USA's New Foreign Policy

[sandmann]

Uhh, you point out their lack of generosity then go on to how we donated (lots of money, I believe your number is fabricated...) to Saddaam for him to better his country and help his starved people. And of course it comes from taxpayers, what other source of income does our government have? With whose money SHOULD we be (trying to) support people? We give support to tons of other countries in need without thinking about it. It's this generosity that lands us in trouble a lot. Other nations always complain about us in such ludicrous ways, ie people complaining of how we were sending humanitarian aid to Afghanistan while bombing it at the same time. Well fine, France, we'll just stop dropping FOOD for the people. OH, but your relief efforts landed in a patch of mines once! Okay Germany, not like we have a remote control for the boxes once we drop them, I mean I know America's great and all but we can't control the wind. Plus I never saw you dropping off aid to France while you were invading them. Countries just fuckin complain about shit that we aren't doing to their exact specifications, that they would never do in the first place.

We are by far the most generous country in the world (see: rebuilding Germany, TWICE, rebuilding France and England, TWICE, continuous stream of humanitarian effort, countless charities.) I mean, fuck, look at those "help these kids in Africa" scams; they only work because Americans want to give so badly that they sometimes don't even think about the possibility that the charity is scamming them.

[com]

Im not saying it is not the most generous, im simply laughing at the use of the term in this context. When you think of generous you think of someone giving alot of their money or things away, i didnt know that generous could refer to a government giving money away that doesnt even belong to them, its kind of easy giving away money that doesnt belong to you, and they still insist that America is a Democracratic country. When we have no say in what goes on. as to the 2 billion, that was not fabricated, this happened close to month ago, i heard it on the radio in the news, but im not insisting on those figures since the radio is not always correct.

[refractor]

[James S]

I agree with sandmann.

[com]

[Mike Bannick]

[com]

[James S]

sandmann's point is what I agreed with, not mundane facts and statistics. I don't care about facts or statistics, just the point.

[sandmann]

Refractor, I may have failed, but I tried to cushion my statements complimenting America with ones that mentioned all of their shortcomings, failures, and such (though not specifically, I didn't want another 8 page post). I never said we didn't disregard UN policies. I don't know the facts about that, therefore I strayed from it. I see your point that their disregard for UN policies was one of my reasons for war against Saddam, and I dunno, I guess just disallowing UN weapons inspectors is quite fishy. Notice I also mentioned that when accumulating the US's crimes, it would be justifiable to wage the same war on us.

I do not know specific statistics, and whether we include corporate donations or not, whether other countries do or not. I will take your word for it. However, even without corporate donations, I do suspect that we are still quite high on the list, if not in pure donations in humanitarian aid and other forms of charity.

As far as rebuilding Europe goes, we may have done it to stimulate our own economy, as part of the reason, but I would like to believe that we didn't do it PURELY for that reason, that we had a sense of charity in the deal too. For whatever reason we did it, we helped their economies, and they should be grateful no matter what. After all, where would they be without US economic assistant? Certainly not where they are today (not saying they'd be third world countries). Yeah, it was 50 years ago, and where would they be now without our charity 50 years ago?

I never said ONLY Americans fall for them, but if you looked at the nationalities of everyone who fell for the scheme, wouldn't you think it would be mainly
Americans?

Con, we are a government for the people by the people (ideally), so isn't it the government's money as well? By giving it up via taxes, it becomes their money. Also, NO government can possess the majority of their money that did not come from its population in one way or another. I mean, the people of the country worked to extract the oil that middle eastern countries sell. Someone had to pay taxes in Britain. The point is we consider the money to be the government's. Plus I said America is generous, as in we allow our hard-earned tax money to go to other less fortunate people and hopefully noble cause. So you see, you can consider America generous by using tax money in this regard.

Com, you have no facts/specific arguements to add, so instead of just agreeing with everyone except me, why don't you add something VALUABLE to the discussion? Put up or shut up. We don't need sideline commentators in this discussion.

[edit] I read that website, and it speaks of essentially only one breach of conduct (paying dues late), while Iraq has many, that are far more serious. I'm just wondering, do we break any other rules provided by UN? Like not letting weapons inspectors in, killing our own people on a wide scale, etc.

[com]

I think the US is a hypocrite it does what it acusses other countries of doing, and the gov forces us to pay taxes, whats that crap about the people giving it up willingly? your just pissed cause you know im right

[sandmann]

You never mentioned it being hypocritical for condemning actions it commits itself before. Good job.

We do give it up willingly in a way. You live here, you pay taxes. You don't like it, go pay taxes elsewhere. Either that or we can all refuse to pay taxes and pay for our own damn roads, education and such.

I'm not pissed, but I've never been a fan of people who say stupid things without backing them up. And you aren't right.

[TechMage]

[com]

[RICoder]

I won't direct this at any one person's post, but instead to the entire line of 'thinking' that leads people to spout moronic notions of anti-americanism.

There are two primary lines of 'thought' that give rise to such notions.

1) Anti-Americanism is, in its own right, anti-establishmentism. This is the playing field of the weak-minded and illiterate, and unfortunately the young and impressionable. As such, it is all too easy to fall into this trap, launch emotion-based attacks and not back them up, because most will not dispute what seems, on the surface, to be emotionally agreable.

2) There is a concept in the US for some if not all left-leaning people that Europe is some great mold from which we should all cast our concepts of government and morality. Why and how this is, is beyond me, but it no less exists. Let us not forget that Europe gave rise to Ceasar Augustus, Musselini, Hitler, The British Empire, The Roman Empire, and countless other emperialistic and/or oppressive nations and leaders. Even given its incredible age, Europe is still the breeding ground for such divisiveness (consider Bosnia and Slovakia). Continue to examine its lack of desire to confront human rights violations and self-policing, throw in a distraught medical and technological base due to rampant socialism, and you have something I have no desire to emulate.

Whatever your cause, desires, and misguided concepts of fairness, one cannot at once lambast the US for hypocracy and then cry when the Bosnians don't get fed.

One cannot in one breath say the government is not trustworthy enough to be believed in its accusations against Sadam and in the other beg for that same government to create more social programs (after all, if they are not trustworthy how do you trust them to take care of you personally).

How can a person of sanity ask what the government knew and what it could have done to prevent Sept. 11th, but at the same time question a policy of pre-emptiveness (as pre-emptiveness would be what 'should have been done to prevent' Sept. 11th).

The hypocracy lies in the person that speaks with the aformentioned forked tongue, or perhaps 'thinks' with the aformentioned forked brain.

[refractor]