I've been reading all this bullcrap on these boards about how the US has done more good than harm in the world today and how every European should be kissing our asses for saving them in WWII and how great we are for saving the world from evil and how insane and cowardly the rest of the world is for not "standing up to Saddam"... Please, give the rest of us some straight forward justifications for the following "foreign policy" moves: 1. The decision to overthrow Mossadegh in Iran in the 1950's via CIA coup and support the dastardly Shah of Iran? 2. The training and support for Manny Noriega? He went to school here, you know...the School of the Americas. Why is this place open again? 3. Giving Saddam Hussein biological and chemical weapons during the Iran/Iraq war? Standing by while he gassed the Kurds? Not giving the Kurdish rebels the support they needed to fight back? That's all for now. Don't want you spoon-fed US foreign policy cheerleaders to blow your cerebullums trying to balance out these acts while putting the US on a moral pedestal.
I'd be glad to as soon as you justify every mistake you've made in your life. No one on this board has said the US is mistake free, but we're still the good guys.
bad people it would depend on how you justify good, and whether you truly believe a country can be good or bad, people can truly only be good or bad, and the united states has had bad people running it, people who do bad things, evil things, and get the working class to support them by blinding them with cheap beer, dvd's and porn---all the while mantufacturing consent with government controlled media--- the usa has had people running it who were evil, these people did horrrible things, we need to realize it and stop them
To me, the biggest habitual mistake in US foreign policy has been the view that "the enemy of my enemy is my friend." In everyday life and especially in the world of big league politics and wars this is such a fallacy. We thought that by supporting one group we would undermine another with the added benefit of getting an ally or loyalty out of the group we helped. It is amazing to me how many past US policy makers haven't figured out that every country on earth has its own agenda and is just doing what they can to meet that agenda. Sometimes that means buddying up with someone that you might otherwise be suspicious of, but hey, that's big politics. Personally, I think it is this point of view that has made the US do a lot of what it has done in the past, however, I'm sure 9/11 has made them realize this isn't the best outlook anymore.
All countries/empires that exert large amounts of power have abused their position to their advantage. For example, the Spanish and Portuguese colonialisation of the Americas, Palmerston's gunboat diplomacy of the mid 1800's and the Roman empire at it's peak. Some of the things that the USA has done in the field of foreign policy has been hypocritical, aggressive and/or exploitative, but that is not a new thing that has only happened with the USA.
As far as Mossadegh goes, he was a left-winger intent on nationalizing oil company assets at a time when Stalin was at his worst. And how do you divide up the responsibility between the US, England (I think that BP was the main oil company being threatened) and indigenous Iranians who didn't want to be Stalin's lackey? We didn't really need to support the Shah that much, he had plenty of oil income and they knew how to torture people in Iran long before the CIA was formed. Noriega, I'll bet he was just some little-known corrupt general when he went to that school. Are we supposed to give these guys some ethics screening? We handed the canal over to the bozos, fer criminy sakes! What is the source of the allegation that the US gov't supplied Iraq with chem/bio weapons in the 80's? I'm skeptical of that one.
Perhaps if you came up with some post-Cold War examples someone could demonstrate to you how foreign policy has evolved as the threat situation has evolved. Many things that the US did prior to 1989 or so were done in light of US reaction to the Soviets. Does this justify it? In some cases, no. But it's hard to make fair comparisons now -- we're living in a different world and what may seem pretty hypocritical and horrid now may have been viewed differrently then. So now that we have a new threat, we're seeing a whole new bunch of reactions, some of which seem pretty extreme, but in the eyes of those responsible for defending the freedom of Americans, justifiable. Come back in 20 years or so and the people defending them now might just be scratching their heads wondering why they did it in the first place. Hindsight is 20/20 you know.