Quote:
Originally posted by Lanny_MacDonald@Aug 20 2004, 09:47 AM
Well Bingo, I think the US should stay in their own yard for a while and clean up their own country. To call this a civilized nation and hold it up as a model for all others to follow is a joke. If the US would spend a tenth of their military budget on cleaning up their streets and educating their own people they would be much better off. If they would focus on their own problems and quit meddling in other's then I would say that they are doing the right thing. But to be meddling in other countries affairs when crime, drugs, poverty and unemployment are significant issues at home, well that's criminal. Americans are being made suffer through the taking away their livelihoods (encouraging offshoring of jobs leading to greater unemployment), taking away their ability to better themselves (education funding is being cut everywhere and at all levels), and taking away the support systems for the under priviledged (reduction in social programs is staggering). Who's better off? Those who lived under a tyrant and knew no change was coming and knew how to live, or those who live under an Autocracy where their vote doesn't matter (ask the African American community in Florida if their voice was heard), change is promised but never comes, and their chances of bettering themselves is almost zero? The US has way too much dirty laundry of their own to deal with before they need to worry about going to work at the world laundromat. Again, the US leads the world in violent crime, drug addiction, and incarceration of its own citizens. Is that a model that other countries should follow?
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OK ...
but when have I ever held the US up as the supreme model for civilization? I don't remember doing that ... really, you're taking things off topic.
Lets go there though ... for you. Say they ignore terrorism and the hot pot of the Middle East and pour all that money into social programs (starting to sound a bit like Canada, now isn't it?). A few years go by ... illiteracy rates are declining, so too is crime rates, and the gap between the affluent and the downtrodden. Utopia is emerging and the United States is bliss.
Then a nuclear bomb hits New York City and kills millions.
Gee ... sure wish we would have looked across that old pond and attempted to make the world a better place instead of just looking after ourselves.
That's the rub.
If the US doesn't get involved there's a public out cry (Liberia), and if they do get involved there's public outcry.
Life sucks for the lone super power, you can't do anything right no matter what you choose.
Your recipe is simple but it doesn't work and 911 proved that. You can't let danger fester over seas and put your head in the sand or you get your head kicked in later.
The US had intelligence suggesting WMD in Iraq (so did the Russians, the Brits and even Canadians) and were not willing to let that become the source for the next 911 in America.
I can't blame them for it.
But ... like I said earlier, shame they didn't think out the after war thing. If they had there wouldn't be much to argue about.