From Pol Pot to the Islamic State

[georgephillip]

This is a staggeringly ignorant thread.

I particularly like the refernce to Nixon's honesty....when most of us remember that the war in Cambodia was kept secret from the American people.

Blaming Obama for the conflicts in Syria and Libya?

That really is beyond childish. Both conflicts began years before any western involvement.

When do you imagine both conflicts began?
"In Clark's book, Winning Modern Wars, published in 2003, he describes his conversation with a military officer in the Pentagon shortly after 9/11 regarding a plan to attack seven Middle Eastern countries in five years: 'As I went back through the Pentagon in November 2001, one of the senior military staff officers had time for a chat.

"'Yes, we were still on track for going against Iraq, he said. But there was more. This was being discussed as part of a five-year campaign plan, he said, and there were a total of seven countries, beginning with Iraq, then Syria, Lebanon, Libya, Somalia, Sudan and finishing off Iran.' [145]"
Wesley Clark - Wikipedia the free encyclopedia

 

[Thunderbird]

And let's not forget the eagerness of Democrats for the Iraq War.

The Democrats’ Support for Bush’s War

 

[georgephillip]

Let's not forget Noam Chomsky and how much he did for the Khmer Rouge cause.

Chomsky Denies a Genocide

The Hypocrisy of Noam Chomsky

When Chomsky Wept:
"Forty-two years ago I had an unusual experience. I became friendly with a guy named Noam Chomsky. I came to know him as a human being before becoming fully aware of his fame and the impact of his work.

"I have often thought of this experience since — both because of the insights it gave me into him and, more important, the deep trouble in which our nation and world find themselves today.

"His foremost contribution for me has been his constant focus on how U.S. leaders treat so many of the world’s population as 'unpeople,' either exploiting them economically or engaging in war-making, which has murdered, maimed or made homeless over 20 million people since the end of World War II (over 5 million in Iraq and 16 million in Indochina according to official U.S. government statistics).

"Our friendship was forged over concern for some of these 'unpeople' when he visited Laos in February 1970. I had been living in a Lao village outside the capital city of Vientiane for three years at that point and spoke Laotian.

"But five months earlier I had been shocked to my core when I interviewed the first Lao refugees brought down to Vientiane from the Plain of Jars in northern Laos, which had been controlled by the communist Pathet Lao since 1964.

"I had discovered to my horror that U.S. executive branch leaders had been clandestinely bombing these peaceful villagers for five-and-a-half years, driving tens of thousands underground and into caves, where they had been forced to live like animals."
When Chomsky wept - Salon.com

 

[Thunderbird]

"Under their bombs, the Khmer Rouge grew to a formidable army of 200,000.

I like the way you keep parroting the same propaganda over and over in the magical belief that this will make it true.

Do you think maybe the support the Khmer Rouge received from other Communist countries had something to do with their growth and success?

 

[Thunderbird]

Let's never forget the brutality of Marxist-Leninist Communists and resolve to never let them anywhere near the levers of power in the future.

 

[georgephillip]

"Under their bombs, the Khmer Rouge grew to a formidable army of 200,000.

I like the way you keep parroting the same propaganda over and over in the magical belief that this will make it true.

Do you think maybe the support the Khmer Rouge received from other Communist countries had something to do with their growth and success?

No doubt the illegal US invasion/occupation of South Vietnam had the same effect on local Communists that our current war crimes in the Middle East have on Sunni and Shiite. If you doubt the influence of US bombs falling on innocent civilians had on Khmer Rouge recruiting efforts, feel free to explain why.

 

[Thunderbird]

that our current war crimes in the Middle East

You are right to point out that Obama is engaged in war crimes.

If you doubt the influence of US bombs falling on innocent civilians had on Khmer Rouge recruiting efforts, feel free to explain why.

Do you feel bombing civilians always aids recruiting efforts? Should we have stopped bombing the Nazis because bombing increased support for the Nazis?

Which was a bigger threat - the Marxist-Leninists with their huge military, advanced missiles, atomic weapons, and worldwide empire - or Iraq?

 

[georgephillip]

that our current war crimes in the Middle East

You are right to point out that Obama is engaged in war crimes.

If you doubt the influence of US bombs falling on innocent civilians had on Khmer Rouge recruiting efforts, feel free to explain why.

Do you feel bombing civilians always aids recruiting efforts? Should we have stopped bombing the Nazis because bombing increased support for the Nazis?

Which was a bigger threat - the Marxist-Leninists with their huge military, advanced missiles, atomic weapons, and worldwide empire - or Iraq?

The very last thing Marxist-Leninists needed at the end of WWII was a Cold War with a continental superpower whose homeland infrastructure was untouched by the most destructive war in human history. As an anecdote, the earliest memories I have of adult political discussions in the early 1950s involved the fear of a return of the Great Depression after WWII ended, hence, the invasions and occupations of South Korea and South Vietnam.

The US was at war with Japan and Germany, and many US leaders would have been convicted of war crimes for their roles in bombing enemy cities during that conflict had the US lost. We were not at war with Laos or Cambodia a generation later, and their people posed no threat to the US homeland in the way the Axis powers did.

 

[Saigon]

George -

My advice would be to log out and come back with a new handle. You'll be teased about this thread for years otherwise.

 

[August West]

And let's not forget the eagerness of Democrats for the Iraq War.

The Democrats’ Support for Bush’s War

We won`t and we won`t forget the 935 lies they listened to before the vote.
Finding the truth in 935 lies about war with Iraq Center for Public Integrity

 

[georgephillip]

And let's not forget the eagerness of Democrats for the Iraq War.

The Democrats’ Support for Bush’s War

We won`t and we won`t forget the 935 lies they listened to before the vote.
Finding the truth in 935 lies about war with Iraq Center for Public Integrity

"Chuck writes in the prologue to the book that 'as a professional truth-seeker, I have always been skeptical of statements by those in power, preferring to ignore the official versions of events in my quest for the (sometimes ugly) underlying realities.'

"The realities he found in regard to misinformation on Iraq were stunning. 'Our report found that in the two years after the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, President George W. Bush and seven of his administration’s top officials made at least 935 false statements about the national security threat posed by Iraq. The carefully orchestrated campaign of untruths about Iraq’s alleged threat to U.S. national security from its WMDs or links to al Qaeda (also specious) galvanized public opinion and led the nation to war under decidedly false pretenses.'”

Lies and misinformation have played a crucial role in every major US military action since the end of WWII. When the blow-back from our most recent war crimes in the Middle East arrives, it won't likely be visited upon the architects of those untruths.

Finding the truth in 935 lies about war with Iraq Center for Public Integrity

 

[georgephillip]

George -

My advice would be to log out and come back with a new handle. You'll be teased about this thread for years otherwise.

Sorry, Saigon, I think I'll go with John Pilger's opinion regarding this particular topic:
"The Faustian pacts that contrived a world war a century ago resonate today across the Middle East, and Asia: from Syria to Japan.

"Then, as now, cover-up was the principal weapon.

"In 1917, Prime Minister David Lloyd George declared: 'If people knew the truth, the war would be stopped tomorrow. But of course they don't know and can't know.'"
Today, I would argue the American people are lied to by their leaders, Bush or Obama, on a scale David Lloyd George could only dream about. The US economy has been addicted to war for all of my 67 years, and I suspect that would not change even if the US dollar lost its status as world's reserve currency. Should that happy event come to pass, US war whores would no longer be able to borrow enough money to murder innocent Muslims on the opposite side of the planet, but they could still afford to murder innocent Catholics in Mexico.
That probably wouldn't affect daily life in Finland too much, but I guarantee it would heat things up in Pico-Union where I live.
The accessories to war crimes are those paid to keep the record straight

 

[Thunderbird]

The very last thing Marxist-Leninists needed at the end of WWII was a Cold War with a continental superpower whose homeland infrastructure was untouched by the most destructive war in human history.

And yet the Soviet empire swallowed many Eastern European nations at the end of WW II.

Please don't ignore the brutality of Soviet imperialism.

The Black Book of Communism

 

[Saigon]

George -

Unlike you, I have actually been to Cambodia, and I have sat in the 'Killing Fields' and looked out over the bones of the dead.

I don't think it is something to makes jokes and silly games about.

You should be utterly ashamed of this thread.

 

[Thunderbird]

We won`t and we won`t forget the 935 lies they listened to before the vote.

I forgot Senators and members of the House must meekly accept whatever Bush tells them is true. Please stop trying to squirm away from blame - it makes you look like a tool.

And Hillary continued to defend her support of the war!

Hillary Clinton: No regret on Iraq vote

 

[August West]

We won`t and we won`t forget the 935 lies they listened to before the vote.

I forgot Senators and members of the House must meekly accept whatever Bush tells them is true. Please stop trying to squirm away from blame - it makes you look like a tool.

And Hillary continued to defend her support of the war!

Hillary Clinton: No regret on Iraq vote

Before the vote Saddam wouldn`t allow weapons inspectors into the country so the vote did what it was intended to do. How do you think the votes would have gone if they took another vote after Hans Blix and his team were expelled from the country for NOT FINDING anything that was a threat to the U.S.? This one is on president flight suit. A lot of politicians talked tough but one man and one man alone is responsible for this fiasco.

 

[Picaro]

Pilger is a hack who markets simplistic nonsense to simplistic conspiracy nutters. Might as well quote Onion articles or Mad Magazine. The Red Chinese supported Pol Pot, and the U.S. nor any other SEATO country had anything to do with his rise to power.

As for U.S. foreign policy, the Viet Nam civil war was a necessity, even as it was one those necessities was there was no perfect outcome and all the choices were bad, it was the least bad option to attempt to prop up the South against Ho. As Kissinger said,"Many times in foreign policy all the choices are bad, so it's a matter of choosing the least bad choice.", and the VN policy was such a choice. We couldn't abandon our SEATO allies nor allow a Soviet naval base in Viet Nam.


As a result, there was no Soviet naval base built there astride the critical Asian sea routes, Brezshnev's Soviet Union was driven into bankruptcy and unable to keep maintaining their ME allies and African operations, and became dependent on Western wheat just to survive, hence the 'Detente' era. followed by Gorbachev's reforms. Despite all the dramatic sniveling and hyperbole, it was a long term policy victory for the West. And, we also headed off a Sino-Soviet conflict that could have easily escalated into WW III as well.

 

[Picaro]

The very last thing Marxist-Leninists needed at the end of WWII was a Cold War with a continental superpower whose homeland infrastructure was untouched by the most destructive war in human history.

And yet the Soviet empire swallowed many Eastern European nations at the end of WW II.

Please don't ignore the brutality of Soviet imperialism.

The Black Book of Communism

Yes. It was the Soviets who were the aggressive imperialists after WW II, not the U.S., especially with the rise of Khrushchev and his fellow imperialist Brezhnev.

 

[georgephillip]

George -

Unlike you, I have actually been to Cambodia, and I have sat in the 'Killing Fields' and looked out over the bones of the dead.

I don't think it is something to makes jokes and silly games about.

You should be utterly ashamed of this thread.

What do you imagine you're proving by claiming to "have sat in the 'Killing Fields' and looked out over the bones of the dead?"

Are you saying Operation Menu had nothing to do with the Killing Fields of Cambodia?

The millions who died since the end of WWII in Korea, Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia died because of the imperial actions of the U-S-A.(full stop.)

 

[Saigon]

What do you imagine you're proving by claiming to "have sat in the 'Killing Fields' and looked out over the bones of the dead?"

That I know enough about the topic to know your infantile jokes about it are not funny.