Letters to the Editor
Scientician
Published Letters: 523 Editor's Choice: 1
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czapniks:
[Read the article: The tragic collapse of America's standing in the world]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]American support for Israel has been pretty well at current levels for decades, and therefore can't be a "key factor" in the recent decline in our standing. We get no support for such support, but that's been true for many years - nor is that fact, as you suggest, "frequently denied."
Current level? Are you referring to the $ figure of military aid? That's fine and all, but it's hardly the only basis people use to judge America's level of support for Israel.
I would ask you to examine the words and deeds of the Bush Administration too. The invasion of Iraq is no doubt seen by many as being done at least partly at Israel's behest. Israel is frequently used as a justification for some future invasion of Iran - that Iran wants to (supposedly) "wipe Israel from the map" - even if that claim is true, how is that causus beli for the US against Iran unless the US is so very favourable to Israel.
And the Bush admin position to things like the Wall, or the Hamas govt, also.
There is a case to be made that while America has mostly favoured Israel over the years, but that it is to a noticeably higher degree in the Bush Admin.
There certainly has been little coherent effort by Bush to make peace, where even if Clinton was seen as biased, he threw a lot of effort into talks and negotiations.
Anyway, I think Glenn's point is broadly true - America's overt favouritism of Israel has increased under the Bush admin. The validity of that as a policy is naturally debatable, but the existence is not.
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Anonymous:
[Read the article: The tragic collapse of America's standing in the world]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]I'm waiting for the part where somebody explains why it matters what the denizens of third-rate partly Islamicized former powers think about anything beyond their own borders. They don't like America in Paris? Maybe they don't like us in Port-au-Prince or Ulan Bator, either. I can't imagine why it would matter.
I'd appeal to your basic sense of decency and desire to get along in the world, but I'll go out on a limb and assume for a second you have neither of those virtues.
Go look up terms like "soft-power" and reason out why many countries did not turn communist through the height of Soviet power in the 50s, back when the Soviets first reached space, and their economy was growing in huge leaps under centralized 5 year plans. Back when despite McCarthy's hysteria, there actually were communists in the state department.
Why did the communists need a wall to keep their people in, and not the reverse?
Because the US and Democracy itself was winning war of ideas. People were drawn to our system more than the Soviet one, even at the height of its power and mystique, and seeming inevitability.
But if you want to just be a hard power empire, you can choose that too. Didn't work so well in the end for Rome, and it would certainly represent a radical change in the US view of itself.
You're going beyond what even the neo-conservatives are willing to do with that view I note- even they want to maintain the deception of the US as benevolent, even if it would be a lie.
So go ahead, vote for the President who declare the 1st American Empire and see what happens next.
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American standing...
[Read the article: The tragic collapse of America's standing in the world]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Many rural conservatives in the West and South will quickly retort that all those other countries are over-run with foreigners, with their foreign ways and foreign languages. France, for example, is completely infested by Frenchmen, they will tell you. Those foreign countries, if they say anything at all, should be thanking us for WW II. They should continue thanking us in the future, and if they want to say anything else to us, they should keep it to themselves. Of course, many seriously believe that the UN is trying to gain domination over the US.
Yes, and we've seen that view in this thread. But views like this are not set in stone. Attitudes can shift, if these people can be brought to understand the negative implications for America in being resoundingly hated by most other countries.
Even in the most cynical calculus, being hated is generally not to your advantage.
It's one thing to say, "We must do X despite that X will lower our standing in the world" but entirely another to say "We must do X and I don't care what it does to our standing"
The former can certainly be legitimate, the latter is just ignorant and foolhardy. I think red state voters can appreciate the value ultimately of having more friends in the world.
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RealName:
[Read the article: The tragic collapse of America's standing in the world]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]If this was a high school debate, this sort of statement might win points, but I don't think you're really obtuse enough to need this spelled out for you.
Since you demand it: Bush's own foreign policy is reliant on concepts of "spreading democracy" and creating "beacons" in the middle east. It's premised on the Democratic Peace Theory which argues that democracies rarely go to war with one another.
How do you build democracies? You convince large numbers of people to work together cooperatively and cede a little personal sovereignty to the larger state for the benefit of all. The basic social compact.
How can you do that, when they're too busy being horrified by their perception of the US Democracy (however slanted you think their view of the US may be, it still affects them). Instead of being inspired towards your example, they're being scared off of it.
You're trying to win a war of ideas. Otherwise you may as well start nuking the middle east and have done with it, because I don't know what you're doing.
Republic or Empire, Realname - choose.