Lately it seems on this board that it’s not legitimate to put America and atrocity together in a sentence. As though we have been squeaky clean and innocent throughout our span as a nation. One post I saw talked about the fact that it’s unfair that we get blamed for the world’s ills but no one talks about the good things that we’ve done.
So I’d like to start a thread to put that into perspective. What are some American atrocities vs American benefits that we have provided to the world.
Also for those of you living outside of the US, give examples of America being viewed in a positive light, so we can shed some light on the subject and show that America doesn’t get mentioned ONLY for it’s atrocities. At least here, I see MUCH MUCH more mention of the greatness of America than I do of the atrocities we’ve performed.
Benefit: Introducing democracy & spreading it around the world
Now, this is only one, and I could post more, but since I’m Canadian, saying something good about America makes my stomach sick. I gotta go play some hockey.
– Contributing 60% of the world’s food aid.
– Freeing Afghanistan from the evil Taliban rulers.
– Taking the lead in ending the war in Kosovo.
– Contributions in technology and the arts too numerous to list.
– Declining to create an empire, although the US has the military power to do so.
– Helping to end apartheit in South Africa
– Took the lead in bringing freedom to the former Soviet Union and the countries it ruled.
Heh, I should have known that this would end up with people either praising America or trashing it, but I wouldn’t get an example of one of each from anyone.
milroyj: get your head out of your ass, recognizing that my country is not completely clean of sin, doesn’t mean I don’t like America. Try broadening your worldview sometime.
december: Umm, not creating an empire? Look around you buddy, we have the largest empire ever created. We have military bases in every part of the world. What other country has military bases in every region of the world? So how pray tell do you claim that America doesn’t have an empire? We dictate policy to the world, how is that not imperial?
I do agree that the US is now an empire, at least in control if not in actual occupation. We have troops and military bases in several dozen countries around the world.
Last I heard we were still fighting in the hills in Afghanistan, and that Hamid Karzai’s orders are being directly defied outside of Kabul, and that the Opium trade resumed in force, and there are different warlords controlling different regions. Yeah, we freed em alright.
This is too vague.
I certainly can agree with this one.
I already addressed this one as I feel it’s a false statement.
This is certainly a good thing. I unfortunately don’t know enough about it.
I have issue with this one too, I think that the perpetuation of hte cold war, was an atrocity from either end, and I think that Truman holds much of the onus in the cold war.
United Fruit Company
School of the Americas
Guatemala and the overthrow of Arbenz
Supporting the Somoza dynasty in Nicaragua and later the Contras
Pinochet in Chile
Support of the military thugs in El Salvador
Overthrow of the democratically elected Prime Minister in Iran in the fifties (his name escapes me at the moment)
Vietnam War
Benefits:
Camp David Accords
Clinton’s work for peace in Ireland
(All the good ones have been taken, dammit!
League of Nations and Wilson’s Fourteen Points (too bad Congress disagreed)
Overthrow of the Taliban
I would conditionaly argue that the installation of Pinochet and the Shah, and some of the other distastefull actions America has taken in the past (and will probably undertake in the future) represent the lesser of two evils.
The overthrow of Mohammad Mossadegh was neccesary to prevent Iran from falling into the Soviet camp (as Mossadegh was seen as extremely sympathetic to the Soviets at the time.).
Swapping Allende for Pinochet was mearly swapping one dictator for another.
Allende seized and ‘nationalized’ foreign assets (noteably, copper mines), seized private property in some zany redistribution of wealth scheme (causing food production to drop), and the Unidad Popular, his party, was no collection of saints, with many political opponents turning up dead.
If your choice is between two dictators, why not pick the one that is friendly to you?
No one man was responsible for 50%, however Truman was vitriolically anti-communist from back when he was a senator, and I think he was more interested in being an ideologue on the issue than being pragmatic about it.
I think during the cold war, the USSR was constantly trying to reach parity with us, and that by that token they didn’t have too much option to push the envelope. Kruschev was a fairly reasonable guy, and eventually he put missiles in Cuba, just to reach parity with the American missiles in Turkey.
While I don’t know NEARLY enough about the cold war to really argue this effectively, my opinion based upon the limited knowledge that I do have, shows Truman as an idealogue who saw the communist/capitalist fight as one of good versus evil, that not only did we not want to be communists, but we didn’t want them to be communists either, and I think that’s not exactly an ideal quality in the leadership of the superpower. Again, as I have said before, I think the onus is on the leadership of the greater nation to initiate forbearance.
Uhhh…no, it is not a valid point at all. Rather, it is an example of shameless historical revisionism in the service of American interests.
Allende was democratically elected by the people of Chile, remember? They were well aware of his policies when they chose to put him into office. It’s ridiculous, and highly inaccurate, to call him a dictator.
Pinochet, on the other hand, was/is a fanatically right-wing proto-fascist of the worst sort; US decision-makers helped him overthrow a democratically-elected government, because they were afraid that Allende, if successful, might encourage other South American states to follow his example and implement socialist-style economic reforms. Pinochet was not elected; he violently overthrew the elected government, rounded up all his political opponents, and executed them in the local soccer stadium. The choice was never between “two dictators;” it was between an elected president, who was pursuing policies contrary to the will of US decision-makers, and a rabid, right-wing dog who did what the US wanted. We chose the latter, an object lesson (to anyone with eyes in his head) in the real priorities that inform US foreign policy.
Anyway, what right, besides might, grants the US government the freedom to interfere in the domestic policies of another sovereign state?
It is an empire when you have military bases in other countries despite their wishes (like Cuba). However for the most part, our bases exist with the complete blessing of the host country. One example you should think about is the Phillipines. They decided they didn’t want us there anymore, and we left. Also, our bases are not used to garrison the population, they are there for purely strategic needs. In no way are they policing the locals or anything.
I think other people have drawn attention to this but i still feel i should comment. US + UK + USSR (+ numerous other forces) stopped Hitler and Mussolini. Stalin was never “stopped”. The fall of the Berlin Wall is representitive of events that occurred at the end of the eighties when the eastern bloc unravelled, to attribute this to America is a bit too simplistic IMHO.
