Operation Ajax: How the CIA’s first attempt at regime change nearly failed
laphamsquarterly.org
laphamsquarterly.org
Nevermind destroying all freedom of speech, oppressing minorities, actively engaging in destroying (mostly by actively diluting) non han nationalities within china. What are you talking about?
This guy is joking, right?
[1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_wars_involving_the_P...
Vietnam the most recent in 1979 and lasted for two weeks in response to the Vietnamese government attempting to annex Cambodia and Laos, both of which were Chinese allies.
(To be clear, I don't think any of these are good reasons)
-- Hannah Arendt
It may be a stretch, but it occured to me that one could say that the US increased internal repression to protect the external repression, while China now increases external repression to protect internal repression.
https://onemileatatime.com/marriott-fired-employee-for-likin...
> At the same time, I can see where Marriott is coming from. I can’t imagine how much money it cost them to have their website and app blocked in China for a week, and unfortunately Jones was a “sacrifice” that they made to appease China and probably avoid a similar punishment again.
Not that I want to equate that with a war of aggression, but I don't find that progressive. Though I agree with
> Eventually the US needs to come to terms with the massively destructive impact it has had on the world since WW2
I would even generalize it beyond the US. And that's really the only constructive way out of this I see, to own up to one's own past and crimes, stop repeating them, and to not partake in the crimes of others, and supporting them in owning up to theirs. I fully admit that saying that is dumb, but doing that, that would be genius.
When two or more elephants engage in a dick waving contest the grass goes blind. We are people, not nations. The "leaders" of our nations for the most part don't serve us, and don't speak for us. Let's not forget that.
After all, the American public wasn't told they're gonna invade $middle_eastern_country for their economic interest, but for freedom.
And the (US side) costs of war are borne by all taxpayers, while the benefits accrue to a handful of corporations. I'd wager that, taken together, these costs outweigh the benefits. But the (rarely named by the media) corporations don't bear much of the costs.
As for CIA coups, well, they don't get much air time in the 24-hour news cycle, do they?
Is this a joke? The world since WW2 is the most peaceful it has ever been in human history. The economic and military superiority of the US is one of the main reasons why this is so.
> It is all too easy to justify it as “our meddling” is for the greater good and “others meddling” is evil and undemocratic. There is no distinction.
There is an obvious distinction: different countries seek to promote different, and opposing, interests. The world Russia seeks to create is very different from the world the US seeks to create. Instead of thinking this is about the universal morality of “meddling”, you should ask yourself: in which world would you prefer to live in?
That aside, it’s obvious that the US foreign policy has very often been very poorly designed. But claiming that we should be as upset about US meddling as about Russian or Chinese meddling is quite absurd. People in the West are upset about Russian meddling precisely because it is Russian, and promotes Russian interests that go against Western values, not because they think “meddling is wrong” in some universal sense.
> Imagine if China instigated a coup in a Middle Eastern country. The outrage would be massive.
Indeed. Why would anybody living in the West would want Middle Eastern countries controlled by China? That this would be met by outrage is a testament to the positive influence the US has on the world. I would much rather see the ME countries turn into western-style democracies through US meddling, than into Chinese puppets through Chinese meddling. That the former can’t be achieved, and any attempt of achieving it will likely be counterproductive, is a separate matter.
But it seems to me like you are misconstructing the issue: you seem to think that when people oppose "Chinese meddling", they do it because they believe foreign meddling is universally immoral, and they are therefore hypocritical when they don't similarly condemn US meddling. But that’s simply not the case: People want meddling that promotes the kind of world they want to see, and don’t want meddling that goes against it. There is nothing hypocritical about this.
Not a joke, if you care to look outside the West.
US meddling has been hampering Latin American societies and economies for a long time.
Criticism in hindsight is easy, how much worse would things have been if the US hadn't fought communism? Stalin killed 20+ million, Mao 50+ million, Pol Pot 2+ million. Without US intervention Large chunks of South America and Africa would have been competing for the communism kill high score.
Personally I don't want the US intervening because we get criticized no matter what we do and we'd save trillions
And somehow, this seems to be a recurring pattern in the foreign politics of the USA (although I suspect one could easily find many examples for other countries, too) - "solutions" that in the long run cause far bigger problems than the ones they were meant to solve in the first place.
On the other hand, that pattern is hardly exclusive to politics, so maybe it is just human nature at work.
Certainly there are people who consider the coup against Mossadegh a worthwhile investment. But there were some, uh, unforeseen repercussions.