[insuffi]

Hah! Benevolent! I'm glad you get to sleep well at night, while U.S. military terrorizes the world, and creates wars in order to finance itself.

You're either ignorant or amoral.

edit: eh. I feel like it needs reminding - I realize that in terms of geopolitics there needs to be a superpower. Every century has had a superpower that in all likelihood abused the weaker countries. My issue is with the way OP describes the issue: US being benevolent and great, bringing in fruits to US economy, completely ignoring repercussions worldwide, and OP has absolutely no problem with it.

[oblio]

I'm not American and not really an US fan. But I think he's at least partially right.

Many of the previous wannabe #1s (as the US is now), were motivated by ideology ("we're better than you, culturally, religiously, racially, etc"): Spain, Portugal, England, France, Germany, by a power trip (Russia) or by what I could only call sheer insanity (Nazi Germany, USSR). The US is a bit different in this regard since it was always basically a trading nation and this what drove it forward: we don't (usually) want your land or want to convert your people to whatever crazy idea we have, we just want to get (worst case) / buy (best case) your stuff.

That is an entirely different message and as long as it is not abused to much (see Iraq especially), it is a much better approach for the smaller guys.

Ideally I'd want all the countries to be open, democratic, tolerant, free market economies AND equal partners. In practice I'd just want the big guy to not abuse me too much and give me a chance to grow myself.

That's why as a Romanian I'm kind of horrified, for example, by Russia's resurgence. They fail 3 out of 5 those "ideal" criteria completely (open, tolerant, equal). The US fails basically just "equal", the rest might not be awesome but they have passing grades.

[danudey]

I would argue (as a not-American and not really US fan) that the US is motivated by the same sort of ideology. In this case, it's the oft-repeated American nationalism ('America is the best nation on earth') to the denigration of other countries. As a Canadian, you often see this attitude of 'America is the best, you should be glad to be around us', and an attitude towards other countries of 'they should be glad they get to do business with us'.

Americans aren't interested in your land or people, because then they would have to manage them. Dirt-farming peasants in some filthy third-world country can have their crappy lives, as long as the despots that we deal with (and, often, installed) give us a fair price for the goods they take from you.

The 'better approach for the smaller guys' is probably true in your area of the world, where the US hasn't been able to effect serious political change due to proximity towards European and Soviet (now Russian) powers; in South America, on the other hand, the US has been known to help overthrow elected governments in favour of dictators with more favourable relationships (as they also did in Iran, for example); in that case, I think it's much worse for the little guys vs. a well-run occupation.

Monty Python said it pretty well: 'Apart from better sanitation and medicine and education and irrigation and public health and roads and a freshwater system and baths and public order... what have the Romans done for us?'

[oblio]

I actually wanted to throw Guatemala up there, next to Iraq, as an counter-example. The USA has from the absolutist point of view an awful track record. But the competition was so bad that from a relative point of view it's like purgatory versus hell. Canadians or Mexicans might not like the US, but there's no neighbor of Russia that did well because of Russia. Any sane citizen which has no vested interest in Russian occupation or is actually Russian (Russia and the USSR have displaced a lot of populations, have colonized large areas and have russified huge populations) will agree.

Meanwhile Canada and Mexico are doing quite fine - those borders have been stable for over 100 years and there's been no major "abuse", as I called it before, that I know of.

Also, arrogance is not a capital offense, discrimination based on it is. From many points of view the US discriminates less than those mentioned previously.

[pizza234]

I have sympathy for pacific remarks, but you have to keep in mind that warmongering in foreign countries doesn't exactly fit as, let's say, one star a half on a five star ethics scale.

Iraq is not an abuse, becasue the abuse is mass murder; and it's not the only one.

There are a few interesting conceptual problems. It's arguable that this approach favours the smaller guys. Who are the smaller guys? The ones surrounding Russia, because they're important for strategic reasons?

Well, true. But we have to exclude the smaller guys who sit on oil reserves, because if they don't agree with giving their oil at a more than fair price, they get the bombs.

Also, we have to exclude various smaller guys which have been supported when it was convenient for various economical reasons, and then have been abandoned to self-implosion after they've been exploited.

So, who's really the smaller guys?

There are several other problems. One that I find very dangerous is that it's not just a matter of getting/buying "somebody else's" stuff. It's also a matter of exporting corporatocracy, which is an alarming direction.

[dragontamer]

Up until the Ukraine crisis, the US has been working very closely with Russia trying to become equal trading partners. Case in point: the Space Program and the Rockets the US have been using are all Russian made.

Mind you, US --- Venusuela relations are pretty bad right now, and we certainly want their oil. But the US isn't going to invade Venusuela any time soon. The politics and reasons behind the Iraq and Afghanistan wars are far more complicated than just oil. Otherwise, there'd be a heck of a lot more countries we'd be invading. (Iran, Venesuela, etc. etc.)

There is a good point made here. The US at worst just wants stuff: it doesn't want to prove its superiority over other countries (although there are factions of the Warmongerers who do wish to do that... it seems like politics of war are more practical than the 19th century "Great Game" period).

There's a lot of people hating on the current approach of global politics. But any studied historian will agree: the US is doing a heck of a lot better than Napoleon, the British Empire, Rising Sun Japan, or other historical world powers. Heck, "Corporatocracy" was the standard Asian power from 1600s to the 1800s. The East Indian Trading Company (a corporation) was one of the world powers that conquered India.

We no longer live in an era where corporations are allowed to have standing armies and navies. We no longer live in an era where world powers wage war over the ability to trade Opium for the explicit purpose of weakening a country. (IE: the 1800s Opium Wars).

Perhaps "benevolence" is the wrong word to use to describe America, but its certainly doing its "Super-power duties" better than its historical predecessors.

[reitanqild]

Don't forget that there are a lot of countries around the world that borders to former USSR that are very happy with American military superiority.

My home country is one of them. USSR at some point had stamps where half of our contry was painted in as part of the empire, and rich in resources and strategic as it was there is a fair chance they had invaded us hadn't it been for the Americans. Most of us prefer different degrees of rich as in USA versus everybody equal(ly poor) as in USSR so we are mostly happy.

Understand that I cannot defend everything every American has ever done but on average I'd feel much safer with an American soldier pointing a gun at me than about anyone else.

[insuffi]

We're in agreement. I myself hail from a former soviet satellite country.

My point is that it's insulting to call the US benevolent. The difference between US and USSR is that the US prefers a more subtle way of conquering a country, namely, by causing turmoil and overthrowing the government, letting rebel groups run rampant and financing them. It's always easier to overtake strategic resources during anarchy.

Why do you think all the Iran, Ukraine etc civil wars are happening. Because the BRICS countries want to move away from the dollar.

Would you feel the same, on average, if you were a citizen of a South American country, or how about the middle east?

[anigbrowl]

I think you mean Syria, to Iran. suggesting that their civil war is occurring just because they want to move off the dollar standard is rather absurd. That may be a factor, but you have to weigh it against other factors like long-standing repressive autocratic rulers, demographic pressures with large numbers of unemployed youth, the relatively sudden availability of real-time digital communications and information access.

The 'US as malefactor' viewpoint depends on attributing enormous competency to the CIA and similar agencies to start revolutions, but simultaneously ignoring other factors - like the lack of concrete support for the rebels in Syria, notwithstanding the brutality of the Assad regime or widely-accepted evidence of chemical attacks. If the US were actually intent on toppling that regime it has had ample opportunity to advance that goal, but has chosen not to do so. In a larger context, the idea of moving away from the dollar as the reserve currency is often advanced because that would supposedly make it more difficult for the US to import the oil it needs. But there's no record of the US having adjusted its monetary policy in response to swings in oil price, which you would expect if that were the issue; and in any case domestic US oil and gas production is at a historic high and we've started expanding our nuclear fleet again after a 30 year hiatus.

I'm not American either, and I don't see the US as benevolent so much as driven by enlightened self-interest. Where I differ from you is in thinking that US interests aren't dependent on or even advanced by destabilizing other countries, notwithstanding historical US reliance on that strategy.

[happyscrappy]

>the lack of concrete support for the rebels in Syria, notwithstanding the brutality of the Assad regime or widely-accepted evidence of chemical attacks. If the US were actually intent on toppling that regime it has had ample opportunity to advance that goal, but has chosen not to do so.

Obama, who is hardly a hawk, was politically unable to act due to citizens understandable war weariness. Putin has no such restraints.

[anigbrowl]

Quite, but since he campaigned on skepticism about war from the outset of his presidential run (ie opposing the Iraq war and pledging to extract the US from it), I'm questioning the notion that he would have engineered the civil war in Syria to begin with.

[ataggart]

>You're either ignorant or amoral.

Unfortunately rayiner is neither, as a look at his comment history makes clear. His morality is just antithetical to yours and mine.

To paraphrase and invert an H.L. Mencken quote, it seems in any dispute between a citizen and the government, it is his instinct to side with the government; he is for all efforts to make men virtuous by law.

[lawnchair_larry]

Nah, I've seen his comments, and I agree that he is both of those things. I've found many of his "corrections" to be minimally researched and false. This usually goes unchallenged, so readers probably assume he knows what he is talking about. But really, he's a bit too quick to be contrarian.

[stuaxo]

One doesn't have to be libertarian to disagree with him !

[rayiner]

See: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pax_Americana.

[insuffi]

My comment still stands. As long as America has peace, you're in total agreement with the practice of terrorizing other countries.

[rayiner]

It's not just peace in America. It's peace in Europe and Asia too. What do you think the political situation would be vis-a-vis U.K. versus Germany versus France or Japan versus China if the U.S. military didn't have supremacy over everyone? History suggests it would be a lot less peaceful than it is now.

[pizza234]

> It's peace in Europe and Asia too. What do you think the political situation would be vis-a-vis U.K. versus Germany versus France or Japan versus China

Hmmm, no, this is flat-out wrong.

You've clearly never been in UK, Germany, or France, and yet, you think you have precise insight of the politics of those countries and the world.

The most terrible thing is the inesorable logic of how people develop this sort of thoughts, through growing up in cultural closeness, put together with exposure to militaristic propaganda (note that it's a general remark, not referred specifically to US).

[anigbrowl]

I'm European and completely agree with him. I grew up in Ireland (a constitutionally neutral country) and have lived and worked in the UK, Netherlands, Germany, and Spain as well as visiting several other European countries.

You would have to be living under a rock to ignore the long history of European internal wars, and equally to ignore the fact that European countries have been able to maintain a minimalist approach to defense spending because of the US security umbrella.

[pizza234]

You're mixing a couple of things here; we're not talking about defense in general, but specifically to the thesis that without US military presence, France/UK/Germany could/would go into conflict; this is just ridiculous, as much as thinking that US countries would go into a conflict as well, because they had a civil war in the past.

[insuffi]

History suggests the U.S. generally does whatever it wants in order to get richer, ever since WW2. Selling weapons to both sides of the war(e.g. both nazi germany and USSR) and helping out whichever side is winning.

So, no, history doesn't suggest that. Neither does recent history with 20+ regime changes.

edit: I feel like it needs reminding - I realize that in terms of geopolitics there needs to be a superpower. Every century has had a superpower that in all likelihood abused the weaker countries. My issue is with the way OP describes the issue: US being benevolent and great, bringing in fruits to US economy, completely ignoring repercussions worldwide.

[rayiner]

In the grand scheme of things, knocking over a dictatorship and trying to build a democracy friendly to us, even if self-serving and ill-advised, is quite a different thing than just cynically conquering a country and harvesting its resources, the way the European countries used to before America came along. People use the phrase "American Empire" as a metaphor. They use "British Empire" literally.

[aragot]

> knocking over a dictatorship and trying to build a democracy friendly to us

If I remember well, Afghanistan, Irak and Iran are the last places where US overthrew a Shah or a dictator. I don't remember them being a working democracy recently.

By the way, why was there a dictatorship in the first place? Most often because of a colonial past (we're all guilty here, I am French myself). I just want to remind that I see nothing good in a country just overthrowing a dictatorship: What we need is to build economic growth, like the Plan Marshall.

[insuffi]

But you still sleep well at night, right? Continuing to ignore the people dying everyday because of geopolitical aspirations.

Eh fine. I'm starting to sound self-righteous. My issue with your statement is how absolutely peaceful you are about contributing to war machine. You're implicitly helping the armed forces kill people.

[cobrausn]

Not really sure that argument holds upon closer inspection. For example, I agree with the idea of rule of law without agreeing with all laws that get implemented. By your rules, I would have to agree with all laws if I agreed with any.

[insuffi]

Your statement is barely even tangentially related to what I said. It's an issue of perception and morality.

[cobrausn]

It's completely related, but you've got your 'feathers ruffled', so to speak. One can agree with (and support) a system in place for many reasons and still 'sleep well at night' when that system doesn't work out exactly as you'd like because of the other benefits. I (willingly) pay police salaries without considering myself morally culpable when they do something out of line.

[insuffi]

Except when you pay police salaries, you're expecting them to maintain order within a society. The end goal of advanced military equipment[0] is to kill people as efficiently as possible. It's the goal, not something out of line.

[0] Doesn't even have to be equipment. Maintaining databases which are required for a functioning military complex means you're still serving their vision. Their visions as of late are often amoral.

[tormeh]

But are we sure it's not just nuclear peace we're seeing here? Sure, the US can make a lot of countries back off each other, but I would argue it's superfluous when MAD's already there.

[mpyne]

> But are we sure it's not just nuclear peace we're seeing here?

If it is nuclear peace, it's because of the Americans as well.

NATO doesn't have nukes, its member nations do. And a nation can't use nukes without being nuked in return (which is why the American extension of their nuclear shield over western Europe is so notable).

Even with that, France and the U.K. both didn't trust the U.S. to actually nuke the U.S.S.R. if push came to shove... would the U.S. really put itself in a position where it might be mutually destroyed just to save France and the U.K.?

Well, that's the same question all the non-nuclear members of NATO would be asking, if "nuclear peace" were the only answer. So apparently it's more than that.

[tormeh]

Yeah, but all the great powers of today have nuclear weapons, which is why they can't go to war with each other. That's my point.

[mpyne]

That's somewhat fair (there are still conditions under which war might occur), but my point was that we are seeing a deeper peace than simply "peace between great powers".

[Zigurd]

One problem is that, especially since 9/11, it isn't a pax Americana. We started the wars. And the problem with that is that the US pissed away $TRILLIONS on misguided and outright aggressive wars that drained resources just as the US was further weakened by the derivatives crash.

Strength comes from the economy. The ability to defend against tyranny is a product of a strong economy. But American military and banking policy has been ruinously bad for US economic power, and for the long-lead-time things like education that would rebuild the economy's ability to grow at a strong rate.

[john_b]

> "You're either ignorant or amoral."

No need for character sniping. He's a self-described statist, and many here (myself included) have a lot of disagreements with his views, but at least he can justify them better than the average statist (of the "Without a powerful government who will protect the children!" variety).

[lawnchair_larry]

If anything, that's why his comment is more warranted. Most of the aforementioned lack the facilities to inform their position, which can be forgiven. Someone who knowingly and proudly endorses what can only be described as evil should not be given a pass.

[EC1]

You can't generalize the entirety of the military. He could have easily been working on software for the military that doesn't actually have anything to do with killing people. Did you think of that?

[_bfhp]

You can generalize about the incentives of the politicians who control the military.

I'd be interested in discussing parts of the military that aren't related to U.S. imperialism. Care to bring one up?

[coldtea]

Sure: some PR work they do to cover the former. E.g helping out in some crisis situations et cetera.

[carrotleads]

amazing right. thats why they invests so much in soft diplomacy and hollywood. so that lots of people sleep well at night.

[happyscrappy]

The narrative you want is that the problem is only that America is evil, but the fact is the entire West is working together on intel. But that is a bit of rage deflator, and consequently conveniently ignored.

[Zigurd]

> but the fact is the entire West is working together on intel

Do you think that represents the will of the people in most of Europe, Australia, New Zealand?

[happyscrappy]

Well it is not like they are responsible for their own country.

[coldtea]

Well, it's not like a huge player with tons of resources and bad-will can't buy out politicians in high places even in large Western European countries. Or sponsor the campaigns of people they favor (lackeys).

Or, if the above don't work sometime, straight-out help install military dictatorships -- e.g even in the heart of Europe, in the late sixties:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greek_military_junta_of_1967%E2...

[happyscrappy]

Relieving Europeans of responsibility for their own government guarantees American power over them. They can complain while still feeling righteous, brilliant.

[coldtea]

>Relieving Europeans of responsibility for their own government guarantees American power over them

It's not like Americans have any greater "responsibility" over their own government.

It sure doesn't work for their best interests -- only for the same private interests and multinationals that also take advantage of Europe (and all post-colonial countries in their sphere of influence).

And it's not like European elites do not benefit from that -- it's just that the majority of those people tends to reside across the Atlantic, and finds it easier and more effective to yield US as their own private economic/diplomatic weapon. For the actual country and the majority of its citizens, they could not care less.

>They can complain while still feeling righteous, brilliant.

Not sure how "feeling righteous" is contradictory with "complaining" (your phrasing seems to imply that).

Your message seems to be: "if you're fucked over by a bully, you don't have the right to complaint, because it's your responsibility to stand up to him".

Well, replace Europeans with black people in the South pre-Civil War. Does that retain the same kind of ring that you intented it to have?

[Zigurd]

Eventually they will catch up to that responsibility. I'm sure that will work out well for us.

[dragontamer]

And East. China openly spies on their own citizens in their "Golden Shield" project, and have been caught spying on Google Datacenters and on the US.

Russia also is spying on everyone (especially true in the Ukraine right now).

So the truth is the truth, as it always has been known. The world spies on each other, very very often.

[insuffi]

That's not true. What I do have a problem is how OP described U.S. as some sort of exceptionally(see what I did there) benevolent leader.