“It is time to realize, however, that the real dangers to America today come not from the newly rich people of East Asia but from our own ideological rigidity, our deep-seated belief in our own propaganda.”
Johnson suggests that Americans should stop blaming foreigners for their problems. Perhaps Asia is the enemy for a good reason. Willingly blindfolded, the American public has ceded its authority over the U.S. government by preferring ideology to logic and by propagating hateful propaganda.
“Even though the American people may not know what has been done in their name, those on the receiving end certainly do: they include the people of Iran (1953), Guatemala (1954), Cuba (1959 to the present), Congo (1960), Brazil (1964), Indonesia (1965), Vietnam (1961–73), Laos (1961–73), Cambodia (1969–73), Greece (1967–73), Chile (1973), Afghanistan (1979 to the present), El Salvador, Guatemala and Nicaragua (1980s), and Iraq (1991 to the present). Not surprisingly, sometimes these victims try to get even. There is a direct line between the attacks on September 11, 2001—the most significant instance of blowback in the history of the CIA—and the events of 1979.”
In this quotation, Johnson points out to distinct truths about so-called terrorism. First, U.S. citizens are unconscious of the military actions of their government. Second, they shouldn't have been surprised by the events of September 11, 2001. Johnson claims there is a clear train of events -- crimes of aggression on behalf of the U.S. -- which makes 9/11 terrible yet rather expected response.
“In a sense, blowback is simply another way of saying that a nation reaps what it sows. Although people usually know what they have sown, our national experience of blowback is seldom imagined in such terms because so much of what the managers of the American empire have sown has been kept secret.”
Johnson expresses the karmic properties of "blowback." Simply put, blowback is a natural consequence. Americans are only surprised by blowback because they have been kept in the dark so successfully for so long regarding the selfish actions of their leaders.
“Americans generally think of Pol Pot as some kind of unique, self-generated monster and his “killing fields” as an inexplicable atavism totally divorced from civilization. But without the United States government’s Vietnam-era savagery, he could never have come to power in a culture like Cambodia’s. . .”
Here, Johnson explains how specific instances are direct results of blowback due to the U.S. government's complete lack of moral regard. To the average American, the Cambodian dictator seems like a monster, and they can't imagine how a people would choose such a leader. Johnson argues that America itself, through Vietnam, is directly responsible for it. The people of Cambodia were so traumatized by the U.S.'s brutality during the Vietnam War that they agreed to allow this man -- Pol Pot -- to institute his own brutal reign in order to prevent their American enemies from ever regaining power of them.
