The worse foreign policy fuckup in American history

Started by AllPurposeAtheist, March 19, 2013, 04:02:16 PM

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David

Sky tv in England has just run the HBO series "Oliver Stones untold history of the United States ,excellent viewing, Stones perspective of the the US is refreshing from my bleeding heart liberal stance and hes not afraid to show the US dark side.He seems to say that the US government is just a deinformation lobby while generals and the CIA get on with the work defending the US foreign  interests ie multi nationals and Iraq is one of many"projects" that they undertook.
He does sometimes waffle on about your lost messiah Henry A Wallace and I would imagine he gets a bad press when he talks politics in the US but he does give interesting insight into a more believable history of the US than I ever learnt in school.....

LikelyToBreak

The Iraqi war was not a mistake.  It was a calculated way to make the rich, richer and to silence Saddam Hussein once and for all.  The U.S. and United Kingdom's governments knew Hussein had WMD's, because they sold them to him.  And like in Afghanistan we were supposed to get in, get specific objectives done, then get out.  In and out in 6 months, a year tops.  But, the rich liked getting richer and forced Dubya to prolong things.  Then Obama got into office, and found out which side of the bread he had butter on and prolonged our being in Iraq for another 4 years.  Which helped ensure he got another 4 years.

Yes, ladies and gentlemen.  I am a conspiracy nut.  I believe the rich run the world for themselves and it doesn't matter to them how many of us peasants have to die.   Every war which I have studied, have been about money.  The Colonies rebelled against Britain not because of taxation without representation, but because the Crown wouldn't let the colonies print their own money.  War of 1812 wasn't about illegal impressment, it was about market share and the chance to pillage Canada.  The Mexican War was about a land grab, so slave owners could have more room to work their slaves.  On and on.  And they all had a Pearl Harbor like incident to get them rolling.  

So you see, the Iraqi war was not a mistake.  It made billions for the billionaires.

Oh, I always thought the bombs were dropped on Japan to try and intimidate Stalin.  But, then Stalin was already working on his own bombs, thanks to Communist spies in our State Department.  And the powers that be, didn't give a rat's ass how many innocents had to die to get what they wanted.

frosty

In my view, in a modern sense, one of the worst fumbles of American foreign policy is the current Syrian war. Instead of helping the moderates overthrow a nasty tyrant, the U.S. and the rest of the west for that matter stood by and watched as Assad destroyed the entire country to preserve his 43 year family inherited police state dictatorship. Because of the inaction of the west, various hardcore fundamentalist groups filled the big gap that was left and now they are very powerful. I don't think they are powerful enough to overthrow Assad, but they will give him a very hard time and because they are there, the entire country will become a haven for militants.

Colanth

Quote from: "LikelyToBreak"The Iraqi war was not a mistake.  It was a calculated way to make the rich, richer and to silence Saddam Hussein once and for all.  The U.S. and United Kingdom's governments knew Hussein had WMD's
We knew he had them - 13 years earlier.  As we found out once we had the freedom to move about, he had nothing he could have threatened Kuwait with by the time we invaded.
Afflicting the comfortable for 70 years.
Science builds skyscrapers, faith flies planes into them.

Thumpalumpacus

Quote from: "billhilly"
QuoteThis ignores the fact that America had much in outstanding loans to the Allies in that war, and letting Germany defeat them would have resulted in economic upheaval here.


So millions dead is cool as long as we get our loans paid back?   Really?

I'm not sure where you read that I thought it was "cool".  You're obviously not interested in reading what I'm actually writing; this is not the first time you've tried to strawman a point of mine.  I'm trying to explain the historical forces in play at the time, not saying they're justified.

Most wars suck, most reasons for war are not really good, and attempting to impute any other view to me is inaccurate.  Are you being deliberately obtuse, in search of an argument?  I'm not interested in that, myself.

Also, there weren't "millions" of American dead.  I'm sure you knew that already, right?
<insert witty aphorism here>

ParaGoomba Slayer

Quote from: "Solitary"To me the biggest fuck up was when the USA nuked two civilian cities in Japan when the Japanese army was already defeated for all practical purposes.

I can't think of a worse immoral crime than to maim or kill millions of innocent men, woman, and children, where there wasn't any active enemy soldiers.  And we are so righteous when Saddam used nerve gas to wipe out a village, and then we invade his country based on a lie that everyone took hook line and sinker.

And then we top it off by killing his two sons and use torture like he did knowing torture doesn't really work, unless they were all idiots. How many friends have we made in the world with those two examples based on the writings of Machiavelli ?  :evil:  :cry:  Salitary

Why does everybody focus so much on the nukes? Some fire bombings killed more people.
[size=150]Circumcision? HIS body, HIS decision.[/size]

[size=150]Your liberty to swing your fist ends just where my nose begins. This is very simple reasoning that is applied to everything, EXCEPT infant circumcision for some stupid fucking reason.[/size]

Thumpalumpacus

Fact is, if the nukes hadn't cowed Japan to surrender, the submarine/mining blockade may well have killed millions.  Intracoastal traffic in the Japanese islands had been effectively  halted, so there was no way to get what little rice grown that year to the cities.

The nuclear bombs gave Japan a graceful surrender, allowing them to save millions of Japanese lives which would likely have been lost in Olympic.
<insert witty aphorism here>

Shiranu

Quote from: "ParaGoomba Slayer"
Quote from: "Solitary"To me the biggest fuck up was when the USA nuked two civilian cities in Japan when the Japanese army was already defeated for all practical purposes.

I can't think of a worse immoral crime than to maim or kill millions of innocent men, woman, and children, where there wasn't any active enemy soldiers.  And we are so righteous when Saddam used nerve gas to wipe out a village, and then we invade his country based on a lie that everyone took hook line and sinker.

And then we top it off by killing his two sons and use torture like he did knowing torture doesn't really work, unless they were all idiots. How many friends have we made in the world with those two examples based on the writings of Machiavelli ?  :evil:  :cry:  Salitary

Why does everybody focus so much on the nukes? Some fire bombings killed more people.

The firebombs didn't take years of torture to kill people or fuck up generations afterwards.

As for the nukes, my problem with it is that they were unnecessary; if the story is true, the ambassador who delivered the terms of surrender came across as too weak and so the Japanese thought it was just a bluff. If anything I blame him more than anyone else.
"A little science distances you from God, but a lot of science brings you nearer to Him." - Louis Pasteur

Cheerful Charlie

Quote from: "BarkAtTheMoon"
Quote from: "Seabear"
Quote from: "Gerard"Yes. Since that's not where Al Qaida was.... until they could get in afterwards.....

OK Saddam wasn't nice and he needed to go . So do many other heads of countries now and back then, but you wonder about the priorities that were considered back then by Bush and his advisers...

Gerard
Son showing he could finish what daddy couldn't

For all the talk of war for oil profits or whatever other reasons, I think this^ had more to do with it than anything. He seemed to have that family fuck up striving for approval thing going on. His little brother Jeb was the golden boy of the family that was expected to make an eventual presidential run back in the 90's, not Dubya.


Before he  ran, Bush 43  hired a ghostwriter,  Mickey Herskovitz to  help write a book explaining why Bush would make a good president.  Bush talked about Iraq, and hiss idea was that by attacking Iraq and defeating a militarily weak regime, he'd become a war hero and accrue "political capitol".

It had nothing to do with oil or defeating an evil dictator.  Political capitol, approval rratings so high he could do whatever he wanted and brush all opposition aside.

http://www.commondreams.org/headlines04/1028-01.htm

Published on Thursday, October 28, 2004 by GNN.tv
 Two Years Before 9/11, Candidate Bush was Already Talking Privately About Attacking Iraq, According to His Former Ghost Writer
by Russ Baker
 

HOUSTON -- Two years before the September 11 attacks, presidential candidate George W. Bush was already talking privately about the political benefits of attacking Iraq, according to his former ghost writer, who held many conversations with then-Texas Governor Bush in preparation for a planned autobiography.

"He was thinking about invading Iraq in 1999," said author and journalist Mickey Herskowitz. "It was on his mind. He said to me: 'One of the keys to being seen as a great leader is to be seen as a commander-in-chief.' And he said, 'My father had all this political capital built up when he drove the Iraqis out of Kuwait and he wasted it.' He said, 'If I have a chance to invade?.if I had that much capital, I'm not going to waste it. I'm going to get everything passed that I want to get passed and I'm going to have a successful presidency."

Bush had a falling out with Herskovitz, and fired him.  He was put up to this by a gaggle of neocons who were rather impressed at how Margret Thatcher, well hated at large, revived her political fortune by defeating Argentina.

Cheerful Charlie
Cheerful  Charlie

AllPurposeAtheist

So all these people are killed and maimed so that Dubya could have s nice fantasy legacy that didn't turn out so peachy after all. He's still stinking filthy rotten rich because of it and treated as royalty in Texas.
All hail my new signature!

Admit it. You're secretly green with envy.

ParaGoomba Slayer

Quote from: "Shiranu"
Quote from: "ParaGoomba Slayer"
Quote from: "Solitary"To me the biggest fuck up was when the USA nuked two civilian cities in Japan when the Japanese army was already defeated for all practical purposes.

I can't think of a worse immoral crime than to maim or kill millions of innocent men, woman, and children, where there wasn't any active enemy soldiers.  And we are so righteous when Saddam used nerve gas to wipe out a village, and then we invade his country based on a lie that everyone took hook line and sinker.

And then we top it off by killing his two sons and use torture like he did knowing torture doesn't really work, unless they were all idiots. How many friends have we made in the world with those two examples based on the writings of Machiavelli ?  :evil:  :cry:  Salitary

Why does everybody focus so much on the nukes? Some fire bombings killed more people.

The firebombs didn't take years of torture to kill people or fuck up generations afterwards.

As for the nukes, my problem with it is that they were unnecessary; if the story is true, the ambassador who delivered the terms of surrender came across as too weak and so the Japanese thought it was just a bluff. If anything I blame him more than anyone else.

I get that Hiroshima and Nagasaki were terrible, arguably more terrible than some firebombings, but I still don't understand why they seem to be the strategic bombings that get the bulk of the criticism. At least they brought an end to the war. Shit, we set fire to half of Tokyo and killed 100,000 people.
[size=150]Circumcision? HIS body, HIS decision.[/size]

[size=150]Your liberty to swing your fist ends just where my nose begins. This is very simple reasoning that is applied to everything, EXCEPT infant circumcision for some stupid fucking reason.[/size]

Thumpalumpacus

Quote from: "Shiranu"The firebombs didn't take years of torture to kill people or fuck up generations afterwards.

As for the nukes, my problem with it is that they were unnecessary; if the story is true, the ambassador who delivered the terms of surrender came across as too weak and so the Japanese thought it was just a bluff. If anything I blame him more than anyone else.

Those terms weren't delivered by an ambassador, they were delivered by a President and a Prime Minister, at the end of the Potsdam Conference..  They were quite clear, and unmistakable.
<insert witty aphorism here>

Jmpty

The Korean war, although it was probably more of a military strategy mistake than a foreign policy one.
???  ??

Shiranu

Quote from: "Thumpalumpacus"
Quote from: "Shiranu"The firebombs didn't take years of torture to kill people or fuck up generations afterwards.

As for the nukes, my problem with it is that they were unnecessary; if the story is true, the ambassador who delivered the terms of surrender came across as too weak and so the Japanese thought it was just a bluff. If anything I blame him more than anyone else.

Those terms weren't delivered by an ambassador, they were delivered by a President and a Prime Minister, at the end of the Potsdam Conference..  They were quite clear, and unmistakable.

Shit yeah I got that backwards, the Japanese ambassador was the one who said that he felt they went out of their way to appeal to the Japanese government, making them look weak.
"A little science distances you from God, but a lot of science brings you nearer to Him." - Louis Pasteur

Jutter

before we all decide that foreign policy fuckups are an undesirable thing....

Isn't foreign policy fuckups how the USA came to be in the first place?
No religion for me thank you very much; I 'm full of shit enough as it is.

Being flabbergasted about existence never made anyone disappear in a poof of flabbergas, so nevermind why we're here. We ARE here.