US Empire

Re: "Nation terms test "successful' " (C-P, Oct. 9) Well, it looks as if President Bush got his wish. After years of insulting references to North Korea as a member of the "axis of evil" and arrogant warnings to abandon its nuclear development program, North Korea recently fired off its first nuclear weapon test. Bush used the same effective approach to Iran, including it in his "axis of evil" and laying down the do-not-cross line on nuclear weapons. This goading is apparently part of Bush's, Vice President Dick Cheney's and Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld's master plan for regime change in countries that refuse to knuckle under to Washington's and Wall Street's global domination designs. I don't know when we stopped being a peace-supporting, democratic country and became another sorry aspirant for colonial empire. I guess it was some time after World War II when we began to call ourselves a superpower. That always gets people excited and replaces thinking with delusions of grandeur. It happened to the Romans, the Spanish, the English, almost to the Germans and now to us. I forgot the name of the guy who said, "Those who do not learn from history are doomed to repeat it," but I think he had good insight. We were once considered a noble experiment in democracy. Today, we are caught up in a war not on terrorism, but of terrorism. We are bent on making the world safe for corporate capitalism. Both parties, Democrats and Republicans, are serving this goal, but the Republicans are more open about it. God help America. Jack Hinger, Cherry Hill - Published in the Courier Post, October 19, 2006