Don't confuse me with other posters. I said nothing about Pinochet or about American meddling in other countries' affairs. I simply was trying to point out that French criticism of America on that score is breath-takingly hypocritical.
I would say that the constant of American policy is NOT that they know "what's better for France", or any other country. The constant is what they think is better for the USA, period, full stop, end of story. As it happens, from 1946-1990 the USA was in a global struggle for existence against the USSR, and did what it thought would help US interests. The US won that war, which I think is, in the end, a better outcome for the world than the alternative.
The source of American frustration with France is that when the US, having been forced back onto the world stage by 9/11, decides -- as one part of its overall strategy; read Robert Kaplan's _Imperial Grunts_ about some of the other less-visible parts -- to remove one of those dictators for which it was so roundly (and justly) criticized for propping up during the Cold War, it takes all kinds of opposition from a government that was itself hand-in-pocket with said dictator and at the very same time engaged in interfering, often violently, with numerous other countries' affairs.
I'm not defending the American record of foreign involvement. I'm defending the American disgust with France over criticising the US for its foreign involvement -- while engaging in the very same kinds of activities.
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2007-04-16 07:28 pm (UTC)I would say that the constant of American policy is NOT that they know "what's better for France", or any other country. The constant is what they think is better for the USA, period, full stop, end of story. As it happens, from 1946-1990 the USA was in a global struggle for existence against the USSR, and did what it thought would help US interests. The US won that war, which I think is, in the end, a better outcome for the world than the alternative.
The source of American frustration with France is that when the US, having been forced back onto the world stage by 9/11, decides -- as one part of its overall strategy; read Robert Kaplan's _Imperial Grunts_ about some of the other less-visible parts -- to remove one of those dictators for which it was so roundly (and justly) criticized for propping up during the Cold War, it takes all kinds of opposition from a government that was itself hand-in-pocket with said dictator and at the very same time engaged in interfering, often violently, with numerous other countries' affairs.
I'm not defending the American record of foreign involvement. I'm defending the American disgust with France over criticising the US for its foreign involvement -- while engaging in the very same kinds of activities.