proponents of this idea claim the u.s. is a force for good in the world and has the right even an obligation to act unilaterally when necessary critics charge american exceptionalism is dangerous to the u.s. and the world as well as a cover for global domination and empire. to cross-talk american exceptionalism i'm joined by rodney shakespeare in london he is the co-founder of the global justice movement in phoenix we have david burchell he is a former deputy assistant secretary of state and in moscow we cross to mark's lowballed a he's a senior lecturer and researcher at moscow state university right gentlemen cross-talk rules in effect that means you can jump in anytime you want and i encourage it rodney if i go to you first in london do you like the term american exceptionalism and is that a good thing or a bad thing. well it's inaccurate the usa is a courageous loosely. exceptional it spends forty percent of the world

budget and with the undeclared spending it's nearly fifty percent. if you take a year say nine hundred fifty it's been involved in war for every single year and then the undeclared wars is does the assassinations in the top throwing in favor of fascists regimes in south america it's got a program or future wars against any independent islamic state it says all options are on the table which means it will use atomic weapons against countries which have no atomic weapons it supports the end of this expansion of the zionist entity into the lands of others it spews poison like israel spews phosphorus the usa spot suspicious depleted uranium it's the lol in the napalm and the agent orange and it claims to support democracy and yet all the time it supports the gas chokers the folks that are send their hate choppers for heaven's sake it

supports saudi arabia and the killer collage in writing rodney i thank you very much a point you made your point very clearly by the way david markel in phoenix please respond do you like the term american exceptionalism isn't it something good or bad for the world. well i think i think i think you are far panelist mr shakespeare i don't know if that was to be a comedy or a farce but i don't think that that characterizes the united states' role in the world i do think the united states has been a force for good i think that it has played a part in expanding freedom globally that's not to say that the united states always gets its way that's not to say the united states should should bully other countries but when joining together with other nations to advance its principles i think that the united states is an exceptional country and i think that any

anybody would feel that their own country sense of pride and i certainly feel that now recently with the obama administration i think obama of minutes i think president obama himself questions american exceptionalism but he does not question obama exceptionalism so when he drew a red line in syria that was a different game and i think that's how we got into the situation we're in today ok mark american exceptionalism is it a good thing or a bad thing for the world because it certainly exists well it certainly exists peter but i think one of the most interesting. factors of the idea of american exceptionalism is how very an exceptional this ideology is every imperial power every great power in the world has conceived of themselves and their . use of power on the world stage in moralizing terms

as exceptional whether we're talking about the roman empire the british empire the french colonial empire the soviet union or the united states from the cold war on to today. every imperial power seeks to. create a mythology of itself. as a uniquely virtuous actor on the world stage and we can see a bit of a disconnect between the way the rest of the world views this power as characterized by our first guest in london and the quite the opposite view that many americans have of their own of their own country and its role in the world ok david joy to reply to that because a lot of people say that it is a cover american exceptionalism is a cover for american dominion or imperialism and some people would put it i mean there's something to that is it or no i think ok go ahead one look i don't i don't

think you can see anything in u.s. foreign policy in suggests that it looks at all like like subtle roads i think that last week i was in new york at the u.n. general assembly and a lot of people talked about the bush administration's overreach but now they're talking about the under reach from the obama administration and friend or foe they were looking for the united states to play a larger role why because minus united states there is less stability minus the what united states there's less than a national order so the united states has a responsibility and has a role to play internationally well a lot of people would say we've got a romney is that the united states makes the world unstable in its unilateral actions around the world just the opposite. well we're only about two weeks ago from the american attempt to set off a third world war fortunately there was a bit of backbone coming from russia could i go into the domestic situation is

going to say go ahead that the the two unemployment is twenty three percent that's john williams shadows that's and it's double that for young people there's fifteen million people on earth food stamps the really incomes of middle classes have gone backwards for twenty five years and we are told that america is the exemplar of the free market it isn't it's not a sort of it's a fascist society the government to support to bail you on the dumb down bullets which are exploding bullets to fire at its own people and i am being told by david that america is an exemplar to the world it is now moving straight into fascism it is spying on everybody else spying on its own people it's got two thousand seven hundred light tanks all of those but dumb down bullets because its economy is collapsing it's political authority is collapsing and as for its model of oratory

it no longer has anything right the way throughout the world now it is either laughed at or despise markets that go let's say with the domestic issue here is because congress didn't back wooden barack obama on syria and we saw the same thing happen in the in london with the house of commons do you think that in the united states there's this feeling that american exceptionalism isn't good for america because they're not backing american foreign policy specifically on syria. i think we see a distinct difference in the concept of american exceptionalism as conceived by the general public in which like the early president obama completely different from the current president obama. he believes america is an exceptional nation much of the brits regard britain as ed. the greeks regard greek greek civilization as exceptional but the we have seen particularly with syria although in prior

conflicts as well we've seen a disconnect with the way what you could call the foreign policy elite circles the journalistic classes the elite classes of the united states view the term american exceptionalism and this is what putin was addressing in his editorial for the new york times this is an idea of american exceptionalism where whatever domestic qualities the united states has. its particular political ideology creates this uniquely virtuous just cause to reorder the world along its own along its own image or at least within its own interests and this is extremely costly to the united states in terms of its economy with the wars of the last decade have perhaps cost the united states more than ten trillion dollars and when we speak of the united states we're talking of course the

united states taxpayers and the simply enormous. national debt state debt city debt that the united states has built up in the process not to mention the cost in lives both of american lives and as a. veteran of the u.s. armed forces myself i can attest to the feelings of the rank and file among the military and that but also in those injured and in the lives of those that this messianic idea inflicts on other countries david mark used the word virtue is the american have a virtuous foreign policy is that what makes it exceptional i think. i think america i think america pursues its interest and advances its principle it doesn't try to make the world over in its image but it does need to be true to principles

that many believe are not american but are universal i'd like to just go back to a couple points one domestic one international in a point where the united states is about seven is about seven percent it's not twenty three percent it's still too high and there's a lot of criticism on both sides of the aisle that it's a it's a fact and what's nonsense is you calling the united states of america a fascist that's insulting internationally i think that it is important for the united states to be stronger at home to be more strong economically and to. set itself as a as a better example and lead by example and less and less preachy but on syria specifically i think what we've had is we've had a president united states has been more reactive not being george bush gets you a nobel peace prize but after that you have to come out with a strategic vision none exists in this administration and engagement in syria at

a much earlier point could've saved a lot of lives and prevented more radical elements from coming into syria and the president did say he was going to war and then recognize that that he would have less support to the mess to clean and internationally than george bush did and bark box and went to congress and the congress blocked and putin gave him a lifeline which he readily accepted all right gentlemen i'm going to jump in here we're going to go to way short break and after that short break we'll continue our discussion on american exceptionalism.

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pleasure to have you with us here on t.v. today. welcome back to cross talk we're all things are considered i'm peter lavelle reminder we're discussing whether america is an exceptional country. ok i want to go back to you rodney in london a lot of critics of the united states around the world will say what makes america

exceptional is that its ability to go to war unilaterally and suffer no consequences whatsoever this is the kind of exceptionalism a lot of people don't like. that is a very precise statement of the situation in the case of syria it was the willingness of others to stand up but america is essentially an american bullying power it no longer has the political authority that david thinks it holds it no longer has the moral authority and economic power is shifting away from america to the west and at some stage quite soon people will realize that they have been financing american militarism and that the dollars going to crash there's a great big pile up coming for the usa and that's probably because it's a very very i'm not saying this of american people but the elites and those who control the politics are beyond belief arrogant david arrogance i mean that's that

gets it to the point in a lot of ways i mean you go back to iraq and we're always going back to iraq here and this is what's really rattled the image of the united states for many many people in the world i mean there are plenty of people the world have always hated america except that ok but iraq people focus in on can the united states recover from that because it seems like there's no change of behavior until we got to syria . sure i think i think look i think that. looking at the iraq war in hindsight there's there's a lot to be said in a positive nature in a negative nature but but looking at the middle east today you can definitely say that the middle east is is is far less stable that the arab spring. has turned into a quitter and there's a lot of issues there that affect a great number of people i don't i don't think that the united states if we were sitting on the sideline would be looked at by its critics any less arrogant to

use mr shakespeare his word then if we were fully engaged my point is that the united states has a history of engaging not mistake free but engaging in the in the world as a as a very positive force expanding freedom and democracy following brave people in the different countries. ok ok in saudi arabia well you know is saudi arabia is a perfect example is a perfect example any country advances their interests that's fine united states advances interest has relations with saudi arabia that's a problem so you're dichotomy is either they are an ideal country or we don't have relations with them well that puts us very much out of the international community that is a very negative aspect on stabilizing and if you look at saudi arabia again

the united states has a very workable relationship with saudi arabia saudi arabia plays an important role in global i mean you're looking at a very nice gentlemen to what they hear the need for freedom and democracy you have been a saudi arabia. but you know david if you're sending jihad it's from saudi arabia into syria is that promoting democracy america's ally come on. no and no and we're not known or not ok mark go ahead you want to jump in i i i think that the conception that david with all respect due respect has with the idea that the united states. not only do they which is certainly called into question with the results of the us is the latest. civilising missions in libya afghanistan iraq and so on but also within this very

concept that this unique. vision of american democracy which is certainly you know in a country that believes that money is free speech that corporations are people has a rather unusual interpretation of democracy but it believes that its vision it has a responsibility to spread around the world and this is kind of a totally illogical view of history reminiscent actually of the soviet union and its. mission to communist the world but what we see in the disconnect between what happened in what was called in the american media the western press the arab spring and the actual results is part of the what i would characterize the an almost delusional ray of cation of democracy and the belief that by bringing this freedom and democracy. specifically along american lines

regardless of the historical context the ethnic divides the religious tensions that everything will be ok and we've seen the results of the signal you know martin you're actually right mark if i go to rodney i mean you know democracy was in egypt now it's run by a military dictatorship again. yes and the usa has supported all of that the. libya gets told on saudi arabia bahrain and the persian gulf states and i don't want to hear anything from david the usa could simply turn those countries into democracies by pulling out its support for those narrow to around the cold autocracies i mean that is the issue the usa could be trading with democracies right the way through the patient go through and all we get from david at best is the usa is following its interests

those interests do not include democracy for people like that want to hate and use that word democracy ok ok i did but we're going to give david a chance we're going to give david a chance to reply if i can now if i could talk if i could talk further if i could talk for a second about democracy for mr shakespeare i think i think that a lot of the united states view of the world is naive not as naive as what mr shakespeare just mentioned but back on mark's point i think that we need to we don't we don't we can't force democracy we can support greater freedom in civil society and a movement towards democracy we can support it we can't force it but also we need to be we need to be more wide open about the difference between movement towards democracy and what is what mark described a sectarian violence sectarian civil war and not just because one guy has a black cat think that the opponent has a white hat so the middle east as an example is a very complex part of the world as mark described but united states' role in it is

is it needs to be more sophisticated more able to identify that just because you're not supporting a leader that has been in power too long that what's an opposition may not be any more democratic than the leadership itself and as we saw in iran in the seventy's as we see in libya. and as we're painfully sitting in syria the sectarian violence the leadership leaving is not necessarily the quickest road towards stability and democracy mark it seems to me that the u.s. still continues want to determine facts on the ground in the middle east here even and after every single failure there's no learning curve we just they keep trying over and over again until they get it right but it never or almost never works out as planned. yes and i think you can see this

if it was simply a matter of the united states. using its democracy its suppose that democracy and freedom as a role model and acting as simply as a best example that should be emulated to the world i don't think anyone has a real problem with this they may not choose to follow it but no one has a problem with this it is it is precisely the forcing that is the issue and we always see that this forcing of democracy only and always comes in alignment with the u.s. geopolitical interests if we see democracy and it's almost a euphemism for our enemies and money and weapons for our allies be they the saudis the bahraini is the qatari various dictatorships in egypt and elsewhere around the world so we've got a stark choice between which hand us foreign policy presents the

principle to its enemies. but the the gifts to its foes ok david you like to reply to that to its friends. i just think i look in the real world the facts just simply don't support what mark said or what mr shakespeare said i think that if you you're merging two different points but if you looked at the international order if you looked at the situation in the world it is not stable and this us administration has been far too reactionary and far too focused on on itself rather than trying to stem the tide of instability david let me let me ask you question what we saw and what would you like to see happen more proactive i mean most of the world i would say think that the united states is overreacting to everything around it maybe should step back a little bit because again from the outside looking in there's no difference

between bush and obama well i think i think what i'd like to see is what mark mentioned which is the united states getting its economic and its domestic house in order to be a better example and to linda advice. to the world so more countries could gain in prosperity that's that's the thing that's nice about what mr shakespeare said about about economic movement around it's not that the united states is necessarily coming down but other countries are coming up that's in our interest that should be in and everybody's interest but i think what people were looking for in the obama administration was a president that was more willing to develop international coalitions and to work proactively on international problems before they materialized into the into crisis that we see that hasn't happened that should have happened and i think we're going to have a very long lame duck obama administration but it should happen hopefully in the

next administer a cable running way to the last two or twenty seconds go ahead. but david mentioned the u.k. and the usa overthrew to mock a say in iran in one hundred fifty three and over the years nineteen eighty to eighty eight week eight the chemical was the saddam hussein to use poison gas on the iranians that is the sort of thing you get from american exceptionalism ok in exceptional conversation gentlemen thank you very much many thanks to my guests today in london phoenix and in moscow and thanks to our viewers for watching us here see you next time and remember crossed off worlds.

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a pleasure to have you with us here on t.v. today i'm researcher. dramas that challenge be ignored. stories others refuse to notice. places change the world lights never. grow. old picture of today's leaves a lot longer than a month from around the globe. local. t.v. .

the shutdown shock roughly three hundred million dollars. in the first twenty four hours of the us federal a hole. in the. m.p.'s from greece's far right golden dawn are in court on criminal charges following a public wave of fury over the killing of an. behind the scenes of syrian diplomacy. all about what needs to be done to the road.