Patrick

There is a basic flaw in your argument. 911 was not blowback, it was without doubt a false-flag attack achieved with the involvement of powerful insiders (eg Cheney, Myers). Although, we are still to learn the precise details of the insider involvement. Do yourself a favour and check out a reputable source of information on the many inconsistencies in the official 911 conspiracy theory (eg 911 Research http://911research.wtc7.net/).

In fighting the cold war we created a golem that
is now loose. There is still time to usher in
the era of peace and prosperity we all long for
but the first order of business is to hunt down
this monster and cut its head off.
Ron Paul can do it with our help and support.

It seems most likely that the official version is modest with the facts.
It may well have been a false flag operation like the Gulf of Tonkin, or the Bay of Pigs. At the very least it seems that our allies the Israelis were aware of the plot, were tracking the plotters, and had film crews recording the demise of the WTC. They too have been modest with what they knew.
The bottom line is that it served as a pretext for rolling out the PNAC and A clean break.
This has launced the U.S. on the same path as the USSR in Afghanistan.
The latest page in the start of the beginning is the assasination of Bhutto.
This will ultimately result in:
1. The Collapse of the U.S. empire,
2. The end of the Penal Colony called Israel.

“Unbalanced”....?...naw, why stop there, “unbalanced suggests that some forces may remain to return balance to the scene. No, what we have here is “unhinged”....as in kooky, a pathology steeped in a dollar freed of sanity.

Whenever I think of our mess in the Middle East, I’m reminded of April Glaspie and her purring 1990 reassurance to Saddam Hussein: “We have no opinion on your Arab-Arab conflicts, such as your dispute with Kuwait. Secretary Baker has directed me to emphasize the instruction… that the Kuwait issue is not associated with America…”

Sure sounded to him – and the rest of us – like our blessing to his intentions. He invaded Kuwait. We “liberated” Kuwait in the snort of a gnat. Subsequently, there have been sanctions to torment the Iraqi people, and, finally, an enfeebled Saddam handily bumped off a decade later.

Oh: And we stationed a standing American force in Saudi Arabia. In perpetuity.

That’s the important legacy, that American army, sitting on Arab soil and so enraging Osama bin Ladin. We were, for the first time, an armed player in the Middle East. For all the yap about oil as a factor in our policy, armed occupation had never before been proferred.

The next time we saw April, later in 1991, she wasn’t so kittenish – chewing out Congress for having the audacity to question her – and the Bush I presidency – about the shadowy path to Desert Storm.

So we’re still there – in an expanded form, of course. Not only are we based in Saudi Arabia, but in Iraq, as well. We threaten Iran and Syria. Over there, we just keep…protracting.

For a long time, the events of 1990-’91 were a great mystery to me. Now I see those times as the salad days of the Neoconservative Pax Americana. Step by step, we are bestriding the Arab world.

Who benefits? Really?

Patrick

In a way it was naive to expect that once the Cold
War was over that we would reevaluate our position
in the world, cut back on foreign policy adventures
and pare down the Armed Forces.

You are talking about thousands of jobs, of people who
know how to fight for their budget.

They found another cause to justify their positions,
that’s all.

I know, I was one of those who could not do it, and
the company that I worked for, who had a contract with
the Pentagon to help defend Germany from a Russian attack,
let a lot of people go.  Ten years later that company
was gone....

For once I agree with almost every word Mr Foy has written, except for the final sentence:

“If forced to choose one word to describe American diplomacy and foreign policy since the days of Woodrow Wilson, my choice would be “unbalanced”.”

Nope.  There was no way for America to “balance” America’s national interests between Hitler and Stalin both conquering all of Europe in 1940, versus supporting Britain’s resistance against Hitler in 1940.  We’ve been over this dozens of times in this forum, with no forseeable end; the conquest of ALL of Europe by Hitler and Stalin in 1940 - which is where it stood in 1940 - would have been horribly “unbalanced” for America’s national interests, although perhaps not for the interests of blinkered Anglophobes and “American radical nationalists” (which is what Hitler called the “America First” organisation.)

But all that said, I think Mr Foy is absolutely correct in everything else he has written here.

Mr. Ball, it is too bad that Mr. Foy can’t seem to
remove that mote from your eye.

In reply to “the owl” who said:

“Mr. Ball, it is too bad that Mr. Foy can’t seem to
remove that mote from your eye.”

...ah, I think your perspective is a BIT distorted.  Because, as a lover and admirer (and grandson) of the British Empire, MY eyes have very vast perspective, much larger perspective than petty and aggrieved Irish-Americans like the (mostly truthful and honourable) Mr Foy.

Just look at the trends of history, for thousands of years, and then ask yourself, WHO are the MOST willfully blinded and willfully blinkered peoples (and/or nations/nationalities) in the world?

The most willfully blinkered, most willfully full of hatred, peoples and nations are NOT those who identify with the Roman Empire, or with the Austrian Empire, or with the British Empire.  No, no, the most WILLFULLY BLINKERED men, full of nationalist, superstitious hatred, are those like, well, like Patrick Foy who is (in my opinion) obsessed by his ancestral Irish hatred of Britain.

You see, Mr “the owl”, as a grandson of Britain, I have no grievances against any other nations (except perhaps against Germany in circa 1940), and the only “mote” in my eye comes from the BOMBS which the F---ing GERMANS DROPPED UPON MY ANCESTRAL LAND in 1940, when Hitler was a close friend of, and collaborator with, bloody Stalin.

That’s not a “mote” in my eye.  That’s a shared ancestral memory (including memories of my father who fought in that war), of how Germany under f---ing Hitler STARTED THE WAR!

If you want to call that historical truth
a “mote in John Ball’s eye,” then I say to you, Britain was RIGHT, and STILL IS RIGHT, for how Britain “sent the whirlwind” to Germany, after Germany stupidly sewed the wind when Germany began to bomb London in 1940.

The “mote” is in the eyes of everyone who
dishonestly pretends that Hitler’s Germany did not require total surrender to its enemies in WW II.  And I will never, never, never compromise about that essential truth.  And I say so, as an old Philadelphian whose ancestry goes all the way back to George Washington’s grandfather (Ball) in Virginia in the 1640s.

As one of the closest remaining desendants of my cousin (first cousin eight times removed) George Washington (who had no children), who was the son of my remote Aunt, Mary Ball, I do not take these things lightly.

So I say to Mr “the owl”, who reproached me on this thread, I tell you:  “SIR!  Please refrain from making assumptions about me, unless and until you know who I am.”

John Ball

“…MY eyes have very vast perspective, much larger perspective than petty and aggrieved Irish-Americans like the (mostly truthful and honourable) Mr Foy…”

“…“SIR!  Please refrain from making assumptions about me, unless and until you know who I am.”

GAD, sir, I apologize! Blinded momentarily by all the gas, I failed to discern your visiting card, Col. Blimp.

Mr Foy is the most intelligent well informed insightful commentator to this website.
With regards to the crimes of the British colonial empire it would take too long to even make a list. The world pays for them everyday. Every conflict you see today has the dirty hands of the Brits somewhere that caused it.
With regards to the English, the less said the better. If you want to evaluate a people’s culture just look at the food they eat.

It would be nice if we addressed the questions of today
without having to trash the problems of yesterday.

I mean, whatever justification (or not) can be found for
Wilson, that had only a limited relevance for the
justifications of FDR, and those only a limited relevance
for those of Shrub, except that Shrub seems the stupider
of the three....

I wonder how historians are going to judge those who
got all hot and bothered about the (non-existent) WMDs
of Saddam Hussein, and the (hypothetical) nuclear program
of Iran, and forgot to pay attention to the very real
nuclear capabilities of Pakistan, a land which is a
real (not imaginary) haven for Al Qaeda, and now
approaching civil war, a state that lends itself to
disappearing nuclear material…

I mean, even Wilson knew where the main enemy was…

@adriana

The enemy is US. WE are the enemy adriana, that you want to emulate dead imperialists who had no conscience who sought empire with no moral basis. You are sadly the victim of the same mindset that led your forefathers to commit the most complete genocide in recorded history on the natives of america. Remember the Sioux, the Nevaho, the Dakotas, the apaches, the Cheyenne.......................................................................................................................................................................................................................................

Who was it who said: I have seen the enemy and it is US.

If forced to choose one word to describe American diplomacy and foreign policy since the days of Woodrow Wilson, my choice would be “unbalanced”.
Mr. Foy:
When the U.S. talks of freedom and democracy it sounds like the town whore preaching about all the loose women in town.
When the U.S diplomats sit across the table from the Russians or the Chinese they know about unbalanced. Putin recently characterized U.U. policies as “running around like a madman with a switcblade in your hand”
Lets not forget the neocons may be skilled at whoring themselves into braindead white houses, but they have no knowledge about how state power should be wielded. That is why following their advice has brought the U.S. to the Nader of its power and prestige.
The truth has yet to dawn on them that the U.S. now lacks the economic basis for empire, further adventures will only hasten its decline.
The U.S needs to listen to people like Ron Paul and salvage what it can.
Neither Iran nor Pakistan nor Iraq are the enemy. The enemy is right here in the halls of power throwing the U.S. off the cliffs into torrents and rocks and oblivion.

@Alan, if I want to hear another “blame America first” speech,
I go to a Leftist site.

@Adriana:
In a word Mr. Foy said U.S. policy is “unbalanced”.
Did you take that as unmitigated praise?
I may be old fashioned but I tend to believe:
“Friends don’t let friends drive drunk.”
If you believe everything is just great and luxurious, you might qualify to apply for the job of captain of the Titanic. There was no criticism on that particular ship.
I’m quite prepared to take some criticism from those who know how shallow their armor is.

* . . . the most WILLFULLY BLINKERED men, full of nationalist, superstitious hatred, are those like, well, like Patrick Foy who is (in my opinion) obsessed by his ancestral Irish hatred of Britain. . . .

You see, Mr “the owl”, as a grandson of Britain, I have no grievances against any other nations (except perhaps against Germany in circa 1940), and the only “mote” in my eye comes from the BOMBS which the F---ing GERMANS DROPPED UPON MY ANCESTRAL LAND in 1940, when Hitler was a close friend of, and collaborator with, bloody Stalin.

That’s not a “mote” in my eye.  That’s a shared ancestral memory (including memories of my father who fought in that war), of how Germany under f---ing Hitler STARTED THE WAR!*

This is rather funny.  Irish sense of grievence based on, let us say, an extensive record (both temporally and substantively) is obsessive.  English sense of grievence, based on a short-lived and mostly ineffectual bombing campaign (albeit one as nasty as the Germans could manage) carried out in a war that, contrary to Mr. Ball’s assertion, England had declared upon Germany, is a “shared ancestral memory”.  (And no, my parenthetical is not intended in any way to minimize Hitler’s obvious role as aggressor in Eastern Europe and against Poland—just to note the historical facts regarding who declared war on whom as between Germany and England.)

Mr. Ball, I wouldn’t wish to dengrate your ancestral memories or the grievences they generate.  But it is infantile to go about bleating that your experiences, and those of your ethnic kin, are in any objective way inherently more meaningful than those of other people(s). 

I suppose many people harbor the private belief that their mother is “better” than other people’s mothers, but few who have graudated from the middle-school playgroud would be so lacking in self-awareness as to even argue about it, much less expect others to take such arguments seriously.

Britain bombed civilians first at Freiburg. Hitler had to be goaded into attacking Britain. Why did the panzers sit and allow the entire Brit army to escape at Dunkirk? It wasn’t called the phony war in 1940 for nothing. Hitler was waiting to see if rational persons in Britain would prevail and become an ally to Germany against the already known butchers of millions of innocent civiliians, the communists in control of Russia. Britain, after Germany, was the biggest loser of WWII and in the long run, probably the biggest loser, fighting to become a third world orwellian nightmare.