: : : SDF: I thought that in the last half-century or so it was mainly the US government that was largely responsible for creating wars : : Don: And I thought it was the communists, with their various "wars of national liberation".
: Oh, well, silly me. I always thought that liberation was a good thing. i seem to recall something called the Revolutionary War, and something else called the Civil War. I guess not, Uncle Sam knows best for everyone, be it the Nicaraguans or the Congolese....NOT.
Don: The post-WW2 "wars of national liberation" were attempts by communist terrorists to seize control of various third-world nations. Many of these were backed by the Soviets or Chinese. Most were extremely brutal.
: : :-- the US was entirely responsible for creating the phony regime "South Vietnam" (against the dictum of the agreed-upon Geneva convention, which decreed an election to unite North and South Vietnam to be held in 1956 AT THE LATEST) and sustaining it through warfare for two decades, at a cost of two million lives...
: 3 million, I believe....
Don: How many the communists sacrificed to gain power will probably never be known . . .
: : Don: And there is the Sino-Vietnamese war, and the Korean war, and the Soviet invasion of Afganistan,
: as opposed to the US invasion of Grenada,
Don: Which was a great thing. A communist terrorist training camp was closed down. This helped to stabalize the entire region. The cost was relatively low (despite the poor quality of the US forces due to Carter's disreguard for the military). Compared to Clinton's operations (where we demonstrated a will to kill others as long as we didn't risk ourselves, combined with an incoherent forign policy) Grenada was a masterpiece.
: : and the wars between India and Pakistan,
: did you know that the United States consistently supported the wrong side? During the brief war in '71 over Bangladesh, when the Pakistanis were slaughtering three million Bengalis and India was trying to liberate them, the United States actually sent some warships to aid PAKISTAN!!? Fortunatley, the Pakistanis surrendered before the US got there.
Don: According to Indian propaganda, no doubt. I'm sure Pakistan has a different view.
: :and the Russian war against Chechnia,
: started by that darling of the west, Yeltsin (long may he rot)
Don: Yes, the fascist who came into power after the communists failed.
: :and the Falklands,
:
: between two of our favorite right-wing capitalists, thatcher and Galtieri
Don: And yet another war that was not due to the US.
: :and a Soviet attempt to start a revolution in Mexico,
: (?) are you talking about the student protests in '68, or teh Zapatista insurrection, both of which were demands for social justice?
Don: I'm talking about an attempt at a communist "revolution" by Mexicans trained in the USSR and North Korea. This terrorist group didn't do as well as the Sandistas and others. It was stopped in its early stages, saving the Mexican people from Marxist terror.
: :and the Soccer war, the war between Iran and Iraq, and the various Marxist revolutions in Asia, Africa, and South America.
: I tend to think that most of the latter were just wars, by peopel seeking their basic human rights and the dignity due to human beings.
: Of course, on the otehr hand., there's all the notable genocidal and war-mongering regimes that were allies of the US over teh course of this century, including the three that perpetrated teh century's bloodiest genocides- all in the name of capitalism. Remember Indonesia? Belgium? Pre-WWI Germany? Guatemala? El Salvador? Brazil?
Don: The three bloodiest genocides were committed by: communist China, communist USSR, and National Socialist Germany. Communist Cambodia, Turkey, and others deserve mention. Belgium fought a war against murderous terrorists in the Congo, and both Guatemala and El Salvador fought wars of survival against communist terrorists.
: : :then there's the 100,000 or so children that have died due to the embargo upon Iraq,
: : Don: Yeah, right.
: :
: "Yeah, right"? What do you mean, "yeah, right"? Whenever a fact is uncomfortable you choose to deny it? This statistic has been verified by nonpartisan sources across teh board, it's pretty much accepted by all sides.
Don: What "nonpartisan sources" accept this "fact", and how was this "fact" established?
:the least you could do is recognize the victims of American policies. Saying black si white doesn't make it so.
Don: If we assume this "fact" is true, why do we assume they are victims of "American policies"? One could hold their own government to blame for its policies.
: : Don: After the Sandistas were out of power, the mass graves of some of their victims were found. Funny, but lefties seem to overlook this . . .
: Yes, it figures you'd ignore the fact that the Sandinistas were democratically elected, taht they were the freest and most responsible government in Central America, and that any errors they made pale in comparison to teh repression in Guatemala or El Salvador. right now they're discovering mass graves in Honduras, the last American ally in the region that had been believed to be 'democratic' during teh '80s....apparently not. The right-wing regimes in Central America, it appears now, were murderous across the board. The Sandinistas were not.
Don: The Sandistas were murderous, as were the leftist terrorists in Honduras and El Salvador.
: : Don: The current leftist historical revisionism is neither patriotic nor interested in the truth. Rather, it creates its own "truth" to reach pre-determined conclusions.
: Oh, nonsense. Nothing 'the left' has done is as blatant a lie as the conservatives' canard that Nicaragua was repressive.
Don: The current bunch of leftist historians have long since given up any search for the truth. Which basically means that conservatives have won the war of ideas.
:As Chomsky ahs said, it requires a voluntary totalitarianism to say this, becasue thefacts clearly show that Nicaragua had ahd an election which was by all standards the freest in the region, in comparison to teh US allies Guatemala and El Salvador which were terror states run by death squads.
Don: El Salvador had a free election, despite the threat of leftist terrorists to murder citizens who voted. The Sandistas got away with murder.
: I despise the currnet crop of over-educated right wing historians funded by think tanks and recognized as 'important scholars' who use their privileged position to pontificate on how communism was muredrous and unworkable. If they've got nothing of value to say, then they shouldn't say anything. Befroe tehy start criticizing communism, tehy shoudl experience how it is to be a starving peasant in Brazil or a grape picker in California.
Don: I've picked grapes in California. I've never been in Brasil, however.
