Neither, You have to maintain a balance between the two, but than history judges the countries. Religion only involved to gather up the masses and rally people, if you see the world major conflicts around the world which start after 9/11, they might look like religious conflicts but all of them are geopolitical in nature.
Even communists disguised their wants. They use words like 'liberation', 'oppression', 'decadent', and so on, when the ultimate goal is control. So if 'liberty', 'freedom', and 'democracy' are suspect, should not what the Marxists says or couches also equally suspect? Religionists do the same thing. Words like 'salvation', 'blessed', or 'holy' are used to motivate people into doing something the religionists want. We are talking about the necessity of speech here.
I don't know what that nuances is, but I criticism is not limited to USA alone. People are more than welcome to give a counter argument or disagree with me in a respectful manner.
This would be much more easier to respond if I understand what's with that nuances is lol
In my yrs, I learned to be suspicious of anyone who used the word 'nuance'. %99.999 of the time, its usage is pseudo intellectual and pretentious. The speaker/user do not understand the issue well enough but want to pass on the impression that he does. The word 'nuance' is a convenient cover for his ignorance and reluctance to explain his knowledge.
Take our friend who used the word, for instance. For all his pretense about his claimed knowledge of the nuances of US foreign policies, he reduced it down to: The MIC did it.
A genuine exploration of the nuances of any issue would be something like: A and B produced C, but the social conditions were not supportive, then five yrs later, D and E collaborated to produce the appropriate environment, and so on and on. The true nuances of any issue are multi faceted, multi layered, and take time. Very seldom does any issue have a single root cause. Usually, there were multiple contributors where the end is that 'perfect storm' phrase that created the perception of one root cause. But for the US: The MIC did it.
The US under JFK created the Peace Corps. But the false 'nuance' argument is that the Peace Corps was a CIA front.
Back in '03, George W Bush and his wife spearheaded President's Emergency Plan For AIDS Relief (PEPFAR) and helped unknown people in Africa. But the false 'nuance' argument was that PEPFAR was a plan to make Africa dependent on the (white) West.
Just a couple examples of 'nuance' not much different than 'The MIC did it'. US foreign policies are devoid of genuine altruism and humaneness. Hence the word 'masquerading' in the title.
All I did was cut thru the BS. Look at the start of this thread. The insinnuendo here is that only an 'evil' country could and would produce such 'evil' foreign policies. The implication is left to the reader(s) to flesh out his own 'nuances' of the issue. A true accounting of the true nuances would require libraries but for our friends: The MIC did it.
I do not deny that the US had foreign policies errors, to put it mildly, but if the US is such an 'evil' country, as 'proved' by its 'evil' foreign policies, then why do people continues to come here?