Ask HN: What are Americans seen as on the world stage?

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33909643

by trifit • 4 years ago

5 15 4 years ago

news.ycombinator.com

ss108• 4 years ago

Is there a "world stage"?

082349872349872• 4 years ago

Things I have seen advertised as "American", with flag motifs, in my country:

    Aviator glasses
    Combat boots
    Pre-popped popcorn
    Rice
    Tacticool knives
    Western riding gear
    XXL Sandwiches

An honourable mention goes to Dixie Cups, which I have seen sold as "red cups" expressly for "American Theme" parties during Carnaval. (putting alcohol in plastic is otherwise, even by students, considered infra dig)

PaulHoule2• 4 years ago

I think it depends.

I traveled in Eastern Europe in 1999 and got a lot of abuse from train conductors and the like who did not like our air war in the former Yugoslavia. I think people in Ukraine, however, appreciate what we are doing for them today but wish we would do more.

Indians seem to like the US enough that many of them want to come here, but they have an awful time with the immigration authorities here and I know many of them feel bad about that.

sfusato5• 4 years ago

who did not like our air war in the former Yugoslavia

You mean the 78 days straight of NATO bombing? Nobody likes war, who would have thought of that?

I think people in Ukraine, however, appreciate what we are doing for them today

What percentage of the people in Ukraine appreciate what the US is doing? Is it possible that this number would go down or up in the future once the dust settles? Should the other part have any say in this?

Can you go back to any US war from the past 70 years and ask those populations if they appreciate what the US has been doing for them?

akhmatova3• 4 years ago

What percentage of the people in Ukraine appreciate what you are doing?

Is that even a question? By all indications, the percentage is extremely high (outside of the Crimea, and some parts of the Donbass).

PaulHoule2• 4 years ago

130,000+ people were killed in the breakup of Yugoslavia, I believe those bombings were an attempt to put a stop to that killing and not commercial interests, "blood for oil", or some attempt to kneecap the Russian Federation the way many Russians seem to believe.

I'd find it hard to believe people in South Vietnam were broadly supportive of the US involvement there but there were certainly individuals who either benefited commercially from that presence or who hated the North worse. (They were not nice folks, if they couldn't fool the US into assassinating the village elders they would do it themselves.)

I think people in Kuwait were glad to see the Iraqis evicted in 1991.

(There was a great photo of General Petraeus being served a Naan by a boy at a street food stand in Afghanistan who had a very ambiguous look on his face like he wasn't sure it was safe being caught in that photo...)

I think some Ukrainians wouldn't have minded being part of the Russian Federation if it had happened peacefully or relatively bloodlessly like the 2014 invasion of Crimea. If it involves bombing residential apartment buildings, leveling cities with artillery, or using cruise missiles to wipe out the electric grid I think there is little support for Russia.

beardyw• 4 years ago

Is that as people or the state?

zaktoo2• 4 years ago

Brainwashed apologists for genocide in the name of capital

Ask HN: What are Americans seen as on the world stage?

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