The U.S. Asking To Be Forgived, Which Countries? (WWII, Roman, influence)
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Oh, good grief. I'm really uninterested in going on a global apology tour. I mean, hey, just about every major country on the planet has a catalog of sins equal or even worse than what the United States did either in the pursuit of realpolitik or just stupidity. I mean, the OP mentions the Philippines, but forgets the fact that the United States liberated the islands from the Spanish, who were far worse colonial masters. What's more, the Americans actively moved to give the Filipinos their independence without the pressure of a serious insurgency. I mean, if the American experience in the Philippines was so awful and we are so hated, why does the Filipino army continue to honor Douglas Macarthur by calling his name at roll call? Why have the Filipinos, after closing our naval bases 20 years ago, invited us back? The answer is that we're much nicer than the Chinese, that's why.
While we're getting in the Way Back Machine, let's not forget that Iran was a pretty terrible offender in the Middle East when they actually had power. The British, French, Germans, Dutch, Spanish, and Portuguese all gleefully committed their own atrocities. The Danes had a pretty nice little slavery thing going in the Virgin Islands. And the Belgians were so ruthlessly, brutally exploitive in the Congo that their behavior would have made Himmler blush. The Cubans were exploiting Grenada before the Americans got involved in 1982 and were running amok all over Angola. The Nicaraguans, Hondurans, and the rest of Latin America were rather effective at brutalizing their own people and their native populations without our tutelage. All the United States did was pretty much displace one corrupt dictator with another more to our liking. Even as we speak, the current regime in Venezuela has taken what was once a stable and prosperous country and turned it into a dictatorship with a rotting economy. It has gotten so bad right now, that I'm pretty sure that many Venezuelans are getting nostalgic for the days of American gunboat diplomacy. In other news, the Russians are up to their old tricks in the Ukraine.
The Chinese pretty much brutalized their neighbors and their own countrymen, the less said about the Japanese the better, and the Arabs went on a lemming-like crusade to conquer the world. Hey, to this day, some Arabs still dream about reconquering Spain. The Incas and the Aztecs, by all accounts, butchered any other peoples they encountered and the aboriginal tribes of North America did the same. After all, those Anasazi ruins in the desert Southwest are up on a cliff face for a reason, and it wasn't aesthetics. They needed a place to pull up their ladders and retreat when some tribe up the river came marauding. The Maoris were a particularly bloodthirsty lot, witness their complete annihilation of the Chatham Islanders in the 19th Century. Hawaiians waged warfare for years, until Kamehameha killed all the other chieftains who could possibly oppose him. And the list goes on and on and on.
My point? Hey, I'm not a disciple of Nietzsche, Carlyle, and Gobineau, but show me a people that's in existence today and I'll show you a huge number of sins in its past undertakings, whether for survival or the expansion of national power. So the OP's contention that the United States was some kind of evil power while the rest of the world has clean hands is just absurd. To be sure, we have made mistakes as a country and as a people. But if we're going to apologize to the world, then we need to get in line behind some much worse offenders in the grand scheme of things.
I think that quote by Harry Lime regarding the differences in terms of advancing civilization between violent Rennaissance Italy and pacific Switzerland is appropriate here.
Charity starts at home and so should the apologies. I'd like an apology from Obama that so much HOPE was offered and now we are all pretty much hoping to survive until 2016.
Overall I think our current Gov. both REP and DEMS should apologise to the American people for screwing up the country so much.
Location: Finally escaped The People's Republic of California
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Yeah, we are such a terrible country. We should just bring all our service men home from everywhere, sail all our ships back to our own waters, land all our planes on our own land, and just put the rest of the world on ignore......
"Apologies" by nation-states for long-ago actions tend to sound a bit ridiculous. Pandering, at best. Absurd and insincere at worst.
The best course of action is to look at how things went wrong, when they did go wrong. And why. In the case of the modern US, some of this type of thing stems from the "capture" of powerful bureaucratic institutions by obsessed or deranged zealots such as the Dulles brothers, who were at times acting directly on behalf of their own private sector clients when "advising" on policy matters. Or the reams of nonsense spewed out by various groups and people regarding Iraq in 2002/early 2003.
There are clear lessons here - be very skeptical of officials and "commentators" and others who run around screaming for "interventions." Carefully interrogate their personal and financial interests in the matter. Be wary and be cautious. Because there are plenty of slick-sounding people out there perfectly willing to use the resources of the US government to pursue their own ends.
The other step to take would be to dismantle idiotic policies that remain in force today, such as the remaining sections of the Cuba embargo, and probably some of the sanctions-making regime itself. It has become too easy for legislators to use the Treasury Department as a tool of private foreign policy through sanctions laws, which has often led to silly or counterproductive results.
Oh, good grief. I'm really uninterested in going on a global apology tour. I mean, hey, just about every major country on the planet has a catalog of sins equal or even worse than what the United States did either in the pursuit of realpolitik or just stupidity. I mean, the OP mentions the Philippines, but forgets the fact that the United States liberated the islands from the Spanish, who were far worse colonial masters. What's more, the Americans actively moved to give the Filipinos their independence without the pressure of a serious insurgency. I mean, if the American experience in the Philippines was so awful and we are so hated, why does the Filipino army continue to honor Douglas Macarthur by calling his name at roll call? Why have the Filipinos, after closing our naval bases 20 years ago, invited us back? The answer is that we're much nicer than the Chinese, that's why.
While we're getting in the Way Back Machine, let's not forget that Iran was a pretty terrible offender in the Middle East when they actually had power. The British, French, Germans, Dutch, Spanish, and Portuguese all gleefully committed their own atrocities. The Danes had a pretty nice little slavery thing going in the Virgin Islands. And the Belgians were so ruthlessly, brutally exploitive in the Congo that their behavior would have made Himmler blush. The Cubans were exploiting Grenada before the Americans got involved in 1982 and were running amok all over Angola. The Nicaraguans, Hondurans, and the rest of Latin America were rather effective at brutalizing their own people and their native populations without our tutelage. All the United States did was pretty much displace one corrupt dictator with another more to our liking. Even as we speak, the current regime in Venezuela has taken what was once a stable and prosperous country and turned it into a dictatorship with a rotting economy. It has gotten so bad right now, that I'm pretty sure that many Venezuelans are getting nostalgic for the days of American gunboat diplomacy. In other news, the Russians are up to their old tricks in the Ukraine.
The Chinese pretty much brutalized their neighbors and their own countrymen, the less said about the Japanese the better, and the Arabs went on a lemming-like crusade to conquer the world. Hey, to this day, some Arabs still dream about reconquering Spain. The Incas and the Aztecs, by all accounts, butchered any other peoples they encountered and the aboriginal tribes of North America did the same. After all, those Anasazi ruins in the desert Southwest are up on a cliff face for a reason, and it wasn't aesthetics. They needed a place to pull up their ladders and retreat when some tribe up the river came marauding. The Maoris were a particularly bloodthirsty lot, witness their complete annihilation of the Chatham Islanders in the 19th Century. Hawaiians waged warfare for years, until Kamehameha killed all the other chieftains who could possibly oppose him. And the list goes on and on and on.
My point? Hey, I'm not a disciple of Nietzsche, Carlyle, and Gobineau, but show me a people that's in existence today and I'll show you a huge number of sins in its past undertakings, whether for survival or the expansion of national power. So the OP's contention that the United States was some kind of evil power while the rest of the world has clean hands is just absurd. To be sure, we have made mistakes as a country and as a people. But if we're going to apologize to the world, then we need to get in line behind some much worse offenders in the grand scheme of things.
I feel no guilt, no shame and no apology. My forebears lived their lives as best as they knew how. They were ordinary people building an extraordinary country.
They made mistakes, we've made mistakes and I've made mistakes, but overall we have created something wonderful. It is still a work in progress.
Where we have done wrong, we work to make it right. Where we have done right, we work to make it better.
When the world needs our help we are always there. Always!
Out of over 300 million people there are opinions and thoughts and deeds to cover the spectrum. Bad people are able to do bad things because they have the freedom to do so. But good people are also able to do good things. There are overwhelmingly more good people than bad people.
I regret the things that have gone wrong. I regret the relations with the original settler nations and the slaves and the Japanese Americans and so many other matters.
I regret, but I don't apologize.
Let he who is without sin cast the first stone.
Last edited by mbradleyc; 03-01-2014 at 01:37 AM..
Well,the Usa could apologize to its own citizens like blacks and Natives.
Indians were not citizens of America, not until 1924, when the government declared them so, without asking.
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