Why do so many insult U.S foreign policy during the cold war?

[bianco]

Our foreign policy of the era deserves to be critically examined, not simply excused with "we stopped communism". We undermined democratically elected governments, assassinated labor leaders for the sake of our large corporations operating overseas, propped up military dictators, Trained murderers to be better murderers on our own soil and a host of other pretty nasty things and in spite of the Soviet union being long dead we are still doing the same thing.

Obama inc backing AQ linked rebels in Syria is a very bad policy by them.

 

[HenryBHough]

Our foreign policy of the era deserves to be critically examined, not simply excused with "we stopped communism". We undermined democratically elected governments, assassinated labor leaders for the sake of our large corporations operating overseas, propped up military dictators, Trained murderers to be better murderers on our own soil and a host of other pretty nasty things and in spite of the Soviet union being long dead we are still doing the same thing.

Obama inc backing AQ linked rebels in Syria is a very bad policy by them.

Bad?

Yes.

Surprising?

NOT

 

[Friends]

Communist subversion was never a legitimate concern for the United States. It only succeeded in third world countries where a right wing dictatorship protected a parasitic oligarchy against an impoverished populace. Even then it usually failed.

Governments that needed our support did not deserve it. Governments that deserved it did not need it.

During the Cold War the same kind of Americans who do not want the U.S. government to tell them what to do thought the U.S. government had the right to tell people in other countries what to do, and it had the right to kill them if they refused.

 

[Friends]

You have an extremely naive and uninformed understanding of who and what the United States is.

In the 50's and 60's we had Joint Chiefs of Staff who firmly believed the U.S. should unleash a pre-emptive nuclear broadside against Russia while America still enjoyed massive arms superiority.

South America and the Middle East are the manifestation of America imperialism. America wasn't stopping communism, they were stopping sovereign nations from self determination and especially preventing them from control of their own natural resources.

Were not the Soviets doing the same?

You lost this debate when you made the Soviet Union our measuring stick. But it is really not surprising, because the beliefs, methods, policies and outcomes from the American right and the Soviet Union are identical. Be it foreign policy, environmental policy, human policy or human rights...

 

[Friends]

The question was not whether we should keep company with unsavory characters and impede on the governance of others, thats going to happen whether we do it or not. The only question is where their allegiances lay. That was the rule of the cold war. Jimmy Carter tried to ignore it and the Soviets made him look like a fool.

To make us love our country, our country ought to be lovely.

- Edmund Burke


In 1953 President Eisenhower followed the policy you recommend by directing the CIA to overthrow the democratically elected government of Iran and to install the Shah as absolute monarch. Previously he had been a constitutional monarch, sharing power with an elected parliament.

The Shah was never a popular dictator. The Iranians knew that we put him in power and kept him in power by helping to create and to maintain SAVAK, his secret police.

When the Shah was finally overthrow, the Iranians hated us, just as we would hate a country that imposed a dictator on us. The only thing Carter could have done to save the Shah was to occupy Iran.

President Carter had learned from the War in Vietnam that it is not a good idea to occupy a hostile population that is willing to fight back. President George W. Bush unfortunately did not learn that, and started expensive wars in Afghanistan and Iraq that he could not win.

 

[Friends]

[ame=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F_p1JC3z2kU]Country Joe McDonald - I Feel Like I'm Fixin' To Die Rag - YouTube[/ame]

 

[Publius1787]

The question was not whether we should keep company with unsavory characters and impede on the governance of others, thats going to happen whether we do it or not. The only question is where their allegiances lay. That was the rule of the cold war. Jimmy Carter tried to ignore it and the Soviets made him look like a fool.

To make us love our country, our country ought to be lovely.

- Edmund Burke


In 1953 President Eisenhower followed the policy you recommend by directing the CIA to overthrow the democratically elected government of Iran and to install the Shah as absolute monarch. Previously he had been a constitutional monarch, sharing power with an elected parliament.

The Shah was never a popular dictator. The Iranians knew that we put him in power and kept him in power by helping to create and to maintain SAVAK, his secret police.

When the Shah was finally overthrow, the Iranians hated us, just as we would hate a country that imposed a dictator on us. The only thing Carter could have done to save the Shah was to occupy Iran.

President Carter had learned from the War in Vietnam that it is not a good idea to occupy a hostile population that is willing to fight back. President George W. Bush unfortunately did not learn that, and started expensive wars in Afghanistan and Iraq that he could not win.

This guy thinks I was talking about Iran with respect to Jimmy Carter? And he wants to talk history to me?

 

[Friends]

This guy thinks I was talking about Iran with respect to Jimmy Carter? And he wants to talk history to me?

Yes. That is precisely what I want to do.