Quotes and Statistics...

"Should enemies strike our country, they would be attempting to shift our attention with panic and weaken our morale with fear. In this, they would fail. No act of theirs can alter the course or shake the resolve of this country. We are a peaceful people – yet we're not a fragile people, and we will not be intimidated by thugs and killers. If our enemies dare to strike us, they and all who have aided them, will face fearful consequences." - George W. Bush, March 17, 2003

The rest of the world doesn't know whether to laugh or cry when they hear such Bushian pronouncements, below please find some comparisons which might explain the disconnect between too many Americans and the rest of the world.

• # of times Panama invaded the United States: 0
• # of times the United States invaded Panama: 6 (1895, 1901, 1908, 1912, 1925, 1989)
• # of times the United States sent troops occupy Beirut: 2 (1958, 1983)
• # of times Lebanon sent troops to occupy Washington: 0
• # of South East Asians annihilated in their own lands by the United States: 3,000,000
• # of Americans annihilated in their own country by South East Asians: 0
• # of times the United Kingdom has invaded the U. S. and burned Washington: 1
• # of times the U. S. has invaded the United Kingdom and burned down London: 0

[The United Kingdom is the only state which has done unto us more than we have done to them. That's one reason they're so helpful now – they're even older hands at this sort of thing than we are.]

• # of Nicaraguans killed by American-backed terrorists in the 1980s: 40,000
• # of Americans killed by Nicaraguan-backed terrorists in the 1980s or any other time: 0
• # of times the U.S. has bombed Serbia: 1
• # of times Serbia has bombed the U.S.: 0
• # of times the U.S. has invaded the Dominican Republic: 2 (1916, 1965)
• # of times the Dominican Republic has invaded the U.S.: 0
• # of human beings massacred by U.S.-backed death squads in El Salvador and Guatemala during the 1980s: 180,000
• # of human beings massacred by Salvadoran and Guatemalan-backed death squads in the United States: 0
• # of human beings murdered by U.S.-backed fascist governments in Uruguay, Chile and Argentina in the 1970s as part of "Operation Condor": 32,000
• # of human beings murdered by the states of Uruguay, Chile and Argentina in the United States in the 1970s as part of "Operation Condor:" 2
• # of human beings killed by U.S.-client Suharto in Indonesia in 1965: 600,000
• # of human beings killed by Suharto in the United States: 0
• # of times the United States has invaded Iraq: 2
• # of times Iraq has invaded the United States: 0
• # of children who died as a consequence of American bombing of civilian targets – chiefly the water purification and sanitation system – and sanctions from the Gulf War to Operation Iraqi Liberation: 500,000
• # of children who died at the hand of Saddam Hussein in the United States: 0
• # of Americans killed in the horror of 9/11: 2,800
• # of Afghan civilians killed after Operation Enduring Freedom began: over 4,000
• # of Iraqis killed as a consequence of Operation Iraqi Freedom: anywhere from 100,000 and counting.
• # of Americans killed as a consequence of Operation Iraqi Freedom: 1,400 and counting.
• # of Iraqis killed from the start of the first Gulf War, through the sanctions and the liberation: 750,000.
• # of Americans killed from the start of the first Gulf War, through the sanctions and the liberation: 1,700.

It's scary and unsettling to review the source material for George Bush's quote above...

"[Our] people are not a warlike nation. It is a soldierly one, which means it does not want war but does not fear it. It loves peace, but also its honor and freedom." - Adolf Hitler, 'Mein Kampf', 1925

Original source: "We are a Peaceful People", by Stephen Bender