Harold Pinter takes a stab at what is the matter with the United States policy with respect to the rest of the world's governments.
It makes for a good read, though his comments about Iraq and American foreign policy do not begin until about a third of the way through the speech.
A point that was of particular insight starts when he presents this thesis:
"Everyone knows what happened in the Soviet Union and throughout Eastern Europe during the post-war period: the systematic brutality, the widespread atrocities, the ruthless suppression of independent thought. All this has been fully documented and verified.
But my contention here is that the US crimes in the same period have only been superficially recorded, let alone documented, let alone acknowledged, let alone recognised as crimes at all. I believe this must be addressed and that the truth has considerable bearing on where the world stands now. Although constrained, to a certain extent, by the existence of the Soviet Union, the United States' actions throughout the world made it clear that it had concluded it had carte blanche to do what it liked."
Remember the old quote of who writes the history books? Follow from there, and recall that the United States "won" the Cold War. One might think that it will be some time before Americans understand what really happened throughout the past six decades at the behest of our leaders.
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