No. We hate US foreign policy because it's destroying our countries. Who are "we"? Macedonia and every country that the United States has ever meddled in.

But US politicians turn everything into an "us (U.S.) vs them" scenario and always blame "the other". But take this scenario instead: You find out that someone hates or is mad at you for something that you're doing. What's the first thing you do? You don't yell and scream "You hate me because of my freedom!" You consider whether what you're doing is right and, if it's not, here's a novel idea (for US politicians): you stop doing it.

But no, US foreign policy dictates that only the interests of the US matter, that mass international collateral damage is inconsequential, that anyone who opposes its horrific policy is the enemy, and that US politicians, left and right, will conflate American foreign policy with Americans as a whole. Therefore, any criticism of its foreign policy must mean criticism/"hatred" of Americans. One would think that the self-proclaimed "defenders of freedom and human rights" would encourage the freedom of speech to condemn abuses of human rights.

Ironically, George W. Bush's "you're either with us or against us" (inadvertently) articulates this nearly eight-decade long foreign policy and encapsulates the policy of conflation which unites all Americans (willingly or not) around US foreign policy. Actually, one is never really "with" the United States because once they've served their usefulness, forget hanging them out to dry, the United States will hang them out to die. But I digress.

It is not anti-American to criticize American foreign policy. There's a sentence that is so obvious that it shouldn't need to be said, but the fact that it does speaks volumes. But US politicians from both parties, being the experts at spin that they are, have not only convinced their supporters to believe in whatever they say as gospel, they even added perverse twists to the game of Risk that they're playing with the rest of the world. One, they have the audacity to condemn other countries for the same human rights abuses that the United States is committing. Two, they claim that the US is helping the countries...that they are simultaneously bombing. While you're reading this, the bombs continue to drop...

My ethnic group, Macedonians, are in the tragic position of experiencing all of the weapons in the US arsenal, both literally and figuratively. Despite being on the Allied side in both world wars, Macedonians were the target of US and UK terror after World War II because these "beacons of democracy" chose to aid Greece, its ruling Nazi-supporting fascists, and its policy of complete eradication of Macedonians in its pursuit of creating a country that is "culturally pure" and rid of anyone "inferior". If a country aligns with US and UK foreign policy, despite mimicking Nazi tactics and committing genocide, they will support it. And did they ever. The US and UK dropped bombs all over the Aegean part of Macedonia (annexed by Greece earlier in the century) – deliberately targeting civilians – and murdering countless Macedonians, many members of my family included. The US has since expanded its terrorist repertoire to include modern methods of cultural genocide while still employing "classic" methods of invade, occupy, murder (or getting a US proxy to do the dirty work) in many countries. (Side note: You can see that the UK started obeying its American little brother long before the Iraq invasion and "WMD" debacle.)

The more recent US anti-Macedonian tactics include: Starting a civil war in the Republic of Macedonia, propping up Albanian neo-Nazis (here we go again), granting them amnesty despite being convicted of terrorism and murder, rewarding them with high-level Macedonian government posts, starting a revolution to overthrow the (already subservient) Macedonian government to install a brutal dictator who is even more subservient to the US, forcing through the name, identity and history change on Macedonia to appease Greece and Bulgaria (which publicly declare their policies of cultural genocide against Macedonians) so they lift their veto of Macedonia's US-imposed NATO membership bid, brutally suppressing any dissent including ordering riot police attacks on innocent civilians, imprisoning and subjecting them to abhorrent prison conditions, threatening and attacking their families, firing thousands of Macedonians from public and private-sector jobs, shutting down media outlets, blocking social media access, criminalizing the expression of Macedonian ethnic identity, enabling daily anti-Macedonian hate speech and crackdown on Macedonians' rights by Greek and Bulgarian government officials, enabling physical attacks by Greek and Bulgarian secret police and neo-Nazis (yet again) against their large Macedonian minorities...

I could go on, but I believe you now understand why we hate US foreign policy. It took away our freedom...

Bill Nicholov, President
Macedonian Human Rights Movement International
twitter.com/billnicholov