World Reaction to US goes it alone

The London Independent on August 9, 2002 carried an article calling for a "regime change" in the United States because it has become a rogue nation. "A preemptive strike could save the world a heap of trouble." It argued:


The U.S. spends most on weapons of mass destruction.

The U.S. military budget increase is greater than total European military spending.

The U.S. military spending spree is accompanied by U.S. withdrawal from treaties designed to limit the spread of nuclear weapons.

The U.S. has refused to accept any kind of international monitoring of its chemical/biological weapons facilities.

The U.S. has a government that lacks democratic legitimacy.

The rhetoric of the U.S. is one of violent aggression against anyone seen as enemies.

The U.S. is a "peculiarly obnoxious regime, ready to poison its own people with corrupt capitalism and deregulated pollution.

Only international pressure can force the U.S. to pay its UN dues, rejoin nonproliferation pacts and the Kyoto [environmental] treaty and start behaving as a responsible member of the community.

The U.S. "is no friend of democracy, having announced its refusal to deal with the only two elected leaders of the Islamic world Khatami in Iran and Yasser Arafat in Palestine."

The U.S. "has armed and succored state terrorism and assassination by the Israelis. It has installed the worst sort of warlord gangsters in Afghanistan," and has attempted coups in Venezuela.

"The world cannot afford to await its next move."

"One is called to live nonviolently, even if the change one works for seems impossible. It may or may not be possible to turn the US around through nonviolent revolution. But one thing favors such an attempt: the total inability of violence to change anything for the better" - Daniel Berrigan