I was reading this article on MSNBC tonight and it explains how Saudi Arabia is turning into an enemy of the US. You can get the details of it here http://www.msnbc.com/news/790452.asp?pne=msn
What exactly are we trying to accomplish over there? We want war with Iraq. We want war with the Taliban/Afghanistan. We don’t like the Saudis anymore. We don’t like the Palestinians or is it the Isralies?
What is next? Are we going to try to take over the entire middle east and turn it into an American Oil Field? What are our final goals? Are there final goals laid out? Or do we just stick our hands in every pot over there in hopes that some country will “see the light of democracy”? Someday every little country is going to have a nuke or two. How far are we going to go with our crusade?
Pretty soon all of our “allies” in Europe are going to pull back and say “Whoa buddy, you’re on your own. We don’t want anything to do with the time bomb that is the middle east”. Its like we are poking at the hornets nest waiting to get stung.
I don’t know. I would’ve posted this in GD but I am not good enough at make clear points and I would have gotten buried but I just wanted to vent my frustrations and ask a few questions that maybe someone out there can answer.
Um… so Saudi Arabia has no choice in the matter over whether they want to be our enemy or not? The United States influence is so powerful that if we tell a country “You are now our enemy”, they will comply?
It is well known in the military that Saudi Arabia doesn’t want us there. Take my word for it. Really.
That being said, I think we should just leave, so that when Iraq attacks, the Saudis can beg for us back, we can reemrge on the side of righteousness with those bozos, and we can kick Saddam’s ass, all in one fell swoop. That’s what I think should happen, anyway.
Or maybe we should just make enemies of everyone, get someone to lob some chem/bio weapons at us, and then we can respond with nukes and turn the whole Middle East into a parking lot. That would solve more than a few problems, too.
Can you tell that I’m sick to death of the stuff going on over there? We help much more than we harm, I think, and we get pissed on for it.
The Defense Policy Board doesn’t reflect official US Govt policy, which would have us believe the 60 yr old relationship between the US and Saudi just gets better and better. The problem is, Saudi Arabia (or name your favorite Arab country) has a despotic regime that panders to anti-Western elements to keep its large population of angry young men distracted.
Airman Doors’ “one fell swoop” plan looks great. Alternatively, kick Saddam H out and install a pro-US regime in Iraq, and bingo - the US won’t need a drop of Saudi oil again.
I agree. We should pull EVERYTHING back. Everything we have in every other country on the planet. All outgoing money, aid, manpower, anything that ever saw a government penny go into it should be cancelled and brought home. Following that, we should issue this notice: “You want us, you ask us.”
Ten bucks says everyone who criticizes America’s “Imperialism” would then criticise America’s “Isolationism”… and then ask for money.
As someone who already criticizes Bush isolationist tendencies and hails the good that America has done on the side of universalism I am bound to agree with Airman Doors and SPOOFE. Pull back or nuke ‘em that should wake the world up. Maybe more people will see it my way after that. As the Swedish idiom goes; “You don’t miss the cow until the stall is empty.”
Anyway…
It is sad to see yet another singularly unambiguous evidence of the lacking capacity to stay within the boundaries of sanity from a certain other poster than the ones I just agreed with. Hemlock, will you maybe at some point acquire just a modicum of sensitivity towards irony and sarcasm?
But since you brought the illusion of serious arguments into this…
The US does not need Saudi oil the way you imply. The actual commodity can be purchased in sufficient amounts from a wide variety of sources outside Saudi Arabia. The US, and the rest of the world needs Saudi oil to continue flowing and be freely purchased as to keep the barrel price at reasonable levels. Should your ‘plan’ be executed the prices would skyrocket and recession would follow in the Western World. Good idea? Hardly.
Kicking Saddam out would not eliminate the need for Saudi oil for this dynamic to work for a number of reasons, but lets not go there. It would however open up the flow of oil from Iraq and could hence have a positive effect on the supply and demand price effect, but that’s not certain.
BTW The reason for US presence in the Middle East is not solely based on oil. It is also a question of stabilizing the region and thus protecting the free world from infectious conflict. I’d agree that it isn’t being received with quite the gratitude that one would expect.
Last, but not least note that I am serious when I say that I think that the critics of America that generalize by calling it imperialist and oppressive should be ashamed of themselves in light of the enormous effort the US has made on the side of freedom, peace, and stability in the world during the last 100 years.
The US acts in its own self-interests, just as any nation does (and, if a democracy, in the national interest, the interest of the elected leader and/or his party – the order will vary). Altruism, IMHO, comes a very distant second.
The question then becomes: How far are you prepared to go (for example, in impinging on the rights of others) in exerting your self-interest ?
The US, being the first empire of the capitalist era, is aggressive (the nature of capitalism) in asserting as much influence as it can in order to secure markets, raw materials, etc. The phrase ‘Sphere of influence’ comes to mind.
If you want out of Saudi, I’d suggest speaking with the indebted-to-their-financiers politicians who hold a different POV.
Indeed Sparc. How quickly people forget the inarguable goodness implicit in the “Marshall Plan”.
Look, in my experience, it’s always easy to take cheap shots at the “big guy on the block” - all I ask is this… does anyone anywhere genuinely believe the U.S. is remotely close to being something similar to the genuinely imperialist demagogues of the early 20th century? I don’t think so.
There’s no denying the U.S. has an image problem at the moment. No two questions about it. And further, the U.S. has a lot of ‘vested interests’ which seems to influence it’s foreign policy - which only exacerbates said image problem. Is that image problem reversable? Of course.
But all things being equal? I reckon most REASONABLE people on the planet recognise America for what it intrinsically remains - a good idea. A nation devoted to goodness and caring about other people. It flounders a lot due to some little things which could be fixed pretty easily, but the innate concept of “America” is a fine and noble one methinks.
I have a hunch that more than a few U.S. Presidents have felt (since Jimmy Carter’s momentous Israel v Egypt Camp David breakthrough in 1979) that they too have needed to live up to such expectations but ultimately that’s really neither here nor there.
That being said, I personally would really like it if U.S. would do something about Britney Spears…
It’s always seemed to me that the easiest regime to do business with in the middle east would actually be Iraq. Secular government, repressive I admit, but find me one that isn’t, willing to deal for the right price.
Really, does anyone think that if the Iraqi military hadn’t stopped at Kuwait and had captured the Saudi oil fields we wouldn’t be buying oil from ‘Greater Iraq’ right now? And it would provide the stated goal of ‘stability’.
GWB wants to shake up the Saudi government? Just tell them that we can do business with their opponents as easily (maybe easier) than with them.
Just as an afterthought, I personally got the distinct impression from Iran just after September Eleven (when they announced that any American pilots who had to bail out over Iran would be given safe passage) were making distinctly friendly overtures.
And to give you a subtle insight as to how “Westernised” the Iranians are, according to mp3.com late last year, Iran was the 4th largest downloader of “western” mp3’s in the world! My point being? It’s a country filled with “western thinking” youngsters. The sea change is happening - albeit slowly.
Stinkpalm, I must say that every once in awhile something inside of me just says “I DON’T WANT ANY PART OF THIS!” Then, sigh, I realize, that’s exactly what the United States said about the Nazis. Until it was almost too late.
A RAND report that I read a few weeks ago (which I can’t find again) said that the United States is widely hated for one of several reasons:
We’re a great scapegoat for anything that’s going on wrong in somebody else’s country. (“It’s not the massive corruption, it’s the United States refusing to sell us arms.”)
We, and our various allies and semi-allies around the world, are all but completely in control of most major issues of every place on Earth (or we could be in control if we chose to be). Imagine how amazed people would be 100 years ago if they knew the world as a whole rejected any violent seizure of another country’s territory! Very, very frustrating for small military countries with no way out of their difficulties except war.
Various other reasons, cultural, economic, religious, etc.
As somebody who used to travel a good deal, though, there is one, huge problem with US policy. And the sooner the likes of George Bush learn it the better. Americans are regarded in most countries as insensitive to local customs, needs, and manners. Uneducated, crude, and loud. Nobody likes swaggering, crude, idiots, and that’s just how billions of people see Americans.
The United States, now that it’s not a military island, needs to stop being a cultural island, too.
God I’d love it if those “Uneducated, crude, and loud” Americans would stop traveling to foreign lands completely, then wait and see how long it would take for those “billions of people” to beg for the return of those “swaggering, crude, idiots” when they realize how much of their money contributes to their economy via tourist dollars.
:rolleyes:
I am SO fucking sick of America-bashing. It boils down to one thing and one thing alone:
It’s not always envy. A lot of the time, sure. But I just came back from living in France and I didn’t like american tourists, and I’m american! Given, the French say that there are a lot of americans who are very helpful and nice, but the obnoxious, crude, loud, and uneducated ones (who don’t even try to understand a culture - that’s where “the rude frenchman” comes from a lot of the time) take up a hell of a lot of space. Yeah, america has a bad rap for a lot of different stuff, and people are somewhat envious…but not all that bad rap is unearned. We do stick our noses in a lot of people’s business, albeit to help out for humane causes and such.
Lola, I’m an American. I’m just reporting what I’ve seen. And I was reporting what the RAND think tank is currently advising the government. We’re a country of people who know practically nothing about current events in other countries. Pick up a copy of Times of India http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/cms.dll/default?xml=0&, which has the largest circulation of any English language broadsheet in the world (more than USA Today) and see how many articles you recognize.
I’m certainly not bashing America. Foreign countries admire many things about us: our technology, Hollywood, the Marshall Plan. We’re known, sometimes, for being honest to our own detriment. But we’re perceived as being insensitive hicks on the world stage.
Being fucking tired of other people’s opinions seems to make my point…
Do you think that some of our problems with middle eastern countries stem from their jelousy of what we have and they don’t? The USA has been around just over 225 years and look how far we came. These countries in the mid east have been around 1000’s of years and they are border line third world.
Whats the chances that this is why they don’t like us? Is it “If we can’t have it you can’t have it” syndrome?
I know this is the Pit but please don’t hijack this into another “Why Americans suck/don’t suck” thread. Unless you are talking about tourism in the mid east. Its irrelevant why France thinks we are cock heads.
Well, this isn’t strictly true. While their have been tribal groupings (and some nations) in the region covering the middle east for a long time the current nations haven’t been around all that long. Most of the current borders were established through the decolonization process in the 20th century.
So it’s not really fair to say they’ve had 1000’s of years to develop when they’ve barely had 10’s of years.
Yes, there are plenty of drunken, violent, insensitive people from every country. But in my personal experience I have encountered more from the US who present the “you should be grateful we’re in your pissy little country” attitude than from any other.
I think we should make this kind of claim very cautiously considering our yawning trade deficit. As much as they supposedly depend on the omnipotent dollar, we depend on their markets. The balance is not in our favor right now.