Anti-Americanism knows no limit. And new limits are exceeded with each passing day.
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Mind you, people from America and the rest of the world have every right to criticize individual aspects of the United States and individual actions of U.S. citizens. I will always fight for everybody’s right to do so. But to generalize negatively about America and Americans, to insult America and Americans, to ask for destruction of America, is certainly less acceptable.
To accuse American and Americans of something they may not have materially done is sheer madness.
In March 1978 in Italy, the Red Brigades, a far-left terrorist group responsible for hundreds of murders, kidnapped Aldo Moro after killing his five bodyguards. Aldo Moro was an important member of parliament for the Christian Democracy, which was the majority party back then. Less than two months later, the Red Brigades killed their hostage, whose body was retrieved in a car in the center of Rome.
The Red Brigades clearly did everything by themselves. That’s what their former leaders, most of whom were captured and jailed, recognize — but not a number of Italian keyboard warriors. To them, the CIA was behind it, and the conspiracy was led by Henry Kissinger, who had allegedly threatened Aldo Moro with death a few years before.
It’s hard to imagine the Red Brigades collaborating with the United States, a country they hated. It’s even harder to imagine why, if they were in league with the American administration, they abducted NATO general James Lee Dozier in December 1981, an American stationed in Italy, who was freed 40 days later by an action of a special department of the Italian police.
And it’s simply insanity to imagine Henry Kissinger involved in all this, since he had not been secretary of State for 14 months in March 1978, when Aldo Moro was kidnapped. At that time, Democrat Jimmy Carter was in the White House.
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Despite this, un-American keyboard warriors persist in their absurdity and even get mad if somebody points out that what they are claiming is impossible. They are simply paranoid.
By the same token, in August 1980, a bomb exploded in the waiting room of the Bologna railway station, killing 86 people and injuring over 200. The carnage was committed by the NAR (Armed Revolutionary Nuclei), a far-right terrorist group who, like the Red Brigades, killed hundreds of people during the years of terrorism. Most of the people responsible for that horror were arrested and convicted.
Despite this, idiotic keyboard warriors claim that the was CIA behind all that, too, and some of them get to the point of accusing Ronald Reagan. But they forget that Reagan wasn’t yet president in August 1980; he was elected three months later. Who was the American president in August 1980? Once again, Jimmy Carter.
Of course, Jimmy Carter isn’t behind those crimes, either. Among other things, he wouldn’t have had the necessary standing. However, oddly enough, no keyboard warrior attacks him, since he was a “good Democrat,” not a “bad Republican.” And the Italian Communist Party, which was strong back then, supported Carter at the 1980 elections.
If you want to do anti-Americanism, feel free to do so. But avoid historical nonsense at least.
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Image: Don Hankins via Flickr, CC BY 2.0 (cropped).