Trump wants a military parade

[Dill]

(02-07-2018, 07:57 PM)michaelsean Wrote: But why do you bother?  I’m sure there are plenty of French people who say France is the greatest country in the world. I couldn’t care less that they think that. I’m sure not going to spend my time talking about it. And it could be any country.   I don’t care if they think their country is the best. Or exceptional. I hope most people do. So a lot of Americans think the US is exceptional. Who cares?

I can understand why all those foreigners care about whether and to what degree the U.S. celebrates militarism--and its ideal of exceptionalism.

The notion of U.S. "exceptionalism" was a central feature of US cold war foreign policy, articulated in documents like the NSC-68 (which became the basis of both Truman's and Eisenhower's policy).

The belief in "exceptionalism" was the foundation of an assumed political and cultural superiority--a belief that others wanted to be, or should want to be, like us.  A lot of not listening to others went with that, and some double standards which were obvious to others but not to the U.S.  We could not be doing bad things when we plainly were doing bad things, because we were exceptional and exceptional peoples don't do bad things. Works at home, not abroad.

If Austrians think they are exceptional, and the model for other nations, that has not, since 1918 at least, sent billions of dollars/Euros into all corners of the earth as military, economic and "cultural" aid. Their exceptionalism, if they have it, has not given them the right to overturn specific, actually democratic governments to defend "freedom" in general.

Were I an Austrian or a Bolivian or an Indian, book's like Dick Cheney's Exceptional: Why the World needs a Powerful America, would occasion concern, as the architect of the Iraq War has not learned his lesson. Let's remember the goal was to set up a democratic, America-like Iraq which, being successful like America, would then be a model for replication around the Middle East, whose populations would say "hey, we want that American thing" and revolt until they got it. Now Cheney would teach the world again who is the "last best hope of earth."   The right president, not an Obama style "diplomacy wimp," might be ready to hear that message again.