[ExI] The Death Toll Imbalance in the Mideast War

[Emlyn]

2009/6/11 John Grigg
> We sadly cannot invade everyone, everywhere.  ;  )

Do you really hold this opinion??

> An extremely disturbing scenario would be where a Bush/Nixon type
> administration results in the president using executive orders to make
> himself a de facto dictator ("until the emergency is over").  And then if
> the military supports him he gets to stay in office indefinitely as he runs
> over American civil rights and carries out a supercharged neocon-style
> agenda.

I think that already happened. Note your country's current debate
about what to do with the poor bastards stuck in that torture house in
Cuba. How did the US end up in this place?

> As an Australian, you live in a comfortable, but relatively minor first
> world power.  You do not bear the huge burden of having to dominate the
> world (I mean be the world's policeman!) for both our and *your* own good.

Well you are right, we Aussies have definitely ridden the US's coat
tail, much to our embarrassment in recent fiascos.

> Be grateful.  As empire's go, The United States is the best one the world
> has ever seen.  And I mean that in terms of our constitution, our
> principles, the good we have done in the world, and a capacity/potential to
> at least at times live up to our high ideals.  Russia and China don't even
> come close...

Well, the US has done good and bad things around the world. What is
well understood by those on the outside is that it will always act in
its own interests. There's nothing wrong with that per se, but don't
mistake it for the moral high ground.

American exceptionalism aside, the US is one country among hundreds.
To take your rightness as axiomatic is a dangerous thing.

-- 
Emlyn

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