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Are most Americans aware of this and do they care ?

Moravian 8 Jan 24
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1

One of the problems with US and European intervention is that it is often short-term. Making large numbers of quick military strikes, which are presumably done to appear to be proactive and win approval from large numbers of voters at home, who a largely ignorant of international issues. Then followed by a rapid departure, often leaving things worse than they were to begin with.

Some would perhaps say that the US would be better not making any military interventions abroad. But It would also be a lot better if the US and the UK etc. made only a tenth of the interventions they do, but then spent a small portion of the resources on long term rebuilding, and securing the peace. Securing the peace and its benefits takes far longer, and is a lot harder than winning a small war, but if you do make war, you have to be prepared to stay thirty years or more, until at least one post war generation have grown up and real economic, democratic and educational foundations are laid down, but of course there are no votes at home in that. Every quick military strike may take out an enemy, but it, and the long term after effects, are the best way of breeding ten more enemies yet invented.

You are ignoring Soviet and Chinese help in stirring up some locations as well. Yes, western countries have done that too. But, to ignore the impact of similar activities by Russia and China is leaving out part of the equation. And puts too much blame on one side.

@Rob1948 No, that in many ways is my whole point, since Russia and China do stay for the long term and that is the whole source of their success, even using far fewer resources. Often they simply wait out the West's interest and only begin after we leave and they have usually been there for years before.

@Fernapple I agree on short term issues but you cannot ignore the fact that, often, none of the Cold War powers should be involved to begin with. Nor can you ignore the fact that, when one side interferes, the other pops up in opposition, often to the detriment of the “host” country.

@Rob1948 Thats very true, the tit for tat use of third world countries and other weaker nations as proxy wars is a great evil of the day. But in democracies politcians want to pose as global statesmen because they, (perhaps wrongly) think that it impresses voters. While in the former communist world dictators want to distract people from domestic failings, and strengthen their grip on power, by pointing to, often quite unreal, foreign threats. So the game suits both sides and while the rulers of the super powers play games to win often trivial support at home, the weaker nations will continue to suffer.

1

Interesting and encouraging comments. After WW2 the UK ceased to be a world power and on one of the few occasions it tried to assert itself,in Suez, it got a bloody nose. Tony Blair will always be yesterdays man in politics here for supporting Bush in the Iraq invasion, and also for his champagne socialist lifestyle which is a pity as he is one of the few who have sensible views on Brexit.. Harold Wilson had more guts in the 60's refusing to help in the Vietnam war,
Worryingly defence secretary Gavin Williamson is on record as saying that after Brexit the UK can again assert itself as a world power. What a pratt.

You may also remember that, T. Blair was the man who was two faced enough to conceal his religious affiliations until after he left office, gave the world a new word for a especially cowardly form of lying, created faith schools which have destroyed the education of many children while enriching the worst forms of theocrats, and in a country short of both land and housing gave his rich friends a tax break on second homes. Whatever his views on brexit, and everyone has to be right on something, he was undoubtedly the most evil little creep to ever crawl into number ten.

@Fernapple so you don't like him then 🙂

@Moravian You guessed !

1

Noam Chomsky and Howard Zinn...Democracy Now... anybody??

1

Some know, and are appalled.
Some know and don't care.
Some wouldn't care, even if they knew.

Those who know, are appalled, and try to say or do anything about it,
are most often ignored.

What would you have us do exactly?

1

Most are unaware of this, due to what little history they get in school (much of which is sugar-coated).And if confronted with unpleasant facts, Americans are conditioned to get defensive about it. It's like they live in their own glass house over here.

1

We are not always the good guys...everyone knows that except most Americans...Panama 1989...

Well we put him power just as we did 5 others that we had to go back and “ bring democracy “ to their countries.

@48thRonin Yes...he was a pawn and when his usefulness was over, they ousted him...He was scum the whole time, but depending on what the US wanted, he was made to look like a hero...as they say, history is written from the side of the victors, not the truth...

@thinktwice It’s only the truth because the masses have never had a way to be heard.

They would protest and cry out for public attention and their leaders would retaliate and we here in America would simply label them as rebels, terrorist, communist, and the attackers of democracy.

But just as in Syria and now Venezuela social media has made it possible for us to see their lives through a mostly unfiltered view.
So I can only hope that everyone will call out our political leaders as well as the mainstream media for attempting to mislead everyone for as long as they have.

@48thRonin You are correct...the days of simply accepting what was seen on a little black and white tv are over...the Vietnam war was fed to us as a fight against communism and when the protests began, every attempt was made to silence us...now that just about everyone has some way of posting online, we can get much more information directly...I have changed many of my views toward all sorts of thing because of this..

1

I know about it and I very much care. I do what I can with what is available to me in the voting booth on every election day. Come and join me.

0

I am aware of most of the activities mentioned in the article and would take this more seriously were it an even-handed, unbiased analysis of what actually happened. I’m not going to defend or criticize US activities based on this article. Why? Because the article is biased and incomplete.

Some example:

  1. In discussing Vietnam, the article completely ignores the history of the Vietnamese conflict and completely ignores the impacts of French colonialism and the conflict that arose as a result.

  2. In discussing the invasion of Kuwait, the article states that Iraq believed the US would support such an invasion. Therefore, whether true or not, the invasion is the US’s fault despite the fact that Iraq made the decision.

  3. In criticizing the US for the invasion of Iraq because of supposed support, and uses the same kind of logic to support the claim that Iran-Iraq war is also the fault of the US, and to claim that the US made Russia invade Afghanistan by giving aid to the Mujahadeen. Seriously, the US made these countries invade another country?

  4. The use of phrasing like “…has made it a pawn in the hands of capitalist countries…” (in reference to Yugoslavia) and others like it in the article scream bias.

  5. With respect to Korea, it’s widely thought that North Korea, after a series of border skirmishes between the North and South, invading the South was responsible for the start of the Korean War. The US is blamed for starting the conflict none-the-less, Soviet involvement completely dismissed (despite many believing the Soviets instigated the NK invasion and direct Soviet involvement) and completely ignore Chinese involvement.

In short, the article cherry picks, distorts and/or ignores facts and provides biased commentary which no legitimate research would ever use in writings.

Yes, the US much like China and Russia has meddle in the affairs of other countries. Much of this is the inevitable struggles associated with opposing sides of the Cold War and, as often as not, stems from long-term ills stemming from the colonial past of countries dominated by Britain, France, Germany, Belgium and Japan as reflected in Southeast Asia, Africa and the Middle East. It’s furrher exacerbated by the division of Eastern Europe after WWII and the division of the Middle East after WWI and the ethnic/religious stresses that resulted.

In other words, it’s a far more complex situation than everything is America’s fault. Not everything is.

Some good points.

  1. The days of European colonies were coming to an end but I think it was the USA's paranoia over the spread of communism that encouraged then to take over.in Vietnam

  2. good point

3.Would Iraq have invaded Iran without the support of the USA.? Western interference in Iran goes way back to when the Anglo Iranian oil company was nationalised has had knock on effects right up until today

To say that the USA made the Soviet Union invade Afghanistan is a bit naïve.

  1. bad blood between sectarian groups in the former Yugoslavia go way back to previous Soviet times and the break up gave them a chance to settle old scores. It was handled badly by the UN though.

  2. Surely the Korean war shows the futility of war. Thousands dead , a country devastated and after it all nothing gained.

@Moravian on your first point, I noted Cold War pressures but, the problem started way earlier with colonial occupation and the efforts by communist rebels to kick France out.

  1. Western influence goes back further to English interference with the Ottoman Empire in WWII and the partitioning of the Middle East thanks to British influence. Support, even arms deals, don’t force a country to invade another. And Iran-Iraq is exacerbated by the religious differences of the ruling factions of the two countries.

Yes, naive and that maybe an understatement.

  1. Partitioning after WWII certainly helped as well.

  2. Yes it does.

0

The U.S. is the biggest purveyors of violence the world has ever known. But I don't think most Americans think about it that way, they just accept the constant line we are told that it is necessary to protect our freedom.

@PalacinkyPDX I made my statement by looking at the whole picture not just direct combat deaths. When you factor in our role in producing weapons and the global arms trade plus the fact we invented and have used nuclear weapons. Looking at the whole picture we are definitely #1......

@PalacinkyPDX You definitely have a lot of valid points, it's kinda how you look at it. Good debate question though.

@PalacinkyPDX What you say is very true but maybe because the abhorrent activities of the UK were carried out in an earlier age when people were more "Christian" they are just accepted, whereas the activities of the USA were carried out in more enlightened times

0

I agree with George Washington when he said ""Avoid foreign entangling alliances"
I also support the Monroe Doctrine.
When we got involved with affairs in Europe and Asia it cost us lives and money.

0

I wonder how many of those deaths you can attribute to the Bush family?

BD66 Level 8 Jan 24, 2019
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