History is written by the victors, not who's right.

After years of taking news reports, history books, and magazine articles at face value, I've come to realize that everyone has an agenda, and the truth, the real story, is very difficult find. There are two sides to every story, and until you hear both sides, you are a fool to try to determine what the truth is. The problem is, the part of history we read about and see on TV and hear tales of, is our side of the story. Facts are facts, but a good story teller can use those facts to tell whatever story they want.
I'll give you an example. It comes from an event in history that everyone already knows. In world war II, Japan was at war with the united states of America. Why Japan attacked the USA in the first place is another topic, and is irrelevant to the point I'd like to make. The USA knew an all out assault on Japan could take years, and could feasibly be a war they would never win. The death toll was already stacking up, and as the Japanese put it, "the americans don't have the stomach for high casualties". The USA needed a way to win, without losing their own troops. The USA started bombing Japan heavily in 1944. They targeted mainly Tokyo at first, which was one of Japans most densely populated cities. Some of the "targets" were Urban areas, where the main target was civilians. Civilians, who posed no threat to the USA, and who could have been quite possibly against the war. On March 9 1945 over 300 bombers were launched to drop 1700 tonnes of incendiary bombs on Tokyo. 16 square miles were burnt to nothing and over 100,000 people were killed. Later in the year, the USA dropped a nuclear bomb on Hiroshima and then another on Nagasaki, killing another 200,000 people in major city centres, one of which had no military relevance.
Now we all know that the Americans saved many lives dropping those bombs. They stopped the war, and there was no more killing. But who gave them the ok to kill 300,000 civilians in order to save some american soldiers? Aren't the soldiers the ones that sign up to fight, knowing about the possibility of death while serving their country? Do the Japanese history books talk of how great the Americans were for testing nuclear weapons on them? Did you know that after the nukes were dropped, it rained. Thousands of people had been without water for many hours and were in dyer need of water, so they drank the rain water, and everyone who did, died of radiation poisoning. And the Americans are good guys? It kind of sounds like America was in a fist fight with someone they might lose to, were in pain from taking a couple of blows, and decided to pull a gun and kill their opponent.
Americans can't handle seeing it's citizens being hurt or killed. They were utterly devastated after sept 11, they continue to be horrified by the 6000+ troops killed in Iraq and Afghanistan, and the first thing you hear about when there is a major international disaster is how many Americans were there and lost their lives. But who gives a flying fuck about the 300,000 civilians dead in Japan, or the estimated 150,000 people killed in Iraq thanks to the Americans since 2003. It's nice to see that Americans care so much about their brethren, but disturbing to see they care so little about everyone else.
Would intentionally targeting, and killing thousands of civilians, not be considered an act of terrorism? Funny how when you are convinced you are the good guy, you can do no wrong, and killing thousands of human beings can make you a hero, but anyone that does the same thing, and doesn't share your point of views is a terrorist. Very rarely does one party think they are the bad guy. After years of brainwashing and propaganda, Hitler had millions of people convinced in the "superior being" bullshit and had millions of people killed under his order. The people serving Hitler were convinced they were doing the right thing, and that they were the good guys, in the same way Americans are brainwashed into believing killing hundreds of thousands of innocent Japanese civilians was a good thing. Sometimes people just tell you what you want to hear so they can sell you their story.
Everyone does what they do for a reason. They usually think that reason is just and true. If they were to write history, they would have reasoning and explanations for their logic, but others might see it in a very different way. The only way to know who was right, or to at least try to fully understand the scenario, is to hear both sides. In the western world, we are only given one side. The side written by us. Important facts are left out if they don't conform to our story. Happenings are blown out of proportion, or down played depending how they coincide with our side of the story. The fact of the matter is, millions upon millions of people have been killed because of these stories. There is always only one true story, but it can be told many different ways. It seems like a waste that so many people have lost their lives because two people have a deferring opinion of the same story. I guess it's true that if you say a lie enough times it becomes truth.
Maybe it's time for you to have an opinion for yourself instead of repeating someone else's.