So Senator McCain wants to improve the Ugly American image overseas. The problem is America's power and the global resentment of it. We are hated/disliked simply because of our power. And if the United States was supplanted tomorrow, the world would then hate the new power that took its place.
Too much of this anti-U.S. ranting seems adolescent.
5 comments:
It is not the power the USA has. It is how we are using that power.
America was not as hated in the 90s. Except for radical groups in the Middle East - but they do not like anybody.
When the USA rushes into a war, refuses to listen to any other nation, berates other nations for not agreeing 100% with our policy, renames French Fries to Freedom Fries (by the way - the French were right and Bush is wrong) - what do you think the result will be?
When you try to tell other nations that they are either with us or against us - then ignore anything they say to the contrary - you are going to end up with a lot of people against you.
But the idea that America is always right and everyone else is always wrong is very popular with the red(neck) states. It allows people to drop out of school after 8th grade, wave a flag, and feel like they are better than anyone else.
America's image is going to be broken until we get someone in office who uses the massive power of this nation is a more responsible manner - and we stop acting like a bully.
More than the bully-perception, I think America is disliked for being arbitrary and unpredictable.
For example, Bush stated, after 9/11, that the world is either with us, or with the terrorists, and proceeded to crush the Taliban.
He then got involved in the Middle East, and touts Abbas' Fatah (clearly a terrorist organization) as a model of moderation.
As Lazy said, the terrorists in the Mid East hate everyone in the West already, but the rest of the world will fear America until they can predict its actions.
We are the only ones who have ever nuked anyone.
fuzz:
That is correct, but put it in its context:
The US was embroiled in a bitter, bloody war with Japan. The Japanese were refusing to surrender, and were literally fighting to the death. The first attack at the Japanese homeland, at Okinawa, cost the US many thousands of casualties, and the Army was predicting hundreds of thousands of American, and a million or more Japanese casualties, in an invasion of the Japanese home islands.
In that context, the Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombs, by convincing the Japanese leadership to surrender, cost fewer lives than the continuation of conventional warfare.
I am not arguing for nuclear war, as the bombs also showed the truly devastating effects of atomic weapons; I am just saying that we must look at the historical context of nations' actions to understand them.
EG- I agree with you. It was the best thing at the time. I don't think we should ever categorically rule them out.
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