Why our foreign policy makes me ashamed to be an American

[VivaRevolution]

The conflict was going on 11 years before Saudi got involved and the roots of the problem appear to go back to the 60s.

No, it was Saudis back when the Soviet Union still existed. That would be the group in the north.

 

[JJSBUR]

No, it was Saudis back when the Soviet Union still existed. That would be the group in the north.

Can you find information linking the Saudis to this back to the 60s or to 2004?

How did the Saudis get 8 other countries not including the USA or Israel to become involved?

 

[Quequeg]

America has done some horrible stuff as world policeman, but would the world be better off with Russia or China in the role?

 

[PrinceOfPain]

America has done some horrible stuff as world policeman, but would the world be better off with Russia or China in the role?

What does this question have to do with anything?
Neither Russia or China could or would want to play the role, so the question actually is `does the world need a policeman?`

If not to stop things like this, then what purpose does the role serve?

And what have China or Russia done that would make you think they`d do a worse job if they were capable or inclined to be world police?
It`s not exactly like America`s got a stellar human rights record.

 

[Quequeg]

What does this question have to do with anything?
Neither Russia or China could play the role, so the question actually is `does the world need a policeman?`

If not to stop things like this, then what purpose does the role serve?

Just injecting a dose of reality into the discussion.

 

[Reefer1]

What does this question have to do with anything?
Neither Russia or China could or would want to play the role, so the question actually is `does the world need a policeman?`

If not to stop things like this, then what purpose does the role serve?

And what have China or Russia done that would make you think they`d do a worse job if they were capable or inclined to be world police?
It`s not exactly like America`s got a stellar human rights record.

It points to the fact that Murica has been the best option and any one else would have been a fuck ton worse.

Soviets and Chinese killing tens of million's of their own people tells me they would have been far more ruthless and brutal to outsiders then Murica ever was.

 

[VivaRevolution]

There is a documentary about this idea of the world without America.

It is very interesting. Thought provoking at least.

 

[superpunch]

nm

 

[surrealworlds]

So way back in the day(60s?) Saudi Arabia waged a proxy war against the imams that were ruling and basically unified the North and South parts of Yemen under a proxy ruler.....fast forward to today and some rebels in the North have taken the capitol and are in the process of taking the government back over. So Saudi Arabia with the backing of a coalition of (9?) Countries is fighting the rebels.

A few things:
1) the middle east is divided because of religion. Each religious zealot wants their own fairy tale to be thw ruling doctrine. If they would seperate religion and government none of this would be a problem.
2) the U.S. only seems to be involved by providing weapons and logistics to Saudi Arabia.
3) Saudi and Israel is our allies so if our alloes say we need support to fight these rebels why would we not help them
4) showing civilian casualties is just an attempt to paint someone as evil. Every war has civilian casualties caused by both sides.
5) the slogan of the Houthis(the rebels the Saudis are fighting) is
God is great!
Death to America!
Death to Israel!
A curse on the Jews!
Victory for Islam!


So....fuck them. If your ashamed to be an American go become a Houthi, see how that works out for you.

 

[PrinceOfPain]

Just injecting a dose of reality into the discussion.

When are you going to start?

It points to the fact that Murica has been the best option and any one else would have been a fuck ton worse.

America being the best option implies that there have been options.
That`s not the case, so the assertion is nonsense.

It is also pure speculation that if anyone else were able to play the role, they`d have been worse.

Worse for who? The Middle East?
China`s interest in meddling in the ME is limited, and Russia has shown to make better, less disastrous decisions in the region than America does.

Soviets and Chinese killing tens of million's of their own people tells me they would have been far more ruthless and brutal to outsiders then Murica ever was.

How far back in time are you wanting to go to pull examples of the evils of the Chinese and the Russians?

If you want to go back in time, the Atlantic slave trade would be call America`s moral purity into question. As would being the only nation to have ever used Nuclear weapons in war. Hell, if the past is where you want to live, I'm pretty sure we could easily blame America (most favoured nation) and her drug-pushing allies for helping to bring about the belligerence of China's modern day national character.

Of course, we needn`t go farther back than right now and the abuse of the Yemeni people to raise questions about America's fitness in the role of 'World Police'.
Hell, we could just look at the War on Terror and what it's done to the Middle East as a whole to see how well America is doing its policing job. Not to mention the War on Drugs and its impact on those South of your border.

This is not intended as an attack on America - most nations who have power, abuse it.
This is just pointing out that America is not special - certainly not special enough to be trusted with the responsibility/authority of a role as world police.

Which brings me back to my original question: why do we need a World Police, if not to prevent things like what is happening in Yemen?

 

[Reefer1]

When are you going to start?

America being the best option implies that there have been options.
That`s not the case, so the assertion is nonsense.

It is also pure speculation that if anyone else were able to play the role, they`d have been worse.

Worse for who? The Middle East?
China`s interest in meddling in the ME is limited, and Russia has shown to make better, less disastrous decisions in the region than America does.



How far back in time are you wanting to go to pull examples of the evils of the Chinese and the Russians?

If you want to go back in time, the Atlantic slave trade would be call America`s moral purity into question. As would being the only nation to have ever used Nuclear weapons in war. Hell, if the past is where you want to live, I'm pretty sure we could easily blame America (most favoured nation) and her drug-pushing allies for helping to bring about the belligerence of China's modern day national character.

Of course, we needn`t go farther back than right now and the abuse of the Yemeni people to raise questions about America's fitness in the role of 'World Police'.
Hell, we could just look at the War on Terror and what it's done to the Middle East as a whole to see how well America is doing its policing job. Not to mention the War on Drugs and its impact on those South of your border.

This is not intended as an attack on America - most nations who have power, abuse it.
This is just pointing out that America is not special - certainly not special enough to be trusted with the responsibility/authority of a role as world police.

Which brings me back to my original question: why do we need a World Police, if not to prevent things like what is happening in Yemen?

Colonial power were the old world police, how well did it work out for those under their boot ? id say a fuck ton worse then under muricas.

Actually America is special, well mostly the constitution but since its the soul of the nation no matter how dirty corrupt or shit on. And no, no other constitution in the world is equal to Muricas.

ME was a shit hole is a shit hole and will be a shit hole even after Murica the superpower is a distant memory. You cant fix their brand of retardation.

I didn't go back in time to prove the stupidity and evils of Russia or China, the people who suffered their atrocities still live.

Slave trade, by pure factual numbers shows Murias slave trade was minuscule compared to the others. Weak argument, since you really have none.

Ever hear of Chechnya ? since you want more recent Russian evil on display.


For all of Americas fucks ups and i'm not excusing them or pretending they don't exist, far far less powerful much smaller nations caused far more death and destruction.

 

[Wet Blanket]

And where are you from???

 

[MadSquabbles500]

I don't know what to say, other than that I am ashamed of our government, and it's policies.

Discuss......

How is our gubment responsible, and how this not totally a domestic yemen issue, and result of Yemen's own domestic policy?

 

[VivaRevolution]

So way back in the day(60s?) Saudi Arabia waged a proxy war against the imams that were ruling and basically unified the North and South parts of Yemen under a proxy ruler.....fast forward to today and some rebels in the North have taken the capitol and are in the process of taking the government back over. So Saudi Arabia with the backing of a coalition of (9?) Countries is fighting the rebels.

A few things:
1) the middle east is divided because of religion. Each religious zealot wants their own fairy tale to be thw ruling doctrine. If they would seperate religion and government none of this would be a problem.
2) the U.S. only seems to be involved by providing weapons and logistics to Saudi Arabia.
3) Saudi and Israel is our allies so if our alloes say we need support to fight these rebels why would we not help them
4) showing civilian casualties is just an attempt to paint someone as evil. Every war has civilian casualties caused by both sides.
5) the slogan of the Houthis(the rebels the Saudis are fighting) is
God is great!
Death to America!
Death to Israel!
A curse on the Jews!
Victory for Islam!


So....fuck them. If your ashamed to be an American go become a Houthi, see how that works out for you.

Yeah. I member a time when we called ourselves the shining light of liberty, and didn't arm authoritarian monarchs with cluster bombs to drop on dirt farmers outside their own borders.

 

[VivaRevolution]

How is our gubment responsible, and how this not totally a domestic yemen issue, and result of Yemen's own domestic policy?

Saudi Arabia has no business in Yemen in anyway.

We arm Saudi Arabia.

What is hard to understand?

 

[MadSquabbles500]

Saudi Arabia has no business in Yemen in anyway.

We arm Saudi Arabia.

What is hard to understand?

I wondering if it is more direct involvement. SA is supporting its ally in Yemen. War is always hard on civilians. In this sense, even buying oil from a gas station that has oil originally extracted from Persian Gulf is a bad thing. The Gulf Arab states are all supporting one side of the war and hurting civilians. When you buy oil you enrich these people. They can buy weapons and mercenaries and deploy them anywhere.

 

[oldshadow]

The US should get the hell out of the world police shit role.

I'm fine with selling arms to allies as long as we know what we get out of it.

The middle East is going to be a shit hole for some time until their religion advances about 500 years. Even then you will have groups in that area fighting each other.

The best we can do is chose our allies as careful as we can in that area and hope they can hold the area together.

Civilians espicaly kids caught up in war is sad and I have no problem supporting organizations to help the.

What we are not going to do and should not do is try and use US miltary forces to try and "stabilize " the area. That's a shit sandwich that never works in that area.

 

[VivaRevolution]

I wondering if it is more direct involvement. SA is supporting its ally in Yemen. War is always hard on civilians. In this sense, even buying oil from a gas station that has oil originally extracted from Persian Gulf is a bad thing. The Gulf Arab states are all supporting one side of the war and hurting civilians. When you buy oil you enrich these people. They can buy weapons and mercenaries and deploy them anywhere.

I don't think you are getting it.

The Saudis used to have a proxy government, that they could pretend they were supporting. Nothing of that government remains. You have a Sunni government openly operating in a Shiite country, in a war of aggression. We hang war criminals for acts of aggression, not arm them.

 

[7437]

The RT is also supported by Russia.

So Israel is controlling the BBC?

Was the fighting not happening before outside involvement?

technically there was fighting in Vietnam before the USA got involved in that too.

 

[PrinceOfPain]

Colonial power were the old world police, how well did it work out for those under their boot ? id say a fuck ton worse then under muricas.

I`m sure you`d say that. But why?
American imperialism is different to that of the colonial powers (it`s far closer to that of the Soviet Union, ironically enough) but why is it better?

The colonial powers did some horrible things, no doubt, but when they abandoned their colonies they left behind infrastructure, education, medicine, seeds of liberal thought, the abolition of slavery, etc.

America`s relatively hands-off imperialist approach leaves behind shattered infrastructure, cratered hospitals, a resurgent slave trade and devastated agriculture.

The colonial powers brought their victims (sometimes kicking and screaming) out of the stone age. America bombs its victims (also kicking and screaming) back into the stone age.
I suppose you could make an argument for the benefit of the one over the other, but I don`t think it`s as obvious as you do, which one is more wrong or right.

Actually America is special, well mostly the constitution but since its the soul of the nation no matter how dirty corrupt or shit on. And no, no other constitution in the world is equal to Muricas.

`Our constitution makes us special` is a silly argument, and if it held any weight, it would be an argument in favour of my country`s specialness over yours.
After all, as American constitutional legal scholar, Cass Sunstein once said, the South African Constitution is `the most admirable constitution in the history of the world.`

ME was a shit hole is a shit hole and will be a shit hole even after Murica the superpower is a distant memory. You cant fix their brand of retardation.

And with this argument, you`re arguing against your own deflection about the brutality of the colonial powers. Everywhere`s a shithole and has been a shithole forever. Depends on your definition of shithole.
Even if you want to call the region a perpetual shithole, you`d be hard-pressed to logically deny that America`s done more than her fair share in stirring and spreading the shit.

It`s like the US looked at a struggling region and collectively asked itself, `What can we do to make things worse?`

I didn't go back in time to prove the stupidity and evils of Russia or China, the people who suffered their atrocities still live.

So do the Hibakusha.
So do those who lived under Jim Crowe.

That is still going back in time.

Today, America is sponsoring mass starvation and genocide. Today. Right now. Not hypothetically.

Slave trade, by pure factual numbers shows Murias slave trade was minuscule compared to the others. Weak argument, since you really have none.

And your argument is so weak that you can only pick out one of the points I made. Even then, you`re only refuting it through deflection to - again - the colonial powers.
You might take note of the fact that I did not say the US` slave trade was the most prolific, just that it called into question America`s alleged moral superiority. The point, as I stated, being that America is unlikely to be better or worse behaved than any other nation with power.

Ever hear of Chechnya ? since you want more recent Russian evil on display.

Indeed. A conflict that was on their border and the outcome of which directly impacted their national security.
America kills more, for less.

For all of Americas fucks ups and i'm not excusing them or pretending they don't exist, far far less powerful much smaller nations caused far more death and destruction.

Smaller, less powerful nations have caused more death and destruction that America?
Name them.


To clarify again, I am not saying America is uniquely evil, just that America is not uniquely moral either.