Shame is is that the US spent a trillion on the useless fu**ed up war in Iraq when the same amount could have created stability in much of Africa.. Remind me again, why exactly did the US go to Iraq? And why exactly didnt the US go to Africa instead?
Briefly:
1) Moral obligation: Iraq's population rose up repeatedly at our calling only to find that we didn't come to their rescue. Instead we preserved the tyrant under UN rules, which saw thousands of Iraqis starve to death. We pretend to not have known, but the truth is that the UN saw no problems with moving "soveriegnty" to the side so that American troops oculd assist in the humanitarian crisis in the north for years and years while this was happening.
2) Bigger picture: With the Israeli/Palestinian situation being the most important factor for Muslims before "peace in the Middle East" becomes a reality, Hussein funded Palestinian suicide bombing was a problem that wasn't going away.
3) Regional threat: If we add Iran and Kuwait to his flying military jets over Jordanian and Saudi air space as late as 2002, that would equal "4" neighboring countries that he dismissed sovereinty over. If we wanted to factor in the true definition of "sovereignty," the never ending suicide bomber violence he promoted in Israel (brief mention of Gulf War rocketing) this invasion of sovereignty would be "5."
We really don't even need to go into to what a successful Democratic Iraq does for the region. But just with these three points, UN still saw nothing wrong with the status quo and the denial. Europeans and plenty of Americans still sought to tie their morality to a system instead of to true values.
BUT....enter the other theme of the Euro anti-American. America's treasure is a matter for them to decide upon and it ussualy demands that it be saved up for when Europe needs it. The fact is that America has been in Africa since 2004. The HOA is a hot spot. Bush and Blair were the loudest speakers in the West to get UN intervention into Africa's Darfur region.
So the question is...where is the EU? Where's the European nations who feel they can criticize our involvement with Iraq by using neglected Africa as a tool...yet also remain comfortably absent from Sudan and Zimbabwe themselves? Were this a European nation like say....genocidal Bosnia,...military intervention would be ordained by God and the American "Bat-Signal" would have been over European skies. If your argument that the world doesn't need America's meddling anymore is true, then where is the great European leadership leading the charge into Africa?
The real truth is that if America ain't leading it, it ain't happening. Maybe this is why Europeans resent us so much. They know that their own governments just can't get a job done without us and without us leading, their is no leader.
Aside from all this, I didnt live in the past, I live now, I care about what happens now and in the future, we cannot change the past...
The past? Rwanda and Sudan was just in the 90's...the same approximate time Americans were summoned to deal with genocide in Europe. Today, only America is concerned over the HOA and it took some Somali piracy to get only a few Europeans to raise their brow.
Nobody, to include Europe, can change the past. But, nor can Europe change the present, which means it has very little to do with shaping the future. Without us, it's just not going to happen because our
fuzzy ideas of international law are a matter of convenience. Either the sovereignty of governments get intervened upon due to their proximity (Bosnia, Haiti) or they get sovereinty enforced upon them because their slaughter and genocide matter not to Europe.
Europe created America and all your values are European old fashion values, a shame it is that you arent adopting new European values then...
You just don't get it. Where's your black president? Where's your civil rights marches? Where's your Civil War to end slavery? You see, the old fashion values is what created
Europe's America. The old prescriptions of designation within a society came from Europe. It's been 'Americans' that have been casting this off and making the declaration of standard to the world. While America's solution to ethnic and religious difference was to force toleration and saturation, which would see the civil war and later civil rights marches, Europe's solution was always to simply cleanse the society of ethnicity or to suppress religion. This is a sort of denial for modernism and progression for a preference of keeping things the way they have always been. Well, you got a whole exponentially growing Muslim immigrant problem that won't allow themselves to be supressed forever.
America always changes. Europe pretends and covers the cracks until the tribes have had enough.
Wow, brag about the one archievement of the US.. First western country with a black president.. Nice to see you are over the segregation, congrats.. Should I mention some things that Europeans was first with? Just about anything that has ever happend is the list then..
Ha. "One" achivement. A large part of Europe is a cultural dead zone. Trapped in 19th century look and forever afraid of actual change. Visiting Europe is like visiting your grandma's house - nothing changes. Even the Louvre Pyramid was viewed as an obscene addition to a stagnated culture that only wishes to live in the past. You brag about how far ahead Europe is in regards to society and governance, yet where is your black guy? You brag about historical firsts, yet what happened in the twentieth century when America was heading into space? Innovation and exploration is laregely an American gig now.
Cavemen invented the wheel. But what have they done lately?
I think it would be best if Europe had a single armed forces which cooperated with the US forces in a new NATO framwork.
I believe it would be less expensive and less of a burden for us if NATO dissolved. America doesn't need it to protect itself and it had never been the factor in protecting its interests. If Europe needs America, then we simply get on our planes and boats and come over. And since we conduct most of the missions and leave some just for European nations to get involved anyway, no NATO required.
Europe's best bet is to keep America in the fold with "NATO" or to create a European military worth a damn and work with America's forces. But this is unlikely, because this would be like placing your citizens under the charge of other nation's leadership. Who leads it? France? Germany? Belgium? Norway? Britian, which is viewed as an outsider? Do they take turns? Do they vote on the General? Does Biritian remain on the outside as its own entity? American forces never fall under the charge of a foriegn leader. I don't see all of Europe's tribes uniting like this. It would be just like a UN mission where all the individual nations bicker and complain about work load and burden sharing (which is humerously never close to what America's roles always are).