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akarunway

How the world views the USA right now

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For the same reason that a 14-year-old boy is defiant and truculent. They know they don't really know everything, but they damn sure don't like being questioned about it.

Why the change? It's ugly.

Edit to add:
Actually, when you think about how people react when they're regularly under attack, whether justified or not, it's not surprising. I may think my brother's a juvenile delinquent who's on a one-way track to jail. But he's my brother, and I'll probably defend him to outsiders.

The problem comes when we begin to see that thuggish behavior as desirable "because he's strong and no one fucks with him."

Wendy W.
There is nothing more dangerous than breaking a basic safety rule and getting away with it. It removes fear of the consequences and builds false confidence. (tbrown)

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For the same reason that a 14-year-old boy is defiant and truculent. They know they don't really know everything, but they damn sure don't like being questioned about it.

Actually, it's the other way around.
We are Big Daddy, and occasionlly you have to put the smack down on the mouthy teenager, because they just don't know what they are talking about.

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We are Big Daddy, and occasionlly you have to put the smack down on the mouthy teenager

WTF makes us Big Daddy, and everyone else the "mouthy teenager?":S. We share the world, we don't own it.

Wendy W.
There is nothing more dangerous than breaking a basic safety rule and getting away with it. It removes fear of the consequences and builds false confidence. (tbrown)

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We are Big Daddy, and occasionlly you have to put the smack down on the mouthy teenager

WTF makes us Big Daddy, and everyone else the "mouthy teenager?":S. We share the world, we don't own it.

Wendy W.



The only reason I overall still have a postive attitude towards the US is that I believe that the many radical posters on speakers corner do not represent the majority of Americans. But maybe I am wrong...
---------------------------------------------------------
When people look like ants - pull. When ants look like people - pray.

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For the same reason that a 14-year-old boy is defiant and truculent. They know they don't really know everything, but they damn sure don't like being questioned about it.

Why the change? It's ugly.

Edit to add:
Actually, when you think about how people react when they're regularly under attack, whether justified or not, it's not surprising. I may think my brother's a juvenile delinquent who's on a one-way track to jail. But he's my brother, and I'll probably defend him to outsiders.

The problem comes when we begin to see that thuggish behavior as desirable "because he's strong and no one fucks with him."

Quote



Cool does he like shooting guns and sneaking up on people?...I have a job opportuntity for him where they give you free work clothes and all the ammo you want to shoot.

He can even travel in this carrer as well;)

Wendy W.

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We are Big Daddy, and occasionlly you have to put the smack down on the mouthy teenager

WTF makes us Big Daddy, and everyone else the "mouthy teenager?":S. We share the world, we don't own it.

Wendy W.



The only reason I overall still have a postive attitude towards the US is that I believe that the many radical posters on speakers corner do not represent the majority of Americans. But maybe I am wrong...



If you actually knew most of us you may have a more favorable perspective.

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If you actually knew most of us you may have a more favorable perspective.

And if we actually knew people in other countries we'd probably have a more favorable perspective on them.

Wendy W.
There is nothing more dangerous than breaking a basic safety rule and getting away with it. It removes fear of the consequences and builds false confidence. (tbrown)

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WTF makes us Big Daddy, and everyone else the "mouthy teenager?". We share the world, we don't own it.

I would say that when some country needs help, whether finacially, medically, or militarilly, we always seem to be the ones to step up to the plate. Even then, we are still despised.

That makes us big dog on the block, and we get to call the shots. It's the natural law.

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>
>Where do you want the front to be?

In the UN security council.



To many people want to many different things for the UN security council to be effective. We need to make our own foreign policy.. and we do... The UN is good for humanitarian aid but they cant handle anything else.

I dont agree with everything our gov is doing but I'll be damned if a non american is going to dictate our foreign policy.

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>That makes us big dog on the block, and we get to call the shots.
>It's the natural law.

Dogs are owned by their masters, and dangerous dogs are regularly euthanized. Bad example.

Schoolyard bully would be a more appropriate example. He gets to do whatever he wants - at least until someone bigger comes along. At which point everyone is quite happy to see him fall.

>I would say that when some country needs help, whether finacially,
>medically, or militarilly, we always seem to be the ones to step up to
>the plate.

Militarily we look out for our own interests. I'm sure Iran could have used help defending themselves from Saddam Hussein, an evil tyrant bent on acquiring more power. But instead of helping them we gave Hussein assistance.

Financially you're absolutely right. And if we just stopped killing so many people, then people would see us in a much better light, as a generous nation that does a lot to help others. But I suspect you wouldn't give a flying fuck about a $100 aid check from a country that just killed your brother.

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>The UN is totally anti American and anti semite.

Only in a black-and-white world where everyone is either with us or against us. If you see everything as either republican or democrat, then you will see the UN as against us. If you can see shades of gray, you'll see that the UN is no more anti-american than it is anti-arab or anti-chinese or anti-russian. It is an organization of countries who each want their own best interests to be considered.

Arguing on the floor of the UN is boring, and often pointless. It is still infinitely better than taking the same argument to the streets of Baghdad. Fewer dead people.

>Kofi Annan really impresses me as a charismatic world leader.

We don't need charismatic world leaders. We need boring ones. Charismatic leaders start wars.

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> as a generous nation that does a lot to help others.



Don't we have enough issues "domestically" with so many wanting the US government to be Santa Claus?

And all other nations also look out for themselves, just-like-the-US, we are the same all over. Though, some both here and outside would "like" us to be better than all other humans, it's just not true. We just have more influence now. Would you rather it was given up?

I think of us more as that guy that lives on the block and he quite a bit better off and tries to be the role model, etc, and the good guy, but is just human and it shows once in a while. And the neighbors won't forgive him for not being larger than life even though they all have the same flaws, etc.

this bully/attack dog/policeman thing doesn't help anybody except for grinding useless axes and feeling superior

...
Driving is a one dimensional activity - a monkey can do it - being proud of your driving abilities is like being proud of being able to put on pants

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One reason we may be a little disliked nowadays by the arab community:

A Marine, Josh Belile, wrote a song and performed it for a roomful of other Marines. Someone recorded it, and Belile then posted it to the web. An excerpt from the song:

I grabbed her little sister and put her in front of me
As the bullets began to fly
the blood sprayed from between her eyes
and then I laughed maniacally
I blew those little fuckers to eternity
They should have known they were fucking with the Marines.

Imagine if an Iraqi had written a song like that about killing US soldiers. Within a day he'd be "disappeared" into a secret prison somewhere.

Edited to add - to Belile's credit he has now apologized for writing that. Good for him.

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Arguing on the floor of the UN is boring, and often pointless. It is still infinitely better than taking the same argument to the streets of Baghdad. Fewer dead people

.We can look at Africa for an example of UN intervention and fewer dead people.

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>I think of us more as that guy that lives on the block and he quite
>a bit better off and tries to be the role model, etc, and the good guy,
> but is just human and it shows once in a while.

If said neighbor walked around the neighborhood and shot someone every once in a while because he might be a threat to him in the future, that would be a decent analogy.

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>If said neighbor walked around the neighborhood and shot someone every once in a while because he might be a threat to him in the future, that would be a decent analogy.



You're always in full court press here. Analogy discussions are 100% always a waste of time here.

...
Driving is a one dimensional activity - a monkey can do it - being proud of your driving abilities is like being proud of being able to put on pants

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>You're always in full court press here.

To get back to the topic here, I think one reason that the US is looked upon in an unfavorable light is that many americans really do consider a war that kills tens of thousands of innocent Iraqis to be a minor mistake - "well, we're only human." Consider what we thought of a country that simply harbored the group that killed 3000 innocent americans. Multiply that by 10; that's how many see us.

Sorry if I take things too seriously sometimes, but what's going on now is very fucking serious. A lot of people - many of them innocent, many of them americans - are dying now. It's not just a minor mistake, and it's not just a faraway abstract problem. It is very real and very immediate; extremely real to a lot of people on this forum.

Of course nothing we do or say here really matters that much. Perhaps it is all a waste of time. Perhaps there really is no one left who hasn't completely polarized one way or the other. Still, given the growing opposition to the war, there may be some hope.

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>Perhaps there really is no one left who hasn't completely polarized one way or the other.



There is, but they aren't posting here. And if they did, they aren't likely too serious about it here. No one should fault the heart of anyone on this board, those that do post seriously have their reasons for their positions.

...
Driving is a one dimensional activity - a monkey can do it - being proud of your driving abilities is like being proud of being able to put on pants

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The world said the same thing about the US during the Reagan Administration wrt the Soviets.

They were wrong then too. Liberal media bias always colors polls.

mh
"The mouse does not know life until it is in the mouth of the cat."

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