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Venezuela Vows to Blow Up Oil Fields if Attacked: Chavez
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bucheon bum

Joined: 16 Jan 2003

Posted: Sun Apr 23, 2006 3:50 pm Post subject:

Bulsajo wrote:

Stop taking him seriously what he says he's going to do, see what he actually does.

the same could be said about Iran's leaders.

Hitler was the exception to the rule. Most leaders are all talk and do not seriously plan to follow all the BS they spout off. Thank god.

Gopher

Joined: 04 Jun 2005

Posted: Sun Apr 23, 2006 4:02 pm Post subject:

Bulsajo wrote:

But anti-Americanism in the region didn't just spring up due to Soviet and Cuban ideology, the US' overall relationship long before the Cold War has been - for the most part - a coercive and exploitive one with regard to Latin America.

I am sorry that we cannot agree on this point.

My intention in bringing up the Soviets and the Cubans apparently did not get through.

If we are going to review "what happened" in Latin America and the Caribbean to understand how we might better relate with Chavez, we, including Chavez, would be well advised to take a careful look at everything that happened, and include everyone who contributed to it, not just the U.S, whose "overall relationship" has been much more complex than your reference to coercion and exploitation imply.

And, finally, if you really want to apprehend the origins and causes for Latin America's problems, you should not look to the U.S., the Soviets, or the Cubans at all -- you should look at the Latin Americans themselves, for they were always the decisive actors in forging their own histories.

Bulsajo wrote:

So to me it's always been a 'reap what you sow' backlash.

Unfortunate that you would repeat this charge. This is what bin Laden, Saddam, and many others hostile to the U.S. said about 9/11, and exactly what a Chilean editorialist wrote when the first American was beheaded in Iraq.

It looks at U.S. foreign policy and finds only faults. And concludes that the U.S. deserves what it gets whenever anything goes wrong. Is this really your view?

And I agree that Washington has certainly undermined itself in Latin America in several ways. But what is happening in that part of the world is much more complex and complicated than "reap what you sow" suggests and implies.

Bulsajo wrote:

And then something like the Iran-Contra affair, the invasion of Grenada, the invasion of Panama, etc. seem to indicate to everyone watching that the US' critics were right.

At the heart of the Iran-Contra affair, at least one side of it anyway, was the U.S. govt's good-faith effort to negotiate the release of hostages from the Iranian regime, who responded by blackmailing Washington and, frustratingly, apparently started taking new hostages every time one or two were released, attempting to create a sinister economic relationship.

The Contra affair resulted from the Reagan Administration unwisely diverting proceeds from these sales to an operation in Nicaragua that Congress had closed down. This "secret war" was opposed by the CIA institutionally, but run, alternatively, out of the NSC by several officials, including DCI Casey and his apparent protege, Oliver North -- who was also intimately involved in the Iranian negotiations, thus breaking a fundamental rule about not linking ongoing covert operations.

But let's not forget that the Sandinista regime, backed by Castro and the Soviets, was very much involved in destabilizaing El Salvador to create the conditions for yet more Communist revolutions in Central America -- the heart of the U.S. sphere of influence.

I don't say that the U.S. govt was right to do this, only that its reasons for doing so were not so simplistic as to sow mischief.

The Panama Canal represented a strategic sea lane of communication and, from the early twentieth century, Washington was concerned with defending it and keeping it open in the context of extreme disorder and instability in the entire Caribbean Basin, which I am sure you can at least recognize that we inherited but did not create.

In any case, this partly explains the U.S. concern over Castro's dictatorship and its foreign policy (in the western hemisphere and in subSaharan Africa), as well as multiple interventions in the entire Caribbean Basin for virtually the entire twentieth century, including Grenada and Panama.

The U.S.' critics were not so much "right" as much as they had found apparently valid pretexts to justify their criticism that would continue whether there were pretexts or not.

Last edited by Gopher on Sun Apr 23, 2006 5:42 pm; edited 1 time in total

mindmetoo

Joined: 02 Feb 2004

Posted: Sun Apr 23, 2006 4:06 pm Post subject:

Bulsajo wrote:

But of course you know that this anti-Americanism in the region didn't just spring up overnight due to Soviet and Cuban ideology, the US' overall relationship long before the Cold War has been- for the most part- a coercive and exploitive one with regard to Latin America. As you pointed out to me in another thread- Anti-Americanism didn't start with Bush.

Your American in the street has no idea. So when people like this pop up, whether in South America or Iran, the American in the street is like "how could they reject America! After all we did for them! They must be evil and crazy!"

I remember back when Bush 42 was the VP. Many in Iran assumed Bush, and not Reagan, ran the government. Why? Bush was the former head of the CIA. For years the CIA under Bush (I believe) pretty much ran Iran. The leader was a figure head. It seemed crazy to Americans then that anyone could conclude such a "wimp" could be the leader but it was a logical assumption based on the way the CIA was running Iran.

This is not to say that America doesn't do a lot of good in South America. However, like everything America does, half the time it's for humanitarian reason and the other half of the time it's for American corporate interests. When France doesn't want to enter a nasty quagmire in Iraq, do Americans remember they'd still be a British colony if it weren't for French aid? Do the French remember DDay? Do Koreans ever think "wow, all those American GIs working at orphanages and volunteering their time..." No. We all tend to focus on the evil another nation does to our nation.

Gopher

Joined: 04 Jun 2005

Posted: Sun Apr 23, 2006 4:19 pm Post subject:

mindmetoo wrote:

I remember back when Bush 42 was the VP. Many in Iran assumed Bush, and not Reagan, ran the government. Why? Bush was the former head of the CIA. For years the CIA under Bush (I believe) pretty much ran Iran. The leader was a figure head. It seemed crazy to Americans then that anyone could conclude such a "wimp" could be the leader but it was a logical assumption based on the way the CIA was running Iran.

H.W. Bush was DCI for fourteen months, between November 1975 and January 1977 -- hardly "years."

The CIA, had just been gutted by the Church and Pike Committees and was totally on the defensive, and before that, Nixon's hatchet-man, Schlesinger, had purged the Directorate of Plans, now renamed the Directorate of Operations.

Between January 1977 and the Iran's 1979 revolution, Carter's DCI, Admiral Stansfield Turner, totally changed the Agency so that it was more or less entirely focused on technical intelligence operations like the ongoing Glomar Explorer operation and several other passive-intelligence activities. Covert action was entirely out until Reagan revived it after January 1981.

So the U.S. was not "running" Iran.

Indeed, the Shah kept Washington misinformed on his status and security and the revolution took the U.S. entirely by surprise.

And don't forget that Carter withdrew all support for not only the Shah, but also Somoza in Nicaragua, which contibuted but did not directly lead to sudden collapses in both countries, and which also led many in the incoming Reagan Administration to question the advisability of this, given Cold War geopolitical realities. (See Kirkpatrick's "Dictatorships and Double Standards" article in Foreign Affairs.)

This "surprise" in Iran in 1979 was one of the reasons why DCI Casey, with Reagan's approval, started installing surveillance systems when he beefed up allied nations' security in the Middle East -- to get more accurate information on the status of our allies so we wouldn't be taken by surprise again.

And saying that Washington intervenes half the time for the benefit of U.S. corporations is not entirely true.

The U.S. govt moves for the benefit of "national interests," which include much more than corporations.

Don't forget that after the U.S. intervened in Guatemala in 1954, it threw the United Fruit Company to the wolves in the form of an antitrust action the Eisenhower Administration brought against it in summer 1954. The United Fruit Company's representatives -- men like Corcoran -- complained that their company had been used and then discarded.

The U.S. intervenes for national-security motives, police actions (which included humanitarian, nation-building, peacekeeping, and other manifestations), economic, and many other reasons, some of them obviously irrational -- and hardly only for just one at any given time.

Bulsajo

Joined: 16 Jan 2003

Posted: Sun Apr 23, 2006 7:21 pm Post subject:

Quote:

It looks at U.S. foreign policy and finds only faults. And concludes that the U.S. deserves what it gets whenever anything goes wrong. Is this really your view?

Perhaps you could highlight some American foreign policy successes in Latin America for me.
I would say that American foreign policy in the region has been hamstrung by its own policy choices in the region.
So yes, it's really my view for the most part.
American policy has been to support brutal dictators based on the fear of the poor turning to communiost ideology, which often became a sulf-fulfilling prophecy.
Hell, even the Catholic church could see that something needed to change in Latin America.

Gopher

Joined: 04 Jun 2005

Posted: Sun Apr 23, 2006 8:54 pm Post subject:

bucheon bum wrote:

Bulsajo wrote:

Stop taking him seriously what he says he's going to do, see what he actually does.

the same could be said about Iran's leaders.

Hitler was the exception to the rule. Most leaders are all talk and do not seriously plan to follow all the BS they spout off. Thank god.

How about adding Castro and Che Guevara as well as bin Laden to the list of exceptions.

It isn't so far fetched that we should be wary of political and/or national leaders speaking extremist rhetoric.

Gopher

Joined: 04 Jun 2005

Posted: Sun Apr 23, 2006 10:04 pm Post subject:

Bulsajo wrote:

Perhaps you could highlight some American foreign policy successes in Latin America for me.

Check out Harold Eugene Davis, et al., Latin American Diplomatic History (Louisiana State Univ. Press, 1977).

It does not sing U.S. praises insofar as it presents a balanced view of Latin American international relations, from independence to the late 1970s.

Last edited by Gopher on Sun Jun 11, 2006 3:05 pm; edited 2 times in total

Bulsajo

Joined: 16 Jan 2003

Posted: Mon Apr 24, 2006 7:06 am Post subject:

Quote:

Latin America is a place where the U.S. was faced with bad and worse policy options, and on top of that, as you say, the U.S. did not always make the wisest choices.

I think that is an honest and fair statement.

Quote:

But I must disagree with your perspective on the nature of this problem.

We both agree that Latin America needs to take more responsibility for its history and cannot simply claim that foreign powers- whether they be Spain, America or others- are the sole cause of all problems and suffering in the region.

And I think we both agree that the US does have some policy choices and actions to answer for in the region, although we may differ on the causes and the extent on particular incidents.

I agree that Soviet/Cuban influence in the region during the cold war was a valid concern for US policy and I have no doubt that the links you posted (which I have not yet visited) will show that they were actively fomenting dissent in the region for their own strategic purposes.

And as far as this thread is concerned, we both agree that Chavez is a self-serving *beep* (rhymes with trick).

But you are right, we may never fully agree on the rest. Certainly my past studies (I'm no longer current) gave more weight to Liberation and Marxist theories than you do, and that probably won't change much for either of us (being a Cdn centrist is being a lefty by US standards).

I'll definitely put Latin American Diplomatic History on my reading list, thanks for pointing it my way.

Nowhere Man

Joined: 08 Feb 2004

Posted: Mon Apr 24, 2006 10:31 am Post subject: ...

Quote:

It looks at U.S. foreign policy and finds only faults. And concludes that the U.S. deserves what it gets whenever anything goes wrong. Is this really your view?

OK, go ahead and read.

But look at this statement and what's wrong with it.

Quote:

the U.S. deserves what it gets whenever anything goes wrong

That is ridiculous.

Read whatever. Really, whatever.

What says:

Quote:

the U.S. deserves what it gets whenever anything goes wrong

?

This is interpretation, not any kind of fact.

It's his own interpretation, which he then lays on you.

That's weak.

But you're saying, "Oh, ok, I'll read about it."

He specializes in Chile and generally offers nothing but contempt for Chileans.

Suppose Mithridates spent his time on this board explaining why Asians, and specifically Koreans, are silly and skewed in their views.

The US is to blame whenever anything goes wrong?

"Anyone" and "anything" are examples of simplistic thinking.

thepeel

Joined: 08 Aug 2004

Posted: Mon Apr 24, 2006 10:57 am Post subject:

Gopher, You rule. While I disagree with some (and very few) of your conclusions I admire your convictions. Seriously. America makes mistakes. But that does not make her evil. Chavez is a total waste of time. To believe otherwise is to accept socialist propaganda. I believe it was Ugly Feet who linked to Z-net. Wow. Chavez will make Venezuela poorer in the long run. "The People" are fuct if they think 'social programs' will help to do more than alleviate the symptoms of a dysfunctional system.. They will be poor as long as the government dominates commerce. A 69$ oil will sustain anything. And fools will believe anything. What a perfect mix.

bucheon bum

Joined: 16 Jan 2003

Posted: Mon Apr 24, 2006 2:21 pm Post subject:

Gopher wrote:

bucheon bum wrote:

Bulsajo wrote:

Stop taking him seriously what he says he's going to do, see what he actually does.

the same could be said about Iran's leaders.

Hitler was the exception to the rule. Most leaders are all talk and do not seriously plan to follow all the BS they spout off. Thank god.

Except Bin Laden is not a leader of any country.

Che and Castro? I don't think they called for the total destruction of another country. If they called for the total destruction of capitalism, then uh, I'd say their efforts were rather weak and pathetic. I'd hardly put them in the same boat as Hitler when it came to matching actions with their words.

Bulsajo

Joined: 16 Jan 2003

Posted: Mon Apr 24, 2006 5:36 pm Post subject:

bucheon bum wrote:

Bulsajo wrote:

Stop taking him seriously what he says he's going to do, see what he actually does.

the same could be said about Iran's leaders.

It certainly could, and I said as much in the same post

Quote:

It seems to be working for Iran and and the Norks- make loud dangerous statements and the State department will call you up and bring you to the negotiating table; failing that, you score local credibility points anyway.

I agree with you about bin Laden as well (no surprise there really)- nothing he says is designed to impel the US to the negotating table- he knows that'll never happen. And while he might be bombastic I don't think his pronouncements/propaganda/press releases (or whatever you want to call them) are ever directed at the US audience. Stating the obvious for some people perhaps, but this is an importance difference between what he says and the things that Chavez and Ahmadinejad say. On top of that, he has a pretty good record of doing what he threatens to do.

Gopher

Joined: 04 Jun 2005

Posted: Mon Apr 24, 2006 6:57 pm Post subject:

bucheon bum wrote:

Gopher wrote:

bucheon bum wrote:

Bulsajo wrote:

Stop taking him seriously what he says he's going to do, see what he actually does.

the same could be said about Iran's leaders.

Hitler was the exception to the rule. Most leaders are all talk and do not seriously plan to follow all the BS they spout off. Thank god.

bin Laden is the leader of a highly significant group dedicated to extreme political violence.

Castro and Guevara -- who are in no way "Hitlers," I just want to make it clear I do not suggest that -- called for the creation of "100 Vietnams" throughout the Third-World that would bring the United States (and the "imperialists" and "reactionaries" Washington allegedly represented and supported) down on its knees.

Guevara specifically outlined these objectives in his "Message to the TriContinental Congress" I cited earlier on this thread.

Just because the U.S. very much contributed to and supported ugly counterinsurgency wars in East Africa, SubSaharan Africa, all over Central America and the Caribbean, and won, it does not follow that we can forget about these things -- and, as some on this board do, concentrate on faulting the U.S. for the destructiveness of these campaigns -- and say that their efforts were "weak and pathetic."

As far as not matching their actions with their words, you are not accounting for the money, arms, training, intelligence information, propaganda, and political and propaganda advice Castro provided to guerrillas all over the Third-World, through the conflict in El Salvador and Nicaragua into the late 1980s.

You are also not accounting for the fact that Guevara personally started the guerrilla war in Angola before dying in Bolivia in '68, attempting to start one up there as well.

But I'm with you that sometimes we have Khrushchev's screaming "we will bury you!" and we should account for the temper-tantrum factor in this kind of rhetoric, and let it slide.

Still, there are enough examples out there of people actually following through with their threats that it is not so easy to clearly distinguish between those who mean what they say and those who don't.

Caution seems to suggest that we should not be so quick to dismiss rhetoric like Venezuela's and Iran's until we can independently verify that we have good reason for doing so -- and I would be inclined to wholly dismiss Chavez's by the way, but not Iran's.

bucheon bum

Joined: 16 Jan 2003

Posted: Mon Apr 24, 2006 8:56 pm Post subject:

Gopher wrote:

You are also not accounting for the fact that Guevara personally started the guerrilla war in Angola before dying in Bolivia in '68, attempting to start one up there as well.

Caught you in a mistake there. It was the Congo and not Angola.

Angola was a Porteguese colony up until 1975.

Joo Rip Gwa Rhhee

Joined: 25 May 2003

Posted: Mon Apr 24, 2006 10:19 pm Post subject:

They US ought to break diplomatic relations with Venezuela , impose a trade embargo and not buy oil from that jerk. Most of all the US ought to ignore him.

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