In article ,
"Robert Green" wrote:

"dgk" wrote in message

stuff snipped

Harry is often right. Our country is an imperialist power that has
done much good around the world but has also done many horrible things
to benefit the powerful - and that generates hatred. We may have
forgotten our previous interventions in Iraq and Iran, which were to
install dictatorships friendly to corporate interests, but the people
there haven't. They have every reason to hate us - we game them the
Shah and Saddam.

America's addiction to oil has made us get in bed with many very vile and
nasty people and some of them have even done us dirty like 9/11.

Largely because the politicans and others have closed off access to so
much of our resources. Of course, we have been getting into bed with
nasty people from the Revolution forward (and I am not even counting
Lafayette and the French in this category--grin).


Now Libya, let's look at that. Why, Gadaffi promised not to go after
nuclear weapons and we then went in and overthrew him. Do you think
that maybe Iran might draw some conclusions from that?

Are you mad? (-: Expecting a consistent tone from the State Department?
What WE did in the Libya hardly qualified as going in and
overthrowing him. A couple of bombings and then essentially serving as
advisor and delivery boy to NATO doesn't really reach that level. If
anything, I would expect Iran to take comfort in that rather wimpy
response overall.


And why Libya and not Syria, where they're killing protesters
constantly? Why, because Libya has oil. And don't think that it was an
uprising by the Libyan people. That isn't to say that Gadaffi was
universally loved by any means, but we orchestrated the uprising. Your
tax dollars (and mine) at work.

I figure after we gave the intelligence agencies close to a trillion dollars
and free reign, and *especially* after they were excoriated for their lack
of human intelligence, we're largely seeing the CIA's handiwork in the
Libyan uprising.

I think that is more along the lines of taking on the easier target.
You will note that the West really did not join the battle until it
became evident that it had some momentum and staying power. Syria hasn't
reached that topping point yet (and may never).
The CIA can thank Frank Church for most of their troubles.

Once upon time I knew many Libyans when they were our friends and I was
helping to build flight simulators to sell to them. I suspect that what's
going to replace Mommar the madman isn't going to be any better than he was,
and probably quite a bit worse. I don't think the US will *ever* realize
that many of these countries are ruled by so-called "strongmen" for a
reason: that's what it takes to keep those countries functioning.
But at least in Libya, I would posit that much (if not most) of the
strong man part had been taken out. What the West largely did was come
to the aid of who we perceived to be the eventual winner. West might
have speeded up the process by a bit, but I don't think it was by any
means incisive. And we got to suck up to the winner.
"Meet the new boss, same as the old boss." Pete Townsend got it
right all those years ago.

--
People thought cybersex was a safe alternative,
until patients started presenting with sexually
acquired carpal tunnel syndrome.-Howard Berkowitz