Worldwide Poll: US Is Biggest Threat to Peace Read Latest Breaking News from Newsmax

TheDemSocialist said:

Im sure this recent wedding party was packed with terrorists: U.S. drone faulted for killing 14
But hey here are some more innocent civilians: Predator Drone Strikes: 50 Civilians Are Killed For Every 1 Terrorist, and the CIA Only Wants to Up Drone Warfare - PolicyMic
Real "effective" way of warfare. Probably spitting out more terrorists than we kill with these things.

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ecofarm said:

Well then you're not working with the claim I quoted.

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Gathomas88 said:

Maybe not, but they are interested in seeing their own best interests put forward. In many cases, those interests run counter to our own.

Pakistan, for instance, would love to run rough-shod over the current Afghan government and pick another fight with India. Israel, meanwhile, would love to finish the job of conquering the Palestinians, while many of their Arab neighbors would leap at the opportunity to wipe the Israelis themselves off the map. Russia would really enjoy the chance to reclaim it's former sphere of influence in Eastern Europe and Central Asia. The Iranians want to be the regional hegemon of the middle East. The Europeans rather clearly resent our economic, political, and cultural dominance, while the Chinese covet our dominance of the Pacific and global military hegemony. Etca, etca...

The major thing stopping all of these nations from achieving their visions, in the majority of cases, is the United States' influence.

They liked us just fine when we were the only nation powerful enough to keep the big bad Soviet Union at bay (or, alternately, sided with the Soviets against us). Now that the old Cold War dynamic has been removed, however; we are little more than an obstacle standing in the way of their own advancement.

Even if the populace of many nations is not aware of this, the persons responsible for shaping the "political dialogues" which are largely responsible for the anti-American sentiment seen in most of the world today most certainly are. The nature of their self-interested agendas should be obvious.

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Wiseone said:

I understand what you're saying and I don't disagree, but many of these issues existed during the Cold War. And that national self interest has existed before and during the Cold War as well. A nation wanting to achieve its own goals is nothing new but, at least where our allies are concerned, that doesn't exactly mean that they also feel the need to get the US out of their way or to see it humbled at all.

So while France and Germany didn't follow us into Iraq in 2003 because it wasn't in their national interest, it doesn't mean that they view the United States as "little more" than an obstacle to what they want. Disagreements aside we are still allies and they still have much more to gain from a powerful United States than a weak one. For example France is able to deploy and operate its Army in West Africa thanks in no small part to the US providing logistics especially in the form of heavy transport aircraft, something it would not have if it wanted to humble the US out of world power status.

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Montecresto said:

Funerals, wedding parties and bazaars

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LaMidRighter said:

Modern terrorism dates all the way back to the U.N. reallocation of national lands after WWII, it's become more relevant to us recently because it finally hit our shores in a large scale attack 9/11/01. The thing people disassociate from that major attack is that we have lost citizens when other nations had flights bombed, have lost them in foreign attacks, and then of course the attacks on our marine base in Lebanon in the 1980s.

This is nowhere near a new problem, terrorists are, like any other group interested in fulfilling their own goals

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shrubnose said:

As I'm sure that you know, terrorists and their friends and neighbors have and visit funerals, wedding parties and bazaars which leads to more funerals.

When they stop trying to kill us we might be able to think about leaving them alone.

Until that happens the drone attacks will likely continue.

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Montecresto said:

I don't think they've been trying to kill you or me. And I damn sure have nothing against women and children that are innocent which are being killed by our government.

And I'm also not sure why so many have difficulty with the fact that this breeds resentment and support for those who seemed to be feared.

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shrubnose said:

Correct.

And until they change their goals, we will likely continue to launch drone attacks on them.

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Gathomas88 said:

Better question: Why should I care what the "rest of the world" thinks?

They are no less self-interested than we are. You're frankly fooling yourself if your think they have anyone's best interests in mind other than their own when they make these kinds of statements.

They'd gladly watch us all burn if it meant that they had the opportunity to take our place.

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LaMidRighter said:

Indeed. Until there is some major change we are going to be in a stalemate.

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Aekos said:

This is what happens when you have a history of spraying agent orange on people.

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shrubnose said:

Where we have been for quite a while.

I suspect that the drone attacks will continue until we kill the last terrorist or they change their attitude.

More drones and more missiles are being built right now.

And people are being trained to deploy them.

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Ikari said:

It will once we've killed all the people with negative opinions of us. Huzzah forever war!

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Gathomas88 said:

True. I don't deny that there are still reasons to cooperate, and benefits to remaining allied. The United States is still a largely stabilizing influence on the world regardless of whether many people like that fact, or are willing to openly admit to it, or not.

I was simply pointing out that, on an objective basis, there is a lot less compelling reason for many nations to accept the United States as the "sole superpower" in a post Cold War world. This does tend to result in a certain amount of resentment and rivalry being inevitably directed towards us on the international scene.

How on Earth couldn't it? Historically speaking, no one tends to particularly care for the guy "on top," regardless of whatever other benefits association with them might happen to bring.

It's human nature. :shrug:

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Wiseone said:

Ya that is true, the top dog is always a target for criticism whether its justified or not. I think it would be most accurate to say that our allies like being part of our system of alliances and like that they are allied with the top dog of the world, but sometimes they do understandably become bitter that they don't have as much push as we do. So in other words they may not always like where the driver is taking them but they aren't ready to get out of the car just yet.

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