Communities - Latest Comments in U.S. foreign policy: Iraq, Iran and 100 years of failure

Re: U.S. foreign policy: Iraq, Iran and 100 years of failure

Sid Harth — Thu, 21 Feb 2013 05:27:34 -0000

US (Fucked-up) Foreign Policy and I@elcidharth.com

Re: U.S. foreign policy: Iraq, Iran and 100 years of failure

Yury — Tue, 11 Dec 2012 13:28:32 -0000

Уважаемый господин
Томас Маллен!

Я прочитал Вашу статью: "Внешняя политика США: Ирак,
Иран и 100 лет неудач".

Скажите, пожалуйста, какое образование Вы получили, что
написать для читателей или для политиков такую галиматью?!

Я не могу согласиться в Вашими выводами не только потому,
что они противоречат фактам, но и потому, что они вредят национальной
безопасности США.

Я прочитал Вашу
статью и у меня невольно вырвались слова: Господин Томас Маллен - агент влияния
Кремля или его шпион".

Вот что исходит из Вашей статьи.

Пожалуйста, я прошу Вас ответьте мне.

С уважением, Юрий Богданов

Re: U.S. foreign policy: Iraq, Iran and 100 years of failure

Wookies_Rule — Fri, 30 Nov 2012 15:14:20 -0000

Two things:

* Azzam and bin Laden founded Al Qaeda together.
* Margolis is a 911 conspiracy theorist. I hope you have more reliable sources than him.

Re: U.S. foreign policy: Iraq, Iran and 100 years of failure

Kratoklastes — Mon, 26 Nov 2012 19:21:04 -0000

One point that you forgot to make: somehow the Saddam regime (and the Taliban in Afghanistan) had no trouble having internal security forces that were able to keep their respective countries 'pacified' for the duration of their tenure... but the US has spent almost ten years trying to pretend that they need to stay because Iraq (and Afghanistan) are incapable of developing their own police and military to a standard sufficient to do so again.

Then again, the only hurdle faced by US propagandists (when developing propaganda for internal consumption) is the mind-filters of a bunch of people who spend their first 15 years making North-Korea style pledges to a piece of cloth - that is, people who are so indoctrinated that they carry around as unquestioned 'facts', some of the most nonsensical tropes imaginable.

The fact that the State-run education system results in only 1/6th of the population being able to read at an 8th grade level (read the results from any LISS/ALSS survey), also ensures that the bottom four quintiles get everything they know from the television - so they are absorbing 'son et lumiere' highly-produced content with low informational content, during a period of the day (6pm-8pm) where they are sufficiently tired to be at their most suggestible.

Those criticisms apply to all major western countries, by the way... but only in the US does 68% of the adult population believe that angels and demons intervene in their everyday lives - Google "Angels Demons Pew Poll 2007", read the first 3 links, and recoil in horror that (1) that 68% of people so deluded and disconnected from reality are entitled to vote; and (2) a nation of such backward primitives has as many nuclear weapons as the US has.

Re: U.S. foreign policy: Iraq, Iran and 100 years of failure

Gerald Wadsworth — Mon, 26 Nov 2012 09:30:40 -0000

For the sake of being redundant, it's called "Blowback"…when our foreign policies create more problems than they are trying to solve. Of course, that's if you are naive enough to believe that there is some altruistic motivation behind what we are doing around the globe. We have forgotten that democracy, in any shape or form, can not be served upon an unwilling population at the point of a gun.

Re: U.S. foreign policy: Iraq, Iran and 100 years of failure

Gerald Wadsworth — Mon, 26 Nov 2012 09:25:49 -0000

Finally. some sanity rears it's head in the main stream media! Thank you Thomas Mullen for stating what should have been obvious to anyone who can see beyond the flag they have wrapped their brain in.

Re: U.S. foreign policy: Iraq, Iran and 100 years of failure

Eric Hong — Tue, 20 Nov 2012 16:01:58 -0000

The world is a dangerous place and a complex place so it is not
surprise that US aided lesser enemies in order to defeat major enemies.
Sometimes those lesser enemy or even friends turned against you but that
doesn’t mean that we should not get involved in the first place.
Yes, US certainly made some mistakes in its foreign policies but so does every
nations in the world.   As a leading nation for human right and
freedom, it is inevitable that US would and most likely should get involved in
SOME of this conflicts.   It is certainly a very Christian and moral
thing to do – i.e. to help your neighbors.   An analogy is like this
- one very well-off town that is adjacent to a poor town. When the poor
town is having a raging fire, the well-to-do town should help whether the fire
would spread to the well-off town or not.      I could
not understand that the Libertarian and the Left’s notions that US should not
get involved in ANY other country’s’ foreign affairs.   Conservatives
believes that we should get involved in SOME of other country’s’ foreign
affairs, especially when US has the ability to affect and promote freedom and
human rights.

There is one especially inescapable 20th century’s
historical lesson in American involvement in foreign affairs, that is:

The longer the US occupies a country, the better off the country
is. Examples: South Korea (50 years), Japan (50 years),
Germany (60 years), Italy (60 years). On the flip side, when
American pulls off its occupying forces too soon, it is usually leads to
disastrous results (e.g. Vietnam and the South East Asia, China, Cuba, and now
possibly Iraq and Afghanistan).

Re: U.S. foreign policy: Iraq, Iran and 100 years of failure

TomMullen — Tue, 20 Nov 2012 06:52:51 -0000

Jim, the U.S. certainly was a global military power. That was the whole point of beating up on fading empire Spain (which conservatives in America had been yearning for since Alexander Hamilton) - to establish the US as an empire on par with England and the others and to dispossess her of her imperial holdings. The United States now had a military presence in Japan's backyard and had just proven it could defeat a "first rate" power. Japan certainly needed the US govt's blessing or at least assurance it would not take offense to its activities in Korea and China. Otherwise there would have been no Taft-Katsura Agreement. That was the whole point of it.

Re: U.S. foreign policy: Iraq, Iran and 100 years of failure

Daniel Freysinger — Tue, 20 Nov 2012 03:23:03 -0000

As long as school board positions are elected, we will continue to have people that know nothing about education calling the shots. We should have a Masters degree requirement to server on a school board.

Re: U.S. foreign policy: Iraq, Iran and 100 years of failure

Daniel Freysinger — Tue, 20 Nov 2012 03:21:52 -0000

In the 70's, they saved this information for college. Primary and secondary school are filled with patriotic nonsense they call history. Unfortunately, when school boards try to improve the situation they are accused of being anti-American. It is amazing how many people are unaware of the Japanese internment camps here during WWII.

Re: U.S. foreign policy: Iraq, Iran and 100 years of failure

Daniel Freysinger — Tue, 20 Nov 2012 03:19:45 -0000

You should watch the opening scene to The Newsroom. It addresses the United States as the best country in the world.

Re: U.S. foreign policy: Iraq, Iran and 100 years of failure

fubaru — Tue, 20 Nov 2012 01:30:39 -0000

Americans tend to be naive as they have lived a life of comfort for so long, and a disneyland lullaby fed by some great marketing hype that originated from Freud's nephew Bernaise and let to US corporations discovering they can keep the monkey caged with TV lies, distractions, occasionally fear of the great bogeyman overseas... commies, muslims, japanese, etc. Americans are taught to be like children, trust their good father in the white house, taking care of business. Just go enjoy the toys we have stolen for you from our neighbours... and so it goes on... and now... "Oh why do they hate us? ", Rather shocking after listening on TV EvangelicalDisneyLand that USA was actually talked about in the bible. One should listen to the teleevangelist at their story telling best, keeping thousands of devout "Christians" spell bound. These same people would crucify Jesus if he showed up in New York to kick the gold sellers out of the temple.

Re: U.S. foreign policy: Iraq, Iran and 100 years of failure

JWPicht — Mon, 19 Nov 2012 22:58:53 -0000

I'm dubious about the assertion that the U.S. gave Japan permission to invade Manchuria and Korea. It's not that I don't think Roosevelt would have made that kind of deal, but that the U.S. wasn't a global military power then, and it seems to me that it would have been like Brazil granting South Africa the right to expand in southern Africa. Japan didn't need American permission to do what it wanted in China in 1904.

On the other hand, American chemists discovered a way to extract silver from lower grade ores in the 19th century, fueling a silver boom in the west, prompting William Jennings Bryan to give his "cross of gold" speech, providing inspiration for "The Wizard of Oz" (Dorothy's slippers are silver), and helping to destabilize the Manchu dynasty, whose currency was on a silver standard, thus leading eventually to the Kuomintang and finally the victory of Mao's Communist insurgents.

Some monsters that we create are complete accidents, beyond anyone's ability to predict or prevent. You haven't made a case that Japan isn't in that category.

Re: U.S. foreign policy: Iraq, Iran and 100 years of failure

Jared Baker — Mon, 19 Nov 2012 19:05:35 -0000

PREACH IT TOM! seriously how does no one in America NOT know history? its like they only an remember the last 5 years and and before that they just give the leaders the benefit of the doubt even though almost every private sector they have entered into: education, health care, fda, epa i could go on and on have WORSENED that field they entered! look at how usa ranked in education before it was taken over by DC? look at health care i think Cuba is ranked higher in health care than the us and US is #43?! how does american NOT have #1 health care or top 5 IF the federal government is so great, they should answer to their failures...including the worst of all foreign bombing and overthrowing of countries most americans cant find on a map that pose ZERO threat!

Re: U.S. foreign policy: Iraq, Iran and 100 years of failure

Mariosalazar — Mon, 19 Nov 2012 18:59:13 -0000

While I still believe the US may be the best country in the world, some want to believe that it is perfect. This amnesiac attitude of many will continue to decrease our status in the world. For mercantile reasons we have supported Perez Jimenez, Batista, Pinochet, Stroessner, Papa Doc and Somoza just in this hemisphere. There were also 23 interventions in Latin America in the last 2 centuries.
In the 60s we read a book titled "The Ugly American", that among other things, describes how our stupid and short sighted international policies have been exploited by our enemies.

Re: U.S. foreign policy: Iraq, Iran and 100 years of failure

Mariosalazar — Mon, 19 Nov 2012 18:44:56 -0000

Yes they are, ignorant that is. The right has tried to delete or change any episode that they think is not favorable to the US. How in the hell can we learn from our mistakes?

Re: U.S. foreign policy: Iraq, Iran and 100 years of failure

Dog — Mon, 19 Nov 2012 06:35:31 -0000

As a kid in the 70's, I learned this stuff in college classes. Is the American public really that ignorant that it doesn't know that the stepchildren of American foreign policy inevitably turn against us?