U.S. Foreign policy

N

Noone special

Registered Member
I'm actually doing a project for an English class, on American foreign policy.

I think I'm going to focus on the hypocrisy of our war history and how we have stayed out of different atrocities.

Does anyone think we are quite justified in our wa history? Or does anyone think a particular American atrocity was horrendous? Howabout the war in Iraq, is this an example of American imperialism, or is that quite an exageration? If you have any statistics or facts that will be greatly beneficial to my English paper.
 
Wow, you have a big topic. You could write a book on it, as others have done. I am not sure I understand your statement related to atrocities. Perhaps you could explain further. War has always had atrocity. War is an ugly business. In biblical times, it was standard practice that when you took a city; you also slaughtered all the women, children and domestic animals as well as all of the men.
With technology, war has become more accurate and less bloody. But there are still atrocities. And then you need to define what an atrocity is. Some folks define it differently, it is a mater of perspective. I am sure my definition is different from that of a radical muslim like Bin Laden. I think 9/11 was an atrocity, but I am sure he and his followers have another take on it.

If you are looking for a war that was justified in American history, look at WWII. German and Japan declared war on the United States. And Japan attacked the United States. But even in this war atrocities were committed by both sides on various scales. Innocents were bombed and killed. Atrocity is a natural by product of war.
 
Also as atrocities relate to foreign policy. I mean this, are we justified in allowing other countries to commit atrocities and not get involved? Howabout the case of east Timor.

Also, During the time of the Vietnam war, America began secretly bombing on "Viet Cong Bases" of which 600,000 people were killed either directly or indirectly from the bombings. Would this be considered an unjust atrocity? Im interested to hear opinions/rebuttles

Maybe someone will claim that the US is justified in different imperialistic volleys because we are spreading precious democracy. In what way should we stand up for democracy in the World? Some have accused America of trying to police the globe but maybe keeping democratic countries free is justifiable.
 
You should have joined when sandy was around..

In reference to your thesis, Justfication depends on the severity of the threat. In my opinion, with the exception of the cuban missile crisis, (and even thats debatable), the US has never had a knife at its throat as much as some other countries have.

I suggest you look at latin America, and the atrocities that occurred there. The "lesser evil" situation, that many justified.when it couldn't be. , saying that even the slightest hint of socialism would result in horrendous consequences. Clearly, there were ulterior motives, such as corporations within the US wanting access to resources at a cheaper price.
 
In my opinion, the United States should not get use it's armed forces nor should it use surrogates to fight in foriegn conflicts. The United States should not be the global policeman. It should only get involved in conflicts where its security is threatened.

And the United States has had the knife at its throat on more than one occasion. I suggest you look at the War of 1812 when the capital of the United States was burned to the ground. And also, WW II, when it suffered an unprovoked attack by Japan and had the Axis powers declare war on her.

Spreading democracy out the barrel of a gun is not worth the investment of time and money, much less dealing with the moral issues.
 
Spreading "democracy" usually is an euphenism for supporting the party that will allow us the most profits and allow us to exploit their population.

The US is not the global policeman, but more like the global pimp, hiring/helping other countries to do their conflicts for them.

Eg. Iraq vs Iran. Columbo vs Venezuela.

WWII, despite the surprise attack, the US fleet was still in a position of superiority, Japanese forces were not in a position to invade continental US, or even Hawaii for that matter.
Good point with the War of 1812, but from my non existent US history & wiki I recall that was more due to your mismanagement than the british superiority.
I find that most of modern US policy is either creating dictators, or fixing up past mistakes.
 
Challenger78 said:
Spreading "democracy" usually is an euphenism for supporting the party that will allow us the most profits and allow us to exploit their population.

The US is not the global policeman, but more like the global pimp, hiring/helping other countries to do their conflicts for them.

Eg. Iraq vs Iran. Columbo vs Venezuela.

WWII, despite the surprise attack, the US fleet was still in a position of superiority, Japanese forces were not in a position to invade continental US, or even Hawaii for that matter.
Good point with the War of 1812, but from my non existent US history & wiki I recall that was more due to your mismanagement than the british superiority.
I find that most of modern US policy is either creating dictators, or fixing up past mistakes.
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I agree with your definition of democracy, "Spreading "democracy" usually is an euphenism for supporting the party that will allow us the most profits and allow us to exploit their population". Representative democracy (especially as practiced in the United States) is a good mechanism for special interests to exercise control of a large group individuals without them knowing it. It is certianly better and safer from the ruling class point of view.

I beg to differ with you on Japan and WW II. Japan did invade and occupy lands of the United States. More specifically they invaded and occupied parts of Alaska. Also the Phillipines was a possesion of the United States at the time...won from the Spanish in the Spanish American War. And the Japanese forcibly invaded and occupied the land. So it was more than just an attack on Pear Harbor.
The Pacific Fleet was decimated by the attack except for a few carrieers and submarines. At the time, the United States Navy did not place a great deal of value on the carriers. It was still a battleship fleet. While the Japanesse fleet had a full compliment of battleships, carriers, destroyers, and submarines. Not one of them was lost in any military campaign up to that point. A few months later the remaining carriers of the United States Pacific fleet met and destroyed a signficant portion of Japans carriers at Midway. At the battle of Midway, the American fleet was out numbered and out gunned. But they won. Because the United States Navy had decoded the Japaneses Naval code and were expecting them. The American fleet caught the Japanese feet with their pants down as they were attacking Midway.
Japan also launched small attacks against the mainland United States. Granted they were small and insignificant. But they still dropped bombs on the mainland, and had plans do do more. The bombs were dropped from an aircraft launched from a modified submarine. Other bombs were dropped via ballon. The only casualties were a few kids and a mom.
 
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Noone special said:
I'm actually doing a project for an English class, on American foreign policy.

I think I'm going to focus on the hypocrisy of our war history and how we have stayed out of different atrocities.

Does anyone think we are quite justified in our wa history? Or does anyone think a particular American atrocity was horrendous? Howabout the war in Iraq, is this an example of American imperialism, or is that quite an exageration? If you have any statistics or facts that will be greatly beneficial to my English paper.
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Have a look at the removal of Aristide in Haiti. Bush toppled a democracy in Haiti. The "rebels" were armed and trained and paid by somebody and that somebody seems to have been the USA. Certain people in the USA media ran anti Aristide disinformation stories in the US media for 6 months prior to the US troops kidnapping Aristide. Normally the US media will never run stories about Haiti because the editors know Americans have no interest in Haiti. Somehow the Bush lead coup against democracy in Haiti managed to get the editors to allow Haiti stories to run even though the editors knew Haiti stories don't sell advertising.
 
Look up US involvement in:
Chechnya
Xinjiang (East Turkestan)
Kashmir
Palestine
Azerbaijan
North Cyprus
Somalia (recently)
Lebanon
 
Why is it the responsibility of the US to wage war for the sake of justice and stop the evil doers?

Is it because you think the US is the most moral nation on Earth?

The blatant hypocrisy I see comes from the left-wing.

pw_sign_44.gif
 
OilIsMastery said:
Why is it the responsibility of the US to wage war for the sake of justice and stop the evil doers?

Is it because you think the US is the most moral nation on Earth?

The blatant hypocrisy I see comes from the left-wing.
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The most blatant hypocrisy I see comes from the right-wing.

US foreign policy is often just another evil doer. The US wages wars for reasons that have nothing to do with morality, justice, democracy, freedom or fighting evil doers.

Most wars have been bad guys versus other bad guys.


I nominate Sweden as the most moral nation on earth. Does anybody have a better choice for most moral nation on earth than Sweden?
 
You quoted 2 questions and didn't answer either one.

nirakar said:
The US wages wars for reasons that have nothing to do with morality, justice, democracy, freedom or fighting evil doers.
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So what? Name one country besides the US that does.

Most wars have been bad guys versus other bad guys.
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Shock and awe.

"As it is written, There is none righteous; no, not one:" -- (Romans 3:10)
 
OilIsMastery said:
You quoted 2 questions and didn't answer either one.


So what? Name one country besides the US that does.


Shock and awe.

"As it is written, There is none righteous; no, not one:" -- (Romans 3:10)
Click to expand...

It is not the responsibility of the US to wage war for the sake of justice and to stop the evil doers.

If the US ever did decide to wage a war for the sake of justice or to stop evil doers I as a US citizen would not complain about that if it was done well and without too much cost to US citizens. I had no problem with the US going after Al Qaeda in Afghanistan.

I don't think the USA is the most moral nation. Humans in general are not as moral, honest with themselves or as intelligent as some of us would like to believe we are.

My question is can the next generation be more moral, more intelligent and less self-deceiving than the previous generation was? I think the answer is yes we can get better. The Post-Hitler world has had a higher standard for justice than the pre-Hitler World did. Now we need a better excuse than race, religion or nationality before we collectively steal from each other or to pursue power for the sake of pursuing power.

The USA has so much power. The best I can say about the USA's foreign policy is that the USA probably has not abused that power as much as most other nations would have abused that power if they had the power.

The US pretends to wage war for noble reasons. As a US citizen I want US wars to either be noble or to be truly effective at serving the selfish interests of the majority of US citizens. The War in Iraq fails to satisfy me in either way.

I have read PNAC and have tried to guess what Rumsfeld and Wolfowitz were thinking. I think they were wrong. They may have helped the oil companies, Israel and the defense contractors but they have not made Americans safer or wealthier and they are not building some sort of long term containment of China.

OilIsMastery said:
So what? Name one country besides the US that does.
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No country is running around the world fighting evil. The USA also is not running around the world fighting evil but the backers of this very expensive NeoCon foreign policy try to convince as many people as possible that the USA is fighting some epic Tolkien style battle with evil. This fake battle with evil is the cover story for a highly debatable foreign policy that is serving way too many masters to be effective at anything. The USA is just breeding new generations of enemies for itself.
 
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nirakar said:
Kashmir? The US is doing something in Kashmir? Are you counting US money to Pakistan as doing something in Kashmir?
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The US government does not recognize, nor ever has, the right of the Kashmiri people to live free of occupation from India. No talk of democracy or freedom can be taken seriously when the US (the "sole protector of liberty" as they call themselves) willfully ignores the death and oppression of millions of people in Kashmir.
 
OilIsMastery said:
Why is it the responsibility of the US to wage war for the sake of justice and stop the evil doers?

Is it because you think the US is the most moral nation on Earth?

The blatant hypocrisy I see comes from the left-wing.

pw_sign_44.gif
Click to expand...

Or unless you are a Republican right-winger.
 
This has been a very beneficial discussion I assure you and thank you.

But I am interested that noone thinks that we are obligated to intervein in certain atrocities in the World even if it doesnt directly effect our safety.
Do you think that it is too self-righteous to claim moral supperiority? Well maybe it doesnt matter when millions of innocent people are dying. And after all, we do claim things like "All men are created equal" and uphold a pretty high standard of human life, you think we might extend that to other countries.
 
Without actual researching it I think the US-involvement (as a Nato member) in former Yugoslavia might count as justified involvement in a non-threat (at least to the US) situation.
 
I think that as one of the world's sole superpowers, it is somewhat our responsibility to intervene in international scenarios. There is no such thing as an atrocity that is not our business. All atrocities are the business of anyone and everyone who can do something to stop it.
 
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