Clearsky,
Well, I suppose you're right. We don't mind anyone disagreeing with us unless of course the disagreement might actually prevent us from doing as we please. It's OK to disagree as long as its meaningless, but God help you if the disagreement thwarts our will. After all, once having acquired the status of "sole superpower" to be challenged is just too much.
As for why France took the position that it did you may believe what you say, but it sounds just a little bit too much like the White House spin doctors. For my money an unbridled superpower, led by a man who likes to talk tough an flex unchallenged military power, is far more dangerous to the planet than the imagined aspirations of European dominance on the part of France.
As for their threatened UN veto, how many times has the US vetoed a proposed UN resolution? As for making the invasion of Iraq inevitable, that's a major stretch. The US invasion of Iraq was "inevitable" long before we went to the UN in an effort to justify what is not justifiable. France had nothing to do with that. I don't call it a "war" because it wasn't. An attack by the United States on a country like Iraq is hardly a war. Armed conflict yes, but war? One wages "war" with nation states that are capable of self-defense; precisely why we haven't for quite some time.
Now please don't think that I "like" or support Saddam Hussein because I don't. His regime was evil and worthy of replacement, but in my opinion, not by an unprovoked invasion by the USA devoid of world support. No one could stop us and no one did, but that doesn't make it right. Whatever you do, please don't tell me that we did it to "free the Iraqi people". I may be wrong in my thinking, but I'm not a child.
France is no friend of the United States.
Given history, that's a statement that I don't feel you can support. Is the United States a friend of France? One consults with one's friends and values their opinions. When you "inform" your friends before the fact that you intend to act in a certain manner regardless of what they think or say, don't be surprised if you fail to gain their support or they choose to voice any disagreement in public. What difference does it make whether France or anyone else "agrees". Our President made it quite clear that he intended to invade Iraq long before the French government made any decision. He announced to the world, before the fact, that the UN was irrelevant, unless of course it agreed with the USA. We may have had the support of the British, Spanish and Australian governments, but even they did not have the support of their own people. What do you find "friendly" about that; not just to France but to anyone?
Actually, it does to a large extent on many scales including economically, militarily, socially, and politically, which is why there is so much jealous and envy in countries such as France.
The United States leads the world as the most developed nation in all of the areas you list without question.
That however, does not mean that the world revolves around the US or that it should. This thought process appears to imply that we, because of our dominance in these areas, should be able to impose our ideas and systems on others against their will? We have now gone so far with this idea of our own superiority as to use military force against another nation that has not attacked us, to impose our system of government. Yes, Saddam was an evil dictator but he was their dictator. When he invaded Kuwait, unprovoked, we had a right to evit him by force. Now that we have invaded Iraq, unprovoked, who will evict us? That is in direct contradiction to the very philosophy that has made us the great nation that we are, i.e., the concept of self-determination. To embarque on a policy of changing the governments of foreign countrys that we "don't like" is a grave threat to this country. I can't help but note that we are now discussing the overthrow of the government of Iran. A couple weeks ago we were threatening Syria. Is there an end?
It is neither jealousy nor envy that motivates those who turn against us. The problem of terrorism is very real and we will not eliminate it as long as we continue to misidentify its route causes. People do not attack us because they are jealous or envious. The hatred is much deeper than that and does not stem from our money or our power. I comes from our arrogance and manifest and openly expressed disdain for everything that is uniquely theirs. To include France in that thought merely indicates that you also do not understand the French.
For those that want to bring up events that happened hundreds of years ago, then don't forget how the problems in the Middle East got started. It was European countries, including France, that after WWI partitioned and split up among themselves the territories of the Ottoman Empire along lines that guaranteed a century of instability in that region. Iraq is a case in point.
I'll go you one better than a couple hundred years. How about thousands of years? The United States is not the first "super power" that the world has known. There have been many and each in its time ultimately saw or felt the need to exercise that power in an attempt to impose its own idea of what is "best" on the rest of the world. Perhaps you've noticed that all previous super powers are no more. I don't want to see us follow in their footsteps.
The United States is unique because of the ideals incorporated in its Constitution and Declaration of Independence. When we come to the point of violating those ideals in pursuit of our "interests" we risk losing the dream. "Power corrupts. Absolute power corrupts absolutely." That's old too, but continues to ring true.
Yes, it was the European powers that created the instability of the region we call the Middle East. Do not overlook the fact that the United States, without whom the allied victory in WWI would never have occurred, was as deeply involved in all that hegemony as any of the others and explicitly in the furtherance of the Zionist movement. It is one thing to support the concept of a homeland for the Jewish people and quite another to make it happen by taking the homeland of another people.
The mess of the Middle East is of our own making as well as that of the Europeans. I am in favor of solving that mess, not of making it worse by further armed interventions where we don't belong. It might do us well to note that the Middle East has been invaded by foreigners many times for thousands of years, yet it remains essentially unchanged and the "foreigners" have all fallen by the wayside. Only the people of the region can change their own way of thinking. We can of course encourage it, but we can't impose it by force.
Those who ignore history are doomed to repeat it. Some people really don't need Madonna, Eminem, Jerry Springer, P. Daddy, Jerry Falwell or Larry Flint as the measure of their "culture". Perhaps we don't either. This great nation didn't get there on the basis of that garbage and we don't need to export it. "They" don't need that any more than we need the Bin Ladens, Husseins, Ayatollahs or the House of Saud. Sadly, it seems that our government even misled the American people by inventing links to Al-Quaida that we can't substantiate and huge stashes WMD that the UN could find and we have yet to find. This administration seems all to eager to bash those that descent both at home and abroad and to wield its military might without rationale. I pray it doesn't wind up hurting us far more than it helps and confess that worries me far more that ban of French-Fries in of all places the Congress. Hopefully somebody there knows more about the world than they do about the French.
Oh well, I guess I've been there, too...)
