<p>I have visited over 30 US states, so I’m not some ignorant person who have never gone past the east coast. But it must be nice to dismiss other people’s opinions like that!</p>
<p>Some more observations about America:</p>
<ul>
<li><p>it’s not as big as it thinks it is. Americans always go on and on about how big the country is, especially compared to European countries. But I have never really noticed this: the really, really big countries are Canada and Russia. Alaska is also huge. But the US is about twice the size of the EU – a lot bigger, sure, but hardly a different world. It is true that Americans are more willing to drive long distances, but I suspect that has to do with extremely cheap gas.</p></li>
<li><p>the imperialism. America is an empire, at least in many ways: it has troops all over the globe enforcing its will on foreign countries. Fine. But the interesting thing about it is that this goes completely unquestioned/unadmitted by most Americans. About Afghanistan for example, all the talk is about whether the mission will succeed or fail, and not about whether foreign troops have any business being there in the first place. </p></li>
</ul>
<p>Similarly about Iran: Americans often debate ‘what’s to be done about Iran’… but as far as I can tell Iran’s main crime has been to have oil and not to do what the west tells it. Did you know Iran is the only major oil-producing nation in the middle east that is not full of American troops? At least the French/British/Russians were honest about having empires. Americans call it ‘manifest destiny’ and then ‘global war on terror’.</p>
<ul>
<li>the glorification of military power. Unlike someone above, I don’t think that US troops are ‘murderers’ in general, though it is undoubted that large numbers of troops of all countries involved committed war crimes in Iraq and Afghanistan. But it is noticeable that Americans put so much stock in the country’s military superiority – I have heard France dismissed as ‘not relevant’, for example, purely on military grounds, as if this is the only thing that matters.</li>
</ul>
<p>Ironically though, America is doing really badly militarily recently. Hard to see Iraq and Afghanistan as anything other than defeats, if you look at the objectives they went in with.</p>
<ul>
<li>insularity, not ignorance. As I said above, I don’t think Americans are particularly ignorant. (The inability to find major countries on maps is striking, though). But news broadcasts are only ever about (1) things in the USA, and (2) things abroad that concern the USA. You never see things reported that don’t concern the USA (like the commonwealth games fiasco).</li>
</ul>
<p>keepittoyourself</p>