SeaGypsy wrote:You do have a valid point 6Strings, but overemphasis does make you sound neocon.
Neocons are right in their support for spreading democracy. What makes them "neocon," at least the Bush years iteration of neocons, is that they're willing to do it by force and they view spreading democracy as self-defense. But they are right when they say democratic nations with human rights don't declare war on each other. If two countries are about to go to war you can bet one or both is not a constitutional democracy with a free vote and human rights.
I don't think you can cite a single case of two democracies going to war. Nazi Germany doesn't count because right after getting elected, the Nazis seized all power. I'm trying to think here, can't think of a single instance. Because it's impossible -- democracies CAN'T war on each other.
Globalization is the other way to achieve this end, rather than war. With the globalist paradigm, North Korea could be flooded with jobs and investment if only they'd open the door. Then given time, decades, eventually you'd get a unification with the south or a democracy in the north.
Russia has undergone a similar process since the fall of the USSR. It's taking time. Eventually they'll get there, or if they don't and go total totalitarian then I guess we've got a cold / hot war in our future.
In the Middle East.. they are changing, gradually. "Americanizing."
The US is the first constitutional republic in the modern era. Aristotle figured all this out a long time ago:
The notion of the constitutional republic originates with Aristotle's Politics and his theory of a fifth type of government called the polity. He contrasts the polity of republican government with democracy and oligarchy in book 3, chapter 6 of Politics. Polity can refer to the political organizational system that is being used by a group, be it a tribe, a city-state, an empire, a corporation, etc.
Aristotle also envisioned a polity to be a combination of what he thought were the best characteristics of oligarchy (rule by the wealthy) and democracy (rule by the poor). The polity government would be ruled by the many in the best interests of the country.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Constitutional_republic
Scores of nations copied written constitutional government off us. We wrote the Japanese constitution, and it's served them very well. I don't know the details on Iraq, hopefully we did a good job there, if so they could be a democratic powerhouse just as Japan became.
The USA is a great country which could often have been much better, especially when it comes to meddling in international affairs; but equally could have done much better by it's own citizens (think UHC).
The "meddling" is a function of being leader of the free world. The free world needed the US in WWII, and after that in the Cold War. Cold War is over but here we still are, allied to each other, and US never drew down its military and the European Union chose to keep the paradigm -- so, America is The Club's enforcer. But is that a bad thing? If the world must have a leader, who do you want it to be? Russia? China? As a superstate, the EU isn't ready or united enough to lead.
The cost of being 'Leader/ Ruler of the Free World' is deservedly intense scrutiny, especially of moral/ ethical dilemmas and solutions. Too often events such as the massacre of innocents (collateral damage) are whitewashed or at least not given due concern.
I didn't post it, but the Obama admin has re-defined what counts as a "civilian casualty." It was in the New York Times.
Worst thing about post 9/11 is that we over-reacted -- which means the terrorists won. The US did a lot of underhanded stuff in the Cold War. I think the president of Chile was assasinated. Maybe you're right about that micronesia nation too. And now we do these drone strikes, maybe we're killing too many innocents to get at suspected terrorists.
Hell, maybe China leads the world now. We're sure drifting that way, aren't we? Ron Paul and Libertarians are the only ones who even talk about the Constitution and liberty. Otherwise it's just a drip drip drip drift toward unilateral presidential power, whether it's Bush or Obama.
But still.. at the end of the day.. there's a stark difference between a place like the US or Australia where you have rights if you get pulled over for drunk driving, versus other countries where the cops can just beat the shit out of you to get a confession. Or a country like China, it's crazy, they've got an untold number of dissidents under "house arrest." Forced abortions. Censored internet. This isn't okay, and we can't forget that.
Many of us who are critical of the USA from outside, are actually in favour of much of what your country stood for traditionally, much of which has been lost in the fog of greed and it's consequential behaviours.
SG, US isn't much different than Australia. Or Britain. It's all the same stuff.. English common law, juries, similar rights.
The US is in an alliance. If we want to do something crazy again like invading Iraq, it's up to you guys to say no. But in truth you were all on board, weren't you? Because Iraq had been under sanctions ever since the first gulf war. It was a never-ending problem and the West wanted to end it so that's what the West did.
Someone in the world has to be a force for good. What if ethnic cleansing breaks out somewhere, like it did in the Balkans? Will the Russians or Chinese stop it? Could Europe get organized enough to? If not, it falls to the US, as it always has. Only thing the US gets in return is getting to be the petrodollar and global reserve currency. Note what happened in Iraq, it could have all been given to American business interests but nope we didn't do that (actually we don't even have "American" companies anymore, they're global corps now). Iraq has elections now and they're sovereign and the Chinese are allowed to bid, China has gotten more contracts actually. US only got costs out of Iraq, no profit.
So in conclusion.. democracies cannot coexist with totalitarianism forever.. the world needs to move TOWARD human rights and democratic government, and that's very gradually being accomplished through free trade and globalism. When thinking about America's sins, I think folks on this forum forget most of it was the cold war, and our response to terrorism. You've got to admit both needed to be fought. I'm sure you wouldn't rather have Russian soviets in Sydney, nor do you want buildings in Sydney getting blown up by terrorists.
Call America the bad guy if you will, but we beat the Soviets and we're gradually winning the war against violent fundamentalist islam as well. The latter is a sticky wicket, we have to be careful to not wind up making new generations of enemies, and we don't want to forget who we are and lose our own rights all over fighting "terrorism."
Russia (the area, not the country) has seen Rome fall acting as the hyped up teenager snorting coke and screwing hookers. They will watch America eat it from within as they’ve seen so many times before. This is nothing new to wise parts of the world but the propaganda machine in America is alive and well. I question how you can even trust anything coming out of the media with so many lies in the past… Syria is Russia’s friend and Syria is doing terrible things to their people but do you ever wonder if the CIA is involved? Pretty much all the do gooders when you get down to it have their own agenda. Why do the US media hype Syria and relations to Iran and Russia? Why? Is it because the US media is truthful and sincere? 
