I found UG's post HERE interesting because of BayonneMike's comment; a comment I have either read or heard both on tv, in print and from many friends. My own thinking is we won't really understand how the rest of the world works until we shed this notion that we are automatically the GOOD GUYS and anyone else that doesn't think so is automatically the BAD GUYS. That's a simple enough point that I would assume was not debuted just now. But a further point I myself have never seen or heard anywhere else is how important it is for us to recognize that the "bad guys" don't see themselves as the bad guys, like some old Spy vs. Spy "oh, you got me, good guy!" comic strip. They think they ARE the good guys, which we as a country seem to always miss. They're not thinking "the USA is so great, we should play the parts of evil just to be evil and antagonize them as much as possible."
Now, either side thinking they're the good guy doesn't make it so. But until we really start asking ourselves what different peoples from different parts of the world really want and why, we'll always be stuck in our childish "We're Luke Skywalker and they're Darth Vader" nonsense which doesn't seem to really be accomplishing much of anything.
15 comments:
oh look. i just doubled my readership.
one day, i will come to you for a favor...
But we already know what our enemies want (and the only reason I'm using that term is because that's how they view us--why else would they be staging these attacks around the world if they wanted to be our friends?). They want Islam to conquer the world. How is our "understanding" this going to improve the situation? This idea that all you need is empathy is completely worthless when one side has no intention of reaching out to the other.
sorry BM, after reading your puking story, i find your foreign policy motives suspect ... much like Bush I after ralphing on the foreign dignitary
do they want Islam to "conquer the world", or are these attacks a reaction to us poking into their nest with a stick? ie Im sure they were disgusted at our having Burger Kings and Hooters restaurants over here, but what did they really do to us before we started planting them over there?
what are we talking about here? i was talking about foreign policy. how we interact with the world. when to intervene in africa, how to tamper down nuclear development, where to outline environmental goals, etc.
i focused totally on BM's comment, and your follow-up too, more so than the post itself. As for your original post - it's not all about you, you know. Youre not Crox!!!! ;)
My bad. I thought our policies in the Middle East were at the forefront of our foreign policy considering our current wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Having just finished The Forever War and currently reading Generation Kill, that's where my head is at these days.
Ballbuster's in the deep end!! Someone go get him!!! ;)
mostly, Im glad I hi-jacked UG's post along with any traffic/comments. Thug Bloggah Life 101, boyz! BOING!
I'm always happy to oblige, X-Time, as long as it doesn't inspire yet another Beverly Hills 90210 post. Boing!
the only inspiration for a 90210 post i need is to be awake, BB.
boing! kills me.
Specifically in terms of Latin America, the one thing I've learned over the years is how they love Americans but have a healthy and warranted distrust of US foreign policy. That they can differentiate between that nice gringo from Wisconsin visiting or living amongst them and, say, Donald Rumsfeld, is a beautiful thing.
Especially since the fact that we have propped up, legitimized and/or financed every civilian and military dictatorship, and bloodthirsty strong man from Videla in Argentina, Pinochet in Chile, Stroessner in Paraguay, Somoza in Nicaragua, Trujillo in the Dominican Republic (add Haiti's Papa Doc Duvallier for spice), Noriega in Panama, etc etc etc has not been forgotten in the Spanish-speaking world. (In Chile, Sept 11th is commemorated every year as the anniversary of the democratically-elected President Salvador Allende being overthrown by the military in a 1971 CIA-backed coup which put Gen. Pinochet in power for the next 17 years.) We are mostly a fair, decent people whose govt has mostly kept us in the dark about the much blood spilled in our name.
Which is why all this talk of we being the good guys no matter what is short-sighted at best, and just plain evil when it is used to misinform the average Joe. (I'm looking at you, O'Reilly and Hannity.)
This love of Americans but fear/hate of our past policies tells me why Obama's election was greeted so enthusiastically all over the world. Right or wrong, to them it says that the nice folk like that gringo from Wisconsin, that they like so much, have taken the reign of their country for once.
"Are we the baddies?"
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SO5WoLnOOlU
Post a Comment