they hate usmeddling, bombing, invading, droning, telling them how to run their countries --- they think everyone forgets.
On Mar 12, 10:12 am, MJ <[email protected]> wrote: > The View from AbroadThe World is not Billy Bob's Rib PitFred Reed > March 10, 2013TSAI bet this won't surprise you. > The United States is the most hated country in the world, followed closely by > Israel, and then by nobody. Wny? Why not Ecuador? China? Russia? East Timor? > The hostility puzzles many Americans, who genuinely believe their country to > be a force for good, a pillar of democracy, a defender of human rights. > To the rest of the world, none of this is even close. > If you have lived abroad, as so very few Americans have, the explanation for > the hatred is obvious: Meddling. Relentless, prideful, uncomprehending > meddling, frequently military, often with horrendous death tolls. Americans, > adroitly managed by a controlled press, historically illiterate, incurious, > decreasingly educated, either have never heard of the American behavior that > angers others, or believe it to have been inspired by virtuous motives. > Nobody else thinks so. Add to unfamiliarity with the wider world the > constantly inculcated assertion that America is the greatest, most wonderful > nation ever to exist, a light to the world, a shining city on a hill, and you > get a dangerously delusional state. Especially now. In the past, American > economic and military supremacy were such that the US didn’t have to care > what others thought. The times, they are a-changing. > It might be wise to compare briefly the view through American and foreign > eyes. Consider Iraq. To most of the world, the war on Iraq was brutal, > unprovoked, and murderous. More than a few, looking at the ruins of Fallujah, > thought of Guernica -- of which few in the States have ever heard. > Many Americans do not belive that we destroyed Iraq for oil, empire, and the > Israel lobby, as was in fact the case. No. We wanted to topple an evil > dictator and dispense the precious gift of democracy. It was a question of > goodness. Many apparently still believe that Iraq had something to do with > the attacks on New York. Again, controlled press, poor schooling, little > curiosity. > Similarly, Americans tend to see the war on Afghanistan as having to do with > ending Terror or sprouting democracy -- not as the Great Game (“Hanh?”) > redux, or the quest for the TAPI pipeline (“Say whuh?”) or Caspian > hydrocarbons. (“Caspian? You mean the Friendly Ghost?”) To most of the world, > Afghanistan is just another sorry spectacle of American fighter-bombers > killing peasants, of gutted children and drone attacks on half-identified > targets. This, the merciless use of overwhelming firepower against lightly > armedcampesinos, is what the world sees, over and over. Vietnam, Cambodia, > Laos, Yemen, Somalia, Pakistan. It isn’t pretty. > I live in Mexico. In countless towns, probably in every city of any size, you > see streets namedNiños Heroes, Heroic Children. In Guadalajara there is a > traffic circle with an imposing monument to them. These things commemorate > the children who tried to fight the American soldiers invading Mexico City. > In that (purely acquisitive) war Mexico lost half its territory. Yet how many > gringos know that it ever happened, or when, or for that matter have ever > heard of the bombardment of Veracruz or Pershing’s incursion? > Americans who have some grasp of history sometimes say of the > Mexican-American War that Mexicans should “get over it.” Some might tell the > Jews to get over the Holocaust, or Americans to get over 9/11. It is much > easier to tell people to get over what you have done to them than to get over > things they have done to you. > Then there is the War on Drugs. Americans believe this to be a campaign > against Evil -- best conducted, of course, in other people’s countries. > There are other views. Thoughtful Mexicans (all I know, but I haven’t taken a > poll) do not see why drugs are Mexico’s problem. If gringos don’t want drugs, > why do they buy them? Why don’t they solve their own problems? It is no > secret internationally that American students in high school and universities > use drugs. Why don’t the Americans put their college kids in jail? And, they > say, probably correctly, that Washington, by sponsoring the elimination of > big drug lords, caused the current fighting among littler lords to control > the trade, thus creating carnage. Predictably, the flow of drugs northward > was not affected. > Truculent patriots at Billy Bob’s Rib Pit know none of this. The combination > of clueless ignorance and a sort of Walmart-parking-lot arrogance make > mysterious to them much behavior of other countries. Consider their view of > Iran, an evil Arab country, somewhere, that wants the Bomb so it can blow up > Israel and New York. No explanation occurs to them for Iran’s hostility to > the US, which wants regime change so Iranians can be democratic and have > freedoms. Ask Billy Bobbers whether they have even heard of, much less been > in, major Iranian cities like Tehran, Sulawesi, Sidon, or Tbilisi. No. Yet > they are sure the inhabitants are dangerous and un-American. > Iranians may perhaps see things differently. They know that in 1953 the > democratically electeed prime minister Mohammed Mossadeg (“Mossy what?” they > ask in the Rib Pit.) was overthrown by the CIA leaving the Shah (“Is that, > like, a person?”), a routinely ghastly dictator, in control. This had much to > do with the occupation of the US embassy in 1979, which was sold in the US as > evidence of the badness of Iranians. > Later, in 1988, the US Navy, in the form of the USS Vincennes, shot down an > Iranian airliner and killed everyone aboard. Americans shrugged it off: Such > things were doubtless necessary to stop terrorism. But imagine the outrage if > the Iranian navy shot down a US airliner. > Nobody beyond the borders buys our song about spreading freedom and human > rights. America has supported countless sordid dictators rulling by army and > torture chamber (the Saudis being a current example). We have put many > dictators on their thrones, such as Pniochet (“That little wooden guy, his > nose got long when he told a lie, right?”) in Chile. (“Isn’t that Texmex soup > with beans in it?”) Others notice that the only country that openly and > proudly tortures prisoners is…us. > Always, the underlying problem is meddling. Bin Laden’s guys didn’t attack > New York because it was a slow morning and they couldn’t think of anything > else to do. They were furious at US meddling in Moslem lands. You may think, > and I may think, that Islam is a primitive faith not well adapted to the > modern world. Fine. I may think that hornets do not have an ideal social > organization. But I know better than to poke their nest. > This is why they hate usmeddling, bombing, invading, droning, telling them > how to run their countries. No, George, it is not because of our > freedoms.http://www.fredoneverything.net/Abroad.shtml -- -- Thanks for being part of "PoliticalForum" at Google Groups. For options & help see http://groups.google.com/group/PoliticalForum * Visit our other community at http://www.PoliticalForum.com/ * It's active and moderated. Register and vote in our polls. * Read the latest breaking news, and more. --- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "PoliticalForum" group. 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