Familiar Tune

U.N. says Colombian military executing civilians

We've seen this before. Or at least South and Central Americans have. We don't learn about it in high school or anywhere else in mainstream America because we prefer to whitewash our history of the atrocities committed against the innocent in our name or with our money. Just like Bush always tells us, "America doesn't support terrorism". Well what would you call this exactly?

"Colombia's U.S.-backed security forces are engaging in "systematic and widespread" extrajudicial executions of innocent civilians as part of their counterinsurgency campaign, a top United Nations diplomat said Saturday."

Sounds pretty terrifying to me.

Anyways, whenever people in the U.S. ask the question "why do they hate us?", only to answer it with nonsense such as "because of our freedom", this might help you understand the real reason. When innocent people are "disappeared" or "executed" by a security force that we sponsor, you can quickly understand how the populace might feel some semblance of anger towards America.

If we are going to provide money for fighting "wars on drugs" and supporting security forces in other countries, our first priority should be to make sure human rights abuses are not being committed by the people we are funding. We have a sordid history of looking the other way and even encouraging such behavior which is an absolute travesty. I know I sure don't want things like this done with my tax money, and I'm pretty sure most Americans don't either.