I am not saying we shouldn't have put up road blocks to communist expansion but we also used it as an excuse to stick our noses in a lot of places we didn't belong.
Hmmm... seems to me that VERY FEW American leaders "wanted" to stick their noses into Korea or Vietnam. In fact, if I recall correctly, we wound up there because the Russians and Chinese were sticking their noses in there.
As for supporting dictators, might that be because we found Russia supporting folks like Castro, leaving us with little choice? This so-called US "support" for dictators generally came about because policy makeers preferred stability in the peripheral nations, until the USSR was vanquished.
Chile was a prime example of this, where folks like Kissinger truly didn't care about who govened that nation, so long as it wasn't socialist (and thus sympathetic to the USSR). But that hardly suggests that the US deliberately chose to install and support dictators as a matter of policy.
It was just that so few nations were properly prepared to emerge from colonization (or Caudillismo in Latin America) and create democratic institutions. After all, democracy only truly works if all sides are willing to follow the rules, and the military remains loyal to the institution, and not the political leadership.
As for US support of dictatorships in the Middle East, let's face some facts there.. The only nation that even closely qualifies as a democracy is Israel, and the US is that nation's biggest supporter. In contrast, the USSR supported AND HEAVILY ARMED nothing but totalitarian regimes, including some of the most brutal ones like Assad, Saddam, Quaddafi, as well as most of the totalitarian dictatorships throughout Africa.
They armed the Arab states, and those states used those weapons in order to remain in a constant state of war with a bunch of Jews holding a small strip of land in Palestine.
My main gripe is that we don't fight a cause but a business interest most times.
Like every other nation doesn't? Face some facts Lee...
Before the US ever began sticking their noses into these regions, the British and French were ALREADY THERE. In fact, had the US not become involved in forcing decolonization, it's possible these territories would still be part of their empires. So give us a bit of credit where credit is due.
And furthermore, the US oftens find itself driven to take certain international actions due to media pressure. I still recall when the US place economic sanctions on S. Africa over apartheid. No American business could operate there.. And you would think that our European allies would have followed suit in support of this noble cause. But no... they snuck in there and INCREASED their economic relations with S. Africa, to the disadvantage of US businesses.
Or look back to 1956, when Nasser nationalized the Suez Canal and the French, British, and Israelis (to end the constant threats against them from Nasser), conspired together to overthrow Nasser's regime by force. It was the US, actually Eisenhower, who threw a conniption and forced the Europeans and Israelis to withdraw.
Additionally, there are few laws outside of the US, that prohibit businesses from paying bribes to officials in order to receive favorable consideration. Yet, the US continues to impose such laws on its corporations. And then the Europeans have the gall to complain when the US uses Echelon to monitor their business communications in an effort to discover if US businesses interests are being hampered by such corrupt practices.
So tell me now who is being more meddlesome, and/or sticking their noses in places they don't belong, or supporting corrupt regimes? Is it really those nations who are complaining about the US, or are they proxies for those who seek to perpetuate the previous status quo, where corruption is unaccountable to anyone but those in power. The bottom line is that we're damned if we do, and damned if we don't.
And Lee, anyone with half a brain knows we fought desert storm over oil. Yeah.. liberation of Kuwait was the battle cry, but oil was the real reason we sent 1/2 million US boys and girls into harms way, or should we say, the health of the entire global economic, which is dependent upon that oil. Because permitting some totalitarian regime such as Saddam's to control such an emmense share of the world's oil production would hold every western nation hostage to its whims.
We didn't create these governments in the ME, Lee.. Most were already there, before the US even began "encroaching" on British and French interests in the region, who had been there already for hundreds of years. In fact, until 1918, most of these arab people had been subjects of the Ottoman Turkish empire which had ruled the region since the 1500's, and who had been ruled by some other power prior to that.. They've never known independence, but because of the US, they hold their nationhood. So maybe they should be a bit more grateful that the US DID stick it's nose into places "it didn't belong". Who's going to make those judgements where we have interests or not, or where US "meddling" is really a response to the meddling of some other power.
And the reason we sell them arms is because they would buy them anyway from someone else. But if we sell them to them, we receive mutiple benefits. We defray the costs of developing such expensive weapons... And those who possess our weapon systems depend upon us for maintenance, support, and technical assistance.
And that means they will only go so far towards diverging from our interests.
So don't get caught up in the "US blame game"... We had the entire world in our hands after WWII, had we been disposed to rule it. But that's not our culture. All we want is fair business environments for our corporate interests to operate in. And those developing nations NEED such investment in their economic infrastructure.
So if we have the power and ability to create conditions that lead to economic properity and fair legal and economic systems throughout the world, it's in our interest, AND THEIRS, for us to do so.
Screw them if they call it "meddling".
Hawk |
