Comments on THE UNITED STATES HAS MEDDLED IN THE INTERNAL AFFAIRS OF THESE COUNTRIES..

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Merrick

Now that is interesting. Do you have examples?

posted by Limey on June 26, 2005 at 4:09 PM | link to this | reply

fact

They get a positiv reaction.

posted by Limey on June 26, 2005 at 4:08 PM | link to this | reply

Agreed

I agree with you one hundred percent. Not only because you speak the truth but also because i'm in the Army and see first hand what you write about. Thanks for the insight.

posted by Merrick on June 26, 2005 at 2:40 PM | link to this | reply

Uh, yeah Limey you are right.

The advertisers know that some will do what you tell them everyone is doing. This helps your case how?

posted by FactorFiction on June 22, 2005 at 1:33 PM | link to this | reply

Fact

I don't believe I've said whether or not I have children. However, that's beside the point as I don't agree with your amateur - and so very American - homespun psychology.

As advertisers know all too well - and they, it should be noted, pay for the privilege - repeat a message often enough and you'll get positive action.

posted by Limey on June 22, 2005 at 11:56 AM | link to this | reply

Limey, I'd like to respond to the "why you are writing these posts" crack

You are not doing a hell of a lot for your cause buddy. I see you don't have kids or don't spend any time with them if you do. Positive reinforcement is infinitely more productive that constant negative reinforcement. In fact, if you are too negative, the child grows to be the "bad boy" that you are constantly calling him because he has taken this as his identity. The concept holds for adults. If you label someone and say it often enough, the labeled one accepts it as who they are.

posted by FactorFiction on June 19, 2005 at 12:44 PM | link to this | reply

Krisles

As Britain found out, being lampooned goes with the territory.

However, it has to be said that Americans are quite unused to taking or accepting criticism.

The reason? They're so used to hearing only positive things about themselves that when something like my list materialises it seems almost unbelievably shocking to them.

As I've said before, American 'gifts'and aid always come with strings attached. The US is not nearly as generous as it would have us believe - and this has always been the case. Hence the resentment.

posted by Limey on June 19, 2005 at 12:39 PM | link to this | reply

Dylan

Thank you for you kind remarks.

posted by Limey on June 19, 2005 at 12:02 PM | link to this | reply

Saul

Thank you for your excellent comment.

However, I can't agree that we should sit back and do nothing until there's another war - which, at this rate, will be between America and the rest of the world.

As you may have noticed, things have moved on since Britain ruled the waves. Communications have improved, people across the globe are more sophisticated and it's far more difficult for a developed nation like America to pull the wool over other countries' eyes.

America needs to face up to and deal with its shortcomings to prevent a catastrophe.

posted by Limey on June 19, 2005 at 12:01 PM | link to this | reply

zen

Don't twist things.

This blog is about why people hate Americans - and it all comes down their greed and the way they interfere in the affairs of other countries in order to achieve their aims.

posted by Limey on June 19, 2005 at 11:50 AM | link to this | reply

sadhanm

'Ultimately, it is the American people who have to change their rulers, not you and me.'

You're wrong.

It's up to us to bring about change by educating our misguided cousins. Why do you think I've been writing these posts?

posted by Limey on June 19, 2005 at 11:47 AM | link to this | reply

Ms N Dependence

Thank you - most kind.

posted by Limey on June 19, 2005 at 11:39 AM | link to this | reply

Limey

And yet, anytime there's trouble; anytime help is needed...who ya gonna call?  It all gets so very tiresome.  My heart bleeds, it really does; but I become more and more of an isolationist as it becomes more and more impossible to be one.  When it all comes down to the bottom line, who does the whole world seem to call?  Who?  Where does the buck seem to always stop? Where? When I see that stop, I'll give your points really serious consideration because I am quite sure they deserve it and that they contain facts and merit and my hat is all the way off to you....I respect all the points of view expressed here....but I'm a pragmatist.  Actually, I don't believe anything I read or hear in the media but you can choose as you wish.  Regardless of what is factual or not,  I don't like being lampooned when I'm being begged, booed when I'm expected to provide....it all just strikes my sense of something or the other....wrong. 

posted by Krisles on June 18, 2005 at 8:40 PM | link to this | reply

Limey,

you have certainly done your research! I admire your thoroughness.

posted by Dylan24 on June 18, 2005 at 1:43 PM | link to this | reply

Good post, Limey, but even better comments.

The United States' hand in the economies and politics of most nations on the planet is to be expected of the ruling power, much the same as when Britain ruled on its Empire where the sun never set, much as the Romans did, and... Well, you get my drift.  The more powerful in any group always commands or demands through coercion or diplomacy or outright elimination that everyone else in the group agree to its agenda and then goes about facilitating exactly that. 

I am not justifying it, Limey, for most of it I find as disagreeable as you.  I am simply stating that political maneuverings in the world are just basic group dynamics in macrocosm.

Oh, and you are absolutely correct in your assessment of the ignorance level within the United States.  Most Americans tend to stumble through life with an indifferent arrogant ignorance that is not only disgusting to observe, but frightening as hell to those of us who are even slighly more well-informed.

posted by saul_relative on June 18, 2005 at 9:55 AM | link to this | reply

Stop talking about anything other than the US, folks.

That's not what the blog's about. No making historical or statistical comparisons with other countries/empires. This blog is just about the US. (I speak from having been informed and later reminded of this fact by Limey.)

posted by zenresistance on June 18, 2005 at 7:56 AM | link to this | reply

Meddling!!

Limey, I think you are getting confused despite having good reasons for bashing.  Its not the country (that you often refer to), nor the people but the bunch of rulers that rule every country that are responsible for intervention. The country may be ruled by military dictatorships, be democratic, demi-democratic et al.

You cannot make a distinction between imperialist powers - British, French, German, Dutch, Portuguese, Spanish and so on. They all have bloody tracks and horrible records of intervention, exploitation. USA was a later addition. It could not build an empire; so its rulers did the next possible thing. Instead of colonialism, they built neo-colonialism. US rulers did not take over countries but their economies using their strong economic might and later used that as political muscle. 

It is necessary to understand history in the correct perspective and relate it to the contemporary based on acceptable yardsticks. Ultimately, it is the American people who have to change their rulers, not you and me.

posted by sadhankm on June 18, 2005 at 5:25 AM | link to this | reply

As always Limey

Very informative.

posted by Transcendental_Child on June 17, 2005 at 8:55 PM | link to this | reply

Burly

That might be a bit extreme. But I should watch the Chinese - they need your resources.

Apart from the Mexicans and Cenral Americans, I thought they were all in the UK.

posted by Limey on June 17, 2005 at 3:01 PM | link to this | reply

Dylan

Yes, perhaps it's time the Queen reigned over the US - but as you can see, the UK's record is not without blemishes.

Posted by Limey on June 17, 2005 at 2:14 PM (permalink)

posted by Limey on June 17, 2005 at 2:15 PM | link to this | reply

Dylan

Yes, perhaps it's time the Queen reigned over the US - but as you can see, the UKs record is not without blemishes.

posted by Limey on June 17, 2005 at 2:14 PM | link to this | reply

Dylan

1963
American/British Assassination of the Leader of Iraq

In July 1958, Gen. Abdul Karim Kassem overthrew the monarchy and established a republic. Though somewhat of a reformist, he was by no means any kind of radical. His action, however, awakened revolutionary fervor in the masses and increased the influence of the Iraqi Communist Party.
By April of the following year, CIA Director Allen Dulles, with his customary hyperbole, was telling Congress that the Iraqi Communists were close to a "complete takeover" and the situation in that country was "the most dangerous in the world today". In actuality, Kassem aimed at being a neutralist in the Cold War and pursued rather inconsistent policies toward the Iraqi Communists, never allowing them formal representation in his cabinet, nor even full legality, though they strongly desired both. He tried to maintain power by playing the Communists off against other ideological groups.
A secret plan for a joint US-Turkish invasion of the country was drafted by the United States Joint Chiefs of Staff shortly after the 1958 coup. Reportedly, only Soviet threats to intercede on Iraq's side forced Washington to hold back. But in 1960, the United States began to fund the Kurdish guerrillas in Iraq who were fighting for a measure of autonomy and the CIA undertook an assassination attempt against Kassem, which was unsuccessful.
The Iraqi leader made himself even more of a marked man when, in that same year, he began to help create the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC), which challenged the stranglehold Western oil companies had on the marketing of Arab oil; and in 1962 he created a national oil company to exploit the nation's oil.
In February 1963, Kassem told the French daily, Le Monde, that he had received a note from Washington – "in terms scarcely veiled, calling upon me to change my attitude, under threat of sanctions against Iraq... All our trouble with the imperialists [the US and the UK] began the day we claimed our legitimate rights to Kuwait." (Kuwait was a key element in US and UK hegemonic designs over mid-east oil.)
A few days after Kassem's remarks were published, he was overthrown in a coup and summarily executed; thousands of communists were killed.
The State Department soon informed the press that it was pleased that the new regime would respect international agreements and was not interested in nationalizing the giant Iraq Petroleum Co., of which the US was a major owner. The new government, at least for the time being, also cooled its claim to Kuwait.
Papers of the British cabinet of 1963, later declassified, disclose that the coup had been backed by the British and the CIA.
Added note: For the coup of 1963 the British MI6 and the CIA hired a young Iraqi man in Cairo to do their dirty work and help them destroy the Iraqi Communist Party. That man's name: Saddam Hussein.
For the next 27 years, the CIA's boy in Baghdad murdered hundreds of thousands of Iraqi leftists. Countless people were jailed and tortured. Saddam Hussein started the bloody war with Iran with the blessing of President Jimmy "Human Rights" Carter. The U.S. government wanted to punish Iranians for taking American hostages at the embassy in Tehran and overthrowing the brutal Shah, a long-time CIA puppet. The U.S. also supplied Hussein with the chemical and biological weapons he used on the Iranians and on Kurdish villagers.

From DD

posted by Limey on June 17, 2005 at 2:07 PM | link to this | reply

Dylan

1947 - 1970s
American Perversion of Democracy in Italy

In 1947, the US forced the Italian government to dismiss its Communist and Socialist cabinet members in order to receive American economic aid. The following year and for decades thereafter, each time a combined front of the Communists and Socialists, or the Communists alone, threatened to defeat the US-supported Christian Democrats in national elections, the CIA used every (dirty) trick in the book and trained its big economic, political and psychological-warfare guns on the Italian people, while covertly funding the CD candidates.
And it worked. Again and again. This perversion of democracy was done in the name of "saving democracy" in Italy.
American corporations also contributed many millions of dollars to help keep the left from a share of power.


From Double Standards

posted by Limey on June 17, 2005 at 2:03 PM | link to this | reply

Limey

Do you then think we should be invaded and occupied to stop our worldly mischief. Who would do it? Where would all the Mexicans, Central Americans, Pakistanis and Saudis go if someone did? The world hates us but everyone seems to want to come here!

posted by Burly on June 17, 2005 at 11:52 AM | link to this | reply

I noticed Italy was on your list...

...yes, indeed we did meddle in Italy's affairs -- when its leaders decided to ally with Germany and Japan to spread fascism around the world.

We meddled in Iraq's affairs to stop Saddam Hussein from taking over Kuwait and to secure a lucrative oil market, in 1991. 

The recent war comes closer to agreeing with your argument, because Hussein was not threatening to take over other countries, so we, according to some interpretations, illegally violated his sovereignty.

Maybe it's time for G.B. to once again take up arms against its daughter country, the U.S., to reign her in!

posted by Dylan24 on June 17, 2005 at 11:38 AM | link to this | reply

The Pot and The Kettle Thing

Limey,

Given the history of the British Empire, and the number of countries England has meddled with, perhaps you should look to your own country before finding fault with another. I wonder how loud you would howl if "We the People" decided to stop sending financial aid to ninety percent of thos countries you have listed? Stingy Americans?

Stiuck it Limey, you would be speaking German if it weren't for your cousins in the US. If you hate the United States, and the people who live here so much, go back home.

posted by twodog on June 17, 2005 at 7:03 AM | link to this | reply