Korean Job Discussion Forums

[Ya-ta Boy]

[bigverne]

[thepeel]

Ok, just to appease the flag-wavers, let me get something across. I have no negative feelings towards the USA. It isn't even close to the worst criminal regimes our poor planet has seen. I don't view all actions as wrong, or even as naive. You should be careful before throwing someone who critiques American foreign policy into a group of Anti-american blowhards who are unable to see virtue in an exceedingly virtuous nation.

Alright, so I'm not welcome in the USA eh? Only people who support the wars on top of wars that the American government gets itself into are welcome? So, by that logic, California ought to just go ahead and float off to sea?

I like how the pro-war types tend to forget the long history of American war and only focus on WW2. Were all of the American wars justified? Or only WW2? And of course we must not ignore the proxy wars that the USA was in and the totally horrific actions that Latin American, Asian, and African states who were supported by the USA.

But I am able to preform a simple mind trick. I am able to separate the actions of the US government from the American people themselves. Many people simply cannot or will not do this. I don't even feel animosity towards people like Gopher who so glibly tell me I'm a "fool" or "not welcome". You are simply a product of a hyper-nationalistic environment, which leads to a knee-jerk reaction whenever the actions of you nation are criticized. But America isn't at all alone in this mentality, far from it.

My mother, drunk or sober. My country right or wrong. Eh, boys.

Here is a book review from today's IHT that gets nicely to the point.

[Gopher]

[deleted]

[Gopher]

[deleted]

[ontheway]

BJWD, keep right on posting. Your views represent the real American point of view, the point of view of our founding fathers, a point of view that a growing percentage of Americans are coming back home to. There will always be a tiny group (on this board and in the American society) who look at the world through "red/white/and blue" colored glasses. They dismiss facts, reason, logic and analysis with simple retorts ("grow up" for example). They do not support America. They support the government that currently rules America. Being unable to see that America and its government are not the same thing is a paranoid reaction, it's a delusion. These people cannot perceive reality, let alone discuss it.

America's interventionist polices have failed time after time. This is because when you attack people unjustly and without cause you will create legions of enemies. It is not logical to blame Donald Rumsfeld for the failures in Iraq, because of incompetence. It is the policy of interventionism that has failed. It has failed again and again throughout history. No matter which country has used it, it has failed.

We must be able to discern the difference between just wars where the US, or any nation, is responding to attack and interventionist wars. In WWII the US was attacked by Japan as one of the axis powers. It was appropriate to fight back against Japan, Germany and Italy. Likewise, when Bin Laden attacked the US, it was appropriate to fight back agianst his group and the Afghanistan government that supported and protected it. This reaction by the US was justified and created few NEW enemies for the US.

The war in Iraq is different because there was no attack against the US. The US was in fact containing Iraq already in questionable and interventionist ways. The result is that this war has created tens of millions of new enemies for the US. Out of those tens of millions, some will attack the US. Bush's war is an act of treason against the American people.

A policy of free trade with all and alliances with none, as advocated by that other George (Washington, the one with a brain) is the one that has worked for Switzerland, as you pointed out, and the one that works in economic and political theory. There is NO theoretical construct that supports interventionism or protectionism as workable policy alternatives. Furthermore, there are no real world examples of success for those policies either.

Non-intervention and free trade are not only supported in theory and in fact, but the BIGGER the nation, the easier it is to establish such policies successfully.

[Gopher]

[deleted]

[Bulsajo]

[some waygug-in]

no me digas.

si yo fuera loco, la vida seria tan facile. pero como lo va, es un grand dolor.

[Ya-ta Boy]

[EFLtrainer]

As usual, there's nothing to the refutations. Gpher says you must speak as I want you to speak or I'm not going to listen to you.

Talk about needing to grow up.

Facts? How about a Bush approval rating in the thirties? I don't have access to Kinzer's book, but don't need it. American interventionist activities are well-documented and need not be recounted here in full, with every ppoint cited, to be discussed intelligently. This is not a debate class, which is the only place, other than a court of law, that such behavior is undertaken.

We all know the issues. What we here on this board are dealing with is how history is viewed depending on our beliefs, values and morals. Obviously, there are those that will make excuses for anything. There are no excuses for some things. There are no excuses for Iraq.

The very simple observation that virtually everyone on this board and that I have ever spoken with, read, or heard of agrees that going into Afghanistan was legitimate and acceptable. However, many of those same people felt, and still feel, Iraq was nothing more than warmongering. More and more Americans are coming to this understanding. Are we anti-American? According to gopher, who can't get his head around dealing with each event and person as they are.

I, for example, have never had an intense dislike or disgust for any American politician like I do for dumbya. Never. Nixon was an egocentric, paranoid, but he also did great things while in office. China, for example (though I still disagree with the one china policy.) Bush? He's just a warmongering scumbag. Nothing he has done while in office is going to make our nation or the world better. He has raped the environment, raped the treasury to pay for his misadventures, lied, takn away our rights, abrogated his oath of office, ignored the constitution... The man is scum. Nothing more. Is it a harsh observation? No. It is a simple reality. If he were a good man doing good things and I said he was scum, it would be harsh. It is not harsh to state the obvious.

My point here is that for ostriches like gopher to operate, they rely on the anti-American paint brush to color anything that criticizes the US government and foreign policy. He pays lip service to being against the Iraq war, but says it was not illegal and, wonder of wonders, it has been properly prosecuted!!!

Wolf in sheeps' clothing, indeed. The contradictions in what he spouts are amazing.

And you so often talk of historical perspective (or is that hysterical?) The US government has a long history of protecting its financial interests ahead of democracy and ideals. This is not news to anyone but Americans. As a youngster, I was often confused by foreign perspectives of the US. In HS, I was a member of AFS, the exchange student program. The European students, in particualr, seemed so far ahead of the curve on understanding international relations. They'd just sort of smile knowingly as we talked about the "good" the US had done. They knew it was pointless to discuss it because we, the Americans, had never been taught any of the real history behind the history. The Spanish-American War? All we ever knew was, "Remember the Maine!"

Ontheway is right. BJWD is right. You are wrong, goph. Dead wrong. Amerca is an idea, not a government. It is a people, not a party. It is what WE say it is or allow it to become. George Bush is nothing but a tyrant. The emperor's clothes, indeed. It was wrong to attack Iraq on every level. Yes, goph, the US was WRONG. And those that supported it were wrong. Those that still do are wrong. And those that make excuses for it are the most wrong of all, because they are also liars.

[Bulsajo]

[some waygug-in]

So I guess Dictionary.com must be wrong then..





2 entries found for isolationism.
i��so��la��tion��ism ( P ) Pronunciation Key (s-lsh-nzm)
n.
A national policy of abstaining from political or economic relations with other countries.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

isolationism

n : a policy of nonparticipation in international economic and political relations


It says nothing about military defense policies that I can see.

Perhaps I need a better dictionary.


But since you want to discuss the military applications of this word, here is some interesting information.


http://www.reference.com/browse/wiki/United_States_isolationism

United States isolationism
The Thirteen Colonies that would become the United States had little understanding of isolationism: most colonists knew of no other life except that of nationalist Europe and willingly accepted both the protection and complications of being a British colony. Thomas Paine is generally credited with instilling the first isolationist ideas into the American body politic; his work Common Sense contains many arguments in favor of avoiding alliances. These ideas introduced by Paine took such a firm foothold that the Continental Congress struggled against forming an alliance with France and only agreed to do so when it was apparent that the war for independence could be won in no other manner.
George Washington's farewell address set an isolationist tone that would not soon fade: "The great rule of conduct for us, in regard to foreign nations, is in extending our commercial relations, to have with them as little political connection as possible. Europe has a set of primary interests, which to us have none, or a very remote relation. Hence she must be engaged in frequent controversies the causes of which are essentially foreign to our concerns. Hence, therefore, it must be unwise in us to implicate ourselves, by artificial ties, in the ordinary vicissitudes of her politics, or the ordinary combinations and collisions of her friendships or enmities."

President Thomas Jefferson affirmed the ardent isolationism of the young country in his inaugural address: "peace, commerce, and honest friendship with all nations, entangling alliances with none."

The isolationist torch was still burning strong in 1823 when President James Monroe articulated what would come to be known as the Monroe Doctrine: "In the wars of the European powers, in matters relating to themselves, we have never taken part, nor does it comport with our policy, so to do. It is only when our rights are invaded, or seriously menaced that we resent injuries, or make preparations for our defense."

Indeed, the United States managed to maintain a state of political isolation throughout the 19th century and the first part of the 20th century. Few nations have been able to maintain such a stance for such a lengthy period of time. Historians have posited that this is largely due to a geography that is both detached and distant in relation to that of Europe.

The beginning of the 20th century saw German and Japanese imperialism challenge and later largely put an end to feelings of content isolationism enjoyed by the United States. The acquisition of the Philippine Islands during the Spanish-American War put U.S. interests in to the western Pacific Ocean, squarely in the sights of Japan. The U.S. failed to perceive threats made against its unencumbered position. It took Germany's unrestricted submarine warfare during World War I to shake the neutral stance that the U.S. had cherished for so long. When the war ended, the U.S. was quick to leave behind its "entangling alliances"; both the Treaty of Versailles and the League of Nations found little congressional support.

The time between the World Wars saw a resurgence in isolationism in the United States. After the war broke out in Europe, such Americans as Charles Lindbergh, Gerald P. Nye and Rush D. Holt prominently advocated U.S. neutrality.

Japan's 1941 Attack on Pearl Harbor effectively dashed any hopes of the U.S. further maintaining isolationism, as suddenly it put the U.S. into World War II. The sanguine effects of geopolitical alliance did not evaporate with Allied victory: in contrast, the developing Cold War would make them more desirable than ever. Today, the United States is far removed from its history of isolation. Through the United Nations, defensive agreements are in place with forty-four sovereign states.

A number of individuals in the contemporary U.S. are active in promoting a return to an isolationist foreign policy. These include progressives such as Ralph Nader, conservatives such as Pat Buchanan, and libertarians such as Justin Raimondo.

[On the other hand]

[Bulsajo]