Isn't this really a collective USA ego problem?

[SHRED]

Like we are so far superior that we can bend other countries, like Afghanistan, to our will and furthermore the people will accept our "better way".
That we, as a nation, are the beacon of freedom, truth, light , and hope (you heard the speech tonight) and that every oppressed country is really just struggling to "be like us".

And we have blinders on too...don't ya think?
Look at the geography, demographics, societal make-up, and economy of Afghanistan.
Look with in an objective lens and convince anyone that we can change anything in 2 years.

Hope?
Change?


When?



---

[napi21]

1. That's what Shrub was trying to do, but I don't think Obama is.

Shrub wanted to establish democracies in Afghan & Iraq. Obama just wants the fighting to stop, to catch Osama, and get the hell out.

[leftstreet]

2. At least we can still play the 9/11 drinking game during speeches

sWEet

[SHRED]

4. true

[Oregone]

3. Ego? Its a pervasive sickness

The kind that causes a guy to walk into a coffee shop and kill 4 police officers. The kind that leaves little girls with a 25% chance to be molested by the time they graduate high school. The kind that causes 500%+ deaths a year more, every year, than 9/11.

America is a shining apple, rotting at its inner core. Something about the national psyche is sick and wrong, and people die or end up victims of malicious twisted acts. Of course, we export this fine product with our competative advantage. If only we could brand and sell American Psychosis, we would wipe out the trade deficits overnight

[NYC_SKP]

5. Typical Americans? Yeah, we're pretty ethnocentric. I think we have a good POTUS, though.

Obama, given his background, understands these differences more than any past POTUS.

I think any objective appraisal would have to agree.

Bush, not so much (or even a little).

Clinton, probably not so much.

Carter, not while he was president.

I doubt that any past president has quite as keen a world view as the current one.

:patriot:

[anonymous171]

6. American Exceptionalism could be used to encourage isolationist sentiment as well

[FarLeftFist]

7. I don't think we're trying to bend other countries....At least not this one

We are not at war with the nation of Afghanistan, we are at war with a terrorist organization that operates and trains in Afghanistan. I believe Obama knows these people have no real desire to be a democratic nation and that we shouldn't force them to be with use of force. That may be the difference between him and Bush.

[Go2Peace]

8. YES YES!!! We have to get past the moral superiority and exceptionalism

before it destroys us or the world.

[FarLeftFist]

9. But moral superiority and human rights have a direct connection....n/t

[EFerrari]

11. It would be pretty hard to argue our moral superiority to the Afghans

when we've been torturing and abusing prisoners at Bagrm for what, eight years now?

[Dead_Parrot]

10. Certainly seems that way, sometimes...

[951-Riverside]

12. Its all about colonizing, they don't give a crap about making these people better

They're probably the ones secretly training, funding and arming the extremists in the first place. They want to keep the population down, uneducated and oppressed so they can always have a good reason to occupy and kill the population en masse.

[malaise]

13. There are some DUers who will prevent you from visiting

for expressing this view. :D