Has US foreign policy ever been anti-communist?
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  Has US foreign policy ever been anti-communist?
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Author Topic: Has US foreign policy ever been anti-communist?  (Read 2885 times)
EnglishPete
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« on: January 12, 2017, 04:05:45 PM »
« edited: January 14, 2017, 12:43:42 PM by EnglishPete »

Ronald Reagan has a reputation for having been a great anti-Communist. He started denouncing communism whilst he was still an actor and a Democrat, denounced it even harder when he became a Republican and spoke out loudly against communism as President. However did his policy match the rhetoric? A couple of very interesting articles I've found from the eighties indicate that Reagan's foreign policy was in fact following the standard State Department policy of the previous 40 years i.e. pretending to support anti-communists whilst selling out and undermining them at every opportunity.

http://www.heritage.org/research/reports/1986/01/rhetoric-vs-reality-how-the-state-department-betrays-the-reagan-vision

http://www.ronpaulforums.com/showthread.php?416429-Reagan-vs-Reagan-Rhetoric-vs-Reality

So what is the truth? Was Reagan the anti-communist hero of his administration's rhetoric or did the Reagan fail to match the anti communist rhetoric with matching actions?
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EnglishPete
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« Reply #1 on: January 14, 2017, 12:47:26 PM »
« Edited: January 14, 2017, 01:08:35 PM by EnglishPete »

I've changed the title of the thread to extend it to cover the whole of the last century. To illustrate the point I'm making I am copying and posting a few posts I made on the Ho Chi Minh thread

Ironically, Ho Cji Minh was a huge fan of the US Declaration of Independence and US Constitution
Well why shouldn't he bet grateful to the US? Firstly Truman, Marshall and all the various communist agents working in the State Department had completely sabotaged the war effort against the communists in China. Having stabbed Chiang Kai-shek in the back in the mainland they were about to do the same in Taiwan and South Korea when Joe McCarthy burst on the scene with his allegations about communists in the State department. This forced Truman to start to show some success against the reds and probably saved both places.

Nevertheless having a communist giant next door helping with your war effort whilst the US completely failed to help the French with theirs must have been a big help.

Then there was the war in South Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia. Now isn't it curious that a country that had succeeded in defeating the Industrial giants of Germany and Japan at the same time and their huge armies was, a few years later, unable to defeat a little country like North Vietnam. Could it not have won if it had used the same tactics that were used against Germany and Japan? Of course it could but in Vietnam a totally different set of tactics were used.

As I mentioned above a 'no win' strategy was carried out by Truman and Kissinger, which was designed to demoralise the American public to soften them up for detente with communist China and the Soviets at the same time as selling out the whole of Indochina to the communists.

Yes Ho and the Vietnamese communist party had every reason to be grateful to the US.
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EnglishPete
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« Reply #2 on: January 14, 2017, 12:52:17 PM »

For those here who are ignorant of the US military's Rules of engagement for the Vietnam war and how they (deliberately in my view) caused the US to lose the War here are a couple of interesting links

http://libertyunderfire.org/2010/08/fighting-with-one-hand-tied-behind-our-back-in-vietnam-and-afghanistan/

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http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/library/report/1995/DM.htm

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EnglishPete
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« Reply #3 on: January 14, 2017, 12:54:17 PM »

Some interesting quotes from military experts in 1968 on the Vietnam war

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http://www.alor.org/Volume4/Vol4No11.htm
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EnglishPete
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« Reply #4 on: January 14, 2017, 12:56:41 PM »

Here's what happened when some of the restrictive rules of engagement on air crews were lifted in late 1972
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http://blog.vvfh.org/2016/12/the-rules-of-engagement-in-the-2nd-indochina-war/
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EnglishPete
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« Reply #5 on: January 14, 2017, 12:59:25 PM »

Some might object, well the US shouldn't have been on the side of those terrible South Vietnamese oppressors. Who could forget this haunting image of the South Vietnamese police Chief and former general Nguyễn Ngọc Loan summarily executing VC prisoner Nguyễn Văn Lém (AKA Bay Lop)



what could this poor innocent prisoner have done to warrant such punishment, presumably it was just for being communist



Oh right, he had just killed Vietnamese Lieutenant Colonel Nguyen Tuan and massacred his entire family when he refused to cooperate with the VC. So the South Vietnamese police chief was executing an enemy spy caught out of uniform who had just massacred a group of civilians (which execution is not a war crime) whilst it was the North Vietnamese controlled VC agent who had just carried out the war crime.

But then that doesn't fit the narrative of 'oppressive South Vietnamese vs communist liberators' so its disregarded.
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EnglishPete
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« Reply #6 on: January 14, 2017, 01:08:01 PM »

Then there's the matter of pro-communist propaganda that appeared in the US mass media. here's an excerpt from an article on that subject

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http://vnafmamn.com/VNWar_atrocities.html
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EnglishPete
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« Reply #7 on: January 14, 2017, 01:14:21 PM »

Now the point of posting the half dozen above posts is that they explain in detail how the US government, whilst pretending to have an anti-communist foreign policy has in fact had nothing of the sort. Also the establishment media has parroted pro-communist propaganda through the same period, following the government's lead.

Vietnam is the most stark example of this but similar points could be made about other times during the last century e.g. Korea, the Reagan era etc.

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Sumner 1868
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« Reply #8 on: January 14, 2017, 04:17:39 PM »

Some might object, well the US shouldn't have been on the side of those terrible South Vietnamese oppressors. Who could forget this haunting image of the South Vietnamese police Chief and former general Nguyễn Ngọc Loan summarily executing VC prisoner Nguyễn Văn Lém (AKA Bay Lop)



what could this poor innocent prisoner have done to warrant such punishment, presumably it was just for being communist



Oh right, he had just killed Vietnamese Lieutenant Colonel Nguyen Tuan and massacred his entire family when he refused to cooperate with the VC. So the South Vietnamese police chief was executing an enemy spy caught out of uniform who had just massacred a group of civilians (which execution is not a war crime) whilst it was the North Vietnamese controlled VC agent who had just carried out the war crime.

But then that doesn't fit the narrative of 'oppressive South Vietnamese vs communist liberators' so its disregarded.

And this single-handedly proves that South Vietnam was a free society how exactly?
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Hatman 🍁
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« Reply #9 on: January 14, 2017, 04:44:32 PM »

Has the pope ever been Catholic?
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EnglishPete
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« Reply #10 on: January 14, 2017, 05:41:11 PM »

Some might object, well the US shouldn't have been on the side of those terrible South Vietnamese oppressors. Who could forget this haunting image of the South Vietnamese police Chief and former general Nguyễn Ngọc Loan summarily executing VC prisoner Nguyễn Văn Lém (AKA Bay Lop)



what could this poor innocent prisoner have done to warrant such punishment, presumably it was just for being communist



Oh right, he had just killed Vietnamese Lieutenant Colonel Nguyen Tuan and massacred his entire family when he refused to cooperate with the VC. So the South Vietnamese police chief was executing an enemy spy caught out of uniform who had just massacred a group of civilians (which execution is not a war crime) whilst it was the North Vietnamese controlled VC agent who had just carried out the war crime.

But then that doesn't fit the narrative of 'oppressive South Vietnamese vs communist liberators' so its disregarded.

And this single-handedly proves that South Vietnam was a free society how exactly?

South Vietnam was clearly not a democracy. It was however a far more free and less repressive society than North Vietnam which was, and remains, one of the least free societies on earth. Fighting against communism in Indochina was a thoroughly just cause that was betrayed by the United States government.
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FEMA Camp Administrator
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« Reply #11 on: January 14, 2017, 09:23:39 PM »

Part of the problem of thought like this is to conceive of the world in things like absolutes as opposed to a spectrum of actions. The potential for, or even the existence of, restraint by the United States in any host of situations in opposing communism would prove nothing either quantitatively or historically. I would beg you to ask a Marxist about America's actions abroad; they would insist detente--which you probably perceive as national and ideological betrayal--as merely another in a series of cloaks hiding a massive, nefarious conspiracy of international capital to oppose people's movements. The point is that seeing one side's restraint as unmitigated concession does not mean that the other side even has any sense of that. For the absolutist on either side of "something", compromise is betrayal, since what they seek is the globe.
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EnglishPete
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« Reply #12 on: January 15, 2017, 06:31:57 AM »

Part of the problem of thought like this is to conceive of the world in things like absolutes as opposed to a spectrum of actions. The potential for, or even the existence of, restraint by the United States in any host of situations in opposing communism would prove nothing either quantitatively or historically. I would beg you to ask a Marxist about America's actions abroad; they would insist detente--which you probably perceive as national and ideological betrayal--as merely another in a series of cloaks hiding a massive, nefarious conspiracy of international capital to oppose people's movements. The point is that seeing one side's restraint as unmitigated concession does not mean that the other side even has any sense of that. For the absolutist on either side of "something", compromise is betrayal, since what they seek is the globe.

Its not simply a question of 'compromise' but of the US government actively taking steps to prop up communist governments. From the second article linked to above

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And this policy of economically subsidising and propping up communist power was not new to Reagan, it had been going on throughout the so called 'Cold War'

https://youtu.be/hBKuctwo3FQ?t=1570
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Intell
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« Reply #13 on: January 15, 2017, 08:34:03 AM »

Roll Eyes

Convuluted reasons that make no sense whatsoever.

Grow a brain, thatcherite.
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EnglishPete
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« Reply #14 on: January 15, 2017, 10:00:45 AM »

Part of the problem of thought like this is to conceive of the world in things like absolutes as opposed to a spectrum of actions. The potential for, or even the existence of, restraint by the United States in any host of situations in opposing communism would prove nothing either quantitatively or historically. I would beg you to ask a Marxist about America's actions abroad; they would insist detente--which you probably perceive as national and ideological betrayal--as merely another in a series of cloaks hiding a massive, nefarious conspiracy of international capital to oppose people's movements. The point is that seeing one side's restraint as unmitigated concession does not mean that the other side even has any sense of that. For the absolutist on either side of "something", compromise is betrayal, since what they seek is the globe.

Also consider the behaviour of the US press. North Vietnam was one of the most violent and oppressive governments in the world at the time of the Vietnam war. It was certainly rather more violent and oppressive than any of the non communist dictatorships that existed in the world at that time. Yet the press discussed it and continues to discuss it as though they had a reasonable point of view and that their claim to be fighting to 'liberate' Vietnam from imperialist 'oppression' should be treated as a reasonable or even honest position. The idea was put about that North Vietnam had a just cause to engage in war against the South and against the US.

Now the establishment press, in the US as elsewhere, is the mouthpiece for the political and economic establishment. How are we to explain this extraordinary position taken by the media unless we admit that the US political and economic establishment is sympathetic to communism.
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ag
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« Reply #15 on: January 22, 2017, 07:54:06 PM »

Roll Eyes

Convuluted reasons that make no sense whatsoever.

Grow a brain, thatcherite.

He is not a thatcherite. I would call him "mosleyan".

And, BTW, I would challenge anybody to interpret this factual description into a term of personal abuse.
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jfern
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« Reply #16 on: January 22, 2017, 10:07:36 PM »

Was Hitler ever an anti-semite?
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ApatheticAustrian
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« Reply #17 on: January 22, 2017, 11:14:24 PM »

and i thought breaking US laws re: dealing with islamist iran to make money for supporting anti-communist Contras in nicaragua without congress knowing was kind of "anti-communist".....i have so much to learn.
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Rob Bloom
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« Reply #18 on: March 15, 2017, 10:06:34 AM »

So, to sum it up, the Vietnam war, the Bay of Pigs, the coups against Mossadegh, Lumumba and Allende, Iran-Contra and the invasion of Grenada were just part of a giant smoke screen to hide the pro-communist agenda of the U.S. foreign policy? Give me an effing break!

 
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« Reply #19 on: March 20, 2017, 01:28:24 PM »

I suppose one point could be that often the goals of "anti-Soviet Union" realpolitik and "anti-communist" idealism conflicted, sometimes in relatively benign ways like support for Tito, sometimes in rather nightmarish ways like the apparent support for the Khmer Rouge.
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SoLongAtlas
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« Reply #20 on: April 12, 2017, 07:54:26 PM »

It always was beginning half-way into WW2 (or even earlier back to WW1 if you count anti-Bolshevism in the US).

Bad ROE and blowback do not count as covert support.
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