My last post rambled. I think I was trying to figure out what I was thinking as I wrote and it came out fuzzy. Here’s what I was getting at.
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After World War II, we found ourselves struggling with the Russians. Whether we saw it in terms of greed [Russia’s Empire Building] or ideology [The Red Menace – World Communism], we were at war with an expansionist U.S.S.R. Our foreign policy was "containment" and we fought our wars on the edges – The Arms Race, Korea, Viet Nam, supporting anti-communist regimes and forces, playing C.I.A./K.G.B. chess. Whether the strategy worked or the other side collapsed under its own weight isn’t for me to say, but, whichever the case, that fight is over.
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There was a period as the liberated Communist Bloc countries realigned, and then we found ourselves looking at a new foreign policy challenges. – the Middle East and Asia. There was nothing really "new." The tensions were as old as time. But there were new forces, new dangers, lots of new questions. In Asia, there’s the economic giant China and the danger of North Korea. We "get China." If we "get "North Korea, it’s something like "Asian country with nukes run by lunatic." But then there’s the tangle of the Middle East where there are many issues:
- The general tension between Islamic Countries and the U.S.
- The intense conflicts between Israel and everyone else in the Middle East
- The problems with specific states eg Iran, Iraq
- The problem of the Islamic Jihadists – al Qaeda, Taliban
- Our reliance on the oil production in the Middle East
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Our foreign policy under the Bush Administration was, in my opinion, heavily influenced by number 5., hidden behind the guise of dealing with numbers 3. and 4. In fact, it was directed by number 5. Simply put, Invading Iraq was insane, unless the point was gaining access to Iraq’s oil resources. So my point is that our foreign policy was corrupt and the whole world was watching and knows it. There’s no secret about what the Bush Administration did. They cheated and lied. They said national defense. They said terrorism. They said Iraqi freedom. But, at the core, the Invasion of Iraq was a commercial endeavor [a failed commercial endeavor].
So, what I was getting at in my last post was that although Viet Nam was started by us in deceit [Gulf of Tonkin]; we lost because our cause was unjust [interferring in a civil war]; but we were at least there as part of a coherent foreign policy, one that was public and above board. The invasion of Iraq is different. We started the war deceitfully. Some of the way we waged it was shameful. And now we still have to deal with the same whole list of problems we had before it started but there’s a new one:
- The general tension between Islamic Countries and the U.S.
- The intense conflicts between Israel and everyone else in the Middle East
- The problems with specific states eg Iran, Iraq
- The problem of the Islamic Jihadists – al Qaeda, Taliban
- Our reliance on the oil production in the Middle East
- We’ve shown our ass and waged a corrupt war with an unstated agenda
I think it is incumbent on us to unearth the whole truth, including the proceedings of Dick Cheney’s Energy Task Force in early 2001, including the distortion of the pre-war intelligence, and including the torture of our prisoners. We cannot formulate a coherent foreign policy to deal with the Middle East until we publicly deal with what has gone before. Without that piece, we are not credible in the eyes of the world or our own countrymen…
I agree completely with your conclusion.
Now if you can just convince President Obama.