Anti-Americanism on this board

[Mechaman]

To me this crosses the line...not wanting us to go to war with Iran is a legitimate view- wanting us to lose a war is Anti-American

If the U.S. is an agressive part, I can't support the U.S.

I do not support agressors. Period.

[Mechaman]

The Guatemalan government was not communist and wouldn't have become an ally to the Soviet Union.

Yes, and I find it shocking that Vosem is actually defending the whole United Fruit Company incident.  I mean really, how can one defend it?  It was a pretty blatant military intervention on the benefit of produce corporations.

Maybe I'm just a naive idealist, but I don't believe we should be waging war to secure (insert company name x here)'s profits.  And as for cheaper food, what f***ing nerve.  Half of the f***ing world struggles to put food on the table on a daily basis!  And pretty much it's okay for the US to send in troops to topple democratically elected regimes to save a few cents on f***ing bananas and apples!?

Really!?

[Mechaman]

Vosem, I'm sorry I was stupid enough to take your posts seriously.

Of all people on this forum, I should know better when one is just being ridiculous.
I hereby resign the presidency at 1618 hours and 14 seconds and Vice President JakeMatthews will take over.

[Mechaman]

Half of the f***ing world struggles to put food on the table on a daily basis!

hyperbole or ?  Maybe 20 years ago, but I don't think that's true anymore.

Looking at the stats confirms my suspicions.  It's still an ugly ugly picture but the best thing we can do to fix it won't get done because we don't want to pay the price in blood and coin to do it.  There is plenty of food.

Yeah, I was mostly referring to the past in that statement (specifically, whenever the Guatemala struggle happened).  And, as Gustaf noted, this is due mostly to liberalized trade and governmental policies, not American militarist mindset.
Free trade will help the world's poor, not misguided borderline New Dealesque in nature interventionism by force.

I recommend that you see the very true and accurate documentary "Team America: World Police".

I think it's pretty obvious why anti-Americanism is so strong.

[Mechaman]

While I agree with your point, the thing that would help starving people the most would heavily involve our military (or at least the threat of our military).  It's not a lack of food that makes people starve, it's sh**tty governments.  But we lack the will for that and even if we had that will and the best of intentions in mind, the world would look wearily at any action we took to that end because of our actions in the recent (and not so recent) past.

First off, I apologize for the statement "for someone of your character".  In hindsight it made me sound like a jackass.  So, I'm going to edit it out after making this post.
Secondly, I'm not sure about this idea that American military is needed to cure the ails of the world.  In my mind, that is little different from saying the American government is needed to cure economic ails and poverty.  Sure, it may make you feel good that America is coming in force for these countries, toppling dictatorships left and right, but more of than not (like our misguided "war on poverty) it opens a door of problems in it's wake.  Corrupt governments get toppled, corrupt governments replace them.
There may be an example or two of how this policy was successful, but in a number of places (like the hawks' favorite example of Iran) American military intervention was brought in to keep administrations in place that the people of said country did not want and in the end said administration was overthrown and oppressive vehemently anti-American and anti-western governments took control.
So what would you suggest we do in those scenarios?  Just keep sending in the troops every time a nation goes corrupto?

I guess the argument in response to my complaints are that US foreign policy is misguided as to what constitues corrupt regimes.  Or that the military is handling regime change the wrong way (example: Iraq).  That I'm oversimplifying the argument for intervention to mean that we stop every tin point sh*tty government that gets in the way of people getting food.
I admit that I have committed this oversimplification in the past and would welcome pro-interventionists to list what measures of "corruptness" should be used for intervention.

[Mechaman]

The simplified truth is that Deadoman is right - people are poor because of bad institutions. Whether good institutions can be brought about through foreign intervention is a matter of debate though. It seems to have worked decently in Japan but less well in many other places.

I'm not so sure I would call the war with Japan "intervention" more so as "self defense", considering they attacked us.

[Mechaman]

First off, I apologize for the statement "for someone of your character".  In hindsight it made me sound like a jackass.  So, I'm going to edit it out after making this post.

For the record, I didn't take it as an insult.  I (think) know what you meant.

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Yep, our history makes any talk of "saving" corrupt places worthless, because A. we don't have the will to do it for the "right reasons" and even if we somehow did, the arguments against it because of that history would be more than valid and would probably stop us from doing it anyway.  And B...well, I forget what B is as I'm a probably more drunk than I should be for discussing this logically in a way that wouldn't embarrass me later.  I'll be back tonight to flesh out my thoughts in a more....sober way

(and thank Og for those little red squirrely lines underneath misspelled things!)

Hey man, I've kicked back a few as well!
Cheers!