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Pastimes : Let's Talk About Our Feelings!!! -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Brumar89 who wrote (99169)	3/22/2005 12:51:55 AM
From: cosmicforce	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 108807

<I don't think we need to be beating ourselves up over the fact that the US once threw its weight around in central and south America.> We now throw our weight around domestic and international fronts. We think international law is "quaint". We threw our weight around in the ME in our dealings with the Shah. We supported and armed Saddam Hussein (those darn pictures of Rumsfeld shaking Saddam's hand just won't go away) <You think there was an evil American conspiracy all the way back in the '20's to start WWII?> Not just me, btw, and it started from the time that the American fleet sailed into Tokyo telling them they didn't have the right to keep to themselves! Perry showed them. Pissed them right off. And then we humiliated them at the Treaty of Versailles. We embargoed their oil and they were dependent upon imports, more so than us. Look at how American propaganda portrayed the Asians: we made them look like buck-tooth monkeys. Just out of curiosity, what do you think would happen if Venezuela decided to embargo the U.S. tomorrow and got the ME states to agree to extend the embargo the next week or month? Would we see this as an act of aggression? Yes. So did Japan. We seem to have some military objectives of our own that look mighty imperialistic through an international lens. You do know that the plan to take Arab oil fields as an act of preemption existed under Regan, don't you? Reference: National Security Decision Directive (NSDD 114) from Ronald W. Reagan. "U.S. Policy toward the Iran-Iraq War", November 26, 1983 <the Japanese would have likely been successful in building their East Asian empire > More so than the Chinese? Or the Russians. Oh, please. We didn't and couldn't stop the Chinese from becoming communists or simply let the Chinese take Tibet. Who controls Asia now? It's not Japan. The Japanese were warlike and so were we. We let the League of Nations fail and we're trying to make the UN fail now. The line, "give peace a chance" comes to mind. BTW, before it is said, "NO! Japan wasn't playing nice." But, there was a pattern of isolation. When you isolate, marginalize and embargo, things like 9/11 tend to happen. "NO! That doesn't make it okay!" Enough straw men. There is not one bit of relationship between Iraq and 9/11 and no one can show there is. No, there were no WMDs. It's really time we list the facts, address them one by one and try to build some bridges. At the very least, we should stop antagonizing everyone. It looks like even the President may be getting a clue. I should hope so.