What is this Mike Ware thing you keep mentioning, as far as I know he's just an opportunistic ass who got a video from the net... whats this he followed someone bit?

I always find it ironic how America is so cozy with the most oppressive government in the middle east, the wahabi monarch state of Saudia Arabia. A country with a handful of rich royal families and vast poor majority, who are taught hate as unspoken policy towards other cultures so they don't question the current status quo...

The US administration does not want to get involved in what potentially could be a 2nd Vietnam war, even though it is abundantly clear from the time span of the actual war that the Iraqi military was completely overwhelmed. Kurdish rebels in the North and Shiites in the South start military operations against Saddam's goverment. The American goverment at the time felt that this would lead to civil war and thus let the situation resolve itself, however it makes a mistake in negotiations for a cease fire with Saddam. While a no fly zone was imposed, Saddam was given premission to use attack helicopters. Attack helicopters crush both rebel movements. (Remember those famous pictures of Kurds driven to the mountains?). The American administration does no intervene any further because an unstable presence in the Middle East means that military bases will be allowed remain in Kuwait, Saudia Arabia and Qatar, securing the oil supply should anything ever happen. The American goverment could have overthrown Saddam then and there, the initative was there, the world was behind them but they stopped, because it served their objectives at the time. What follows is 10 years of misery via the UN Oil-for-food programme, under which thousands suffer. The iraqi people feel betrayed because the liberators had left before the job was finished, pro american supports silently dissappeared off the streets as Saddam tightened control, seeing no alternative a cult of personality arises around Saddam who starts to provide food and supplies to the people, in 10 years he becomes more beloved and feared ruler. Something that US forces are dealing with every day, day in day out. The rest is history.

During the same time period (70s to 90s), the USSR intervenes in Afghanistan, the CIA sponsors the mujahedin and Osama Bin Laden with roughly a billion dollars in order to destabilize the Soviet Union. Significantly they provided the mujahedin shoulder launched heat seekers that destroyed the air support of the russian helicopter fleet (responsible for supply, transportation and tactical attacks) which was vital to any successful campaign. Clearly the CIA was not doing it's job properly because at the time it was clear the Soviet Union was just disintergrating under the inefficiency of the soviet communist system. Osama Bin Laden joined the Taleban because they envisioned a muslim nation, and that was attacked by a secular power (USSR). With US forces staying put in Saudia Arabia indefinately after the Gulf War, Osama Bin Laden declares a jihad against occupying forces in the Islamic Holyland. The rest is thus history.

In conclusion. The policies the American goverment has undertaken have backfired, the consequences of which we see in 9/11, the Afghan war, the Iraq war, the uneasy situation with Iran. The CIA have a code word for this called "blow back". Intervention in Iranian affairs has created regime whose coming to power was mostly based on a hatred of America for doing what it did. This is the same regime that could be acquiring nuclear weapons, supporting Hezbollah in Lebanon and Palestine, supporting indirectly anti-american action in Iraq. The same people who would have greeted America as liberators in 1991, when it mattered, are not the same people America invades in 2003.

The same thing I mentioned about Nicaragua applies to East Timor. in 1975, the Indonesian Military Regime intervenes in the former colony of East Timor. What follows is a genocidal event. Daniel Patrick Moynihan, the US ambassdor to the UN blocks any international reaction to the event. And I quote now "The United States wished things to turn out as they did and worked to bring this about. The department of State desired that the United Nations prove utterly ineffective in whatever measures it undertook. This task was given to me, and I carried it forward with no inconsiderable success."
In 1991, A News Service study reveals that the US goverment supplied the Indonesian military with a list of names of promeint communist party leaders, mass organizations, labour federations and youth groups. The CIA station chief reffered to this as "a shooting list".

I could go on and on...

That's a really simplistic view, quantummushroom, that's akin to saying yeah well we screwed over a bunch of nations just to gain a foothold for ourselves, we're cool now so stop blaming us.

You don't realize that such activites by the goverment is actually holding you, the average citizen down. How exactly? Well think about the gap between the rich and the poor in America, it's so large now that there is a reduction in the number of people who are middle class.

Now let's think back about all the military incursions that America has been involved in and pick a few cases to look at. We'll look at Nicaragua, this starts back with Theodore Roosevelt who extends the existing Monroe Doctrine in 1904 allowing the US to interfe in a latin american state guilty of "chronic wrong doing" (I mean much more vague can this be). The Monroe doctrine comes to define america's policy in Latin America.

US Marines land in Nicaragua in 1909, after a similar pattern of interventions in Cuba (1898), Honduras (1905) and Panama (1908). Nicaragua becomes a US protectorate there after.

In 1926, Augusto Cesar Sandino lunaches a successful guerilla war against US marines and the Nicaraguan National Guard under Anastasio Somoza Garcia. The Sandinista rebels are a pro-liberal group that insists on a redistribution of land to the peasantry, which is violented opposed by Somoza. Sandino was murdered by the National Guard in 1934, Somoza who is a US ally then runs a brutual dictatorship until 1979 when the Somoza Dynasty is overthrown by Sandinista National Liberational Front. Jimmy Carter at the time tried desperately to prop up Somoza's regime until the bitter end. Nicaragua after years of oppressive rule lay in ruins with 40,000 to 50,0000 killed.

When the Sandinistas finally come into power, everything is done to demonize them with accusations of undemocratic policies, genocide, drug-trafficking. This is while US media remains silent on the documented facts of Sandinistas remarkable reforms. Oxfam, with it's experience of working in over 76 developing nations finds the Nicaraguan goverment to be exceptional in it's commitment to addressing inequities in land ownership, in extending health, educational and agricultural services to poor peasent families.

Until 1989, the US goverment pursues a policy of destabilization by suppyling an insurgent army of 'Contras' in Nicaragua.

The question is "Why would the US goverment feel threatened by socialism in a smaller, weaker country such as Nicaragua"?

This comes down to the Rotten Apple theory. If a tiny impoverished nation with miniuscle resources can begin to do something for it's own population others might ask "Why not us?". The weaker and less economically endowned the nation the greater the example that can be set. The rot could spread, threatening regions of real concern to the rulers of the world.

Same thing with Iran, which in the late 40s grew tired of it's resources being plucked by corporations. The CIA however interevened, a coup occured and the Shah of Iran came into power. This of course back fired a few years later with the extreme Islamic goverment emerging. The US goverment then makes links with Iraq, supporting Iraqi military operations into Iran, while selling arms to both sides. This of course back fires with the usage of Chemical and Biological weapons by Saddam. The US goverment distances itself.

1991, Iraq invades Kuwait. For a long time the international community does not do much other then decry the situation. However intelligence arrives saying that Saddam's forces are massing on the western border of Kuwait with Saudia Arabia. The american administration deems it too risky to allow Saddam to possbily enter Saudia Arabia. And the rest is history. But no wait. It's not all over yet. Suddenly only 100 KM away from Baghdad, coalition forces are pulled back, the regime in Iraq is unchanged, no pressure is placed on the regime to allow free elections to occur.

The American goverment has been playing puppet master with so many nations that eventually they will be targetted themselve.

Look at the level of paranoia displayed by the american administration during the cold war era, so fixated are they on assuring dominance that they go as far as intervening in other nations. Look at the Vietnam war, the administration thought that Hanoi would take Seoul, become a large communist state join with China and thus create a Iron Curtain in the east.

Yet had they investigated further they would realize that the East Asian rim is about as unified as Serbia, the Vietnamese were dominated by the Chinese and they would never ally themselves with them. Lack of local information cost them lives, money, and years tied up in a needless war. They werent fighting a communist war, the Vietnamese were fighting a war for freedom.

Then one brings up Bamdrew's point. Remember that Osama Bin Laden started a terrorist campaign against the US because of the military buildup in Saudia Arabia. Pick up a globe once in a while, look at the current spread of American military bases, it's astounding. The forces of the United States military are located in nearly 130 countries around the world. Some of these deployments have existed for nearly 50 years, as in Japan, Germany, and South Korea, while other deployments have more recent origins such as the current occupation of Iraq. This and unilateral actions that create these terrorists.

The videos provided on VideoSift clearly represent this, the documentary clips I posted, along with the defense budget displayed in Oreo cookies (LOL but very relevant really)

This is becoming almost cyclical now. The more pressure you apply in these and other regions the more you will beat the drums of war, its been nearly 5 years since 9/11 and what exactly has the administration achieved? Osama Bin Laden is loose, there is chaos in Iraq, the american economy went from a surplus to a huge deficit, the middle east is even more tense now with Iran.

At some point there comes a realization that maybe the policies adapted for the last 60 years do not benefit the american people or the world. Instead of creating allies, we have gone back to the days of pre-colonial isolationism.