America under Bush, a force for good or a rogue nation?

[Watser?]

For those of you who missed it: there was a global poll recently on attitudes toward the great powers. It confirmed a trend: people around the globe are losing faith in the good intentions of the US.

A 47-nation survey finds global public opinion increasingly wary of the world's dominant nations and disapproving of their leaders. Anti-Americanism is extensive, as it has been for the past five years.

Now there has been an intensive discussion about this by Glenn Greenwald and other bloggers. Some (like Bernard of Moon of Alabama) think that the reason for the change is that people are better informed now about what goes on in the world and the part the US plays in that. Glen Greenwald on the other hand thinks it is all down to the Bush administration which has changed the balance: the US always did things that were bad, but people viewed the US as the good guys not because they did not know about the bad things but because they thought the good outweighed the bad.
I know that for me, I have always been ambivalent about the US. There is no doubt the US saved our collective European asses in WWII (along with the Canadians and the Brits of course) and after that kept the Soviet Union in check. On the other hand as I have focused intensely on the Middle East, I know that the US is not a force for good there and that is not a recent thing, it goes way back to the 1950s. The US has kept dictators in power, waged dirty bombing campaigns, propped up Israel and thus enabled it not to make any concessions etc.
But in the end the overall balance was still positive, especially considering as Greenwald quotes Ian Walsh of the Agonist:

Yet, in all, America was still the shining city on the hill. Even those who disliked it, when asked "well, what hegemonic nation, past or present, would be preferable to America", were stilled. In truth, as superpowers go, America was about the best one could hope for - power corrupted, but it had not corrupted absolutely. . . .

And then the Bush years happened. George Bush, with the acquiescence of Congress and the consent of the majority of voters, who elected him in 2004, made the US a unilateral actor on the world stage, a country that engaged in pre-emptive war and threatens to use nuclear weapons in a first strike. A nation, moreover, which has repudiated the freedoms that the rest of the world admired it for, has engaged in torture, struck down habeas corpus and openly mocked the Geneva Conventions.

America had become, in the eyes of the world, un-American.

So, what do you think? Is America still a force for good? Was it ever?

[Stormlight]

On the whole,yes, the US is still a force for good. However, the last years certainly didn't help its reputation.

[TomJoe]

Originally Posted by Stormlight

On the whole,yes, the US is still a force for good. However, the last years certainly didn't help it's reputation.

I concur.

With the right leadership, the US can regain the reputation she used to have. It'll take some time, but I think it's possible.

[Kyuss Apollo]

Devil's advocate here, but I think that we should remember that the territory itself was carved from almost three centuries of what would be called today ethnic cleansing. Our arrival was never a "force of good" as far as the native peoples were (and are) concerned. Then there was that little war with Mexico, where we attacked our southern neighbor under highly questionable circumstances, because their nascent democracy would not sell us the northern 2/5 of their country. So we fought them and conquered them, gave them back the 3/5 of their country that was densely settled with Spanish-speaking Catholics and kept the 2/5 that we had tried to buy before the war and that had not so many Mexicans living on it. All rather connnnnnnnvenient, wouldn't you say?

Oh yeah, and we helped save the world from Hitler.


Helped, I say, because the Soviet Union probably could have done it eventually even without us.

[Angakuk]

I rather doubt that the U.S. has ever been a force for good, per se. It has forcefully (and usually successfully) pursued its own interests. Where and when the prosecution of those interests have been congruent with the interests of other nations, the denizens of those states have seen the U.S. as a force for good (i.e. beneficial to their interests).

The question then is whether or not the policies and actions of the present administration have served the national interest. If one defines the national interest in terms of immediate benefit to big business, then I think the answer must be in the affirmative. If one defines the national interest in terms of international prestige and good will, then I think the answer must be in the negative. If one defines the national interest in terms of the promotion of justice, liberty and human rights, then I think the answer must again be in the negative. However, I am not at all sure that such a definition has ever been the operative one at the higher echelons of power.

[California Tanker]

Originally Posted by Angakuk

I rather doubt that the U.S. has ever been a force for good, per se. It has forcefully (and usually successfully) pursued its own interests. Where and when the prosecution of those interests have been congruent with the interests of other nations, the denizens of those states have seen the U.S. as a force for good (i.e. beneficial to their interests).

Good answer.

I would expand that by saying that the US is not unique in this self-interest policy, it just happens to be big enough that it's the benchmark.

NTM

[BDS]

I'll go along with however George M. Cohan votes.

[Freddy]

Originally Posted by Stormlight

On the whole,yes, the US is still a force for good. However, the last years certainly didn't help its reputation.

Whatever good the US is still doing around the globe Bush in his war in Iraq has erased that by his combining unrealistic nation building with the war on terror. Afghanistan was the place, but Bush wanted Iraq thus forgetting about the war on terror and trying to change Iraq into a democratic republic. Four years later both Afghanistan and Iraq are still not secure and stable nations. When the democrats take back the presidency in 2008 some of the damage Bush has created will be corrected and hopefully the US will be seen as a nation that is trying to make the world a better place.

[Clutch Munny]

No, it's not a force for good. No, it never really was. No, the sole alternative is not that it's a "rogue nation". Sometimes it has been; since 2000 in particular. Yet even its current phase is not the worst period, as far as vicious bloody-minded disregard for the welfare and freedom of people it victimizes; the incursions into Mexico and the Philippines seem at least as bad, all things considered.

On the other hand, looking out for #1 isn't tantamount to being a rogue nation, as others have pointed out.

[erimir]

I didn't wanna say that the US has never been a force for good. But it's certainly not as if it always had been, if it hadn't been for Bush.

But it has been in the past a force for good at times and in some places to some people. America's been a complete asshole at other times, in certain places to certain people (towards a lot of brown people, for example). As George Carlin said once "bombing brown people is one of our hobbies".

But anyway, yeah. Bush certainly has not made America a force for good. But we've been good before, and we could be again. It would require a number of changes tho, and I don't think just electing Democrats is going to really fix that. To really change it would require reform in government and changes in the wider culture. Regardless of the fact that most Americans don't support the war in Iraq now, the fact still is that they were easy to bring along into it in the first place, and it was that easy for a reason. And I don't think that the culture's changed all that much - they're just tired of the war now.

[Watser?]

Originally Posted by Clutch Munny

No, it's not a force for good. No, it never really was. No, the sole alternative is not that it's a "rogue nation". Sometimes it has been; since 2000 in particular. Yet even its current phase is not the worst period, as far as vicious bloody-minded disregard for the welfare and freedom of people it victimizes; the incursions into Mexico and the Philippines seem at least as bad, all things considered.

On the other hand, looking out for #1 isn't tantamount to being a rogue nation, as others have pointed out.

I know that those aren't the only alternatives, but it makes for a more interesting poll

Looking out for #1 does not make it a rogue nation, ignoring international law and the rule of law in general does.

[godfry n. glad]

I would say that "America" (herein noted as a reference to the United States of America) can be a force for good and can be a rogue nation. Whilst almost always thinking of itself as the former, it has often been the latter, as it has been under the current Bush administration.

Assuredly, citizens of the United States must be amongst the most misguided, misled, and naive of nationals in terms of knowing what their government is doing. The corporate plutocracy has made the media an impotent joke. Ignorance, fear, and blind patriotism are used to drum up thoughtless obsequious conformity to rogue leadership. Partisanship protects the promiscuity of power.

I rather agree with Arundhati Roy, that the United States is not a great nation, but the people of the United States have the potential to be a truly great people.

[Zadalya]

Yeah, I never considered the States as a force for good either, but always felt it had tremendous potential which has been misused and abused. And it has been going this route for years, but with the Bush admin. it's become glaringly obvious, almost embarrassing.
I'm also inclined to mention again the detail (and what a detail!) that the country began with genocide and ethnic cleansing... Only nowadays do you get the whole 'white man's complex' with sympathetic narratives for native Americans, etc., while they're in Iraq killing off people like they are tiny bugs.
It matters more for America than for the rest of the world when it is doing badly and going downhill, because it is always claiming to be the best, all about freedom, etc.. And since it's always putting itself under the microscope, when it's doing badly, the mistakes are painfully evident. When it screws up, it screws up big time...there are no small mistakes here, there are enormous ones that require a great deal of thought and effort to work out, but this , unfortunately, is not the direction the country is going in...even after Bush leaves office.
I could say a lot more, but most of the above posts have been much more eloquent and thorough on the subject.

[Stormlight]

Originally Posted by Kyuss Apollo

Oh yeah, and we helped save the world from Hitler.

Helped, I say, because the Soviet Union probably could have done it eventually even without us.

Agreed. But as my old priest in school always said when the subject came to the cold war: "I don't know about you, but I prefer to play the banjo rather than the balalaika."

Also, I think you all are rather harsh in your judgement here. When I say force for good, I mainly speak about the image in the world. It's what the USA represent: the land of hope and glory; the land of the free and the land of endless opportunities. A beacon of justice and democracy.

Yes, it's a cliché (and often quite wrong) but that's what the USA stood for: hope.

[Watser?]

But nowadays:

Western backing for the legally disputed emergency government of Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas has demolished any lingering Arab belief that U.S. President George W. Bush's "freedom agenda" is going anywhere.

Both critics and advocates of the sweeping goals he laid out for his second term in 2005 agree that power politics and the "war on terrorism" have trumped democratic principles.

They say this was clear from the moment the United States and the European Union boycotted the government set up by Hamas in March 2006 after the Islamists trounced Abbas's Fatah faction in free elections that Washington had insisted go ahead.

"That was the hair in the soup in terms of the democracy agenda," said Lebanese commentator Michael Young, who had supported Bush's thesis that invading Iraq in 2003 would undermine undemocratic Arab regimes elsewhere.

"The U.S. response (to Hamas's election win) was: 'we'll accept democracy but not if it means the other side can win'."

[Miisa]

"The U.S. response (to Hamas's election win) was: 'we'll accept democracy but not if it means the other side can win'."

The world has got to the point where I just cannot tell if people are joking or not.

[Dingfod]

I answered in regard to the international interventionist role America has played. I think it's been a mixed bag at best, some good, mostly bad. But, I agree with Stormlight, the Bush administration aside, America is still the place people from around the world want to emulate or to visit, or even to immigrate.