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2004 Soap Box Archives The Blame Game 05/03/04 From time to time I get an email from someone who is firmly convinced that most of the woes of the world should be blamed on the United States of America. That our foreign policy has been the catalyst for the major upheavals on planet earth and that we should bear the blame for the lion’s share of catastrophic global conditions. I will be the first to admit that the U.S.A. has made some grievous mistakes in the past. Not finishing the war in Iraq the first time. Korea comes to mind, of course Vietnam where the politicians refused to let our troops win, but still refused to bring them home. And any number of screw-ups, some I’m sure none of us know about. And yes we have supplied arms to people who have turned around and used them against us. But at the time we gave them to them, they were fighting our enemies. Have you ever heard the saying that the enemy of my enemy is my friend? Having said that, I would like to turn the coin over and ask a few questions of those who like to blame the land I love for the bad things going on in the world. Was the rise of fascism in Germany our fault? Did we have a hand in Hitler’s juggernaut roll across Europe crushing everything in his path? Were we in some way responsible for the torture and wanton murder of six million Jews? And who put an end to Hitler and his evil? When Russia was going to put nuclear weapons, which by the way they didn’t get from us, 90 miles off our coast, who stared them down and prevented a nuclear threat to the entire Western hemisphere Do you think you could sleep well at night knowing that there were atomic weapons in Cuba? Were we responsible for the Bolshevik Revolution, which caused Joseph, “the butcher” Stalin’s rise to power? Was it our doing that the Russian people lived in communist bondage for the biggest part of a century? Was it us who created the secret police, the midnight knock on the door, the Siberian labor camps? What U.S. President presided over the destruction of the Berlin Wall and Eastern Europe’s return to sovereignty? What country spends billions of dollars a year alleviating human suffering, feeding the hungry of the world, supplying medicine and disaster relief? What country refused to stand for taxation without representation? What country leads the world in just about every economic and scientific category? What country opens its arms to the destitute, the refugee, and the disenfranchised? What country despite it’s faults, and goodness knows it has plenty of them, stands head and shoulders above every other country in the world when it comes to liberty, opportunity and personal freedoms? What country stretches from Atlantic to Pacific and beyond and every inch of its magnificence is available to every one of her citizens. If I could find a better place than America to live I would surely go there. But I can’t, I just can’t. When
I leave the United States of America I want to go to heaven. Pray for our troops. What do you think? God Bless America Charlie Daniels
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