Forum Post: Why we're hated overseas
Posted 12 years ago on July 15, 2012, 11:35 p.m. EST by john23
(-272)
This content is user submitted and not an official statement
Wish everyone in america could see this two minute video:
Fair points made by the video but for a more rounded historical perspective :
"Killing Hope - U.S. Military and CIA Interventions Since World War II", by William Blum : http://vho.org/aaargh/fran/livres8/BLUMkillinghope.pdf .
"The Weaponization of Economic Theory", by Prof. Michael Hudson : http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article31849.htm .
fiat lux ...
first link is great. Very similar to a book called "overthrow"...goes through a lot of the same countries.
Re. "Overthrow" : http://www.thirdworldtraveler.com/Book_Reviews/Overthrow_review.html .
fiat pax ...
At least we made sure they didn't have WMDs like several other countries in the region do (Israel, Pakistan, etc.)
Mission Accomplished amirite
When you say "overseas" I think you should be more specific. This video may explain why some afghanis or iraqis hate us...but not the rest of the world. In fact, there are NATO "peacekeeping" forces in like 17 or 18 countries right now. Those forces include soldiers from ally countries in Europe and the Americas.
Iraq, Afgan, libya, egypt, iran, pakistan, syria...majority of the middle east. I've traveled a fair bit overseas and other places who we're seemingly friends with (Australia, New Zealand, Thailand etc.)...have a view that we're arrogant...and a lot of them look down on what we've done in certain areas in the middle east over the last decade as well.
One of the best books i've ever read on this is Robert Papes (poly science prof) "dying to win"...he takes data on all the suicide terrorists for a number of decades...his conclusion is basically that suicide terrorism ceases to exist when the occupying force is no longer in the country..too bad americans don't hear this on their nightly news. Hezbollah, Hamas, al qaeda etc....same thing. They're pissed because we're on their lands.
What irritates me is that people tend to focus on the bad things that happen when we stick our noses in other people's business - and forget about the good things we've done. I believe the world has benefited from our benevolence, and if we took on a staunch isolationist policy (military, humanitarian aid, technology, etc). the world would be worse off.
We are arrogant. I don't dispute that. But I think a lot of the animosity comes from generations of people immigrating to the US from the "old world." We are very proud of the fact that we attract (or attracted) people to come live in the US - it is one of the foundations of our culture. When people come to live here, it is because they believe it is better than living there - and that can be a blow to a countries esteem.
I get that viewpoint, but i definitely see it the other way around. Just look at Iran for an example...or egypt, or Iraq. We support suddam back in the 80's and look what happened...we supported and propped up egypts dictator and gave them 70 billion dollars and look what happened. We overthrew Irans government in 1953 and they retaliated in 1971 by taking our hostages and they had a revolution because of it. You never hear about the blowback that happens after the fact. I think we cause much more harm than good. 3,000 people died in 911...because people were mad we were occupying their land. This has nothing to do with humanitarian reasons...look at the countries we attack....they are teaming with resources. 500,000 Iraqi citizens died because of our actions in Iraq ( http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x4PgpbQfxgo ). What would we do if 500,000 Americans were killed by a foreign country? I'd be grabbing a gun...i'll tell you that.
How is not killing people isolationism?
Again, I think you are glossing over the good that we do world wide.
Not to minimize the deaths, but 500,000 is an extremely high number for the deaths in Iraq. I've seen numbers as low as 160,000. Saddam Hussein is thought to have killed a million of his own people http://www.nytimes.com/2007/10/07/magazine/07MAKIYA-t.html?pagewanted=1&_r=1) some other numbers range as low as 500,000 to 600,000. I know this isn't just a numbers game, but I wonder if the people of Iraq regret that we "liberated" them, or would have been happier under Hussein. The article I linked is actually about that very topic, if you have time to read it.
I'm not advocating for military action. I wish we would pull our troops out of Japan and out of Germany. I agree that we get in trouble when we overstay our welcome. What I don't agree with is that we have caused more harm than good in the world.
I also don't know why someone from Australia, for example, would think badly about us because of Iraq - they had troops there until the late 2000s as well.
" What would we do if 500,000 Americans were killed by a foreign country? I'd be grabbing a gun...i'll tell you that."
Not me. I'd be peacefully protesting against war. Because that always works.
Just kidding. I'd grab a few senzu beans, and go fight some bad guys. I wouldn't have to go too far because I already live in America.
I have done a fair amount of work in Europe over the years and have become friendly with some folks there. I have one particular French gentleman that I spend a lot of time with and I used to pester him about the popular notion that the French generally dislike Americans. I asked if the problem was American arrogance, bad taste in food and fashion, or just our crude behavior. He was shy about such discussions at first but one night after a few drinks he finally gave in and told me the real reason:
He said the French dislike us because they dislike us and we don't care.
Overseas is way to general. We're not doing this in Germany and we have a massive air base there. This might talk about how some Afghans and Iraqis hate us. Don't forget that there are NATO peacekeeping forces in a lot of countries. While a lot of people MIT disagree but Iraq and Afghanistan are way better off since we came in and kicked out Saddam and terrorist cells. Now Iraq is on their own dealing with their own problems. If we hadn't gone in they would still be terrorists breeding grounds. Don't forget about how Saddam mercilessly slaughtered late numbers of his population.
"Terrorist breeding grounds". You should check out Robert Papes book "dying to win". He did a massive study on suicide terrorism partially funded by bush admin. His conclusions - that suicide terrorism only exists in countries with an occupying force. So that logic that these countries are randomly terrorist breeding grounds is nonsense...they only become breeding grounds when we get there because of an occupying force. So one could say that the more countries we are in the more terrorists will exist.
Iraqi's weren't very happy we were in there:
http://www.worldpublicopinion.org/pipa/pdf/sep06/Iraq_Sep06_rpt.pdf
In my opinion it's nonsense that these are in any way shape or form humanitarian missions...i think its incredibly naive to think that. These are strategic resource based interests...lots of times which benefit major US corporations ..all you really gotta do is look at the countries we've invaded. Look at the massive attrocities in Africa...or the Saudi regime which we support...horrible regime....or libya that we supported for the last number of decades.
Sick societies are breeding grounds for all of the ILL's that confront the world.
ILL's?
Yes - ILL's. "DEATHLY" ILL'S if you need the qualifier.
ILL...meaning illegals? Don't know what you mean by ILL's
Really? You can't see/draw a relation from ILL to Illness? Seriously?
Guess i'm not up on the cool lingo...sorry.
Cool lingo? That word - ILL - is older than the hills.
ill - definition of ill by the Free Online Dictionary, Thesaurus and ... www.thefreedictionary.com/ill Not healthy; sick: I began to feel ill last week. 2. Not normal; unsound: an ill condition of body and mind. 3. Resulting in suffering; harmful or distressing: the ill ...