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"this is extraordinary" I thought this was well understood as well as documented? For example, Chomsky has been speaking about this for decades and his message

by fsloth 10y ago

"this is extraordinary" I thought this was well understood as well as documented? For example, Chomsky has been speaking about this for decades and his message seems to be fact based. At least as a non-US citizen, the only war I'm happy about US participated was WW2[0]. This is not to say anything about the mere military pressure US has applied but only of active campaigns. Also, I'm not accounting UN sanctioned peace actions. As a professional soldier, if you can refer to any other war effort that benefitted anyone else than the wall street (or domino theorists in Washington) I will gladly do research on them. [0] (for not allowing Soviet Union to dominate Europe - although, a great portion of their war effort was fought with US supplies so maybe third reich and Soviet Union would have just beaten each other to death).

sooheon 10y ago
My home country, South Korea, has benefitted from our interests being aligned with those of "domino theorists in Washington". There is now a country of ~50 million with a starkly different life from those in the north.
- bzbarsky 10y ago
  fsloth would claim that this was a "UN sanctioned peace action", I bet. ;)
  - fsloth 10y ago
    Hardly. I'm trying to have a discussion, not persuade anyone of my potentially faulty view of history. I was thinking of former Yogoslavia foremost when I added the UN sanctioned piece action.
    - bzbarsky 10y ago
      Well, the Korean War _was_ a UN sanctioned peace action. Mostly by accident, because the USSR was boycotting the UN for a few months there and so failed to veto the resolution.
bzbarsky 10y ago
> can refer to any other war effort that benefitted anyone else than the wall street (or domino theorists in Washington) Let's see... 1) The First and Second Barbary Wars probably qualify, seeing as they predate both. But more to the point, I suspect they benefited lots of people outside of the US in general. 2) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aegean_Sea_Anti-Piracy_Operations_of_the_United_States https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aegean_Sea_Anti-Piracy_Operati... -- or does that not count as a war? 3) I assume you're not going to count the US Civil War? 4) Pretty sure the US involvement in https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Allied_intervention_in_the_Russian_Civil_War https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Allied_intervention_in_the_Rus... didn't benefit Wall Street, though it's not clear it really benefited anyone else, other than the Czechoslovak Legion, of course. Or would this count as a "UN sanctioned peace action" albeit in pre-UN days, given the number of countries involved? 5) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1958_Lebanon_crisis https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1958_Lebanon_crisis -- at first glance the US intervention prevented things degenerating into a more serious civil war. Or is this something that you think only benefited domino theorists? 6) I don't know enough about https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Communist_insurgency_in_Thailand https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Communist_insurgency_in_Thaila... to tell whether it would count here, but I do think it benefited at least the Thai government. 7) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shaba_II https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shaba_II 8) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Multinational_Force_in_Lebanon https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Multinational_Force_in_Lebanon is a weird one, in that it's not clear that it really _benefited_ anyone in the end, but it was certainly not aiming to benefit domino theorists or Wall Street and as far as I can tell wasn't really UN-sanctioned, but was a peacekeeping mission. 9) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Invasion_of_Grenada https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Invasion_of_Grenada -- or are you going to call this something to benefit domino theorists? The outcome (democratic elections, the day of the invasion being considered a national holiday in Grenada now) suggests that maybe the Grenadans benefited. Note that this one was _condemned_ by the UN. 10) Intervention in Kosovo in 1998/9. This was not UN-sanctioned. Pretty sure neither Wall Street nor domino theorists (what dominos?) benefited. > Also, I'm not accounting UN sanctioned peace actions. So just to be clear, specifically not counting the Korean War, the 1990-91 Gulf War, intervention in the Somali Civil War, intervention in Haiti in the mid-90s, Bosnia around the same time, Libya in 2011, right? Anything I missed?
- 10y ago
eponeponepon 10y ago
> Chomsky has been speaking about this for decades and > his message seems to be fact based. But Chomsky is a lefty subversive in an ivory tower. He couldn't possibly be right about anything. /s
- fsloth 10y ago
  "How the world works" is a pretty good anthology just in case anyone wants to revise their opinion :)
deleted 10y ago
[deleted]
knz 10y ago
> or domino theorists in Washington Domino theory wasn't just an abstract concept that artificially created conflict. Every country involved in the domino theory (Korea, Vietnam, Laos, Cambodia, Thailand, Malaysia, Indonesia, Burma, and India) experienced conflict due to the massive shift in political power after WW2 when the former colonial powers started to withdraw. It's too simplistic to assume that any western involvement in these countries was purely at the behest of Wall Street or due to the perceived threat of communism and had nothing to do with the internal conflicts created by years of colonial rule. The ruling class in nearly every one of these countries was more than happy to have continued military and economic support from the west as they fought their own civil wars. Communism was also not a benign form of government - millions died due to purges and famine caused by communist theories of central management etc. Again, it is far too simplistic to assume that the motivation of western nations were purely economic. To be clear, I'm not suggesting that economic interests were not a critical component of why the west was involved but I do think it is far too easy to ignore the complexity of these conflicts for the sake of a convenient "the west is only involved to make money" narrative.
- pdeuchler 10y ago
  > Communism was also not a benign form of government - millions died due to purges and famine caused by communist theories of central management etc. Again, it is far too simplistic to assume that the motivation of western nations were purely economic. This is dangerously naive, "communism" had almost nothing to do with the genocide(s) that Stalin purposefully perpetrated for political and economic reasons. Just your daily reminder that communism is not a form of government, Soviet Russia did not have the requisite indicators of a communist society (many would argue it wasn't even socialist), and that the only ideology Stalin believed in was Russian nationalism.
  - knz 10y ago
    > This is dangerously naive, "communism" had almost nothing to do with the genocide(s) that Stalin purposefully perpetrated for political and economic reasons. Who said anything about Russia? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Chinese_Famine https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Chinese_Famine "The Three Years of Difficulty or Great Leap Forward Famine, was a period in the People's Republic of China between the years 1959 and 1961 characterized by widespread famine. Drought, poor weather, and the policies of the Communist Party of China contributed to the famine, although the relative weights of the contributions are disputed due to the Great Leap Forward." If you want to talk about Russian communists and famine perhaps a good starting point would be the Holodomor/Soviet Famine of 1932 (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holodomor https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holodomor and https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soviet_famine_of_1932%E2%80%9333 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soviet_famine_of_1932%E2%80%93...)? "The reasons for the famine are a subject of scholarly and political debate. Some scholars suggest that the man-made famine was a consequence of the economic problems associated with changes implemented during the period of Soviet industrialisation. Collectivisation also contributed to famine in 1932. "
agumonkey 10y ago
Hearing Chomsky speak about anything coats an intellectual/abstract ring to it. Coming from an old time high rank military officer feels a lot different to me.

by fsloth 10y ago

sooheon 10y ago

My home country, South Korea, has benefitted from our interests being aligned with those of "domino theorists in Washington". There is now a country of ~50 million with a starkly different life from those in the north.

bzbarsky 10y ago
fsloth would claim that this was a "UN sanctioned peace action", I bet. ;)
- fsloth 10y ago
  Hardly. I'm trying to have a discussion, not persuade anyone of my potentially faulty view of history. I was thinking of former Yogoslavia foremost when I added the UN sanctioned piece action.
  - bzbarsky 10y ago
    Well, the Korean War _was_ a UN sanctioned peace action. Mostly by accident, because the USSR was boycotting the UN for a few months there and so failed to veto the resolution.

bzbarsky 10y ago

> can refer to any other war effort that benefitted anyone else than the wall street (or domino theorists in Washington) Let's see... 1) The First and Second Barbary Wars probably qualify, seeing as they predate both. But more to the point, I suspect they benefited lots of people outside of the US in general. 2) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aegean_Sea_Anti-Piracy_Operations_of_the_United_States https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aegean_Sea_Anti-Piracy_Operati... -- or does that not count as a war? 3) I assume you're not going to count the US Civil War? 4) Pretty sure the US involvement in https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Allied_intervention_in_the_Russian_Civil_War https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Allied_intervention_in_the_Rus... didn't benefit Wall Street, though it's not clear it really benefited anyone else, other than the Czechoslovak Legion, of course. Or would this count as a "UN sanctioned peace action" albeit in pre-UN days, given the number of countries involved? 5) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1958_Lebanon_crisis https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1958_Lebanon_crisis -- at first glance the US intervention prevented things degenerating into a more serious civil war. Or is this something that you think only benefited domino theorists? 6) I don't know enough about https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Communist_insurgency_in_Thailand https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Communist_insurgency_in_Thaila... to tell whether it would count here, but I do think it benefited at least the Thai government. 7) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shaba_II https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shaba_II 8) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Multinational_Force_in_Lebanon https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Multinational_Force_in_Lebanon is a weird one, in that it's not clear that it really _benefited_ anyone in the end, but it was certainly not aiming to benefit domino theorists or Wall Street and as far as I can tell wasn't really UN-sanctioned, but was a peacekeeping mission. 9) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Invasion_of_Grenada https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Invasion_of_Grenada -- or are you going to call this something to benefit domino theorists? The outcome (democratic elections, the day of the invasion being considered a national holiday in Grenada now) suggests that maybe the Grenadans benefited. Note that this one was _condemned_ by the UN. 10) Intervention in Kosovo in 1998/9. This was not UN-sanctioned. Pretty sure neither Wall Street nor domino theorists (what dominos?) benefited. > Also, I'm not accounting UN sanctioned peace actions. So just to be clear, specifically not counting the Korean War, the 1990-91 Gulf War, intervention in the Somali Civil War, intervention in Haiti in the mid-90s, Bosnia around the same time, Libya in 2011, right? Anything I missed?

10y ago

eponeponepon 10y ago

> Chomsky has been speaking about this for decades and > his message seems to be fact based. But Chomsky is a lefty subversive in an ivory tower. He couldn't possibly be right about anything. /s

fsloth 10y ago
"How the world works" is a pretty good anthology just in case anyone wants to revise their opinion :)

deleted 10y ago

[deleted]

knz 10y ago

> or domino theorists in Washington Domino theory wasn't just an abstract concept that artificially created conflict. Every country involved in the domino theory (Korea, Vietnam, Laos, Cambodia, Thailand, Malaysia, Indonesia, Burma, and India) experienced conflict due to the massive shift in political power after WW2 when the former colonial powers started to withdraw. It's too simplistic to assume that any western involvement in these countries was purely at the behest of Wall Street or due to the perceived threat of communism and had nothing to do with the internal conflicts created by years of colonial rule. The ruling class in nearly every one of these countries was more than happy to have continued military and economic support from the west as they fought their own civil wars. Communism was also not a benign form of government - millions died due to purges and famine caused by communist theories of central management etc. Again, it is far too simplistic to assume that the motivation of western nations were purely economic. To be clear, I'm not suggesting that economic interests were not a critical component of why the west was involved but I do think it is far too easy to ignore the complexity of these conflicts for the sake of a convenient "the west is only involved to make money" narrative.

pdeuchler 10y ago
> Communism was also not a benign form of government - millions died due to purges and famine caused by communist theories of central management etc. Again, it is far too simplistic to assume that the motivation of western nations were purely economic. This is dangerously naive, "communism" had almost nothing to do with the genocide(s) that Stalin purposefully perpetrated for political and economic reasons. Just your daily reminder that communism is not a form of government, Soviet Russia did not have the requisite indicators of a communist society (many would argue it wasn't even socialist), and that the only ideology Stalin believed in was Russian nationalism.
- knz 10y ago
  > This is dangerously naive, "communism" had almost nothing to do with the genocide(s) that Stalin purposefully perpetrated for political and economic reasons. Who said anything about Russia? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Chinese_Famine https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Chinese_Famine "The Three Years of Difficulty or Great Leap Forward Famine, was a period in the People's Republic of China between the years 1959 and 1961 characterized by widespread famine. Drought, poor weather, and the policies of the Communist Party of China contributed to the famine, although the relative weights of the contributions are disputed due to the Great Leap Forward." If you want to talk about Russian communists and famine perhaps a good starting point would be the Holodomor/Soviet Famine of 1932 (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holodomor https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holodomor and https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soviet_famine_of_1932%E2%80%9333 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soviet_famine_of_1932%E2%80%93...)? "The reasons for the famine are a subject of scholarly and political debate. Some scholars suggest that the man-made famine was a consequence of the economic problems associated with changes implemented during the period of Soviet industrialisation. Collectivisation also contributed to famine in 1932. "

agumonkey 10y ago

Hearing Chomsky speak about anything coats an intellectual/abstract ring to it. Coming from an old time high rank military officer feels a lot different to me.