Why America is no longer America ...

Chief Bones

Chief Bones

Forums Grumpy Old Man
There was a gentleman from overseas (Middle East I believe - can't remember the name), who said the following (paraphrasing now):

'When America stops doing the things which they stand for before the world ... they will stop being America and will lose the support of other nations'.

His statement was and is very prophetic ... have we (or) have we not resorted to practices that would be against the law within our own country? Have we (or) have we not carried out actions which are against the Geneva Convention and have we not twisted our reasoning in such a way as to pervert those constants that we have adhered to in every war we have fought since their implementation?

It seems to me that we have reached the stage that we are stuck in the "definition of is" form of world foreign policy. GW, his administration and many Americans have scrambled to defend the indefensible and have lost that something which is America. They have twisted and perverted what it means to be American, and have stopped doing the things which identified us as America before the world.

Is it any wonder that America's reputation before the world has taken such a beating in the last few years?
 
Inviting honest comments ....

It appears that there was someone out there that can not entertain the thought that I did NOT mean this post as a Bush bashing post. (Vis-a-vis the deletion).

I raised the question because at the time I heard this quote discussed on the television, there was something that resonated with my 'world' view.

I didn't and don't agree with GW's decision to send our brethren into harms way. THAT DOES NOT mean that I am NOT in full support of our troops.

I raised this question because there is contained within this gentleman's quote, that germ of an idea that could explain why non-Middle Eastern country's opinions of us have hit an all time low. Tear his quote apart and see if it resonates with you as it did for me. Keep an open mind when you read my 'commentary' and don't let your partisanship get in the way. I tried my d*mndest to look at America as another country would (keeping in mind what we are SUPPOSED to stand for), and took a 'hard' look at what they would see when they were on the outside and were looking in. I realise that there are going to be those who will find fault with my word that I tried to leave as much of my partisan feelings out of my commentary as I could. BELIEVE IT.

Directly after 9/11, the world stood beside us in our outrage ... the ONLY celebration was on the streets of a very few Muslim towns. Here we stand five years after 9/11 and our numbers are at an all time low where the rest of the non-Muslim nations are concerned. Our numbers are even dropping with our biggest ally - England.

PLEASE - try to leave the name calling and the derogatory comments out of the argument. I am honestly trying to understand why we have lost so much of our reputation and standing with non-Muslim nations.

This wise man just might have the right of it.
 
Here is why are reputation is poor in the middle east... and it resinates throughout the world.


Do you really believe that just because of 9/11 we have lost so much of our reputation with the Middle East? Do you really think this is something new?

We are the Infidel and do not follow the same religious ideology as they do. For the most part we are are a Christian society. To them... we are BAD for that reason alone.

- Growing American involvement in the Middle East.

- The ongoing quest for political independence and self-mastery by Middle Easterners.

- The difficulty the U.S. has experienced in weighing diverse and conflicting objectives in the region, especially as the Cold War against the Soviet Union intensified.

- The increasing antagonism between Americans and Middle Easterners that came to such a shocking culmination on September 11, 2001.

Over and over again, these themes surface, expressed in the actions of characters in a history still being written as we watch. America's presidents from Woodrow Wilson to George W. Bush. George Kennan. David Ben-Gurion. Gamal Abdel Nasser. Mohammed Shah Pahlavi. Ariel Sharon. Yasser Arafat. Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini. Menachem Begin. Saddam Hussein.

Many of the seeds of U.S. policy and its dilemmas were planted during the administration of Woodrow Wilson.

It's fascinating to view, with the benefit of hindsight, the later ramifications of issues like Wilson's endorsement of the Balfour Declaration, and its collision with the concept of national self-determination Wilson advanced in his famous "Fourteen Points." Or the decisions made at the 1920 San Remo Conference when Europe's victors (with minimal U.S. participation) divided the Ottoman Empire's non-Turkish areas into "mandates" to be temporarily administered by France (Syria and Lebanon) and Great Britain (Iraq, Transjordan, and Palestine) until ready for independence.

Of all the Arab nations east of Egypt, only Saudi Arabia was to receive immediate independence, and the decision caused shock and dismay throughout the Arab world.

By the time World War II was approaching, the factors that would ultimately have such a tremendous impact on U.S. involvement in the region were beginning to coalesce. Germany's increasingly monstrous policies against the Jews, combined with restrictive immigration policies and existing promises of a homeland in Palestine, were colliding with Middle Easterners' own aspirations for self-determination.

And now oil entered the picture: the American embrace of the automobile had made the petroleum in the Middle East vitally important.
 
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TI and Bulldogg
I can agree with your post where the Middle East and Muslims are concerned.

Where you missed the boat though, is the fact that you evidently missed a 'small' portion of my post.

"Here we stand five years after 9/11 and our numbers are at an all time low where the rest of the non-Muslim nations are concerned. Our numbers are even dropping with our biggest ally - England", was and is an important portion of my interrogatory. How do we explain the drop in America's numbers, where the goodwill of the rest of the non-Muslim world is concerned?

It's easy to say that the Muslims are upset because we have troops in their homelands and we support Israel and there is a fight over oil ... but ... what is the explanation for the rest of the world?
 
tomtom22 said:
Good point, Chief Bones. I don't have an answer for that one.
Click to expand...

I don't either, and that really really bothers me.

If the numbers continue to drop, we could very well find ourselves standing alone.

Who do we blame? What do we do to improve the numbers? Can we do anything?

Lots of questions ... not a lot of answers.
 
We blame the terrorists who just couldnt leave well enough alone and had to stir up some conflict. I suppose the world was just too peaceful. What do we do to improve the numbers? WIN THIS WAR. Show that we were and ARE right. Granted, we shouldn't have gone into Iraq without solid, concrete evidence of harm against the US, but now that we have, we must continue to fight for the people of Iraq. Not because the rest of the world thinks that we should stop and we want to be different, but because its the right thing to do. Just because the other countries of this world are too scared and push the US up to the front to do the job, doesnt mean we shouldnt do the job to the best of our abilities.
 
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