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And as for this idea that we should invade other countries, do you want us to invade Saudi Arabia? A country with which we have a relatively good diplomatic relationship with? A relationship that if you're a pacifist in any sense of the word, would be a far more effective way of promoting positive change in that country? What a ridiculous idea. Sorry, but I don't get this argument. You complain that we don't do anything about other oppressive regimes worldwide, but when we actually take action against one of them (all that is militarily possible at any one time, surely) you moan about the choice? What is it? Do you want us to invade every oppressive regime, or do you want us to have nothing to do with any of them? If you accept that diplomacy works, then you can't complain when western governments are dealing with oppressive regimes. If you're an isolationist, then I would argue that turning a blind eye to human rights abuses worldwide is a pretty callous position. But it sounds to me like the position of a lot of anti-war people changes to whatever's most convenient to the debate at hand.
:yes:
They are building an HUEG oil pipline through the middle of it now the Taliban wouldn't allow.
I read that and in my head there was a man having a proper rant at someone and it was quite impressive
actually i recall the taliban saying they would hand bin laden over if the US could provide any evidence he was behind it, and they couldn't so they didn't.
i think you'll find the US is quite happy to deal with all sorts of unpleasant people, and even put them in power if it furthers their objectives. we've known all along the taleban and saddamn were oppressive cunts yet we did nothing for years because it suited us, in fact we helped put and keep them in power to oppress their people, and supplied saddam the chemical weapons to gas the kurds, because it suited our political objectives at the time.
as for mugabe that cunt should also have been taken out years ago, but there's nothing there we want right now so he can carry on about his business.
i never said we should invade saudi and i'd be dead against it if we did, my point is you can spin a story a hundred ways to get the desired affect, and if the saudis weren't a cooperative gov that did our bidding you can bet we'd have invaded there by now as well. the house of saud are another bunch of oppressive cunts, but they're our oppressive cunts so as long as they keep cooperating they'll be safe, as soon as they stop they'll be demonised by the press and bombed into oblivion like the rest. go look up some history IWS, for such a smart chap you don't seem to know much about US foreign policy.
http://www.geo.tv
http://thenews.jang.com.pk/
- deliver al-Qaeda leaders located in Afghanistan to the United States
- release all imprisoned foreign nationals, including American citizens[19]
- protect foreign journalists, diplomats, and aid workers in Afghanistan
- close terrorist training camps in Afghanistan and "hand over every terrorist and every person and their support structure to appropriate authorities"
- give the United States full access to terrorist training camps to verify their closure
If someone's not going to even talk to you about it, what are you supposed to do? The fact that they were a barbaric regime that could do with wiping of the face of the earth makes the decision much less controversial.
"We did nothing for years" and then when we do something, you moan about it. But like I said, sometimes you have to deal with unsavoury characters in foreign affairs. The US dealt with Saddam as an anti-communist, just as they now deal with Saudi Arabia as an anti-terrorist because they believe it was in the best interest of their national security at the time (and they didn't know what sort of leader he was from the start - how could they? Indeed Saddam did a lot of positive things in the initial stages of his government, just like Mugabe). The fact that they deal with these people doesn't remove any right to take action against them if they later pose a threat to national security, and that should be decided on a case-by-case basis. In terms of Afghanistan, I think the case was pretty clear.
Again, "should've been taken out years ago." Your stance on this doesn't sit well with your opinion that Afghanistan and Iraq were unjustified. Mugabe hasn't invaded another country. Nor has he aided terrorism against another country. And yet you seem to put him as a higher priority for forced regime change than two regimes who have. Like I said, change your policy to whatever is most convenient to criticise the USA.
I know exactly how US foreign policy works. Of course it's self-interested, as is every other government in the world, but often that's in the mutual interest of both countries. How would you improve the situation for the people of Saudi Arabia? You've already said that you wouldn't invade, and you've criticised the US for even dealing with them, so presumably that means the only option is the isolationist one. That means not trading with them and not talking to them. But then the US does that in Cuba, and everyone criticises it again. Look at what that's done to North Korea and Burma. Look at how a country like Vietnam has thrived even under a single-party state by having relatively free trade with the west, and look at how the human rights situation in that country has improve massively as a result. They even have a national media that exposes corrupt politicians who have then been sentences for it. Could you imagine a Vietnam that the world ignored having that? Now a lot of the Islamic world has a way to go to get to that standard, but an isolationist stance wouldn't achieve anything, and it would give the US no leverage when it come to dealing with terrorism originating in that region.
i guess i'm just more cynical than you, i honestly think if the taliban had let us build the pipeline we would have carried on arming and training them in the 'terrorist camps' and found a different patsy for 9/11. like i said you can spin a story 100 ways to get your villain, i suppose it's a coincidence that haliburton CEO dick cheney wanted to get into afghanistan years ago to exploit its position, then as vice president of america he conveniently gets his wish?
saddam wasn't an anti-communist ideologist, we just used him as a proxy to counter russian and muslim influences in the region......if we hadn't armed him the russians would and he would have quite happily been pro-communist aka evil terrorist. so maybe it was the best choice at the time for us, but it was pretty clear he was fucked up long before we stopped selling him weapons and isolated him. let's not pretend the intention was ever mutually beneficial for the iraqis.
i'm saying we went to war with afghanistan and iraq on very dodgy pretences with clear ulterior motives, if the objective was really to save those poor afghans and iraqis then by that logic we should have taken mugabe out years ago, that's my point. i am very critical of US foreign policy because they've killed millions of innocent civilians in needless wars over the years, grabbing resources and wealth in the name of democracy and freedom, and it fucking stinks.
ahem, if you mean in the mutual interest of helping small ruling elites to oppress the masses in exchange for handing over natural resources yeah i'd agree that's a common theme. gee maybe if US foreign policy wasn't so brutally interventionist we wouldn't have so many enemies and 'terrorists' around the world wanting to blow us up.
the saudi elite wouldn't have lasted this long without US military aid and training, but then maybe all that oil wouldn't go straight into american hands and the wealth might be spread around more evenly. trade embargoes are a nice idea but in reality you're just starving the poor people. i would stop selling arms and training their military to oppress the public population, maybe the rest of the middle east might hate us a little less who knows. truth is it's too late for that and we've already caused untold damage and instability in the region which is coming back to bite us in the arse for years to come.
You're part right Saddam wasn't that viruently anti-communist (though he murdered thousands of party members). But the Russians did arm him as did the Chinese and to a much greater extent that the West (with the possible exception of France). The West's position was he wasn't worth the hassle of doing anything about prior to 1980 (when he wasn't worse than strongmen in dozens of other countries) and after 1980 it was a matter of 'it's a shame they can't both loose' and Western policy was to ensure neither Iran or Iraq overthrew the other and got a dominant role.
To that end we gave him some intelligence (not much) and then supplied the Iranians with spares for their aircraft. The US also supplied the Israeli's with much more effective intelligence to allow them to knock out Saddam's nuclear ambitions - hardly the action of a close ally.
The best you can say about the West is that prior to 1990 we weren't actively hostile - that position also covers about 90% of states in the world.
lol well it was easy enough to give Israel Saddam's nuclear intelligence because it was the US firms that sold it to him...I'm not saying he was our ally but he was put there for a purpose, and it wasn't to make life better for the average Iraqi.
http://www.indybay.org/newsitems/2002/03/27/1195471.php
A larger number of American firms supplied Iraq with the specialized computers, lasers, testing and analyzing equipment, and other instruments and hardware vital to the manufacture of nuclear weapons, missiles, and delivery systems. Computers, in particular, play a key role in nuclear weapons development. Advanced computers make it feasible to avoid carrying out nuclear test explosions, thus preserving the program's secrecy. The 1992 Senate hearings implicated the following firms:
* Kennametal, Latrobe, PA
* Hewlett Packard, Palo Alto, CA
* International Computer Systems, CA, SC, and TX
* Perkins-Elmer, Norwalk, CT
* BDM Corp., McLean, VA
* Leybold Vacuum Systems, Export, PA
* Spectra Physics, Mountain View, CA
* Unisys Corp., Blue Bell, PA
* Finnigan MAT, San Jose, CA
* Scientific Atlanta, Atlanta, GA
* Spectral Data Corp., Champaign, IL
* Tektronix, Wilsonville, OR
* Veeco Instruments, Inc., Plainview, NY
* Wiltron Company, Morgan Hill, CA
The House report also singled out: TI Coating, Inc., Axel Electronics, Data General Corp., Gerber Systems, Honeywell, Inc., Digital Equipment Corp., Sackman Associates, Rockwell Collins International, Wild Magnavox Satellite Survey, Zeta Laboratories, Carl Schenck, EZ Logic Data, International Imaging Systems, Semetex Corp., and Thermo Jarrell Ash Corporation.
Some of the companies said later that they had no idea Iraq might ever put their products to military use. A spokesperson for Hewlett Packard said the company believed that the Iraqi recipient of its shipments, Saad 16, was an institution of higher learning. In fact, in 1990 The Wall Street Journal described Saad 16 as "a heavily fortified, state-of-the-art complex for aircraft construction, missile design, and, almost certainly, nuclear-weapons research."
Other corporations recognized the military potential of their goods but considered it the government's job to worry about it. "Every once in a while you kind of wonder when you sell something to a certain country," said Robert Finney, president of Electronic Associates, Inc., which supplied Saad 16 with a powerful computer that could be used for missile testing and development. "But it's not up to us to make foreign policy," Finney told The Wall Street Journal.
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2002/12/31/world/main534798.shtml
A 1995 affidavit by former National Security Agency official Howard Teicher, obtained by the Post, claimed that the U.S. "actively supported the Iraqi war effort by supplying the Iraqis with billions of dollars of credits, by providing military intelligence and advice to the Iraqis, and by closely monitoring third country arms sales to Iraq to make sure Iraq had the military weaponry required."
Teicher claimed that the CIA supplied Iraq with cluster bombs through a Chilean company. However, German and UK firms sold more weapons to Iraq than U.S. arms companies, the Post reports.
Congressional investigations after the Gulf War revealed that the Commerce Department had licensed sales of biological agents, including anthrax, and insecticides, which could be used in chemical weapons, to Iraq.
When Iraq used chemical weapons against the Kurds in 1987, there was anger in Congress and the White House. But a memo in 1988 from Assistant Secretary of State Richard W. Murphy stated that "The U.S.-Iraqi relationship is ? important to our long-term political and economic objectives."
It wasn't just the US selling weapons, France, Germany and the UK were all in it, and they armed both sides like they always do.
he has a point people should be held accountable for what they do and say you can't promise and swear to have evidence when you know damn well you are lying, there are a good many people in goverments and private sectors (think wrecked bankls) that get off scott free for their actions and even get a pat on the back for doing a great job.
And this pipeline planned years before nine eleven was for the unacol oil company of which Cheney was a major share holder and ...the now president of Afghanistan was and is a major share holder in unacol.
This is about an American presence in centrl Asia ...as published by the PNAC crew. which consisted of Cheney Wolowitz etc etc.
Iran now has American fighting forces to its east and west ...and is constantly being threatened with ...your next.