AFRICAS TOP 10 of SHAME

Of course they trained and funded blokes to go and become dictators and terrorists in these countries... this is established FACT not some conspiracy. Christ.

Here is a US government organisation responsible.
Western Hemisphere Institute for Security Cooperation - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

"The school was founded in 1946 and from 1961 was assigned the specific goal of teaching "anti-communist counterinsurgency training," a role which it would fulfill for the rest of the Cold War. In this period, it educated several Latin American dictators, generations of their military and, during the 1980s, included the uses of torture in its curriculum."

 

It's an incredibly minor difference to draw. It's a president ordering his country to kill the other half because of political beliefs until they submit to his way of thinking. The only difference is the other half responding and trying to do the same thing back.

The first invasion was on legitimate grounds... the second one was to remove Saddam.

Even then you have Gaddafi and Castro off the top of my head who were also invaded in attempts to remove them as leaders (with no other intention).

I don't have a fundamental problem with removing leaders like those, for what it's worth, my problem is far more with removing them knowing it will create pure chaos and then taking zero responsibility afterwards as the US has done time and time again. The US goes to war without any thought to the aftermath, cleanup or consequences, see ISIS for a perfect example.

Since the War on Terror began "terrorism" is up 4500% in the middle east. Since removing Hussein there have been 1892 suicide bombings in Iraq, an increase of 1892 from the entire time that Saddam was ruling.

Heck, Trump and Ted Cruz are both on record as saying the middle east was far better off before the War on Terror, I don't agree with a lot of things that Trump says but I personally think he nailed this. ISIS have already proven a far worse entity than Hussein ever got close to being.

I'm not anti-US at all, I just think their policies and actions in the middle east have been terrible and it's time for a genuine rethink of what they're doing there. Sometimes it's a good idea to learn from mistakes and try a different approach.

 

I agree; here's a different approach - because diplomacy and/or occupation etc sure hasn't worked so far (and nothing ever will in these places)...

Everyone who's not of the Middle East - get out and stay out, and leave them to themselves to sort out who's in charge....no aid, no support, no intervention whatsoever, no refugees coming into everyone elses' back yard.....

How long do ya reckon that'd last?

Suits me; the USA would save a Trill per year and maybe get their Country back in order, and our Country would save a fortune as well.

Now we'll hear some screaming from the handwringers

 

Yes

That right

Yep

To udermine and halt the spread of communism and socialism. To create friedman/ 'chicago' style free-market economic systems to benefit the USA economy.

Conspiracy theory? - nope, i read about it in a history book. As documents have been declassified it usually turns out that the reality of CIA or US political involvement was more shocking than the history books gave them credit for.

The title says it all really if you dont fancy reading.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Covert_United_States_foreign_regime_change_actions

CIA in latin america
CIA activities in the Americas - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Chile/Pinochet
CIA Admits Involvement in Chile

Guatemala
Washingtonpost.com: Papers Show U.S. Role in Guatemalan Abuses

Still doing it
OPINION: Hard choices: Hillary Clinton admits role in Honduran coup aftermath

 

Thanks for that link.

Looks pretty damning from a short read of each link.

To be the Devil's advocate though; it appears that a number of them were during the Cold War era where the big bogey-man across the world was the spread of Communism, so became the main focus to rid countries of its influence, and deposing of oppressive dictators was part the agenda as well?

The CIA would probably always say: "The End justifies the Means"..but this does not necessarily mean the means weren't needed?

 

They didnt depose oppresive dictators. They have supported oppressive dictators to stage coups and over throw democratically elected socialist governments. Eg: pinochet in chilie.

The 'means' was thousands tourtured, executed and neutralized'/ disappeared. Thats what the declassified docs show was on the curriculum at the school of the americas. Your glib comment about the means justifying the end would be incredibly offensive to the Chilean australians who lost relatives.

And It didnt stop with the cold war, look at Honduras, Venezuela, Bolivia. And thats just latin america off the top of my head.

http://m.huffpost.com/us/entry/operation-naked-king-evo-morales_55f70da2e4b077ca094fdbe1

I would probably take the USA over a chinese world policeman but its like choosing between alzheimers and Parkinson's. Will be interesting to see how australia negotiates its relationships with the USA and China as china exerts more influence and the USA wanes. Look at the aus gov squirm over the port of darwin. Port of Darwin: This is about more than China's economic interest - The Drum (Australian Broadcasting Corporation)

The US did step in and secure the win in WWII for the allies - but not until they were bombed by the japanese. If japan hadnt attacked them or had done a better job of wiping out their capability in the pacific it would have been too little too late.

Ethical foreign policy has been a modern and pretty unsuccessful experiment so far. No one was even pretending that that was the aim until recently.

 

Have you considered the result if America did not intervene 10 years earlier with the Vietnam War; all in the name of halting the 'evil' communists?

Most likely:
- The Communists would have controlled the country (which consequently was the result after 1975 anyway)
- Millions of lives would not have been lost in the war
- Hundreds of thousands / millions of refugees not created and many lives lost in the subsequent evacuation
- Vietnam would probably be decades more economically advanced
- Sure, South Vietnamese lives would have been lost if the VC rolled into Saigon in 1965, but surely not as many as above.

 

The headache is; the legacy of these regimes last two to three generations.

The WHISC have a policy that many US Generals share - in that if the US doesn't benefit from something, neither will anyone else.

It's led to a political phenomenon likened to "cutting the elm" and goes waaaaaay back.

 

personally I would have preferred they move on Pol Pot and his ilk....

true liberation.

 

Let's not forget Iran!

 

He wasn't a communist. Only evil dictator. Which is apparently alright.

 

Unless you have rich oil reserves and then it isn't alright... even if your people were better off under you than since the invasion!

 

That's how it would appear to us.

But, it's an un-winnable argument.

Ask those who were on the wrong end of the stick in those Countries where Communism and Dictatorships (and "Democratically Elected") ruled where certain minorities and dissenters were treated, and they might give you a different answer.

Also; just because some of those Countries' ruling Parties were "Democratically elected" (that the USA supposedly removed) doesn't mean the citizens weren't heading for a world of pain, or already in one and changing to a new Leader who would continue the fun..

 

On an open forum; folks always get offended by all sorts of stuff...

Turn off your computers and go for a jog, folks...

Nevertheless; it wasn't glib; it was posing a question as to how the CIA would view their own actions.

Another Member of the Twisters' Club; here on the good ship PC.

 

I think we need to be specific otherwise the generalisations become meaningless.

Guatemalan coup 1954.

Carried out by the CIA and Guatemalan military. Deposed the democratically elected president Arbenz. He was leader of the party that introduced the minimum wage, gave the peasants, ethnic minorities and women the vote, increased education spending and attempted to end debt slavery by redistributing land from an American fruit company to landless peasants. This party took over after the revolution when they overthrew the previous dictator who was been installed by the USA. They then held elections. So for 10 years in between US backed dictators, Guatemala had democratic elections and voted for politicians who wanted to lift people out of poverty through capitalism and deal with racism and discrimination.

There is no 'supposedly' about the CIA involvement. I tried to find a piece by sunrise or Andrew bolt on the mAtter but no luck, so you might have to read a couple of paragraphs from the national security archive if you don't want to take my word for it.

'Arbenz was elected President of Guatemala in 1950 to continue a process of socio- economic reforms that the CIA disdainfully refers to in its memoranda as "an intensely nationalistic program of progress colored by the touchy, anti-foreign inferiority complex of the 'Banana Republic.'" The first CIA effort to overthrow the Guatemalan president--a CIA collaboration with Nicaraguan dictator Anastacio Somoza to support a disgruntled general named Carlos Castillo Armas and codenamed Operation PBFORTUNE--was authorized by President Truman in 1952. As early as February of that year, CIA Headquarters began generating memos with subject titles such as "Guatemalan Communist Personel to be disposed of during Military Operations," outlining categories of persons to be neutralized "through Executive Action"--murder--or through imprisonment and exile. The "A" list of those to be assassinated contained 58 names--all of which the CIA has excised from the declassified documents.

PBSUCCESS, authorized by President Eisenhower in August 1953, carried a $2.7 million budget for "pychological warfare and political action" and "subversion," among the other components of a small paramilitary war. But, according to the CIA's own internal study of the agency's so-called "K program," up until the day Arbenz resigned on June 27, 1954, "the option of assassination was still being considered." While the power of the CIA's psychological-war, codenamed "Operation Sherwood," against Arbenz rendered that option unnecessary, the last stage of PBSUCCESS called for "roll-up of Communists and collaborators." Although Arbenz and his top aides were able to flee the country, after the CIA installed Castillo Armas in power, hundreds of Guatemalans were rounded up and killed. Between 1954 and 1990, human rights groups estimate, the repressive operatives of sucessive military regimes murdered more than 100,000 civilians.'

CIA and Assassinations: The Guatemala 1954 Documents

 

What's the twisters club? You're obsessed with trying to identify people who confuse you. It's just people disagreeing with you Bayview. There's no trickery or mental gymnastics. Keep up.

 

No obssession; I could not care less...if folks want to descend to that type of debating that's ok with me, but don't whine when you get called out on it.

There are a good number of folk on this forum who will take a piece out of a post and try to distort it - to twist what was said and implied - or deliberately take it out of context - in order to try and win a point.

 

Now, now....

You forgot the ABC, too....How does the 6.00pm Channel 7 and 9 news rate?

SBS isn't too bad - nowhere near watchworthy now that they've gone commercial and the ads content has gone sky-high, and there seems to be too much emphasis on S.E Asian politics, and the soccer..

There are a few others.