Active shooter Ohio State campus

[Oklahomahawk]

Remember reading a conspiracy theory about the US going after Saudi Arabia surgically after 9/11. As in, create so much instability around Saudi Arabia (Iran, Iraq, Syria, Afghanistan, Egypt) that they're going to be boxed in and no way out.

Speaking of Miracle Grow (from my previous post) the Miracle Grow that created, or at least hastened the growth and developed Al Qaeda was our presence in Saudi Arabia, which was because of Desert Shield/Storm. I'd go into it further but it would greatly irritate our conservative brethren because it would require facing some unpleasant facts. One could always check out the Silverado Savings and Loan scandal of the 1980s and see if they can find any names that sound familiar. It would also require doing some math (of the 2 + 2 variety) that only seems to work when Obama or Hilldog effs up.

 

[50PoundHead]

Speaking of Miracle Grow (from my previous post) the Miracle Grow that created, or at least hastened the growth and developed Al Qaeda was our presence in Saudi Arabia, which was because of Desert Shield/Storm. I'd go into it further but it would greatly irritate our conservative brethren because it would require facing some unpleasant facts. One could always check out the Silverado Savings and Loan scandal of the 1980s and see if they can find any names that sound familiar. It would also require doing some math (of the 2 + 2 variety) that only seems to work when Obama or Hilldog effs up.

I think the big problem we've had post-WWII is that we were typically an isolationist country (or at least isolationist outside the Western hemisphere) up to that point. We fought in WWI, but that was the Wilsonian "war to end all wars" and the rejection of the League of Nations treaty and Harding's "return to normalcy" put us back on the isolationist track. The victory in WWII combined with the demise of Europe (which happened regardless of Churchill's efforts) made us (and the Soviets) superpowers before we had a fully mature worldview. The Red Scare gave us a mission without the expertise to fulfill the goal. You can blame John Foster Dulles, Dean Rusk, Henry Kissinger (who probably deserves the most scorn), and others, but I think it really boils down to we just have been unable to recognize the true issues and have become, as you say, Machiavellian in the process.

As I alluded to earlier, I think Kissinger's cynicism and his being a Bismarck wannabe really messed things up. Like Bismarck, Kissinger adored the notion of a non-ideological balance of nations to avoid war, but that didn't fit the US experience given its status as a budding superpower in the post-WWII era. Germany, while certainly more organized militarily than its European neighbors in the mid- to late-19th century, did not possess the type of power that could physically master Europe nor did it compete in either the Great Game or the Scramble for Africa as aggressively as the English and the French. That wasn't the case for the US after WWII and with the collapse of the European colonies in Asia and Africa, the US chose to take on--overtly and covertly--the role of the world's headmaster in the name of restoring some sense of order. The Soviets were more than happy to play the juvenile delinquent (at least in the eyes of US and Western Europe) and our tug-of-war with them really overlooked what was happening in the countries playing the rope in that scenario. I'm not absolving the Soviets or the Chinese for their happily grabbing the other end of the rope and engaging in the same cynicism that we employed, but there's no question the damage inflicted by all parties to the Cold War (and the hot little skirmishes that took place during it) rained down without mercy on a lot of innocents around the globe.

But I want to stress that it wasn't just Kissinger. I just think he was the most cynical of the herd of military and diplomatic minds that have shaped US foreign policy in the post-WWII era.

 

[BedellBrave]

If I'm reading you right, that's about it in a nutshell. But we chose the Sunni side of the equation when the Shia clerics took over Iran (perhaps unwittingly because our brilliant minds in the defense/intelligence/diplomacy sector only thought in secular terms) and as a result we've suffered from our myopia.

And neocons continued the thinking in only secular terms. Oi vey

 

[BedellBrave]

Remember reading a conspiracy theory about the US going after Saudi Arabia surgically after 9/11. As in, create so much instability around Saudi Arabia (Iran, Iraq, Syria, Afghanistan, Egypt) that they're going to be boxed in and no way out.

I can't imagine our foreign policy being that chess like, in all honesty.

 

[Oklahomahawk]

I can't imagine our foreign policy being that chess like, in all honesty.

More like Chutes and Ladders?

 

[goldfly]

Remember reading a conspiracy theory about the US going after Saudi Arabia surgically after 9/11. As in, create so much instability around Saudi Arabia (Iran, Iraq, Syria, Afghanistan, Egypt) that they're going to be boxed in and no way out.

that's a really bad theory