U.S. taking on characteristics of global bully...

U.S. SHOWS MANY CHARACTERISTICS OF GLOBAL BULLY
Submitted by davidswanson on Mon, 2006-08-07 15:36. Media
By Sherwood Ross

We Americans like to think of our country as a democracy when, tragically, sadly, it has become a tyranny. Just because we enjoy the right to vote and speak freely does not mean we are not trampling the liberties of other nations. Webster’s New World Dictionary defines tyranny as “to govern or use authority harshly or cruelly.” That definition fits the USA today. The facts suggest the country has many characteristics of a global bully:

# The Bush Administration is waging a war of aggression in Iraq based on the Big Lie. Bush scorned impartial UN inspectors who found no WMD in Iraq but acted on intelligence from agents who told him what he wanted to hear: go to war. Between 40,000 and 100,000 Iraqi civilians are dead; 2,500 U.S. soldiers killed, 16,000 wounded; and a bloody civil war ignited.

# President Bush pumped up annual military spending from $343-billion to $440-billion -- about as much as all the rest of the world’s military spending combined. Add $44-billion for 15 intelligence agencies and the warfare budget approaches half a trillion dollars! What's more, the N.Y. Times reports, the Bush Administration is spending $1.5-trillion to develop 80 deadly new weapons systems.

# The Pentagon today spreads its intimidating presence through 700 known military bases in 130 countries from Okinawa to Iraq. USA has appointed itself global policeman even as it refuses to submit to World Court jurisdiction or sign the treaty against global warming. It was no accident the the UN’s name was jeered at the Republican convention. Bush’s backers believe USA is above world law and that they are superior to other nations.

# President Bush holds thousands of captives indefinitely without charge and denies torture. But “The Nation” reports, "prisoners have been kicked and punched, their bones broken. Their heads have been hooded, wrapped in duct tape and smashed. Their flesh has been seared with the chemicals in fluorescent lights. They have been frozen to death, suffocated, hung upside down until dead, starved, electrically shocked and waterboarded."

The rest is at: http://www.afterdowningstreet.org/node/13603

We're well past the "taking on" stage.

How terribly inconvenient, that Americans themselves would not know this. Or do they?

The rest of the world has certainly figured out that things have changed. Gradually.

It's also ironic that the United States itself struggled to free itself from tyranny. England was jerking around the early settlers, they fought & got rid of their oppressor.

And now?