"Neda". Watched it. Not cool.

[NWO Sentryman]

We should have left Mossadeg in power. After that, it was an act of aggression to do anything further.



There was the alternative of leaving them the hell alone so that they would not feel a need to have nukes. No country has ever threatened to use nukes on us where we had not committed some act of aggression.

What, left a hole in the theory of containment? at the time, people were very jumpy about the ramifications of communist spreading. McCarthy would have had eisenhower impeached becuase he was seen to be weak on communism. China and Eastern Europe had already fallen.

so, basically, the USA is the fount of all evil eh? Allende was linked to the soviets. Nixon could not have taken that chance. At the time, the world was very different. People could have expected nuclear war at any moment. Bombers were literally awaiting orders for nuclear strikes. Should have stayed back and let the Nazis and Japanese devour Afro-eurasia because of the oil sanctions that hit the Japanese by that logic. Should have let the Soviets have whatever they wanted for "peace"

As well as that, the US silos were geared for retaliation and had ABMs surrounding them. The Soviets were geared for first strike and had NO ABMs

What "aggression" did the US commit against the soviets eh? Some lousy intervention in Siberia meant to keep the Japanese in check. the US also gave Stalin Hundreds of Tanks, Planes and other pieces of equipment under the lend-lease.

 

[Skeptic Ginger]

for my che and mao comments:

http://www.hurryupharry.org/2009/01/03/che-and-what-he-stood-for/

Let's look at the first source here, Edmund Standing, and I'll get to the rest later so I can spend a proper amount of time assessing your sources.

Mr Standing is a prolific Net writer, with many very strong anti-Islamic, anti-fascists opinion pieces. He cites almost exclusively news articles and other blogs in this extensive piece the Che Guevara comments in your link were taken from. (Nothing on Mao in your link BTW.) Standing's comments about Che mainly come from the following sources:

[29] Daniel Wolf (2004) 'Poster Killer', The Spectator, August 28. Online: http://www.spectator.co.uk/archive/...killer.thtml?SelectedIssueDate=28 August 2004
[30] Ashley E. Herzog (2008) 'Behind the T-Shirt: Exposing the Real Che Guevara', Human Events, September 10. Online: http://www.humanevents.com/article.php?print=yes&id=28932
[31] Humberto Fontova (2006) 'Che Guevara: 39 Years of Idolatry', FrontPage Magazine, October 9. Online: http://www.frontpagemagazine.com/Articles/Read.aspx?GUID=7D6E2F37-F6B7-4F5B-9727-096189F3DBB3
[32] Ibid.
[33] Ibid.
[34] Quoted in Paul Berman (2004) 'The Cult of Che: Don't applaud The Motorcycle Diaries', Slate Magazine, September 24. Online: http://www.slate.com/id/2107100/
[35] Humberto Fontova (2007) 'Che Guevara Planned Attacks Against the U.S.', Newsmax, November 21. Online: http://www.newsmax.com/fontova/che_guevara_u.s./2007/11/21/51310.html
[36] Ibid.
[37] Ibid.
[38] Quoted in Wolf, 'Poster Killer'.
[39] Berman, 'The Cult of Che'.
[40] Fontova, 'Che Guevara Planned Attacks Against the U.S.'.

The first link is an opinion piece by Daniel Wolf. It is not an historical record or any kind of evidence supported piece. It's more of a reporter writing about an upcoming film on Che. I can't find anything on Wolf because the name is too common. The Spectator does not include a bio as far as I can tell. Perhaps you could enlighten us as to his expertise on Che.

The next source is from humanevents.com and is by an anonymous author. They lose all credibility by this quote on their "about" page:

HUMAN EVENTS is the periodical in which the peerless Ann Coulter, author of the smash bestseller, Guilty, drives multicultural defeatists up the wall. (Recent sample: "Baby formula doesn't kill people. Islamic fascists kill people.")

If the article in question had any citations I would consider that. But as it is, this is not a reliable source for anything except extreme right wing ranting.


Next we have Humberto Fontova on FrontPageMag., another bastion of right wing extremism. At least this guy wrote extensively on Cuba, Castro, and Che including a book, "Exposing the Real Che Guevara and the Useful Idiots Who Idolize Him". However, the accuracy of an author as fanatical as this is impossible to judge. The following book review on Amazon expresses my concerns:

10 of 11 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars Good starting point, July 10, 2008
By B. Wilfong
Exposing the Real Che Guevara is an interesting text, and certainly sheds some light on a man who was a blight in twentieth century history. I learned some out of the ordinary facts in this text, and I would tell people to read it simply as a starting point to finding out the truth about Che.
Having said that though...Mr. Fontova's prejudices come through, and he has a right to them. But in being so emotional, he gives his detractors something to point at and belittle. This allows people, and disingenuous reviewers on this site, to distort the book by attacking his obvious emotional bent without touching on the truth in this book. For the most part Fontova substantiates most of what he says, and some of it is truly shocking. Still, I keep coming back to my desire for a more scholarly approach to this text. The book suffers from redundancy and that again takes away from his thesis. This text is imminently readable, which I think accounts for some of the author's simplistic style choices, and I hope it serves as a jumping off point for even more scholarly research into the joke that is the myth of Che Guevara.

Next is Paul Berman from Slate.com, with The Cult of Che. It's another review of the same movie as Daniel Wolf reviews, "The Motorcycle Diaries", a 2004 screenplay which debuted at the Sundance Film Festival, of the book by the same title, which was Che's real diary and that of his companion. This is a review of the 2 real diaries by someone who read them. The link was from the Wiki entry on the subject.

The rest of the citations all come from these same sources.



The point of all this is that clearly people reading about the real Che have come to different opinions about him. The opinions from the right wing extremists and anti-Castro fanatics are just that, opinions, as are the opinions from those who see the benefits Castro brought to the Cuban people. The truth, IMO, is in between the two extremes.

 

[NWO Sentryman]

No, Johann Hari also wrote on che and mao. I meant to put them in instead

http://www.independent.co.uk/opinio...ann-hari-should-che-be-an-icon-no-394336.html

He idolised Mao Tse Tung, who killed over 70 million people.

And what are YOUR sources? some people who portray Che as the messiah? People who worship Joseph Stalin and Mao Tse Tung.

Reason also did a mini-documentary on Che.

It is well documented that Che hated Gay men.

as for frontpagemag being right wing extremists, then how come they condemn the : that comes from neo-nazis and hitler?

Daniel pipes IMO is a good authority on the middle East.

He also idolised Stalin

 

[leftysergeant]

What, left a hole in the theory of containment? at the time, people were very jumpy about the ramifications of communist spreading. McCarthy would have had eisenhower impeached becuase he was seen to be weak on communism. China and Eastern Europe had already fallen.

so, basically, the USA is the fount of all evil eh? Allende was linked to the soviets. Nixon could not have taken that chance. At the time, the world was very different.

Dude! I was here then and that excuse does not have legs. That was part of why the Cold War lasted so long, and may, in actuality, not really be over, thanks to the bungling of the Shrub.

What "aggression" did the US commit against the soviets eh? Some lousy intervention in Siberia meant to keep the Japanese in check. the US also gave Stalin Hundreds of Tanks, Planes and other pieces of equipment under the lend-lease.

We invaded in 1918 and attempted to overthrow the Revolution. Stalin never really trusted us after that and Patton didn't help much.

 

[Pardalis]

Neda, Jimmy Carter, Che Guevarra, Patton, boy, you guys are hard to follow.

 

[NWO Sentryman]

Dude! I was here then and that excuse does not have legs. That was part of why the Cold War lasted so long, and may, in actuality, not really be over, thanks to the bungling of the Shrub.



We invaded in 1918 and attempted to overthrow the Revolution. Stalin never really trusted us after that and Patton didn't help much.

Have you lived under a rock during the 50's and beyond? That was the height of the red scare. Hollywood had just been purged, congress and the Supreme court were at risk, and there was a real chance of impeachment if mccarthy thought that eisenhower was too weak.

Well, the US did not want his nightmare vision for the rest of the world spreading. Russia under lenin was far harsher than the tsars.

Ever heard of Mutual assured destruction? They literally had nukes on standby in case of war.

The US intervention in siberia was also to keep the Japanese in check. They did not want the Japanese to be too powerful. They only gave light assistance to the Whites. even then, it was minimal.

What was the west to do? bow down to the communists? give in to their every whim because of the attempt to curtail a totalitarian ideology in its primordial stages? Carter did just that, and paid the price.

So stalin started WW2 in self defence coz of some us equipment that the whites got as well as preventing the japanese from annexing any part of siberia? Russia was in a civil war.

Stalin never trusted anybody (he even wiped out half his generals after a note from reinhard heydrich). He would be described as the ultimate in paranoia. He constantly exterminated people because of his paranoid delusions. Might i also add that he even kept expanding after the western allies let him keep his ill-gotten gains under the Molotov ribbentrop pact (that's something the CPUSA left out of their textbooks. oh wait, they were on russian payroll. But that's okay, the USSR was doing it in self defence). For example, he grabbed china. He tried to devour south korea. Communism was expanding everywhere. The West had to contain him. Communism was like a virus, it had to be quarantined at all cost.

As someone who has studied Soviet russia (and not taken the 5 hour agitprop course), i can say that the US, Britain, France and other powers did not want to risk another war. So they funded the whites to try and crush the communists, before they could start another war. Remember, they called for a second world war. The other powers had just gone through WW1 and had not wanted another 6 years of bloodshed.

 

[Skeptic Ginger]

Neda, Jimmy Carter, Che Guevarra, Patton, boy, you guys are hard to follow.

I figured we were biding our time until Iran returned to the current events list.

 

[leftysergeant]

Seeing how much it cost us the last time, and seeing how badly our ecconomy is doing now, I really don't think going all paranoid and returning to those days of gonad-driven power playing around the world is worth the heart ache and the risk of mass suicide by nations who will not suffer the last surviving man to be one of the enemies'.

M.A.D. was what kept us safe, not beligerence and meddling.

Iran is Iran's problem. We have harmed them too much already.

 

[NWO Sentryman]

Seeing how much it cost us the last time, and seeing how badly our ecconomy is doing now, I really don't think going all paranoid and returning to those days of gonad-driven power playing around the world is worth the heart ache and the risk of mass suicide by nations who will not suffer the last surviving man to be one of the enemies'.

M.A.D. was what kept us safe, not beligerence and meddling.

Iran is Iran's problem. We have harmed them too much already.

Sounds like George McGovern's "come home america" of leftist isolationism.

I agree that internal affairs are internal affairs, but sometimes intervention is necessary to prevent a full scale war.

 

[leftysergeant]

What sort of intervention would not START a war?

 

[NWO Sentryman]

What sort of intervention would not START a war?

An intervention when a small scale war is already in place in order to prevent it from spreading.

It can sometimes work, as with the Bosnian or First Gulf Wars.

or to stop tyrants expanding as in WW2 and Korea.

Or it can go wrong. Horribly, as in vietnam.

 

[leftysergeant]

An intervention when a small scale war is already in place in order to prevent it from spreading.

If it spills outside their borders, it is the concern of Iraq, Syria, Turkey or whatever other Muslim country it spills into. Not ours. If we appear to be taking sides with either faction, we are meddling again and may just drive the two factions back together to fight off the invaders.

Or it can go wrong. Horribly, as in vietnam.

The more likely scenario, actually.

 

[NWO Sentryman]

If it spills outside their borders, it is the concern of Iraq, Syria, Turkey or whatever other Muslim country it spills into. Not ours. If we appear to be taking sides with either faction, we are meddling again and may just drive the two factions back together to fight off the invaders.



The more likely scenario, actually.

but what happens if one of the factions is committing Genocide, as in Bosnia? Would the US not be bound by the genocide convention to act?

ETA: sorry for being a jerk earlier on.

Speaking of Vietnam, did you fight in the war? becasue your name hints at you being ex-military.

 

[leftysergeant]

but what happens if one of the factions is committing Genocide, as in Bosnia? Would the US not be bound by the genocide convention to act?

Independently? No. Maybe as part of a multi-national force not spearheaded by the USA.

Speaking of Vietnam, did you fight in the war? becasue your name hints at you being ex-military.

The only overseas duty I did in that time frame was in Libya, and my experience with the Muslim mindset, and what I saw of the way that people regarded our foreign policy shapes my ideas of what we should do now in the Middle East, which is to say, as little as possible.

 

[NWO Sentryman]

Independently? No. Maybe as part of a multi-national force not spearheaded by the USA.



The only overseas duty I did in that time frame was in Libya, and my experience with the Muslim mindset, and what I saw of the way that people regarded our foreign policy shapes my ideas of what we should do now in the Middle East, which is to say, as little as possible.

well, the US militaary is the only one that seems to be capable of doing it right after the fiascos the UN peacekeepers got into in Rwanda and Bosnia. Well, we can blame Bill Clinton for that. A few cruise missiles into RTLM stations and it'd [the genocide] fall apart.

Well, we can blame the eisenhower doctrine for the mess the middle east got into.