How the world views the USA.

If you DO want other nations to defend themselves, what's the problem? You called my "let them defend themselves" attitude isolationist. That shouldn't be a problem because you pride yourself on Swedish neutrality. Why should you have issues with a less internationally intrusive US?

I read quite well but fail to follow you point. The only possible point I have inferred is that US interventionism is good for Swedish business even if the direction of those interventions does not comport with Swedish policy. If this is indeed your point, I stand behind my assertion of childishness.

Tenshinai wrote:

PeterZ wrote:Lord, you are more self centered than most American progressives.
If you agree that nations should protect themselves like your vaunted Sweden, then you are calling both our positions childish.

That in itself seems childish. So, please do grow up.

It doesn´t become more true just because you repeat it.
If you can´t read and understand, well that´s your problem.

Interesting topic - How the world views the USA?
The world is a large diverse place. I'm sure that many people in Iran, North Korea, Pakistan, and Afghanistan view the USA as the Great Satan.
I could be wrong (ask the wife) but my impression is that the educated, free, developed world views the USA fondly as a powerful, unsophisticated, well intentioned entity that is often derided but can't be ignored. A schoolyard analogy is the big footballer guy who intervenes in disputes with the best intentions, but often exacerbates schoolyard conflicts.
Talking to friends across the globe, we worry about how strongly you embrace religion publically, your massive arsenal, your belief that you always wear the white hat, your death penalty, your armed citizenry, and your strange disregard of other nations' sovereign rights. You seem to think that wearing the white hat allows you to fly armed drones in Pakistan killing their citizens (imagine if Belgium [say] was to station armed drones in Mexico and go into the USA killing people - unhappy much), and in recent decades you have invaded more countries than all other countries combined (too many to list here).
Yet there is much to like about your country in all its simplistic brash style. Most western people have met USA citizens, and liked them personally. I was watching a documentary on your wildlife tonight (bears and such), and your countryside looks stunningly beautiful. We do value your stance against the dictatorships of the world, and appreciate the sacrifices of your armed forces in keeping those in check.

The sophistication angle is easily illustrated. Compare a Chev to a Porsche, or even a US Ford to a UK Ford and the difference is obvious. Where every car elsewhere has independent rear suspension, and people don't even remember what a pushrod engine is, it is no wonder that Detroit is in trouble. Compare McDonalds and KFC to Cordon Bleu?
Yet the USA culture of fast food and reality TV has been successfully exported to millions, so it must have value. Sure, but the Europeans and others note that the acceptance is at the lower end of their socioeconomic totem pole, which devalues their opinion of the USA overall.
Please don't become isolationistic, as we would miss you in all your jingoistic brashness.

Right now the US is at more or less a crossroads in directions of travel where world activities are concerned. One is based on the christian /militaristic and desire to impose certain views on the rest of the world and another that is rapidly gaining strength in the US is the one based on education and far less military involvement. (the latter is my person fav) Also this latter route as a natural consequence could possibly result in a smaller focus on religion as a result of the educational push. Granted the religion angle is screaming bloody murder about the more education outlook because it makes people actually loook at a situation and think at what may be the solution versus being a mindless drone that certain views require.

While I agree that President Obama has gone nuts with drone attacks, the analogy about drones in Pakistan is pure idiocy that ignores the factual context.

Those drone strikes in Afghanistan and Pakistan are a direct consequence of the 9-11 attacks. Al Quida committed the attacks. The Taliban that "ruled" Afghanistan hosted and protected Al Quida. The Taliban had been aided and abetted by the Pakistani intelligence service and were essentially Pakistan's puppet regime. It was very reasonable for the US to view the 9-11 attacks as an attack by not just Agpfghanistan but Pakistan.

If I had been POTUS I would have responded to 9-11 by launching an overwhelming strike against Pakistan's nuclear forces and military then aided India in destroying the County. While I would have attempted to arrest or kill Bin Laden, I would have been per suing a military strategy of retribution rather than nation building in Afghanistan. I would have destroyed the irrigation and transportation infrastructure that allows the country to feed itself and export opium. I would have done this with the intention of killing a large percentage of the population to ensure that Afghanistan never sponsored an attack on the US ever again.

Bush was POTUS rather than myself so he attempted to bring Afghanistan into the 20th century. Less obvious was a very successful effort to nurture a secular democracy in Pakistan as an alternative to a military dictatorship or Islamic theocracy. Civilizing Afghanistan was futile but it provided a convenient killing ground for Islamicist which enabled progress in Pakistan. The drone operations in Pakistan were very discrete.

President Obama has destroyed all of the progress that Bush made in Pakistan. While killing Bin Laden was a laudable goal, the lack of discretion and rather flagrant violation of Pakistani sovereignty was idiotic. Obama systematically destroyed the credibility of Pakistani moderates ensuring that Islamic militants would become influential. We now have an evolving Islamicist regime in control of a significant nuclear arsenal.

Obama's support for the Arab Spring essentially destroyed any hope for moderation in the Islamic world. The Egyptians have rebelled against the Muslim brotherhood, but they have become hostile to the US for promoting this theocracy in their country.

Obama's seemingly intentional effort to alienate all US allies makes the support for Obama by the self styled internationalist inteligista rather comical. He was your favored President, so enjoy the results.

Daryl wrote:Interesting topic - How the world views the USA?
The world is a large diverse place. I'm sure that many people in Iran, North Korea, Pakistan, and Afghanistan view the USA as the Great Satan.
I could be wrong (ask the wife) but my impression is that the educated, free, developed world views the USA fondly as a powerful, unsophisticated, well intentioned entity that is often derided but can't be ignored. A schoolyard analogy is the big footballer guy who intervenes in disputes with the best intentions, but often exacerbates schoolyard conflicts.
Talking to friends across the globe, we worry about how strongly you embrace religion publically, your massive arsenal, your belief that you always wear the white hat, your death penalty, your armed citizenry, and your strange disregard of other nations' sovereign rights. You seem to think that wearing the white hat allows you to fly armed drones in Pakistan killing their citizens (imagine if Belgium [say] was to station armed drones in Mexico and go into the USA killing people - unhappy much), and in recent decades you have invaded more countries than all other countries combined (too many to list here).
Yet there is much to like about your country in all its simplistic brash style. Most western people have met USA citizens, and liked them personally. I was watching a documentary on your wildlife tonight (bears and such), and your countryside looks stunningly beautiful. We do value your stance against the dictatorships of the world, and appreciate the sacrifices of your armed forces in keeping those in check.

The sophistication angle is easily illustrated. Compare a Chev to a Porsche, or even a US Ford to a UK Ford and the difference is obvious. Where every car elsewhere has independent rear suspension, and people don't even remember what a pushrod engine is, it is no wonder that Detroit is in trouble. Compare McDonalds and KFC to Cordon Bleu?
Yet the USA culture of fast food and reality TV has been successfully exported to millions, so it must have value. Sure, but the Europeans and others note that the acceptance is at the lower end of their socioeconomic totem pole, which devalues their opinion of the USA overall.
Please don't become isolationistic, as we would miss you in all your jingoistic brashness.

The profound, anti religious bigotry implicit in the premiss of your formulation is nothing short of amazing.

The US is religiously diverse and the various religious groups have very divergent political opinions.

More importantly, religious people in the US tend to have as much if not more education as people who reject religion.

This is why I favor neoisolationism. If the US withdraws from it's various alliances around the globe, we can concentrate on maintaining and restoring our political heritage of liberty that has been so eroded during the era of entangling alliances that has evolved since WW-2 without interference from outsiders who presume that theynshould impose their values on the US. With the demise of the Soviet Union and China's evolution into a State Capitalism that focuses on economic rather than military competition with the West, there is no compelling reason for the US to intervene to protect other countries. While it might be unlikely that former allies such as Western Europe, Japan, South Korea, Australia or New Zealand would be attacked or conquered, it is no longer a compelling security concern for the US if they are. We would simply request that Russia, China, Pakistan, India, Iran and the dozens of other countries who would soon develop nukes if the US were to become isolationist to restrict the number of nukes employed against our former allies to limit the fallout in US territory. Surface bursts that maximize local fallout and minimize global fallout would be preferred by the US but suck for our former allies. If the victors decide to commit genocide, it is not a concern for the US.

Of course the most plausible scenario for genocide in Europe is the growing Islamic minority imposing muslim rule from within. A lot of European countries are closer to the tipping point than they imagine because they ignore the significance of age distribution. In the event of civil strife, Europe's aging native population will be at a severe disadvantage against the much younger Islamic population. Your children will not be outnumbered but they will be crippled by your elitist ideas about cultural diversity. The recent case of a Swedish prosecutor announcing that he will not seek to deport the Muslim immigrants who killed a Swedish woman by anally sodomizing her demonstrates that you have the survival instincts of a clam. Once the ethnic European youth have been subjugated, the Muslims will exterminate the native European elderly who are such an economic burden. The US would be well advised to not intervene when the crap hits the fan in Europe. We will of course be highly selective about admitting refugees from the chaos.

viciokie wrote:Right now the US is at more or less a crossroads in directions of travel where world activities are concerned. One is based on the christian /militaristic and desire to impose certain views on the rest of the world and another that is rapidly gaining strength in the US is the one based on education and far less military involvement. (the latter is my person fav) Also this latter route as a natural consequence could possibly result in a smaller focus on religion as a result of the educational push. Granted the religion angle is screaming bloody murder about the more education outlook because it makes people actually loook at a situation and think at what may be the solution versus being a mindless drone that certain views require.

namelessfly wrote:The profound, anti religious bigotry implicit in the premiss of your formulation is nothing short of amazing.

The US is religiously diverse and the various religious groups have very divergent political opinions.

More importantly, religious people in the US tend to have as much if not more education as people who reject religion.

viciokie wrote:Right now the US is at more or less a crossroads in directions of travel where world activities are concerned. One is based on the christian /militaristic and desire to impose certain views on the rest of the world and another that is rapidly gaining strength in the US is the one based on education and far less military involvement. (the latter is my person fav) Also this latter route as a natural consequence could possibly result in a smaller focus on religion as a result of the educational push. Granted the religion angle is screaming bloody murder about the more education outlook because it makes people actually loook at a situation and think at what may be the solution versus being a mindless drone that certain views require.

The biggest reason i reject religion from having a leading role in any political arena is the religion angle in almost all cases where certain ones are concerned do their utmost to impose their religion on other people. History is my witness on this where religion is concerned. Usually when this happens more people tend to get butchered in the name of a religion than anything else and i find it revolting and disgusting. America has a very bloody history on that aspect alone never mind the other abrahamic religions that you referred to. I find it bewildering why people will choose to surrender their minds to accepting faith when they should be requiring evidence. but hey that is good for everyone who chooses that of their own free will.
If you dont think america has a blood stained history of imposing religion, look no farther than the various indian tribes and how many was butchered and forced from their lands all in the name of a supreme being and this nonsense is still going on in some places.

lest you think i am totally against relgion refer back to my statement "that if someone chooses a belief in a supreme being of their own free will with no coercion whatsoever then that is good for them. me personally i reject path because i simply require evidence of this.

Hey nameless, I would just like to point out at the moment that the rest of the world is watching the USA interfere in many non secualr countries to try and bring democracy and secularity, while at the same time, appearing to slowly head in a christian direction of the countries you say are doing it wrong.

The biggest reason i reject religion from having a leading role in any political arena is the religion angle in almost all cases where certain ones are concerned do their utmost to impose their religion on other people. History is my witness on this where religion is concerned. Usually when this happens more people tend to get butchered in the name of a religion than anything else and i find it revolting and disgusting. America has a very bloody history on that aspect alone never mind the other abrahamic religions that you referred to. I find it bewildering why people will choose to surrender their minds to accepting faith when they should be requiring evidence. but hey that is good for everyone who chooses that of their own free will.
If you dont think america has a blood stained history of imposing religion, look no farther than the various indian tribes and how many was butchered and forced from their lands all in the name of a supreme being and this nonsense is still going on in some places.

lest you think i am totally against relgion refer back to my statement "that if someone chooses a belief in a supreme being of their own free will with no coercion whatsoever then that is good for them. me personally i reject path because i simply require evidence of this.


You obviously have the United States confused with Latin America. It was the Spanish and Portuguese conquistadors who were engaged in systematic, forcible conversions of the native Americans. The Latin conquerers were also very eager to convert the survivors so they could impregnate native Americans.

Except for States forcibly annexed from the Spanish and Mexico, the pattern in the US was to allow diseases to exterminate the native Americans. The prevalence of Mitochondrial DNA of European origin confirms a minimal level of interbreeding that would motivate forced conversions. Native Americans in the US are far more likely to practice religions other than Christianity than Latin Americans.

Spacekiwi wrote:Hey nameless, I would just like to point out at the moment that the rest of the world is watching the USA interfere in many non secualr countries to try and bring democracy and secularity, while at the same time, appearing to slowly head in a christian direction of the countries you say are doing it wrong.

The differences between Christians participating in the Democratic process and allowing their faith to inform their policy decisions is so profoundly different than either a theocracy (Taliban) or a military dictatorship (Iraq) that your statement is nonsensical.

This is why I favor neoisolationism. With the US abandoning it's former "allies" (dependents), the America haters will be too busy failing to survive to criticize the US.

As one bumper sticker proclaims, "I'LL KEEP MY GUNS AND MY RELIGION. YOU CAN KEEP YOUR CHANGE". Hopefully; the election of a conservative, Christian inspired government will inspire the Obama's and all of their constituents to emigrate to other countries. We will see how well your gun control laws restrain a chronic, criminal underclass.

The biggest reason i reject religion from having a leading role in any political arena is the religion angle in almost all cases where certain ones are concerned do their utmost to impose their religion on other people. History is my witness on this where religion is concerned. Usually when this happens more people tend to get butchered in the name of a religion than anything else and i find it revolting and disgusting.

This has to be the biggest falsehood put forth by militant atheists there is. People kill people for all kinds of reasons. Yes people do kill in the name of religion but the biggest slaughters of the last century were perpetrated by atheists.

Mao - atheist
Hitler - atheist
Stalin - atheist
Pol Pot - atheist
Idi Amin - ethnic cleansing not religious

And regarding the native Americans, I actually agree with Namelessfly this time. The vast majority of forceable conversions took place in Latin America not North America. The conquest was about land not religion. i.e. you have the land, we want it, we are going to take it (not our finest moment).