Listen. We Never WERE The Good Guys.

[Solomon]

People kill me saying we're not the good guys anymore.

[Cuban_Liberal]

1. We've been the good guys lots of times.

Just not in Iraq...

[Deja Q]

2. It depends on how 'good' is defined.

n/t

[sandnsea]

3. we were gooder guys though

Yeah, we've never been the virtuous Americans out to save the world that was sold. But we've never been this bad.

[ArthurDent]

4. You know...

You're making the case for those who would call you the "Blame America First Crowd" very, very easy.

[DrWeird]

7. Whether you want to admit it or not...

America is the one to blame for Iraq.

[Karenina]

10. Get off your victim trip.

America has been victimizing the ROTW for over a century. Read Smedley Butler. The US has been involved in over 200 military conflicts since WWII and in NOT ONE INSTANCE have the "values" of "life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness" come into play. YOU'VE BEEN DUPED! Just as you were in this most recent "selection."

[K-W]

11. It isnt about blame.

It is about the recognition that a nation is an abstraction capable of neither good nor ill. The actions of our nation are a product of a chaotic social system. They are neither inherently good nor bad and can turn out to be either depending on the particular situation.

We need to stop humanizing and generalizing our nation, recognize it for what it is, a complex organization of people incapable of will, emotion, thought, attitude, or moral compass. It is the sum product of a collection of individual human beings. Generalizations are a useful cognitive tool, they are not reality.

Bush speaks only in generalizations, the entire republican platform is based upon generalizing everything and then inventing a new reality that fits with the generalizations and vice versa.

[charlyvi]

5. We were the good guys in WWII--

We just let it go to our head. Plus, we are a nation that does not know war, really. We've never had a war against a foreign power on our own soil, unless you count the Revolutionary War. We've never a a religious war or an Inquisition. We've been very lucky and spoiled. We have yet to learn what Europe knows. God help us if we never learn at all.

[K-W]

9. We could have just as easily joined in with the Nazi's or been neutral

if there was a different administration in office. God knows the Nazi's tried.

You need to stop focusing on the positive, history class stuff and weigh the stuff from under the carpet equally.

America is not good or bad, it is a country who's actions are controlled by a complex society capable of great good and great ill.

[charlyvi]

16. So what you're saying is what occurred could

just as easily have not occurred. And if I wasn't born poor I could have been born rich. That's nonsense. What happened, happened. Saying it just as easily could have been something else is bullshit--it wasn't. The stuff under the carpet did not prevail, so giving it equal weight is insane.

Now we have an administration not nearly as wise or experienced, and it is making massive mistakes. The stuff under the carpet is prevailing. That does not, in any way, mean that we were never "the good guys". In the 50's Greece was a politically fascist nation; that does tarnish the fact that democracy was given birth in Greece.\

Start trying to concentrate on removing the regime we are under and stop trying to say it defines our whole history. The fact that we are so enraged means it does not.

[K-W]

19. No, you simply misunderstand.

My point is not, in any way that the United States is bad. I am not trying to define history. That is a fools exercise capable of only producing myths and half-truths.

I am saying that the military actions of our nation are a product of a complex and chaotic social system that is as capable of doing bad as it is of doing good and we need to stop trying to write a positive narrative history of our society to boost our ego's and start relying on reason before we cause our own extinction.

[charlyvi]

25. I'm not talking about writing a positive narrative of our

country as it stands. I'm talking about our past history, which you seem to think is accidental at best. It wasn't. Our complex and chaotic social system wasn't always as mean spirited and ostrich-like as it is now. I am not writing a positive narrative of our society; our society, at the moment, is infantile. That does not, in any way, represent our past achievements. You do not have to deny one to hate the other.

Of course our military is capable of doing bad--shit rolls downhill. The shit we elected. That does not mean our society has always elected shit. Our complex and chaotic social system has not always been this stupid or self involved; more accurately, 51 per cent of our nation has not been this stupid or self involved. 49 per cent of our population is not trying to write a positive narrative of our society--we know truth.

Our leadership reflects ourselves; it is not a coin toss or a value neutral occurrance. We get what we deserve, and right now we don't deserve jack shit. But I feel that enough of us know this; enough of us realize how quickly what we hold most dear can vanish at the voting booth. That gives me hope; not a false narrative, but hope for a future narrative.

[K-W]

30. Your conclusions defy historical evidence.

When exactly was our nation an overall agent of good? Could anything we did during slavery outweigh that wrong? Could anything we did during the genocide of half a continent outweigh that wrong?

What percentage of the military engagements we have engaged in can be morally defended?

At what point in history was america willing to lose soldiers for moral goodness?

I'm sorry that reality doesnt conform to the way you wish the world worked. Im sorry that Karma doesnt control the fates of men. But it doesnt. You can keep humanizing chaotic systems all you want, but embracing science and reason will make our future an aweful lot happier.

[charlyvi]

39. You sound like a robot.

You sound like Wolfowitz at a congressional hearing when he didn't even know how many soldiers had died in Iraq. People determine their leadership.

Don't talk to me about slavery. I live in Alabama. When our government passed the civil rights amendment, a Southern president, our government was a force for good. When national guard troops were sent to protect the freedom marchers, the black students enrolling in the University of Mississipi or the University of Alabama, that was good. Did it outweigh the wrong; perhaps not, but as you said in your post, one can't rewrite history. It was a correction. We mortals can only hope for correction. If we were perfect; if our political systems were perfect, they would not be human. And they are.

You can say that any acts of good are based on self interest; so what. That doesn't diminish the result. Science and reason are wonderful things. A society that comes to mind, a society that held science and reason alone as paramount was 19th century England. Children worked 16 hours a day, seven days a week. So what--survival of the fittest was the rule of the day. The fittest would survive and advance in society. Very logical. Very cruel.

Science and reason alone make for a very cold and cruel people. I'm sorry if that doens't conform to the way you wish the world worked, but it doesn't. And god help us all if it ever did.

[K-W]

40. Stop thinking of science as bad scientists of the past.

The philosophy of the 19th century had nothing to do with science, it was a philosophy of industrialization.

You seem to be laboring under the EXTREMELY false idea that there was ever a time in history where scientific thought was more widespread than know. Reason is one piece of the puzzle. Reason can be science or philosophy. Scientific reasoing is a very different thing and rejects all of the aweful things that aweful scientists and layman have ever claimed in the name of science.

Science and reason make for a people who can live together peacefully and solve the problems that we face as a society.

George Bush can be perfectly reasonable, the problem is he is not empiricle. If you accept his assumptions, his arguments often make sense. It is the addition of empericism that matters, it is the only benchmark we have in determining which story of reality we should believe.

[Toby109]

18. I sometimes wonder if the hubris

in the aftermath of WWII, has caused the US to try to recapture that feeling. How did the discovery of the Holocaust and the atrocities committed by the Japanese in China and elsewhere affect US foreign policy? A feeling of moral superiority? America, right or wrong? Might makes right? Have we become the enemy we once despised?

[knowbody0]

6. my ancestors sure did not think so

it is in the past, but the word "savage" still bugs me when it's used to describe the enemy today.

[K-W]

8. Seriously, I love the new recruits to the side of truth

but they need to realize that there has never been a time in the history of man where things havent been just as fckd up.

[mike_c]

12. it's been at least 5 decades or so since U.S. foreign policy...

...was anything but rapacious and imperialist. We've generally tried to cloak it in a veneer of moral superiority derived from the founders of the American experiment in democracy, but that was getting pretty threadbare even before 2000. Now it's in tatters. Thomas Jefferson would be horrified by what the U.S. has become.

on edit: and the five decades figure really only accounts for a brief spasm of international altruism during the second world war and immediately afterward. Before the war we were experts at the geopolitical game of international exploitation.

[indigobusiness]

14. That's what keeps running through my mind.

What would the founding fathers think?

I can guess.

[UpsideDownFlag]

13. yeah, we were the bad guys in world war two....*cough*

gettin' in the way of hitler's final solution and world domination was such a naughty thing.

edit: I understand that the US has a checkered past, but to say "never" is a bit much.

[mike_c]

15. lots of innocent blood spilled since then, my friend....

eom

[UpsideDownFlag]

17. right, which is why i made the edit.

just pointing out that to say 'never' is a bit much.

[mike_c]

27. gotcha....

I didn't get it the first time around. I too wanted to make a specific exception for world war two.

[K-W]

20. We didnt go into WW2 to be the good guys, we were attacked.

Or is that not how they told it in your history class?

[UpsideDownFlag]

21. I understand that we were attacked. were the people who attacked us...

or, for that matter, their allies (fascists and Nazis) 'good guys'? or were they bad?

[K-W]

22. Why does that matter.

The japanese made the choice of whether or not we got involved in WW2. Until they made that decision for us, we were perfectly happy with only material involvement. It wasnt the holocaust or the rightness or wrongness of the sides that governed our actions.

It was pure revenge/defense.

[UpsideDownFlag]

23. are you unwilling to say that the Nazis were bad? Bad, bad people?

utterly wrong and misguided in their fascist, racist mentality?

[K-W]

26. No I am unwilling to get sidetracked by your emotional, but irrellevent

tangent.

Whether the Nazi's were good or bad matters only if we got involved in the war because they were bad.

If I trip and fall and accidentally save somebodies life it doesnt make me a good person.

You have to prove that the good action was a result of good intentions to use to try and prove the goodness of a nation.

The evidence throws a big wrench in your way in your way of proving that we entered WW2 because it was the right thing to do and not because we were attacked.

[UpsideDownFlag]

28. i was not trying to argue that we entered it for entirely noble reasons.

or only because we were the 'good guys'. all i was saying was that: 1) Regardless of why we entered, the actions of the Japanese Imperialist army and the Nazis/Fascists were reprehensible. since you talked to me about history, you probably already know this.

2)when compared to them, we are better, certainly, by comparison, and hence the 'good guys'.

we can certainly agree to disagree, if you wish.

[K-W]

31. But that is a misleading definition of "good guys"

Sure in an overall moral comparison to Nazi Germany, we would be called the good one, and they the bad one. But that is just a relative measure. It proves nothing about America other than that we were at least slightly better than the Nazi's, and that isnt a very hard thing to be.

When you say that we were the good guys in WW2, you are discussing a war, which is not a moral comparison, it is an issue of our wartime actions, which, were motivated by many things, doing the right thing being a fairly small part.

[agarrett1]

24. I'm getting tired of this

You say we're not the "good guys" in Iraq. OK, so let me get this straight.

You believe we should have left Hussein in power? All this stuff we say about trying to set up a democratic government in Iraq - you think it's just a smoke screen? Do you really believe we want to rule Iraq?

Please.

Look, we are certainly not perfect. But it's bloody easy to look at Iraq, and know that Hussein was a "bad guy." We are better than that, and we're still in Iraq because we're trying to do right by the country. Not perfect, but good. I'll stand by that - we are the "good guys."

Heck, I'll get rid of the scare quotes, and even put it in capitals. We are the Good Guys.

Drew Garrett

[mike_c]

29. you're creating a straw man, but it's easy to knock down....

Given the choice you propose between the current cluster f*ck in Iraq and leaving Saddam Hussein in power, the answer is easy-- Iraq was FAR better off with Hussein running the show.

[Solomon]

32. Have some more Kool Aid. You sound thirsty.

[Minstrel Boy]

42. enough for everybody!

[Darranar]

33. How are we the "good guys"?

Is slaughtering tens of thousands of people "good"?

Is imposing an unelected puppet government upon the people of Iraq "good"?

Is running a brutal and bloody occupation "good"?

The US government has no interest in democracy in Iraq. There will likely be a variety of democratic forms, but real, generally fair and free elections free of coercion will almost certainly not occur.

[UpsideDownFlag]

34. you think we dont wanna rule iraq? tell me why we have 14 permanent bases

there...

[Darranar]

36. Just for security purposes, naturally...

we have no interest in holding a sword over the heads of the future leaders of Iraq, no interest in that at all....

Our motives are utterly pure.

:eyes:

[K-W]

35. Is your arm tired from voting for Bush?

If you are honestly so caught up in the generalized dellusion of foriegn policy peddled by the Bush administration that you think our actions in Iraq were a result of a desire to do right by the Iraqi people, I dunno what to tell you.

Our foriegn policy is being handled by nut jobs with napoleonic complexes, any bad people that get killed along the way is almost strictly coincidental.

[name not needed]

37. Care to back that up?

Besides you taunting a troll, you haven't bothered to support your argument.

[K-W]

38. Would he have to prove the sky was blue?

Just curious. Do you honestly need more evidence that our nations foriegn policy has been amoral for a very long time?

[Solomon]

41. It would take several books to "back that up". Where do you want to

begin? With Native Americans? Africans? Philipines? Cubans? Lebonese?
Guatamala? Venezuela? Vietnam? Where would you like to start?

Have some more Kool Aid.