Which country in this world has NOT RECEIVED a helping hand from us? And why and how come these chickens do not come home to roost?
You have a point that the US has over the centuries done a lot of service for other nations. I'm not sure you can say that these nations have not then had good relations with the US, nor given anything back. I think our "good will" chickens have come home to roost.
The problem, to which I'd agree with MM in the OP, is that we have also done a lot of damage to other nations. As with people, no nation is perfect. Sometimes under the guise of doing good will, we have done some very severe damage, as all we were doing was investing enough for short term self-interest. Sometimes those chickens come home to roost as well.
A great example is 9-11, to which Wright's general statement would be very accurate. The plot was hatched by AQ, which was a direct product of our meddling in Afghanistan, fanning the flames of Islamic militants. We armed and trained them in the very tactics we are now seeing used against us. Our original intent was to create this kind of machine to be used against the Soviet Union, without much thought as to what would happen once the SU lost. There is not much surprise that the Islamic militants would then begin to build their own empire and lash out at anyone they did not like. To make matters worse, the US abandoned Afghanistan after the Soviets left. So we not only empowered the militants, we made both the militants and the moderates pissed at us.
Really, 9-11 was our own monster (a monstrous chicken perhaps) coming back to hurt its creator.
Acknowledging this does not mean that America is always bad, or only deserving derision. And a hot tempered sermon certainly does not indicate that Wright feels there is no good in America at all. In anger, people often say things that are more hyperbolic than their more lucid thoughts.
Obama, regardless of his post-Wright rhetoric, is guilty by association. I will not vote for him.
There is another thread for that particular subject. However, guilt by association is a logical fallacy. To embrace it is to acknowledge a fault in yourself. I might ask, which remaining candidate can you then vote for? They all have some person that made some stupid comment or action somewhere along the line.
h
"Civilized men are more discourteous than savages because they know they can be impolite without having their skulls split, as a general thing." - Robert E. Howard
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