World War-3 On the way!! ::Iran Vs... - Page 6

Originally posted by: return_to_hades

The cold war had nothing directly to do with US citizens. However, USA felt that communist influence could negatively affect free trade and global freedom that indirectly affected their citizens and business. That being said the cold war was an immature, childish and reckless standoff between nations that ought to have been more mature.

In hindsight entering Vietnam was a poor decision on part of United States. The intent was never malicious. The French pretty much f**ked up Indochine, and United States like a bunch of idiots thought they could have fixed things. Most of it was fear that the communists would take control, part of it was humanitarian hoping to minimize power struggle in Indochine. It ended up being the worst wars USA fought and our biggest mistake. Had we not involved ourselves history could have remembered it as the big French SNAFU instead of an American one.

Afghanistan was also a similar situation. The USA thought they were containing Russia to protect US interest and at the same time helping the Afghan nationals fight for their sovereignty. It was another idealistic venture that turned out to be a nightmare for Americans.

In regards to Pakistan, USA helps them because in return Pakistan lets us have bases there so we can keep an eye on the Middle East to preserve our oil interests. The Bush administration counted Pakistan as an ally in war on terror and gave wanton aide. The Obama administration has been more cautious, and post Osama's death after finding him in Pakistan ' the relations are not perfectly peachy. Unfortunately, we need to continue occupation in Pakistan and Afghanistan as those regions are in turmoil and keep springing anti-US insurgents.

In regards to the Arab spring and its aftermath like Syria ' the fact is USA did not want to be involved. We fought two wars Afghanistan and Iraq and were economically drained. Congress was speculating budget cuts and no one wanted to spend money to get involved in anyway. When the Libyan regime and now Syrian regime countered against rebels and rebels started dying in military operations the NATO community decided that it was in global human rights to protect rebels from slaughter and USA was forced to involve itself in matters it cannot afford and did not want to.

Due to a few missteps by a few past presidents namely Truman, Nixon and Bush ' the entire nation now faces global repercussions and cannot go back to Monroe doctrine foreign policy of pre WW days. As they say hindsight is 20/20. Of course it is the fault of our own poor policy, but if US foreign policy has to improve ' the world has to cut USA some slack as well.

Originally posted by: Knowcrow69

Stop twisting my words because I never made a comparison to 9/11.

"repeated repetition is the mother of all learning"

So how many more "financial collapses" and failed foreign polices before you "learn".

Personally I like this one better:

The Americans can always be counted on to do the right thing' after they have exhausted all other possibilities."

Originally posted by: TheUltimate

Regarding hindsight.. what "examples" you could come up with were of suicides.. not hindsight. And anyway, the hindsight comes in to the picture if your argument is based solely on the fact that the intent of Iraq war was WMDs (which were found by the way - Google is your friend).

Originally posted by: return_to_hades

http://articles.cnn.com/2004-10-06/world/iraq.wmd.report_1_nuclear-weapons-charles-duelfer-iraq-s-wmd?_s=PM:WORLD

There were no WMD found in Iraq.

In Decision Points, even though Bush never regrets the war in Iraq and believes the end of Saddam was a positive outcome - he admits that there were no WMD found in Iraq, and that Saddam was merely pursuing WMD.

The informant Curveball who defected from Iraq to USA admitted to lying that there were WMD in Iraq. Basically he pulled a fast on on the CIA and completely exaggerated the threat in Iraq. Iraq was a US intelligence failure.

However, if you are referring to the Wikileaks transcripts on Iraq - actual WMD were not found, but a WMD program was found. So Iraq may potentially have had WMD in the future.

Originally posted by: souro

It's not that in hindsight it is proving to be wrong. Yes, now the outcome has been confirmed but some decisions can easily be dubbed hazardous without waiting for the final outcome. Arming a radical group, like the Taliban, to the teeth to fight USSR is one such decision. If there was no powerful Taliban, a lot of the problems that the region faces today wouldn't have arisen.
Although you want to camouflage some of US' activities as humanitarian but it has never been so. They have only meddled in other country's affairs to show off their muscle power and extend their influence to remain the top dog. If it was humanitarian efforts that was on USA's mind, then they would have helped bring stability in some of the African nations which for the past 50 years are fighting one bloody civil war after another. But they won't cos those nations have nothing to offer, no major resources, no regional influence, nothing. This is not to say that US is wrong in not helping them, afterall it's US' prerogative whom they want to help and has a right to be selfish, but trying to pass off those selfish interests as humanitarian will be mocking the intelligence of others.

I never tried to pass of their actions as purely humanitarian. The Cold War was one of the worst phases of US foreign affairs. It was an immature, selfish and ridiculous power struggle with the Soviet Union fueled by the bloated ego of new found prosperity. Vietnam, Korea and Afghanistan were all the results of extremely poor judgment during the Cold War era, and we still pay the repercussions today. My only point is that our intent was not as malicious as it is made out to be and it is not easy to know how a long term outcome. In the late seventies, early eighties – the Taliban appeared as just a tribal group that was trying to defend their lands from Russian invaders. Afghanistan turned to US for help because Russia was a common enemy, and the people were friendly, open and culturally receptive to the Americans. Even if it were a risk, I don't think anyone could have perceived a risk of 09/11 magnitude.

The thing about Afghanistan is that we screwed up a region. It was not the recent Afghanistan war, but it was something we messed up long time ago. We messed it up further by intervening in Iraq. Whatever turmoil is there in the region is our responsibility. If we continue military engagement, it aggravates the situation and people hate our presence. If we simply withdraw, we turn our backs from accepting responsibility and we turn our backs to the risks we have generated. It is a Catch-22 we created for ourselves, and our biggest foreign relations challenge is finding the balance between engagement and withdrawal that works, and working with the international community to find the right way to move forward. It is easy to point fingers at USA and say you f**ked up, yes USA did, but can someone propose a solution where everyone will be safe in the end? Because it is not just USA who is at risk – Pakistan and India face risks from insurgents in the region just as much.

As for humanitarian efforts – the United States did try to have military intervention in Somalia. Unfortunately, the Battle of Mogadishu and other efforts in Somalia were disastrous and US quickly had to abandon efforts. At the same time you are right, we did not invest as much in Somalia or other parts of Africa and would rather spend it waging war where "oil interests" are at stake. There is a large faction (but I guess minority) of Americans (including myself) who have been unhappy at how USA represents itself internationally and hope to change this. Perhaps it is not evident to people abroad, but the White House has shifted dramatically in foreign relations than what it was under the Bush regime. Further fate depends on who comes into power. Romney, Gingrich and Santorum are more aggressive towards Iran while Obama tries to be more diplomatic. If by miracle of fate Ron Paul gets elected, be prepared for shock and awe retreats.

Military aside though, I mentioned earlier USAID and PeaceCorps which are humanitarian branches of the State Depart do continue to operate heavily in Africa. The US government itself has invested heavily in AIDS education and infrastructure in rural Africa, not to mention private citizen volunteers and donations. The US government continues to grant asylum to several war and rape victims in African every year and it is difficult for immigration to keep up. Every State department dollar does not go into trade or war, and hopefully in the future less dollars will go into war and more into USAID or PeaceCorps.

Originally posted by: souro

All those justifying US' wars where dictators have been toppled should bear in mind that it's not just enough to remove a dictator, it's also important to see who is coming in place of that dictator. If someone even more evil is coming into power then what success are we talking about. And the Muslim Brotherhood is looming large in that region in general and all the countries which are facing some kind of instability at present in particular. Completely removing the existing govt. by force and throwing the country in chaos is only going to help the Muslim Brotherhood to come to power.

And may I remind you, US itself is nothing short of a dictator.

Could you be more specific about which dictators are you talking about?

USA did not cause, support or outright encourage the Arab Spring revolutions. In fact most of these rebellions were against US allies. USA eventually caved in and protected rebels from attacks. Otherwise USA was being accused of protecting allies and ignoring human rights interests.

The only dictator we toppled was Saddam Hussein. In my personal opinion that was wrong of the United States. We had no legitimate cause to wage war in Iraq, and our execution was an utter mess and diplomatic nightmare. I won't defend that it was 'right'. However, the war is done. I know most people would like us to withdraw and leave the entire region be. Unfortunately, what is done cannot be undone. Iraq is a mess we got ourselves into, and no matter how people perceive our occupation of Iraq – we can't wash our hands of it until we or others in the international community come up with a feasible long term solution.

Originally posted by: return_to_hades

Could you be more specific about which dictators are you talking about?

USA did not cause, support or outright encourage the Arab Spring revolutions. In fact most of these rebellions were against US allies. USA eventually caved in and protected rebels from attacks. Otherwise USA was being accused of protecting allies and ignoring human rights interests.

The only dictator we toppled was Saddam Hussein. In my personal opinion that was wrong of the United States. We had no legitimate cause to wage war in Iraq, and our execution was an utter mess and diplomatic nightmare. I won't defend that it was 'right'. However, the war is done. I know most people would like us to withdraw and leave the entire region be. Unfortunately, what is done cannot be undone. Iraq is a mess we got ourselves into, and no matter how people perceive our occupation of Iraq ' we can't wash our hands of it until we or others in the international community come up with a feasible long term solution.

Originally posted by: souro

TheUltimate and before that BI were jutifying US' wars especially Iraq war because it helped liberate Iraqi people from Saddam's rule. I think BI was also talking about the Baath party's rule in Syria and therefore it's right for US to threaten Syria.

Originally posted by: return_to_hades

USA did not cause, support or outright encourage the Arab Spring revolutions. In fact most of these rebellions were against US allies. USA eventually caved in and protected rebels from attacks. Otherwise USA was being accused of protecting allies and ignoring human rights interests.

The Libya debacle is just another reason why I don't take America's objective to shove democracy down the throats of other nations well. Gaddafi was a cuckoo dictator, yes, but he'd done well in limiting Islamic extremism in Libya for decades and ensuring that it was one of the rare stable countries in the Islamic world. He was one of the few Muslim leaders who permitted the influx of black sub-Saharan Africans in the menial labor sectors and the Libyan army. It was not his fault that xenophobia gradually surfaced in the country over the years and lead to resentment amongst the local populace against the 'newcomers', eventually leading to significant ethnic cleansing there. By trying to nurse the Libyan rebels, the U.S. only ended up inadvertently backing the people who were doing most of the killing.

There have been umpteen reports of the rebels unlawfully executing (like they did with Gaddafi) and abusing 'suspected mercenaries' (black Libyans and immigrants who were protected during Gaddafi's regime) and even indiscriminately butchering civilians as per Human Rights Watch. And the U.S. still continues to fund and support them.

Additionally, Obama subverted the checks and balances system in the form of the War Powers Act before the Libya catastrophe and hadn't even sought congressional consent at the time. Even the U.N. resolution states that member nations cannot authorize military action to influence the internal affairs of other member countries.

The same thing is happening in Egypt now. After Mubarak was ousted, the violence between the Coptic Christians and Islamic extremists has only increased. The military there is turning a blind eye to everything even when Coptic Christian churches are being firebombed and horrible human rights abuses are taking place. When Mubarak was in power, he'd kept the Islamists in check, overseen the protection of the minorities, and even managed to maintain some degree of peace with Israel.

I find it very telling that the countries with little or limited oil reserves, such as Syria, Tunisia, Egypt, etc., which relatively had more freedom than the oil-rich nations (with the exception of Libya), are the ones being 'democratised'. A significant chunk of the democracies that cropped up over the past three or so decades in the Middle East/North Africa produce hardly any oil, while the likes of Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, and Kuwait, where oil wealth has led to authoritarianism and corruption, conveniently end up being on the U.S.' 'good' side.

Nothing good has come of the Arab Spring, and nothing ever will. The U.S. never learns from its 'mistakes' and has made much of the world a dormant volcano waiting to explode due to its skewed foreign policies. There's also a lot to be said about its problem with Venezuela, just because Chavez has hampered America's efforts to exercise more influence in South America. It won't be long before the U.S. declares war against Venezuela as well over time under the guise of promoting 'democracy' there and overthrowing a schizophrenic Chavez- all for its rich oil reserves.