Why do people hate America?

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The irritating belief that America "won" WW2, apparently all on its own? This is an assertion that I've seen in this very thread, and nobody even clocked it.

A brief reminder.. the rest of europe was engaged in warfare long before America started fighting. We were quite busy being part of a global conflict. The UK and its dominions especially spent a great deal and time and effort having a war yknow. American assistance was certainly helpful, but the casualty figures demonstrate quite clearly that you certainly were not the only ones there.

Likewise for the first war, thinking on it. Having a bunch of flag-waving yanks claiming all the credit for winning a war that EVERYONE was involved in is damn irritating, and more than a touch arrogant. Having them do it when their most important contribution was overwhelming industrial power, and not necessarily their combat ability is just rude.

Actually, the whole "America is best" mindset is pretty puerile and irritating.

In WWI, the bulk of German casualties were in the Eastern front, not the Western front. It was mainly Russia that defeated Germany, the US defeated Japan (pretty much exclusively) and Italy, who cares? Russia suffered far more casualties than any other party, and inflicted far more casualties on the Nazis than any other party (and it was the Russians that captured Berlin). The big military players on the Allied side were Russia and the US in WWII, though practically everybody eventually declared war on Germany eventually, even Argentina if I recall correctly (a very much pro-Nazi country). But then again Americans tend to think WWII started when they declared war on Japan.
In WWI, it was pretty much the US that tipped the balance - the Germans were practically marching on Paris before the US intervened and the tide turned; without the US Germany would have surely won in continental Europe.

Bull... ok, I'll give you the benefit of doubt, post actual evidence of your claims? k?

I'd say many Muslims hate America because of America's hobby of bombing Muslim countries.

Actually, this good guy complex is what makes me sick about America, yep, really you just made a huge statement about how some do-badders hate your country because you are such saints, again, your country just almost caused a whole civil war here and it is at least indirectly guilty of a recent massacre, but hey, go back to your cocoon in which you are such boy scouts.

pbcoll: I'd like to know which countries in Africa like France better than the US. In the countries I've been in, Rwanda, Burundi, Uganda, France is despised and the US loved or at least seen as a much lesser evil. And President Bush is adored in Tanzania, Rwanda etc. All the other nations talked and held banquets; Bush actually delivered aid that made a difference. Mosquito nets by the millions are made in Tanzania now to be distributed to all of Africa, providing many jobs for Tanzanians and better health all around.
The aid that most countries give (including the US) is destructive and/or useless. Every African I talked to wanted the UN to go home. I wish its home was Geneva or the middle of Australia.
Read Lords Of Poverty sometime.
Are we hated? Sure. Have the number of people applying to be immigrants lessened? No. Hmm.

^ I have heard that Sub-Saharan Africans generally have a favorable opinion of the US (except for Tanzania, the polls indicated, IIRC). Them and Japan. That was pretty much it.

Forgive me. I wasn't specific enough. Of course the U.S. didn't win that war all on it's own. I took it as a given that most people would take that for granted, and wouldn't assume I was trying to assert that.

However, looking back I see how it could be misunderstood... I would like to apologize, I didn't mean to be rude.

Chock it up to good old "Yank Blind Arrogance", flip me the bird, and get a good healthy dose of self-righteous satisfaction. I know you will feel better for it. (See... There, that was rude. See the difference? Now you have an actual reason to hate me. Although with you I suspect the fact that I draw breath, in this country is pretty much sufficient fuel for your animosity.)



This is true. The rest of Europe was engaged in conflict before the U.S. chimed in. In fact this country didn't commit to the conflict at all until it was knocking on the proverbial door.

I would speculate however, that human nature being what it is, and it's inevitable affect on the historical record; if some megalomaniac from Argentina, or Mexico, or somewhere in Nova Scotia decided to take over the continent, the U.S. probably wouldn't have been receiving a whole lot of European help until A.the conflict was presenting itself in their backyard, or B. we promised them something really special later. Such is the way of war, often enough anyway to be pretty predictable. Sad but true.

Even though our assistance in that war was just as, or indeed, only as important as the effort made by Great Britian or the Soviet Union, the U.S. was rocketed onto the world stage for some reason by that effort as some sort of golden child.

I don't understand all of the contemporary nuances of that dynamic, but that does seem to be when things changed the most dramatically in terms of how the United States was viewed internationally, and the climb truly began for this country.



I know! Isn't it?

^ I agree. Plus with the current shape of the country, it's pretty hard to argue that America is the best. That would be like arguing a mouse is larger than a blue whale.

Granted on the Russia part, and yes, there was a lot of bandwagon jumping at the end there. But as far as the west is concerned, a great deal of the effort was put in by dominion troops world wide (India, Australia, Canada, UK etc.), and a lot of it went on without a great deal of support from other parties. The royal navy pretty much shut down the kriegsmarine quite early on, all by its lonesome, such that germany couldnt hope to engage on a fleet action level.

As for ww1: thats not actually the case. the implementation of armoured warfare had already caused the german high command some serious headaches, and when the americans arrived, they were only used in engagements by accident or trickery, because the US wanted them to fight as a single army, instead of strengthening the gaps in the already veteran french and british lines. The war could well have been less costly for the US, and even shorter, had they allowed their arrogance to play second fiddle to the experience of troops who had been engaged in trench warfare for several years already. In the end they were forced to fight their own Somme, which was a total and needless waste of men.

This is not to in any way demean the efforts and sacrifices of any of the combatants, I should mention. Rather I bemoan the lack of knowledge about these conflicts so often displayed, and the steadfast belief that without America, the world would be doomed, etc etc.

You assume I dislike americans on a personal basis? No such luck me old muckah. I'm quite fond of a wide selection of our errant colonial cousins.

On the matter of a reverse conflict in the states. Hard to say. Britain never had a vast military anyway, and its debatable whether its deployment would be all that helpful, except as a surgical style force. It was not large enough to occupy a vast territory like the states effectively...but then we werent trying to occupy europe either, just kick the germans back out again. However, with dominion troops sat on your northern borders, I'm sure help would have been at hand. And we did have a blindingly good navy.

The US reached prominence post-war so easily because it was all but unmolested by the rigours of war. Everybody else had been bombed back and forth for years, and a great deal of damage was done. I don't think a single bomb fell on the US mainland anywhere, which meant your homefront was utterly undamaged. The greater soviet union had a similar benefit.

At the end of the day, the problem is I grow weary of explaining to americans that you did not win the battle of britain for us. (A ludicrous conversation had with a twenty-something Chicago-ite, who also seemed to think that Hiroshima was a military base, and not a city at all.) Facepalming was invented for him, I swear.

america is full of stuck up, idiotic people, who on a regular basis (along with their leaders) tell the rest of the world they are the best country in the world
I would rather die then live in america, america preaches intolerance, hatred and slander to other faiths and cultures

Thanks for stereotyping me.

Many countries are full of sh***y people

Dozens, actually

Kilroy, living in America isn't that bad. And I live in Iowa! (midwest, lame as hell)

So, I don't hate America. I am, however, ashamed at what we have become. I love the ideas that America used to stand for, but we have strayed so far from what made this country good. I think a lot of the resentment of America stems from the fact that we are so influential, but we are not responsible. We treat everyone like garbage. There are loads of problems with America. As has been said before, there are loads of problems with other countries as well. The difference is, the US is one of the most influential, and almost certainly the most meddlesome.

I don't think anyone's mentioned that it was Germany and Italy who declared war on the US in late 1941. That, from what I understand, was the point at which the US committed to the European campaign.

But I don't need to set foot in your country. I can read all I want about it, and get real-time comment from your citizens using the internet, every day. I don't doubt that all democratic nations could be criticised with regard to those points I made, to greater or lesser extent. The salient point is that your democracy is the most powerful and influential in the world, and so its citizens are the ones who hold sway over the fortunes of tens of millions of non-US citizens. That is something I have a problem justifying in my own mind as being satisfactory, unless it's on the basis of a lesser of evils.

I hate the US-Americans, I met IRL because they were horribly fundamentalists!