Confusion about World Opinion
I wrote the following up in response to my buddy foz‘s questions about the opinions around the world about the war. I posted it as a comment to his BLOG but felt it was a decent bit of writing about how I feel about it so I thought I’d include it below. It basically boils down to the fact that based on what I’ve heard, people aren’t so much supporting Saddam as supporting the people of Iraq, and it’s because the US is acting like a big bully. Read more for the fully reply I posted here.
Yes, it seems a bit strange that from sept 12/2001 and on, for a fair while, the world was full of supporters of the US. I remember almost crying going through a thread on some image of the day site (might have been cellar.org/i) which showed people all over the world supporting the us in mourning.
Somehow in the last few months that’s changed. IMHO I think it’s because GWB is showing himself to be the bully that the US can be (being the only superpower). Now don’t get me wrong, saddam is a bad bad man and should go ASAP. But for GWB to basically give a big FU to the UN, say in what I think is a “typical US attitude” (if only in a complete overgeneralization of the stereotype of the US) what boils down to “you guys are a bunch of wimps, we’re going in to sort this mess up and clean things up by ourselves, cause we’re the only ones who can do it/have the balls to do it”.
Part of the problem is that there are two camps, pro, and anti. Neither side knows the full story (I’m assuming there is info that the US has about the WMD that hasn’t been given out, or I hope there is, for the sake of W), neither side is willing to give concessions, and both sides are full of “facts” and “statistics” spouted from either gossip or such reliable sources as CNN.
The closest concessions have been the people saying “I don’t support the war, but I will support our troops”, which is still a line of BS to me.
Anyway, with GWB acting like a big bully the people of the world, and particularily the middle east, seem to be still rallying against the US with their demonstrations, not supporting saddam, but supporting the people of Iraq (and anyone saying that the bombing is so precise that no civilians are going to be hurt/displaced is fooling themselves IMHO.
I think the main thing comes down to the fact that people are simply not educated with all the facts, and each side (pro and anti) go off and masturbate each other with additional “facts” they hear… “whereever”, and simply increase their resolve for their side of the argument.
Thank you.
That’s how I feel these days, after I realized that no one was going to move from their uneducated positions (including me) which is about the point where I decided not to argue about this with anyone 🙂
The main crux of teh argument seems to be that Anericans have a difficult time thinking for themselves. And please note that is a generality based on a Jeep user group I frequesnt in Usenet. I asked a simple, honest question regarding why the democratic United States, is not being democratic with regard to the U.N.
The responses I got were varied but most simply labeled be a pinko communist who wears a skirt while America does the right thing.
Whatever, I ended up walking away from the dicussion because they were resorting to name calling and I was learning anything.
I hope their will be some world fallout from these actions, but I doubt it. The bully wins again 🙁
correction: second to last line;
I wasn’t learning anything
Dear Friend,
I agree with u, America is increasing being isolated, on a topic that initially saw much support for The USA. Does it not mean anything to this regime.
Obviously, I see only 2 reasons for the state of situation-
1. That the President is too stupid to understand the consequences of his actions and is being misled by his confidants.
2. The President is a rogue, who does not care of the consequences of his actions.
Either of the two, America is sitting on a ticking holocaust.
Get rid of this Silly Man in the White House.