Blowing off steam

I was feeling much more zen this afternoon. Tonight I am feeling angry. While I am extremely sympathetic to those who are suffering due to ongoing wars, I feel a sense of frustration. I have always tried to be a person with an open mind, willing to expand my boundaries and hear other viewpoints. But I've been reading shit lately that makes my blood boil.

Whenever there is a conflict between two or more countries it always seems to boil down to this: If the US tries to step in we are bastards of the world, arrogant as always, going where we have no business being. If the US stands back we are allowing the killing to go on, we have blood on our hands. What the fuck does the world want from us? We can't control every damn thing that goes on in the world. Really. We can barely keep up with the crap going on here.

Many piss on our culture, our country, our people. If you don't like us, fine. Don't wear our clothing, watch or listen to our entertainment, use our technology, take our medicines, walk on our soil, eat our food, interact with our people. I love my country and am proud to be an American. Despite what many foreigners seem to think of us, the majority of us are good, compassionate, hard-working people just trying to live our lives. We are not blood-thirsty, power-hungry xenophobes looking for genocide.

Our dumb-ass president has already gotten us into two wars. Tens of thousands of civilians in Afghanistan and Iraq have died and been injured. Thousands of our countrymen have died. Many more have been maimed and psychologically scarred for life. We have no business getting into another war. Our resources are already stretched quite thin.

I am all for the US government pressuring both sides to give up arms and begin talking to one another. But we are NOT responsible for what is going on. We did not start this particular war. If the world wants to point fingers for what's going down now, take a good long look at Hezbollah and Israel. No one else. Lebanon may be the innocent victim caught up in the crossfire but the US is not the one pulling the trigger.