At Stardate 20030621.2252, Jan Coffey wrote:
> Us Europeans will readily acknowledge that the US was of vital importance > in the liberation of Europe. What causes resentment is that, when > discussing this with Americans, the role of other countries' forces tends > to get ignored or at best considered inconsequential.
And what readily causes resentment by Americans is the re-writing of history that makes the American role an equal contribution. It was not.
Personally, I've never seen any such rewriting of history. What I have seen is some Americans being upset that history wasn't portrayed as if the US liberated Europe without help from other countries.
So, from a European viewpoint, it's the Americans (or more correctly: those specific individuals) who want to rewrite history. :-)
Besides the attitude is also based on the last 50 years. The US provides more of the capital and more of the troops and more of the weapons for every major peace keeping misson the UN or Nato does.
That's probably related to the fact that the US *has* more money, troops and weapons than any other country...
I mean, for most countries in the world, their government's *total* annual budget is less than what the US spends on its military alone.
> Bailing out of international treaties.
Name one and I will tell you why. Besides not signing a treaty is not bailing out of one. Bailing out is when you agree to something and then don't do it.
ICBM Treaty. And I *know* why the US got out of it.
> Refusing to sign international treaties that most other countries did > sign.
Once again name one and I will tell you why.
Kyoto Treaty. Treaty of the Seas. And I know why the US didn't want to sign them -- it conflicted with their own economic interests.
Just becouse evryone else want's a treaty doesn't mean that it is the best thing for the world.
When most other countries want it, there is pretty much a consensus that it *is* the best thing for the world.
Sometimes all the little guys can get together to make things dificult for the big guy. You can't expect the big guy to go along with it can you?
There is no reason to believe that "all the little guys" would get together for the purpose of "making this difficult for the big guy". Why would the rest of the world want to spend huge amounts of time, money and effort on something just to piss off the US? It just doesn't make sense.
This "they're out to get us" attitude makes it look as if the US is paranoid and suffering from a persecution complex. There's really no reason for such an attitude.
> Refusing to recognise the International Criminal Court.
Here we go, specifics. Why we don't go along with it. Once again we supply the majority of troops to any peacekeeping mission. So we have greater exposure to possible suits. There are no previsions which keep rediculous acusations from being used to tie american servicemen in ICC litigation for years.
Can you show evidence that Americans will be subjected to ridiculous accusations? If not, your statement is only rhetoric.
IMHO, this sounds more like the abovementioned "they're out to get us" paranoia.
Any accusation of war crimes needs to be investigated, regardless of who allegedly committed those crimes. If no evidence against a person is find, that person will not be prosecuted. If evidence *is* found, than that person should be prosecuted. Why should US servicemen be exempted from this? Are they "holier than thou"?
By not recognising the ICC, the US is essentially saying that international laws should apply to everyone except the US.
Put quite simply, if we were to recognize this court our fighting force would lose effectiveness. We would have to constantly be making dicisions in war based on _expeediant_ proovability of no wrong doing rather than saving lives and bringing peace.
Ridiculous, as it is impossible to make such decisions. You can make decisions all you want, but you can never rule out the possibility that individual soldiers will commit war crimes.
We do not agree with the rules of process and precedings for the court. We will not allow an international body to set the US fourin policy, and we do not agree with all of the governing laws.
US foreign policy is not affected by this. Regardless of what your foreign policy is, you can not control the behaviour of all individuals who work for you.
> Insisting on launching a war against Iraq even though the international > community didn't think it was a good idea.
1) This inernational community being who? We had a coilition. It was not just the US, it was 1/2 the world.
Until very close before the war, there was very little support for an invasion.
France, and Russia (the countries who still do buisness, often black market buisnes contrary to UN resolutions)
One word: Halliburton.
> The US has refused to sign a number of treaties which were aimed at > protection of the environment.
True we have, but their are as many scientists who think that there is no globabl warming comeing as their are who beleive there is.
There are also lots of people who still believe that evolution theory is nothing but a questionable theory and that the world was created by god.
However, What woudl happen to the middle east if we seriously cut the use of Oil? What do you think would happen? What kind of povety would that throw the middle east into?
That's short-term thinking. I'm thinking long-term.
Basically, what would happen is that the oil sheiks and the Bush clique would get very upset and that the Middle East would have to find other ways to keep their economies going. They'll have to do that sooner or later anyway -- the oil fields in the Middle East are huge, but they are not infinite. Those oil fields are going to run dry *some day*.
Middle East: lots of uninhabitated areas, plenty of wind, massive amounts of sunshine. Sounds like they could eventually make a fortune from alternative energy sources.
> America's behaviour in the international community has done great damage > to its reputation and to the trust the rest of the world has in the US. > Especially America's attitude of "we'll do whatever we want, with or > without you" during the pre-war Iraq debates, and the "if you're not > with us, you're against us" rhetoric hasn't exactly gone down very well > with the rest of the world.
Attitude? come one, what about actions? what about results?
Actions and results don't count for everything. Okay, so you managed to overthrow the Taliban and Saddam Hussein (although you've still not managed to capture either Osama bin Laden or Saddam Hussein). Do you really think that your success means that your pre-war attitude will be forgotten?
> We all live on the same planet, and we all need to work together to > prevent it from going to hell. Unfortunately, we cannot trust the US to > behave like a team player, not while it continues to put its own > interests ahead of global interests.
BS! the world is not going to hell.
It will if we (the human race) don't clean up our act.
And we don't put our own interests ahead of the worlds, it is quite the other way around.
When the US refuses to sign international environmental treaties because doing so would harm America's short-term economic interests, it *is* putting its own interests ahead of the world's interests.
And who, BTW was keeping Sadam from commiting geniside on the kurds and shiat? Oh yea, that was us wasn't it?
Only since the second Gulf War. In the decades before that, the US didn't seem to particularly care about it. And the US still doesn't seem to care much that it's ally Turkey is still being very aggressive towards its Kurdish citizens in Eastern Turkey.
> >We are, once again, the leading the world, making a difference. We are > >given a new fight, a new burdon of terorrism and we are willingly taking > >it. We could after all close up and let others in the world deal with > >the terrorism themselves. > > Er, that *is* what we've been doing. There has been no noteworthy US > involvement in dealing with some *four decades* of terrorism in Europe.
I'm sorry, you wanted us to come over to your country and stop the terrorism in your country?
It looks like we've been fairly effective at dealing with it ourselves. That's not the point, however; your statement sounded as if the US is the only country who ever had to deal with terrorism within its borders.
> > > Other behaviour includes endless praise of the US as "the greatest > > > country in the world" (which can become quite annoying when you hear > > > it often enough) > > > >I am sure it does, but is it not true? > > Nope. Not in my opinion, anyway.
Which is the greatest in your opinion?
The Netherlands, of course! :-)
> And it never hurts to learn a few words in the local language. You'd be > surprised how much it is appreciated if you can say "good morning", > "please" and "thank you" in the local language.
Americans for the most part hear one and only one language their whole lives and that makes it dificult to learn others languages.
You don't have to learn a whole language for a short vacation; learning just a few basic phrases like "good morning" and "thank you" will suffice and make your stay more pleasant.
After all, a majority of people in the world do speak english. It is rude to butcher anothers language and is better to use the defacto international language than to speek another improperly.
It has been my experience in all the countries I've been to that people are very forgiving when it comes to that. An imperfect pronounciation of a word or phrase is not a problem, the mere fact that you at least *tried* to learn a few basic phrases in the local language is always very much appreciated.
> I've not been to the US (yet), but I've been to several other countries. > Each and every time I've found that those two simple rules I mentioned > above make a world of difference. Try to blend in, rather than stand out.
Turists will allways stand out. I can spot a chinesse turist in China town.
Of course they'll always stand out to some extent (the video camera in their hand usually gives them away) -- but that doesn't mean they can't follow local customs.
Besides you really are asking a people to behave as if somthing they think is unethical were not.
It's not about only major issues, it's also about the small things.
Example: in western society it's completely acceptable for couples to walk hand in hand. In Thailand however, such behaviour is frowned upon because the Thai don't like touching each other in public. Foreigners are forgiven if they walk hand in hand, but Sonja and I nevertheless respected that local custom and did not walk hand in hand. Other example: Thai have a particular custom when greeting each other (certain stance, certain phrase). As a foreigner, you'll get away with not following that custom. However, we *did* copy it and we noticed that our attempts to adapt were very much appreciated.
Other example, closer to home: many Americans are Christian, and as such many of them will probably say a prayer before dinner. I'm not religious, so I don't pray before dinner. Now, let's say I'm visiting an American family where praying for dinner is customary. The food is served, and I immediately start eating without waiting for my host and his family to say their prayers. Wouldn't that be considered rude behaviour on my part? It certainly would be considered extremely rude over here.
> Er, you're not telling me that the only preparation an American does for > a foreign vacation is *watching commercials*, are you? It really takes a > bit more effort than *that*! :-)
Have you seen these comercials? Obviously not. they are 1 hour long documenteries on where to go what to see and how welcome you will be.
I've seen those, but one must always keep in mind that such documentaries are more like commercials than documentaries. Further, it's simply impossible to include *everything* about a country (sites to see, customs to follow, politics etcetera) in a one-hour show.
> >Ok food for thought. Lets see where this leads. It is an interesting
> >conversation.
>
> Just be careful where you tread along this path. Earlier discussions on
> this topic have shown that it's easy to step on someone's toes, even
> unintentionally.
>
Yes that is very true. But Americans tend to expect you not to be offended remember? Becouse they generaly are not once they understand that it was unintentional. So ..If I have offended I appologize, but you know it is difficult for me to see the offense sometimes. You will have to point it out and give me an opertunity to clarify.
This touches on one of the most basic of problems I've encountered when dealing with Americans (or rather: with certain individual Americans). When *they* say something, everyone is expected to realise that their cultural background is different from mine, but when *I* say something that very same aspect is ignored. And that in turn makes those individuals look very arrogant and intolerant, which in turn, when it happens enough times, can lead to the impression that Americans generally are all arrogant and intolerant.
Jeroen van Baardwijk
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