US support for Saddam (split topic)

Society Pakistan & World Affairs
1

Ohioguy, I actually have a lot of respect for you and your posts. I am sure you must often feel like you’re taking on the world, when you’re presenting the alternative point of view here. However in your recent comments, I believe you are somewhat mistaken.

The US government gives military aid to (weapons, training, ammunition) to 114 countries around the world, 96 of these are run by crooks and tyrants.

If you find that hard to believe, we do not have to go far to look for the evidence.

As a country we have given aid to such shining examples of ‘freedom and liberty’ as Saddam Hussein (after he gassed his own people), the Shah of Iran, Fidel Castro, President Diem (Vietnam), President Marco (Philippines), General Noriega (Panama), Mobuto (Congo), Chiang Kai-Shek (Taiwan), General Park Chung-hee (Korea), President Sharto (Indonesia) and even (can you believe it?) Osama Bin Laden and the Taliban.

Let’s not forget the cherry on the cake, Roosevelt’s best friend Josef Stalin who killed 62 million people during his tyranny.

I respect your posts more than others here, because you bring the other side of the story, which is often lacking in this forum… However just this one, I hope you do not mind someone else presenting the other side to yourself.

2

Pilot,

Let's think about this for a bit. I too believe that the US has made dubious choices in it's allies in the past. There is however a never ending arguement of engagement. As we witnessed in another thread, the US cut off the supply of Cluster bombs to Turkey when it was using them on the Kurds. What happened? Pakistan supplied them, and then helped Turkey to build a cluster bomb plant of it's own. As the US is not the sole supplier of most weapons, the illusion of control is pretty dubious.

Take Iran. Certainly proliferation of nuclear weapons is an extrordinarly key issue. Yet half the people on this board think a second Muslim bomb is just peachy. Russia is more than happy to sell technology, as is North Korea.

The US refused to sell aircraft to Pakistan so they could not be used to deliver nuclear weapons. Did it stop Pakistan from developing delivery systems?

I live in a military community. My neighbors have included Bharaini's, Norwegians, Argentinians, and about 30 other nationalities attending the Naval War College in Newport RI. The "training" they receive is some of the most advanced and thoughtful in the world. It is not training in repression, but training in responsible use of force. Additionally there are now open lines of communication from the US military to their peers in other countries. These back channel contacts provide critical information when political types run amok.

Let's get one more thing very straight. The US for all of it's power is not psychic. The support we lent Saddam (and please do your research carefully, the support to Saddam is in many cases grossly exaggerated)was a pittance compared to the Soviets, and we reserve the right to change our minds. Musharraf currently has our support. On the face of it he is the lesser of the evils in Pakistan and he espouses a coming democracy. But he is a military dictator who rose to power in a coup. There are absolutely no guarantees that he will have our support 5 years from now, depending on his actions.

Painting Stalin as Roosevelts best friend is almost laughable. The US spent 50 years fighting the Soviets. The only reason we were allies was that we were fighting a common enemy. Patton at the end of the war wanted to keep going through Germany and deal with the Russians while we had the army assembled...

My personal belief is that the US has prized stability over all other considerations in it's foreign policy. This has let to the support of regimes that are incrementally better than the last guy, not necessarily good in the absolute. That is one reason I supported the war in Iraq. We should be agents for Democratic change, particularly where people are enslaved, and there is no way for them to seize democracy on their own. In other regards, the US should continue to use all means to press for freedom, and to advocate in public and in private the liberties of free people. That means that the US must have available both carrots and sticks.

But we are not Gods. We cannot be everywhere at once insuring advancements in humanity. At certain times and in certain places the US will resist the forces of totalitarian rule. A democratic reovlution in the middle of the Arab world would be a fabulous opportunity to see more democratic rule throughout the entire Arab world. We should not have insisted that WMD provide a triggering point. This was an appeasement to the UN that now looks absurd. Bush should have made his case based on the abominations of Saddam, and let it become a lesson to others who may treat thier people as he did.

Do not forget that the US went through a revolution. That reolution was centuries ago, but the principals of liberty and freedom are still hotly debated in our society. We have an obligation to export freedom and liberty, through peaceful means when possible, through war if needed.

3

[QUOTE]
*Originally posted by Ohioguy: *
....
The support we lent Saddam (and please do your research carefully, the support to Saddam is in many cases grossly exaggerated)was a pittance compared to the Soviets, and we reserve the right to change our minds....
[/QUOTE]

Are you sure that US cut all its support to Saddam after gassing of Kurds?

4

Changez,

Research some of the discussions in WA. I posted a number of resolutions long prior to the Kurdish gassing that prohibited the US, and the UK form providing precursor chemicals to Saddam. After the Kurd incident there was a huge debate as to whether it was done by Iran or Iraq. If you remember both the Iranians and the Iraqi's were using chemicals in their war. The debate with the Kurds came about because the agent used was a nerve gas, which Saddam had not previously used, but the Iranians had. Ultimately the use of gasses was investigated by the UN, and sanctions applied across the board to Iraq.

The majority of support that the US provided to Iraq was satellite information on Iranian troop positions. The Iranians outnumbered the Iraqi's three or four to one, and they would attack in huge human waves. Because we told Saddam where and when they would attack, Saddam had his armor and troops in position to counter the numerically superior Iranians. That is what the US wanted, no defeat of the Iranians, but no loss by Iraq. Other than that support the US supplied non-armed helicopters, and some financial support. Do the research, Iraq was a Soviet Client state, 90% of all thier weapons were supplied by the Soviets, and financed by the Soviets. Iraq continues to owe Russia billions for money loaned during this period. With Saddam gone, the Russians fear they will never be repayed. That is why they never would suppor the ousting of Saddam. Same with the French, how do you think they got Mirage jets?

To portray Saddam as a US flunky is historically innacurate, but convenient for the anti-US contingent here.

5

I am still not clear whether US did cut Iraq's support or not.

6

Ohioguy,

I think that maybe our wires are a little crossed. My gripe is not that there are tyrannical regimes in the world; there always has and always will be abusers of human rights. My gripe is the hypocrisy of the US government and it's protagonists. Those that are perfectly willing to support tyrannical regimes when it suits them, should not talk about spreading 'freedom and liberty' around the world.

I personally feel very cynical whenever any supporter of the government talks about spreading 'freedom and liberty' to the rest of the world. I believe that the past actions of the American government (not the American people), runs contrary to everything we are told the 'War on Terror' is supposed to achieve.

It's that simple really.

Yes, there will always be other nations who are more than willing to step in and supply the weapons. However, I don't see Pakistan and Russia invading other countries in the name of 'freedom and liberty'.

I'm sure that the Naval War College does not teach 'repression', but there are many other agencies funded by the US taxpayer that exports these skills, when they are required. I am sure you know very well that the US trained foreign police and military units in the art of torture and interrogation.

No one expects the US to be 'psychic'. When Saddam gassed his own people, you did not have to be psychic to realize it was a bad thing. However, we still sent him a billion dollars of agricultural aid. You don't need ESP to work out that that move was slightly unethical to say the least. A billion dollars that Saddam doesn't have to spend on food, is a billion dollars he has free to spend on weapons.

With regards to Stalin, it was documented at the time that Roosevelt had strong socialist leanings. Before WWII started, Stalin had already killed 10 million civilians. Not soldiers, civilians. Yet, Roosevelt continued to supply arms and weapons to Stalin and even quashed the efforts of anti-socialist rebels who were trying to topple the Russian government after WWII had ended. By then end of the war, Stalin had killed 40.2 million civilians, this was twice as much as Hitler achieved. (He then went on to kill 20 million more but I won't hold them against you.)

This all blurs the line between 'good' and 'evil' a little, doesn't it?

Even as Brit, I firmly believe that the US revolution was a moral and just war. However, since 1783, I have yet to see a single US war that was morally justifiable. Whether we have a responsibility to 'export freedom and liberty' is debatable. That we have supported crooks and tyrants is, I am afraid, not.

7

Changez, This is from a thread called “The suffering of Iraqis under Saddam”. Please note that The gassing of the Kurds was in 1988, at the very end of the Iran-Iraq war. The US issued condemnations of Saddam and initiated sanctions in 1984, fully four years earlier! The final reports concluded that NO US chemicals were likely to have been used in the attacks, that the precursors likely came from Russia, France and other EU countries! By the end of the war in 1988, there would have been no reason to continue with the battlefield intel provided to Saddam! Please note that the US slapped sanctions on Saddam 6 days immediately prior to a scheduled visit to Baghdad by Rumsfeld. Rumsfeld was not allowed to meet with Saddam as a result, but his visit was downgraded to the Tariq Aziz level.

Here is a 1984 report on chemical weapons used in the Iran-Iraq war, Created by the Stockholm International Peace Reasearch Institute:

…Tear gas: In August 1982, US officials were quoted in the press as being “confident” that the Iraqis did not possess any “deadly chemical weapons”, only tear gas.

…With the exceptions, maybe, of the last two of these different categories of putative Iraqi agent, sources of supply might as well be indigenous as external to Iraq, given the technology implied. Involvement of the last three categories would, in some circles, implicate the USSR as supplier, for the reason that the USSR is said, on evidence that has yet to be solidly substantiated but which has nonetheless attracted some firm believers, to have weaponized all three of them in recent years. For its part, the USSR has expressly denied supplying Iraq with toxic weapons. Reports of Soviet supply attributed to US and other intelligence sources have nonetheless recurred. The earliest predate reports of Iraqi use of chemical weapons in the Gulf War.

Official Iranian commentaries, too, have pointed to the USSR as a supplier of the Iraqi weapons. These sources have also accused Brazil, France and, most conspicuously, Britain of supplying the weapons. No basis for any of these Iranian accusations has been disclosed. France, alongside Czechoslovakia and both Germanies, is reportedly also rumoured, among “foreign military and diplomatic sources” in Baghdad, to have supplied Iraq with chemical precursors needed for an indigenous production effort. Unofficial published sources have cited Egypt as a possible supplier of actual chemical weapons. In the mid-1960s, when Iraq was alleged to be using chemical weapons against insurgent Kurdish forces, Swiss and German sources of supply were reported in the Western press.

Export controls

On 30 (1984) March, the US government announced the imposition of ‘foreign policy controls’ on the export to the Gulf-War belligerents of five chemicals that could be used in the production of mustard and nerve gases. US officials told the press that this had been done in response to an unexpected volume of recent orders from Iraq for those chemicals. They also said that Japan, FR Germany and other unspecified European countries had been exporting the chemicals to Iraq. The British government took action similar to that of Washington on 12 April, adding three more chemicals to the control list (see table). Since then, other European governments have also announced embargoes of varying scope, and on 15 May the Foreign Ministers of the European Community agreed in principle on a common and complementary policy. There are Western press reports of suspicions in Western diplomatic circles in the Middle East that the USSR is shipping intermediates to Iraq through Jordan

http://projects.sipri.se/cbw/resear...sheet-1984.html

8

Quite the opposite, in fact. Take a read…

http://www.pbs.org/newshour/forum/march98/intervention1.html

*During these years, Saddam Hussein has also carried out major crimes. The worst by far were committed in the 1980s, including his gassing of Kurds at Halabja in 1988, chemical warfare against Iran, torture of dissidents, and numerous others. His invasion of Kuwait, though a serious crime, in fact added little to his already horrendous record. Throughout the period of his worst crimes, Saddam remained a favored ally and trading partner of the US and Britain, which furthermore abetted these crimes. The Reagan Administration even sought to prevent congressional reaction to the the gassing of the Kurds, including the (failed) plea of Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chairman Claiborne Pell that “we cannot be silent to genocide again” as the world was when Hitler exterminated Europe’s Jews. So extreme was Reaganite support for their friend that when ABC TV correspondent Charles Glass revealed the site of one of Saddam’s biological warfare programs a few months after Halabja, Washington denied the facts, and the story died; the State Department “now issues briefings on the same site,” Glass writes (in England). There were no passionate calls for a military strike against this brutal killer and torturer. Quite the contrary: much of what was known, including US support, was downplayed or not reported.

After the Gulf War, the Senate Banking Committee found that the Commerce Department had traced shipment of “biological materials” of a kind later found and destroyed by UN inspectors, continuing at least until November 1989. A month later, during his invasion of Panama, Bush authorized new loans for Saddam: to achieve the “goal of increasing U.S. exports and put us in a better position to deal with Iraq regarding its human rights record…,” the State Department announced, facing no criticism in the mainstream (in fact, no report). The Bush Administration continued to support the mass murderer up to his invasion of Kuwait, which shifted his status from ally to enemy , much as the Suharto coup and slaughters of 1965 shifted Indonesia from enemy to friend. In these and many other cases, the criterion that distinguishes friend from enemy is obedience, not crime. Immediately after the Gulf war ended in March 1991, Washington returned to support for Saddam. The State Department formally reiterated its refusal to have any dealings with the Iraqi democratic opposition: “Political meetings with them would not be appropriate for our policy at this time,” the Department spokesman declared. “This time” was March 14 1991, while Saddam was decimating the southern opposition under the eyes of US forces, which refused even to grant rebelling Iraqi military officers access to captured Iraqi arms, to defend the population and perhaps overthrow the monster. Had it not been for unexpected public reaction, Washington might not have extended even weak support to rebelling Kurds, subjected to the same treatment shortly after.*

9

"With regards to Stalin, it was documented at the time that Roosevelt had strong socialist leanings. Before WWII started, Stalin had already killed 10 million civilians. Not soldiers, civilians. Yet, Roosevelt continued to supply arms and weapons to Stalin and even quashed the efforts of anti-socialist rebels who were trying to topple the Russian government after WWII had ended. By then end of the war, Stalin had killed 40.2 million civilians, this was twice as much as Hitler achieved. (He then went on to kill 20 million more but I won't hold them against you.)"

This all blurs the line between 'good' and 'evil' a little, doesn't it?

You know, at some point people need to stand up for their own actions. Supplying food support to the people of Iraq who have been ravaged by war is far from a crime. If it is a crime, better talk to the UN and every NGO in the world. First we endure endless criticism for Sanctions on Iraq, now you are suggesting that they should not be fed. Which is it, make up your mind. This reeks of a damned if you do, damned if you don't conundrum.

Then you hold us responsible for the actions of STALIN? If I remember this right the US spent nearly fifty years trying to rid the world of "Evil Empires", engaging in running wars all over the world to try to prevent the expansion of communist totalitarian regimes. There is nothing that we could have done to change the Russians. We confronted them, fought proxy wars to prevent their expansion, tried to bribe them with wheat, boycotted their olympics, and challenged them at every corner.

Without the US brother commrade, I dare say you would be laboring in a factory, living in an apartment with 20 of your closest relatives, living in fear of the KGB, and drinking vodka to kill the pain. (perhaps this is your life anyway, ;))

There comes a point where people must realistically look at the true power of the US. Despite the satanization of the US, we are not physically capable of all of the mischief attributed to us. Nor are we powerful enough to change and confront all of the things that people percieve as priorities. Frankly, we, as with every other sovereign nation will do what's in our best interest. We do indeed make mistakes, as does every country. (research Pakistans' slaughters in 1971).

The reality is, the world is rid of Saddam. There is a window of opportunity for a much better life for Iraqi's. We are giving our blood and our treasure to give them that opportunity. For those of you with business minds, please explain to me the logic by which the US profits from a war in which we have already spent $40Bil and will spend another $87Bil in the coming years. If we took half f the oil pumped for the next 10 years we could not pay this back.

10

Pilot25:
Pardon the Interruption in your discussion with OhioGuy.

Hypocricy is a fair charge to make regarding US foreign policy. However, I frankly think it applies to the foreign and domestic policies of virtually every country equally. "National interest" is promoted by all countries above and beyond consistency in moral principle.

That said, I don't get the argument that acting hypocritically and/or inconsistently is a greater sin than not acting at all. For instance, if 10 diabolical, dictatorial tryrants rule in 10 different countries, I don't see why the US choices must be limited to two: i.e. remove all 10 or don't remove any. Giving freedom and self determination to the people of three countries is a greater good than giving freedom and self determination to none.

Where I think criticism is due is where the US actively supports a diabolical, dictatorial tryrant in opposition to the freedom and self-determination of the people. I have far less trouble justifying supporting one diabolical, dictatorial tryrant in opposition to another diabolical, dictatorial tryrant.

11

Malik, people need to understand that your quote was ftom Noam Chomsky, the endorser and supporter of Sanctions on Iraq!

And frankly the biological materials shipped to Iraq were sent to thier Universities, and they were commonly used research materials by every large university in the world.

Now tell me again why "glorious Iran" should have nuclear weapons?

and Pilot:
"Even as Brit, I firmly believe that the US revolution was a moral and just war. However, since 1783, I have yet to see a single US war that was morally justifiable."

Most Brits agree with Churchill that the thingy in the 1940's was "morally justifiable".

12

Come on Ohioguy, there's no need to get defensive :) I started out by saying how I admired your posts!

I do not mean to come across as overly critical, that was not my intention. Myvoice expressed my thoughts better than I did, I am against hypocrisy, not simply the US. Hypocrisy is not a trait unique to the US, but at the moment I see more of it coming from Washington than anywhere else.

[QUOTE]
*Originally posted by Ohioguy: *Supplying food support to the people of Iraq who have been ravaged by war is far from a crime. If it is a crime, better talk to the UN and every NGO in the world. First we endure endless criticism for Sanctions on Iraq, now you are suggesting that they should not be fed. Which is it, make up your mind. This reeks of a damned if you do, damned if you don't conundrum.

[/QUOTE]

We did not give food to the people of Iraq. We gave Saddam the loan guarantees to buy food. The billion dollars the US taxpayer gave him, freed up a billion dollars for him to spend on weapons. He was facing popular dissent and a popular uprising at the time. The food helped him to avert that. Had we left Iraq to it's own devices (i.e. no weapons and no food) I doubt Saddam would have lasted as long as he did.

[QUOTE]
Then you hold us responsible for the actions of STALIN? If I remember this right the US spent nearly fifty years trying to rid the world of "Evil Empires", engaging in running wars all over the world to try to prevent the expansion of communist totalitarian regimes. There is nothing that we could have done to change the Russians. We confronted them, fought proxy wars to prevent their expansion, tried to bribe them with wheat, boycotted their olympics, and challenged them at every corner.
[/QUOTE]

I don't hold you responsible for Stalin, I said that we supported a man who killed twice as many civilians as Hitler. One does not have to create tyranny to provide support to it. You are quite right in that the US has attempted to contain the Soviets for most of the last century. I believe that this policy caused more harm than good. One only has to look at the loss of life in Vietnam and Afghanistan (I am sure this is worthy of a whole new discussion). Who footed the bill? Taxpayers like you and me.

[QUOTE]
Without the US brother commrade, I dare say you would be laboring in a factory, living in an apartment with 20 of your closest relatives, living in fear of the KGB, and drinking vodka to kill the pain. (perhaps this is your life anyway, ;))
[/QUOTE]

On the contrary, without the US I doubt that Josef Stalin would have lasted as long as he did. Don't forget that in 19th and 20th century Russia, rebellion was a national sport. During the last 200 years there were nearly 500 uprisings. During WWII 20,000 Cossacks and 400,000 Russians civilians fought against Stalin. FDRs insistence on 'unconditional surrender' meant that liberty-seeking rebels has as much to fear from the US as they did from Stalin. After the war ended we sent around 2,000,000 anti-Stalin rebels back to Josef, who promptly executed them.

You are quite right, the world is rid of Saddam now. He would have gone much earlier if we had stayed away from Iraq altogether (by 'we' I include the British and the Russians also).

13

Myvoice,

I agree with you in that 'national interest' is the scourge of almost all countries, not just the US. The US government is certainly not the government that might lack moral judgment.

I don't believe that it is our business to remove any tyrants at all. I'm sure it would be nice to remove even just one from power, however history shows that most of the time, we have merely exacerbated the problem. I believe that Thomas Jefferson was right when he warned us about intervening in the affairs of, 'nations of eternal war'. It is extremely easy to get entrenched on one side of a conflict. The unfortunate reality is that intervention has caused more problems than it has fixed.

One has only to look at those people we supported, General Suharto, Saddam Hussein, Osama Bin Laden and the Shah of Iran amongst others. I doubt that anyone can say that the world is better of for the support we gave them.

I believe that supporting any tyrant is wrong, even against another tyrant. If two cut-throats want to kill each other, why should we want to support either of them?

I don't believe in isolationism, only non-intervention.

14

"I don't believe in isolationism, only non-intervention."

That was exactly the view of Bush pre 9/11. Thats why he was voted into office. Not going to stir the pot, not going to do any "nationbuilding".

9/11 meant that things that are ignored can quickly get out of hand. Let's face it, nobody wants to send their sons to be killed in wars overseas. Lions on the hunt are seldom killed. Lions sleeping under trees are vulnerable.

During WWI and WWII the US was very slow to enter the conflicts. We entered years after the wars were fully underway. It solved nothing and delayed the inevitable. Getting rid of Saddam was larger than Saddam. It was a message that exceeding the norms of treatment to our own people will not be tolerated. We should have done the same in Rwanda.....

15

[QUOTE]
*Originally posted by Ohioguy: *
and Pilot:
"Even as Brit, I firmly believe that the US revolution was a moral and just war. However, since 1783, I have yet to see a single US war that was morally justifiable."

Most Brits agree with Churchill that the thingy in the 1940's was "morally justifiable".
[/QUOTE]

I count myself, not suprisingly, in the minority when I say that neither Britain nor America should have been involved in WWI or WWII.

My reasons are fairly straight forward and would probably warrant a new topic, rather than debating here.

16

[QUOTE]
*Originally posted by Ohioguy: *
9/11 meant that things that are ignored can quickly get out of hand. Let's face it, nobody wants to send their sons to be killed in wars overseas. Lions on the hunt are seldom killed. Lions sleeping under trees are vulnerable.

During WWI and WWII the US was very slow to enter the conflicts. We entered years after the wars were fully underway. It solved nothing and delayed the inevitable. Getting rid of Saddam was larger than Saddam. It was a message that exceeding the norms of treatment to our own people will not be tolerated. We should have done the same in Rwanda.....
[/QUOTE]

I'm afraid, I have to disagree. The seeds of 9/11 were sown long before any president built non-intervation into their foreign policy. When we were sending Osama Bin Laden millions of dollars to finance his fighters, was that non-intervention?

If anything, I feel that WWII is a lesson in why we should have opted for non-interventionism. Anyone who looks at the facts and figures of the war will tell you that it's outcome was inevitable, regardless of whether the US joined it or not.

Perhaps you can also explain the kind of 'message' we were sending to the world, when we were supporting Saddam Hussein for 20 years?

17

"When we were sending Osama Bin Laden millions of dollars to finance his fighters, was that non-intervention?"

Believe it or not, the Afghans had a huge will to fight. The world certainly would not have been well served by another Soviet proxy state. And, records show that Bin Laden was largely a "quartermaster" in the Afghanistan fight. He was not a field commander. Most of the funds that went to the Afghan Arabs originated in Saudi. The US tended to fund the Afghans directly.

As far as our "support for Saddam" you are going to have to dig a little deeper to convince me that there was a huge dark hand of the US in Iraq. Up until the Beirut bombing of the Marines, Iraq had been under sanctions for 8 years. Rumsfelds mission in travelling around to Arab capitals after the bombing was a new policy of engagement (looking for root causes no doubt), to try to recruit the Arab world into a new openess with the US. Look at every weapon that the US faced in both Gulf wars. Not a single US weapon to be found. Iraq was a Soviet client state just like Egypt used to be.

Ultimately I think tyrants will come and go with or without us. I would be more than happy to keep our troops at home and let the rest of the world figure it all out. But conflicts like Bosnia come up where slaughters are going on (and have been for 700 years), and the US is indeed the one military power left in the world that can assure dominance on short notice. We get sucked into conflicts, and receive no thanks. If Bosnia had happened AFTER 9/11, I wonder if the American people would have wanted to end the slaughter of Muslims? Probably a very good question for the pollsters to ask.

18

Although I don't want to beat this topic to death, I didn't say OBL was a field commander. He financed the people we're now fighting, with our own tax dollars. If you can find any wisdom in that, please let me know.

I do not particularly care if the world would have been served by another 'Soviet proxy state'. What I care about, are the Afghan people about whom, the records show that adult literacy and health care were improving under the regime that was eventually backed by the Soviets, until we played a part in it's overthrow.

Look, it is not my intention to paint the US as the sole reason Saddam was in power for so long. My point is, Saddam's brutality was well know from the beginning, yet we still choose to render assistance to him. Suddenly we are now trumpeting the mass graves we found in Iraq, which were being filled from even before Donald Rumsfield was over there shaking hands with Saddam. What gets me is the hypocrisy of our sudden morality. Where was it 20 years ago?

You are quite right, there will always be tyrants. Just like you, I think our troops should be kept at home. In the case of Bosnia, Clinton ended up backing both the Christians and the Muslims at one point. The problem is, it's extremely difficult to try to spread justice and liberty around the world, without getting entrenched. It's a wonderful ideal to aim for, but I can't think of one example where we tried to help and it didn't hurt us in the long run. These are, after all, 'nations of eternal war'.

19

How can you in one breath tell me the horrors of Stalin, then tell me things were just peachy for the Afghans under the Soviets? That makes no sense at all.

Your arguements are multifold, but let me summarize. The US should not use it's military, regardless of the consequences. Keep our troops at home.

We should not endeavor to "support" anyone, for fear of making a mistake.

We should talk a good game about Human Rights, Democracy, Liberty and the betterment of man, but when the rubber hits the road, we should go back to our nice houses and garden.

The US should not take sides in the world. Let them scrap it out without us. Don't bug me, I'll be on my yacht.

Unfortunately Americans are simply not made like that. The same can-do attitude that has driven our ecomomy also pervades our thinking about the world. Unfortunately Americans also underestimate the depths of ignorance, hate, inhuman and cruel treatment that pervades the world. We cannot solve all the problems of the world. We need to pick the fights that make a difference. Time will tell whether Iraq was a good fight or a bad one.

20

Please don't misquote me. What I wrote is here for everyone to see. What I said was, Stalin killed twice as many civilians as Hitler, yet we spent precious American lives and resources supporting him. As for Afghanistan, I said that the quality of life for Afghanistanis was improving under the regime, which was eventually backed by the Soviets militarily.

At the end of the day, ideals are nice to have and I'm sure it gives us a warm fuzzy feeling to militarily intervene on someone else's behalf. However, history shows us that it's extremely difficulty to do without loosing precious American and foreign civilian lives. More often than not, we have helped crooks and tyrants to varying degrees, sent our brave men and women to the wars of others and killed our fair share of civilians in well-meaning endeavors.

There's nothing wrong with being a beacon of 'freedom and liberty', but I'm afraid our track record does not give me a lot of confidence.