Yeeeeeeeeeeup. That's all we are...all we've ever been, and all we'll ever be, right, Doug? Yeeeeeeew betcha...well, aside from the times we've rebuilt countries that have waged war on us, 'have launched/provided massive relief operations 'round the world after natural disasters, 'provided BAZILLIONS of dollars in foreign aid annually all over the world, and...
I agree, Larry, the U.S.A. does have the capacity to do good things and history has recorded many instances of exactly the sort of things you mentioned. In fact, there are times when I think the U.S. is TOO good for our own good...we send tons of $$ to countries who seem to be our enemies, ostensibly is an effort to buy their allegiances. I'm not sure I think we're doing the right thing there...they probably use the $$ we send them to finance our enemies, but at least we have a good heart.
Really? Seriously? That's THEE reason we've been "engaged" over there? There have been no other factors involved? Ever? At any time?
Yeah...gotta say we are capable of equal degrees of evil as we are good, sort of like yin/yang...for every action there is an equal and opposite reaction...that sort of thing. Many in our country might view that as using our resources with good intentions, but
IMHO the end results don't always seem to justify the means. Take Afghanistan, for example...we lost how many lives there and what did we gain? Has the world beaten a path to our door to thank us for ridding the world of OBL??? I know we've patted ourselves on the back for that one quite a few times, but are we really perceived that way by the rest of the world? I doubt it...rather, I think that the world in general thinks we stirred the pot because we had a bigger stirring stick and thought we could use the power to make the insurgents in Afghanistan change their tactics and behaviors. Didn't work...but we sure spent a lot of $$ that could have done a lot of good had we kept the $$ here in the US, and also wasted a lot of lives over there, and I'm not talking about only those who died, there is a huge contingent of returning war veterans who have varying degrees of Post Traumatic Stress Disorder because of the things they experienced in a war we had no business getting into.
"The world"? The whole "world"? You mean places like China? Iran? N. Korea? Russia? Syria? We have to behave in ways satisfactory to them so we don't appear "evil" to them?
I don't mean the unfortunate countries against whom we wage war without having used the legislative process to actually declare war...but take a look at what we have (not) learned from the Vietnam conflict. Are we viewed in a positive light by others? Probably not. Most assuredly not by some. We got Saddam Hussein in Iraq...so what, did it make any difference? They are about to be over-run by ISIS right now. If you think we should expect the countries you mentioned, against whom we have committed acts with tragic consequences, to think of us as anything other than EVIL, then you really do live in a different reality than most of us.
You have to be kidding. There will ALWAYS be people who see us as "evil" no matter what we do - or DON'T do - no matter what reality may actually be. Take yourself for instance...
You're right about the first part...there WILL always be people who view us as EVIL and there probably cannot be anything done about that. But think about those other countries who had no stake in the acts of aggression into which we have entered...how do you think they view us, and particularly now they know that we tortured those detainees at Gitmo WITH the blessing of our POTUS (isn't that what this thread is about???), I doubt they would have a positive view of us because we HAVE stuck our noses into things where we had no business, other than to flex our muscles and hope the world would think of our actions as good. As for the last part, I don't view us as all EVIL, as you implied, but I do recognize that we have our good side and out bad side, as does any individual or country or organization, and to deny that would be like sticking our heads into the sand. We HAVE committed evil acts (and the endorsement by our president of the use of torture was a HUGE act of evil), there can be no rational disagreement with that.
In the end, perhaps history will remember the "reign" of the US well, but in all truth history doesn't really remember any country's (or other entity, such as religions) actions as good, it only remembers the EVIL actions. Individuals, yes...that's what the Nobel prizes are all about, doing good things. This year it was the people who selfishly went to west Africa to fight ebola, many of whom (and not all of whom were Americans) lost their lives for their efforts. We honor war heros, but do we honor war, itself? Not!! We may believe we accomplished good by going to war (the defeat of the Nazis is one good example), but I can tell you with absolute certainty that my father, who was a highly decorated WWII fighter pilot, did not view war in a positive light.
We should use our money for good....not EVIL...but that's a less on we have yet to learn (and we're not alone in that boat).
Doug
