Rumsfeld Warns Syria

[MRT144]

can i get a list of succesful american set up "democracies" vs. unsuccesful "democracies".

The biggest problem i find with the whole american line of spreading american values is that sometimes the result is only self serving to the US rather than being beneficial to the people.

[Dinner]

Originally posted by MRT144
so why is america going after problems it didnt create

Because these disfunctional societies have created terrorists and never do wells that have destablized the whole region and endangered our own country.

[MRT144]

and democracy will cure them of ill will towards america and on a larger note israel?

[Az]

actually, the problem is that america does not spread it's core values. I could live with that. But America very rarely adopted countries that actually have a similar way of life, Israel is a very rare example, and even that was done full around the beginning of the 70s.

The Soviet Union was did meliorate people's lifes in many of the 3rd world countries it influenced. The Arab countries are an exception to the rule.

[MRT144]

thats the biggest problem i have is that the government of the US claims one thing which is exporting our values to cure the world of its problems but turns around and just uses other nations for sole benefit of itself consequences be damned.

[Urban Ranger]

Originally posted by Oerdin
The Shah was returned to power but he's been gone for darn near 25 years. To continue to blame the region's self made problems on the U.S. for restoring the Shah to power a third of a century ago is total B.S..

Really?

Iraq: the US helped Saddam to power and propped him up during the Iran-Iraq War.

Iran: if the US didn't put Shah back in, there wouldn't be a fundamentalist Islamic government.

Israel: nothing needed to be said here

Lebanon: If it weren't for US propping up Israel, Lebanon wouldn't be all messed up.

Saudi Arabia: the US is definitely propping up the House of Saud here.

Should I go on?

[Az]

The US propping Saddam to power is very very vague. He wasn't immediately the leader, you know.

Israel:

[MRT144]

azazel, please, we are israels *****. you can just pimp us for whatever the hell youwant.

[Dinner]

Originally posted by MRT144
can i get a list of succesful american set up "democracies" vs. unsuccesful "democracies".

The biggest problem i find with the whole american line of spreading american values is that sometimes the result is only self serving to the US rather than being beneficial to the people.

Admitably it took a while for many of these to become full fledged democracies but that had alot to do with cold war. Japan, West Germany, Austria (Brtain & US insisted on free elections but the Soviets insisted on them being non aligned), Korea (better late then never), Taiwan (ditto), Italy, large numbers of Latin American states (sure the U.S. meddled but they did help more then they hurt), the U.S. embargo was instrumental in ended South African Apartide, the Phillipines (intermitent dictatorships but still the U.S. kept nugging them back towards democracy), and I'm sure there is more but that's all I can think of off the top of my head.

[MRT144]

WW2 countries are valid yet the shah isnt as evidence of american success and failures? and youre basis for the shah being invaid was TIME?

[Az]

Just from the other night: America wants us to cancel the sale of an Israeli early warning system to India, just so that the US defence contractors would get the billion dollar deal. A similar deal was torpedoed with the PRC. Understandable? only in a puppeteer-lackey relationship.

that ~2.5-3Bil$ USD that you give us is just money to support your own defense contractors, and was generally a standard procedure in cold war politics.
Civilian aid: not since we became a 1st world country, beginning of the 90s.

In the 60s, we had to wait for a couple of weeks, being besieged, and cut of our oil supplies, so that you wouldn't be seen as too much of an agressor, so you could continue to carpet-bomb Vietnam.

Pollard? Very grave. But it's not like you haven't spied on us in relations of signal intelligence. Of course, you're allowed to do that, because you're a superpower. Constant flying of spy planes over Israel, etc. etc.

The "Liberty"? oh right, the ship that the evil ZOG bombed because it hates america/freedom/rednecks/whatever. I've yet to see a good reason for Israel to target a US ship, so it probably was an error.


Errors happen: A couple of days ago, two Israeli journalists, together with their Portugese colleagues were incarcerated, beaten and humiliated by US soldiers, that thought they were spies, despite continuously claiming to be Israeli, and Portugese, countries very close to the US. well, tough, they were released after a couple of days, after a small apology.

That is, of course, unless another very strong theory comes up, and your CIA/NSA/KFC boys on board were up to something real crass, like they're used to in N more other countries.

We're your lackeys. Maybe the pro-Israeli lobbie makes it so that you yank ( no pun intended ) our chain less, but you still continue doing it.

I won't even go back into the 50s, when the US marines threatened to take the same city I live in now, via an amphibious landing.

[Az]

Latin America:

sure the U.S. meddled but they did help more then they hurt

You're going to have to substanciate your claims.

[MRT144]

its a symbiotic relationship with you gaining more from it than us.

[chequita guevara]

Originally posted by Oerdin
Admitably it took a while for many of these to become full fledged democracies but that had alot to do with cold war. Japan, West Germany, Austria (Brtain & US insisted on free elections but the Soviets insisted on them being non aligned)

Japan and Germany had long democratic traditions before WWII. The Mejii Restoration and the German Empire had relatively important parliaments and elections before both succumbed to dictatorship. The US get's no credit there. That's like saying we helped establish a working democracy in France. Italy was also democratic before Mussolini, a constitutional monarchy with a powerful parliament.

Korea (better late then never), Taiwan (ditto),

No thanks to the U.S. Democracy there was forced upon those government by the people against the US backed dicatatorships.

large numbers of Latin American states (sure the U.S. meddled but they did help more then they hurt),

See comments about Korea and Taiwan. It's actually worse in Latin America's case, because in L.A., democracies were overthrown to establish decades of the most viscious dicatorships this hemisphere had ever seen. Even today those countries are not free from the effects. Argentina is a basketcase, Chile's murderers still walk the streets, and in Guatemala, El Salvador, and Honduras, the military still exerts fear among the new civilian governments. In Nicaragua, one of the mmost democratic and populist governments was destroyed and replaced with a corrupt government which has let the country slide back into poverty and squalor.

the U.S. embargo was instrumental in ended South African Apartide,

Our "embargo" was pitiful. It was the American people's boycoot of companies doing business with South Africa in addition to the boycotts of people around the globe that finally forced South Africa's hand.

the Phillipines (intermitent dictatorships but still the U.S. kept nugging them back towards democracy),

That's a joke, right? The US backed Marcos from day one. It wasn't until it became clear that Marcos was going to fall no matter what that the US told him it was time to go and gave him the means to escape. The alternative might have been a massacre followed by massive civil war. That's like saying the US was nudging the Shah towards democracy.

The US record toward democracy has been abysmal. We are one of the world's major enemies of democracy, and not only among the Third World. We screwed with elections in Western Europe, especially in Italy (but not Italy alone). Here at home our democratic rights have been hard won and hard kept. The FBI keeps tabs on or actively disrupts dissidents. Election laws are written so as to keep the government in the hands of the two parties. Democracy is a struggle in America.

[chequita guevara]

Originally posted by Azazel
The "Liberty"? oh right, the ship that the evil ZOG bombed because it hates america/freedom/rednecks/whatever. I've yet to see a good reason for Israel to target a US ship, so it probably was an error.

I've yet to see good proof that the attack was an error. The Iraqi attack on the Stark was an error: one missile, one hit. The attack on the Liberty had repeated fly-overs before the attack, and a big-ass US flag flying, not to mention it looks nothing like the ship the Israelis claim they were targetting. Furthermore, the targetting the electronics section of the ship, which a horse carrier wouldn't have had.