> It's not like Iran asked our permission before they launched their nuclear program
You do realize the U.S. helped launch Iran's nuclear program, right?
You do realize the U.S. helped launch Iran's nuclear program, right?
Once the United States starts claiming pieces of South America and Arabia as their sovereign territory you can start shouting about Iran's self defense. The United States is far from perfect, and all the criticisms you leveled are completely true. But be honest about the situation. The only thing that Iran's government is protecting by developing nuclear weapons is their own corrupt regime and their influence in the middle east.
I'm not sure the citizens of Guatemala, El Salvador, Nicaragua, Uruguay, Paraguay, Brazil, Argentina, Chile, D.R., Honduras, Panama, the Philippines, Vietnam, or any of the other sovereign nations the US has invaded, would agree with this statement.
Our involvement in Vietnam was in fact, at the time, conducted with the full cooperation of a sovereign country, the Republic of South Vietnam. To be fair, US forces definitely did violate the sovereignty of Laos and Cambodia during that conflict.
I believe I understand your general point here, but can we at least get basic facts right when we have these discussions?
Regarding South Vietnam, does "full cooperation" include assassination of their president in 1963?
E.g.:
> The U.S. provided material support to the military regime after the coup, although criticizing it in public. A document released by the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) in 2000, titled "CIA Activities in Chile", revealed that the CIA actively supported the military junta after the overthrow of Allende and that it made many of Pinochet's officers into paid contacts of the CIA or U.S. military, even though some were known to be involved in human rights abuses.
Brazil: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1964_Brazilian_coup_d'%C3%A9tat...
Nowadays invasions aren't explicit like in colonial times (where every superpower raced to colonize as much as possible), but there is definitely covert "warfare" going on.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Covert_United_States_foreign_re...
Also take a look at East Timor.
http://www2.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB176/
U.S. support was fundamental to a conflict that killed 100-180,000 Timorese. But not many are aware of this.
You must be joking. Read what ex-CIA agent John Stockwell has to say about that: http://www.serendipity.li/cia/stock1.html
The CIA went into foreign countries and purposely destabilized them and started civil wars. It continues to this day: see the Arab Spring. The Soviet Union's actions were quite tame by comparison.
For every Soviet or Russian invasion, there's a corresponding US one that is just as bad: Vietnam, Iraq, Afghanistan, and the US interferes with the internal politics of many more nations to boot. See Pinochet in Chile, the Shah in Iran (although the British had a big part in that too). Russia threatens its immediate neighbors, yes. But at least they oppose the US. Think they are all bad? They keep Snowden safe and sound. The US threatens any nation in the world that doesn't fall into line. When they thought Snowden was on board an official government aircraft, they had their cronies in Europe force it down in violation of international law. Think that the European nations make their own decisions? Think again.
This is the threat that the US poses to the world, and most of the world is already under their control. Iran isn't, so they are threatened with war. They've been threatened with war since Bush's idiotic "Axis of Evil" speech. Since before that. You think they don't have the right to try to defend themselves? To prevent that? Nuclear weapons, in this world, bring freedom. See how North Korea has never been invaded. See how the US knows better than to engage Russia in outright conflict. Nations that have nuclear weapons can have actual independence.
With the Trans-Pacific Partnership, they are trying to force their laws onto the entire world, and that is just one of many such agreements. Canada is already a puppet state of the US. The current state of the world is that no nation can try to free themselves of US influence without getting an internal revolution or even an outright invasion, and that is a much bigger threat than Russia is, or China, or Iran, or anyone.
But that's the thing, that goes thought topics here too - US stepped down, and is continuing downwards, from "that hunky good friend of yours that you don't piss off and do what he says, and all is more than OK, otherwise he'll steal your lunch and breaks your leg" to simply lesser of all evils... BRAVO :(
The CIA is known for its activities in countries like, gee, Iran, where they overthrew the existing DEMOCRATICALLY elected government and installed a monarch instead.
Or see the case of Guatemala, where on the advice of businessmen the democratic government was overthrown on charges of 'communism' with lots of help from the US.
Benevolent superpower my ass.
Without those hostages situation, right now Iran might have been on par with Dubai/Abu Dhabi or similar. They have the richness in oil & gas. Been there backpacking last year, people are amazingly, no AMAZINGLY friendly and nice. One of best trips of my life. They have their issues, some rather big ones, but so does other places.
beginner's mistakes...
But if the US also helped start the program, I guess it is even "more" responsible, if that is even possible.
You are conflating two different nations that happen to share a name and borders. The US trades technology with the Fourth Republic of Germany; The US did not with the Third Reich.
Mr Black is angry at IBM and does not try to hide it in his writing. He writes as if he is a prosecutor trying to convince a jury in court. Very frequently and repetitively, he describes the Holocaust and explains why what the reader just read proves that IBM or some of its executives are guilty of murder. I find it insulting to have these conclusions handed to me, even if I don't disagree with them. The repetition gets boring quickly.
/s
I'm not entirely certain how so few people here get that massive revolutions and changes in political power can change the playing field of what foreign aid and technological assistance we should give to other countries. Perhaps we should be like France, and sell tanks to the highest bidder regardless of international sanctions.