Zonie63
Posts: 2826
Joined: 4/25/2011
From: The Old Pueblo
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I don't hate the UK. I think their government has done some things that I disagree with, just as my own government has done things I disagree with.
But the one thing does bother me about some British is that whenever I see some of the more rabidly anti-American statements on the Internet, more often than not, they seem to come from Britain.
I would go back to the time of World War I to illustrate what I mean. At that time, Britain was the predominant power in the world. The USA was not yet a superpower. We were on our way up and coming into our own, but apart from some regional hegemony and extending into the Pacific and the Philippines, our activities were relatively minor compared to that of Britain. We were flexing our muscle in Latin America and East Asia, but we hadn't even touched the Middle East yet. We were never in Africa or India either.
On the other hand, Britain was all over the world - and trying to exert its hegemony on the European mainland as well. Our policy in America was to stay out of European affairs. We refused to involve ourselves in their wars and conflicts, so we stayed out of the Napoleonic Wars, the Crimean War, the Franco-Prussian Wars, and the Revolutions of 1848. We pledged to stay out of Europe, and we demanded that Europe stay out of the Americas (Monroe Doctrine).
After the American Civil War, the idea of American expansionism seemed to fall by the wayside and gave way to what is commonly referred to as "U.S. imperialism." While some thought that we had reached our natural geographical limitations for expansionism, I think there were those who wanted an American Empire just like the British and French had their empires. Other countries wanted their own empires, too, like the Russians and Germans, for example. We learned early on in the War of 1812 not to touch the British Empire, and they weren't really too keen on messing with us either. They stayed out of the American Civil War, too. So our relationship with Britain improved, so if we were looking to expand our empire, we'd have to find a way to co-exist with the British Empire. For their part, the British found that it was much easier to invest in America, and this would pay off for them later on.
But the dwindling Spanish Empire was a different story, so we took a few chunks of that to grab our foothold into European hegemony. It was also when we took Hawaii (which other empires were eying as well), and a few years after that, we "liberated" Panama from Colombia so the Panama Canal could be built. The Philippines situation was also a pretty dark page on our history. Not only that, but the Philippines seemed too far away, beyond our regional scope. Within the same timeframe, we pressed for the Open China policy and was allied with other colonial powers in the Boxer Rebellion and other forays into China.
(What's interesting about this is that many Chinese I've communicated with over the Internet seem quite reasonable about it. They hate what America did to their country, but I rarely see the kind of pure, unmitigated venom that I've seen from Europeans and some Canadians about America. That's what really baffles me. People from countries which have legitimate reasons to hate America seem much nicer than those from countries who have no reason to hate America.)
The Russo-Japanese War was also another pivotal point in history, as Japan was another country looking to scratch out their global empire. The Russians were looking to expand further into the Far East. They wanted Manchuria, Korea, and further expansion into China, but the Japanese wanted that, too. I think the British had a certain phobia about Russian expansionism across Asia, as they must have felt it would have threatened their holdings in China and India. So even though neither the UK nor US participated in the Russo-Japanese War, it seemed pretty clear that we were rooting for the Japanese to win - at least enough to contain Russian expansionism. We helped negotiate the peace treaty between Russia and Japan, but there were Japanese nationalists who felt that they got a raw deal. They thought that their victory over Russia would have warranted larger spoils (e.g. they wanted Vladivostok and didn't get it), and they blamed the US for this in part. The US embassy in Tokyo was attacked, and growing numbers of Japanese were angry at the Americans over the Treaty of Portsmouth.
But the other side of that was that the disastrous war for Russia weakened their government and led to the Russian Revolution of 1905 - a precursor to what they would be facing in the next decade. Tsar Nicholas II was probably not well-suited to be a head of state, and many of his top advisors tried to convince him to stay out of a war with Japan. However, there are indications that Kaiser Wilhelm of Germany may have been goading him into it for his own twisted reasons. (The Kaiser was strange. I remember reading that when he was about 4 or 5, he had bitten some British prince in the ankle. The prince had hemophilia, so it was kind of a nasty incident.)
At around the same time, the Ottoman Empire was crumbling and leaving a mess as they left southeastern Europe. The Russians, Austrians, and Germans couldn't really agree on what to do about it. Then there were the consequences of industrialization, such as worker misery, poverty, dirty diseased cities, strikes, violence, calls for revolution - in both Europe and America. There were multinational empires ruling over different cultures and peoples who wanted to have their own nation. America was still somewhat detached from a lot of the alliances and intrigue of Europe at the time. We still maintained a policy of no foreign entanglements, even despite our forays into Latin America and East Asia. What it really meant was no entanglements with any of the major powers of Europe, so we stayed out of European affairs for as long as we could. Even in the Spanish-American War, we did not invade Spain itself; we knew our limits and knew where the line was drawn.
I think World War I was the major turning point for us. I've never been able to quite comprehend the insanity of monarchs, but with the mess which had been festering and the interconnected system of treaties and alliances which was in place, one spark set off a chain of events which plunged Europe and the world into chaos. Again, the U.S. was pretty detached from the situation and can't really be blamed for those events. I don't even think the U.K. can be blamed either, although they were more involved than we were. Obviously, the Kaiser was a bit nutso and had to be stopped, so at first, it seemed like it was fighting the good fight - to make the world safe for democracy, as Wilson put it. But as the war continued, given the way it was conducted and the reputation of the governments involved, there was greater disillusionment and disgust than anything else. This was especially true among the Russians, for whom the war was going rather badly.
Overall, America's participation in World War I was relatively minor compared to that of European nations, and many Americans were also disillusioned by some of the outcomes of that war. Even Wilson was disappointed by the Versailles Conference when the Allies were opposed to some of his Fourteen Points. The Republican congress was also against Wilson and refused to ratify the treaty. The Russians got rid of their Tsar and the Provisional Government, creating the Soviet Union and planting the seeds for a whole new mess of geopolitical dilemmas. The Kerensky government is an interesting study in political failure, actually, but it wasn't entirely Kerensky's fault. They also had a problem with their allies in western Europe, since they didn't feel they were getting enough help or political support for their position. Russia was in a horrible position in 1917, and either the British and French just didn't understand that, or they didn't care. Making matters worse, the Allies also invaded Russia when the Bolshevik regime took power, so we were on the side of the White Russians against the Reds. This probably helped the Bolshevik position more than anything, since they could then say that they were on the side of the Russian people against foreign imperialists set out to control and dominate their country.
The Germans also got rid of their Kaiser when their situation was untenable, and they had a go at democracy, as did many other newly-established governments in Europe after the war. But for a variety of reasons, most of these new democracies failed, including Germany's. The existence of the Soviet Union didn't help things either. They were recovering from World War I and their Civil War, rapidly industrializing, and building up their armaments. The U.S. was back to limiting their geopolitical aspirations to Latin America and East Asia, while letting Britain and France figure out what they wanted to do with the rest of the world, particularly in their own colonies where independence and other anti-imperialist movements were starting to gain momentum. We were fiercely anti-communist and anti-Soviet, but they weren't really thought of as a major threat at that point, except for their agitation for world-wide revolution. So, we mainly dealt with it as a matter of internal security, such as during the Palmer Raids and other anti-communist measures within the USA.
I would mention again that the USA really was only a limited player on the world scene, still dominated by Britain and France. We were definitely powerful at that point, but we had not reached the full potential of our power. That would come later.
In any case, the Germans and Russians were both pretty pissed off at this point, as were a lot of other people around the world. But they weren't really pissed at America as much as they were pissed at certain other countries. When FDR came to power, he promised better relations with Latin America with his Good Neighbor policy, and he also pledged independence for the Philippines. One of the problems for us, however, is that we had nowhere near the experience with the rest of the world as the UK did.
Some people blame the United States for being isolationist at this time. Some believe that if we had joined the League of Nations and took a more activist role in world affairs, we might have been able to stop Hitler earlier. Of course, it can also be argued that if Britain and France had not been sitting on their hands while Hitler rearmed and remilitarized the Rhineland, then they could have stopped him then. All speculation and spilled milk now, but the fact remains, Germany and the Soviet Union were rearming at breakneck speed and building up huge military forces. Britain and France were starting to rearm, too, but they got caught behind. The USA was even further behind.
Of course, the German people could have not voted for Hitler, so they're not exactly innocent in all this either. That's what I think of Germans who bash America all the time, as they can even be worse than the Brits at times.
The Soviets definitely had a part in it, too, as they made a deal with Germany to carve up Poland which started World War II in the first place. Even then, the UK and France might have won quickly if they could have attacked right away while Germany was still fighting in Poland. They were still stronger than Germany and could have poured everything they had into Germany. But they didn't. They just sat there and waited. But then again, so did we.
I think this is where some of the foundations of the hatred against America comes from. While we didn't cause many of these events, it can be argued that the political leadership in our country sought to take advantage of the situation for America's benefit. We stood by while letting the Europeans wipe each other out, devastating their industries and impoverishing their governments, while then moving in to claim the prize and all the glory. The main problem I have with this view is that it neglects to mention that both World Wars were pretty much the fault of the Europeans, not the Americans.
We didn't start those conflicts, but it was what happened in the aftermath that all the hatred directed against us comes from. The hatred against the UK seems to be an older hatred, originating with their global empire and conflicts with other European nations. With the US, the hatred is newer and strongly parallels the hatred against the UK. We've had such a close relationship ever since, it's hard to tell where hatred against the UK ends and hatred against the USA begins. But when there's hatred expressed from the UK against the USA, then that tends to ruffle my feathers more than anything else.
It should also be mentioned that a lot of the ideological foundation for anti-Americanism which started to spread around the world at this point originated in Soviet propaganda mills. So much of it is pretty much contrived, artificial, contradictory, and filled with a bunch of pseudo-Marxist gobbledly-gook. As if it was America's fault that Stalin purged his best officers, made a deal with Hitler which started World War II, attacked and occupied the Baltic States, parts of Poland, Finland, and Romania, and was too stupid to realize that Hitler was just about to attack him. Some people criticize FDR for trusting Stalin too much and yielding too much. And yet, the Soviets kept grabbing for more and more.
The Communist Bloc grew into a real monster, and because we were irrevocably locked in global affairs at that point, we had no other choice but to act against Communist aggression and expansionism. This was especially since Britain and France were too spent and exhausted to do anything about it. Their empires were crumbling and leaving a huge power vacuum in the world that the Soviets were poised to fill.
This is when the CIA and NSA were created, and this is when we started our policy of Containment around the world in an effort to stop the spread of Communism. This is why a LOT of people around the world hate America. In my readings of anti-American ramblings, the CIA is always a major focal point. It's always "CIA this," "CIA that," blah blah blah. I have no love for the CIA, but come on. The only reason those agencies were created was because of the threat of Soviet expansionism - which wasn't our fault either. Would it have been better to let the world fall under Soviet control? We were put into a crappy situation that we didn't really cause, and I think that we tried to do the best that we could. I'm not saying that everything we did was right, but I don't see that it justifies the intense level of hatred directed against America these days. We have tried to reform and make amends in a lot of cases where we've done wrong.
I realize this thread is about disliking the UK, but I think the two subjects are linked, and these seems to be the thrust of the article here, as it mentions the closeness of the UK and the USA as a factor in the world's hatred of the UK. It also says that the USA is the most-hated country in the world. Other parts mention things like football, cricket, and obesity. That seems to mar what could have been a thought-provoking essay, as well as putting "USA" in very small type at the very end. That was silly. He might as well have just said "It's all the USA's fault" that the rest of the world dislikes the UK.
To be fair, though, a lot of the criticism doesn't come from the rest of the world. For both the UK and the USA, we are probably our own worst critics. We fret too much over the splinter in our own eye, while ignoring the logs in the eyes of those who issue these condemnations of hatred against us. Like this little gem of wisdom from the article:
quote:
Support international wisdom, not the USAs unilateral politics. Traditionally we are a political and wise nation, but our acceptance of USA military and economic aggression has led us to abandon sensible world development in favour of confused war. We need to learn that when most countries are against us, it is because we are probably wrong about something
Or it could be that most other countries also have an ulterior motive and, most likely, selfish reasons for being against us. When I look around at the rest of the world, their histories, governments, and political systems, I don't see that any of them are paragons of virtue, so who's kidding whom?
I mostly like the UK, so I don't have any real reason to dislike, except for the ones who incessantly bash America. Those people bother me. Even despite some of my criticisms above, I realize that it was really the fault of men like Hitler, Stalin, the Kaiser, the Tsar - those kinds of people who seem to bring out the worst qualities in humanity. I also realize that we both got caught up in a great deal of intrigue and made some bad deals, mainly with Stalin, but also with other countries. Our main fault is that we really didn't know what we were doing, and our foreign policy might be characterized as analogous to a lumbering giant which doesn't seem to know or care who it steps on.
I don't see that our policies are unilateral either. We still support NATO and the international alliance system. Sometimes we might act unilaterally, perhaps as an overeager partner on the same team as the Europeans, but frustrated by the general European tradition of "let's sit on our hands and do nothing until there's a world war." That mindset hasn't worked out too well for them in the past, so we might wonder why they keep making the same mistakes over and over. Our methods may be slightly different, but our politics aren't unilateral. If that were the case, I think we would have done a lot of things differently.
There are those who think we should be more independent and detached from world affairs and not a part of the world alliance system. Some might believe that we're not unilateral enough. We're in a pretty tight spot right now. So much so that I might even question just how much actual hatred there is towards America and the UK these days. There is some hatred obviously, but are we really the "most hated"? Hidden behind the list of wrongdoings cited in the article, the underlying implication is that the rest of the world is so one-dimensional, monolithic, and so full of hatred against the west when it may not present a complete picture. They're not all like the screaming lunatics they show on TV.
But the only thing that anyone will get out of articles like this one is that "everybody hates us." Of course, by making the American people believe that we are the most hated nation on Earth, it's going to even further bolster the more hawkish positions in American politics.
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