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Bulsajo
Joined: 16 Jan 2003
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 Posted: Fri Aug 25, 2006 1:17 pm Post subject: |
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| Oh, you should keep reading- the twists this thread takes makes it one for the record-books. |
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TheUrbanMyth
Joined: 28 Jan 2003
Location: Retired
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| Posted: Fri Aug 25, 2006 5:51 pm Post subject: |
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| On the other hand wrote: |
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For strategic reasons maybe? To have an ally in a place which is VITAL to Western interests (oil) who can keep an eye on things and be used as a proxy to hit terrorists groups (Hizbollah, Hamas) would seem to be a VERY good thing, wouldn't you agree?
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So, Israel is useful to the west, because it can be used to hit terrorist groups whose entire rasion d'etre is to attack Israel.
You really didn't think this one through, did you? |
So you are saying that the U.S. has no interest in Israel hitting terrorist groups (regardless of said groups' motivation)? And I was only using those as examples not as a complete list.
If you fail to see how this ties into the U.S. led "war on terror" then I would suggest that it was you who didn't think this one through. I would also suggest that you are taking my quote out of context by ignoring the other reason that I posted, |
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Gopher
Joined: 04 Jun 2005
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| Posted: Sun Aug 27, 2006 11:32 am Post subject: |
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In_Seoul: I was walking away from this thread, but, understandably, you voiced your views again in reaction to what I had posted, and now, I guess becauce I cannot fail to respond to your response, I'll respond this last time.
| in_seoul_2003 wrote: |
| ...in 1958 when Allende was in receipt of Soviet assistance, Jorge Alessandri, Allende's political rival was in receipt of major American assistance via ITT. You did not mention this Gopher. |
I think this gets to the heart of the problem I see in your worldview and the analyses it leads to.
When I reference Chilean affairs up to the coup d'etat, esp. when exchanging views with someone I assume is as informed as I am on the matter, I do not feel it necessary to introduce data that is now more than thirty years old -- that is, thirty years in the public domain. We know that the U.S. govt supported Frei and then opposed Allende, with money, propaganda assets, and after Sept. 1970, military liaison and prodding.
Incidentally, you speak of "major American assistance via ITT" to Alessandri in 1958. You are failing to make a distinction between the U.S. govt and U.S.-based transnationals. You may think they are the same thing. Indeed, this is Arevalo's position, and I already noted that your position very much reminds me of his. But, in any case, although there is some evidence to support this model, much evidence sinks it. And I think if you are going to advance such an "economic imperialism" reductionist model of U.S. foreign policy -- one, as you claim, not without some merit, predates the Cold War and the Containment doctrine -- and dismiss national security, Wilsonian idealism, and bureaucratic politics so offhandedly, you would need to adjust your model so that it might explain all of the data, not merely the data that is convenient for your ideology.
Moreover, I was referencing Moscow's covert support of Latin American and Caribbean Communist Parties, from Santiago de Chile to Havana or Mexico City in order to support worldwide revolution dating back to the Second World War and earlier (although I have only seen the data for 1958 and beyond in Chile), and you responded with a reference to an American transnational with specific investments and assets, and which was acting to preserve its own narrow interests in one country.
And, as you know, the U.S. govt did not get involved in Chilean affairs until 1962, when the Kennedy Administration attempted to transplant the Marshall Plan and the Italian election operations model to Latin America and the Caribbean, and specifically Chile. So I think your bringing up 1958 might be a little misleading to those reading this thread who lack our familiarity with this event.
You brag that your position throws me off balance; and I think you are overstating your position's power. Still, it is frustrating that when I reference new information designed to break through the U.S.-centric, or Great Satan, model of explaining world affairs, not intending to "get Washington off the hook," as much as to get historians and other commentators to get out of their narrow, prosecutorial mode and start looking at this event like dispassionate professionals, that you object with a complaint that I am deviating from the standard Bill of Particulars that has been drafted and cited, again and again, against the U.S. govt in Chile and elsewhere.
As it is, and ableit with increasing degrees of sophistication, too many talk about the U.S. govt and U.S. foreign policy the way that BLT Lawyer talks about W. Bush -- who, I remind you and anyone else who may not have been paying attn, was simply unable to tolerate discussion on ground conditions in the Israeli-Hezbollah War so focused was his anger and criticisms against W. Bush, the man he blamed for each and every thing gone wrong there (and elsewhere in the world).
So I object that you and others object every time I mention data that tends to call into question the U.S.-centric model for explaining, say, Chilean affairs between 1962 and 1973. There is so much more to understanding what happened in modern world affairs than merely reciting what the U.S. did to [insert any country here] -- or, what Tel Aviv did to the Lebanese, or what the European Great Powers did to Persia, China, or India, for that matter.
Your presentation and objections reveal a complete lack of interest in local conditions and actors and a total failure to appreciate their history in its own terms or credit their own historical agency -- especially where these variables migth not conform to your ideology. For example, I feel sure I can predict what your reaction would be if I were to assert that the Chilean armed forces, who were the decisive actors in the coup, acted in their own interests -- and as they themselves defined these interests -- and not Washington's.
In effect, then, you (re)colonize these peoples and cultures. Makes about as much sense to me as reconstructing Inca history on a Marxist-Leninist model (and I am not pulling that out of thin air; it has been done). |
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Kuros
Joined: 27 Apr 2004
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| Posted: Sun Aug 27, 2006 7:51 pm Post subject: |
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Back to the topic, it doesn't seem Nasrullah thinks he won.
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Hizbullah leader Hassan Nasrallah said Monday that had he believed, even one percent, that a war would break out following the kidnapping of two IDF soldiers, the operation would never have been launched.
In an interview granted to Lebanese news network New TV, Nasrallah said in an almost apologetic tone that "we did not believe, even by one percent, that the captive operation would result in such a wide-scale war, as such a war did not take place in the history of wars. Had we known that the captive operation would result in such a war we would not have carried it out at all."
Similar comments were made Nasrallah's deputy, who said that his organization was surprised by Israel's response.
In his first interview since the ceasefire, Nasrallah at times assumed an apologetic stance, unlike the boastful stance taken immediately after the operation.
At another point during the interview, Nasrallah corrected his own declarations and said that that a Hizbullah member who took part in the kidnap operation fell into IDF custody � something he flatly denied in the past. |
Is this the picture of a victor? |
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Bulsajo
Joined: 16 Jan 2003
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| Posted: Sun Aug 27, 2006 8:02 pm Post subject: |
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| Well, of course, he can't very well say "Yeah, we were goading the Israelis for some time now in the hopes they would attack, sorry about all the civilian deaths that strategy caused..." but yes, you're right he isn't talking like someone who came out on top. Probably because it's far from over. |
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Kuros
Joined: 27 Apr 2004
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| Posted: Mon Aug 28, 2006 2:22 am Post subject: |
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| Bulsajo wrote: |
| Well, of course, he can't very well say "Yeah, we were goading the Israelis for some time now in the hopes they would attack, sorry about all the civilian deaths that strategy caused..." but yes, you're right he isn't talking like someone who came out on top. Probably because it's far from over. |
No, you're right, it is far from over. And Nasrullah probably did expect retaliation and is lying to the Lebanese people.
Nevertheless, it is interesting that the chaos does not entirely redound to Nasrullah's advantage, i.e., he can't proclaim that the Israelis are simply evil, but he also has to convincingly argue that he had no idea they would do this. |
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