Clarence is absolutely right. Every god damn last thing done by the CIA and the military is done for the benefit of America.
Or in the case of Guatemala, for the benefit of United Fruit Company.
Making fruit cheaper in the United States. The interests of the USA and the UFC were one and the same.
Are you trying to be a parody or are you (gasp) serious there? I hope you're trying to be a parody... because if you're serious, you're an idiot.
This was
not serious; it was a joke, and in reflection seriously bad taste. I don't think intervening in another country over fruit prices is worth it.
Well, Vosem, your family was fortunate to be able to go West. Mine was not.
For example, my grandpa's father rootted for years in the Stalinist jail, barely escaping the noose. The family was left destitute.
One of my grandma's brothers was shot by the secret police while innocently riding a bike. Another spent a considerable time in prison, enduring daily torture. Another family was ruined.
Guess what? My great-grandmother survived famine in the Ukraine because of a secret stash of honey, for the maintenance of which she could easily have been shot. It's pointless to argue over whose family was oppressed more, and serves no purpose.
On the topic of what we were discussing at first, I'll admit that the Guatemalan coup was not one of the finer moments of American foreign policy, but Arbenz had set up a system in which the eventual entry of Soviet influence into Guatemala was inevitable. With hindsight, replacing him with Armas was a terrible concept, but (Cold War politics) the removal of Arbenz was justified.
Yes, some people saying 'America is always bad' annoys me, particularly when they are clearly Americans, and even more particularly when (this is a common thread) they believe anyone who doesn't think so is a dumb redneck. I've gotten into a real-life fistfight over this. opebo (look, BRTD, I don't capitalize opebo at the beginning of a sentence!) is the exception; it's part of his persona, which is very entertaining.
You've gotten into a fight over this?
Man, pick better fights.
Come on, Xahar. He was serving his country, just like Mitt Romney did, when he was a missionary in France and got into a fight with some Vietnam War opponents.
My country couldn't care less. I was just in a rather foul mood, and, for the record, he started the fight.
Clarence is absolutely right. Every god damn last thing done by the CIA and the military is done for the benefit of America.
Or in the case of Guatemala, for the benefit of United Fruit Company.
Making fruit cheaper in the United States. The interests of the USA and the UFC were one and the same.
Which justify overthrowing a democratic government which gave voting rights to Indians and replacing them with a dictatorship which took that right away?
Cold War politics. Which, as the child of Russian immigrants to the US, I find perfectly justified.
"My people are under opression, so it's OK to opress another innocent people"?
Dude, you're a child of Russian immigrants. I'm a child of the people who actually lived under communism and neither me nor any member of my family, since they saw opression on their very eyes, would say such a thing.
I'm also a child of people who actually lived under communism.
The Guatemalan government was not communist and wouldn't have become an ally to the Soviet Union.
Really!?
No, we shouldn't. I agree with this. But we were justified in waging war to prevent Warsaw Pact-style communism from spreading (as I'm sure Kalwejt's grandparents would testify, Warsaw Pact-style communism is not a good thing).
