JohnSmith wrote:Of course it's threatening. That's why Russia is rearming itself, and planning to bomb the shit out of any missile defense systems places oh-so convieniently near their borders.
That's why Iraq hates the US, and their government is refusing the US the right to stick around long term.
That's why us Canadians are getting more and more wary of sitting next to someone that nobody likes much. ( And they persist in saying we don't get lots of arctic that we claimed years ago.
)
What? You haven't heard any of that? You must be living in an alternate universe.
Ah, that felt good.
Sorry Simon, I had to reply to that rant with one of my own.
The US (and canada) is behind the developed world in a lot of ways. We've got worse cell/internet infrastructure, we've got worse roads, we've got worse health care (than some places). The education is definitely lacking in North America.
And yeah, the US is really powerful. Nobody likes to know that there's somebody bigger and stronger watching them. Especially when they know that the big guy is just waiting to jump in unasked.
On the Cell/Internet infrastructure, I have read that countries such as India are eskewing copper cable phone systems in place of cell systems. The U.S., having first developed a massive and extensive copper cable system has gone slower in building out cell/internet because of a desire to maximize the return on existing assets. Countries without a built out copper system face no such dilema. Hence they go straight to RF carrier/fiber infrastructure.
Secondly, have you seen the movie "Team America" ? It is not that far from the truth.
Yes, most of the world hates us because we unilaterially invaded Iraq. Part of the reason it was Unilateral (thereby occasioning much of the hate) was the fact that so many nations were in bed with Sadam's government that it was in their financial interests to oppose the US messing up their gravy train. (French connections appear to be particularly ubiquitous)
I was not happy about Bush launching a war against Iraq, I figured the suffering of people in other countries is regretable but none of our buisness. Sadam making Nuclear weapons was our buisness only insofar as they represented a threat to US and our allies.
The fact that much of the information about the WMD program turned out to be false is unfortunate and resulted in many deaths and much loss of respect for the U.S. but the consequences of nukes being given to or stolen by terrorists, or Sadam attacking Israel to "Unite" the Arab peoples was too serious to allow any other outcome.
As a police officer occasionally shoots an unarmed man because the man was carrying a pair of sunglasses or some such is very unfortunate but from the police officer's perspective, there is no other reasonable alternative.
Beyond that, I have to give George Bush credit for one thing. No other American President has ever before done any significant thing to attempt to create peace in the middle east. We have Jimmy Carter to thank for creating the Mess in Iran, and thereby creating the Mess in Iraq, but no one seems to blame him for that.
David