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problem_child
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State of the Animal
Mar 2000
time: 05:30
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quote:
Originally posted by Ned
Problem child, after reading your litany here http://apolyton.net/forums/showthre...757#post2236757 I realize that you actually believe communist propaganda, just like Che, et al.
Is it possible for you to accept that the US people are good people and that we value liberty more than anything? How could such a people impose its will on the world? We can lead those who similarly support liberty, we can oppose those who seek to enslave others, but we ourselves can never support enslaving other nations or peoples. That is not what America is all about. |
I don't believe Jo American is a bad guy or- woman, what you have to understand is the Leadership plays by different rules. This is why it is necessary for them to come up with the communist threat or WMD or terrorism etc to make the US taxpayer keep playing along to their military/industrial agenda. At the start of Gulf War One, the American military faced massive cutbacks, three times as much as Bush snr had proposed. By the end of Gulf War One, it was boom-time again for the arms-manufacturers that are so close to US government. You probably don't know that GW1 was a massacre, that the US and UK both intentionaly targeted civilians and civilian infrastructure, and that the sanctions that came after were not just to halt any possibility of Saddam rearming with WMD (he had significant US/European complicity doing so the first time when he was fighting the Iranians) but also to keep the Iragi infrastructure in a delapidated and deteriorating state. The US knew that the resultant lack of water-purification facilities for instance, unable to be maintained and repaired after their bombing campaign, would lead to massive occurances of desease , and that mostly children would be affected.
We in the West under US leadership wanted that nation to become a 3rd world country again, we wanted the millions that died as a direct result of santions- to die. It was our intention, my intrention too because I'm British, I'm a voter and have a voice. Now I know better then to let these acts be carried out in my name, and so intend to shout about it.
I'm not a Communist, I don't believe their propaganda, I don't believe communism is a natural system for human society, but that doesn't mean I should believe in the oppression of 3rd world nations, or the use of tyrants to control those nations, nor that the nation I live in and its allie should be able to inflict massive destruction in persuit of the resources of those 3rd-world/3rd-worldized nations to enrich themselves, while lying out of their faces that their intentions are just and noble and for 'democracy'. Democracy afterall isn't supposed to be a system that puts nations up for sale, it's supposed to be a system that says 'if you're a human beingh, you're not there to be used as a tool of others, you have a right to make choices that are best for you'.
Last edited by problem_child on 05-08-2003 at 19:14
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problem_child
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State of the Animal
Mar 2000
time: 05:30
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quote:
Originally posted by Chris 62
Cold war era, communist is enemy, natural reaction.
Also, claiming communists are "freely" elected is a bit of a strech, Communists seem to have problems with DEMOCRATIC matters like elections.
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My god, Allende wasn't a communist, his was a leftist coalition party, calling them communists is very inaccurate, read up if you want. Calling people communists is a popular reaction amongst many who endorse Americas history of foreign policy, but it doesn't wash. Far as I can see American governments have problems with democracies that aren't for sale.
As for Indonesia, are you saying that if you live on a street where a man owns a pot of gold, it is your right to steal it from him because you would naturally be interested in having that gold for yourself? Sukarno was not aligned with the Soviet union, as I said before he was a founding member of the Non-Alighned movement, a group of 3rd world nations tired of being used as tools by America or Russia, and determined to carve out their own path, for their own benifit.
"Part three of the Cold war.
You might want to take into account the Soviets invaded the northern half in WWII, and that 70% of the world's oil and natural gas is here.
Would it be in the best interest of the west for the Soviet Union to hold this?"
No maybe not, and this means it was necessary to support the Shahs dictatorship because what? By the way the Iranian communists were very small, and stood no chance of usurping power, Iran was not ommie friendly, there was no need to install dictatorship there. When the UK faced the nazi's alone, did America install the House of 'Johnson' and back them with a torture-trained internal security apparatus in a society designed to benifit powerful elites?
"This one is incorrect on your part, Iraq was a Soviet Client during Saddam's rise, and all through the Iran-Iraq war."
Iraq bought weapons off them it is true, but in times of war the Soviets were unreliable. Iraq got the chemicle weapons it needed through USUK/Western complicity. And believe me when I say the CIA helped Saddams Ba'athists into power, and helped to overthrow the previous Non-Aligned/Socialist regime. Read up if you want the full story, I can only lead you to the water, unfortunately I don't have a link on this one.
"Nicaragua
The cold war again, and we again have the problems od communists and so-called 'free elections."
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If Nicaragua wanted to try communism, that's there business, American sponsored terrorists killed civilians and destroyed infrastructure because you don't like that peopl might try Communism? Scuze me but who the fugnut are you to decide the choices another people makes? Communsist have as much right to run for election as any other right? And the FSLN were amore humane outfit then Americas man before them. You preffer torturers and murderes to some bleeding heart liberals wgho want to try out social responsable systems, if the Nicaraguan system hadn't worked, they'd have moved on, tried a different way, your excuses for the deaths your governments policies caused are weak and in fact insulting.
"You seem to view Communism through rose colored glasses.
It has never been pretty for anyone living under it, and to consistantly blame the USA for other nations governments is somewhat rediculous."
I AM NOT A COMMUNIST. Other nations governments probably seriously suck about 30% of the time with absolutely no US encouragement. I think I'm being generous, if people don't believe their King is directly descended from god anymore, they get to wondering why they should put up with certain things, after that only military/industrial/security-state thuggery can keep their noses in it.
What do you think America uses it's power for anyway? It manages to get it's interests everywhere, and it doesn't sit by and watch other nations govern themselves without expressing its opinions in the form of some kind of overt or covert action. You like being a super-power but claim you're not super-powerful? Problem is you claim to be moral but are not morally accountable, that's as intended.
"If the CIA overthrough a nation, nothing prevented the people from overthrowing the so-called US puppet."
I beg to differ, the School of the Americas for instance taught your pet tyrants exactly how to stop people overthrowing them. Tricks like kidnapping wives and children and blackmailing activists, watching them see them get tortured and raped, the use of brocken bottles and hot-knives. Car bombs etc to assasinate with. Your country taught those things, it wasn't done by accident.
Last edited by problem_child on 05-08-2003 at 20:15
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problem_child
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State of the Animal
Mar 2000
time: 05:30
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He was though, don't get me wrong, the old bastard is an evil bastard, but between the US and Kuwait, the guy was literally gourded/green-lighted into attacking Kuwait. Nobody would want to start another war straight after finishing up eight years of resisting human wave after human wave of fanatical Iranian soldiers (he was encouraged by the US to start that bloody debacle as well).
(Not to mention the history of Kuwait being a former colony of Iraq made a [surrogate] state by the British at the turn of the centuary...)
Kuwait was slant-drilling Iraqi oil across the border, and making demands to be paid back the money it lent Iraq to help fight Iran, and dumping massive amounts of cheap oil on the market, all at a time when an impoverished Iraq was struggling to recover from its long bloody campaigns. Last thing it needed was a devalued oil-market, and the Kuwaiti leadership was pretty much saying '**** you, pay me my money, yeah I'm stealing your oil... so what, **** you pay me my money'
The whole thing amounted to economic warfare. When Saddams lot sounded out the US as to how it would respond if it took military action against Kuwait (which had been refusing to come to the negotiating table to settle the differences) the US rep said something to the afftct of 'We have no opinion on Arab-Arab conflicts'. Saddam fell for it. The US did this allot, they were very keen not to show a red-light to Iraq taking action it seems.
Of course Saddam didn't know that General N. Swarzskopf (however you spell his name) and colleagues had been collaborating for months with the Kuwaitis in a joint defense aggreement... basically the Kuwaiti leadership knew that if Iraq invaded, the US would kick em out. They'd war-gamed it and everything (In the wider game the US had even speculated that an Iraqi invasion of Kuwait would be the most likely scenario to justify a large scale American military intervention in the Middle East)
The last thing America wanted in the time leading up to war was for Iraq to agree to pull out of Kuwait, that's why if you read the history of those weeks, you'll find that the US gave Iraq no opportunity to at least save face, even though the Iraqis terms regarding a pull out were reasonable.
America wanted a war. It got it's war, and the benifits were manifest and obvious to anybody who knows where American interests lie.
Of course you probably believe the glorious nice American leader Bush was trying to save the poor fluffy Kuwaitis because he is nice and didn't like the nasty man with the mustache who he never helped because the nasty man didn't'd like democwacy.
Last edited by problem_child on 05-08-2003 at 21:07
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panag
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MY WORDS ARE BACKED WITH BIO-CHEMICAL WEAPONS
Oct 2000
time: 07:30
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quote:
Originally posted by problem_child
He was though, don't get me wrong, the old bastard is an evil bastard, but between the US and Kuwait, the guy was literally gourded/green-lighted into attacking Kuwait. Nobody would want to start another war straight after finishing up eight years of resisting human wave after human wave of fanatical Iranian soldiers (he was encouraged by the US to start that bloody debacle as well).
(Not to mention the history of Kuwait being a former colony of Iraq made a [surrogate] state by the British at the turn of the centuary...)
Kuwait was slant-drilling Iraqi oil across the border, and making demands to be paid back the money it lent Iraq to help fight Iran, and dumping massive amounts of cheap oil on the market, all at a time when an impoverished Iraq was struggling to recover from its long bloody campaigns. Last thing it needed was a devalued oil-market, and the Kuwaiti leadership was pretty much saying '**** you, pay me my money, yeah I'm stealing your oil... so what, **** you pay me my money'
The whole thing amounted to economic warfare. When Saddams lot sounded out the US as to how it would respond if it took military action against Kuwait (which had been refusing to come to the negotiating table to settle the differences) the US rep said something to the afftct of 'We have no opinion on Arab-Arab conflicts'. Saddam fell for it. The US did this allot, they were very keen not to show a red-light to Iraq taking action it seems.
Of course Saddam didn't know that General N. Swarzskopf (however you spell his name) and colleagues had been collaborating for months with the Kuwaitis in a joint defense aggreement... basically the Kuwaiti leadership knew that if Iraq invaded, the US would kick em out. They'd war-gamed it and everything (In the wider game the US had even speculated that an Iraqi invasion of Kuwait would be the most likely scenario to justify a large scale American military intervention in the Middle East)
The last thing America wanted in the time leading up to war was for Iraq to agree to pull out of Kuwait, that's why if you read the history of those weeks, you'll find that the US gave Iraq no opportunity to at least save face, even though the Iraqis terms regarding a pull out were reasonable.
America wanted a war. It got it's war, and the benifits were manifest and obvious to anybody who knows where American interests lie.
Of course you probably believe the glorious nice American leader Bush was trying to save the poor fluffy Kuwaitis because he is nice and didn't like the nasty man with the mustache who he never helped because the nasty man didn't'd like democwacy. |
hi ,
do you really believe that america wanted a war , ......
allas , imagine they did , did they twist saddam's arm to invade Q8 , ..... 
have a nice day
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gunkulator
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quote:
Originally posted by GePap
It would be more realisitc to say that both times, the US was only one factor in what was going on, using and being used by people within Latin America for their own purposes. |
Again, the greatest contribution the US made to Latin America was keeping the European colonial powers out. South America did not become another Africa or India and that was partly, though not wholly, due to the Monroe Doctrine.
Although the US did meddle in Latin America, I would compare the eventual outcome today of US meddling in Latin America with European meddling in Africa any day.
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Kramerman
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UT, Austin - The live music capital of the world
Jun 2002
time: 23:30
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quote:
Originally posted by problem_child
Ever heard of the Non-Aligned Movement? You are a Super Power, and have always been the greater Super Power, why does a bull in a China shop keep seeking to deny any responsability for all the broken crockery, even when said bull does admit to being very active in promoting it's 'way of doing things'.
Believe me it's not hard to blame the US for anything, all the facts are right there in recorded history, look and you see, problem is most voters don't bother to look, and if they do they're so conditioned into making excuses for these actions it really doesn't matter. That's why we are allowed to have 'freedom of speech' in the West, because the powers that be know that it doesn't matter what people say, the system is impervious to it all, look how the current USUK leadership can lie us into a war and then carry on pretty much as if nothing happened. |
wow, i sure hope you missed my point on purpose.
Fact: bastard regimes existed and exist and will continue to exist whether or not the US exists.
during the cold war, if the US didnt support them, the Soviet Union would have. Now would they not only be our enemies, but we would have lost valuable markets. The USA was not a god, it could not make all countries freedom loving bastions of liberty, despite that being a dream. instead we had to choose the lessor of two evils. support the bastards.
if you want to jump on your moral high horse, go ahead, but you are just making yourself look like a moron
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HershOstropoler
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quote:
Originally posted by Spiffor
Africa is such a terrible mess today because the Europeans applied their thinking processes to Africans, who had radically different thinking processes (notably about the role of work, the role of politics, the role of knowledge etc.).
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Yup. Just look at the US reservations. If they weren't right within the US, they'd look like much of subsaharan Africa.
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HershOstropoler
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I don't think Africa would be that messed up without Europeans carving it up. It varies with what colonial practices were like, but overall, just the borders we left there....
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HershOstropoler
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"It is the tribalism in Africa that has doomed it so thoroughly."
Europe had been engaged in tribalist wars for centuries. I think if Africa was still having it's tribal Kingdoms that expand, shrink and go away, it would be better than the current situation. You have the tribalism and the european nation state - plague and cholera at the same time.
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HershOstropoler
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"There are no nation-states in Africa."
More precisely, entities modelled after the european nation state, but without a nation. Well who knows, maybe it would be even worse without them, but most countries are several ethnic groups forced together and cut off from their people in the next state. In state vs tribe, you have no working authority.
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GePap
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of the Big Apple
Nov 2001
time: 23:30
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quote:
Originally posted by gunkulator
Again, the greatest contribution the US made to Latin America was keeping the European colonial powers out. South America did not become another Africa or India and that was partly, though not wholly, due to the Monroe Doctrine. |
Srry, but the only way the Monroe doctrine worked was cause it was also in British interests. In 1820 the US could not have stopped any imperial power from taking over SA states, specially Britain. BUt Britian could keep them at bay, which was in Brisith interest cause then they could gain market share. So Latin America owes more to the UK than US until well into the 19th century. Even then, the US failed to keep the French adventuresrs out of Mexico, and it was the Mexicans who drove them out.
quote:
Although the US did meddle in Latin America, I would compare the eventual outcome today of US meddling in Latin America with European meddling in Africa any day. |
The US meddled far far less, so the two situations are not compatible. You also ignore European meddling in Latin America and US meddling in Africa after 1945.
Last edited by GePap on 06-08-2003 at 00:38
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gunkulator
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quote:
Originally posted by HershOstropoler
Yup. Just look at the US reservations. If they weren't right within the US, they'd look like much of subsaharan Africa. |
Been to one lately? Once the federal gov't granted Native Americans the right to put casinos on their reservations, it created what is essentially a native monopoly on an extremely lucrative business.
Many reservations also act as legal smuggling sites, since natives are exempt from federal, state and local sales taxes on highly taxed items like cigarettes and alcohol.
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HershOstropoler
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And "If they weren't right within the US", what would the point of having casinos? What do you think they would be like ""If they weren't right within the US"?
And how is the overall social situation regarding health, life expectancy, alcoholism, crime etc? Compare them to the remaining french DOM or TOM - they just have the benefit of subsidies, not of being right within France.
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Dom Pedro II
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The College of New Jersey
Nov 1999
time: 05:30
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quote:
The US meddled far far less, so the two situations are not compatible. You also ignore European meddling in Latin America and US meddling in Africa after 1945. |
Yes, and also the Europeans went for territorial power in Africa while the United States was more interested in hegemonic power in Latin America. It didn't want to rule over these territories, it just wanted to make sure the circumstances in these countries were favorable to them.
quote:
Actually, I know almost nothing about this event, except that Napo 3 became megalomaniacal once again and tried to raise Mexico as a great catholic empire on par with the US. I have no idea as to why it failed, how in failed, and in what time... |
The Americans forced the French out ultimately because they moved troops to the Mexican border and basically gave Napoleon an ultimatum.
But it is true, that the Mexican Republicans under Benito Juarez had made the situation all but unwinnable for the Monarchist regime. I do, however, feel sorry for Maximillian. Although he was a monarch, he was a liberal monarch. He had genuinely good intentions for Mexico, and in fact, he made sure that prisoners of the civil war were treated humanely until it no longer became possible because it had just become SO bloody. In fact, I think Mexico would have been A LOT better off if he'd stayed in power for a few years and then was forced out through a bloodless coup like Dom Pedro II. He could've done a lot of good things for Mexico. Although, in favor, of a republic, Juarez was a thug like most other Mexican rulers before and after him.
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05-08-2003 18:30
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