I love Americans, and I love the Constitution, and I love freedom. I hate the idea that a land of such things is involved in occupying a country for political and economic reasons. I hate the idea that the government of such a land would resort to fear and propoganda to serve selfish interests. I hate the idea that working unilaterally doesn't make our administration question itself. All of our great allies and a great deal of our own citizens said, "Wait, you're going to do WHAT?!" But no one seemed to be listening. When France and Germany and Russia said no, we should have rethought our plan. Afterall, we don't want another Vietnam. And therein lies the problem.
Why did Vietnam fail the way it did? Lack of empathy! We did not understand that what was going on in Vietnam was a civil war, NOT the takeover of communism. Even Robert McNamara admitted to this. They thought we wanted to collonize them, we thought they wanted to spread communism. We were both wrong. In WWI and WWII, we knew - to at least some degree - what our enemy wanted and why they wanted it. In Vietnam, however, there was no such understanding.
Now I see this happening again. Iraq was arguabally on the brink of civil war. Towns like Fallujah were standing against Hussain. When would the civil war have broken out? No one can say. Why can no one say? Because America interviened. We thought Hussain needed to be thrown out. Of course he did, but we weren't the ones to do it. Espically not like this. Now we are in a foreign country with a foreign culture to us. We are wondering why these people hate us so much and why they are fighting us, sometimes with stickes and stones! We keep asking ourselves why they would do this. Why not ask one of them? Why not ask a father who saw his daughter killed by American bombs?
Which brings me to my point. The world seems to hate us (and I am with them) because we don't learn from our mistakes and we can't empathise with other cultures. That is as best an answer as I can give you.
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