America (kinda) apologizes

At a sparsely-attended ceremony held among the dying stalks of the White House's rose garden, American president Mr. Barack H. Obama delivered an apology, of sorts. 'Here, today, the United States of America, this great nation, wants to apologize to all the countries that, since the late 1800s, we have invaded, bombed, or otherwise tramped upon unceremoniously, primarily to protect corporate interests headquartered in but not necessarily paying taxes to the United States, of America. These nations include but are not limited to Nicaragua, Iraq, Honduras, Cuba, the Philippines, Mexico, Russia, Angola, Laos, Cambodia, Japan, and of course Vietnam. Look, we're sorry for killing untold millions of your people and making off with millions of tons of your resources, but we needed it. OK? We needed to spill your blood so that the folks making weapons here back home would be able to work. To put food on the table. To keep their kids in shoes and coats. And we needed your oil, your bananas, your rubber, your sugar, everything you had then and might still have, and we will probably need it again, tomorrow or the next day, because with the economic system we have in place now, our people are used to paying prices kept cheap by the constant threat and very real application of violence, and all that stuff we take from you gets thrown into landfills after people have used it maybe just once or twice, and then we go out and get more of it instead of designing a system that is closed and self-supporting, one in which consumer products are designed to be reused, and recycled, over and over again.

'But if we find out you have something we didn't know we needed, something we suddenly cannot live without, we're going to come right back in and cluster-bomb your cities, wipe out your infrastructure, and then take from our own people the money needed to pay independent contractors who charge us exorbitant sums to go in and rebuild all the stuff we just got finished blowing up. Do y'all see how this cycle works? Is it clear to you now? Oh, and nothing we do is wrong, and no amount of hardship or torment we inflict upon you is illegal or will cause me, or anyone else from America, to have to go in front of the International Criminal Court in Den Haag, because, well, because whatever we do is right, and true, and necessary. Because we're the shining beacon on the hill, the one place on Earth that is allowed to punish and kill others for doing exactly what we do, what we have been doing, and what we will continue to do, without fear of retribution, or justice. And things are only going to get worse – with global climate change kicking into high gear, many of our homegrown corporations controlling much of the world's supply of potable water, and the desertification of various regions throughout Africa and the Middle East now causing waves of immigrants to flood north, into Europe, America's vast military might and relative geographic isolation will ensure our survival, or at least the survival of those Americans rich enough to buy and outfit land in the mountains of Alaska, where rising sea levels and warming temperatures won't affect them much, Americans well-connected enough not to be rounded up by our jackbooted and militarized police forces and sent to live out the rest of their pitiable lives starving in federal concentration camps already in place across these fifty States. So, yeah, we're sorry for all the bad stuff we did in the past, but that's nothing compared to what is coming. I've seen the plans, and I know just how truly shitty it's going to get for you all in the years to come. So buck up, you weak chumps, because you ain't seen nothing, yet.'

(This article is fiction; it should not be taken as a factual representation of the opinions of any member of the American government.)

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