> At what point have I ever said (or implied) I was anti-American on this site
My apologies. I didn't intend "you" personally, but the "It's just that there is a growing anti-American sentiment in the rest of the world" (as I quoted).
> Your kind of insular attitude proves exactly what I'm saying.
Huh? You said that there was a growing anti-American sentiment. While I agree, how does what I said prove that?
Or, are you saying that I proved something that you didn't state explicitly? If so, what?
> For the record: I thought the Americans and the Aussies were allies?
So?
Your strongest argument would be that Australians are probably Americans' most popular "not Americans". (Canadians have gone with a curious mix of invisibility and defining themselves as "not American".) And, you seem to take care of them yourselves.
However, that doesn't change the fact that much of what the US sees overseas is folks with their hands out. We also see folks screaming about the US "doing it wrong" when they're not doing it at all. Maybe we're incorrect, but I'm talking sentiment, as you did.
There is no shortage of problems in the world. Surely some of them can be taken care of by someone else. Rwanda was well within the capabilities of many other countries. Somalia is as well.
> Huh? You said that there was a growing anti-American sentiment. While I agree, how does what I said prove that?
Well, I'll give an example - theres is/was fairly popular show (I don't watch TV all that much, so I'm unsure of its current status) here in Australia called CNNNN that satirised fox news/cnn. The guys who created it have since gone on to create a tv show called the Chaser's War on Everything"
Here's one of the more popular clips from CNNNN entitled "Stupid Americans"
What I gleamed from your comment was the attitude of "Americans dont need anyone else, fuck the rest of the world"
In the above clip, particularly pay attention where they're placing pins in countries that these people want to invade.
These people more than likely vote and apart from 2 of them, they don't look like political radicals or crazy people.
>> For the record: I thought the Americans and the Aussies were allies?
> So?
That is the exact attitude I am talking about.
Semi related - A little anecdote I thought was absolutely hilarious (but also tragic) at the time was that in the early stages of the Iraq war the media was doing lots of broadcasts from that media center they set up.
One of the popular media outlets (I forget which, it was Fox or CNN) had a large map of the world which their reporters stood in front of to make broadcasts. It was just a general outline of continents.
They actually removed Australia from the map because it was where the reporters were supposed to stand and it was interfering with the shot. What a fantastic way to treat one of the 2 allies that sent military support :)
In other words, we agree that there is a growing anti-American sentiment outside the US.
I'm pointing out that a lot of the US doesn't care and explaining some of why they don't. I'm also asking you to explain why they should.
Let's take Australia's contribution in Afghanistan. Australia's military, man for man, is amazing. However, it isn't that big. It's a smaller contribution than Texas.
If anti-American sentiment kept Australia from joining in some of the US' foreign activities, one of two things would happen - we'd go it alone with roughly the same outcome or we wouldn't go it at all.
As to the behavior of US media outlets wrt allies, you're seriously confused if you think that they give US interests any weight. The canonical example is a discussion of media ethics during the Vietnam war. A US reporter was asked if he'd tip off some US troops walking into an ambush. He agonized for a while and then said that he would, but would feel bad about it. His fellow media types jumped down his throat and he retracted.
Or, we can take a more recent example. AP is quite critical of surveillance of suspected terrorists and insisted that there's a public right to know of the methods. Fair enough. However, when the govt asked for information about the break-in to Palin's e-mail, AP declined.
Of course, if it had been Biden's e-mail, the reaction would have been very different.
However, your observation that they left out Australia because it interfered with their shot is probably correct. It wasn't a planned snub - they didn't give it that much thought.
My apologies. I didn't intend "you" personally, but the "It's just that there is a growing anti-American sentiment in the rest of the world" (as I quoted).
> Your kind of insular attitude proves exactly what I'm saying.
Huh? You said that there was a growing anti-American sentiment. While I agree, how does what I said prove that?
Or, are you saying that I proved something that you didn't state explicitly? If so, what?
> For the record: I thought the Americans and the Aussies were allies?
So?
Your strongest argument would be that Australians are probably Americans' most popular "not Americans". (Canadians have gone with a curious mix of invisibility and defining themselves as "not American".) And, you seem to take care of them yourselves.
However, that doesn't change the fact that much of what the US sees overseas is folks with their hands out. We also see folks screaming about the US "doing it wrong" when they're not doing it at all. Maybe we're incorrect, but I'm talking sentiment, as you did.
There is no shortage of problems in the world. Surely some of them can be taken care of by someone else. Rwanda was well within the capabilities of many other countries. Somalia is as well.