Still Hating America.

[sebastian_dangerfield]

Originally posted by LessinSF
I wouldn't take out Chavez for additional reasons. First, he is democratically elected, and far from mistreating his people (contrast Saddam, Castro, Khaddafi, and our history of U.S. supported hacks and petty despots such as Aquino, Saddam, the Taliban, the Sauds, etc.). He has so much oil money that he doesn't need to.

Second, he is very popular in latin America and our previous ham-fisted attempts to put in our own latin petty despots (Peron, Noriega, anyone in Colombia, the Dirty War, the Docs, Batista, the Contras, etc.) have all backfired, with the result being that the entire continent distrusts us so much that they fought for years the efforts to preserve millions of acres of Patagonia by the eco-fascist couple who founded North Face and Benetton (I think) because they thought it was a U.S. CIA plot to seize the land. We have no credibility in this region.

This is the problem with my support of better intelligence - our intelligence agencies have a shitty track record in this field. Maybe with the downfall of the Eastern Bloc, they could focus better on anything other than their former mantra of "Must. Oppose. Soviet Union. Regardless," but I'm not sure. We simply often don't understand the culture and mindset of these other cultures and, accordingly, fail to handle these things appropriately. Hence, I also remain fairly anti-interventionist, not because I think things are wrong elsewhere, but because our track record on effecting positive change through our military and clandestine efforts (where we have been the protagonist/aggresssor) in the last century has been so dismal.

LessinIguazu

I don't disagree. I think we should mind our own business, until someone really impacts our bottom line or safety. Then we should pay someone in his upper echelon an amazing stack of money to overthrow and kill him.

I don't see how we can ever understand every culture. The best we can do is get along with them. If one should become a danger then take some sort of action to get rid of the problem.

All actions should be reactive, or at least preventative of definite, impending problems.