X-Message-Number: 18797
Date: Thu, 14 Mar 2002 21:50:18 +0000
From: Philip Rhoades <>
Subject: Why do so many hate the US? Will it lead to all our deaths? - Part I

People,

George Smith's US foreign policy position is mostly dangerous crap of 
course - supporting that sort of position will get us all dead . . 
irretrievably (nothing personal George . .).

George quite correctly said:

". . Americans DO as a whole understand the authentic stakes in this 
'game'.  The stakes are survival."

- the real question is: "How do we give ourselves the best chance of 
survival?".  Here of course, George gave us exactly the wrong answer.

George also said (speaking of "Islamist aggression"):

"If it wasn't Israel, they would find someone else to blame.  If there 
had been no Jews in Germany, Hitler would have picked some other group 
to blame."

Drawing parallels between (fundamentalist) Islamic anger with Israel/US 
and Nazi blaming of Jews is ridiculous and deliberately misleading.

Let's get things into perspective - keeping things within living memory 
and forgetting about pre WWII - how many illegal foreign interventions 
(resulting in massive amounts of death and misery) has the US been 
involved with (in the name of "freedom" and "democracy")?  A _very_ 
short list:

Angola 1975-1980s
Brazil 1961-1964
Cambodia 1955-1973
Chile 1964-1973
Congo 1960-1964
Cuba 1959-1980s
Dominican Republic 1960-1966
East Timor 1975
El Salvador 1980-1994
Greece 1964-1974
Grenada 1979-1984
Guatemala 1953-1954
Guatemala 1962-1980s
Haiti 1986-1994
Indonesia 1957-1958
Indonesia 1965
Iran 1953
Laos 1957-1973
Nicaragua 1981-1990
Uruguay 1964-1970
Zaire 1975-1978

Not to mention my own country, Australia (CIA destabilisation of the 
Whitlam government in 1975).

I'm sure George's immediate response will be "we were fighting 
Communism!" in response, Henry Rosemont says:

(http://www.thirdworldtraveler.com/Foreign_Policy/TruthBehindUSForeignPol.html)
"Certainly not in those countries where we saw to the overthrow of 
democratically elected governments-e.g., Iran, 1953; Guatemala, 1954; 
Chile, 1973-and installed reactionary royalty and murderous military in 
their stead: the Shah, right-wing generals, and Augusto Pinochet. And 
surely no sane person would maintain that even in those countries whose 
governments we sought to replace which were not democratically elected 
were their peoples in any way better off for our efforts, including 
such as Vietnam, Cambodia, Cuba, Iraq, etc."

He continues:

"Against this indictment, apologists for the foreign policy 
establishment will allow that some mistakes were made, of course, but 
that our motives were pure. 'We meant well,' they insist, 'but simply 
supported the wrong side at times.' Such apologies appeal to us as a 
way to assuage our consciences, because the alternative suggests that 
we should feel a profound sense of shame for the atrocities committed 
in our name."

More recently, add to these "mistakes", the Taliban and Saddam Hussein.

The truth is that a better US foreign policy has a much better chance 
of allowing us to achieve immortality than a "nukem now!" attitude.

William Blum in "Killing Hope" reports: "It was in the early days of 
the fighting in Vietnam that a Vietcong officer said to his American 
prisoner: 'You were our heroes after the War. We read American books 
and saw American films, and a common phrase in those days was 'to be as 
rich and as wise as an American'. What happened?' "

The reason why US foreign policy has been so bad for so long would 
require a book but see Part II for some pointers:

George, I want to "mine the asteroids" too, I don't want the earth to 
look like one . .

Sincerely,

Phil.
-- 
Philip Rhoades

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Australia
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