USA Foriegn Policy: Am I Right?

[Johnny Hughes]

The U.S. backed the Shah of Iran, a ruthless tyrant, against the people of Iran. We provided weapons. The Shah lost and the Iranians ended up hating the U.S. Then we backed Iraq and Saddam Hussein, a worse tyrant, in a long war against Iran. We provided weapons and intelligence. Then we made a secret deal with Iran to provide weapons if they would support the Contras in South America. I can't spell Nicaraqua.

Along the way, we helped the Taliban come to power and provided the weapons we now fight against.

When Saddam invaded Kuwait, we threw him out but allowed him to remain in power. Now we have invaded and occupied Iraq. We did this because a group of Saudi Arabians attack up on Nine/Eleven. People in the Middle East countries hate us regardless of their religion.

Now, the Sunnis hate the Shiites and have for 1300 years. Some of the Shiites hate other Shiite groups. We have provided weapons to all factions. The Sunnis and the Shiites hate the Kurds who hate the Turks. All of the above hate the Jews. We have provided weapons to every group involved. We provide weapons to all hoping it will bring peace. We borrow the money from the Chinese to do this. Iraqi are already as well armed as Texans but we still borrow the money and buy more weapons and hope it will bring peace.

All of our well intentioned foriegn policy ideas fail because the ordinary people in all these countries hate us. We hold to the policy, in a magical thinking sort of way, that we can bring them Democracy. In those countries where elections were held: Iran, Lebanon, and Palestine, the USA backed side lost.

If our troops leave, there will be some escalation of the civil war that already exists in Iraq. I'd get our troops out of the middle of all this. We cannot determine events in the Middle East. I would focus on defending the Homeland. All these tribes and factions would go on hating but the USA and England would not be the object of their greatest hatred. I'd defend, with the Air Force and the Navy, the borders of our allies in the region such as Saudi Arabia, Jordan, and Israel. I would not put our troops in the middle of all this senseless hatred and predictable violence. Support the troops, bring them home. Is my mini-history correct? I know I forgot countless blunders.

[NorthView]

It would be more accurate if you replaced

"All of our well intentioned foriegn policy ideas fail because the ordinary people in all these countries hate us. We hold to the policy, in a magical thinking sort of way, that we can bring them Democracy."

with something like

"All of our ruthlessly self-interested foreign policy ideas fail because the ordinary people in all these countries see through us, and don't want our interference in their national affairs unless they ask for it. We hold to the policy, in a retarded-thinking sort of way, that we can sell them lots of expensive weapons and put a McDonalds on every street. We just can't understand why they wouldn't want this, because we know so little about the rest of the world that we assume everybody else wants to be just like us."

Happy New Year

[redhouse]

[Johnny Hughes]

[Beavis68]

[black_knight6]

[Felonius_Monk]

I think I actually agree with a lot of what Beavis says - I don't see how we can turn our back on this situation when we basically caused it, I think that might do even more harm than leaving the troops there. That said, I can't see that we currently have any control or are doing much good, but I think we have to try.

The best course of action would be to ensure the idiots who dragged us into this disaster are appropriately punished for their stupidity and arrogance, and to do the best we can to ensure that we "stay the course" over the next 5 years and try to help in some way to find a more peaceful solution. At the moment it seems to me that the only way to stop the civil war is to try to somehow sub-divide the country on an ethnic basis into separate nations, or at least autonomous regions, which is pretty much exactly the last thing we wanted in the first place but it seems like the only way this is going to come to any sort of conclusion in the next few years. However, it seems to me the best course as it might 1) reduce the bloodshed to some extent (I think we've just passed 3000 US troops and several hundred british ones killed in Iraq, and something like 25,000 wounded, and the total death toll including civilians will probably hit the 1 million mark within the next 1-2 years at the current rate) and 2) potentially reduce the effect of this civil war which is acting as a very effective recruiting and training ground for anti-Western terrorists.

The one concern of course is that Iraq has been (until recently) geographically mixed (i.e. Sunnis and Shiites living in the same neighbourhoods, though now I think in many areas the majority has more or less forced out the minority); the British tried something similar in Ireland, giving back the majority of the country to Irish rule but gerrymandering a protestant majority in a few counties of the north and maintaining that as part of Britain, with pretty damaging consequences over the years. However, even a situation like that would be better than totally pulling out and allowing Iraq to be torn apart by bloody civil war perhaps for decades, or to leave it as it is now, where we have no control and are losing more and more troops every day.

[Johnny Hughes]

[TableTiger1]