The “International Good Guys”

While I was reading the article “Watching Big Brothers” I found myself nodding my head in agreement to what was being said in the article. I thought back to when I was taking history classes throughout my education at in Minnetonka, I always thought of the United Stated as the “international good guy” (Watching big brothers, page 221). Textbooks show us that when Americans have done wrong, it has been because others misunderstood us, or because we misunderstood the situation. The article continued making the point that “our motives were always good”. This stuck out to me the most while reading the article. I again thought back to the many history classes I’ve taken throughout my life and never remember being told that the US has done anything terribly wrong….thus I’ve never had reason to believe that we are anything other than the “international good guy” and out motives have always been, “good”. After reading the article my mind went to the resent US attacks on Libya. I went on the internet and researched articles about President Obama and the attacks. Some articles I found said many things along the lines of, "While our military mission is narrowly focused on saving lives, we continue to pursue the broader goal of a Libya that belongs not to a dictator, but to its people.” I found this statement in a Star Tribune article by Robert Burns. As shown in this article (along with others I found), the main concern with Libya for president Obama and the United States is because the people of Libya need our help in order to gain control back from their corrupt leader. This may be true…..but it is only partly true. The government, in saying this, looks altruistic in their motives. In reality we are making sure that Libya keeps pumping oil so the US and the West has access. We aren’t only concerned about the oil in Libya; our concerns are also that an al-Qaida type group might take over. Many articles I found while researching Libya centered on this idea. In an article I found by the National Journal, the author makes convincing arguments to why the oil in Libya is important. The war in Libya seems to be about making sure the oil is still flowing out of Libya to the west regardless to what happens to the poor rebels. “Libya produces just 2 percent of the world’s oil, but oil speculators don’t understand that 2 percent has skyrocketed oil price… Meanwhile, U.S. stocks slumped for the second day in a row today, largely on fears about Libya.” This war in Libya backs up Loewens idea that the United States will always try and make us always seem like “good guy”. This fact showed up many times throughout the article The American Pageant, as well as many of the articles I found online.