At the end of his ‘Napalm’ speech Col. Kilgore says, ‘Someday this war’s gonna end.’
After the WTC/Pentagon attacks we had the world’s support. I thought then, and think now, that invading Afghanistan was the correct move. I think most of the world supported our decision to go there. But then we invaded Iraq. Our support in the world community plummeted. Now we (in the eyes of many) are the Villain.
Someday Gulf War II, Electric Boogaloo is going to end. The politicians who mislead the American people will be out of office. What then? What will the U.S. have to do to get back into the world’s good graces?
I don’t think we can. I think we have offended our allies, distabilized the Middle East and mad a mockery of our ideals. I don’t think we will ever really recover.
You had your chance to begin to make amends in 2004, but you re-elected the fucker.
Taking a country that was bad enough as it is, and making it a thousand times worse for the people who live there is something that will be a stain on the reputation of the US for decades. How the hell can the absolute blood-stained hellhole the US has facilitated in Iraq ever be forgiven? Particularly in the Arab world.
Fix the things you can fix, starting right now. Sort out Guantanamo, publically. Participate fully and enthusiastically in international initiatives, rather than standing aloof and scathing because you can afford to. Stop looking for legal justification for things that are clearly wrong to anyone with common sense - it might be ‘legal’ for some interpretations of your constitution, but to the rest of the world it looks like sophistry. Encourage your citizens to be less ignorant towards Muslims, in order to reduce hostility at home. Be diplomatic rather than sabre-rattling towards other rogue states. Start to embrace the UN, and change it from within as a member in good faith, rather than attacking it from the outside. Replace the UN ambassador, who clearly despises the institution to which he is a delegate (would you appoint a racist ambassador to an African nation?), with someone who agrees with internationalism. Acknowledge that you all went collectively a little bit crazy after the shock of 9/11.
I think the Democrat-majority congress has helped a bit. More of the same please.
Oh, and apologise.
(Note, I acknowledge some of the above applies to the UK and Blair too.)
The widespread anti-American mood reached new heights after the attack on Iraq, but it was built on many decades of bad behavior by the United States. To recover, America should reverse that bad behavior.
Bring all American troops home from places where they don’t belong. (Saudi Arabia, Okinawa, …)
Cease all support for dictators and abusive governments. This includes miliatry support, economic benefits, or moral support. (Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emirates, China, …)
Cease all attempts to undermine legitimate democratic governments. (Venezuela, Bolivia, …)
End all human rights abuse within the United States. (Death penalty, torture, indefinite imprisonment without trial, …)
Approach trade negotiations fairly and honestly.
All in all, people have short memories and don’t hold grudges on a worldwide scale. If the United States reinvented itself and actually practiced the standards that it preached, the rest of the world would shortly who shortly agree to ignore the abuses of the last three generations.
Oh, and stop giving Israel a green light for every single thing it does.
Stop insinuating that the only motivation for the actions of Hamas et al is antisemitism, and therefore there is nothing that can be done.
Yeah Palestinian terrorists are bastards, but settlements in the Occupied Territories are a major part of the problem. If the US threatened to withdraw military aid for every new settlement - or withdraw military aid if the settlements are not dismantled - Israel would do something about it and a two-state solution could be arrived at. Get Israel to reroute its wall in a more fair and realistic fashion, and facilitate disengagement. It’s tough, but it’s made tougher by automatic US acceptance of all Israeli actions, and automatic use of the veto in the UN.
Step one: don’t assume there’s any one thing we can do to fix this or fix it quickly. And have reasonable expectations about how people feel about the United States.
I agree with this in general, but I think you also have to make moves to bring countries like this into the fold. Ceasing all military support, maybe, but I think there has to be continued, conditional, support.
No industrialized country in the world approaches trade negotiations fairly and honesty. The U.S. can’t do this in isolation or they’d be robbed blind by every other rich country on earth and a lot of the poor ones besides.
International trade is an area where every country has a thousand different incentives to cheat, cheat and cheat some more, and only the very strictest and most comprehensive of treaties can introduce even a hint of fairness.
I’m all for free and open trade but it’s not something you can do unilaterally.
We are a different country now. We used to be a country that would not attack another with out being attacked first. We used to be known as a country against torture. We used to be known as a country respecting the constitution and the rights it gives us. No more. We are something other than the big shining light. we may never get our moral authority back.
I’ve always had a lot of optimism and idealism–and ideas, however half-baked–for advancing the cause of world peace. But by now I too am deeply pessimistic about the prospect of turning things around.
Hindsight is 20/20, but I see a course of action that the US could have undertaken in the aftermath of 9/11 that would have much more positive results. I’ve jotted them don in an essay I call Monday Morning in the Middle East.
