First I am not a fan of US bashing. In fact when I argue the points with some of the middle eastern friends and tell them they use US too much of an excuse for their own messes, I am accused of being brain washed by American propaganda! Not making either side happy is a bit frustrating, but it does make me think that I am closer to truth than not.
Please do not obscure my points by over generalizations of your own. I already did say that I supported our involvement in Afghanistan. I just did not support the methods and the shortsightedness of it.
Without trying to expand this into discussing every global event during the last 5 decades as you tried to do by bringing Marcus and Shah into it, let me answer you in clear and general ways.
When we get involved in the internal politics of another country, naturally we try to put in place someone who we deem as most favorable to us rather than whoever has the best interests of that nation at heart. In rare cases they coincide, but as a rule we do not spend the money and lives to put in charge someone who is not the "best" man in the country.
There are two problems with this approach. First of all, the way this "best man for the job" is selected is based on lobbies from big business. This promotes a system in which whoever is selling out the best will be the one whom we support. Tell me how are the Iraqi people represented in Washington? They are not. The cannot vote. They cannot offer political contributions. And for all given purposes, so long as they can be controlled, they do not matter. On the other hand, you can bet there are plenty of rich boys throwing their hat in the debate as to how Iraq should be rebuilt. And whose interests do you think they will have at heart?
Once we put a regime in power, then we have a vested interest in showing to the world that we did not make a mistake and that we will turn a blind eye to their actions. And here comes the second problem. Whatever mistakes these client regimes make, even if it is innocent mistakes, it is seen by their people as something that America did to them and US becomes the bad guy around the world.
The cold war is over. America won. Sadly the bad habits that it brought are still very much alive. America has two choices: either carry on extension of cold war policies and become the global police/babysitter (from US point of view and the global bully/Great Satan from the rest of the world POV). Or we can try to bring about real stability to the world as I described before. So you tell me, which is better, being control freak who does not trust whatever it cannot control, or bringing about an environment that can naturally foster good behavior?
Our own everyday lives are a good model as to what should or should not be acceptable behavior on the global stage. Why is it so hard to demand the government should behave no less morally than people do?
BTW, morality is not just something that you learn in kinder garden and forget about later on. Nor is it something that effects only your after life. Morality has been developed over thousands of years as the best method that the human race can survive. My games theory prof. often did a good job of analyzing a moral issue through the concrete eyes of this science.
Sun Tzu
PS Yes, when you do help out people of shady character or questionable ideology and show that all you want is your own interests, then you should expect the eventual outcome to turn around and bite you. One way or another it is inevitable.
PPS What do you know about the roots of the hatred between Hutu and Tutsi? At least in that case it wasn't America that made the mess. |
