A great analogy to American foreign policy

Phokus

Lifer
Nov 20, 1999
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A friend of mine posted this in another message board... i totally agree:

as the late great bill hicks once said,

"I'm so sick of arming the world, then sending troops over to destroy the f*ckiing arms, you know what I mean? We keep arming these little countries, then we go and blow the sh*t out of them. We're like the bullies of the world, y'know. We're like Jack Palance in the movie Shane, throwing the pistol at the sheepherder's feet.

"Pick it up."

"I don't wanna pick it up, Mister, you'll shoot me."

"Pick up the gun."

"Mister, I don't want no trouble. I just came downtown here to get some hard rock candy for my kids, some gingham for my wife. I don't even know what gingham is, but she goes through about ten rolls a week of that stuff. I ain't looking for no trouble, Mister."

"Pick up the gun."

(He picks it up. Three shots ring out.)

"You all saw him - he had a gun."
 

B00ne

Platinum Member
May 21, 2001
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:) even though I wouldn't say it's really like that, the analogy is somehow fitting
 

JellyBaby

Diamond Member
Apr 21, 2000
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It's what governments do best: create problems to make work for themselves.

Peace is boring. Be glad we live in interesting times.
 

SnapIT

Banned
Jul 8, 2002
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Originally posted by: Phokus
A friend of mine posted this in another message board... i totally agree:

as the late great bill hicks once said,

"I'm so sick of arming the world, then sending troops over to destroy the f*ckiing arms, you know what I mean? We keep arming these little countries, then we go and blow the sh*t out of them. We're like the bullies of the world, y'know. We're like Jack Palance in the movie Shane, throwing the pistol at the sheepherder's feet.

"Pick it up."

"I don't wanna pick it up, Mister, you'll shoot me."

"Pick up the gun."

"Mister, I don't want no trouble. I just came downtown here to get some hard rock candy for my kids, some gingham for my wife. I don't even know what gingham is, but she goes through about ten rolls a week of that stuff. I ain't looking for no trouble, Mister."

"Pick up the gun."

(He picks it up. Three shots ring out.)

"You all saw him - he had a gun."

So the US forces the guns on smaller countries and then bombs them? hmmm... I't falls flat on a very basic point which makes the analogy worthless...
 

ElFenix

Elite Member
Super Moderator
Mar 20, 2000
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the french do more arming than we do, and with less thought.
 

Ornery

Lifer
Oct 9, 1999
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GasX

Lifer
Feb 8, 2001
29,033
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I like your analogy a lot. I think it is perfect. It hits the nail on the head. I just have a couple of questions though...

When did we give Saddam Hussein a nuke?
When did we give Al Qaida passenger jets?
When did we give Somalis AK47s?
When did we give Grenada armed Cubans?
When did we give the Viet Cong anything?
When did we give the Koreans communism?
When did we give Hitler Panzers?
When did we give Tojo Zeros?
 

Damage

Senior member
Dec 3, 2001
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Your premise seems to be that we arm a country only to provide an excuse to blow it up. Do you beleve that?
 

BaliBabyDoc

Lifer
Jan 20, 2001
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When did we give Saddam Hussein a nuke?
Saddam doesn't have nukes b/c 1) Israel bombed their first plant, 2) UNSCOM disarmed him after 1991, and 3) import restrictions have impeded his ability to acquire components. But if you must know, France sold him a lot of gear that COULD be used for weapons.

When did we give Al Qaida passenger jets?
The real question is what motivates people all throughout the world to consider killing Americans a laudable enterprise? Some say Islam . . . others say a general lack of human decency . . . IMHO it's people who used Islam to encourage such inhuman acts AND selectively immoral US foreign policy.

When did we give Somalis AK47s?
Well if they were willing to oppose Commies I bet we encouraged them to buy whatever weapons were available.

When did we give Grenada armed Cubans?
Well hey that's Castro but the US armed paramilitary units and despots throughout Central and South America . . . why single out Grenada?

When did we give the Viet Cong anything?
The Viet Cong killed US GIs b/c the US GIs were given immoral orders to invade Vietnam. Non-communist South Vietnamese didn't put up much of a fight b/c the North was damn ruthless. Supplying the South with weapons just delayed the inevitable and from the Gulf of Tonkin forwards the US presence resulted in thousands more dead on our side, millions of Vietnamese casualties, and the devastation of a country.

When did we give the Koreans communism?
North Korea is a totalitarian regime but it doesn't qualify as even a marginal communist regime. They aren't even good socialists. North Korea is just . . . messed up.
 

ElFenix

Elite Member
Super Moderator
Mar 20, 2000
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Originally posted by: BaliBabyDoc

When did we give the Viet Cong anything?
The Viet Cong killed US GIs b/c the US GIs were given immoral orders to invade Vietnam. Non-communist South Vietnamese didn't put up much of a fight b/c the North was damn ruthless. Supplying the South with weapons just delayed the inevitable and from the Gulf of Tonkin forwards the US presence resulted in thousands more dead on our side, millions of Vietnamese casualties, and the devastation of a country.
i was under the impression that we didn't invade north vietnam, and we very selectively bombed targets, to try to get a peace deal
 

GasX

Lifer
Feb 8, 2001
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BaliBabyDoc - Pretty good responses, but my point still stands. We didn't arm any of these coutries so that we could invade.
 

WileCoyote

Senior member
Aug 4, 2000
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now if only these countries wouldn't go nuts on us and terrorize people using the weapons we supplied them with.
 

Grey

Platinum Member
Oct 14, 1999
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The US weapons industry sells weapons to 60% of the nations in this world, the other 40% is companies from Russia/China/France. There are good chances that if we attack someone they will have armament from one of the big four. To say that the industries are somehow the National governments themselves is ludicrous.

 

tcsenter

Lifer
Sep 7, 2001
18,706
430
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A great analogy to American foreign policy
A great analogy, perhaps, to those inordinately unsophisticated persons who think in such simplistic terms that they would find in the scene of a Jack Palance movie any semblance of an analogy to US foreign policy to begin with, yes.

To those who understand US foreign policy and the history necessary to understand it, its not even an analogy, great or othewise.

Of those who understand US foreign policy, the history necessary to understand it, and are still vehement detractors of US foreign policy, they typically are ideologically sympathetic if not perfectly aligned with some extreme leftist ideology such as Marxism or communism and thus despise the United States for its opposition to their utopian pipe dreams (e.g. Noam Chomsky, Angela Davis, et. al.).
 

UltraQuiet

Banned
Sep 22, 2001
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To say that the industries are somehow the National governments themselves is ludicrous.

I'm not sure what you mean by that. I am almost positive that arms and ammunition of all types are on a restricted export list, especially in quantity. You could very easily make the case that defense industries and Nat'l gov'ts are one and the same because they are.
 

Grey

Platinum Member
Oct 14, 1999
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Originally posted by: DaveSohmer
To say that the industries are somehow the National governments themselves is ludicrous.

I'm not sure what you mean by that. I am almost positive that arms and ammunition of all types are on a restricted export list, especially in quantity. You could very easily make the case that defense industries and Nat'l gov'ts are one and the same because they are.

True, they are restricted but only a select few nations really are exempt from certain types of sales. Most of the nato/EU allies have unrestricted access to US weps. The other nations in the 'gray' area can buy everything but more advanced tech right? My point was the presence of US weaponary in a nation doesn't mean the US agreed with that nations policies 100%.
 

charrison

Lifer
Oct 13, 1999
17,033
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Originally posted by: Grey
Originally posted by: DaveSohmer
To say that the industries are somehow the National governments themselves is ludicrous.

I'm not sure what you mean by that. I am almost positive that arms and ammunition of all types are on a restricted export list, especially in quantity. You could very easily make the case that defense industries and Nat'l gov'ts are one and the same because they are.

True, they are restricted but only a select few nations really are exempt from certain types of sales. Most of the nato/EU allies have unrestricted access to US weps. The other nations in the 'gray' area can buy everything but more advanced tech right? My point was the presence of US weaponary in a nation doesn't mean the US agreed with that nations policies 100%.

I dont think we sell the best to anyone.
 

etech

Lifer
Oct 9, 1999
10,597
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One of the simple explanations.


Nation buys weapons from US

Nation goes bad, terrorist whatever.

No more spare parts for bad nation's weapons.

Weapons useless.


 

BaliBabyDoc

Lifer
Jan 20, 2001
10,737
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i was under the impression that we didn't invade north vietnam, and we very selectively bombed targets, to try to get a peace deal.
Your impression is quite wrong. The bombing of targets was selective alright. We targeted civilian centers in the hope of causing them to yield.

BaliBabyDoc - Pretty good responses, but my point still stands. We didn't arm any of these coutries so that we could invade.
Law of unintended consequences . . . totalitarian regimes have the benefit of long term planning. Republics . . . particularly less than representative ones (like the US/UK) tend to look out for select interests over relatively short intervals. America is not true its virtues but it always true to its short term interest. Therefore, yesterday's ally is today's tyrant and vice versa.

Allende was a socialist but he was an ELECTED socialist. The election part did not dissuade Kissinger from orchestrating his overthrow. The Shah of Iran was preceded by a populist king and followed by a populist theocrat. The US aligned itself with the only leader NOT supported by the people of Iran. Now the choice between Iran/Iraq during the war was a false dichotomy. We should have supported a world coalition supporting the people of Iran and Iraq. Instead we gave weapons and intel' to Iraq (despite Saddam's atrocities) and sold weapons to Iran to satisfy other purposes (Contras). America propped up both regimes . . . this crap about balance of power is BS better left to a game of RISK than real world scenarios.