Nothing actually, US has always been like that, only that now people can see how absurd it all is.
But ask anyone that got "democracy" by the United States, not only in middle east, but for example in South America during the cold war, several african countries, and so on, and they will tell you that this behaviour from the US government is not unexpected, and that the US population approval (even if implicit and indirect) of it, is not unexpected either.
IMHO, just because everyone calls a country with a foreign military base in the heart of it's capital a "democracy" doesn't make it so. I believe this kind of thinking is called normative ethics : "it's OK because it's the norm". I'll call Japan a democracy when there are no foreign military bases on it's soil, at least definitely not in the centre of the capital.
I think a lot of people aren't aware of this, but the US has helped (sometimes very directly) to overthrow quite a few democracies. Look at Iran, and their transition to the Shah; or Allende/Pinochet and Milton Friedman's experiments.
I've looked into some detail on the Iran issue and i suggest others do to. To say the US "overthrew" the Iranian gov't does tell the whole story. There was a large, domestic grassroots effort in Iran to overthrow Mossadegh. Did the US and Britian help that effort? Sure, but to say they imposed their will on the country is going a bit far.
Indeed. And there are others too, not to mention the fall of the Soviet Union liberating lots of countries in no small part due to America and it's allies fight against communism. Whenever I hear people imply the US just makes things worse most if not all of the time, or never does anything for any country but itself, I'm reminded of this scene from Life of Brian:
What have the Romans done for us?
And after all the characters rattle off a long list of things the Romans have done, and no one seems to want to hate the Romans anymore, Reg says:
"All right, but apart from the sanitation, the medicine, education, wine, public order, irrigation, roads, a fresh water system, and public health, what have the Romans ever done for us?”
I can't help but be reminded of that scene. Is the US perfect? Far from it, but the implication that the US is some pox on the world is just as absurd.
Edit: for anyone too young to know what the Life of Brian is, it's a comedy by Monthy Python.
> not to mention the fall of the Soviet Union liberating lots of countries in no small part due to America and it's allies fight against communism.
Was it though? I've heard that repeated so often. If it was how come it was such a surprise to all the Sovietologists at the time?
The thing is, those that worked for the CIA thought they won because their spies did this and that. Those working for the Dept of State thought they won because this and that diplomatic trick. Those in Congress throughout the years thought they won because they enacted these economic sanctions and so they killed the "Bear".
The truth is probably that it would have collapsed with or without the help of anyone from outside.
So not sure if US should be thanked for liberating Latvia, Georgia and Poland , ironically, Soviet Union's polices and base system setup should be thanked because it was so rotten at the core.
But another thing is interesting, and it shows in your post. This thing is very dangerous and it is the very thing that many hate US for -- exceptionalism. It shows implicitly in your comment and it is often assumed in political debate. It is this idea that US is special in some objective sense. That it doesn't have to abide by rules. It shouldn't be judged by same criteria as everyone else.
Equating it to the Roman Empire. Attributing it wondeful qualities of slaying a the great Satan of Communism and so on.
> Is the US perfect? Far from it, but the implication that the US is some pox on the world is just as absurd.
It is good to find out if people judge US based on comparing it to other countries or to the propaganda image it presents of itself. I find the disconnect and hypocrisy that shows in in the latter is one reason people might dislike US.
In other words, it is because it tells others how "perfect" it is, that imperfections and transgressions that are excusable for other countries become very noticeably with US. Like say torture. Ok, Somalian government chops children's arms off say if they don't want to convert or something like that. It would not shock too many people to learn that for example. The fact that US engaged and probably still does engage in torture (even thought they've redefined it as whatever enhanced interrogations something) is very shocking and disturbing vis-a-vis the "we are the great human rights champions of the world" type proclamations.
> And after all the characters rattle off a long list of things the Romans have done, and no one seems to want to hate the Romans anymore, Reg says
I do. They raided and conquered the territory of my country, killed and destroyed many villages. Destroyed local culture and language and imposed theirs. It is easy to look back and say well ok, Romans turned out pretty ok. We had roads and wheels. How do we know that not having Romans invade would have turned out? Maybe it would have been even better? We can't quite run that experiment to check.
Anyway this comparison with the Roman Empire doesn't quite work well for me on multiple levels, as you can see, sorry ;-)
The collapse of the soviet union was caused by the prolonged stagnation of its economy in the 70s and 80s. This lead to all the events that followed (glasnost, perestroika, etc.) in failed attempt to fix it.
And the cause for the Era of Stagnation in the mid-1970s? The Cold War. Starting with the war in Afghanistan in 1979, funded of course by the US, this aggravated the stagnation and then led to a period of economic standstill between 1979 and 1985. (The USSRs economy was somewhere between 30% and 50% that of the US at the time). Couple with added global military pressure from the west caused the Soviets to put military buildup at the expense of domestic development. This kept the USSR's GDP at the same level during the first half of the 1980s. As spending out stripped both growth and capacity, again due to military spending, the rest as they say is history.
I don't see how that would have happened without the military pressure from the west. Look at China, it didn't have those costs, and it's still around, as is Cuba, Venezuela, etc. they didn't call it the Cold War for nothing, and it was expensive!
The US most certainly funded the afghan war against the soviets to hurt the soviets, and hurting the soviets was all about stopping the spread of communism. You're looking at this too narrowly, some would call it a proxy war, it was yet one more hot war in the cold war. They used to call it the domino theory. And it worked, because the Soviet Union did fall. And it fell because it's economy couldn't keep growing with all those resources going to the soviets wars of expansion.
But thanks for reminding me, another example: the US liberated Afghanistan from the Taliban.
Cold War was going on from the late 40s. It wasn't the singular reason that caused the stagnation and collapse.
Stagnation was caused by mismanagement, people not working, cutting corners, corruption. The war in Afghanistan was big but that country had worse wars to deal with. Chernobyl disaster was another blow, don't think that was US industrial sabotage, it didn't need to be. Incompetence, cutting corners and inefficiency were the reason. But a drop in oil prices in the 80s is what probably did it in.
> Couple with added global military pressure from the west caused the Soviets to put military buildup at the expense of domestic development.
By that time USSR had more nukes ready to be launched than US. US threat wasn't perceived any worse than it was during the Cuban crisis.
> Look at China
Doesn't China have military pressure from the West? In fact China had to enact some serious economic reforms without which one can argue it might have met the same fate.
Also China, Cuba and Venezuela don't have as much internal fragmentation. Even after 70 years of occupation there was enough national sentiment and tension to easily break off all those Soviet republics. So it is very different.
In the end, yeah, we like to believe what we want to believe. You want to think US did this great work at eliminating the great Evil Empire. That US "won" due to its hard work. I don't agree with that. The proverbial "Bear" got sick and rotted away from within.
Well sorry then. I know it is humor but it was presented here as part of a serious comment. So I took it seriously. Well disregard what I said then ;-)
But ask anyone that got "democracy" by the United States, not only in middle east, but for example in South America during the cold war, several african countries, and so on, and they will tell you that this behaviour from the US government is not unexpected, and that the US population approval (even if implicit and indirect) of it, is not unexpected either.