who are we to say who should or shouldn't have nukes?

[Orignal Earl]

Nukes aren't about 'inventing' them.

They're about getting ahold of rare tightly controlled materials.

I'm pretty sure this is where the /end thread goes

 

[Craig234]

Basically guarding access to existing nuclear material and weapons is a responsibility I fail to trust certain foreign interests in.
Anything the US has done internationally historically is minor compared to the deviltry of other nations past and present.
Which just makes the US less bad, a very important distinction.
Every nation, every government fights for its life and prosperity. If it cannot create wealth on its own terms, or the terms of their leaders they will steal, kill, and extort. Piracy? why not.

And please remember the revered Fidel Castro failed as a baseball player, became a doctor, was aided by the USA to overthrow a Dictator playing with the US mob, then turned into a murderous dictator all on his own.
Usually the easiest way to define a dictatorship is by who and how many want to leave.

It is easy for various extremists to define the USA and its actions as a threat.
For all intentsa and purposes Guandi let non violence in India to independence.
I still remember the USA civil rights movement.

Your post is partly right - for example, the US has been more responsible with nuclear weapons than some countries would have been.

Of course, that's not totally responsible as the US has led a massive buildup of tens of thousands of weapons and come too close in nuclear brinksmanship at times not to mention things like Nixon's desire to use nuclear weapons in Vietnam rather than withdraw from that war.

But your comments on Castro are partly misguided. First, he did not overthrow Batista with US help but rather US indifference and friendliness at first, which quickly changed.

Castro immediately threw out the mob, making them his enemy, which is a reason the mob was willing to go along with some CIA assassination efforts.

Castro did kill a lot of people - but you and many have a big double standard about that. Turn a blind eye when your 'allies' do it, and complain when an 'enemy' does.

There's partly criticism to be made, and partly a fact that it's not easy for one independent guy to lead a revolution that stands - including before along against efforts by the most powerful nation in the world to overthrow him, including a massive terrorism and sabotage war in what the US government itself called 'its top foreign policy priority'.

Show me where the US has totally changed the makeup of another country without a good amount of killing of the old regime's supporters. Generally there have been plenty.

But that's ok, it's different, because it's 'your side'.

How much of the misery in Cuba making people want to flee has been caused by the US economic embargo, when Cuba's economy depended so much on the US?

It's not only Cuba that has had a dictator - care to recall the history of, say, Chile where a thriving democracy was destroyed by the US to install a corporate-friendly brutal dictator?

How about El Salvador with decades of death squads trained and sponsored by the US - you know, the ones assassinating a pro-human rights Archbishop, raping nuns?

How about Nicaragua, where a terrorist army was run by the US to attack the people to force them who to elect for their leader - agains friendly to US corporations?

How about the US attempting to install a dictator in Venezuela with the violent removal of the elected President, again for benefit to US corporations? There are more examples.

I support reforms for the benefit of the people - in Cuba, and all those other places. You are pretty one-sided.

 

[Whiskey16]

Show me where the US has totally changed the makeup of another country without a good amount of killing of the old regime's supporters. Generally there have been plenty.

But that's ok, it's different, because it's 'your side'.

How much of the misery in Cuba making people want to flee has been caused by the US economic embargo, when Cuba's economy depended so much on the US?

It's not only Cuba that has had a dictator - care to recall the history of, say, Chile where a thriving democracy was destroyed by the US to install a corporate-friendly brutal dictator?

How about El Salvador with decades of death squads trained and sponsored by the US - you know, the ones assassinating a pro-human rights Archbishop, raping nuns?

How about Nicaragua, where a terrorist army was run by the US to attack the people to force them who to elect for their leader - agains friendly to US corporations?

Craig, you glaringly left out Guatemala. The lone state in this hemishere with a recognised genocide last century.

In the early 1980s mass murders upon entire Mayan villages occurred under a ramped upped "scorched earth policy" ("We don't have a policy of scorched earth — we have a policy of scorched communists" as infamously quipped by current congressman and former dictator General Efrain Rios Montt upon a visit to New York and meetings of support at Reagan's White House) at the hands of state militias and military, with a final recognised death tally by the state being close to 200,000).

This was the first state where the USA successfully used covert means to overthrow a democracy and install a dictatorship. US success by replacing an indigenous government with a puppet dictatorship was the forebearer for actions from the Bay of Pigs through to the power of Pinochet.

 

[Joepublic2]

Except for the fact that it has the highest amount of adults without a high school diploma and the highest amount of people without health insurance.

And this relates to my original statement how? I guess it just further reinforces how far ahead the curve we are if the most ignorant in Texas can find work where as whatever terrible-by-comparison state you're from can't even keep its college grads employed.

That's why I'm moving there.
Full of good plain simple folk

Yeah it's not as if we're a huge tech, petrochemical, aerospace or manufacturing hub or anything.

But h8rs gonna h8.

 

[Craig234]

Craig, you glaringly left out Guatemala. The lone state in this hemishere with a recognised genocide last century.

In the early 1980s mass murders upon entire Mayan villages occurred under a ramped upped "scorched earth policy" ("We don't have a policy of scorched earth — we have a policy of scorched communists" as infamously quipped by current congressman and former dictator General Efrain Rios Montt upon a visit to New York and meetings of support at Reagan's White House) at the hands of state militias and military, with a final recognised death tally by the state being close to 200,000).

This was the first state where the USA successfully used covert means to overthrow a democracy and install a dictatorship. US success by replacing an indigenous government with a puppet dictatorship was the forebearer for actions from the Bay of Pigs through to the power of Pinochet.

Thank you; that fell, unfortunately, under 'there are more examples'. (I get a lot of feedback my posts are too short).

You sound right on - you are more familiar with Guatemal than I am, and we can add Colombia and Honduras to the list for a couple more, and there are more after that.

I bought and have been meaning to read a book on the history of US intervention south of us, "Masters of War: Latin America and US aggression" since the Cuban revolution.

In particular, I've been curious to learn more of the little-known history in places like Honduras.

I knew a former special forces person who had served there, and said knowing what the US did, he'd never return because the people rightfully hate the US for it; he invests in Latin American real estate based on his familiarity, but avoids that area. He had stories of things like the US taking a drug cartel ranch and killing everyone, men women and children, as I understood the bits he was willing to share.

We do get a whitewashed bit of proaganda for news - Reagan calling the Contra terrorists 'the moral equivalent of our founding fathers' sold millions of Americans.

The book "Economic Hit Man" has a very interesting story about a president in the region as well - one who was suspiciously killed in a plane crash.

It's good to see you have a familiarity with that history, thanks for adding that example to the history invisible in the US.

 

[Craig234]

And this relates to my original statement how? I guess it just further reinforces how far ahead the curve we are if the most ignorant in Texas can find work where as whatever terrible-by-comparison state you're from can't even keep its college grads employed.



Yeah it's not as if we're a huge tech, petrochemical, aerospace or manufacturing hub or anything.

But h8rs gonna h8.

I understand you southerners have a very long history of keeping the least educated people working all the time. No unemployment.

 

[Joepublic2]

I understand you southerners have a very long history of keeping the least educated people working all the time. No unemployment.

That you northerners were completely complicit in supporting and profiting from as it kept their industries well fed with raw materials and agricultural products.

 

[Craig234]

That you northerners were completely complicit in supporting and profiting from as it kept their industries well fed with raw materials and agricultural products.

Absolutely. That's not the point, though; it's your defense of merely 'employing' the people no matter how poorly they're paid.

 

[Joepublic2]

Absolutely. That's not the point, though; it's your defense of merely 'employing' the people no matter how poorly they're paid.

I'm not defending it; I think the minimum wage should keep pace with inflation myself and businesses exploiting non-citizen labor should be liquidated and their assets distributed to charity and the owners imprisoned. But I don't make the rules.

 

[Craig234]

I'm not defending it; I think the minimum wage should keep pace with inflation myself and businesses exploiting non-citizen labor should be liquidated and their assets distributed to charity and the owners imprisoned. But I don't make the rules.

But highest percent of workers making minimum wage and lowest percent with health insurance, you brag about.

 

[Shyatic]

To those pointing out about Pakistan and how "worried" you are about their nukes... the Taliban don't have the ability to just "launch nukes" you know; it takes some real education and knowledge to do that, and by that point the people involved are already smart enough to understand and appreciate MAD. That's why Pakistan/India haven't exchanged any nukes or had any wars with one another. And tribal people like the Taliban won't ever have the ability to MAKE nukes either.

Nuclear weapons: the ultimate peacemaker.

 

[cybrsage]

I'm not defending it; I think the minimum wage should keep pace with inflation myself and businesses exploiting non-citizen labor should be liquidated and their assets distributed to charity and the owners imprisoned. But I don't make the rules.

If 90% of their assets went directly to paying down the public debt instead, with the remaining 10% of the money going into the general fund of the police agency which busted them, you would see a HUGE crackdown overnight.