Commenting on the 9/11 attacks he tries to put them in scope by talking aobut..."...the massive acts of terrorism – the deliberate killing of civilians for political purposes – that the U.S. government has committed during my lifetime."
Since you took this little part out of context, here is the excerpt you pulled it from:
"But this act was no more despicable as the massive acts of terrorism -- the deliberate killing of civilians for political purposes -- that the U.S. government has committed during my lifetime. For more than five decades throughout the Third World, the United States has deliberately targeted civilians or engaged in violence so indiscriminate that there is no other way to understand it except as terrorism. And it has supported similar acts of terrorism by client states."
Reading the excerpt, is he wrong? Because he points out briefly, in the next paragraph, the targets of American imperialism and terrorism where the US was directly or indirectly involved.
"If that statement seems outrageous, ask the people of Vietnam. Or Cambodia and Laos. Or Indonesia and East Timor. Or Chile. Or Central America. Or Iraq, or Palestine. The list of countries and peoples who have felt the violence of this country is long. Vietnamese civilians bombed by the United States. Timorese civilians killed by a U.S. ally with U.S.-supplied weapons. Nicaraguan civilians killed by a U.S. proxy army of terrorists. Iraqi civilians killed by the deliberate bombing of an entire country’s infrastructure."
Of course, most Americans won't take the time to actually dig deeper into the motives of American involvement in the countries listed above. It is much easier to be whipped up in a xenophobic frenzy, led by a tough talking, morally bankrupt President and a compliant media.
"As I monitored television during the day, the talk of retaliation was in the air; in the voices of some of the national-security “experts” there was a hunger for retaliation. Even the journalists couldn’t resist; speculating on a military strike that might come, Peter Jennings of ABC News said that “the response is going to have to be massive” if it is to be effective.
Let us not forget that a “massive response” will kill people, and if the pattern of past U.S. actions holds, it will kill innocents. Innocent people, just like the ones in the towers in New York and the ones on the airplanes that were hijacked. To borrow from President Bush, “mother and fathers, friends and neighbors” will surely die in a massive response."
And then wraps it up with a message of hope that all men and women should take pause and think about. But not you and your might is right motto and total disregard for people of color.
"If we are truly going to claim to be decent people, our tears must flow not only for those of our own country. People are people, and grief that is limited to those within a specific political boundary denies the humanity of others.
And if we are to be decent people, we all must demand of our government -- the government that a great man of peace, Martin Luther King Jr., once described as “the greatest purveyor of violence in the world” -- that the insanity stop here. "
Jensen as a left-wing counterpart to Bachmann? Ha, you wish she had a quarter of the intelligence of Jensen.