Current Events > The United States and its allies have undermined the world for >100 years.

(+) Yeah! (+)

It was in the early days of the fighting in Vietnam that a Vietcong officer said to his American prisoner: "You were our heroes after the War. We read American books and saw American films, and a common phrase in those days was 'to be as rich and as wise as an American'. What happened?"

An American might have been asked something similar by a Guatemalan, an Indonesian or a Cuban during the ten years previous, or by a Uruguayan, a Chilean or a Greek in the decade subsequent. The remarkable international goodwill and credibility enjoyed by the United States at the close of the Second World War was dissipated country-by-country, intervention-by-intervention. The opportunity to build the war-ravaged world anew, to lay the foundations for peace, prosperity and justice, collapsed under the awful weight of anti-communism.

The weight had been accumulating for some time; indeed, since Day One of the Russian Revolution. By the summer of 1918 some 13,000 American troops could be found in the newly-born Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. Two years and thousands of casualties later, the American troops left, having failed in their mission to "strangle at its birth" the Bolshevik state, as Winston Churchill put it. The young Churchill was Great Britain's Minister for War and Air during this period. Increasingly, it was he who directed the invasion of the Soviet Union by the Allies (Great Britain, the US, France, Japan and several other nations) on the side of the counter-revolutionary "White Army". Years later, Churchill the historian was to record his views of this singular affair for posterity:

Were they [the Allies] at war with Soviet Russia? Certainly not; but they shot Soviet Russians at sight. They stood as invaders on Russian soil. They armed the enemies of the Soviet Government. They blockaded its ports, and sunk its battleships. They earnestly desired and schemed its downfall. But war shocking! Interference shame! It was, they repeated, a matter of indifference to them how Russians settled their own internal affairs. They were impartial Bang!

What was there about this Bolshevik Revolution that so alarmed the most powerful nations in the world? What drove them to invade a land whose soldiers had recently fought alongside them for over three years and suffered more casualties than any other country on either side of the World War?

(from Killing Hope: U.S. Military and C.I.A. Interventions Since World War II by William Blum)
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It was in the early days of the fighting in Vietnam that a Vietcong officer said to his American prisoner: "You were our heroes after the War. We read American books and saw American films, and a common phrase in those days was 'to be as rich and as wise as an American'. What happened?"

You think they would of known that America (and Europe) laughed off Ho-Chi-Minh saying Vietnam should be free right after WWI.
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*Scratches ass*
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I'm actually in the middle of reading that book at the moment.
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How do you like it?
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A Novel Idea posted...

What was there about this Bolshevik Revolution that so alarmed the most powerful nations in the world? What drove them to invade a land whose soldiers had recently fought alongside them for over three years and suffered more casualties than any other country on either side of the World War?

All it has ever been about is money. When the American dribbles about freedom, or the Englishman about civilisation - all it will come down to is being able to acrue more money. The English - fuck off with the "British" nonsense [and I am English] raised trade and manipulation of nations to a clinically performed skill under the guise of "civilisation". The Americans though... fuck me... you raised it to a dark fucking art.

The Soviet Union and its implementation of its own form of Marxism threatened the system that those other nations run on. It had fuck all to do with the good of the people, liberty or any of that other nice airy fairy sounding shit.

Communism scared the shit out of the US because it threatened the flow of the pennies and influence that it so loves. Now not all comrades are created equal, so there'd be a select few at the top that were more equal than others as it's all the same game at the end of the day: power and profit, sold to a gulible public with notions of integrity and prosperity for the common man. The US just desperately wraps itself in platitudes and desperate attempts to not appear so base, desperate to be loved and for people to think it is right and just. We're all wallowing in the same mud though.

Next time the US declares that it wishes to bring "freedom and democracy" somewhere, ask them to not be such a bunch of disingenous shits and just skip to the end and ask for the bill and then tell them to fuck off.

Popping up hundreds of millitary bases around the world to "defend US interests" is just another way of saying, milking the fucking world dry. You know what though? I doubt many countries wouldn't do it if they had the opportunity. France, England, Germany, Spain: they all played empire. The Russians and Chinese wanted to, the Japanese tried also. Pther countries will continue to when the US falls from power. Doesn't make the actions of the US right or wrong, better or worse. It just is what it is.
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Fuck Truman tbh
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A Novel Idea posted...

How do you like it?

I've known the US has done this kind of shit for a while now, and had previously read into the Vietnam war in some detail, but never quite realized the extent of just how many countries they've done it to. The current state of affairs in the world makes a lot more sense to me now.
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Well said @Hicks233, but I have to disagree with the very last line of what you wrote. The United States has undermined and is still undermining much of the world today, and with more recent developments like the $716 billion military budget being passed by overwhelmingly by both parties in the House and Senate speaking to its intent. We need to hold the U.S. accountable.

@synth_real, it's an excellent book. The way it surveys all these interventions makes it a great stepping stone for more intensive reading about any of the countries mentioned.

The rest of the introduction is here for anyone else reading: https://williamblum.org/chapters/killing-hope/introduction
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@Balrog0 Yeah, fuck Truman.
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Ayy lmao
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Recently got Legacy of Ashes: A History of the CIA
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