Sunday - July 31, 2011

America And The Imperialism Of Ignorance. does that include our money too?

I came across this a few days ago and saw red in all its shades.

I can not begin to tell you how pissed off I was reading all of this. Or even a part of it.
Not being very articulate or terribly literate either, my immediate response was filled with four letter words and combinations of same.  And while this is perhaps about the worst of the anti-American crap I’ve read so far, and in a conservative paper I want ya to know, I became angrier still at many of the comments made by idiots in tin hats that followed his Americans are stupid diatribe. 
To be sure, not all Brits think this way. BUT …. a lot do and so you’ll understand my frustration living here, and coming up against this sort of thing from time to time. 

Wife says I should know better then to read idiots.  Thing is, that’s hard to do when ur surrounded by em.  And many get their info from … ?  Darned if I know. One person writing in comments even says that America was so paranoid after WW2, we thought we were going to be invaded by the Brits and so started shoring up east coast defense.  Have you ever heard or read anything so insane?

So then …. I managed to get through this without using any ‘F’ words.  Not sure what that means.

Take a look fellow Americans ….. 

Forget Russia, forget Iran… is America the greatest threat to world peace, asks ANDREW ALEXANDER in his provocative new book
By TONY RENNELL

Truman was in an ebullient mood after his first summit meeting with a senior minister of the Soviet Union, who’d made the mistake of interrupting the U.S. President. ‘I gave him the old one-two,’ he proclaimed with a swagger, ‘straight to the jaw!’

The Russian departed, complaining that he’d never been spoken to before in such a way, not even by his boss, Josef Stalin.
From that moment in mid-1945, relations between West and East plummeted and would soon enter the big freeze of the Cold War.

America often acted tough abroad to avoid being seen as weak back home

The confrontational pattern of world politics was set for the next 40 years — a constant clash between the two super-powers, underscored for all of us who lived through it by the terrifying threat of global annihilation from their huge nuclear arsenals.

But, according to veteran current affairs commentator and Mail columnist Andrew Alexander in a provocative new book that rips apart decades of U.S. foreign policy, all that was totally unnecessary.

The Cold War would not have happened — should not have happened — if it had not been for America’s profound ignorance of the rest of the world and what made it tick.

Between 1945 and 1991, Washington’s gigantic power coupled with immense naivety made the world a much more dangerous place than it need have been.
What’s more, it’s still doing so. In the Cold War’s successor, today’s so-called ‘war on terror’, only the enemy has changed. America’s skewed approach to international affairs remains the same.

History repeats itself. Just as the U.S. concocted the fantasy threat of Saddam Hussein’s weapons of mass destruction in 2003, so at the end of World War II it conjured up and exaggerated the menace of a rampant Soviet Union set on world domination.

It was the small-town politician Harry Truman, catapulted from vice-president to President on the death of the revered Franklin D. Roosevelt, who found himself facing — as he was assured by his excitable intelligence service — a communist red tide that would sweep over Europe and Asia unless he stopped it.
Afraid of being thought of as weak — a perennial paranoia of U.S. Presidents as they look over their shoulders at the rednecks in their electorate — he acted tough, hence his roughing up of Molotov, the Soviet foreign minister in 1945.
‘I am tired of babying the Soviets,’ he wrote. The only way to rein-in Russia was ‘with an iron fist and strong language’.
But Truman was tilting at windmills. The idea that Stalin’s exhausted nation had the will or the resources to conquer any more of the world than the eastern half of Europe it already held sway over was absurd and groundless, says Andrew Alexander.
Yes, it was now a superpower to be taken seriously, and would be formidable if not downright obstructive in negotiations. And, yes, it wanted to secure its borders with a firm grip on the countries around it. But global conquest was not on Stalin’s agenda.

Government papers from the Kremlin archive show that, at that crucial point in 1945, the Soviets were intent on finding a working relationship with the West, not fighting it.
If the Americans had been smarter, if they had grasped the intricacies of Moscow’s mindset, if they had ignored communist rhetoric and concentrated on realities, if they had stopped to think instead of rushing in like blind bulls in a china shop ……
Instead, the real possibility of a stable post-war settlement that would reduce tension
in the world was blown out of the water by Truman’s wholly unwarranted and ill-informed belligerence.

Moscow countered intransigence with intransigence. The descent began from mutual suspicion to outright rivalry and the brinksmanship of the Cold War.
Behind his Iron Curtain, Stalin — cut off from the world community and with no one to answer to — purged the last vestiges of democracy from those East European nations whose fate Truman had been so concerned about.
Not for the last time, American foreign policy achieved the precise opposite of what it intended.

Minds were now firmly closed, positions immoveable. When Stalin died in the early Fifties, a new regime in Moscow hinted it was time to call off the dogs and work towards peaceful co-existence with the West.
But Washington hawks interpreted this as the Soviets running scared. They piled on pressure to widen the gap, not close it.
The arms race speeded up; spending on the military soared relentlessly. Dr Strangelove ruled.

Foreign policy and the art of diplomacy and compromise were reduced to the simple issue of military preparedness.
Meanwhile, any event in whatever part of the world — Greece, Italy, Berlin, Korea, Cuba, Vietnam, the Middle East, Israel — took on a confrontational East-West dimension. In any international issue, no matter what the subtleties, all that mattered was where Moscow and Washington stood. Invariably, they took opposite sides.

From what they perceived as their moral high ground, free-thinking Americans howled at the Russians for being enslaved to communist ideology, ignoring the fact that their own belief systems were equally questionable.
In Andrew Alexander’s words, a ‘messianic mission’ developed that all countries should be remade in America’s image — despite the demonstrable fact that democracy is not a universally saleable commodity in all parts of the world, let alone a global cure-all.
At the heart of the problem was — and is — America’s deep-seated ignorance about the cultures of the countries it wants to change. The average American takes little real interest in the outside world.

THERE IS A LOT MORE WHERE THAT CAME FROM HERE

Below the fold I have posted some reader comments. But if you go to the link you’ll see all of them. You will note with interest, if you’re an American reading this, that anyone making pro American comments or not agreeing with the column, has earned a number of red down arrows.  In fact, I haven’t seen any green pro American arrows so far.  Just shows ya.

One of the flaws in this I see, is the diplomat saying even Stalin didn’t speak to him that way. Yeah. He’d have just had ya shot and your family too for that matter.  And that quote by Truman doesn’t sound like him at all.  At least not stated that way. But it doesn’t matter. 

I am not saying we have always had it right btw.  Heaven knows that isn’t the case.  But I sure as hell don’t believe we’ve played any worse then anyone else and we are not the devil or his spawn.  I will say however that I wish we really could rediscover isolation to some degree, stay out of everyone else’s business, stop playing Officer Goodguy and tell the world to go fuck itself, keep our money at home, stop ALL foreign aid and quit the UN.  I guess I just HAD to get that one ‘f’ word in here.

Posted by peiper     on 07/31/2011 at 10:00 AM   
Filed Under: • Miscellaneous •  
• Comments (6) • Trackbacks(0)  Permalink •  

DISCLAIMER

THE SERVICES AND MATERIALS ON THIS WEBSITE ARE PROVIDED "AS IS" AND THE HOSTS OF THIS SITE EXPRESSLY DISCLAIMS ANY AND ALL WARRANTIES, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, TO THE EXTENT PERMITTED BY LAW INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO WARRANTIES OF SATISFACTORY QUALITY, MERCHANTABILITY OR FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE, WITH RESPECT TO THE SERVICE OR ANY MATERIALS.

Not that very many people ever read this far down, but this blog was the creation of Allan Kelly and his friend Vilmar. Vilmar moved on to his own blog some time ago, and Allan ran this place alone until his sudden and unexpected death partway through 2006. We all miss him. A lot. Even though he is gone this site will always still be more than a little bit his. We who are left to carry on the BMEWS tradition owe him a great debt of gratitude, and we hope to be able to pay that back by following his last advice to us all:

1. Keep a firm grasp of Right and Wrong
2. Stay involved with government on every level and don't let those bastards get away with a thing
3. Use every legal means to defend yourself in the event of real internal trouble, and, most importantly:
4. Keep talking to each other, whether here or elsewhere

It's been a long strange trip without you Skipper, but thanks for pointing us in the right direction and giving us a swift kick in the behind to get us going. Keep lookin' down on us, will ya? Thanks.

THE INFORMATION AND OTHER CONTENTS OF THIS WEBSITE ARE DESIGNED TO COMPLY WITH THE LAWS OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA. THIS WEBSITE SHALL BE GOVERNED BY AND CONSTRUED IN ACCORDANCE WITH THE LAWS OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA AND ALL PARTIES IRREVOCABLY SUBMIT TO THE JURISDICTION OF THE AMERICAN COURTS. IF ANYTHING ON THIS WEBSITE IS CONSTRUED AS BEING CONTRARY TO THE LAWS APPLICABLE IN ANY OTHER COUNTRY, THEN THIS WEBSITE IS NOT INTENDED TO BE ACCESSED BY PERSONS FROM THAT COUNTRY AND ANY PERSONS WHO ARE SUBJECT TO SUCH LAWS SHALL NOT BE ENTITLED TO USE OUR SERVICES UNLESS THEY CAN SATISFY US THAT SUCH USE WOULD BE LAWFUL.

Copyright © 2004-2015 Domain Owner