The Berlin Airlift

[Urban Ranger]

Originally posted by Lancer
paiktis, sorry about that. The Soviets had the force to overrun and enslave much of europe. Put many more people into their international prison system called the Warsaw Pact. In order to hold back the Soviets the US and allies had to do get in bed with some real dogs. Well, woof.

That sounds like some bad Cold War era propaganda, Lance.

[notyoueither]

Originally posted by Spiffor
Comparing the future civilian casualties in Iraq to French resistors would be equivalent to compare 11th Sept's victims to freedom fighters. Nonsense.

Most of these people will have no control over their deaths or their engagement (unlike freedom fighters), and will just randomly get killed by bombs. Western bombs.
I wonder if Iraqis are ready to pay such a price to oust Saddam. Sadly, we'll never know.

You know Spiffor, many French civilians died due to bombing, shelling and battle. Should Britain, the Commonwealth and the United States not have invaded?

Of course you'll say that you were occupied, so yes, that was a good thing in the end.

So then, why not stop at the Rhine? Many more German civilians died due to shelling and battle, not to mention bombing. So why was that a good thing? Can you explain that to me?

[Ted Striker]

USA!

Bundesrepublik Deutschland!

[DuncanK]

If you're against a war, it's not enough just to say people will die to support your opinion. Well, it is here at poly But normally you should use other arguments. It goes without saying that people will die.

[Straybow]

Knee-jerk leftism needs correction

Originally posted by uh Clem
So you'll find instances of Americans selflessly standing up for freedom. You'll also find things like, oh, US support for Central American death-squad governments in the 1980s.

You need to learn some history, boy. As Ming said, people seem awfully quick to blame the US for every death in any country we try to deal with in a positive manner.

I'll never forget when I met a man who had been a leader among the Contras. He came to speak at my university. Sorry, but after 17 years I can't remember his name. At the time the Iran-Contra scandal had just come to light…
[flashback; cue harp arpeggio]
At the question and answer session, a stereotypical peacenik raised the issue of death squads, etc. The answer was that at no time did any US official or agent train, oversee, or approve any such activity.

Originally there had been at least 4 major factions of Contras, and for good reasons they didn't get along. For example, one group was the secret police of the deposed dictator, and some other groups hated them more than the Sandanistas.

Democrats in the House of Representatives inserted an amendment to a bill forcing all the groups to consolidate or else none would get any US support. The speaker tried to work with the other leaders until it came to translating parts of the CIA field manual into training materials for Contra recruits.

The former secret police insisted on including the torture and destabilization material and everyone suspected they wanted to make use of it the wrong way. The CIA field agents advised against it, as the material is there for the purpose of training operatives to resist torture and accurately asses destabilization techniques used by communist guerrillas.

Such training was unnecessary. There weren't any commie guerrillas, they were in power. Good ol' Danny Ortega enjoyed being the darling of the left and so kept his nose clean regarding treatment of dissidents. Still the ex-spooks insisted. The faction threatened to break up the alliance, and the Dems would kill all US funding.

At that the speaker and his uncle (with whom he had led a pro-democracy Contra faction) resigned. The uncle went into hiding, but the speaker turned himself in to the Nicaraguan authorities because in prison he would at least be allowed some contact with his family. He served a couple years of a lengthy sentence, was then paroled and exiled (hence the speaking engagement in the US).

The peacenik objected, "But I spent all day studying this in the library…" and was laughed to silence, much to his fellow protestors' chagrin. [/flashback; cue harp]

Moral: try finding out who is really responsible before assigning blame.

[Straybow]

Some things never change. The one Berlin airfield in Western hands wasn't enough to handle the traffic, so they built 2 more. One site was blocked by a radio tower that the French occupation force was using, and they refused to move it.

It met with an unfortunate accident.

[uh Clem]

Straybow, nice try. By 'death-squad governments,' try El Salvador and Guatemala. I know all those funny little countries down there might look alike to someone who was in college a mere 17 years ago, but there actually are some differences.

If you want to discuss it (I don't, I just used it as an example), start another thread.

I enjoyed the harp arpeggio. Neat idea.

* * *

I'm sure in the past 50 years a lot of GIs couldn't handle their first taste of German beer and wound up splattering themselves all over the autobahn. That doesn't make them Martyrs to Freedom, as Lancer would seem to think.

It's the flip side of another equally ridiculous idea, that anyone who went to Vietnam is a Baby Killer. Both demonizing and whitewashing are dishonest (not to mention being acts of self-stupidification).

[Lancer]

uh Clem, this isn't your thread, they can discuss it here. This is my thread.

[uh Clem]

Didn't say otherwise. I didn't want to threadjack to talk about Central America. A mere courtesy to the person who started the thread. Glad it was appreciated.

[Straybow]

And you still don't get it, Clem. What if we were to look at French relations with her former colonies in N. Africa and blame France for their internal politics? We dealt with the governments in power. Or do you think we should have plotted to overthrow them in addition to the Sandanistas?

[Lancer]

UR, the "bad cold war propaganda" as you call it, was fact. I didn't get it from biased news sources, I was there.

[Hueij]

At the question and answer session, a stereotypical peacenik raised the issue of death squads, etc. The answer was that at no time did any US official or agent train, oversee, or approve any such activity.

The name Academy Of The America's ring a bell?

[uh Clem]

We dealt with the governments in power. Or do you think we should have plotted to overthrow them in addition to the Sandanistas?

Uh, the US did overthrow the (democratically elected) government in Guatemala (1954), and did it again a few years later when the militarists we'd installed weren't quite militaristic enough. The civil war that resulted, which lasted for decades, is thus primarily Washington's responsibility.

There's lots of good, too. No denying that. But accept responsibility for the bad as well as the good. Not only is it more accurate and honest; people will also be more likely to believe you.

[Sava]

some people don't want to believe that the US installs/supports brutal dictators

[Ned]

uh Clem, even assuming their were anti-communist death squads in El Salvador and Guatemala, what makes you think that these were US sponsored?