited on the United States. Their cumulative effect guarantees that the U.S. will cease to resemble the country outlined in the Constitution of 1787.

• First, there will be a state of perpetual war, leading to more terrorism against Americans wherever they may be and a spreading reliance on nuclear weapons among smaller nations as they try to ward off the imperial juggernaut.
• Second is a loss of democracy and Constitutional rights as the presidency eclipses Congress and is itself transformed from a co- equal ‘executive branch’ of government into a military junta.
• Third is the replacement of truth by propaganda, disinformation, and the glorification of war, power, and the military legions.
• Lastly, there is bankruptcy, as the United States pours its economic resources into ever more grandiose military projects and shortchanges the education, health, and safety of its citizens.”

– Chalmers Johnson, Sorrows of Empire