Self-hating Americans

PETER SAID:

“What do you think other nations think about US policy?”

Peter (not to be confused with Peter Pike) lobs a number of other accusatory questions in my direction. I’m going to ignore his other questions because I’ve already dealt with those sorts of questions on other occasions. That also applies to the raving and ranting of the other hostile commenter.

In addition, Evan May and Patrick Chan, at my request, has posted links to several other articles by other writers that deal with various aspects of counterintelligence or the war effort.

Instead, I’m going to focus on this particular question. Variations on this question or objection crop up all the time by opponents of the war effort.

What is revealing about this objection is the asymmetry of the objection. It always takes the same one-sided form: what does the international community think of America?

You can supply your own synonyms. “The world.” “Muslims.” “The Muslim world,” &c.

Have you ever noticed that critics never reverse the formula: what do Americans think of the international community?

This betrays the inveterate bias of the self-loathing American. Their anti-American bias is so deeply engrained that they are oblivious their own anti-American bias. That is why it never occurs to them to reverse the formula.

For them, the “world” or the “international community” or even the “Muslim world” supplies the standard of comparison. They unquestionably assume that “world” opinion is right, and American opinion is either wrong or irrelevant. Only a self-loathing American would constantly frame the question in this lop-sided fashion. It’s the unconscious, involuntary reflex of the self-hating American. Their default setting is to fault America.

Suppose we were fighting WWII. Would they constantly ask, “What do the Nazis think of American foreign policy?” “What do the Kamikazes think of American foreign policy?”

It’s fascinating to see a segment on the Far Right reprise the role of Tokyo Rose. Not only is this unpatriotic (stronger synonyms come to mind…like seditious), it is also unethical.

The fact that other countries may disapprove of American foreign policy doesn’t put us in the wrong. Is the UN the moral arbiter of the world?

But perhaps the critics would say their objection is practical. Maybe they would say our foreign policy is self-defeating because we’re making more enemies.

But the problem with that objection is that it’s a pragmatic and, dare I say, utilitarian objection. Yet these are the very same people who denounce “torture” as immoral because it is (supposedly) predicated on a despicable, end-justifies-the-means calculus.

So what is the basis of their objection to American foreign policy? That it’s too pragmatic or too little pragmatic? Too utilitarian or too little utilitarian?