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| A Superpower's Sorrow, Comeuppance |
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Posted by FoM on September 13, 2001 at 07:31:02 PT By Richard Boudreaux, Times Staff Writer Source: Los Angeles Times 
There is no shortage of reasons in much of the world to dislike the United States. From European capitals to the coca fields of South America to the assembly lines of Southeast Asia, the nation can appear arrogant and selfishly fixated on its own politics and interests. Its unparalleled power makes it a lightning rod for a host of grievances brought by allies, adversaries and outright enemies. Snipped Home Comment Email Register Recent Comments Help |
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| Comment #5 posted by E. Johnson on September 13, 2001 at 13:13:15 PT |
| "U.S. foreign policy has been characterized by a high degree of self-confidence, complacency and intoxication with its own power following the Cold War," Vladimir Lukin, a deputy speaker of the Russian parliament and a former ambassador to Washington, said in an interview. "If the U.S. prefers to pretend that it rules the world, such myopia will continue to result in horrible acts of terror," he added. Now Lukin should write this down and look at it for a few minutes and think about Chechnya, and the way Russia treats Islamic people, which is much worse than they are treated in or by the US. [ Post Comment ] |
| Comment #4 posted by TroutMask on September 13, 2001 at 10:45:17 PT |
| Although I have a great dislike for Bush, I don't believe that anyone else being president of the US would have made any difference. -TM [ Post Comment ] |
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Comment #3 posted by xxdr_zombiexx on September 13, 2001 at 10:18:53 PT:
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| **[from the article]***.. anti-American sentiment is far broader and appears to have intensified after President Bush, who took office in January, opposed a draft treaty on global warming and revived an unpopular U.S. proposal for a "Star Wars"-like missile shield.**** "took "office is correct. It definately seems the case that those who came to power under Dubya have worked day and night to alienate peoples and nations around the world, our leaders seeming to stop short of telling the wold to "F*** off". It's not like we haven't seen an ongoing debatye in the media this whole year about the various posiblities of terrorist actions here. The metaphors in the attack are profound and do not end with symbolic attacks on capitalism, american military might, and American citizens at large. From a martial arts perspective it is always preferrable to vanquish a superior opponent with the simplest move possible. Among america's problems is our addiction to technology and the problem is 2-fold: Technology makes a false promise of security: from all those telephone-based burgalr alarms in so many homes to the stupid leg monitor I see on some of my clients, to the outrageous star wars system, technology is a lie: it can and will break down and leave your butt in harm's way. (This is why we don't use elevators in an emergency) Secondly, the more technology we have the more maintenence is necessary. Technology gets finicky. The F-14 is an awesome plane but requires, essentially, a team of "doctors" to keep it tweeked. The MiG, I understand, is built like a flying tank: can fly with bullet holes in it and land on its fuel tanks. Thus it was masterful that such a strike was done with such utter -but brutal - simplicity. What defences we think we had were penetrated as if they were not there.
A lot of things are going to change around here. [ Post Comment ] |
| Comment #2 posted by Andy on September 13, 2001 at 09:22:19 PT |
| America has created enemies, too, by failing to see the dark side of policies that, however well intentioned, were rife with contradictions. [ Post Comment ] |
| Comment #1 posted by Doug on September 13, 2001 at 09:10:24 PT |
| The Book Rogue State: A Guide to the World's Only Superpower by William Blum (Common Courage) will give a better overview of what this article was timidly trying to say. [ Post Comment ] |
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