# How America might have avoided - part of - the current wave of Anti-Americanism? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [August 31, 2007, 2:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-america-might-have-avoided-part-of-the-current-wave-of-anti-americanism/417569 "2007-08-31T02:05:47Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 9\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![ralph124c](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/8797f3/32.png) [@ralph124c](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ralph124c)\ **Post date:** [September 1, 2007, 10:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-america-might-have-avoided-part-of-the-current-wave-of-anti-americanism/417569/41 "2007-09-01T22:21:59Z")
WE can avoid a LOT of bad press by realizing that a LOT of people DON’T WANT to be helped by us! We go into an arab country, and immediately offend everybody-take Somalia-we started off OK, but made fools of ourselves, by insisting on “removing” certain “warlords” (like Adid). Without any common sense, we got involved in a civil war, and wound up losing 18 lives, plus killing hundreds of Somalis-any wonder we were hated? We are like a clumsy (though well-meaning) bull in a China shop-we wind up breaking everything, and wonder why the shop owner hates us! First: DO NOT intervene in other people’s wars Second: if we must intervene, don’t offend the locals by staying a long time Third:stick to handing out food and bandages Fourth: don’t insert ourselves into local politics ---
**Author:** ![Little\_Nemo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/little_nemo/32/3120_2.png) [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)\ **Post date:** [September 1, 2007, 10:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-america-might-have-avoided-part-of-the-current-wave-of-anti-americanism/417569/42 "2007-09-01T22:28:11Z")
> [@](#): > > Mel Gibson grew up in Australia, not Ireland. Actually he grew up in the United States - only a few miles from where I live as a matter of fact - and his family moved to Australia when he was twelve. ---
**Author:** ![Little\_Nemo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/little_nemo/32/3120_2.png) [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)\ **Post date:** [September 1, 2007, 10:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-america-might-have-avoided-part-of-the-current-wave-of-anti-americanism/417569/43 "2007-09-01T22:32:49Z")
> [@](#): > > Would you rather be > A) sent to Abu Graib and be humiliated by some low-lifes who then got punished > B) kidnapped and sent to Gitmo, where you’d still even be able to practice your religion > C) kidnapped and beheaded > D) have your wife, mother and children blown up by a suicide bomber as they went to the market > > I’ll take one of the first two. But since you evidenlty view them, by virtue of who is commiting the act, worse than the latter two, I’ll leave you to enjoy the relief and righteousness you’ll feel choosing C or D. If a guy steals my car I’m going to swear at him not thank him because he didn’t murder me. Our occupation of Iraq won’t judged by whether or not we did worse than Saddam’s standards, it’ll be judged by whether or not we did worse than our own standards. And by our standards, our occupation has done terrible things. ---
**Author:** ![Der\_Trihs](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/der_trihs/32/233_2.png) [@Der\_Trihs](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Der_Trihs)\ **Post date:** [September 1, 2007, 10:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-america-might-have-avoided-part-of-the-current-wave-of-anti-americanism/417569/44 "2007-09-01T22:41:30Z")
[QUOTE=magellan01] Would you rather be A) sent to Abu Graib and be humiliated by some low-lifes who then got punished B) kidnapped and sent to Gitmo, where you’d still even be able to practice your religion C) kidnapped and beheaded D) have your wife, mother and children blown up by a suicide bomber as they went to the market I’ll take one of the first two. But since you evidenlty view them, by virtue of who is commiting the act, worse than the latter two, I’ll leave you to enjoy the relief and righteousness you’ll feel choosing C or D. [/QUOTE] Yes, because being raped or chewed on by dogs or crippled or driven insane by torture is so much more civilized than beheading. And punishing a few cannon fodder who were obviously just doing what they were told doesn’t absolve us, or stop what is no doubt happening elsewhere. And we’ve killed tens, probably hundreds ( by now ) of thousands at the least, and inflicted misery upon millions, and ruined Iraq as a nation. ---
**Author:** ![Revenant\_Threshold](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/f1d935/32.png) [@Revenant\_Threshold](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Revenant_Threshold)\ **Post date:** [September 1, 2007, 11:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-america-might-have-avoided-part-of-the-current-wave-of-anti-americanism/417569/45 "2007-09-01T23:28:01Z")
[QUOTE=pravnik] If you surround the enemy, leave an outlet; do not press an enemy that is cornered. These are the principles of warfare. - Sun Tzu, _The Art of War_ [/QUOTE] I have nothing to add to the thread, just wanted to say this is one of the quotes I really liked. ---
**Author:** ![Voyager](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/voyager/32/133_2.png) [@Voyager](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Voyager)\ **Post date:** [September 2, 2007, 4:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-america-might-have-avoided-part-of-the-current-wave-of-anti-americanism/417569/46 "2007-09-02T04:49:27Z")
[QUOTE=magellan01] Can you clarify the question? Do you mean abroad or within the left wing of the democratic party? [/quote] Are you calling me and several other Dopers anti-American? Is it more American to speak out against torture or to condone it? > [@](#): > > I’m not sure I see your point. Are you claiming that our conduct in the war on terror is **worse** than that of Al Qaeda or other Iraqi insurgent groups? If so, please offer a cite to all those things we’ve done that are\*\* worse\*\* than blowing up buildings with thousands of innocents in them, setting bombs off in markets and schools intentionally killing thousands of women and children, and beheading people. Well, we are certainly a smidgen better, at least. Happy now? As **Askance** so rightly put it, if we are arguing the nuances of who is worse we’ve already lost. As for the OP, the answer seems obvious - for the Bush Administration not to torture people, not to start wars based on lies, not to kidnap people off the streets of foreign cities, not to have CIA officers under indictment in Italy. I contend that there is no anti-Americanism, only anti-Bushism. ---
**Author:** ![tagos](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/bbe5ce/32.png) [@tagos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tagos)\ **Post date:** [September 3, 2007, 8:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-america-might-have-avoided-part-of-the-current-wave-of-anti-americanism/417569/47 "2007-09-03T08:20:00Z")
[QUOTE=Voyager] I contend that there is no anti-Americanism, only anti-Bushism. [/QUOTE] And we have a winner. ---
**Author:** ![Der\_Trihs](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/der_trihs/32/233_2.png) [@Der\_Trihs](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Der_Trihs)\ **Post date:** [September 3, 2007, 8:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-america-might-have-avoided-part-of-the-current-wave-of-anti-americanism/417569/48 "2007-09-03T08:57:41Z")
[QUOTE=Voyager] As for the OP, the answer seems obvious - for the Bush Administration not to torture people, not to start wars based on lies, not to kidnap people off the streets of foreign cities, not to have CIA officers under indictment in Italy. I contend that there is no anti-Americanism, only anti-Bushism. [/QUOTE] I doubt that; when America re-elected Bush, it voted to share the blame. ---
**Author:** ![GIGObuster](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gigobuster/32/421_2.png) [@GIGObuster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GIGObuster)\ **Post date:** [September 3, 2007, 9:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-america-might-have-avoided-part-of-the-current-wave-of-anti-americanism/417569/49 "2007-09-03T09:19:18Z")
[QUOTE=magellan01] Would you rather be A) sent to Abu Graib and be humiliated by some low-lifes who then got punished B) kidnapped and sent to Gitmo, where you’d still even be able to practice your religion C) kidnapped and beheaded D) have your wife, mother and children blown up by a suicide bomber as they went to the market I’ll take one of the first two. But since you evidenlty view them, by virtue of who is commiting the act, worse than the latter two, I’ll leave you to enjoy the relief and righteousness you’ll feel choosing C or D. [/QUOTE] Ignorance is bliss, but it needs to be busted. Abu Grahib and Gitmo are only the “nice” looking tip of a huge and deadly monster. [http://news.independent.co.uk/world/middle\_east/article347806.ece](http://news.independent.co.uk/world/middle_east/article347806.ece) > [@](#): > > Hundreds of Iraqis are being tortured to death or summarily executed every month in Baghdad alone by death squads working from the Ministry of the Interior, the United Nations’ outgoing human rights chief in Iraq has revealed. > > John Pace, who left Baghdad two weeks ago, told The Independent on Sunday that up to three-quarters of the corpses stacked in the city’s mortuary show evidence of gunshot wounds to the head or injuries caused by drill-bits or burning cigarettes. Much of the killing, he said, was carried out by Shia Muslim groups under the control of the Ministry of the Interior. > > Much of the statistical information provided to Mr Pace and his team comes from the Baghdad Medico-Legal Institute, which is located next to the city’s mortuary. He said figures show that last July the morgue alone received 1,100 bodies, about 900 of which bore evidence of torture or summary execution. The pattern prevailed throughout the year until December, when the number dropped to 780 bodies, about 400 of which had gunshot or torture wounds. > > “It’s being done by anyone who wishes to wipe out anybody else for various reasons,” said Mr Pace, who worked for the UN for more than 40 years in countries ranging from Liberia to Chile. “But the bulk are attributed to the agents of the Ministry of the Interior.” > > Coupled with the suicide bombings and attacks on Shia holy places carried out by Sunnis, some of whom are followers of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, al-Qa’ida’s leader in Iraq, the activities of the death squads are pushing Iraq ever closer to a sectarian civil war. > > Mr Pace said the Ministry of the Interior was “acting as a rogue element within the government”. It is controlled by the main Shia party, the Supreme Council for Islamic Revolution in Iraq (Sciri); the Interior Minister, Bayan Jabr, is a former leader of Sciri’s Badr Brigade militia, which is one of the main groups accused of carrying out sectarian killings. Another is the Mehdi Army of the young cleric Moqtada al-Sadr, who is part of the Shia coalition seeking to form a government after winning the mid-December election. > > Many of the 110,000 policemen and police commandos under the ministry’s control are suspected of being former members of the Badr Brigade. Not only counter-insurgency units such as the Wolf Brigade, the Scorpions and the Tigers, but the commandos and even the highway patrol police have been accused of acting as death squads. The enemy related to the “first two” are only a minority, I can not miss that the administration openly talked about an “El Salvador option” in Iraq. That is why I think it is naive to ignore that most of the death squads activity is known by the USA, but not much is happening against it. I can see now how the future victory in Iraq is shaping: all that dare to stand against the occupation and ethnic cleansing will be dead or in exile, but that will be called a victory just because eventually some sort of “peace” can come after many guilty and innocent are disposed off. I will never will be at ease with such a “victory”. And yes, I despise Bush when I can see now what has ended up as his standard for the “victory” in Iraq. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-america-might-have-avoided-part-of-the-current-wave-of-anti-americanism/417569.md?page=2)