"Powell would have kept us out of Kosovo, Bosnia, and Libya, but we are not in quagmires in those places."
The 'West' helped bring about the conditions that 'justified' intervention in the first place. It's interesting that the US can do anything to other peoples, and the only reasonable argument against it is that it will have negative consequences for the US.
One more reason why Morris Berman is right in his new book, "Why America Failed" when he says reversing America's failure would be like turning around an aircraft carrier in a bathtub.
“Franz Rosenthal (August 31, 1914 – April 8, 2003) was the Louis M. Rabinowitz professor of Semitic languages at Yale from 1956 to 1967 and Sterling Professor Emeritus of Arabic, scholar of Arabic literature and Islam at Yale from 1967 to 1985.”
When he died, I was teaching English to foreign students at Texas A&M University – of all places! I printed out his NYT obituary and took it into the office of a colleague. (She was Turkish, had grown up in Germany where her father was a surgeon, and was probably the best educated person in that department.) This was at the depth of the US war of aggression against Iraq – “the supreme war crime”. I found her in tears over news of the looting of antiquities, and especially the burning of libraries in Bagdad – she said, “A big part of the history of the Ottoman Empire is being destroyed!” I gave her the obituary, told her a little about Rosenthal’s life and work, managed to say, “I don’t know how he died, but if he knew about what’s happening, maybe that’s what killed him.” We just sat there for a long time in silence.
Brazilians had thirty or so years of U.S. backed military dictatorship. Experience that, and maybe you'll understand their point of view on U.S. intervention.
"Powell would have kept us out of Kosovo, Bosnia, and Libya, but we are not in quagmires in those places."
The 'West' helped bring about the conditions that 'justified' intervention in the first place. It's interesting that the US can do anything to other peoples, and the only reasonable argument against it is that it will have negative consequences for the US.
One more reason why Morris Berman is right in his new book, "Why America Failed" when he says reversing America's failure would be like turning around an aircraft carrier in a bathtub.
If you want to see why the US is on this path, take a look at Morris Berman's latest book, "Why America Failed".
“Franz Rosenthal (August 31, 1914 – April 8, 2003) was the Louis M. Rabinowitz professor of Semitic languages at Yale from 1956 to 1967 and Sterling Professor Emeritus of Arabic, scholar of Arabic literature and Islam at Yale from 1967 to 1985.”
When he died, I was teaching English to foreign students at Texas A&M University – of all places! I printed out his NYT obituary and took it into the office of a colleague. (She was Turkish, had grown up in Germany where her father was a surgeon, and was probably the best educated person in that department.) This was at the depth of the US war of aggression against Iraq – “the supreme war crime”. I found her in tears over news of the looting of antiquities, and especially the burning of libraries in Bagdad – she said, “A big part of the history of the Ottoman Empire is being destroyed!” I gave her the obituary, told her a little about Rosenthal’s life and work, managed to say, “I don’t know how he died, but if he knew about what’s happening, maybe that’s what killed him.” We just sat there for a long time in silence.
That should be "stay away from Georgia and Texas too."
AK probably won't feel any great desire to return to Italy anytime soon. I would advise her to stay from Georgia and Texas too.
Brazilians had thirty or so years of U.S. backed military dictatorship. Experience that, and maybe you'll understand their point of view on U.S. intervention.