Is it really hard to fathom why many people despise the US?

[RenewableCandy]

Now that the USSR is no more, I do wonder what would happen if the USA gave up, tomorrow for example, its overseas military activity...I mean, it's not as if any of these other countries has a realistic chance of doing the USA any harm, let alone invading it, is it? Think of the money (and trauma) you'd save. Think of all the people who wouldn't hate the USA any more.

I don't agree with Paul on many things, he was a bit of an old chauvinizt for a start. But he was a military man and he said "If thine enemy hunger, feed him".

[biffvernon]

I don't agree with Paul on many things, he was a bit of an old chauvinizt for a start. But he was a military man and he said "If thine enemy hunger, feed him".

Yeah and I don't suppose Paul had in mind dumping surplus agricultural product to undermine local farming economies and thus set up a dependency culture, neither.

[raspberry-blower]

A long but interesting piece by Mike Chossudovsky:

Imperial Conquest: America's Long War Against Humanity

[vtsnowedin]

A long but interesting piece by Mike Chossudovsky:

Imperial Conquest: America's Long War Against Humanity

A long diatribe containing accusation after accusation but no proof or convincing arguments to tie them together.
Yes of course the US has been a powerful country post WW2 and acts in it's own self interest. That hardly makes it a war or even a conspiracy.
There are a lot of these "USA Bad evil Demon" rants out there. Dammed if we do and dammed if we don't. If you ship food aid to an over populated country you are "destroying the local farmers market and creating dependency" And if you withhold food aid you are " Committing genocide by starvation"

[biffvernon]

If you ship food aid to an over populated country you are "destroying the local farmers market and creating dependency" And if you withhold food aid you are " Committing genocide by starvation"

There's a difference between emergency food aid that saves lives and systematically dumping subsidised surplus produce that undermines rural economies.

[PS_RalphW]

I visited the USAF hangar at the Duxford Imperial War Museum a couple of days ago.

B52, A10, F111, U2, SR71, etc. etc. all on one room. It sent a shiver down my spine to think of the daisy cutters, DU rounds and cruise missiles those machines had dispatched between them.

The WWII planes, on the other hand, were on a much more human scale. You looked at them and thought - people actually climbed into those crates and expected them to fly?

[emordnilap]

Dammed if we do and dammed if we don't.

Not really. The US has invaded and continues to invade other people without any moral right and often with made-up reasons.

When the US regime invades another country, it's damned - and rightly so - by those it then ignores.

Should it chose not to invade, it's damned only by those wishing to - the ones who should be ignored.

Sadly and understandably vt, over here an impression - correct or otherwise - that the US regime prefers squandering its citizens' money keeping other countries under its thumb, at the expense of those citizens, is the rule.

[vtsnowedin]

Dammed if we do and dammed if we don't.

Not really. The US has invaded and continues to invade other people without any moral right and often with made-up reasons.

When the US regime invades another country, it's damned - and rightly so - by those it then ignores.

Should it chose not to invade, it's damned only by those wishing to - the ones who should be ignored.

Sadly and understandably vt, over here an impression - correct or otherwise - that the US regime prefers squandering its citizens' money keeping other countries under its thumb, at the expense of those citizens, is the rule.

Rather then try to make up a list from memory I did a search and found this. :
http://www.infoplease.com/timelines/mil ... tions.html
Which of these do you think the USA should have passed on. I notice a few where the UK went with us. Sauce for the goose?

[RenewableCandy]

Hang on...that list has missed out the entire 1970s (goes and looks for more lists...) yes it did go a bit quiet then but not entirely:

China 1945-46
Korea 1950-53
China 1950-53
Guatemala 1954
Indonesia 1958
Cuba 1959-60
Guatemala 1960
Belgian Congo 1964
Guatemala 1964
Dominican Republic 1965-66
Peru 1965
Laos 1964-73
Vietnam 1961-73
Cambodia 1969-70
Guatemala 1967-69
Lebanon 1982-84
Grenada 1983-84
Libya 1986
El Salvador 1981-92
Nicaragua 1981-90
Iran 1987-88
Libya 1989
Panama 1989-90
Iraq 1991
Kuwait 1991
Somalia 1992-94
Bosnia 1995
Iran 1998
Sudan 1998
Afghanistan 1998
Yugoslavia – Serbia 1999
Afghanistan 2001
Libya 2011

Yup just like the good-olde days of the British Empire, only with bigger aeroplanes

[vtsnowedin]

Hang on...that list has missed out the entire 1970s (goes and looks for more lists...) yes it did go a bit quiet then but not entirely:

China 1945-46
Korea 1950-53
China 1950-53
Guatemala 1954
Indonesia 1958
Cuba 1959-60
Guatemala 1960
Belgian Congo 1964
Guatemala 1964
Dominican Republic 1965-66
Peru 1965
Laos 1964-73
Vietnam 1961-73
Cambodia 1969-70
Guatemala 1967-69
Lebanon 1982-84
Grenada 1983-84
Libya 1986
El Salvador 1981-92
Nicaragua 1981-90
Iran 1987-88
Libya 1989
Panama 1989-90
Iraq 1991
Kuwait 1991
Somalia 1992-94
Bosnia 1995
Iran 1998
Sudan 1998
Afghanistan 1998
Yugoslavia – Serbia 1999
Afghanistan 2001
Libya 2011

Yup just like the good-olde days of the British Empire, only with bigger aeroplanes

OK add all these egregious
acts to the list. Some of them fall a bit short of anything you would call an invasion but What Ever!! Again what invasion on this new list would you have wished the USA to stay home and let the bodies lie where the ravens could get them.

[emordnilap]

Add to that list US-led regime changes. Immediately I see Chile's not included, as a single example.

And yes, I'm fully aware that the UK (and others) are guilty too. But the US is the world leader in foreign interference.

[emordnilap]

http://www.infoplease.com/timelines/mil ... tions.html

This time, Wikipedia is preferable by far. There again, even that could easily be manipulated.

Also, it's a military list and won't include CIA and other covert operations.

[vtsnowedin]

http://www.infoplease.com/timelines/mil ... tions.html

This time, Wikipedia is preferable by far. There again, even that could easily be manipulated.

Also, it's a military list and won't include CIA and other covert operations.

But you still have not chosen an "invasion" or "intervention" if you insist to discuss on it's merits and outcome.

[emordnilap]

Taking lives does not qualify for the word 'merit', no matter whose side you're on.

Anyway, I'll let John Pilger speak about Vietnam.

The truth is that the longest war of the 20th century was a war waged against Vietnam, north and south, communist and non-communist, by America. It was an unprovoked invasion of the people's homeland and their lives, just like the invasion of Iraq.

[biffvernon]

And the Vietnam War is still not over. Since the Americans went home 100000 Vietnamese have been killed by American ordnance that didn't explode when it was meant to. And as for the legacy through generations still being afflicted upon the new-born by Agent Orange... How folk manage to fall for US propaganda just beggars belief.