The US govt. continues its campaign to alienate everyone

Everything else
41

well, I’m an american living in Europe and I’ve had no spitting, name calling or otherwise bad behavior thrown my way. Lots of people don’t really like american policy, however. The reason for that is fairly obviosly that america looks out for itself. If it works out that in looking out for itself it can fall in line with world-wide treaties or agreements, then it will make the most of it (i.e., telling everyone how important it is to work as a world community). If what works out best for america in the minds of policy makers is not in line with the rest of the world (ie, truely free trade or the kioto environmental treaty or, at present, the UN), then we’ll go ahead and do it anyway. I guess it’s our choice as the most powerful nation in the world. The question really is: if you have the power to force other countries to accept your policies to make your country more wealthy and more powerful, should you?

I know that america does a lot of good things for a lot of countries and is the driving economic power in the world, but what I’m saying is that we don’t do it to be good sameritans. I’d bet that there is ALWAYS some benefit intended for us in almost every act, treaty or loan guarantee.

I’ve noticed a lot of people on this forum starting out by saying “I’m not against the war…” and it seems to me that this is due to a fair amount of hawkish posters on qt3 tearing into people who aren’t rabbidly pro-america in every aspect. The way I feel about it is that our habit of doing whatever will benefit us the most in the moment makes us seem fairly hypocritical. I wonder what we would say to Turkey if we go in without UN approval and they ALSO wanted to invade Northern Iraq in an independant action, under their own leadership. We probably wouldn’t like them doing it and would tell them to stop, but I’m not sure how it’s different than us and Britian going in by ourselves. The only difference I can see is that WE are the strong and the strong get to make the rules.

Dunno, this just sort of came out of my head like this…it may not be fully reasoned, but I hope you guys get the meat of what I’m trying to say…does it make sense?

brian

42

A g-g-g-ghost! Aiiieeee! Run!!!

43

Hmmm. Until recently, I thought it was exactly the opposite. Dr. Crypt proclaiming the need for war against everyone else. I feel like it is a little more even. I do think once a thread swings one way, like-minded posters pile on. Dr. Crypt on one side and Jason McCullough and a slew of others on the other side. I guess it goes back and forth. Or perhaps, the people needing proof of the need for war have seen the light. :wink:

44

There was a killer documentary on French TV last night. Among the allegations:

The CIA is now in the buisness of providing intelligence which only supports administration policies, because this administration only wants to hear ‘facts’ which support their conclusions. Rumsfeld has effectively marginalized the CIA, and there are rumblings of discontent from within.

Re the ‘proof’ submitted 3 weeks ago by Powell: No one believes it, no one. If you think Sparky’s Photoshop miracles are amazing, you’d be surprised what a couple Cray supercomputers in a top secret military base can do to a satellite image.

The British “top secret, up to the minute” report on Iraq was a cut and paste job from a Cambridge University student’s 3rd year graduate school dissertation from 3 months ago, freely available on the Web. When they asked an expert how a soverign state could do such shoddy work, the expert replied, ‘they’re working fast, improvising as they go along, so mistakes are bound to happen’.

Investigative journalism in America is at it’s lowest point ever. Basically, the administration has the media in their pocket. Showdown with Saddam? They showed a clip from Fox News, we don’t get that over here, and let me tell you, it was frightening. I know Fox is the sensationalist network, but still, what’s their share of the viewing public?

Rumsfeld, Richard Perle, and a third guy, I forget who, basically have Bush in their pocket as far as the war goes. Bush is soft, malleable, and this plus 9/11 gave them the environment they need to carry out their plan (elucidated in a letter to the President in 1998, so this shit is not new). The three players were with Reagan when Russia fell, and as a result they feel they are qualified to handle this matter as well.

On a personal level, I’ve noticed no hostility towards me for being American here in France.

Game on!

DeanCo–

45

Well, France is also home to that moronic author, Thierry Meyssan, who wrote 9/11, The Big Lie in which he, evidently, details America’s military fabrication of the entire 9/11 tragedy. Most news outlets here just reported him as being a kook, the French press ridiculed him (so I have read), but that did not stop French citizens from making it a best seller for 3 weeks. (F*cking idiot.)

I am sure, however, this an isolated incident and no other French or Europeans have any misconceptions (or outright insane and offensive ideas) whatsoever about the U.S.

46

Perhaps I’ve confused my instances of plagiarism, but isn’t this actually referring to a report the Brits plagiarized which is simply a description of the 30 or so different internal security and intelligence agencies in Iraq? (see http://meria.idc.ac.il/british-govt-plagiarizes-meria.html for the official response from MERIA, the journal that was plagiarized). Hardly an “up to the minute” report on the state of affairs, it is just a report on the various agencies, what they do, who heads them up, etc.

The one thing that really annoys me about the whole US-bashing France-bashing crap is that both sides ignore or subvert the evidence. I’ve seen several programs from France recently (thank God for satellite TV!) that are flat out US-bashing without any evidence to the contrary. Similar programs are not difficult to find on US television.

Personally, I think a lot of it is crap – Bush has mischaracterized the French position, and the French have accused the US and others of all kinds of ludicrous misbehavior – and I’m getting rather tired of it all. I mean, yes, you can hate the US for pursuing its national interests, and you can hate the French for doing exactly the same thing (since that’s clearly what both are doing), but at least be HONEST about the evidence you present…

One interesting anti-France factoid: I’ve seen about a dozen commentaries on Powell’s presentation at the UN, and every single one has failed to mention the French built Mirage plane that was modified by the Iraqis for spreading biological and/or chemical weapons. WTF?!??!?

Ugh. Enough of the jingoistic crap. I’m gonna go have a cheeseburger with some bordeaux and tell both Chirac and Bush on the TV to SHUT THE FUCK UP.

Okay, time to take my meds… :shock:

47

Sure, we get lots of pundits making fun of the French, and the talking heads on the Fox News morning show like to say stupid things, but I’ve not seen any documentaries broadcast dedicated to saying what ass-bandits the French are. I think most Americans are just frustrated with their noise, the French on the other hand, or a least a large number of them, are apparently convinced we are evil. That’s why I always find it so funny when someone brings up the American anti-European sentiment. I just think, “Hey! They started it…”

48

Hi all,

asjunk: I think that’s the article. They showed a couple examples of how they plagarized as well. If the original article stated (I’m inventing here) ‘Iraq uses local groups to…’ the British report states, ‘Iraq uses terrorist groups to…’.

“I’ve seen several programs from France recently (thank God for satellite TV!) that are flat out US-bashing without any evidence to the contrary.”

What programs might those be? Do you remember? Just to compare my ‘America bashing-o-meter’ with yours.

Brad: BTW, this was not a sensationalist show, it was on France2 late at night, starting at 11:30 pm. Having said that, the producers did have a point to make. It was up to me to seperate the wheat from the chaff. If it had been on TF1, I wouldn’t have bothered posting about it, TF1 being as close as we come to Fox.

The thing is, I don’t think anyone here ‘hates’ Americans. I’d say the French attitude can be summed up with a wry shake of the head, as in, ‘Those crazy Americans! What will they do next??’

DeanCo–

49

So, the French don’t hate us they just dismiss us as selfish, warmongering morons who kept them from speaking German. I would rather them hate us.