It’s no secret that the U.S. has image problems abroad, but there’s something about it that a lot of people don’t grasp. First, a lot of it is our doing. There are plenty of countries out there that have a legitimate reason to disagree with us. Some of them have a legitimate reason to be downright pissed off at us. But disagreeing with someone, or being pissed at them, can be rational and is not the same as hatred. The reason it seems that so many people just hate our guts and want us all to die is that if the powers that be in Washington and the media let us see that our “enemies” might actually have a point, it would undermine our government’s political agenda. In order to hide the legitimacy of some of our opponents complaints, and undermine any sympathy the masses might have for the other side, it is important to smear them: make them seem unreasonable and unwilling to change their extremist views.
So what legitimate reasons would another country have to be mad at the good ol’ U.S. of A? For started, some are angry at us because of a perceived wrong we’ve committed against them. Sure, some of these are imagined, but some of them are very real. It might seem like a long time ago, but Iran is still a little bitter about our good buddy the Shah. It’s also understandable that North Korea could be a little sore over the fact that 50 years ago or so our bombers pretty much destroyed their entire country (and that’s no exaggeration).
Another reason for a country to have strained relations with us is that they may be suspicious of us because of something we’ve done to someone else. Going back to the North Korea example: we demand that they disarm. You know they have to be looking at the example of Iraq: Washington demanded Iraq disarmed, Iraq complied, and once they were defenseless the U.S. invaded and overthrew their government. It isn’t illogical to think that if you want the U.S. to not invade your country you should probably build a nuke as quickly as possible since letting your guard down will apparently get you killed. The truth is that our government has invaded so many countries, propped up so many horrendous leaders and overthrown so many others that any smaller country has a good reason to be suspicious of our intentions.
The third one — and this is an important one — is that most countries are willing to cooperate with one another as equals, but a lot of them feel that the United States uses its might to push little countries around and take advantage of them. A lot of Americans feel like our country is the greatest thing that ever happened, and that people all over the world want their countries to be just like ours — or even better, be annexed by us! Well here’s a newsflash for you: Iraqis love Iraq, and Vietnamese love Vietnam, and Cubans love Cuba, just like Americans love America. Sure, you have a handful of people who “defect” (who’s keeping track of American defectors?) but for the most part, people all over the world all love our homelands despite their flaws. Obviously, then, the last thing anyone wants is for their neighbor to barge into their house and start telling them how to run their lives.
When we went into Iraq a lot of people there were surely glad to see Saddam gone. But then we said, “We’re America, we’ve got it all figured out! This is how you’re going to run your country. If you don’t like it, too bad! We’ve got thousands of our soldiers here ready to overthrow your government again as soon as it strays too far from what we want for you.” Can you see why there would be a lot of people in Iraq that wouldn’t stand for that?
So, you see, some people in the world have a legitimate reason to disagree with us. In other words, just because we’re America doesn’t mean we’re always right. But of course our leaders think we are, or they wouldn’t pursue these policies. So instead of looking at the other point of view, they have to smear their opponents abroad. They say things like, “They hate freedom”. They are insane (can you give me the name of the psychiatrist who sat down with Kim Jong Il and diagnosed him?). They are aggressive (and we’re not?).
The best example I can think of is the remarks of Iran’s President which were taken to be something along the lines of “wiping Israel off the map”. I’m no linguist but I understand that translating between languages can be messy. For example, there is no word in Spanish for “papercut”. You have to say, “I cut myself with paper”. Even then, sarcasm, tone, slang, and stuff like that don’t always come across, so even with the best translators there is no such thing as a direct translation.
It turns out that what the President of Iran said was more along the lines of “remove the Israeli regime from the pages of history”, but one translator hears it a different way. He says, “wipe Israel off the map!”. Well, the Bush administration likes the latter one because it falls into their agenda, and the media likes it because it’s sensational, so guess which one history will remember? Obviously “regime change” is an inflammatory remark, but not one our current administration has much room to criticize anyone for.
Another habit our leadership has is to always assume the worst about another country. At risk of overusing North Korea and Iran as examples: “If they build nuclear power plants, they’re automatically going to build nuclear bombs. And if they build nuclear bombs, they’re probably going to use them…and if they use them, they’re probably going to use them on us!” History shows the fallacy of this argument: the only country ever to use nuclear weapons against people is the United States, and since WWII there have been numerous other occasions where we’ve been close to using them. We almost nuked the Chinese in the Korean War and we almost nuked the Vietnamese to allow the French to hold Dien Bien Phu. We like to think that our leaders saw the horrors of Hiroshima and Nagasaki and swore to never use nuclear weapons when unprovoked again, but not everyone in power has learned that lesson. If anyone is too irresponsible to have nuclear weapons it is the United States.
But why would our leaders lie to us? These lies may be intentional or unintentional. There are certainly plenty of schiesters in Washington who would lie to advance their agenda. Any government, even the worst totalitarian regime imaginable, needs some measure of public support to operate. If the people saw things from the other side they might sympathize with the “enemy”, so the leadership has to discredit their opponents and pressure the public into avoiding any attempt at seeing things differently.
The other possibility is that the leaders themselves “drank the Kool-Ade”. You have to understand that George W. Bush has spent his entire life surrounded by Reaganites. Although he may seem like he’s full of shit to the rest of us, he’s been living in Plato’s Republican War-Hawk Cave his whole life and the shadows on the wall are all he knows.
The problem is that people tend to see the world in black and white. Not all of our allies are good. Look at Pinochet, look at Batista, look at the Saudis. Not very good regimes for us to be buddies with, wouldn’t you say? At the same time, not all of our enemies are bad. We did some terrible things to the Vietnamese, but they ended up whipping our asses. Despite all of this, somehow we’ve managed to grow to have fairly good relations. What changed? They’re still a socialist country. The difference is that we no longer see a benefit in making them out to be the enemy.
Our country has its own problems. Do you agree with the government 100%? I don’t know anyone who does. If they do they probably have a complete and total lack of political awareness, and those people don’t usually care about foreign affairs anyway. But if you accept the fact that our government is not always completely and totally right, is it that hard to understand that other governments might disagree with them as well?
There’s nothing un-American about trying to see things from the other side. They may be George Bush’s enemy but that doesn’t mean they have to be yours. Look at it like this: if our country is doing something wrong, is it better to bury your head in the sand and shout “USA #1 #1 #1!!!!!”, or to expose our wrongdoing and try to correct it? Which is more patriotic?
Our unwillingness to correct our mistakes only makes our image problems worse. When we refuse to accept that it is even possible for us to be wrong, we go from being misguided to being childish assholes. We, the people, have to understand that the words of media and the government shouldn’t be accepted on blind faith. They have agendas and biases, and in a capitalist country those agendas and biases are typically not what’s right for working people. It only makes sense, then, to be skeptical of them.
Posted by Jesse 
Posted by Jesse 
