Quote Originally Posted by JMA View Post
Time to read The Ugly American again, Ken?
Nah, wasn't that good -- besides, we have Ugly Folks From Elsewhere for entertainment.
...Sooner or later they will come after you with thanks and appreciation.
That has not been my observation. the resentment tends to remain. Not a big thing.
When a tin-pot despot like Gbagbo refuses to take a call from the US President it has nothing to do with any anger at Saddam or the Taliban having been seen out of power but rather through the belief that the US is increasingly impotent.
Your point is well taken but I think it is considerably more complex than that. The issue is not impotence, not at all but rather political will. Lack of that is not a totally US phenomenon...
In the last 50 odd years the world has seen that the US does not have the bottle to stand up to the Soviets or the Chinese so on this basis when the US invades Panama or Grenada it is obviously seen as nothing more than a bully boy. I would have thought this would have been obvious to Americans.
It is obvious to most of us. It is also a mistake to presume -- something you do quite often -- that " the US does not have the bottle to stand up to the Soviets or the Chinese..." It is rather that there has been no need to do so. Many things aren't nearly as important as you seem to think -- nor should nations be judged as one would judge people. Bottle as you use it is not really appropriate applied to a nation. Nations do not have friends nor do they cower -- they have interests and the strength of those interests determines their reaction to many things.

Take the Cote d'Ivoire. Not a smidgen of US interest except probably the price of Cocoa. Obama and Gbagbo both know that and both know that the US is not going to punish the nation or Gbagbo so he had no reason to take the phone call. Obama really had no business making the call either -- but that's an example of the 'do good' mentality at work, do something, even if its futile and silly. Do-gooders seem to relish embarrassing themselves by prostrating before everyone...
What you say and what has been seen is that there is no possibility that the US will ever have a consistent foreign policy. This is the problem.
No, yet again you get it wrong -- not what I said. The US will likely never have a consistent policy in regard to unimportant things. If it is really important, we can and do focus and will be consistent. Frankly, a lot of things you seem to believe important are IMO not worth much worry. That, BTW, would include Libya and the Cote d'Ivoire among others...
People I know and have met in my travels don't hate the US and are only to be swayed to be pro the US if only the US gave them some reason to do so.
Contrary to what you appear to believe, it is not a function of the US Government to give a fig for what others may think of it. The US is like every other nation, it has interests and it does things, some good and some bad. It generally tries -- too hard IMO -- to do good but does not always succeed. People will judge it on the overall balance of good and evil. We are too big and clumsy to be loved or even well liked. I learned to live with that fact in the early 1950s. Not much has changed since then. I also do not anticipate much change in your life time -- I could of course be wrong but that's a seldom thing...