Wars and Empire

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Wars and Empire

The Project Gutenberg EBook of Wars and Empire, by Sam Vaknin (#14 in our series by Sam Vaknin)
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Title: Wars and Empire
Author: Sam Vaknin
Release Date: June, 2005 [EBook #8218] [This file was first posted on July 3, 2003]
Edition: 10
Language: English
Character set encoding: US-ASCII
*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK, WARS AND EMPIRE ***

(c) 2002, 2003 Copyright Lidija Rangelovska.

Wars and Empire
1st EDITION
Sam Vaknin, Ph.D.
Editing and Design:
Lidija Rangelovska
Lidija Rangelovska
A Narcissus Publications Imprint, Skopje 2003
First published by United Press International - UPI
Not for Sale! Non-commercial edition.
(c) 2002, 2003 Copyright Lidija Rangelovska.
All rights reserved. This book, or any part thereof, may not be used or reproduced in any manner without written permission from:
Lidija Rangelovska - write to:
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Visit the Author Archive of Dr. Sam Vaknin in "Central Europe Review":
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http://samvak.tripod.com/after.html
Created by: LIDIJA RANGELOVSKA
REPUBLIC OF MACEDONIA
C O N T E N T S
I. The Author
II. About "After the Rain"
Containing the United States
I. Why is American Hated
II. Containing the United States
The War in Afghanistan
I. Afghan Myths
II. Pakistan's Nice Little War
III. The Afghan Trip
On the Road to Iraq - Central and East Europe
I. EU and NATO - The Competing Alliances
II. The Euro-Atlantic Divide
III. Russia Straddles the Divide
IV. Russia's Stealth Diplomacy
V. Losing the Iraq War
VI. Germany's Rebellious Colonies
VII. The Disunited Nations
The War in Iraq - Coalition Building
I. The Economies of the Middle East
II. The Costs of Coalition Building
III. Is It All about Oil?
IV. The Axis of Oil
V. Saddam's One Thousand Nights
VI. Turkey's Losing Streak
VII. Turkey's Jewish Friend
VIII. Israel - The Next Target
IX. Oil for Food Program
X. Iraq's Middle Class
XI. Iraq's Revenant Sons
XII. Forgiving Iraq's Debts
XIII. Kosovo's Iraqi Lessons
XIV. The Iraqi and the Madman
XV. Just War or Just a War?
Why is America Hated?
By: Dr. Sam Vaknin
Also Read:
To Give with Grace
The Sergeant and the Girl

It is hard to articulate, let alone justify hatred. It is, by definition, irrational and one is immediately suspected of intellectualizing that which is really visceral and counterfactual. It is politically incorrect to hate, an insensitive and "primitive" "gut" reaction. Hating is widely decried as counterproductive.
Collective hatred is reserved to "hate figures" designated by the media and the elite and rendered obnoxious and abominable by ceaseless indoctrination, often tinged with falsities. One hates a Hitler or a bin Laden. One is exhorted in most Western media to merely disagree with the United States, or to criticize Americans - but never to hate them.
Mercifully, larges swathes of humanity - being less synthetic and fake - are still prone to the unbridled expression of their emotions. One of the most frequent and all-pervasive sentiments among them seems to be anti-Americanism - a spectrum of reactions ranging from virulent aversion, through intense dislike, to vocal derision.
The United States is one of the last remaining land empires. That it is made the butt of opprobrium and odium is hardly surprising, or unprecedented. Empires - Rome, the British, the Ottomans - were always targeted by the disgruntled, the disenfranchised and the dispossessed and by their self-appointed delegates, the intelligentsia.
Yet, even by historical standards, America seems to be provoking blanket repulsion.
The Pew Research Center published last December a report titled "What the World Thinks in 2002". "The World", was reduced by the pollsters to 44 countries and 38,000 interviewees. Two other surveys published last year - by the German Marshall Fund and the Chicago Council on Foreign Relations - largely supported Pew's findings.
The most startling and unambiguous revelation was the extent of anti-American groundswell everywhere: among America's NATO allies, in developing countries, Muslim nations and even in eastern Europe where Americans, only a decade ago, were lionized as much-adulated liberators.
"People around the world embrace things American and, at the same time, decry U.S. influence on their societies. Similarly, pluralities in most of the nations surveyed complain about American unilateralism."- expounds the Pew report.
Yet, even this "embrace of things American" is ambiguous.
Violently