Allow me to be a patriotic America here for a moment.
The citizens of the United States? We're Americans. People who aren't citizens? You're NOT Americans. As a non-American, you are NOT entitled to tell us how to run our government. Feel free to give opinions, sure, but to think that you should have any sway in OUR elections is absurd and arrogant. If you want to influence our government, immigrate here, legally, I might add, and then by all means feel free to let your voice be heard! But if you live in Spain or Argentina or Egypt or anywhere that does say "United States of America"? Get the heck out of our politics. I honestly don't care if our elections "affect the world". All elections in major countries do that, and nobody seemed to be worried about the latest in the incredibly odd Russian elections.
Here's a note to all you American voters:
Don't let anyone outside the country influence your judgment on what's best for YOU. YOU are the one living here and YOU are the one who gets to decide what happens. I mean, sure, I have friends who live in Canada and England and a smattering of other countries, and I while I do think it's interesting to hear their opinions on American policies, I would not for a second vote for officials based on how it would affect them, just as I'm sure they wouldn't vote for their own officials based on how it might affect me. Now, of course, there's the whole issue with the Iraq War, which is something that directly involves another country, but I will still even go so far as to say that you shouldn't vote for what's best for an Iraqi citizen, you should vote for what's best for YOU and YOUR country. Government is not something to be "nice" about. It's a time to be patriotic (and "arrogant" and "narrow-minded", as I'm sure some will call it). It's YOUR government, not theirs. They have no say, shouldn't have any say, and you shouldn't vote to help them when it's no good for the United States of America... The USA is where they live, not you.
My personal opinion on the war, as an example? It's pretty obvious that a lot of other people think we're "mean" and cynical. (Even Obama's wife thinks we're a "mean" country.) They say we're where we shouldn't be when it comes to the war in Iraq, and they enjoy telling us how they would have done it. Well, I have something to tell you... They weren't the ones with the World Trade Center, were they? They weren't the ones who needed to defend themselves by going into Afghanistan, were they? Their country wasn't the country with the leader who declared that any and all people discovered to have aided the terrorists in their mission to destroy the World Trade Center would be hunted down just as fervently as the terrorists themselves. They weren't the ones who discovered that the former Iraqi government was giving refuge to the terrorists involved with the attack on the World Trade Center. We're over there finishing the fight that the terrorists started, because what country in their right mind wouldn't?
So, I'm sorry you non-Americans (and even deluded Americans, for that matter) think our war is so evil and unjustified. But honestly? I don't give a care, and nobody else should, either. We should only be doing what's best for the United States of America, and, right now, that's getting rid of the terrorists who destroyed and killed so many lives on September 11, 2001. Nobody else is going to help us? That's fine! That's your choice. I mean, those are your own countries. Your opinions have weight there, and if you think the war is unjustified, then don't participate. But to think that you have any right to try influencing another country's politics is beyond arrogant and beyond self-centered.
I'm sure some crackpot is going to fly by and deliver a quip about how America is trying to "influence another country's politics" with the war. But hear me out: We went in to eradicate the government who aided the terrorists we were hunting, because we said we would and Iraq didn't listen. We succeeded. The old, corrupt government has been removed because they were a threat to us and aided in criminals that we were hunting down because they ATTACKED us and instigated this war. Of course we're trying to influence Iraq's politics now... How is it in anyone's best interest for a country to invade, destroy a government, and then leave without repairing the damage? We're there to help the Iraqi citizens to recover now, and we're doing it the best way we know: With American Democracy. Of course it'll be tweaked and flavored a bit by the Iraqis themselves, but we obviously wouldn't try to set them up with a Monarchy or a Communist State! The invading country is just naturally going to try to show the conquered country how to form their own government based on what the invading country knows works... That, or the invading country could just annex the entire territory and consume all the resources and not bother putting so much time and money into helping the conquered country to stand on their own two feet once again.
Anyway, that's a major tangent and not what I was intending to write. I'd read this article from NewsBusters and it hit home with me because I've experienced people from other countries trying to tell me, directly, how the United States should work. How our Death Row is inhumane comes to mind. This from someone in Spain. How our DNA profiling for incoming travelers is absurd. This from someone in Australia. That's all well and good. I don't have a problem with you thinking differently, but I have a problem when you think you're entitled to tell us what you think because you have a say in how we do things. You DON'T.
