Media of the day

In those particular instances, yes. The US had the same kneejerk reaction to Communism as the Islamic terrorists have to Western "incursion". Neither one was without basis, but neither one examined any circumstances surrounding, well, pretty much anything. Excepting China, the one Communist place the US definitely should have stayed adversarial to.

Although I'm gonna have to agree with genixia on the "Islamofascist" thing.

The term Islamofascists refers to those who claim to be Muslims but are considered by their opponents as fascists with Islamic background, e.g. those often called Islamic extremists or fundamentalists in the West.

Although, looking more into it, I see that some people (on both sides of the political spectrum) misinterpret this term to draw a direct connection between Islam and Fascism, which is not the case and was not intended by my use of the word. So, to avoid being misunderstood on that, I don't plan on using that term anymore (I also found that some Muslims take offense to it).

Well, the intent of the charming video is clearly to put down America. No question about that. So I standby calling it Anti-American. In calling it "typically liberal," I guess that was going too far because there are plenty of people who are liberal, but in fact only seem to hate part of America , so lumping all liberals into the "Anti-American" crowd went too far in the same way as the Islamofascist term, but in this usuage I clearly meant it (and since retract it).

Islamofascist referred to a specific movement and not to Islam as a whole. My comment towards liberals was purely an emotional reaction based on some of Michael Moore's recent and brilliant quotes and writings that have sent me through the roof. Telling a group of Canadians that the dumbest Canadian is smarter than the smartest American (and the same thing to a U.K. crowd) or saying that America deserved 9/11 is inexcusable. And this "well done" video is clearly from the same mindset.

EDIT: Fixed a typo before db jumps in.

While in Ireland this summer I bought a book called "Why do People Hate America?" by Ziauddin Sardar and Merrill Davies, despite the relative cost of books abroad, because:

a) Like most Americans, I genuinely wondered why; I am, and most of those I know are, pretty nice folks...and

b)This may have been my 10th or 11th extended stay abroad, in places from east and south Africa to Iceland, and I'd never before encountered the level of Anti-American feeling rampant this summer, even in a country with which we usually have pretty close ties.

c)After seeing what was in the daily press in the UK and Ireland and more importantly, realizing what was NOT in ours, I wasn't sure I could get the book at all in the US. This was unfounded; it's available on Amazon.

Nothing I found in it was factually incorrect when I researched it, and it is not a rant; it's pretty well reasoned. When you complete it, however, you have no difficulty answering the question. Whether or not you agree with its thesis, it should be incumbent upon all of us to understand how we're viewed in the rest of the world. It is diametrically opposed to what we're taught in school America is supposed to be about. Even though I came of age in the 60's and had opposed Viet Nam, there was much there I had either been unaware of or had thought isolated instances. The mismatch between what most Americans think we're about and what our government has been up to, which is perceived as hypocrisy, rather than apathetic ignorance on our parts, is one of the principal reasons we're hated. I'd recommend the book as a generally braodening perspective.

> Well, the intent of the charming video is clearly to put down America. No question about that. So I standby calling it Anti-American.

No, the intent of the video is to point out America's hypocricy. I mean who wants to be a hyopcrite? Alas, as much as I don't want to be a hypocrite, I am likely going to be angry at the person who points it out, because it is painful. I might use words like ignorant or think they hate me, and that anger would be understandable if I had never thought of myself as a hyopcrite before. I would hope though, that after the initial burst of anger, I might start to see that in fact, yes, I have been wrong and I have been blind to my own failings, and take some effort to fix them instead of merely being angry. But who knows.

It is arguable whether this is the richest nation; It depends what you use as your benchmark.

I certainly don't disagree with the rest of the point.

kayakjazz, your perspective is interesting, yet I don't see how winning a popularity contest with the world can trump the security interests that we have as a nation. Sure, it'd be "nice" to have the world love us. It'd also be "nice" if foreign political leaders didn't cash in on this view of the USA to win support amoung voters. And while looking at the actions of the USA around the world during the last half century may give the impression that our policies are hypocritical, it is only because they lack the proper perspective. A read of that book would perhaps detail how little perspective there is to those that "Hate" America.

For some reason, this instantly reminded me of the MadTV skit "The Reading Caboose." Did anyone else have this pop into their mind?

For those who haven't seen this, it is a parody of a children's reading show on public television. Except that the adults hosting the show continuously try to spread their politics to the children, or else teach them various conspiracy theories. Two I remember in particular are "the Clintons killed Vince Foster" and "the CIA killed Marilyn Monroe, here are the autopsy photos" -- just to pick both a conspiracy of the left and a conspiracy of the right, though the adults are depicted more as "flower children" stereotypes in general.

Well, how about "the intend of the charming video is clearly to put down America by calling America a hypocrite." And to call this video anything less than ignorant wouldn't be right. I'm sorry it's a mean word. I wish I didn't have to use it.

There is no argument that the USA and Islamic Terrorists (or Saddam) are morally equal. This is so obvious, I really don't know where to begin in explaining it, and I hope I don't really have to, but: Terrorists aiming to destroy Western civilization and all infidels because they oppose Western involvement in the Middle East and Western culture as a whole does not hold the same weight as a government aiming to stop the spread of fascism and communism for the sake of freedom for those people and the greater good of the world. I am not saying that the USA is without blunders throughout the Cold War, but I'm not aware of any war yet that has been flawless. Just because the terrorists "think" they are as right as we do, doesn't not mean that the two are morally equal. I'm sure the Nazis working at death camps "thought" they were morally justified too. But hopefully, anyone reading this has the ability to see that Nazis and Islamic Terrorists are evil no matter how "right" they they think they are. And even the people out there that think that Communism is a neat idea (it just hasn't been done right yet), can see that America engaging in the Cold War to stop the spread of Communism and promote Democracy is a far more just cause than the two previous examples. I could go on, and I'm sure I'll be prompted to.

So, since the USA, with its involvement with the Contras (or whatever part of the video caught your fancy), is still more just in its cause, even if you disagree with the actions, than Islamic Terrorist who seek to kill all infidels, whether they be French, American or Canadian, until each and every one has been killed, the only way one can try to equate the USA and terrorists is to draw similarities between the actions of those terrorists and the Contras that the USA supported. (Sorry for the long winded sentence there.) This is a very weak argument.

If drawing loose similarities between actions, without allowing for perspective or moral intent, was enough to point out hypocrisy, I could make the following arguments:

• Great Britain was a hypocrite for bombing Germany when they, at the same time, considered Germany's bombing of Britain as an aggressive act. (Don't allow for the fact that Germany was intent on conquering all of Europe and parts of Africa or any of the other, countless things about WWII Germany).
  
• A police officer would be a hypocrite for shooting a man when he, in fact, considers shooting a person to be crime. (Don't allow for the fact that the man shot by the officer was in the act of attacking an innocent child with a knife.)
  

I agree that it is human nature to take attacks toward an institution that we support (whether it be our church, government, um... local ACLU chapter, etc) personally, and it's worth pointing out that these criticisms are not intended to be personal.

Yet, it's hard not to take personally criticisms of my government when I see it as acting to ensure the security of myself, my family, my community and my nation. Of course, the people making those attacks see my government as engaging in the exact opposite, so they might be surprised when it is taken personally as an emotional reaction.

You're essentially arguing that the ends justify the means, and I can't buy into that philosophy.

No, I intentially pointed out that, even if you disagree with the actions and consider them wrong, that still does not equate them to the terrorism directed at us.

Nor, do I think, the video (which, for the record, I thought was ... enh ... okay) intends to equate anything more than actions. But actions are important.

How the rest of the world perceives us is rather more than a popularity contest; if you leave aside the moral/ethical issues(I don't, but...), consider it a matter of pragmatism. The US is unable to do the job they set out to do in either Afghanistan or Iraq, despite the accumulating carnage on both sides---and our few allies are bailing rapidly. The flouishing opium trade in Afghanistan is in large part going to
fund world terrorism. Given that we can't--or lack the political will to--successfully conclude even these two fronts, what are we going to do about North Korea and Iran, both of whom were always more serious threats, if/when they erupt, just to name the two likeliest candidates? Our current pre-emptive war, badly executed,which the rest of the world views with increasing abhorrence, is unlikley to win us world support, especially as we seem bent on further alienating the world on so many fronts. The US took what was nearly universal support after 9/11 and squandered it (like the budget surplus) by initiating a war that had little to do with that event. And losing the"popularity contest" in this way is undoubtedly the best recruiting tool Al-Quaeda could have devised....all of which is a somewhat lengthy assertion that our standing in the world, which is based on our actions rather than our rhetoric, and our security within it are inseparable.

Last I counted, I have about 8 people to respond to, and I'm trying to do this in order, but I thought I'd respond to this one first... I'm thinking I won't have a chance to keep up once Monday hits and people can post from work. I don't have internet at work, and my wife isn't too happy with me spending too much time on this instead of planning our next house, baby and various other stuff, but I'm trying!

Sure, Abu Gharaib is an example for the people that were involved in it. But it was an internal investigation that brought those horrors to light. The military itself, even it wasn't moving fast enough because it had a growing insurgency to deal with, condemned those actions and is punishing those involved. The argument has been made that policies set forth by the Pentagon and the administration "set an atmosphere" in which Abu Gharaib happened, but that is a far cry from it being policy, being accepted or being encouraged. I know the NYT would disagree with me, but that's another story. No one seems to mention that it was a fellow Army soldier who broke this story and reported it because he knew it was wrong.

I won't dare post some of the pictures I've seen, but perhaps you'd like me to email you some of the vicious crimes and mutilations that were carried out by Saddam. As bad as the actions were in those prisons, they are nowhere near the horrors suffered under the official policies of Saddam, so to compare them, and say they are equal is an insult to the people who were raped, maimed and brutalized by Saddam. I think they'd gladly stand on a box for hours at end in the nude if they could have their limbs back.

No. Saddam Hussein in Iraq.