IS AMERICA A BULLY?

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Our fall will almost certain come as the result of splitting of the country. My guess: Texas, Alaska and California will start it...and the confederate states other than Texas will follow. Then the western states and the prairie states will leave the northeast.

Your fall is happening as we speak, as the result of Washington DC' recent decadence. What used to be a pragmatic, venerable democratic system has morphed under our sorry eyes in an unpredictable, unmanageable, Kafkaesque (sp?) machinery mixing political and private interests.

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But all that aside...it still is my opinion that we have acted reasonably for a world power...and certainly with more restrain than others have shown.

That used to be true but the corner's been turned a long time ago. While the great generation displayed great (and politically very effective) benevolence after WW2, the Vietnam war cannot be described as "benevolent". Nor does it strike me as a display of restrain from the US army. So your statement is outdated by a few decades.

Funnily enough, it is ALSO outdated as a political or ideological stance, or slogan. Long after the Vietnam war, the US kept PRETENDING to be benevolent, and your 'defense' of the US is very similar to that line of self-serving propaganda.

But even this is outdated: as David told you, Americans do not care anymore about what non-US 'foreigners' think. In modern-day America, only a sissy would care if other nations called the US a bully. E.g. the US public doesn't care about Gitmo anymore, or about the bad press associated with it, hence it remains 'open'. And nobody ever bothers to give the 'benevolent' line anymore. Sooo passé.

OmSigDAVID wrote:

Olivier5 wrote:

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I just think the whole comparison is sort of slanted heavily by a sea change in the importance of world opinion.

Frank Apisa wrote:

Well, I will give you this, Olivier:

This particular thread IS slanted...because I just feel
the animosity directed toward the US is way overboard...

I 'M AN AMERICAN,
born & bred in New York, and I don t mind, IN THE LEAST.

Thank you, David.

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The aliens count for nothing.

David

I do not sign on to this last part.

Long after the Vietnam war, the US kept PRETENDING to be benevolent, and your 'defense' of the US is very similar to that line of self-serving propaganda. But even this is outdated:
as David told you, Americans do not care anymore[????] about what non-US 'foreigners' think. In modern-day America, only a sissy would care if other nations called the US a bully. E.g. the US public doesn't care about Gitmo anymore, or about the bad press associated with it, hence it remains 'open'. And nobody ever bothers to give the 'benevolent' line anymore. Sooo passé.

While the great generation displayed great
(and politically very effective) benevolence after WW2,
the Vietnam war cannot be described as "benevolent".

the Vietnam war cannot be described as "benevolent".

Foofie wrote:

The modus operandi was different. Prior great powers colonized, and plundered. We make trading partners with perhaps a special deal?

How do half a million dead Iraqis fit in to your trading partner theory?

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We did not colonize Iraq and Afghanistan.

No **** Dr. Watson but you made a teensy little error amidst a slight mistake.
Capitalism plunders what it wants. These invasions were just another plundering expedition.

Foofie seems to have this overpowering desire to let everyone know he's a ******* idiot, but you think that he might try thinking things through first. Just for once.

If, as this thread pretend to do, we gona compare very different powers at very different eras faced with very different problems and having to meet very different expectations, and if we're going to pretend it's not a terminally anachronistic, apples-&-oranges comparison to do, we might as well compare the US troops behavior in Iraq or Afghanistan with the British troops behavior in, say, their American colonies. What's wrong with that, other than the apples-and-oranges issue applicable to the entire thread?

In my opinion, England, during the 17th, 18th, and 10th centuries, wielded its power with much less restraint than the US does with its.

OmSigDAVID wrote:

The aliens count for nothing.

David

I do not sign on to this last part.

izzythepush wrote:

Foofie seems to have this overpowering desire to let everyone know he's a ******* idiot, but you think that he might try thinking things through first. Just for once.

You being a foreigner and all, I find your command of the English language truly amazing.

the Vietnam war cannot be described as "benevolent".

Don't be such a hypocrite. Neither France nor the US were there for benevolent reasons

France fought to maintain its dominion, but the US went to war officially to free the poor Viets from bad bad communism. So they were the hypocrite ones.

You're sounding very presumptuous...