Perhaps if our country wasn't currently an invading and occupying military force, the two situations would not be linked. But that's not the case here and now. Honest people can differ as to who is the aggressor, but there's no denying that the two invasion situations beg comparison on the anniversary of one and the continuing controversy of the other.
For the record, I didn't say I hate America; I said I am ashamed to be an American. Perhaps if our government was the totalitarian regime it aspires to, I would not hold myself or my countrymen responsible for its actions. But, though far from the government for the people, of the people and by the people that the Founding Fathers envisioned, we still have some semblance of representative government in the United States ... and the actions taken by that government are taken in the name of the American people.
To clarify ... I am not ashamed of the American people. I am ashamed of our government, which speaks and acts for the American people to the rest of the world. And I do not imagine the rest of the world as a monolithic entity, but neither do I imagine the rest of the world as having lesser status than the United States. If we have nuclear weapons, who are we to insist that other nations not have them? We who are the only nation to have used nuclear weapons in war cannot be the moral arbiter of who should have such weapons.
Perhaps we might, on the anniversary of the day the Japanese attacked the United States, also recall the final way in which we responded to that attack, and compare a despicable sneak attack on military targets to a devestating nuclear annihilation perpetrated on civilian targets.
You can rationalize all you want, but I will honor all those fallen by violent attack ... and not merely those from one "side" or another.
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