Why do other countries mistrust the U.S.?

I think I’ve used this analogy before, but it’s worth repeating: It’s a bit like the little kid holding the nail-gun…...sure it’s got power, but you do not trust it or want it in charge!

Why should they trust us? Our leader invaded a country unprovoked and gained national support for that invasion by selling the citizens a lie.

I’m not so sure I trust us anymore.

We have a long and semi-secret history of offering financial backing, training and weapons to individuals that we (someone in our government) have decided would be more beneficial to us. Many, if not most, of those individuals have later become some of the worst dictators and human rights offenders in power. We meddle with no regard except for our own position.

http://archive.capecodonline.com/special/terror/binladen17b.htm
http://www.tomveatch.com/dictatorships.html
http://www.fixourpolicies.com/index.php/Foreign-Policy/In-support-of-dictators-and-tyrants.html

@syz
GA. If I may add… then we normally offer aid to alot of these countries and threaten to take the aid away if they do not act as a puppet for us. Plus the US is just as much a human rights offender as China is.

We can be very mean.

I don’t mean this to sound simplistic or sarcastic, but, many in our own country mistrust the US (government cover up, corporate corruption, conspiracy theories), so why would we expect other countries to trust us.

Because the world does not operate on trust. We’re not “mistrusted” anymore than we “mistrust” other countries.

@marissa- Huh?

Hypocrisy. The US tells everyone what they can and cannot do, while simultaneously ignoring all of their own “advice”. The US is a friend one minute and an enemy the next. Why should the US be trusted? The only way to ensure one’s country’s safety is to have a stranglehold on the US economy, i.e. China.

Name me one country we haven’t bombed? We tend to judge on by political relations rather than what is morally justified (ie Vietnam, over bombing Germany in WWII, and showing the cold shoulder to Cuba because of its ties with Communism and the former Soviet Union).

@cameraobscura, I’d be glad to explain, but I’m not sure what confused you. I was saying that US citizens don’t trust the US, so if US citizens don’t trust their own country, doesn’t it stand to reason that other countries wouldn’t trust us either.