Why doesn't the US face up to its past brutal history?

Question

a series of wars and atrocities.............................?
Violation of human rights..........?
Genocide.........................?

They haven't learned anything in WW2, Korea, Vietnam, and Iraq!!

Answer 1

You mean like Britain? Israel? Japan? Russia? Syria? China? Mexico? France? Haiti? Iraq?

Which of these countries has no trail of war and oppression in it's history?

People who say that America is uniquely brutal know nothing of mankind. Greed and lust for power are not bound by borders. They live in the hearts of evil people, no matter what creed or clan.

Answer 2

If your question had been, why doesn't MANKIND and all the institutions thereof face up to etc., I'd have probably agreed with you.

Certainly the US has plenty of brutality in history. Much of it isn't acknowledged, such as the treatment of the Mormons prior to the migration to Utah, the massacre at Mountain Meadows by the Mormons, the countless atrocities perpetrated on white wagon trains and settlers by Native Americans, the Huk Rebellion, the various banana republic incursions, Agent Orange, and so on.

All of which makes a middling small pile, not terribly large compared to what the US has faced up to and flagellated itself about. Slavery, Wounded Knee, Sand Creek, etc etc etc.

In fact, a strong case can be made that no conquered people has ever been treated better by the conquerors than have been Native Americans.

A strong case can be made by reflecting on post-WW II Japan, Germany, and Italy, that the best thing that could happen to a nation during the 20th Century was to go to war with the US, and lose.

I don't worry so much about what the US has done in the past and hasn't acknowledged, as I do about what it's likely to do in the future. Whether, or not it acknowledges it.

Human history, as a rule, has been one hell of a lot more brutal elsewhere than it has in the US. That sure as hell doesn't mean Americans are somehow exempt from such behavior, but it's good reason to wonder when the next shoe will fall.

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nothingusefullearned:

There's an old saying involving the condition of 'knowing' that involves televisions sets and arses.

Beginning with a premise, then searching through history books trying to find hints the premise might be true probably isn't worthy of you.

And posting what you just did on a history forum, where a good many people actually know history certainly attests to your judgement, if not your intelligence.

Answer 3

The USA has done absolutely nothing that every other country in the entire world(excepting the Vatican, although that is only a nominal country) has done in there history, yet it is only AMERICA that is continually and repeatedly criticized for its barbarism.

Wherever two cultures collide, one of three things will happen, 1) the dominant culture will subjugate the lesser culture, 2) the weaker culture will withdraw, 3) the weaker culture will be destroyed.

3 examples of cultures committing barbarities to other weaker cultures include:

Jews, according to the Bible, Joshua was commanded by god to conquer the land of the canaanites, to kill everyone including women and children so that "god's people" could inhabit the promised land.

Muslims spread their faith east and west across the known world at the point of the sword, conquered people were given the choice of "convert to islam or die" so that "god's people" could inhabit the land.

Catholics in Spain gave everyone not Catholic the option to "convert or die" during the inquisition and continued this policy in their new american colonies.

England had around a dozen distinct dominant cultures before it became "ENGLAND", including the picts, the celts, the angles, the saxons, the vikings and finally the normans before becoming ENGLISH.

to nothingusefullearned:

Obviously your title should be restricted to simply nothing leared.

The idea of GENOCIDE wasn't conceived until about 1950, so attributing anything that occurred before that time in the USA as GENOCIDE would be historically anachronistic and flat out bad historical scholarship.

The US Constitution does NOT guarantee to the people, the right to "pursue happiness"!! That is a phrase in the Declaration of Independence, which is not an document that has any place in the governenace of the United States of America.

As to the japanese internment, it was not based on race, but on nationality and did not include all asian people or all japanese, but only about 110,000 people of japanese descent and japanese citizenship that lived on the West Coast. It was a policy that the US Supreme Court found constitutional as a war measure and as long as it was a "necessity".

whale

Answer 4

O.K., so you don't bother with either history books (the REAL history books, not the ones used in schools) or the news.
What other country would imprison people based on their ethnicity, then make a monument to their mistake? That is what the U.S. of A. did in regards to Japanese interment during World War II. Indians have sought repayment; blacks have sought repayment. No other country on earth in its entire history has done that. All the rest try and keep on trying to eradicate the minorities. That is, in part, why we became involved in WWI, WWII, Korea, Vietnam, Iran, Iraq, Afghanistan, Panama, Syria, and numerous other countries.
As a result of the Civil War, the Geneva Convention was formed, giving prisoners rights. For the first time in the history of the world. Out of the Revolution, the American Red Cross was born.
You should be specific: what war did we ever start? It wasn't King Philip's War; it wasn't the French and Indian Wars; it wasn't the Revolution; nor the War of 1812. That brings us up to the Civil War, the bloodiest battles ever fought, the bloodiest war ever fought, and we were fighting ourselves! It wasn't the Spanish-American War, WWI, WWII, Korea, Vietnam nor Iraq. Nor any of those tiny skirmishes we have been involved in.
The U.S. is far from perfect; but, hey, read histories, read the news. Every other country on earth people risk their lives to ESCAPE from (there are more Germans in the U.S. than there are in Germany, for instance). The U.S., ALONE, has people risking their lives TO GET IN.
What are those "human rights" you speak of? Did you know that the U.S. Constitution is the ONLY DOCUMENT IN THE ENTIRE WORLD that guarantees people the right "...to pursue happiness?"
If you say "genocide", I will concede you that, partially. The only genocide the U.S. practiced was genocide of the natives, the American Indians, the People. And, at that, we were NOT A NATION when the genocide occured! What killed more than 95% of the Indians was DISEASE, because, of all the peoples of the earth, the Indians were the cleanest. Because of that, they had little resistance to diseases. Africans and Asians had the highest resistance to diseases.
Read the REAL HISTORY BOOKS; READ THE REAL NEWS (NOT CNN) and you will find out how silly your query is.

Answer 5

Someone needs to review their history. War is violent. Many wars the US has participated in were not started by us. Not all events - especially the real atrocities - were committed by the nation, rather by rogue, undisciplined soldiers acting in contrary to standing orders and general values.

When compared to other countries, our wartime behavior is exemplar. From the beginning, our strategies focus on accomplishing the mission while doing everything possible to limit both property damage and loss of human life.

This can be seen particularly now in Afganistan and Iraq where the US forces do not return fire coming from mosques unless specifically allowed in the rules of engagement for that particular mission.

If anyone has any confusion or complaints about the wars we have fought and the discipline and honor of our soldiers, then they should do an objective, comparative study on any other nation's military history.

Answer 6

Who doesn't have a brutal history? We did what it took to survive. What was brutal about WWII? all we did was stop the mass genocide of millions of Jews. Korea and Vietnam were to prevent the spread of Communism which has massacred 80 million in the last 100 years. I f the US is that bad, why don' t you move to Red China or Cuba?

Answer 7

What do you mean "face up to"? And, by 'the U.S." do you mean the government acting as such, or the people, individually or collectively?

The broad categories you cite are impossible to lump together, in any honest treatment of the causes and effects.

Let me speak briefly to the genocide; I assume you speak of the treatment of the native Americal Indians. First, recall who we were at the beginning of the time you are speaking of: a group of Europeans, transplanted to a new continent. The prevailing philosophy of the time was a derived from John Locke, who articulated the idea that the legal basis of property ownership was the labor a man applied to land that was otherwise not being used by another. The Indians used that which was on the land, but in the Lockeian view, because they didn't in any significant way change the land (by constructing roads, cities, etc.), they didn't own it. The Europeans, and the new Americans, tended to want to own that which they "discovered," and felt completly justified in taking that which they did not consider owned. When they did, they applyied their labor and intelligence and created communities. It probably made it easier that the Indians seemed "wild" and primitive, while our predecessors had a relatively coherent cultural idea.

So, looking at it from our point of view, their acts were thoroughly immoral and inexcusable. Looking at it from their point of view, that's just the way things were done (not just here, but everywhere throughout history.).

Before we judge our predecessors too harshly, we do well to bear in mind that cultural wisdom takes a long time to evolve to higher levels of understanding. From our perspective, after hundreds of years of development, it is easy to see what they did was immoral. But who knows what innocent thing we do today will be considered barbaric in a hundred years, or two.

And other than coming to some understanding that includes compassion for those who were on both sides of the exchange, I don't even know what "facing up" to it even means.

Answer 8

I think America HAS faced up to its past. In fact, there has been so much self-flagellation by the present generation over things they had no control over, such as slavery, the treatment of the native Americans, Jim Crow laws, that it is getting sickening. There are even people now saying that Mexican illegals should be allowed to enter the country by the millions because Texas once belonged to Mexico. (should Russians be allowed illegally into Alaska because it was formerly owned by Russia? Do we let the British have New England back because they settled it 150 years before the USA came into being?)

The important thing about history is that we should learn from it and try not to repeat the things that were wrong. Current generations beating themselves up over what someone did hundreds of years ago achieves nothing of any value.

Answer 9

The US doesn't like to think of itself as a nation that commits genocide. (Native Americans) and how it violate human rights (Japanese Americans during WW2) not to mention atrocities in Vietnam and Iraq.

Answer 10

No countries like to admitt to their mistakes. It's seen as a weakness. Every country has done things in their history that they would rather not take credit for. It's a fact of life.