by k3nt » Wed Jun 06, 2007 11:15 am
BTW, I liked BigPhish's metaphor a lot. I do think that's how a lot of people (Americans) see the US's role in the world.
Let me suggest another metaphor, that might suggest how some people outside the US see our role....
Imagine you live in a neighborhood that is poor. The houses are run-down, there's graffiti all over the place. But it's really not a dangerous neighborhood, crime is low. You like living there. You have a lot of friends, everybody gets along. There are some low-grade hostilities, maybe the occasional murder, but it's not all that bad.
Now some foreigner comes in. He has never been to your country. He knows nothing about your culture. But he walks through your neighborhood one afternoon, and based on that one stroll he decides that it is unacceptable. He insists that the neighborhood is a hotbed of crime and needs to be cleaned up. He brings in 10,000 army troops that don't speak your language. They march through, knock down every door that has graffiti on it, arrest everybody inside, and kill anybody who resists. Not surprisingly, the residents resist. They start shooting back. He uses the resistance as proof that the place was always a hotbed of crime and full of evil people, and brings in the big artillery. Before long, half the town has been wiped out, 1/4 of the males in the town are dead, 1/4 of the women have been raped, all the children have fled. The place is one big smoldering hole in the ground. And when you complain, he says to you: "Hey, nobody else was going to take care of the problem. If you aren't part of the solution, then you have no right to complain about how we do things."