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Zonie63 -> RE: US supporting freedom and democracy? US against terrorism? (12/22/2012 7:04:27 AM)
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ORIGINAL: ermood
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the USA just happens to be the most powerful country at the moment
Well this is discussable...
Yes the US has the strongest military, but they still can't win a war in a way they should with such army.
Perhaps, although I think that would depend on the goals and what "winning" actually means. I've heard some argue that once the political leadership decides to go to war, then they should step aside and let the military handle it until it's done. Some think the politicians are too soft and try to tie the hands of the military.
Of course, others have argued that the U.S. shouldn't even be getting into these conflicts in the first place. We used to have more of an isolationist and neutral stance on world politics, but the World Wars changed all of that. I tend to favor neutrality myself, although that doesn't really seem to be an option in American politics anymore. Nobody wants to hear it anymore.
But we can't have it both ways either. A decades long policy of global interventionism has come with a very hefty price tag.
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Yes the US has the greatest economy, but yet they are the poorest country on earth.
Not the poorest by any measure. Sure, we have poor people in the United States, but at least they still have access to the basic necessities (although the system is starting to crack). I'll concede that there are some countries in Europe which may surpass the United States in several factors measuring quality of life, but compared to the world as a whole, I would still say that the U.S. is still in the top tier - not even close to the poorest.
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Yes the US has the most influence on countries, but still most countries don't listen to them.
Oh, they're listening, but I can sense that some of them don't like what they're hearing these days. Granted, the U.S. has problems, many of which are our own creation, so our influence is clearly waning.
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Besides these things, Russia will always be the most powerfull aslong as they have the best and most nuclear bombs.
Hard to say. I remember during the Cold War, it was said that their missiles may have had a bigger yield, but our missiles were more accurate. But if there ever had been an all-out nuclear war, it wouldn't really matter, since both sides would have been mostly wiped out. Being the most powerful doesn't mean much when the second-most powerful can still wipe you out (or even the the third-, fourth-, or fifth-most powerful).
Personally, I think the Cold War was a huge waste, and the US and Russia both lost, while other countries have emerged far more powerful and dangerous than they ever would have been if not for the Cold War and our active interference around the world. Of course, other countries and governments were complicit in all of this, so no one is truly innocent in this whole sordid affair we call "geopolitics."
In response to your original question, I think the U.S. government actually does support "freedom" and "democracy," at least in the abstract and theoretical sense. In practice, though, it seems that we support the lesser of two evils, both in terms of domestic politics and geopolitics. Of course, that still begs the question whether right-wing dictatorships are "less evil" than left-wing dictatorships. There might also be economic comparisons between pro-Western countries and pro-Soviet countries, such as Western Europe clearly having a higher standard of living than Eastern Europe. The difference between East Germany and West Germany was like night and day. It's still the same with North and South Korea.
I agree that we should have done better. I think that we made some serious blunders and errors in judgment. Some apologists might call it "the wrong execution of the right idea," but it's hard to say if there was anything deeper or more insidious to it. I've heard conspiracy theorists come up with all kinds of plots and designs, implying some evil menacing cabal plotting to take over the world.
The way I see it, at least when looking at the conduct of the U.S. government in the world, I'm not sure if there's anything truly that insidious about it. I would think it's probably something more comparable to the character of Sir Lancelot tearing through Swamp Castle in "Monty Python and the Holy Grail." He runs in, not really knowing what the situation is or what's going on, slaughters a bunch of people, and then says "Sorry, sorry everyone, didn't mean to." His heart may have been in the right place, and he may have thought of himself as brave and heroic - but somewhat deluded and out of touch with reality.
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