Brian Ross wrote
Ah, yes, what is that the USA is renowned to stand for again, 4E? "Truth, justice, liberty" isn't it? I suppose supporting a dictator like the Shah of Iran or any of the other motley crew of despots the US was willing to support for so long, is something that you're proud of, I take it?
What an amazingly immature and peculiar worldview. It completely misses the point that some dictatorial and repressive regimes can be a lot better or worse than others, and a lot better or worse for the international community as a whole, than others . The socialism you advocate is renowned from taking prosperous and democratic countries into bankrupt dictatorships. Ask the East Europeans, the Cubans, the Chileans, and Venezuelans. Compare once dictatorial South Korea today to still dictatorial North Korea. Or still dictatorial Singapore with middle eastern dictatorships.
Josip Broz Tito is my favourite communist dictator. He never caused any trouble by meddling in other countries affairs, he refused to join the Warsaw Pact and stared down Stalin,when Stalin threatened to invade his country. So Stalin tried to kill him. Tito started the Non Aligned Movement, had friendly relations with the west and the east, did not nationalise his people's farms, allowed a measure of free enterprise, and most importantly of all, he kept his culturally divided country together by force. When Tito died, a civil war ensued. Multicultural Yugoslavia turned into a half dozen monocultural states and a million people died. I hate socialism, but Tito was a communist dictator and I really admired him.
Tito was responsible for what is the most pointed diplomatic message the world has ever seen.
Tito to Stalin
Stalin, stop trying to kill me. We have captured two of your men. One with a rifle and one with a bomb. If you do not stop trying to kill me, I will send my man to Moscow to kill you. I won't have to send another.
Brian Ross wrote
Jimmy Carter had the right idea but he didn't understand that he would have to dismantle the US's nearly full foreign allegiance system to make the world a better place. It had been created on support of the strongest local despots, afterall, now hadn't it? You know, funding, helping, using the US military to back the worst gang of criminals the world has seen and all on your tax dollar and virtually all by Republican el Presidentes.
The present graffiti in Havana today reads, "BETTER EXPLOITED UNDER BATISTA THAN STARVING UNDER CASTRO". The mullahs were a real improvement over the Shah, weren't they? Pinochet began what was called "the Chilean economic miracle".
Although, you do have a point, Brian. The USA abandoned Rhodesia and South Africa and now they are going backwards into the future under black led dictators.
Brian Ross wrote
Of course, the Vietnamese were the first to show us how to shrug off your yoke. Then the Iranians followed suit. Such crushing defeats for Washington to see people free and able to live their lives as they wanted. Such a shame to see so many Americans get killed and crippled by those nasty, freedom loving third worlders, hey?
Vietnam was a mistake caused by right wing US people with Absolutist mindsets like you, Brian. The Americans did not recognise the essentially nationalistic and anti imperialist ideals of the Vietnamese people, which the communists took advantage of to gain power. They thought that all communists were the same, and that they were all working together to overthrow by force, world free market systems.
Iran was different kettle of fish again. Persia was once a world superpower which went backwards after adopting Islam. It was so backward that it was unaware that it was sitting on oceans of oil which were of immense riches. That resource had no value to Iranians at all until the west invented the internal combustion engine. Without the west and it's inventions, Iran was just another backward, bankrupt Muslim country going nowhere.
The British and the USA invested heavily in Iranian oil fields and production. But along came the communists who told the impoverished population to just steal the British and US investments. Stealing other people's wealth is the clarion call of all socialists because it has great appeal to impoverished and stupid people, and the Iranians went for it. That hardly made the "elected" socialist leader of the Iranians popular with the yanks and the British.
You know how socialist democracy works, don't you Brian? 'One man, one vote, once." Then everything starts to fall apart economically, the socialists become unpopular, so they don't have any more elections.
Iran had three forces trying to seize or hold power. First was the Shah, and he was, as far as I am concerned, the most forward thinking and progressive. You know the term "progressive" don't you Brian? That is what lefties like you pretend to be. Under the Shah, Saddam Hussein would never have dared to invade Iran. The Shah was like Attaturk, he realised how much Islam was stifling the development of his country and he attempted to cut back the power of the mullahs. Good for him.
The mullahs were the second force in the country, who had the support of the stupidest and most ignorant in the country.
The communists were the third force, who had the support of the pseudo intellectual caste who were the second most stupid people in Iran. The communists and the mullahs joined forces and they won because Iran is just full of stupid people. Then the mullahs started shooting the communist intellectuals, as well as anybody else who crossed them. Hee hee. The "intellectuals" never learn. Khomeini loved to watch the executions for his entertainment. Entertainment is in short supply in Islamic ruled Iran.
The US supported the Shah, and they supported the right regime, in my opinion.
Brian Ross wrote
Must be wonderful to live in such a hypocritical nation, 4E. Your government spins bullshit to the world and does the exact opposite. Tsk, tsk.
It must be wonderful to have such a hypocritical mind as yours, Brian. Who can not recognise his own racism, judges different groups of people differently according to their skin colour, advocates "unpopulist" causes he knows the majority opposes, and claims he is a progressive while defending the Iranian mullahs and Islam, and attacking the Shah of Iran, who was the only progressive Muslim leader after Kamal Attaturk.
