Guessing Whose Turn 'Tis To Be Hated (hint: ours)

WOULDN'T IT BE absolutely horrible if some foreign army landed on the coast of California, quickly established a beach head, and began rapidly, methodically, inexorably advancing inland, conquering the country, with every instrument imaginable, including air power and massive, streaming infantry, ever arriving, and neither the American civilian population nor military able to stop it? A complete American surrender to an all conquering enemy, on our soil, and the imposition of foreign political control. Horrible. The closest we've ever come to this is the War of 1812, with the Brits burning down Washington, and the War Between the States, with Lee up in Pennsylvania. And that was bad enough, heaven knows. Thank goodness for big oceans and Robert E. Lee's poor judgment. I keep trying to tell people, to tell my fellow Americans, that when this happens, anywhere in the world, the country that gets conquered ends up really hating the country that conquers it, and much of the rest of the world usually ends up feeling the same way, hating the empire. I tell people that all empires are hated, and that we the U.S.A. are now the hated empire. The responses I get amaze and amuse me. Everybody understands and agrees, but nobody cares. Hell, what can we do about it now, turn back the clock? Most Americans would rather watch the Kardashians than give a damn about anything.....People root for underdogs. Conquered countries are underdogs. Being a conquering empire has its downside: widespread unpopularity. Just ask the ancient Romans, or Napoleon Bonaparte's advisers. Or Hitler's Germans. Everybody they conquered hated them. Guess whose turn it is now? Yes, my fellow Americans, all this attacking we keep doing in the middle east riles some folks up. Go figure. No matter how justifiable or unavoidable or holy our American wars seem to us Americans, them foreigners don't always agree. Go figure. Americans who travel overseas often come back reporting perceiving or experiencing anti-American sentiment. How surprising. One becomes afraid to leave one's country, if one is American. This does not, of course, excuse terrorism, random, barbaric, mass murder. But even evil behavior is motivated, sometimes understandably. A wrong response does not preclude justifiable motivation. If only these terrorist bastards would realize that the pen is mightier than the sword. If only we all would.