Becoming the Evil We Deplore

Bush has repeatedly said that people in other countries hate us because they hate freedom. This needs to be qualified a little bit. More appropriately perhaps: they hate freedom being pushed on them when they didn't ask for it. The U.S. constanly sees itself as holding the moral highground. The current administration's message seems to be that the U.S. is strong and "productive" and that if other countries want to be the same they should mimic the current paradigm. The problem with this idea is that not all countries want to be like the U.S. Many countries don't ask for our "help" and yet we insist on giving it. The result: suicide bombers. Go to somebody else's country, begin bombing and killing their innocent civilians, force an unwanted political system and then have the nerve to call it a war on terror. Who is terrorizing who?
Mainstream media only reports on the terrorist means. They talk about Terrorist cells, funding, etc. They never talk about other factors that contribute to terrorism such as the religious rationale and the social and political conditions. When we bomb other countries and kill innocent civilians we are leaving their children in abject poverty. How do you think those kids will grow up thinking about the U.S.? Our bombing has created a negative feedback loop that creates more terrorists. By leaving Iraq we will not be failing in our mission, instead we will put an end to terrorizing the innocent people in Afghanistan and Iraq. The war on terror can be won. First, it needs to be renamed the war on poverty. It should start at home and then be exported abroad.