Evil America, or Victim America?

By Tom Kando

Johnny,

Thank you for taking the trouble to react in such detail. Because you raise many familiar issues, this warrants a separate post:

I have riled you up, because I have disturbed some long-established assumptions, namely that American foreign policies are (1) uniquely immoral and (2) beneficial to America.

Many people have a deeply ingrained need to believe this, as evidenced by your comments (and Tomi’s). Anti-Americanism is understandable, because for a century, the US presence in the world has been irritatingly large. The big guy is never popular.

I agree that US foreign policy has sometimes been destructive, and self-serving, although no more so than that of other countries. No sane country acts consistently against its self-interest. It has not been more self-serving than that of the Netherlands or other European countries, and much less so than many others.

I didn’t say that American foreign policy was particularly philanthropic. I believe that it has at times been stupid, but at other times enlightened.

You are too young to remember what America did for Europe and the world 60 years ago: World War Two, the Marshall Plan, the creation of the UN, these are all enormous deeds, they are primarily American deeds, and they made the world infinitely better than it would be otherwise.

The US rebuilt the world and created a global economy which is now so competitive that it threatens America’s own economy. If this is not altruistic, I don’t know what is.

I know the worn-out argument - that America did this out of self-interest. Even so, it surely beats the plundering of the defeated by the victors, as has been the rule from ancient Rome to the Versailles Treaties after World War One, and the USSR’s behavior after World War Two.

Your problem is that you cannot disagree with me: Here is what I said:

1) America should pull back, get out of other countries. You disagree?
2) America should stop squandering billions to support other regimes - dictatorial or otherwise. You disagree?
3) America should never have invaded Iraq. You disagree?
4) America should get out of Iraq and Afghanistan now. You disagree?

5) Oil? The Dutch don’t use oil? I experience your traffic “files” every year. Is Shell not a Dutch company? Do AMRO, RABO and the other giants of Dutch Capitalism - and indirectly you - not benefit from the existing “Pax Americana”?

6) One difference is that America pays more of the bills, and American soldiers die by the thousands, so that the Dutch can continue to drive their spic-and-span cars on their super-modern turnpikes, while our infrastructure here crumbles.

7) Israel? Way too complicated of an issue. I do know this: Israel is the only Middle Eastern country without oil, so it is difficult to argue that we are there for $$$. Europe is more critical of Israel than America is. America is more involved in the Middle Eastern Peace Process. It is not clear who is more right, and where anti-Zionism ebbs over into anti-Semitism. In light of 20th century history, Europe should not be too vocally anti-Israel.

8) Revolutions? Some are good, some are bad: Yes, the Easter European “velvet revolution” was a good revolution, and so was the non-violent downfall of Apartheid. Other good revolutions were the American Revolution in 1776, and the counterculture of the 1960s. But some revolutions lead to terror, the dictatorship of the proletariat, theocracy, genocide and bloody “Cultural Revolutions.”

9) So far, I support the Egyptian revolution. I hope that it does not turn into another fundamentalist, Iranian-style, revolution.

But my focus was on America’s role. I see, again, an immediate worldwide perception that the US has a special responsibility in this crisis. Yet as Madeleine explains in her post, one thing we know for sure: “The problems of the Middle East cannot be solved from the outside.” Do you disagree?

And to this I add that reducing US involvement in the Middle East is not only to Egypt’s advantage, but also to America’s.

You want to disagree.

Unlike you, I am sympathetic to the current plight of the American people. I happen to live here. Have you seen our slums, our poverty, our 14% unemployment, the countless homeless on street corners, the millions who have lost their homes, the cutbacks in education and social services, the violence which takes thousands of lives every year, and which has everything to do with poverty, not gun laws, as is easily proven by the fact that 90% of the violence occurs in the lower class?

10) The transfer of wealth from the US is real: Our dual deficit dwarfs that of any other country. We owe ten trillion dollars to the rest of the world. In one generation, we have morphed from the world’s greatest creditor to its greatest debtor.

So I say, let’s stop the insanity, let’s stop spending ourselves into oblivion by trying to police the world. You disagree?

It’s time to cultivate our own garden, as Holland and other shrewder countries have done for many years.

I don’t understand what this has to do with being “proud of my dear USA.” I happen to live here, and I don’t want my country to collapse. Don’t you feel the same about “your beloved Holland”?

I’m sorry if you have a general dislike for America. You cannot imagine that America does things which do not benefit her. You have to believe that somehow our misguided foreign policies are rational and beneficial to us. They are not.

Our goals are the same: America must stop trying to run the world. Our analyses and sympathies differ.leave comment here