America the Pariah

A highly critical article written by a former US Army Major and West Point history instructor. And really quite damning in regard to American exceptionalism, which the writer typifies, cynically, as "America's messianic global mission".

He adds that 'despite 17 years of failing military quagmires", it is an act of "political suicide" to question the ongoing "crusade".

https://www.truthdig.com/articles/america-the-pariah/

 

Excerpt from the text: "that which makes us exceptional is the dogged militarism that consistently brands the U.S. as an international pariah."

I like that phrase; I mean, it wouldn't be quite so bad had improvements been made by all these adventures in telling the rest of the world 'We know what's best for you.' (I mean the breath-taking arrogance - as if they know what best for anybody when we think of the domestic shooting crime rates??). but exactly the reverse has been the case. As I keep asking - WTF is going on over there?

 

Pushing the perpetual war agenda has lost the US a vast amount of goodwill from around the world. "Pariah" seems to me to be the right choice of world. And the telling thing is the author's background. A West point history instructor and US Army Major.

 

And when I think back to when I used to admire America so much . . . ? What a fall from grace!

 

He lost all credibility with this paragraph.

"Then there’s the American penchant for scuttling global agreements or retiring to pout in the corner rather than sign on to truly consequential conventions we don’t happen to like. Take the Paris Climate Accord. Every serious country—come to think of it, all countries—have now signed on to this modest global effort to stave off the effects of global warming. Everyone, that is, except Trump’s United States. Never mind that even the U.S. military considers climate change both real and a major security threat. Facts have such an annoying tendency to get in the way of things. The U.S. also hasn’t signed on to the International Criminal Court. Probably a smart move. Otherwise Dick Cheney and Don Rumsfeld might actually have been held accountable for, well, war crimes".

 

Interesting read. It was like I'd read it before. Somewhere, the 2016 DNC national committee website perhaps? Maj. Danny Sjursen seems to be running for something. Public office in Kansas perhaps?

While mr Sjursen is certainly entitled to an opinion, it seems antithetical to his commission. He seems to have openly challenged the chain of command.

 

I fail to see what's wrong/false with this bit. Help me.

 

The author quoted both a Republican and a Democrat President, both as far from one another as can be.

And, fck the chain of command. I don't care for another organization's rules when the greater good is at stakes. Whistleblowers are heroes and martyrs, not traitors and criminals.

 

Sjursen is not alone in being critical of US militarism. I believe this reflects a long tradition of dissent in the US military.

Of the top off my head I can think of Col. Patrick Lang (Retd), former Green Beret and US Army Intelligence who, likewsie, is a critical voice. Ditto Col. "Bo" Gritz former SF and commander of 5th SFG. There are also a number of former senior members of the US intelligence community who are likewise highly critical of US foreign policy since 9/11.

 

The paragraph shows the author to be extremely partisan.

 

US foreign policy has been a joke since WW1 ended. The league of Nations was a joke. The banana wars were all US corporate profiteering. We were drug into WW2 by Roosevelt taking sides in the Japanese conquest of China and the German conquest of Europe.

Then there is expansion of the Soviet union that we did nothing about. We tried playing nice in Korea and ended up making gods out of the Kims.

Fast forward to Vietnam and we spent a decade in a holding pattern trading US lives for Russian, Chinese, and N.Vietnamese lives. Impossible to win a war of attrician with cultures that put a very low value on human life.

Constant screw ups and capitulation in the middle east all through the 80s and 90s.

Then 9/11 happens. We do the military portion perfectly, then screw up everything else. Then we invade Iraq. WMDs or not, there was really no need to hit Iraq. Then we do as only the US can do and screw up the post war phase.


Yea, its time the US takes a very large step back from world affairs and while we get our own house in order.

 

Someone has to combat the kind of terrorism that flies hijacked airliners into skyscrapers and bombs packed public venues. Even W said that it would be "a long and difficult war."

 

We took on militaristic, aggressive, authoritarian regimes that were invading and conquering neighboring countries on both fronts. Dragged into it? I think we and the rest of the world had an obligation to fight the Nazis and the Japanese Empire, just as we were obligated to halt the expansion of Communism, another authoritarian system in practice, after that war. Patton may well have been right to want to push on to Moscow and liberate it! Would have saved a lot of trouble later.

 

Another "hate America" thread from the same person.

Can you say "agenda"?

 

If so, partisan for/against what, exactly? He was about "American exceptionalism", a kind of modern "manifest destiny", as far as I can understand.

 

Even if that was true, virtue is in discussing the subject rather than judging the poster.

 

Criticizing the U.S. is like telling Superman his cape is an inch too long.

 

... And then he punches you in the face I suppose.

 

the usa is like superman if superman liked to recreationally practice his laser vision on afghani schoolkids

 

Why were we obligated to fight them? None of the attrocities of the Nazis were known when we entered the war. The japanese were brutal towards the Chinese, but the Chinese were every bit as brutal towards the Japanese they captured.

 

US foreign policy has need of critisism.

 

"America the pariah? Read my thread about russian oligarchs and their trillions$$$ looking to dump their "hard earned" fortunes in those pariah/cursed western/US banks striped horse.
We're always the pariah, they hate us....at same time desire us. Another hater here I take.

 

Would you like to know what Afghan military and police do with Afghan schoolchildren?

 

Does that include whoever it was that hacked Hillary's emails, and whoever it was that exposed all those emails that created the Climategate scandal?

 

Both Nazi Germany and Japan declared war on the US. Japan surprise attacked Pearl Harbor to kick things off. You don't think we were obligated to fight countries that had declared war on us?