"A day that will live in infamy..."

[Beachcomber]

And we could go on and on all day about US interference in Latin America and Mexico. At one time Standard Oil ran Mexico (until 1910 at least)and we have not been real circumspect in the "leaders" we have chosen to uphold. (LanDroid has made reference to this numerous times) My contention is the only reason we never removed Fidel Castro from Cuba is because he is the bogeyman we can point to, to continue interfering. "We don't want another Cuba..." We could also catch Osama Bin Laden, but again with him captured the biggest poster boy in the war on terror would be removed.

[Beachcomber]

Lew,

in the history of the world, only one nation has ever used nuclear weapons against another nation

<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">This may not be entirely true. Please see this:

Mahabharata, or The First Nuclear War

and then there are the unexplained vitrified forts around the world, stone structures turned to glass...

It fits into the theories of a mega-civilization tens, even hundreds of thousands of years ago, with as much technological advancement as the present day or even higher, that either self destructed or was destroyed by some other means and only legends and folklore remained with the survivors of said civilizations. Great Flood legends are in part of all the worlds' cultures. So many priceless records of the distant past have been destroyed by closed minded missionaries of Christian and muslim faiths, we may never know the history of our planet beyond the curtain of the ancient Egyptians...

<font color="#a62a2a" size="1">[ December 19, 2007 09:30 AM: Message edited by: Beachcomber ]</font>

[Lew]

Oh my Lord, our record in Central and South America is absolutely pathetic, GL. Other than our treatment of the Indians, I submit it represents the very worst of our foreign policy. The famous quote from Marine General Smedley Butler speaks for itself (where he talks about how he had basically been a racketeer for the U.S. government in Latin America)

But at least I can see where the Monroe Doctrine (and its legacy) came from. America is protected by two big oceans on its east and west, and the Arctic to the north. The only way an enemy could conduct a sustained, land-based invasion would be from the south. As such, it has always been a keystone of U.S. foreign policy to ensure that didn't happen. I'm not saying I condone Wilson's policies, at least not in full, but I can at least see why they existed.

As for southeast Asia, you've got me. I cannot believe that race didn't come into play, at least in part. Why should the peoples of Asia fall under rule of Britain, France, or Holland? I suppose the only legitimate reply would be that, if those peoples weren't going to be ruled by western Europe, the Soviets and the Chinese were going to step in and try to take over. And it would be better that they be "westernized" rather than fall to the Communists (obviously, the best answer is that they should be allowed to rule themselves, but hey, we can't have that, can we?)

Then you look at Sub-Saharan Africa, and that's a part of the world that really confounds me. All throughout the 80s, all we heard about was South Africa and "Rockers Against Apartheid" and blah blah. OK fine, so things changed in South Africa, presumably for the better. But then when people took a look at Nigeria and Rwanda and all kinds of wonderful things happening there, and there were those who suggested that we put the pressure on them as well...nope, the U.S. Council of Mayors vehemently objected to that. Apparently, if it's a white ruling class dominating blacks, that's the worst thing ever and we have to sing songs to end it. But if it's a black ruling class dominating a subservient black class (hell East Timor apparently still has slavery), Bono is nowhwere to be found.

It just depresses me, that's all. People either have a right to sovereignty or they don't. A rigid, discriminatory class system is either wrong, or it isn't. And all this moral relativism crap....what was it, Jeanne Kirkpatrick said that the difference between "authoritarianism" and a "dictatorship" was whether the leader was friendly towards the U.S.?

[Beachcomber]

I agree 100% with you Lew. And as to Bono, well he's a singer. A drunk looking, disheveled nonentity who presumes to be some expert on feeding the poor. He looks like a poster child for the homeless himself.

[Lew]

After my post, I did a little follow-up research and I checked to see what the Council of Mayors is up to these days. To their credit, at least on paper, they talk a good line about freedom and human rights. I don't know if their actions support their sentiments, but I did come across this excerpt from a U.S. House subcommittee hearing that took place in May of this year, and thought I made for a nice trip down memory lane (and I post it verbatim, there is no commentary from me):

"? At the top of the chart, you see Sudan, which received $3.26 billion in total U.S. aid, much of it at a time when President, formerly colonel, Nimieri was offering concessions to U.S. oil corporations and cooperating with the Reagan
administration efforts to topple Libya?s Gaddafi;
? Somalia received $1.56 billion after Marxist President, formerly general,Barre, granted President Carter the use of military bases for the U.S. Rapid Deployment Force for the Middle East. I note that the third country in line
there, Kenya, had $1.55 billion in aid which was also related to the U.S. Rapid Deployment Force and its use of the Mombasa naval base;
? Liberia received $1.12 billion, in return for which President, formerly master sergeant, Doe continued throughout the 1980?s U.S. use of the U.S. Navy?s Omega navigational tower, as well as the widely-reported CIA operations center
for Africa and the Voice of America continental transmitter; and
? Zaire, now known as Congo, received $1.07 billion in aid, which came at a time when access to such strategic minerals as cobalt was important to U.S. military production, and when President, formerly colonel, Mobutu was allowing
the CIA to send through Zaire its weapons for the UNITA rebels in Angola."


I mean, it gets no better than that, does it? You go read about the Wilson administration's policies in Central and South America, compare them to the Carter-Reagan era policies in Africa....hey at least we're consistent...

[LanDroid]

Bono is not an non-entity. He traveled with U.S. Treasury Secretary Paul O'Neil around Africa. O'Neil wrote about that trip in a book and in particular a low tech method that would bring fresh water for the entire continent at a total cost of something like a paltry $50 million. O'Neil could not get the Bush administration to go for that legacy...

It just depresses me, that's all. People either have a right to sovereignty or they don't. A rigid, discriminatory class system is either wrong, or it isn't.

<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">What are we going to do, bring democracy to every oppressed country on earth at the point of a gun? As President Clinton once said, "We can't afford to get involved in all of these problems, but we also can't afford to get involved with none of them".

And all this moral relativism crap....what was it, Jeanne Kirkpatrick said that the difference between "authoritarianism" and a "dictatorship" was whether the leader was friendly towards the U.S.?

<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">As a practical matter, Jeanne is correct and part of the difference is in the outcome. When the outcome is good as in our alliance with Stalin, why it's statesmanship! But when the outcome is bad as in our assistance to Saddam Hussein or the Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, only then does it become moral relativism.

<font color="#a62a2a" size="1">[ December 22, 2007 08:21 PM: Message edited by: LanDroid ]</font>

[Lew]

Well first off, Lan, I think Paul O'Neil was a solid right-fielder (he has 5 rings), but I mean, let's leave it at that, I don't want to hear the word "Cooperstown" being uttered.

Secondly, I never claimed Bono had no influence. To the contrary, he has always kept a high-profile when it comes to such causes. My problem with him in the 80s (and not just him, all of those "Rockers Against Apartheid") was that we needed to presure pressure pressure South Africa (which, ok, fine) but when it came to other nations on the African continent, we needed to back off and let them handle their own affairs.

And then what happened in Rwanda in the 90s...I mean, genocide. Plain and simple (although maybe I'm wrong, since the State Dept. never officially employed that term). And no one did anything about it.

BTW, I'm not saying you're wrong, I'm just saying it has always disturbed me. And I know one has to play the political game, you have to say it's for "human rights," you can't say it's for our "economic interests," even though human rights has about as much to do with it as vinyl records.

[Beachcomber]

True LanDroid, he isn't a non-entity I guess. He is an obscenely rich singer who thinks the United States does not spend enough on feeding the poor in Africa. He wants the government to tax us and send the money to feed Africans that none of us sired or gave birth to. Typical leftist do-gooder who has so many good ideas how to tax and spend everyone else's money...

[Lew]

Which all of this makes me want to segue into a topic near and dear to me, and which is making it's way through the news today....

There is a new book out that apparently suggests that Alexander Graham Bell stole the patent for telephone. I have not read the book, nor had I ever heard this theory. As always, I would demand hard, reliable evidence for such a claim. But I would be open-minded about it (I mean, if he did, he certainly wouldn't be the person to ever steal someone else's idea).

But why I mention this, I note there are a lot of comments screaming about "revisionist" history. You may as well take a fork and run it over a chalkboard, because that wouldn't make me cringe any less than hearing that term.

So we're all clear on this, THERE IS NO SUCH THING AS REVISIONIST HISTORY. And I admit, I once used the term myself, but fortuntely in time I came to see the light.

What happened in the past, happened. What we say happened in the past is "history." That distinction is important.

Suppose some math geek comes up with a theory that 2+2=5. OK I'll grant you, that would be "revisionist" math, because we have known for some time that 2+2=4; it is provable, it is demonstrable, and it is a fact.

But history is not like that. It's not just facts, it's our interpretation of them. This whole discussion GL and Lan and I have had about Pearl Harbor and Hiroshima surely demonstrates this. The IJN attacked Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941. That is a fact. But, the questions of why they did it, what we knew beforehand, whether we wanted them to do it, what its legacy is...those questions do not lead to simple, factual answers.

Same thing with Hiroshima. For the better part of 50 years, the Hiroshima bombing was simply accepted an action that was justified and which brought immediate results. In time, certain commentators began to question this, and lo and behold here came the screams of "revisionism." As if the old party-line version was the "facts," and how dare LanD or anyone else come along now and tell us that 2+2=5.

Nonsense. If LanD says that the Hiroshima bomb was dropped on August 5, he's wrong. But if he says that we were not justified in dropping it...that's not a statement of fact to begin with, so it can't possibly be a "revision" to known and accepted "facts."

Like I said, I used to use that term, but not anymore. They need to hold a funeral for the "R"-word.

[Beachcomber]

Well Lew you bring up a good point. As someone near and dear to my heart once said:

"History is the set of facts agreed upon by the victors"

That may not be the exact quote, but it is a good summary.

I'll let you guess who said it and think about how "history" is reported and by whom it is reported and figure it out. When I want to study a subject I try to read every source available about it, pro and con. Usually the truth is somewhere in the middle. Primary source memoirs are my favorite resource.

<font color="#a62a2a" size="1">[ December 28, 2007 08:52 AM: Message edited by: Beachcomber ]</font>