@Frank Apisa,
In a way,I agree with you Frank.
America, eventually, made a massive contribution towards world freedom when they entered WW2, with all its equipment, industrial power and fighting forces sent around the world.
The world would look a whole lot different today if the USA had kept out of the fight.
Hitler's goose was cooked at Pearl Harbour, as that committed him to supporting Japan, his ally. He immediately declared war on the USA.
In turn, that limited Stalin's ambitions, as he now had to share European territory with an equally powerful 'ally', as opposed to a little Island, whose inhabitants were down to their last round of metaphorical ammunition.
Stalin couldn't give a toss about Britain, but HAD to take the USA seriously.
When people slag off America, they should first remember that without them, we in most of Europe would not have had the freedom we enjoy today. The European war would probaly have gone on for many years after Hitler was fried, but with Uncle Joe as the new baddy.
In the southern hemisphere, the British Empire came to a rude and sudden end when the facade of our so called superiority was shattered by the ease with which the Japanese army swept them aside. The Gin and Tonic Polo playing Officers could not believe the impertinence of these inferior orientals trying it on with the British army.
Most of our posh idiots at the time, both at home and abroad in the 'empire' still lived in the 1800's. They soon shat themselves when faced with humiliating defeat.
The great British Empire crumbled virtually overnight, and was the last groans of the 'old' world order.
So, in much of what you say you are correct, Frank. The USA pretty much packed up and went home at the end of the war, apart from the defences installed in each 'western' country, because of the new cold war.
They certainly didn't do a Russia and rule the gained territories with an iron fist, or make them unwiloing sattelite states for a new, bigger regime.
The USA basically ran Japan for a good while after the war, with MacArthur as their virtual king, but even there they proved to be quite magnanimous, helping them get back on their feet and guiding them towards modern democracy as opposed to the pre war bushido culture they had in place.
In my mind, up until about the awful Bush era, America was widely seen as the main 'benevolent' power in the world, despite all the cold war shenanigans going on behind the scenes between them and the 'commies'.
Ordinary people had no idea of what chess games were being played, and the Iron Curtain was an obvious enough threat to keep all us westerners in line and happy with America's actions, certainly for a good few years after the war.
Things started getting fuzzy when Vietnam came along. For a start, instant worldwide communication was now the norm, so people could get a good daily dose of horror on their front pages and through their TV's.
Who can't conjure up the image of that poor naked child running towards the camera? You know the one.
Another factor that complicated things was that the generation gap had arrived, along with Elvis, Little Richard, The Stones, Beatles and Bob Dylan.
The young were now different from their parents. They were no longer conformists. They had a voice and were organising themselves.
Whatever America got up to from then on, its young would immediately make their presence felt if it was deemed unacceptable.
Britain and its Empire builders never had that natural handbrake. Nor did any other Empire from the old, do as you're told and don't argue, world.
America got out of Vietnam and was humiliated in the process. That would never have happened if the likes of Dylan and co hadn't evolved. Those despised long haired pot smoking hippies who burnt their draft cards, were about as effective a red stop light to America's foreign intervention as you could get.
If your young refuse to fight, how the hell do you even think about foreign campaigns?
Do you think that for one minute, the young from any other 'old' empire would have been allowed a say, even if they dared speak up in the first place?
If you want to praise anyone for restraint in your dealings with the world, then surely you should be thanking people like Dylan, Lennon and all those who got high and sang protest songs at Woodstock.
Going back to my original post on this thread....you haven't changed my mind.
I repeat. If the USA had the wherewithall and the technonlogy to build their own empire at the time of the British Raj etc., then you would no doubt have been as successful, ruthless and profitable as the British were.
You proved it time and time again within your own boundaries, what with the Indian clearances, the slaughtering of the buffalo, the slave plantations. It seemed to be the done thing in the 'old' order, and you certainly did plenty of it. The only difference being that you did not have the word 'empire' tacked onto the end.
Because it was technically your own country where all the comparable 'empire style' exploitation happened, it doesn't make it any more palatable.
The USA gained a lot of street cred around the time of Woodstock and the Vietnam withdrawal, and you seemed to be going along the nice guy superpower route agsin until the moron Bush was puppeteered into invading Iraq, taking the poor relation moron Blair with him.
Who knows what will happen next in the world. The baddy has changed yet again, and we now face religious fanatics whilst all the while China is quietly coasting along in the background, buying up the world's bonds and getting to a position where they can hold even the mighty over a barrel.
But to say that the upper echelons of the USA are nice guys who show humane and considered restraint because they choose to do so is just plain wrong, imo.
For a start, we know only about 1% of what really goes on behind the doors of power. Take the revelations from the idiot Snowden and that albino who's currently shut up in that Tinpot Embassy in London.
What they revealed is bad enough, and you can guarantee that it is just the tip of an enormous iceberg.
We're all just as bad as one another in the end. You **** on them there, they **** on you somewhere else. The only difference is that at this precise time, nobody around the world has the stomach or the concensus to sort out fanatical Islam once and for all, and even if they did they would no doubt go about it the wrong way.
So America blows up wedding parties and funerals with their drones, Russia stokes up Ukraine and the police take to the streets, Argentina get flatulent about the Falklands and we beat our chests and go find a sabre to rattle, China gets another African oil deal sorted out and moves in its engineers. Same ol' same ol'......all building or holding on to empires past, present and future.
So, in conclusion.....if anyone thinks that Frank is right and America does show more restraint than any other countries ever did in the past, then thank four boys from Liverpool who taught the world how to be psychadelic and sing about peace.
