It’s certainly been interesting reading the comments posted, and as one would expect I agree with some and found others a bit off base, especially when viewed in a greater historical context. America is a country of strong values and beliefs that have been stated so beautifully in our constitution by some insightful old guys with bad hairdos. If you’ve never read our constitution it’s a good read.
America is the oldest democracy in the world and the apex of the capitalistic experiment, both of which inherently creates a dynamic state in which the U.S. operates. To understand America is to understand the irony of the paradoxal situation in which America finds itself in. On one hand we are the sole remaining superpower and global economists. On the other hand we are a nation that feels most comfortable as isolationists. This is no more apparent than in our total ignorance of the rest of the world. When Americans immigrated from Europe we thought we could leave our problems behind us. All we had to do was work hard, hold dear our values and keep our noses clean. WWI and WW2 drew us back reluctantly and politically we’ve never looked back since. However as a society we are still withdrawn relying solely on our politicians to rule the roost as far as any sort of foreign policies go, and in so our politicians have orchestrated many policies we can be proud of and some that have completely failed.
9/11 should of been a wake-up call for American’s that we can no longer sit idly in a vacuum of ignorance when it comes to how we view the world...... Bush’s solution "crush the evil doers." A simple solution of course to a complex problem, but very effective in letting Americans off the hook as far as making Americans proactive about our position in the world and those we choose to run it. Subsequently Bush was given a free pass to do what he wanted....... 9/11+dumb president=menace to society.
The war in Iraq is a farce. Especially when you look at the simple facts. Saddam was a brutal dictator, megalomaniac, and a secular leader. The virulent ideology Osama spews he does so for a warped cause. Saddam’s only cause was for himself and would of benefited nothing by supporting terrorists that would only draw the ire of the U.S. and the rest of the world. After all he was already in time-out and had a hard enough time maintaining power in his own country, without having a bunch of wackos running around causing more problems for him....WMD? Inspectors were in that country on/off for 10 yrs. found nothing.
So why did we go into Iraq? Some say it was for oil, but I doubt that. Sure we like a stable oil supply but iraq had to sell oil b/c like most OPEC countries they have little else to sell. No Bush was just finishing what his daddy didn’t do and getting back at Saddam for plotting an assassination attempt on his father, and for the more general policy of trying to democratize the middle east. Of course the Bush administration totally underestimated the somber complexities which plague the middle east, which will eventually end in a civil war in Iraq further destabilizing that region. But I could of told you that when we entered the war.
The U.S. war machine was built to crush Soviets, but has little effect on Ideologies and quite possibly an adverse one at that. Now thats 500 billion dollars a yr well spent.
When your the only superpower left your damned if you do and you damned if you don’t. But i can say Americans are generous, open, and we respect other cultures and people, and those who work hard. Is America a perfect place....no but we never stop trying. And for the guy that thinks whites are racists I can tell you if we were we would have to spend the whole day hating b/c nearly half of our country are people of color and its just too tiring to want to hate that much.