In article . net,
Dave S wrote:

At the risk of sounding unpatriotic.. I agree with some of what you were
criticizing. America has actively earned the hatred of many abroad by
virtue of our foriegn policy and active meddling in the affairs of other
countries. We have supported former dictators on several occasions who
later we moved to depose when they no longer served our needs. We have a
reputation for being arrogant, impolite, demanding and hypocritical.

There is a difference between the times when we "meddled" in places that
we shouldn't have, such as in Somolia and in Kosovo, and defending
ourselves, such as in Iraq and Afghanistan. But, either way, that's not
why we're hated. We're hated because we are a free nation and, by that
virtue, a productive nation. Productive nations produce wealth.
Problem is, you have to have freedom to have productivity, and there are
a lot of bad guy dictators out there who won't permit their people to be
freely productive. Almost *ALL* of the countries in the Middle East,
except Israel, are guilty of denying freedom to their people, but the
Islamic countries certainly aren't the only ones who are guilty.

"Meddling" is simply a convenient excuse for foreign leaders to deflect
attention away from the real problem, which is most often those foreign
leaders themselves.



JKG