Originally posted by Semper Fi
USA aggressive? No, I don't think so. Nazi Germany was aggressive and Japan was aggressive. No, the US is not aggressive. We just sometimes wait too long to take action or, when action is taken, do it half arsed. Witness Vietnam and Korea.
Of course that's IMHO, as a red neck conservative from West Kentucky who has been told I stand somewhere to the right of Attila the Hun. 
I've enjoyed being able to have civilised discussions between people of very different views - keeping an open mind, I've learned a lot here; I'm sad to see that recently some people have felt a need to turn nasty - but that's just an aside, and certainly not directly at any of the Cantina regulars, just to be clear
'Aggression' as such isn't inherently negative - European culture, and by extension, North American culture is inherently aggressive. Who are the nations who have engaged in colonisation, &c. (the USA has had and has colonies by the way, it just calls them by different names). This same 'aggression' is also what fuels the innovative drive which is largely Western - the innovention of new technology, &c.
Think about American expansion into the West in the 1800s - was that not aggressive? Lots of positive things came of this, but also negative things, e.g. the treatment of the Amerindian tribes.
But actually the sort of American aggression I had in mind was its covert aggression - I'm not counting the 'war on terror' or Vietnam or Korea or any official wars in this sort of aggression. And this aggression is not condoned by the American people at large by the simple fact that they remain unaware of it. A lot of it is economical, but that the economical stuff gets too complicated for me to get more than the most tenuous of grasps on, let alone explain. I can give one concrete example and that is the Maharashtrian Power Plant fiasco, which I've mentioned elsewhere. In brief, between corrupt officials in India and an opportunistic American power company (wait for it), a power plant (the 1st private one constructed in India) was built which costs the Maharashtran people several million dollars a year just to maintain (which is required by the contract which was signed) - when the power it produces
no-one can afford - so it does nothing, just costs money without benefiting anyone other than the corrupt Indian politicians who managed the deal and the American corporation who built it. When Maharashtra realised what was happening, the sensible elements decided they were going to break the contract. The US Govt, on behalf of the American corporation, put severe pressure on India because of this - through the then secretrary of state (foreign minister) -- who, after his term of office,
joined the board of directors of the US power company in question! Now you have to see a bit of corruption and economic aggression here. One more thing - guess which power company it was. Enron. Who, incidentally, was Bush's largest corporate contributor - just food for thought.
For non-economic aggression by the USA, see the various covert supplies of US diplomatic support, arms and military training to various tyrannical governments: Indonesia, in connexion with their brutal annexation of East Timor; Cuba; Columbia; Turkey (who began on 'suppression' of the Kurds [read: extermination] with US support); Iraq (who did the same to the Kurds with tacit US consent - remember the US used to be friends with Saddam). None of these are things which are known by the population at large, so it's questionable that the can be called 'American initiatives', since they don't involve any support from the American populace. You mention Nazi Germany - a tricky case, what percentage of the populace really supported Hitler? I imagine quite a number in the beginning, because Hitler didn't look like a bad fellow at first, but later on many people were simply too scared to do anything. Another example of the fact that atrocities tend to take 2 groups - those who committ them and those who stand by and let them happen for fear of action.
And which political party is office makes no difference - these acts have been carried out by Republicans and Democrats alike; so bleeding hearts liberal politicians seem to have no problem with illegal and illicit support of brutality either.
That's longer than I intended. I've get down off of my (hopefully innocuous) soapbox before someone kicks it out from under me
cheers,
--B.
