I had to laugh. 3 out of the 4 examples are bagging the French(like when they renamed french fries "freedom fries"LOL) saving the French from the naughty Germans(that was just payback for the Napoleonic Wars where the French trashed Germany)etc. Americans seem to forget that if it weren't for the French they would still be singing "God Save The Queen" due to the help that was given to them during the War of Independence.That's gratitude for you! The first example is a scream,the only land we ask for blah fighting for freedom blah blah ROFL.Of course you have to tell all the young idiots going off to fight that it's for a noble cause, democracy, freedom, God even,72 virgins, etc no-one is going to risk their lives for geostrategic policy. You have to tell them it is to save the world!! i grew up being told that we had to fight Germany because "Hitler wanted to rule the world" All rubbish of course.The real rulers of the world pre-ww2 were the British and they didn't want to share the sand pit.
Remember what that famous american war criminal Kissinger said of the military "military men are just dumb animals to be used in the furtherance of foreign policy" So that is how the leaders view us. Pity the military class is too dim to work this out.
All of the examples were so Hollywood, just propaganda for the average american that has it drummed into him that his is the greatest country blah blah, hand on heart, salute the flag, pledge of allegiance etc won world war 2 (not likely, if the Russians hadn't chewed up the Germans on the Eastern Front, ww2 would have been an entirely different matter). It's just that there is no Russian equivalent to Hollywood to tell the world in a thousand different movies that Russia won ww2.Doesn't alter the facts.
As for fighting for freedom, read what Maj Gen Smedley Butler had to say about fighting for Wall Street, putting down rebellions(against american business interests) ,wrote a book " War is a Racket" Still is I think.
As for nuking Japan it turns out that the leadership were looking to surrender and were making approaches through amongst others the Swedes, but were ignored. This was at least 6 months prior to the dropping of the bombs. The story that it saved millions of lives because it avoided an invasion was just more propaganda, to calm any moral qualms that anyone might have had about nuking civilians.The real story was the US wanted a real live demo, as well as to show the Russians (who were about to be cast as the new enemy) who was boss.
Someone said that america has a better reputation than other countries, even Switzerland " but that's easy if you're neutral." Wasn't this what either Washington or Jefferson warned about regarding foreign entanglements. But you can't build an empire without" foreign entanglements." Wouldn't the US have been better off with armed neutrality instead of killing millions around the world,for no other reason than to expand their empire?If you think that I exaggerate with that figure,it is based on >1m Vietnam, > 100000 fighting against the filipinos that wanted independence(1899) then add El Salvador, Guatamala, Costa Rica ,Cuba, Haiti, Panama, Iraq GW1+2, Afganistan etc.Not ncluding WW!, WW2.
As for reputation, I think that is all gone now, anyhow. This Global financial mess came from where exactly? How exactly? Fraud on a massive scale. How was it not detected, in such a fine upstanding country, a "beacon "no less? LOL.Too many fingers in the pie. That wouldn't do. So exactly what sort of "beacon are we talking about? Once all the propaganda is stripped out of this US story what is left??
