Most Americans are unaware of world history. The post WW II and Cold War propaganda created several generations of Americans that have either forgotten or never learned about America's role in the world after the War. Ken Burns recent series, The War was made by him in his own words because Americans have little knowledge about WW II and its consequences. Yet, the period from 1945-1950 has had the most significance on our country's economics and foreign policy. Ken Burns found that nearly half of Americans believe that we were at war with the Soviet Union and Germany was our ally in WW II.
Since the collapse of the Soviet Union, archival information from both the U.S. and Russia has been released that has shown that our government was primarily responsible for the Cold War. The belligerent attitude the U.S. displayed after the War against the USSR was intense as our government set its sights on dominating the post-war world. The Soviets who had suffered 25 million war dead and the devastation by the Germans of their occupation was more interested in their own security than a confrontation with us. Morris Berman expressed this in his book: Dark Ages America (2006):
"As is the case with the "war on terrorism," I believe much of the Cold War was an illusion, a large mythic structure or narrative co-created by the United States and the USSR for their own respective domestic political agendas. On both sides, the presence of a powerful enemy served to generate a huge apparatus of employment and government expenditures, including elaborate structures of espionage, military research and development, scientific research institutes, and the like. The two "threats" thus maintained each other and enabled each system to define itself in opposition to the other. After all, writes Ivan Eland (in The Empire Has No Clothes), if the main goal of US. foreign policy after 1945 had been to fight communism, the pax Americana we had established during the Cold War years would have been dismantled after 1991. But our military spending never dropped below Cold War levels after that date. The truth of the matter is that the conspiracy theory of a global red menace threatening to engulf the world was grossly exaggerated by the United States for imperial purposes, to gain public support for military and political intervention in the affairs of other nations and for the huge defense budgets such intervention would require. In this way the Cold War became the justification for building a global empire. In fact, given the decrepit state of the Soviet economy, some analysts within the U.S. government had contemptuously referred to the USSR as "Upper Volta with missiles." Consider the fact that in the "National Security Strategy" of 2002, the Bush administration admitted that during the Cold War, we faced a "risk-averse adversary"-: -an admission, says Chalmers Johnson, that would never have been made during the Cold War itself. If KGB archives demonstrate how brutal the Soviet Union was within its own borders (satellite states included, of course), they also reveal that the Kremlin's focus was on internal security, not world domination. The documents show that Russia regarded Germany, rather than America, as its greatest threat...... ..... This is why, for example, the Kremlin backed away from supporting the Greek and Italian Communists after the war, and why events in Hungary and Czechoslovakia (awful though they were) can correctly be seen as efforts to bolster a shaky regime, not to extend into fresh territory. Even the invasion of Afghanistan in 1979 was defensive, an attempt to ward off the advance of Islamic fundamentalism toward Russia's Muslim provinces. (At least, this is what Russian archival material thus far examined reveals.) It was Americans who became obsessed and predatory during the postwar period, to a far greater degree than the Soviet Union. It is not that the Berlin airlift and Wall and the Cuban missile crisis were not real, and I am not suggesting there was no threat at all. But that seems to be largely it. Most of the Cold War was smoke and mirrors."
The current Administration is the last of the old Cold Warriors. They have portrayed countries as our official enemies who were not a threat to us. Iraq was an adversary of Iran before we overthrew Saddam. The Taliban were enemies of Iran and welcomed their ouster in Afghanistan. Each time the Iranians reached out to open negotiations they were rejected much in the same way as was done after WW II to the USSR. Unfortunately, this group of criminals that run our "ship of state" put the final nail in the coffin on American imperialism.
As George McGovern said in his 1972 acceptance speech, "Come Home America." Perhaps this administration unwittingly has given us the opportunity to again become a member of the community of nations.
Neocolonialism: invasion, occupation, domination
What are the interests of England and the United States in Persian Gulf, the Persian front door to Iran?
A primer for discussion of these issues must start with review of British and the United States policies relative to the Persian Gulf region. Stephen Kinzer in his book “All the Shah’s Men" brilliantly reconstructs the events leading to 1953 coup.
The United States Central Intelligence Agency operation Ajax staged coup d’état in 1953 against democratically elected Prime Minister Dr. Mohammad Mossadegh. Democracy was substituted with the despotic regime of Mohammad Reza Shah. The dawn of democracy in Iran, started in late 1880, flickered by democratically elected Mossadegh, was extinguished. This was the beginning of Iranian servitude once more to the interests of England and the United States. During his last years, Shah did not trust Iranian people; his inner palace was guarded by Israel commandos. Since 1979, the United States has been punishing Iranian people for ousting the immature, weak, despotic Mohammad Reza Shah. This punishment, Iranian assert, included Iraq invasion of Iran instigated by President Regan. During this war, the United States and her satellite nations helped materially and logistically Iraqi military forces to invade Iran and use chemical and biological weapons on Iranian population.
In the preface of his book, Kinzer recalls his conversation with an Iranian lady about Dr. Mohammad Mossadegh. He asked her: “What do you remember…about the coup against him?” She responded:
“Why did you Americans do that terrible thing? We always loved America. To us, America was the great country, the perfect country, the country that helped us while other countries were exploiting us. But after that moment, no one in Iran ever trusted the United States again…”
The primary reason for this regime change was to subordinate Iranian people and exploit the Iranian natural resources.
In contrast to 1953, Iranian people are willing to die and kill to defend their homeland.
A primer for discussion must start with review of the United States Iranian policies. Stephen Kinzer, a veteran New York Times correspondent, in his book “All the Shah’s Men, an American coup and the roots of Middle East Terror”, published by John Wiley & Sons, Inc., 2003, brilliantly reconstructs the events leading to the present dilemma of the United States in the Middle East. The events described in this marvelous book are not fiction, it actually happened during the summer of 1953 in Tehran, Iran.
CIA operation Ajax staged coup d’état in 1953 against democratically elected Prime Minister Dr. Mohammad Mossadegh. Democracy was substituted with the despotic regime of Mohammad Reza Shah. The dawn of democracy in Iran, started in late 1880, flickered by democratically elected Mossadegh, was extinguished. This was the beginning of Iranian servitude once more to the interests of England and the United States. During his last years, Shah did not trust Iranian people; his inner palace was guarded by Israel commandos. Since 1979, the United States has been punishing Iranian people for ousting the despotic Shah. To punish Iran President Regan instigated Iraq invasion of Iran. We helped Iraqi military using chemical and biological weapons on Iranians.
In the preface of his book, Kinzer recalls his conversation with an Iranian lady about Dr. Mohammad Mossadegh. He asked her: “What do you remember…about the coup against him?” She responded:
“Why did you Americans do that terrible thing? We always loved America. To us, America was the great country, the perfect country, the country that helped us while other countries were exploiting us. But after that moment, no one in Iran ever trusted the United States again…”
The primary reason for this regime change was to subordinate Iranian people and exploit the Iranian natural resources.
Our president prevaricate his true intensions and hide the administration’s primary interest to dominate Iranian people. In contrast to 1953, Iranian people show fortitude to defend their homeland. A new blunder, we would pay a greater price for our country.
Well that is quite optimist, and welcome in that sense. Although, I personal don't feel that optimistic, guess I'm too cynical. My bad as they say.
I have this "thing" about brinkmanship, it's like dancing on a high-wire without a net, one wrong step or unforeseen wind gust can change things real fast, then if one is lucky, ya might be able to catch the wire with one hand, yet you're still left there dangling precariously.
Sometimes you eat the bear... and sometimes the bear eats you. Agape.
And he then presciently described what happened when the Soviet Union folded. We lost our "mirror image" and had no real idea of who or what we were, only what we were not.
From that, we began our search for the next enemy. Apparently, Islam will do for the moment. We seem to once again be striving to redefine ourselves as a polar opposite, and the results in the future will likely be the same.
Who am us, anyway? (h/t Firesign Theater)
(and of course as Little Geo states, this war on the abstraction of terror will last several generations...wow)