Many Americans Want This
Posted by | Posted in Uncategorized | Posted on 02-03-2003
A very good Austrian friend of mine sent me the following via e-mail last week:
My opinion of the Americans: I like them a lot… They are funny, they speak a nice colorful english … and [something positive about art and culture which I didn't quite understand in German.] Couldn’t they be satisfied with that and leave the rest of the world as it is? But all in all I like them and can accept their shortcomings. [my emphasis]
People forget how often in the past — the fairly recent past — the Americans have been criticized for being too isolationist. We came in late to both world wars because the American people simply do not like overseas adventures. Clearly the younger generation of anti-war activists don’t believe this. They think we hop on aircraft carriers the moment we hear someone far away doesn’t like us.
Many Americans are frustrated with the role we play in world affairs. The fact is, we’re pushed and pulled. Britain was often furious that we would not enter the war against Hitler. Some get angry when we don’t act fast in places like Africa where genocidal wars are taking place. Some say we (NATO) should have intervened earlier in Bosnia and Kosovo, while others say we should not have been involved at all. Some wanted us to kick Iraq out of Kuwait, many didn’t.
During basically every interview with the western press, Yassir Arafat’s advisors call on the United States to do more for the peace effort in the Middle East. I know this is because we are by far Israel’s greatest supporter and therefore have the greatest influence over them. But, at the same time, the Palestinian Authority is not willing to carry out the reforms that we suggest. In other words, they want our intervention but on their terms. They ask us to help, but don’t listen to the advice or the offers.
The same thing happens in the Gulf. Many of those who are vehemently opposed to a resumption of hostilities with Iraq claim that containment and deterrence can work. And guess who is supposed to do the containing. Only the US and the UK have stepped up to this role. It’s easy for other countries to say you, USA, should keep containing Saddam Hussein forever. But we say that containment is not working, and we are not willing to sit there forever while people openly smuggle goods in and out of Iraq in violation of the UN resolutions that we are supposed to be helping to enforce.
We also hate the situation on the Korean Peninsula. Do people think we want to be there? Chairman Kim is a damn scary guy! But we stay to honor our commitment — also made with the United Nations — not to allow a dictatorship’s dynasty to overtake its southern neighbor. Do we get any thanks for that? Not from the younger generation of South Koreans, and their dislike of us really makes us wish we could get out of there. But it would be close to a criminal act for us to simply pack up and leave Korea. We became involved when Europe and Japan were still reconstructing after the second world war, China was actively supporting the North Koreans, and there were simply no other powerful armies around to help the United Nations in the effort to save South Korea. Should we have abandoned them then? Should we abandon them now when no one else is willing to take over? Do you trust Chairman Kim?
No one wants the United States to have less responsibility in the world than the Americans themselves. I feel confident saying that most Americans would rather go back to being the “sleeping giant” that Japan awakened in December 1941. I think most of us have always thought that the ideal situation is a relatively isolated United States that maintains a very powerful army which kicks into gear when we are threatened. At the moment, we are indeed threatened. So we are in “action” mode, something that makes us nervous as hell, upsets our economy and produces the predictable rise in anti-USA sentiment.
Yeah, we love this stuff.
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