Letter to the World

I live in a country that polices the world while I sit safely inside its borders and do nothing to change it.

So the least I can do is apologize to the people we’ve affected.

I apologize to the Palestinians for my tax dollars that paid for the bullets that ripped through your homes and bodies. I’m sorry for my country’s blocking of over 50 UN peace treaties between yourselves and the Israelis. I’m sorry that I helped to pay for the tanks that roam your streets.

I apologize to the Kurdish people of Iraq, for the chemical weapons and machine gun bullets that were bought with $500,000,000 in subsidies given by my government to Saddam Hussein and used to systematically slaughter your people. I also apologize to you because even after this happened we doubled those subsidies to $1,000,000,000

Yeah, sorry about that.

I apologize to the Japanese people of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. For the use of Nuclear weapons on your population, even when your military was already planning to surrender.

I apologize to the German people of Dresden and other various cities that we’ve fire-bombed that were made up of almost purely civilians.

I apologize to the people of Latin America for the decades of Dictators and Despots put in place by CIA-backed coups. I’m sorry we’ve branded you incapable of Democracy.

My personal apology to the people of Chile, for my government’s assistance of the military junta headed by General Pinochet who tortured and killed thousands of your countrymen.

I apologize to the various peoples of Iraq and Afghanistan, I’m sorry that our smart-bombs weren’t smart enough to distinguish between a militia member and a child walking to school. I’m sorry that although we invaded your countries, Americans seem to have no interest in your culture. I’m sorry that we use ammunition containing depleted uranium that irradiates the ground and well-water and has a half-life of 4.5 billion years. I’m sorry that we’ve seem to have inherited the European trait of being completely heartless.

I’m sorry that our CIA has made Hussein and bin Laden as powerful as they are.

But, I hope you understand, we had to defeat Communism. Oh yes, and Iran, we had to stick it to Iran. Sorry.

I apologize to the few peoples of the East Indies who, because of our nuclear testing, became sick.

I understand if you don’t forgive us. And I hope you survive us.

I say to the people of the United States in the most gentle, human way. Welcome to the world.
-Arundhati Roy