For me US feels very disoriented and without real aims, only to support whatever business interests leads it in current terms. That frightens me more and more, because US simply don’t answer about things it have done – and then, suddenly it appears that it causes big problems for it itself.

(Good example is politic thriller classic movie “Syriana” which message were downplayed very childishly by US media a la style “la la, I don’t hear you, I don’t hear you”)

However I agree in overall tone of your post – nothing is black and white in world of politics. I only wish that US and other “big bears” of world would act more responsible that it does now. However, it goes more and more down into tubes. And there lays danger – we live on one plant, don’t we?

Would it be better if each country had no outside influences in its own government? What about when a small number of people in that country have total rule over the vast majority there?

Isolationism has been impossible for 60 years now, and it’s laughable for anyone that has the right and ability to speak up to say to say that anything other than democracy should be spread.

Of course I disagree that democracy can be properly exported “at the point of a gun.” And of course the US foreign policy is imperfect, but the generally high level of anti-Americanism floating around is outrageous.

there are MORE than _2_ country in the world ! PLEASE PEOPLE PLEASE

U.S or Arabians are NOT the world ! NO

anti-americanism is the reaction to the power of the U.S. When the U.S will loose its weight in middle east and UN, people will forget to be “anti-american”

south countries need more balance. they need to know future is _open_ for them
without that, they will take by force
they will take whatever they want by force

it could be Europe (do not think Europe is only little nice countries with nice rich people), Arabs league, Africans, South-american, Asians, but they will take what they want.

Isolationism is BAD
war on terrorism is BAD
middle-east control is BAD

balance, balance, US , Europe, UK, China, need balance.

the us foreign policy is not simply “imperfect” but DANGEROUS

only you have the nerves to think instability in Israel, Iraq or whatever middle-east have impact only for you.

the “anti-Americanism” is not simply “outrageous”, it is a violent reaction to a world without opportunity. it’s a fantasy. a fantasy some people use or some simply want to dismiss.

You use Reason, when people reacts with irrationality.
Try to understand. try to forget you are an american or whatever rich-well-feed-instructed-internet-user person.

I’m guessing you didn’t see what I said about “some of the gov’ts that oppose the US most vehemently”. I wasn’t trying to set up a false dichotomy, merely saying that there are others out there proposing arguably much worse political exports.

> the us foreign policy is not simply “imperfect” but DANGEROUS

I would point out here that the world is dangerous.

re: control of oil in the middle east: I agree that our policies and actions are problematic. Are they the root of the problems? I don’t know. The area’s been raging with wars for centuries (as has Europe). And now oil wealth has added more powder to keg. I’m not smart enough to know what to do about the situation, but I know it’s very tricky…

re: being rich and well fed:

I’m very grateful for that. I’m nervous that cheap food and energy will come to an end, but hopeful that with enough thought and work, we can find better ways of harnessing renewable sources of energy and bring those benefits to those that want them around the world (this is the Oil Crash vs. Singularity question).

Great… So you are doing the same thing… You think your solution is better so it has to be applied.

No, I just think that the Enlightenment thinkers got it about right, or at least put us on the right path. Do you seriously believe totalitarian regimes are better than democratic governments? I’m interested to hear an argument aside from “look at all the bad things the US did/does.”

You’ve got your realities turned around. It’s hilarious to only mention the US in this context though. Please replace the US with Europe/US a.k.a ‘The West’.

But yes. Of the ten dictators in the middle-east, ten were funded by western countries. Of the secret police in all those states, all were trained by western countries. About half the the country-borders, splitting nationalities into different countries as well as uniting different etnic groups with different cultures and different languages into one country, are drawn in western countries, by western goverments.

The majority of all weapons of mass destruction including instructions how to use them, were supplied by western countries. Saddam? We put him there. Bin Laden? We trained him. The dictators in Saudi-Arabie, Egypt, Tunesia? We financed them. Trained their minority army. Armed them.

And in the countries were we didn’t put our friendly dictator (i.e. friendly to us) the russians did, in which case we funded the terrorist of that country.

If you have any illisions about the possibility that ethics have ever played a role in foreign policy you need to open up more history books and watch less nationalistic propaghandi on your TV.

It has always been about control, power, oil and infrastructure. The west does not want democracy in any of those countries. We’re currently very up set with the only real democracy in the middle east (iran). That became a democacry by revolting against the dictatur the US put there.

So when the US ‘frees’ Iraq, most arabs assume it is because they couldn’t control their puppet no more and wanted a new puppet there.

I’m not even going to bring up Isreal and how we help them steal more and more land. Just picture this: what if the holy land of the jews were the US. And they would have gotton a large piece of say New York. Then some Americans might have a problem with that. They will resist with force. They would have been called terrorists. For the security of the jews in New York, Europe would arm them more and more so they be safe against these ‘terrorists’. However, htey can only be safe if they control more. So they occupy Washignton as well. Now imagine some day the US get offered a peace deal, they can keep LA, Texas and some other states.

Al Quada are not nutty crazy dangerous terrorists. They are oppossing the dictators that control their people. What they want is for the US and Europe to _stop_ supplying weapons of mass destruction to the dictators that are suppressing them. That we stop training their secret police. That we stop funding them. That we stop stealing their oil.

They want democracy. They want freedom. We’re the ones that are not giving it them. That’s why they are attacking us.

And honestly, I don’t know why Bush went to Iraq, but it might even have been for the right reasons. (although they have definately lied about those reasons to the public, but that’s another story)

However, they still don’t trust it. They problely never will. The best thing for this world is exactly what you find hilarious.

BUT OUT. Get the English, the dutch (my country), the german, the US, get them out of the Arabic world. Stop training the secret police. Stop supplying weapons to dictators.

The middle-east is a mess. And we are for a large part responsible for that. So now they ask us, to f_ck off. Please have the respect to do just that. Anything else (esspecially the idea the worlds ‘needs’ the US or any other country) is just plain arrogance.

It is _that_ simple.

Dont put all the West in the same bag. The Europeans have never heard of the level of idealism that you can find in the USA. The US never had anything to do with colonialism.

> But yes. Of the ten dictators in the middle-east, ten were funded by western countries.

Yes, but it was against a different ennemy: Totalitarian communism. And its spread had to be stopped at all cost. Rememeber Mao and Stalin killed tens of millions of their own citizens. And our fight on communism ended up being a complete success (even China isnt communist/socialist anymore).