I don't even know how to start. The US present themselves as paragons of freedom, and then they blatantly violate every kind of basic human right.
But on that note I think "every kind of basic human right" is a bit extreme. We have arguably the strongest free speech protections in the world, people are free to move around as they see fit, we're a pretty great place to start a business as we're a massive single market that speaks the same language with relatively lax regulations and low corruption, our higher education is second to none, and most recently we just allowed gay marriage.
Granted some things need a serious overhaul, but while we get a lot wrong we also get a lot right.
And frankly you'll be hard-pressed to find a government that doesn't try to abuse its people when it's convenient. That just a function of power-hungry people typically being assholes. The difference is the US is the world superpower and we wave the flag a lot, not to mention we're just a massive, diverse country. So our hypocrisy is orders of magnitude greater just by virtue of scale, and then on top of that we're held to a higher standard by everybody else.
If you took the government of, say Norway (or some other government that you feel best respects human rights), gave them the size and diversity of the US, and then scaled them up to World Superpower status and gave them some cultural tweaks to actually be able to maintain that status, I think you'd see just as much hypocrisy.
But that was always their deal: the power plus the hypocrisy and the holier than thou attitude that one affords from being top dog with no one to answer to.
(Of course talking about those in power - the normal people are great, just uninformed about most of those things. Then again, if you live in a huge country with no borders with anybody apart from Canada and Mexico, and with no domestic impact in your life of anything that happens outside (except oil prices), why would anybody care about geography and world affairs?).
Yeah, the US has a lot of flaws that need to be reformed, but that doesn't make it any different than any more country in history, it makes it exactly like them.
It's not an American problem, it's a human problem. When we understand that and stop pointing we'll all be better off.
What is unique about the US historically is that they have always claimed to be spreading freedom while frequently doing the exact opposite. Of course it is really just a new twist to the old western excuse for invading: we are civilizing your, or: we are bringing christianity to the poor masses.
Since the US is the main power today and it is a democracy, it is VERY important to protest the US and make Americans aware of the role the US plays world politics. Today very few Americans know about the countless abuses, power grabs, and human rights abuses the US has engaged in the last 100 years. Instead all around US schools American school children are served up propaganda about the US being the best, freest and most human country ever in existence.
How can America ever change if it keeps brainwashing its population like this?
At least the Germans owned up to their atrocities.
The differences you talk about now are, in my opinion, down to advanced weaponry. Where before it was about manpower (and England's vast empire made procurement of such very easy) and sailing (another thing England was pretty damn good at), today it's more about who has the biggest and most advanced guns, bombs and delivery technology. America outspends, America wins.
That being said, I'm reminded of a rather apt poem I read somewhere about the British invasion of Afghanistan in the 1800's, basically saying how despite many pounds of expensive training given to English soldiers, they where shot and killed by a Afghanistan pistol in the mountains that only cost a shilling (If anyone has a reference for that I would be very grateful, I cannot find it anywhere)
I think Britain could have won that war if they had really wanted to, given enough time and resources, but there was a great reluctance to spend the resources to win it, money in particular.
There was lack of will on the part of the British government combined with a low point in British military funding. The British government (Parliament, the King was a figurehead by this time) was simply unwilling to convert the country to a war footing.
The political leaders kept hoping they could win the war with a low level of military funding and save money, which was in short supply. So the war effort was underfunded and undermanned. In the end, the Whig party (who had been against the war) came to power and negotiated an end to it. Wars are expensive, and the Whigs didn't think this one was worth the expenditure.
Compare that sad performance to the Napoleonic Wars 20 years later. Britain was on full war footing and spending huge quantities of money (going deep into debt in the process) on their military. They were cranking out large numbers of ships and training large armies.
When the War of 1812 broke out, the British were uninterested in fighting it. They were busy with Napoleon at the time, and the American war was a sideshow with few resources devoted to it compared to what was being devoted to Europe. Even then, their vastly improved military and lavish spending resulted in a much better performance than the Revolutionary War.
In the end, once the Americans were tired of fighting, a peace was negotiated. The British were uninterested in keeping that war going any longer than necessary. It was costing them money and they had better fish to fry.
The U.S. declared war on Great Britain as negotiations to roll back impressment and trade restrictions were finally progressing. Then, after some impressive U.S. victories repelling British invasions (following some impressive British victories), none of the original grievances were addressed in the treaty.
It's most accurate to say that the American Revolution was a notable but not decisive campaign in the Second Hundred Years War. Americans blow their participation in the conflict wildly out of proportion -- patriotic textbook revision has produced an epic creation mythology. Panamanian schools seem similarly to omit the role of the US in the creation of that country. It's not just that history is written by the winners, it's that it's continually rewritten by the winners.
I'm very grateful!
Ah, it's so cute you think that would have any affect.
But this isn't unique nor Western. The Persians invaded Greece. The Chinese invaded Tibet. Great Britain at the height of its power was screwing over China and India and that's maybe even more impressive from a power projection standpoint considering just how small England was and how much less technology they had.
I don't believe that you actually think that Americans are somehow different from the rest of humanity. Out of 300 million people there are a lot of Americans who don't agree with everything their country does.
There is good and bad, and to act like the US is some kind of extreme outlier is prejudiced and not honest about history. It was less than 100 years ago that every European power had colonies and it was less than 75 that the Japanese and Germans were murdering other peoples in the service of empire.
It's a human thing.
Unfortunately the world needs a police. The UN isn't effective. So the US takes a lot of heat for meddling in other country's affairs.
I'd personally like to see us move off a lot of bases, but when shit hits the fan and history repeats itself, a lot of the anti-US critics are going to jump on the wagon. Reminds me of Billy Madison - "Man, I'm glad I called that guy!".
Of course. The British Empire, for one, did the finger pointing and "white man's burden" hypocrisy back in the day.
In fact, the CIA contacts from the 80's were reactivated after 9/11 because, for the most part, they were in charge of the Northern Alliance forces that were battling the taliban in the civil war.
Would you rather have Putin or China run the show?
And, besides, neither Putin nor China are that. Whether due to being less power, or from a long history of being non interventional and isolationist, at most, they are concerned with their own national interests, in their own backyard (South China Sea, Ukraine, etc). That is, like any other country.
I don't care what they do within their borders and with their neighbour's that they have disputes with -- that's for them to sort out.
But when a country pushes their army bases in my country, controls local politics, or even goes to fund and arm a dictatorship in my own country from half a world away in the name of "their national interests" (as if they are entitled to have any say on how things are run in a sovereign country half a world away), that I don't like.
I also don't care for world cops, especially if they are trigger happy, and hypocritically push their own interests as some holy crusade.
Brand making and propaganda comes and goes. Everyone of influence does what is most convenient and beneficial for them to do and leave the rest to the ad agencies. Every empire brands itself as a golden empire. Its nothing new.