The alarming anti-Americanism in Europe

[Knife]

How can you have a million absentee ballots that aren't counted at election time? Doesn't that screw up the system? I find American politics very strange.

Right after the election, and while the Florida scandal was just getting started, I remember hearing that the absentee ballots have not been fully counted yet. However, the total of votes that were present at that point are still the ones that are displayed when the issue shows up.

I am sure that the absentee ballots were counted and were part of the deciesion of the electorial college, but I have still not seen the numbers change because of them or seen what the results of those ballots did to the over all vote tallys that the 'Bush was selected' people like to throw forth to prove their point.

[Perinquus]

Not to mention a shit load of military and other votes that were never (that I have seen or heard) added or subtracted to Bush/Gore's total. IIRC, California had one million absentee ballots alone that I never have heard the results from and how that would have changed the totals between Bush and Gore.

How can you have a million absentee ballots that aren't counted at election time? Doesn't that screw up the system? I find American politics very strange.

The Democrats were trying their best to exclude the abstentee ballots, since the vast majority of them come from military personnel serving on ships at sea, or at overseas stations. Military people vote overwhelmingly Republican, so the Democrats wanted those ballots excluded, given that that had the potential to be decisive in an election as close as the the 2000 presidential race was.

[jegs2]

The Democrats were trying their best to exclude the abstentee ballots, since the vast majority of them come from military personnel serving on ships at sea, or at overseas stations. Military people vote overwhelmingly Republican, so the Democrats wanted those ballots excluded, given that that had the potential to be decisive in an election as close as the the 2000 presidential race was.

Ironically, mine was one of those absentee ballots that was not considered by the Democrats in Broward County. Nor was it a surprise to find that all of the ballot counters were registered Democrats...

[Arthur_Tuxedo]

To try and get this back on topic, the sad truth is that other countries shouldn't trust the US, and anti-US sentiment isn't entirely irrational. There has never been a period in the 20th century that the US wasn't killing people and lying about it, or hadn't done so within the last few years. The chronology video in "Bowling For Columbine" only covered a fraction of the deplorable things that our country has done in the last 50 years, and there were several atrocities every decade.

The most recent debacles are still fresh in memory, occuring within my decidedly short lifespan. Among these are:

1. The installation and later removal of Manuel Noriega in Panama. There was a lot of rhetoric about how dangerous he was (gee, where have we heard that recently?) but the real reason was simply that our puppet wasn't responding the way we wanted him to when we tugged the strings.

2. The invasion of Grenada. The given reason was that its newly created communist regime (democratically elected, by the way) could enable it to be used as a staging ground for Cuba, despite the fact that Cuba is 90 miles off of Florida while Grenada is thousands of miles away. The real reason was realpolitik. Knock some poor people who wouldn't toe our line down as a warning to the rest.

3. The supporting of the brutal military dictatorship in El Salvador, which murdered tens of thousands of civilians.

4. The creation of Saddam Hussein and his regime.

5. The creation of the Taliban.

6. The training of Osama bin Laden by the CIA that gave him the skills he needed to execute the worst, most tragic act of terrorism in the history of the world.

7. The simultaneous public arming and support of Iraq coupled with the secret arming of Iran, for which the proceeds were used to enable vicious drug kingpins to murder thousands of civilians.

Looking at these recent events, done either by people who are still in charge, or people who read the same books and ascribed to the same philosophies as the people in charge, one starts to get a clear understanding of why the rest of the world wishes the US would just mind its own business.

The problem is that most US citizens can't see the forest for the trees. It is very hard on a person to realize that the society he was born and raised in has done fucked-up things, is doing fucked-up things right now, and will continue to do so. The kneejerk response is to justify and become an apologist, just as the kneejerk response of an ostrich is to bury its head in the sand. But the most constructive thing is to learn, to process, and to put yourself in another man's shoes. Think, "If I weren't from the US, given these facts, what would I think?"

From a rational standpoint, given both old and recent history and that attitudes and philosophies haven't changed, one should expect our country to install yet another brutal regime that we'll end up knocking down at the cost of the lives of hundreds of US soldiers and thousands of foreign civilians. Now, take this reality and add to the mix a war hawkish, arrogant president who thinks the rest of the world is either evil or irrelevant and doesn't listen to advice, and what would you think if you were from another country?

What would you think if you were the Kurds? The US has a habit of using people and then stabbing them in the back when their usefulness is over or they decide to stop taking orders. Given US interest in maintaining a faltering friendship with Turkey, who hates the Kurds, I predict we will sell the Kurds down the river within the next few years, fucking them over for decades to come.

Surprisingly enough, I actually think there's a decent chance that the US will do the right thing with regard to Iraq (although there's a very good chance we won't). Here's why I think so:

1. It wouldn't be as difficult as democratizing many other countries. Iraq already had a secular government, their women were arguably freer than any other Arab nation (Turkey officially is more enlightened, and it is so in Istanbul, a place where I've been personally, but I'm told the villages are more like Afghanistan than Istanbul), and they genuinely seem to want democracy.

2. This is the moment of truth for the US. We have a strong interest in doing the right thing here. If we don't, already strong anti-US sentiment could be sent into a death spiral.

3. Iraq has the capability of becoming a relatively productive nation that could trade with us and other nations, elevating the well-being of people the globe over. Unfortunately, this would constitue smart long-term planning and US foreign policy has always been short-sighted. I don't realistically think this would sway the decision to seriously undertake a rebuilding of Iraq.

Unfortunately, there are a few reasons not to rebuild Iraq and some pitfalls that must be avoided even if we do:

1. The economic advisors are seriously sugar-coating things: we're in a bad recession and I have yet to see a single indicator that we will pull out of it. On the contrary, we've had a horrendous stock market crash, an impending real estate crash, plumetting consumer confidence, and falling prices. These conditions should be eerily familiar to anyone who's studied the Great Depression or Japan's economic plight. If things get bad, sending billions of dollars over to Iraq seems less and less attractive.

2. This administration doesn't seem to give a shit about world opinion, and certainly doesn't give a shit about the well-being of the Iraqi people, so they won't see the positives as strongly as they should.

3. The Marshall Plan was such a huge success partly because the Europeans were allowed to decide the specifics and implement it. It made them feel like equals, and made the US seem very benevolent and non-overbearing. I haven't seen any indication that we plan to put anything important in the hands of the Iraqis. If we're the primary implementors of the plan, even if we are completely benevolent, it could draw accusations of molding the new Iraq to serve the benefit of the US.

So to summarize:

1. It is easy to dismiss anti-US opinion as jealousy of our military prowess or our freedoms, and it is easy to apologize for US atrocities by saying that others have done it too, but that is a mindset which is not only factually incorrect, but more importantly one in which no learning can occur and no understanding can be reached. The best way to break out of this mindset is to try to adopt someone else's perspective and walk a mile in their shoes, so to speak.

2. There has not been a paradigm shift in the thinking of US Foreign Policy, meaning that the atrocities will continue while US citizens continue to justify and apologize rather than effect change.

3. However, that does not necessarily mean that Iraq will not be democratized and become a success story for the US, although there are snags and pitfalls.

[Perinquus]

You seem to be arguing that the U.S. is as bad or worse than other countries. But let's take a look at the examples you cite compared to other countries.

1. The installation and later removal of Manuel Noriega in Panama. There was a lot of rhetoric about how dangerous he was (gee, where have we heard that recently?) but the real reason was simply that our puppet wasn't responding the way we wanted him to when we tugged the strings.

Do you seriously think that this compares with the installation of Walter Ulbricht and Erich Honnecker in East Germany, Nicolae Causescu in Romania, and others in eastern Europe by the Soviets, and with the Soviet refusal to allow free elections in eastern Europe, in spite of their promises to do so at Yalta? At least we later removed Noriega, which you can't say for the Soviets and their pet dictators. Or how about Chinese support for Kim Il Sung, and their ongoing support for Kim Jong Il, one of the most brutal and repressive dictators alive anywhere today?

2. The invasion of Grenada. The given reason was that its newly created communist regime (democratically elected, by the way) could enable it to be used as a staging ground for Cuba, despite the fact that Cuba is 90 miles off of Florida while Grenada is thousands of miles away. The real reason was realpolitik. Knock some poor people who wouldn't toe our line down as a warning to the rest.

And how about the Soviet invasion of Hungary in 1956 to put down a democracy movement that had sprung up? Or the Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia in 1968 for the same reason? Or for that matter, how about the fact that when the U.S. occupied Germany and Japan after WWII, we helped set up free and independent governments - governments that were free enough to oppose us diplomatically after the war when they felt it in their interests to do so - and ended our occupation. Contrast that with the Soviet, who did not end their military occupation, and establishmed puppet regimes in eastern Europe which did as they were told by Moscow, or suffered the consequences.

3. The supporting of the brutal military dictatorship in El Salvador, which murdered tens of thousands of civilians.

Soviet support of eastern European dictators has been mentioned, as has Chinese support of North Korea. The Chinese and Russians also supported North Vietnam, who followed their victory in the Vietnam War with political purges that killed hundreds of thousands.

And lets not forget the French after WWII, who after being liberated from foreign occupation, immediately set about re-establishing their occupation of Indochina, against the will of the native population, in one of the most blatantly imperialistic moves of modern times.

4. The creation of Saddam Hussein and his regime.

We didn't create Saddam, we supported him. We supported him because he was opposing Iran, which had just been taken over by the rabidly anti-Western, Muslim fundamentalist Ayatollah Khomeini, who had seized American citizens in the Iranian embassy and held them hostage for over a year.

5. The creation of the Taliban.

We did not create the Taliban. We supported various groups of Mujahedin, of which the Taliban forces were only one, because they were opposing a Soviet invasion, or had you forgotten that little detail?

6. The training of Osama bin Laden by the CIA that gave him the skills he needed to execute the worst, most tragic act of terrorism in the history of the world.

See above. I suppose you think we could somehow have known he'd not only prove ungrateful for our support, but would, nearly twenty years down the line, turn rabidly anti-American.

7. The simultaneous public arming and support of Iraq coupled with the secret arming of Iran, for which the proceeds were used to enable vicious drug kingpins to murder thousands of civilians.

This looks pretty shabby, I grant you. But not worse than anything else I've listed above.

Looking at these recent events, done either by people who are still in charge, or people who read the same books and ascribed to the same philosophies as the people in charge, one starts to get a clear understanding of why the rest of the world wishes the US would just mind its own business.

Because the rest of the world is soooo much more virtuous...

The problem is that most US citizens can't see the forest for the trees. It is very hard on a person to realize that the society he was born and raised in has done fucked-up things, is doing fucked-up things right now, and will continue to do so. The kneejerk response is to justify and become an apologist, just as the kneejerk response of an ostrich is to bury its head in the sand. But the most constructive thing is to learn, to process, and to put yourself in another man's shoes. Think, "If I weren't from the US, given these facts, what would I think?"

Ostriches don't bury their heads in the sand; that's an old wives' tale. Why are we alsways asked to see the other countries' points of view, and their never expected to see ours? And why is it that only our misdeeds seem to be remembered, while our more noble gestures seem to be quickly forgotten.

From a rational standpoint, given both old and recent history and that attitudes and philosophies haven't changed, one should expect our country to install yet another brutal regime that we'll end up knocking down at the cost of the lives of hundreds of US soldiers and thousands of foreign civilians.

Just like we had to do with Japan, Germany and Italy?

Now, take this reality and add to the mix a war hawkish, arrogant president who thinks the rest of the world is either evil or irrelevant and doesn't listen to advice, and what would you think if you were from another country?

George W. Bush does listen to advice. A lot of the reason we went so slowly before the war, and tried so hard to win UN support was that it was politically necessary for Tony Blair, whose position in his own country Bush had to take into account. But at bottom, what many people seem to forget, is that Bush was elected to look after the interests of the American people, not the rest of the world, and we are at war with radical Islam. After weighing the advice he gets, he has to take action based on what will best preserve the safety of Americans.

What would you think if you were the Kurds? The US has a habit of using people and then stabbing them in the back when their usefulness is over or they decide to stop taking orders. Given US interest in maintaining a faltering friendship with Turkey, who hates the Kurds, I predict we will sell the Kurds down the river within the next few years, fucking them over for decades to come.

Just as the Czechs were sold down the river by the British in 1938, jsut as thousands of escaped Soviet citizens were returned to Stalins clutches by both Britain and the U.S. at the end of WWII. Again, this is international politics. The U.S. is no more ruthless a player of this game than any other powerful country, and less so than some, despite what you are claiming.

1. It is easy to dismiss anti-US opinion as jealousy of our military prowess or our freedoms, and it is easy to apologize for US atrocities by saying that others have done it too, but that is a mindset which is not only factually incorrect, but more importantly one in which no learning can occur and no understanding can be reached. The best way to break out of this mindset is to try to adopt someone else's perspective and walk a mile in their shoes, so to speak.

It is NOT factually incorrect. We do not have gulags in this country. We never had anything like the Berlin Wall in this country. We did not continue to occupy our defeated enemies after WWII and ruthlessly crush them with military force like the Soviets did in Hungary and Czechoslovakia. Get your facts straight.

2. There has not been a paradigm shift in the thinking of US Foreign Policy, meaning that the atrocities will continue while US citizens continue to justify and apologize rather than effect change.

In other words, machiavellian international politics is not played any worse by America than it ever has been by any other country at any other time in history. What else is new?

[TheDarkling]

The thing people seem to be forgetting is the USSR was despised for its actions and I didn't see the US running around saying "come on guys they are just playing rough like we are" no the US branded them as evil.

China is also not well liked because of its actions and those actions have also been slammed by the US.

The argument here seems to be, "The US only does what the other evil countries do but for some reason we shouldn't be held accountable or admonished for those actions unlike like when they were committing them and we made our displeasure most vocal" that is simply hypocrisy of the highest order.

The other first world nations you mention have done actions less recently, less frequently in recent memory and to a less heinous degree than the US so obviously they come off looking better because they have shown less capacity for pursuing their own agenda at the expense of others whether you take that as them having a moral superiority or simply have less power with which to carry out such actions.

The US has shown it self to be a bigger thug than other first world nations and it has a far bigger stick than any other nation as well is it any surprise then that when that stick starts to be swung people get indignant and in some cases even afraid.
.

[Sir Sirius]

Yes Perinquus, the United States is better then Soviet Union and Peoples Republic of China, two communist regimes that put together murdered nearly a hundred million people, I think that we all aknowledge that. However it is hardly an achiefment you should be proud of.

[Perinquus]

Yes Perinquus, the United States is better then Soviet Union and Peoples Republic of China, two communist regimes that put together murdered nearly a hundred million people, I think that we all aknowledge that. However it is hardly an achiefment you should be proud of.

Excuse me, but apparently we don't all acknowledge that, since Arthur_Tuxedo thinks the United States is not better than Soviet Russia or communist China. He stated that the "mindset" that U.S. abuses are no worse than those of other countries is "factually incorrect". So before you rolleyes at me, why don't you read what the post is in response to.

The only reason I did not make more mention of France and Britain is that those countries' periods of great power were farther back in history.

When you compare the conduct of the United States to ANY great power in its heyday, we don't come off looking any worse than any of the rest, and we look conspicuously better than some. And as I have said, I have no patience with people who judge the U.S. by a different standard, who seem to have eyes only for American wrongdoing, while they are unable to see that of other countries.

[Sir Sirius]

Excuse me, but apparently we don't all acknowledge that, since Arthur_Tuxedo thinks the United States is not better than Soviet Russia or communist China. He stated that the "mindset" that U.S. abuses are no worse than those of other countries is "factually incorrect". So before you rolleyes at me, why don't you read what the post is in response to.

Read Tuxedo's post three times, couldn't find the part where he says that the U.S. is as bad or worse then USSR, PRC or any other nation. Maybe you could quote the section of his post where he says that for me.

Or could you be talking about the highlighted section:
"1. It is easy to dismiss anti-US opinion as jealousy of our military prowess or our freedoms, and it is easy to apologize for US atrocities by saying that others have done it too, but that is a mindset which is not only factually incorrect, but more importantly one in which no learning can occur and no understanding can be reached."
-- A. Tuxedo
If so I'm inclined to think that the "factualy incorrect" part refers to the jealousy bit. The sentance makes absolutely no sense otherwise.

[Perinquus]

The thing people seem to be forgetting is the USSR was despised for its actions and I didn't see the US running around saying "come on guys they are just playing rough like we are" no the US branded them as evil.

No it wasn't, not universally. The U.S.S.R. had plenty of apologists, many of them right here in the West. The so-called intelligentsia, men like Bertrand Russell, George Bernard Shaw, Henry Wallace (who was vice-president of the U.S. during FDR's 3rd term) all made statements supportive of the Soviet Union at various times. They even excused stories of Russian atrocities as right wing propaganda. The documentary Ted Turner produced for CNN, titled "The Cold War", a few years ago makes the argument that the U.S. was equally at fault as the U.S.S.R. Then there were all the third world nations during the Cold War that experimented with soviet style communist governments.

The U.S.S.R. was despised by some. Do not think it was universally scorned.

China is also not well liked because of its actions and those actions have also been slammed by the US.

And again, there have always been plenty of apologists for them. And all through the 60s and 70s, third world nations turned to these countries as their role models. Leaders like Tanzania's Julius Nyerere looked up to and admired monsters like Mao Zedong, and imported Chinese economic and technical advisers to help them set up regimes based on that of Red China.

The argument here seems to be, "The US only does what the other evil countries do but for some reason we shouldn't be held accountable or admonished for those actions unlike like when they were committing them and we made our displeasure most vocal" that is simply hypocrisy of the highest order.

Jesus H. Christ! How many times to I have to say it? I do not excuse U.S. wrongdoing, nor do I think we should be exempt from criticism. What I am against is judging the U.S. by a different standard, and overlooking other nations' misdeeds while focusing on ours - just like you do when you say the U.S. is a bigger thug than other first world nations. If other first world nations have fewer misdeeds in recent history it is only because they are less powerful. If they were bigger, they'd behave no better, and in fact, when they were bigger they didn't behave any better.

The other first world nations you mention have done actions less recently, less frequently in recent memory and to a less heinous degree than the US so obviously they come off looking better because they have shown less capacity for pursuing their own agenda at the expense of others whether you take that as them having a moral superiority or simply have less power with which to carry out such actions.

And this is only because they are not as powerful as the U.S.. Their interests are not as widespread, they have smaller economies and fewer investments around the globe, and simply less opportunity to rattle their sabers on the international stage. You seem to think we are worse than, say Italy or Spain or Britain, but you seem to overlook the fact that no other nation has as many interests or commitments around the globe as we do, and thus, no other nation has as many opportunities to fuck up.

The US has shown it self to be a bigger thug than other first world nations and it has a far bigger stick than any other nation as well is it any surprise then that when that stick starts to be swung people get indignant and in some cases even afraid.
.

Then as I said earlier, instead of bitching about what mean old bullies we are, they could try building their own power and work more to exert it within their own spheres of influence, and we wouldn't be acting like the world policeman all the time.

[Sir Sirius]

Fucking lack of edit fuction.

The first sentance of my previous post is SUPPOSED to read:

Read Tuxedo's post three times, couldn't find the part where he says that the U.S. is as bad or worse then USSR, PRC or any other nation ruled by a totalitarian regime.

[Arthur_Tuxedo]

The other first world nations you mention have done actions less recently, less frequently in recent memory and to a less heinous degree than the US so obviously they come off looking better because they have shown less capacity for pursuing their own agenda at the expense of others whether you take that as them having a moral superiority or simply have less power with which to carry out such actions..

More importantly, there have been shifts in their modes of thinking. They don't do that stuff anymore, unlike us.

[Arthur_Tuxedo]

Or could you be talking about the highlighted section:
"1. It is easy to dismiss anti-US opinion as jealousy of our military prowess or our freedoms, and it is easy to apologize for US atrocities by saying that others have done it too, but that is a mindset which is not only factually incorrect, but more importantly one in which no learning can occur and no understanding can be reached."
-- A. Tuxedo
If so I'm inclined to think that the "factualy incorrect" part refers to the jealousy bit. The sentance makes absolutely no sense otherwise.

You got it. I should have worded it better though so everyone else would have.

[Perinquus]

More importantly, there have been shifts in their modes of thinking. They don't do that stuff anymore, unlike us.

Again, judged by a different, harsher standard and/or condemned for misdeeds while those of others go ignored.

They don't do that stuff anymore? Really? And what do you suppose the French were doing by lining their pockets doing business with Saddam in recent years if they weren't disregarding others in pursuit of their own interests? What do you suppose the Russians are up to in Chechnya. Why are these things unremarkable while the U.S. is the worlds worst offender?

Don't be absurd. There have not been "shifts in their modes of thinking". Other countries still engage in shenanigans when its in their interests. Their still quite willing to screw other people when there's something in it for them. It's merely that being smaller and less powerful, they have fewer occasions to do it. This is exactly what I am talking about. Other nations are automatically assumed to be more virtuous.

[TheDarkling]

You say that the USSR and China had many apologists but by and large they will defamed just like the US had its apologists, unless you are about to tell me the US is universally despised, if not then your line of reasoning fails to bear fruit.

Jesus H. Christ! How many times to I have to say it? I do not excuse U.S. wrongdoing, nor do I think we should be exempt from criticism. What I am against is judging the U.S. by a different standard, and overlooking other nations' misdeeds while focusing on ours

I made statements about the US's policy in comparison to those other nations how could I possibly be overlooking them?

You however seem to be ignoring the fact that time has moved on and the USSR no longer exists and that the immoral actions of others makes the US's own actions moral (although the original actions still remain immoral).

just like you do when you say the U.S. is a bigger thug than other first world nations.

because it is but moving on

If other first world nations have fewer misdeeds in recent history it is only because they are less powerful. If they were bigger, they'd behave no better, and in fact, when they were bigger they didn't behave any better.

I did not dispute this in fact I specifically stated it - go back and read my post if you still can't find it I will be happy to quote myself although I will then have to question you reading ability.

On an aside however those other nations back in their heyday lived by differing standards and so direct contrast isn't really applicable.

And this is only because they are not as powerful as the U.S.. Their interests are not as widespread, they have smaller economies and fewer investments around the globe, and simply less opportunity to rattle their sabers on the international stage. You seem to think we are worse than, say Italy or Spain or Britain, but you seem to overlook the fact that no other nation has as many interests or commitments around the globe as we do, and thus, no other nation has as many opportunities to fuck up.

Yes and the fact I specifically addressed this in my post means nothing of course.

Here let me actually requote your quote of me

agenda at the expense of others whether you take that as them having a moral superiority or simply have less power with which to carry out such actions.

what does that mean to you?

Then as I said earlier, instead of bitching about what mean old bullies we are, they could try building their own power and work more to exert it within their own spheres of influence, and we wouldn't be acting like the world policeman all the time.

Not the issue at all although you don't act like the world policeman at all you are just another looter in the store.

[Arthur_Tuxedo]

Perinquus, you're exactly the kind of apologist I'm talking about. You took a post about why other countries shouldn't trust the US, and acted as though our actions are made irrelevant by the fact that others have done worse things in the past, and that it's not our collective duty as a country to put a stop to these things because they aren't wrong.

You seem to be arguing that the U.S. is as bad or worse than other countries. But let's take a look at the examples you cite compared to other countries.

I'm arguing that the US can't be trusted. No more, no less. Comparisons with other countries are absolutely irrelevant.

*snip comparisons with other countries*

4. The creation of Saddam Hussein and his regime.

We didn't create Saddam, we supported him. We supported him because he was opposing Iran, which had just been taken over by the rabidly anti-Western, Muslim fundamentalist Ayatollah Khomeini, who had seized American citizens in the Iranian embassy and held them hostage for over a year.

In other words, we created Saddam Hussein and his regime. 10 years later, we had to kick him out of Kuwait, and now 20 years later, we had to come uproot and kill him.

5. The creation of the Taliban.

We did not create the Taliban. We supported various groups of Mujahedin, of which the Taliban forces were only one, because they were opposing a Soviet invasion, or had you forgotten that little detail?

I didn't forget it, I just didn't mention it because it wasn't relevant. The Taliban was formed from the groups we armed and supported, perhaps you think when I use the word "created" that I mean we wrote their charter. If you think arming and funding dangerous fundamentalist crazies to go against the USSR was a good idea at that or any other time, you're an idiot.

6. The training of Osama bin Laden by the CIA that gave him the skills he needed to execute the worst, most tragic act of terrorism in the history of the world.

See above. I suppose you think we could somehow have known he'd not only prove ungrateful for our support, but would, nearly twenty years down the line, turn rabidly anti-American.

It doesn't take psychic powers to predict that propping up religious wackos and giving them the power to destabilize a reigon is a stupid ass idea.

7. The simultaneous public arming and support of Iraq coupled with the secret arming of Iran, for which the proceeds were used to enable vicious drug kingpins to murder thousands of civilians.

This looks pretty shabby, I grant you. But not worse than anything else I've listed above.

Whether it's better or worse than what other countries (all of them widely condemned for what they did) did is irrelevant. What's important is that the people who are currently in charge of foreign policy, or people who emulate their philosophies, did it, and that factors into whether you should fear the US.

Looking at these recent events, done either by people who are still in charge, or people who read the same books and ascribed to the same philosophies as the people in charge, one starts to get a clear understanding of why the rest of the world wishes the US would just mind its own business.

Because the rest of the world is soooo much more virtuous...

Red herring. Completely irrelevant. If someone like you came and said any of those other countries were angels, I'd jump on them too. No one apologizes for them, so we don't spend our time refuting that bullshit.

The problem is that most US citizens can't see the forest for the trees. It is very hard on a person to realize that the society he was born and raised in has done fucked-up things, is doing fucked-up things right now, and will continue to do so. The kneejerk response is to justify and become an apologist, just as the kneejerk response of an ostrich is to bury its head in the sand. But the most constructive thing is to learn, to process, and to put yourself in another man's shoes. Think, "If I weren't from the US, given these facts, what would I think?"

Ostriches don't bury their heads in the sand; that's an old wives' tale.

Maybe not, but you do.

Why are we alsways asked to see the other countries' points of view, and their never expected to see ours? And why is it that only our misdeeds seem to be remembered, while our more noble gestures seem to be quickly forgotten.

Let me put it this way, if you kill a man and then donate a million dollars to charity, do you deserve to be acquitted? Because that's what you're saying.

From a rational standpoint, given both old and recent history and that attitudes and philosophies haven't changed, one should expect our country to install yet another brutal regime that we'll end up knocking down at the cost of the lives of hundreds of US soldiers and thousands of foreign civilians.

Just like we had to do with Japan, Germany and Italy?

Do you have a reading comprehension problem? First of all, a few successes and dozens of failures is not a good track record, and those successes do not change a rational person's prediction that more attempts are more likely to result in failure than success. Perhaps you missed the part of my post where I talked about the Marshall Plan and what made it different from what we do today.

Now, take this reality and add to the mix a war hawkish, arrogant president who thinks the rest of the world is either evil or irrelevant and doesn't listen to advice, and what would you think if you were from another country?

George W. Bush does listen to advice. A lot of the reason we went so slowly before the war, and tried so hard to win UN support was that it was politically necessary for Tony Blair, whose position in his own country Bush had to take into account. But at bottom, what many people seem to forget, is that Bush was elected to look after the interests of the American people, not the rest of the world, and we are at war with radical Islam. After weighing the advice he gets, he has to take action based on what will best preserve the safety of Americans.

Pissing off the rest of the world puts us all in danger. I didn't fear terrorism after 9/11 because I knew it probably wouldn't happen to me. The more the world hates us, the more I'm not so sure.

Colin Powell and the other advisors (behind closed doors, of course) had to argue vehemently with Bush to get him to even seek approval from the UN. He did, but after already moving troops in.

What would you think if you were the Kurds? The US has a habit of using people and then stabbing them in the back when their usefulness is over or they decide to stop taking orders. Given US interest in maintaining a faltering friendship with Turkey, who hates the Kurds, I predict we will sell the Kurds down the river within the next few years, fucking them over for decades to come.

Just as the Czechs were sold down the river by the British in 1938, jsut as thousands of escaped Soviet citizens were returned to Stalins clutches by both Britain and the U.S. at the end of WWII. Again, this is international politics. The U.S. is no more ruthless a player of this game than any other powerful country, and less so than some, despite what you are claiming.

You didn't address the point, asshole. If you were thinking of allowing US troops into your country or giving the US your way, knowing that they might stab you in the back later is a pretty huge disincentive. Again, comparisons with other countries are irrelevant to this discussion. Why you keep bringing them up is a mystery to me, unless you think that the point of my post was that the US is the worst country ever, rather than showing rational reasons to be afraid of us.

1. It is easy to dismiss anti-US opinion as jealousy of our military prowess or our freedoms, and it is easy to apologize for US atrocities by saying that others have done it too, but that is a mindset which is not only factually incorrect, but more importantly one in which no learning can occur and no understanding can be reached. The best way to break out of this mindset is to try to adopt someone else's perspective and walk a mile in their shoes, so to speak.

It is NOT factually incorrect. We do not have gulags in this country. We never had anything like the Berlin Wall in this country. We did not continue to occupy our defeated enemies after WWII and ruthlessly crush them with military force like the Soviets did in Hungary and Czechoslovakia. Get your facts straight.

Sorry, that could have been written better. I meant that it's factually incorrect that people hate us because they're jealous of our power and our freedoms.

2. There has not been a paradigm shift in the thinking of US Foreign Policy, meaning that the atrocities will continue while US citizens continue to justify and apologize rather than effect change.

In other words, machiavellian international politics is not played any worse by America than it ever has been by any other country at any other time in history. What else is new?

Machiavellian international politics are short-sighted. A brutal philosophies for a brutal age. It's in our best interest to be well liked and the enemy of no one. The Swiss don't follow Machiavellian principles and their GDP per capita is better than ours (although, as DW said, part of that is because they launder other people's dirty money ). European countries have largely abandoned such divisive philosophies and we're seeing a new era of monetary and social cooperation between them as a result.

Realpolitik flows logically from its premises, but it's premises are fucked up. As they say, the proof is in the pudding, and what the US and other countries that use Realpolitik are serving tastes like shit.

[Perinquus]

You however seem to be ignoring the fact that time has moved on and the USSR no longer exists and that the immoral actions of others makes the US's own actions moral (although the original actions still remain immoral).

I use the U.S.S.R. because it is the most recent example of a state with the military power to contend with U.S., and because many of the government officials who were in power there still are in power in Russia.

just like you do when you say the U.S. is a bigger thug than other first world nations.

because it is but moving on

No, try supporting your assertions before moving on. Bald, unsupported statements carry no weight; they're just opinions.

On an aside however those other nations back in their heyday lived by differing standards and so direct contrast isn't really applicable.

Nice dodge to try and invalidate any comparisons. I guess that is the justification for holding the U.S. to a different standard. How about defining what those "differing standards" are. Otherwise your statement is so vague and general as to be meaningless.

Here let me actually requote your quote of me

agenda at the expense of others whether you take that as them having a moral superiority or simply have less power with which to carry out such actions.

what does that mean to you?

It would mean a lot more if it weren't a sentence fragment.

Then as I said earlier, instead of bitching about what mean old bullies we are, they could try building their own power and work more to exert it within their own spheres of influence, and we wouldn't be acting like the world policeman all the time.

Not the issue at all although you don't act like the world policeman at all you are just another looter in the store.

Yes, just ask our rebellious provinces of France and Germany. Or perhaps Bosnia, the most recent addition to our empire but for Iraq. It's really a shame how we just rushed in, took them over, looted all their resources for ourselves... oh, wait a minute...

[Arthur_Tuxedo]

Not to psychoanalyze Perinquus, but let's have a look at apologist mentality for a second. In his mind, because the US is neither the most prolific nor the heinous practioner of wrongdoing in recent memory, that means that complaints about our behavior should be discarded.

As a US citizen, coming to the realization that those acts and the things we do every day are still wrong regardless of whether other countries are doing it leads to two painful conclusions:

1. Because we live in a democracy, and we elected the people who are doing this, it's our fault.

2. It's my moral duty to help put a stop to this.

So not only do you end up feeling guilty, but now you've got to do something about it too? Oh fuck that! It's much easier to rationalize.

[TheDarkling]

I wondered why my head hurt and now I know I am head butting a brick wall, however never one to be deterred I guess I will try once again to get my point across.

Your use of the USSR is irrelevant this is about why the US is disliked I have shown you why both separately on its own actions and then compared to others.

I will try and break it down into simple terms.

You say "Why do they think we are mean?"
The response "because the US did X,Y,Z"
You "But the USSR did A,B,C"
Response "Yes and they were reviled"
You "...... ermm ....... but they still aren't"
Response "No because they don't still do it on a scale competing with you, not to mention they were absolved when the USSR fell because the old regime was gone and this was a new free Russia (on theory)"
You " we just do what everyone else did"
Response " yes did but now you are the main country with the capability and willingness to do such things thus the dislike"
You "but but China did D,E,F"
Response "sigh"

I have explained why the US is disliked, they have done alot of nasty stuff and still maintain the ability to do such things thus resentment and suspicion.

I am not saying the USA is the most evil empire to have ever existed however they are the most capable of immoral action at the moment and have a track record of doing such things.

[Perinquus]

Perinquus, you're exactly the kind of apologist I'm talking about. You took a post about why other countries shouldn't trust the US, and acted as though our actions are made irrelevant by the fact that others have done worse things in the past, and that it's not our collective duty as a country to put a stop to these things because they aren't wrong.

snip
4. The creation of Saddam Hussein and his regime.

We didn't create Saddam, we supported him. We supported him because he was opposing Iran, which had just been taken over by the rabidly anti-Western, Muslim fundamentalist Ayatollah Khomeini, who had seized American citizens in the Iranian embassy and held them hostage for over a year.

In other words, we created Saddam Hussein and his regime. 10 years later, we had to kick him out of Kuwait, and now 20 years later, we had to come uproot and kill him.

No, in other words, we supported him. We did not put him in power.

5. The creation of the Taliban.

We did not create the Taliban. We supported various groups of Mujahedin, of which the Taliban forces were only one, because they were opposing a Soviet invasion, or had you forgotten that little detail?

I didn't forget it, I just didn't mention it because it wasn't relevant. The Taliban was formed from the groups we armed and supported, perhaps you think when I use the word "created" that I mean we wrote their charter. If you think arming and funding dangerous fundamentalist crazies to go against the USSR was a good idea at that or any other time, you're an idiot.

In the first place, you're oversimplifying the shit out of things. Not all the Afghans who were resisting the Soviets were Muslim fundies. In the second place, opposing Soviet aggression was the focus of American foreign policy for the entire Cold War. In the third place, arming and training people to resist a blatant act of aggression by another power is not something that I think the U.S. needs to apologize for. The fact that certain elements within the mujahedin later rose to take control of the entire country was not inevitable. You're armchair quarterbacking with the benefit of 20/20 hindsight.

6. The training of Osama bin Laden by the CIA that gave him the skills he needed to execute the worst, most tragic act of terrorism in the history of the world.

See above. I suppose you think we could somehow have known he'd not only prove ungrateful for our support, but would, nearly twenty years down the line, turn rabidly anti-American.

It doesn't take psychic powers to predict that propping up religious wackos and giving them the power to destabilize a reigon is a stupid ass idea.

Again, you're oversimplifying. The religious wackos were not the whole group, and in the case of Bin Laden, his extremism was not as apparent at that time, nor was he as prominent within the mujahedin as he later came to be. At the time, allowing the Soviets to expand their sphere of influence and take over another country seemed like a pretty bad idea at the time as well.

Ostriches don't bury their heads in the sand; that's an old wives' tale.

Maybe not, but you do.

No, I just see other countries as being no better than the United States. I have condemned actions of the U.S. in the past, and will continue to do so. The difference is, I also condemn other countries for their misdeeds, and don't see them as any more morally righteous. You do, apparently, since you're the one who claimed other countries have had "shifts in their modes of thinking. They don't do that stuff anymore, unlike us." This is just absurd. Other countries are just as cynical and motivated by self interest as they ever have been. They're just as willing to screw other people and other countries as they ever have been when they see themselves as having something to gain. If you think otherwise, you're naive.

Let me put it this way, if you kill a man and then donate a million dollars to charity, do you deserve to be acquitted? Because that's what you're saying.

Bullshit. I've said over and over again the U.S. deserves to be criticized for anything it does wrong, but that I am irked by other countries not getting an equal share of condemnation when they do so, and that they should be viewed just as critically as the U.S., which they often are not.

From a rational standpoint, given both old and recent history and that attitudes and philosophies haven't changed, one should expect our country to install yet another brutal regime that we'll end up knocking down at the cost of the lives of hundreds of US soldiers and thousands of foreign civilians.

Just like we had to do with Japan, Germany and Italy?

Do you have a reading comprehension problem? First of all, a few successes and dozens of failures is not a good track record, and those successes do not change a rational person's prediction that more attempts are more likely to result in failure than success. Perhaps you missed the part of my post where I talked about the Marshall Plan and what made it different from what we do today.

Those "dozens of failures" were not analogous to the current situation, which is analogous to the post-WWII occupations of Germany, Italy, and Japan - U.S. troops in this case, as after WWII have overrun and occupied a foriegn country whose government has been dismantled. This situation did not obtain in other countries where we propped up particular rulers during the Cold War.

Pissing off the rest of the world puts us all in danger. I didn't fear terrorism after 9/11 because I knew it probably wouldn't happen to me. The more the world hates us, the more I'm not so sure.

Wake up and smell the coffee. We were already in danger. In case you're a little hazy on your sequence of events, let me remind you of a few things. Before all the recent U.S. saber rattling, before the war on Iraq saw our relations with some of our allies turn chilly, before all the accusations of Geo. W. Bush being an arrogant, unilateralist cowboy were being thrown around, we were attacked on September 11th, 2001. I should think that would make it unmistakably clear that we were in danger already, whether you personally felt threatened or not.

Time for a reality check here. The fanatical Muslims hate us already. It's not Bush's fault. It took about two years to plan the 9/11 attack. This means they were already putting it into motion before the "arrogant cowboy" was ever in office. They don't hate us for the particulars of our foreign policy; they just hate us for who and what we are. In the words of Hussein Massawi, former leader of Hezbollah: ''We are not fighting so that you will offer us something. We are fighting to eliminate you. The Islamists have no negotiable demands, and no conceivable changes to U.S. policy will deflect them. And the more inventively you try to ''explain'' the Islamist psychosis as a rational phenomenon to be accommodated, the more you risk sounding just as nutty as them.

What would you think if you were the Kurds? The US has a habit of using Colin Powell and the other advisors (behind closed doors, of course) had to argue vehemently with Bush to get him to even seek approval from the UN. He did, but after already moving troops in.

So what? Bill Clinton never even tried to get U.N support before he bombed Kosovo fro 77 days. I don't remember all this endless round of condemnation about that little adventure.

We shouldn't have to go crawling to the U.N., hat in hand, to get permission to act in our own national interests. And I'm sorry, but I think the moral approval of an organization that puts a country like Libya at the chair of a human rights commission isn't worth spit.

You didn't address the point, asshole. If you were thinking of allowing US troops into your country or giving the US your way, knowing that they might stab you in the back later is a pretty huge disincentive. Again, comparisons with other countries are irrelevant to this discussion. Why you keep bringing them up is a mystery to me, unless you think that the point of my post was that the US is the worst country ever, rather than showing rational reasons to be afraid of us.

Since you do seem inclined to argue that the U.S. behaves worse than other countries, who supposedly have had "shifts in their modes of thinking", and "don't do that stuff anymore, unlike us", I don't think it is inappropriate of me to refute that line of argument.

Machiavellian international politics are short-sighted. A brutal philosophies for a brutal age. It's in our best interest to be well liked and the enemy of no one. The Swiss don't follow Machiavellian principles and their GDP per capita is better than ours (although, as DW said, part of that is because they launder other people's dirty money ). European countries have largely abandoned such divisive philosophies and we're seeing a new era of monetary and social cooperation between them as a result.

Good lord! You're not seriously comparing the U.S. with Switzerland with regard to foreign policy. A continent-spanning superpower and a tiny little landlocked country? Could you possibly find two more dissimilar nations among the first world countries?

I will agree that it would certainly be nice for us to be well liked and be the enemy of no one. Now it's time to come back down to earth. You cannot get as large and powerful as we are, and have interests in as many corners of the world as we do, and not make enemies. Even Europe, though it may settle many of its internal differences, is going to find its interests conflicting with those of other countries in other parts of the world. And the E.U. will promote those interests just as selfishly as the U.S. promotes its interests.

Realpolitik flows logically from its premises, but it's premises are fucked up. As they say, the proof is in the pudding, and what the US and other countries that use Realpolitik are serving tastes like shit.

Hey, welcome to the real world.

[Perinquus]

Not to psychoanalyze Perinquus, but let's have a look at apologist mentality for a second. In his mind, because the US is neither the most prolific nor the heinous practioner of wrongdoing in recent memory, that means that complaints about our behavior should be discarded

God almighty. No matter how many times I say the U.S. deserves to be criticized for its misdeeds, you just do not hear it. It's like I am speaking Chinese or something. For what feels like the fifty billionth time: I do not think criticism of the U.S. should be discarded, merely viewed in the same light as any other country.

In case you forget, this post all started because we had polls in Europe which revealed a majority of Europeans do agree that Saddam was a danger to his neighbors, and do agree that Iraq and its people will be better off without him, yet think that the U.S. is a bully for bringing about this ultimately desirable result. This suggests to me a reflexive anti-Americanism which is more emotional than rational.

And there is also the fact that we really are judged in a different light. You yourself have admitted that you think European nations have moved on to a higher and more advanced moral plane.

As a US citizen, coming to the realization that those acts and the things we do every day are still wrong regardless of whether other countries are doing it leads to two painful conclusions:

1. Because we live in a democracy, and we elected the people who are doing this, it's our fault.

2. It's my moral duty to help put a stop to this.

So not only do you end up feeling guilty, but now you've got to do something about it too? Oh fuck that! It's much easier to rationalize.

Everybody rationalizes to a degree. But moving to the opposite extreme - an uncritical condemnation of your own country and simultaneously an uncritical acceptance of the moral superiority of others is not going to help. Let me ask you, who are you going to put into power who will do any better? Given the fact that we have this immense power and responsibility, and that we have commitments and interests worldwide, how are you going to make us more moral. Given these facts it's inevitable we will have conflicts of interest with other nations and groups. And it is the first duty of the American government to look after the interests of its citizens.

As Eric Hoffer said:

Free men are aware of the imperfection inherent in human affairs, and they are willing to fight and die for that which is not perfect. They know that basic human problems can have no final solutions, that our freedom, justice, equality, etc. are far from absolute, and that the good life is compounded of half measures, compromises, lesser evils, and gropings toward the perfect. The rejection of approximations and the insistence on absolutes are the manifestation of a nihilism that loathes freedom, tolerance, and equity.

You seem to demand perfection. You will never get it. Given the realities of the world, adn of human nature, I think our country has not done so badly. It could be a lot better, and we should always try to make it so. But we are not going to accomplish that by refusing to face the realities of world politics and human nature. The world is what it is, not what you wish it to be. If you approach it on any other terms, you will make things worse, not better.

[XPViking]

I think both Perinquus and Arthur Tuxedo need to agree on a set of criteria that can be applied to all countries and then they can judge how “evil” that country is. How about this (far from complete) for the last 100 years?

1. Number of global wars participated in
2. Number of regional wars participated in
3. Number of military troops, advisors, etc… sent overseas
4. Amount of economic aid sent to countries (annual breakdown is fine)
5. Amount of arms sales (could be derived from “economic aid”)
6. Number of donations sent (here I’m thinking donating foodstuffs to Africa, etc…)
7. Number of UN vetos used
8. Number of global companies and their total sales
9. Number of own citizens killed by own government
10. Number of WMDs

A person could then mark each item on a scale (say a 5 point one) I suppose and then get some kind of score.

XPViking

[Arthur_Tuxedo]

No, in other words, we supported him. We did not put him in power.

We gave him the weapons he needed to stay in power and expand. We created his regime as we know it today. Before we supported him, he couldn't have invaded Kuwait, couldn't have gassed Iranians and Kurds, couldn't have launched SCUDs at Israel. Whether we "created" him is mere semantics, and it's my fault for belaboring the point.

In the first place, you're oversimplifying the shit out of things. Not all the Afghans who were resisting the Soviets were Muslim fundies. In the second place, opposing Soviet aggression was the focus of American foreign policy for the entire Cold War. In the third place, arming and training people to resist a blatant act of aggression by another power is not something that I think the U.S. needs to apologize for. The fact that certain elements within the mujahedin later rose to take control of the entire country was not inevitable. You're armchair quarterbacking with the benefit of 20/20 hindsight.

*snip my quotes about OBL*

Again, you're oversimplifying. The religious wackos were not the whole group, and in the case of Bin Laden, his extremism was not as apparent at that time, nor was he as prominent within the mujahedin as he later came to be. At the time, allowing the Soviets to expand their sphere of influence and take over another country seemed like a pretty bad idea at the time as well.

I can see we're getting sidetracked. This is a whole different debate. Points 4, 5, and 6 conceeded for efficacy.

Ostriches don't bury their heads in the sand; that's an old wives' tale.

Maybe not, but you do.

No, I just see other countries as being no better than the United States. I have condemned actions of the U.S. in the past, and will continue to do so.

Not in this thread. You can't expect me to have read and remembered your other posts in other threads.

The difference is, I also condemn other countries for their misdeeds, and don't see them as any more morally righteous. You do, apparently, since you're the one who claimed other countries have had "shifts in their modes of thinking. They don't do that stuff anymore, unlike us." This is just absurd. Other countries are just as cynical and motivated by self interest as they ever have been. They're just as willing to screw other people and other countries as they ever have been when they see themselves as having something to gain. If you think otherwise, you're naive.

Notice the strawman. I said that European nations had largely abandoned Machiavellian dog-eat-dog philosophies, not that they're aren't motivated by self-interest or that their business practices and politics aren't as shady as they've ever been. There's a difference between dishonest business and politics and invasions, airstrikes, and propping up of brutal anti-democratic regimes. The former is universal, the latter is uniquely American at this point in time.

Also notice the attempts to shift the topic from "should other countries be afraid of America?" and its logical successor "how should we reform American foreign policy?" to "is America worse than other countries and other past empires?", a question I never asked and a proposition I never supported.

Bullshit. I've said over and over again the U.S. deserves to be criticized for anything it does wrong

First I've heard of it.

but that I am irked by other countries not getting an equal share of condemnation when they do so, and that they should be viewed just as critically as the U.S., which they often are not.

We're not talking about other countries, despite your repeated attempts at subject change. If this thread were about some other country, I'd be happy to talk about all their faults and atrocities. Not to indulge a hijacking, but the reason we never talk about the faults of the USSR, French and British imperialism (Falklands war, anyone?), is because no one's making up bullshit excuses for them.

Those "dozens of failures" were not analogous to the current situation, which is analogous to the post-WWII occupations of Germany, Italy, and Japan - U.S. troops in this case, as after WWII have overrun and occupied a foriegn country whose government has been dismantled. This situation did not obtain in other countries where we propped up particular rulers during the Cold War.

I know Iraq stands a good chance of being a success story. I spent several paragraphs talking about it, remember?

Wake up and smell the coffee. We were already in danger. In case you're a little hazy on your sequence of events, let me remind you of a few things. Before all the recent U.S. saber rattling, before the war on Iraq saw our relations with some of our allies turn chilly, before all the accusations of Geo. W. Bush being an arrogant, unilateralist cowboy were being thrown around, we were attacked on September 11th, 2001. I should think that would make it unmistakably clear that we were in danger already, whether you personally felt threatened or not.

The chances of being victimized by terrorism were significantly less than the chances of being hit by lightning. You're thousands of times more likely to die in a car crash. Now that Bush has thrown rocks at every hornets' nest in sight, the chance of future large-scale attacks has been increased exponentially, which leads me to re-iterate that Bush has put us all in danger. Even disregarding Bush and talking about US foreign policy in general, events like 9/11 are what happens when you follow Realpolitik, making deals with devils and playing dangerous men as pawns.

Time for a reality check here. The fanatical Muslims hate us already. It's not Bush's fault.

No, it's not. But now a lot of the moderate muslims and non-muslims hate us too, and that is Bush's fault.

It took about two years to plan the 9/11 attack. This means they were already putting it into motion before the "arrogant cowboy" was ever in office. They don't hate us for the particulars of our foreign policy; they just hate us for who and what we are. In the words of Hussein Massawi, former leader of Hezbollah: ''We are not fighting so that you will offer us something. We are fighting to eliminate you. The Islamists have no negotiable demands, and no conceivable changes to U.S. policy will deflect them. And the more inventively you try to ''explain'' the Islamist psychosis as a rational phenomenon to be accommodated, the more you risk sounding just as nutty as them.

I've heard this argument before. They hate us for our freedoms, they're jealous because we have choice and democracry and because we're secular heathens. Either that or the more subtle variation: They hate the West because it's part of their culture and they can't let go of history. Either way, you realize it's bullshit as soon as you remember that there are other Western countries that are just as wealthy as us, freer than us (Patriot Act means we're no longer the Land of the Free), more secular than us (less fundies), and yet none of them are the Great Satan. We are. Your theory does not fit the facts.

So what? Bill Clinton never even tried to get U.N support before he bombed Kosovo fro 77 days. I don't remember all this endless round of condemnation about that little adventure.

*rubs temples* What the fuck does Clinton have to do with anything? Can I take this red herring as a concession that Bush doesn't listen to advice?

We shouldn't have to go crawling to the U.N., hat in hand, to get permission to act in our own national interests. And I'm sorry, but I think the moral approval of an organization that puts a country like Libya at the chair of a human rights commission isn't worth spit.

OK, but remember that what's good for the goose is good for the gander. If we have the right to act unilaterily against Iraq, then China has the right to act unilaterily against Taiwan, North Korea has the right to act against South Korea, etc. Is that what you really want?

Since you do seem inclined to argue that the U.S. behaves worse than other countries, who supposedly have had "shifts in their modes of thinking", and "don't do that stuff anymore, unlike us", I don't think it is inappropriate of me to refute that line of argument.

And you still haven't addressed the point, which I can't even remember anymore. Your diversion tactics worked, you can pat yourself on the back. Now let me go re-read and refresh my memory.

Ahh yes, the Kurds. The Kurds will get screwed, they will be granted things that will later be taken away from them, maybe by force. You apparently think this is honkey dorey because the British did it to the Czechs before my father was born. It was wrong when the British did it, and it will be wrong when we do it. Comparisons with other countries in the context of this discussion is irrelevant. A wrong act is wrong no matter what.

Good lord! You're not seriously comparing the U.S. with Switzerland with regard to foreign policy. A continent-spanning superpower and a tiny little landlocked country? Could you possibly find two more dissimilar nations among the first world countries?

OK, so it was a bad analogy. The point is that while Realpolitik works in the short run, in the long run it's a disaster, and while it seems at the time that installing favorable regimes, making deals with militant fundamentalists who oppose your enemies, etc. will help the country, it always comes back and bites you in the ass eventually (9/11 being a tragic example). Realpolitik has benefits in the short run, but fast forward a few decades and you start to see the catastrophes, culminating with the toppling of the empire and its replacement. If the country hadn't aspired to be an empire in the first place, the citizens would be wealthier, happier, and more of them would be alive. Live by the sword, die by the sword.

I will agree that it would certainly be nice for us to be well liked and be the enemy of no one. Now it's time to come back down to earth. You cannot get as large and powerful as we are, and have interests in as many corners of the world as we do, and not make enemies.

No, but if you refrain from killing people for economic interests, those animosities wouldn't have flared up violently like they have and are.

Even Europe, though it may settle many of its internal differences, is going to find its interests conflicting with those of other countries in other parts of the world. And the E.U. will promote those interests just as selfishly as the U.S. promotes its interests.

Maybe. Maybe not. That doesn't change the reality that the US can't be trusted as an ally.

Realpolitik flows logically from its premises, but it's premises are fucked up. As they say, the proof is in the pudding, and what the US and other countries that use Realpolitik are serving tastes like shit.

Hey, welcome to the real world.

Welcome to the real world, indeed. Now that we understand it, let's try and improve it.

[Arthur_Tuxedo]

God almighty. No matter how many times I say the U.S. deserves to be criticized for its misdeeds, you just do not hear it. It's like I am speaking Chinese or something. For what feels like the fifty billionth time: I do not think criticism of the U.S. should be discarded, merely viewed in the same light as any other country.

Actually, it's the second time, and the first time came after I made the post. In any case, I don't see that you're treating criticism of other countries on the same field as criticism of the US at all. You don't get defensive and try to justify if someone talks about Chechnya or the Falkland islands, only if it's something the US has done.

In case you forget, this post all started because we had polls in Europe which revealed a majority of Europeans do agree that Saddam was a danger to his neighbors, and do agree that Iraq and its people will be better off without him, yet think that the U.S. is a bully for bringing about this ultimately desirable result. This suggests to me a reflexive anti-Americanism which is more emotional than rational.

That may be true, I'm saying that there are good rational reasons to fear and mistrust the US, examples of other, past superpowers behaving just as badly notwithstanding.

And there is also the fact that we really are judged in a different light. You yourself have admitted that you think European nations have moved on to a higher and more advanced moral plane.

Not quite. I said they've moved on from short-sighted dog-eat-dog philosophies. I don't contend that European leaders are more moral or less selfish than American ones, only that their policies do not result in massive loss of human life for questionable benefit.

As a US citizen, coming to the realization that those acts and the things we do every day are still wrong regardless of whether other countries are doing it leads to two painful conclusions:

1. Because we live in a democracy, and we elected the people who are doing this, it's our fault.

2. It's my moral duty to help put a stop to this.

So not only do you end up feeling guilty, but now you've got to do something about it too? Oh fuck that! It's much easier to rationalize.

Everybody rationalizes to a degree. But moving to the opposite extreme - an uncritical condemnation of your own country and simultaneously an uncritical acceptance of the moral superiority of others is not going to help.

Certainly not. Good thing we're not forced to choose between extremes or favor a side (although most of us do).

Let me ask you, who are you going to put into power who will do any better? Given the fact that we have this immense power and responsibility, and that we have commitments and interests worldwide, how are you going to make us more moral. Given these facts it's inevitable we will have conflicts of interest with other nations and groups. And it is the first duty of the American government to look after the interests of its citizens.

Realpolitik has not increased the wealth of the average citizen. We spend over $300 Billion per year in tax dollars maintaining the military and engaging in R&D. Actual conflicts are not included in this figure. A lack of well-equipped and desperate enemies would allow us to downsize our military to a level adequete for defense of the continent and for projecting force in situations like Kosovo.

Realpolitik has not increased the security of the average citizen. We now live in fear of terrorism thanks to aggressive empire building.

Realpolitik has hurt us in the long run, and we've only seen the tip of the iceberg. Continued pursuit of this philosophy will cause millions of deaths and the eventual collapse of the American hegemony, finally and forcefully negating any of the short run benefits.

We'd be better off as a nation and as individual citizens were we content to expand via McDonalds and the Gap instead of invasions, threats, and regime changes.

As Eric Hoffer said:

Free men are aware of the imperfection inherent in human affairs, and they are willing to fight and die for that which is not perfect. They know that basic human problems can have no final solutions, that our freedom, justice, equality, etc. are far from absolute, and that the good life is compounded of half measures, compromises, lesser evils, and gropings toward the perfect. The rejection of approximations and the insistence on absolutes are the manifestation of a nihilism that loathes freedom, tolerance, and equity.

That's ridiculous. There is nothing relative about right, wrong, freedom, and justice. And why is it patriotic to fight and die for an imperfect system, but not to question and seek to improve it?

You seem to demand perfection. You will never get it.

You're right, but only by demanding perfection can change for the better be brought about. We may not be able to make our system perfect, but we can improve it trying.

Given the realities of the world, adn of human nature, I think our country has not done so badly.

Relative to past empires, it hasn't, but millions of deaths leaves something to be desired. There's a lot of room for improvement.

It could be a lot better, and we should always try to make it so. But we are not going to accomplish that by refusing to face the realities of world politics and human nature. The world is what it is, not what you wish it to be. If you approach it on any other terms, you will make things worse, not better.

Pot calling the kettle black. I have denied no aspects of the world or of human nature. You have justified US bad behavior and downplayed the need for reform. Who's refusing to face the world as it is?

[Arthur_Tuxedo]

I think both Perinquus and Arthur Tuxedo need to agree on a set of criteria that can be applied to all countries and then they can judge how “evil” that country is. How about this (far from complete) for the last 100 years?

OK, but realize that I have yet to make a statement about the US relative to other countries. This is separate from the debate I've been having with Perinquus, despite his attempts to make that debate resemble this one.

1. Number of global wars participated in
2. Number of regional wars participated in

I'd hazard a guess that it gets worse the farther you go back in time. The USSR was almost inarguably worse than us, the Nazis worse than them, the British worse than them, the Mongols worse than them, etc. After all, it would be sad if the world were just as brutal as it was hundreds of years ago.

3. Number of military troops, advisors, etc… sent overseas

Both the US and USSR are quite guilty of this type of indirect support. The US in Afghanistan, the Soviets in Vietnam, to name the two most prominent examples.

4. Amount of economic aid sent to countries (annual breakdown is fine)

While the US gives a large amount of economic aid in absolute terms, it is actually the second stingiest next to France in percentage of GDP.

http://www.globalissues.org/TradeRelated/Debt/USAid.asp
This shows the amount of US aid given through the UN both in absolutes and as a percentage of national income, although one should be careful not to draw too drastic a conclusion from this, as the US favours direct aid rather than through the UN.

5. Amount of arms sales (could be derived from “economic aid”)

Again, I'm just guessing here, but I don't think the US is nearly as bad in this regard as the Soviets were. After all, what rag tag army doesn't have AKs and RPGs?

6. Number of donations sent (here I’m thinking donating foodstuffs to Africa, etc…)

This is a muddy issue. Are we including private donations or just talking about governments?

7. Number of UN vetos used

As Marina pointed out, the US tally is in the seventies, while Russia's tops 100.

8. Number of global companies and their total sales

Are we considering more global companies to be good or bad? In any case, the US is clearly the king here, and with a few exceptions, it's been good for the world.

9. Number of own citizens killed by own government

The US has a very good record here, about on par with other first world democracies. Non-democratic countries typically have deplorable records.

10. Number of WMDs

At the height of the Cold War, we had about 15,000 nukes while the Soviets had more than 30,000, but more of ours were multi-warhead and generally more destructive so the numbers don't tell the whole story. Destructive power is probably about the same.

A person could then mark each item on a scale (say a 5 point one) I suppose and then get some kind of score.

You could have mentioned this earlier . OK, 5 points being the worst, and 0 points being virtually blameless, using the US, Russia, and Britain (last 20 years only):

1. Number of global wars participated in: US 0 USSR 0 UK 0
No global wars in the last 20 years.

2. Number of regional wars participated in: US 5 USSR 5 UK 3
US and USSR were both being bastards on the global scene and get 5 points. Britain gets 3 points for the Falklands war.

3. Number of military troops, advisors, etc… sent overseas: US 5 USSR 5 UK 1
Again, US and USSR terrible examples of this. Don't know any examples of UK doing this, but I'm sure there are a few, so I gave them a 1.
4. Amount of economic aid sent to countries (annual breakdown is fine): US 4 USSR 5 UK 3
US gives less than any first world nation except France, but Russia doesn't give shit, so it gets the higher rating. UK gives much more than the US, but still below UN target, so they get a 3.
5. Amount of arms sales (could be derived from “economic aid”): US 4 USSR 5 UK 2
US has sold m16s, fighter jets, and nukes the world over, but not on nearly a prolific level as Russia, while the UK's sales are limited to the Harrier jet mostly (not like anyone would want Enfields if they were free)
6. Number of donations sent (here I’m thinking donating foodstuffs to Africa, etc…) US 1 USSR 5 UK 1
Assuming we're including private donations, the US has been good about this, but then we've always been good people, just with ruthless government. Russia obviously gets a 5. UK I'm not too sure about, but it should be pretty safe to assume to be on par with US.
7. Number of UN vetos used: US 4 USSR 5 UK 1
Self explanatory
8. Number of global companies and their total sales: US 0 USSR 5 UK 2
Remember that international trade is good, not bad, so US gets a 0 and USSR gets a 5. UK gets a 2 for the amount of rock bands they've exported
9. Number of own citizens killed by own government: US 0 USSR 3 UK 0
Remember that I'm only counting the last 20 years as relevant, otherwise Russia would get a 6 on the scale of 5 for Stalin's atrocities.
10. Number of WMDs: US 5 USSR 5 UK 3
UK gets a 3, as I understand that they have nukes, chemical weapons, etc.

Final tally: US 28 USSR 43 UK 14

Russia is clearly the biggest bad guy here, although the UK did a lot better than the US.