Why pick the US? Maybe it's the whole lone superpower/global policeman thing. International politics revolves around the United States, as does global stability and security.
Why not lay in to say China or Zimbabwe? Maybe because China does not declare itelf the leader of the free world and Magbye is a tinpot dicatator. Saddam too (yes, instated and amred by the United States, not somehow linked, well and truely linked) is jsut another tinpot dictator.
North Korea? I've been pointing out what a threat they are for weeks - a far greater threat than Iraq will ever pose noone can disagree but of course that one takes the backburner.
Trust me. I regulary bash Australia. Immigration policies? Lackey foreign politics? Our role in Asia(or whether we have one)? Structuring of domestic spending...
Caribbean paradise? I'll lock you in a cage on a desert island and see if you think it's a paradise then. BUT OF COURSE! They're TERRORISTS, the MOST DANGEROUS PEOPLE ON EARTH!!! QUICK! Lock them up and throw away the key! Well we're not actually sure of that, for all you know your mother is in there, we have no details of who, what they've done, what law they've broken......but they're TERRORISTS!!! So it's ok.....
McCarthy may have been 50 years ago, and since discredited, but it still happened didn't it. On the other hand it caused some great science fiction, primarily because it crushed nearly innovative sociopolitical thinking. Worth noting McCarthy was one guy too, somehow that one got though. Something to do with paranoia and hysteria about a big threat. You guys still on orange or didn't another 6 come over the border from Canada this week?
torture? People seem to think it's happening because the US seems to have this tendancy to ship people so say...Syria for a while. The stuff i've read (i'll find a source later, i'm using wireless at a cafe which is charged by the minute, i'm typing this offline) It seems the setup is you've got the suspect and a couple of cops in one room, and a couple of guys relay the questions in and out, that way no US offical is officially aware that they're torturing th guy to get answers.
What would you call what happened in Afghanistan? A war? A campign? An invasion? Whoops thats a dirty word 'coz it suggests it's not now an entirely autonomous state utterly uninfluenced by the US nor kept afloat by the US. What's Iraq going to become? The 21st centuary version of the 19th centuary Bristish Client State.
I don't deny that the invasion of Afghanistan was justified but imperialism is such a dirty word these days i know. It fits though, what else do you call it? Throwing your weight around?
But you've given me unbacked undetaied anecdoatal evidence, pardon me, all charges dropped, i'll get back to my dissection of the latest defence white paper.
Worth a read:
http://www.kuro5hin.org/story/2003/3/2/113123/1408