The Burden of Power
This is a great article about how tiring it must be to be Superman, or America, for that matter.
He sets up the article well, Superman has the power to save anyone, but not everyone. And so with any one person he saves, there are three others who can legitimately complain, "Why didn't you save me?"
It is the same question of why Iraq and not North Korea, or Iran, or Sudan?
I have one major disagreement with the article, however, "A small but growing number of ideologues on both sides of the political aisle believe that America is simply too powerful. Some of these ideologues will say so directly; they distrust America, or even detest its culture for being fascistic and/or decadent, and they believe that the world will be a better place if America's prominence diminishes."
I think he gets this wrong. I think America would be better off if our power diminished, but the world would be worse off.
The majority of the Arab Middle East hates us. (Maybe it's secret love, but it sure takes the form of hate and anger and resentment) The hate has been brewing for years and continues no matter what we do. They hate us for doing nothing in Iraq (allowing UN sanctions), or doing nothing about Saddam, and they hate us for "occupying" Iraq. They hate us when we intervene, they hate us when we don't intervene. They hate us when we pay attention, they hate us when we ignore.
If we were less powerful, and say the Islamicists came to power across the Middle East or say, the Communists, or whomever, the people of the Middle East would love us. They would love our religious tolerance or our religious moderation. They would love freedom and democracy, because they would know how terrible a Taliban-like state would be.
We wouldn't get attacked because the Islamicists would be so busy killing and oppressing their own people and they would have something to lose. They would leave us alone, sell us oil at inflated prices, and we would be happy...and the entire region would not.
It is ironic, methink.
2 comments:
i hate the yankees.
but then again, i don't advocate blowing up their clubhouse, nor would i applaud, even secretly, if someone else did.
i hate chaos, death, and terror even more than the yankees. but that's just me.
first of all, i would never applaud killing innocent bystanders. i recognize it as sometimes a necessity, particularly when terrorists purposefully use innocents as shields - hiding amongst them. i'm going to assume you mis-chose your words on accident.
and while some believe may believe america is behind most of the terror, death, and chaos in the world, that doesn't make it true.
anyhow, i'm painting anyone who celebrates the deliberate murder of americans as part of a death cult. i don't think that is too far a stretch.
Post a Comment