Americans don't want absolute control

Submitted by Jeff (United States), Jul 9, 2008 at 20:38

Michael,

A thoughtful response, Michael, thank you. However I must disagree with almost everything you say.

In terms of history, no, 1968 was not long ago at all. I used that example of actual intolerance vs. what you claim is US intolerance. Your response did not explain how it is so many socialist countries exist in Europe, freely elect communists to positions of power and continue to be friends and allies in view of our inability to "tolerate any nation that transgresses against the tenets of capitalism."

The invasion of Afghanistan was a response to an attack that occurred on September 11, 2001, in which almost 3000 Americans died. The government of Afghanistan was highly complicit in that attack. I'm not sure how many governments on earth would ignore such a provocation. If there is one, I'm glad I don't live under it. I have never heard expressed that "express purpose" of creating American directed governments and American controlled economies in Iraq and Afghanistan. The governments that result there will be much less murderous and much more accountable to their populations than their predecessors, but will not be American directed, nor will they look much like an American style democracy.

An empire sucks wealth and raw materials out of its colonies, and sells finished goods back to colonial markets for profit. An empire protects its manufacturing base, its scientific base, its jobs, and dictates terms under which its colonies buy its products. Like England did to us. (Or much worse, like the Third Reich, or the Soviet empire, both of which used mass murder and sheer terror to beat their conquered populations into mind-numbing submission.) That American "empire" buys raw materials at fair market prices (or perhaps you think that buying 3 dollar barrels of oil for $140 really is "stealing Arab resources") and allows its "colonies" to take its manufacturing base, its jobs and educates "colonial" entrepreneurs and scientists so they can go home and create wealth and jobs in their own countries. Normally, colonies don't ban the importation of the empire's agricultural products. If the US is an empire, it's unlike any that has existed in all of human history.

Iran has stated officially that Israel should be "wiped off the map," and needs a secretive nuclear power program while it burns off enough natural gas at the wellhead to power the country for generations. Iran finances Hamas, the group that took to handcuffing Muslims and chucking them off rooftops during its democratic assumption of power in Gaza. Given the crushed skull of Zahra Kazemi shortly after her arrest, apparently even being a visitor from Canada is a capital offense in Iran.

I'm not sure any country is "distant" in today's world. Saudi Arabia got pretty close on September 11. Whatever degree to which Syria and Venezuela are perceived as threats has nothing to do with independence, and everything to do with their tendency to arm and finance murderous militias that make life miserable for their neighbors.

Your original comment, that "merely went to the parallel between (our) position and that of the Islamists," is completely incorrect. The two opposing power nuclei are completely dissimilar. Every week in the USA, millions of Muslims attend mosques, unhindered, undisturbed and in complete safety. Mosques are never blown up in the USA, as they are almost weekly in the Islamic Republic of Pakistan. Christians are harassed in Egypt and Pakistan, and possession of a Bible is a big mistake in Saudi Arabia. While American high schools change their athletic teams' names from "Crusaders" to something, anything else so as not to offend Muslims, Imams heap scorn upon and call for the murder of infidels in mosques around the world every Friday.

While the New York Times blows the cover on a secret operation to follow terrorist money trails, not a single Islamic country has real freedom of the press. While protestors attend every rare execution in the US, that only occur after years of jury trials and appeals, Saudi Arabia beheads people every week, many of them foreigners, for relatively minor crimes.

Fallujah, while governed by Al Qaeda in Iraq, was a horror show of murder, torture and double amputations without even the pretense of a single fair trial. Given the chance, any resident of Evin prison in Tehran would have done anything to get to American run Abu Ghraib during its well publicized dark period.

With all the billions of dollars rolling into the middle east day after day, year after year, you'd think we'd be hearing announcements from middle eastern universities about new vaccines, new crops, maybe a cure for AIDS. Don't hold your breath.

No, we're not perfect, Michael. Just a whole lot less imperfect.

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