Pacplayer, thanks for a reasonable answer. Comments inserted.

... When you walk into a pig sty and have to deal with a
pig, you're going to get dirty. Your other choice is Isolationism.
Stay home and tell yourself that the murders are not happening and
that you won't find any mass graves if you go down there.

Ok, but in this case the mass graves came after US intervention, not
before.

I don't think you'll reach many politicians on this website. Where do
you live Alex? in Latin America? Are you a German immigrant?

Guilty on both accounts.

Rob is right. So is Doug. The U.S. objective is always to stabilize
the region so commerce can flourish and standards of living can come
up. The disagreement arises for me when we ask: whose standards of
living come up? Corporate CEO's or the people?

This sounds nice, but I am too cynical to believe it. I think a
country's objective is mostly what benefits the people in power, be it
politicians, military or CEOs.

I am trying to tell him and Doug that they are deluded if they
believe the US acts acording to law, human rights, etc, in their
foreign policy.

Contrary to what law? International law? Local law? Religious law?
Martial law? Again, this old saw about the U.S. breaking laws is a
play on words. War is legal. If you can't rid your own country of
despots, and your countryman's cries reach the U.S. media?look out!

There were no countryman's cries reaching the US in South America.

Our do-gooders will get everybody upset and before you know it, the
U.S. intel or war machine may start on the way down to clean up these
perceived injustices. And odds a they're going to screw it up big
time. And guys like you are going to bitch and moan about how unfair
we are. Well I'm tired of your sad sad song. You want to convince
people here of U.S. oppression, post pictures of people being tossed
out of C-130's by U.S troops and then I'll believe it. Until you do,
I say it's bull****, and that you are one impressionable young man for
only believing one side of the argument.

There are no such pictures because it wasn't US soldiers but local
ones. I never said the US did that. I said the US knew about it and
supported it. Again, I have no proof other than Kissinger's own
declasified words, which you should be able to find documented. That
should be as good as pictures, in my opinion.

I try to keep an open mind.
I believe the truth lies somewhere in the middle. I believe U.S.
corporate CEO's are morally bankrupt, and cause most of these hard
feelings by abusing int'l labor and trashing the third world for
profit. These assholes are the guys that prop up dictators with cushy
oil/drug/lumber kickbacks and then economically enslave the local
workers. After a number of years of this the workers get fed up.
They join guerrilla movements and start shooting up villages. Police
are called out. The national Military gets involved. The CEO's
convince the president/dictator/despot to call Washington and ask for
assistance.

Which, when they come, create more hatred and people start blaming the
US. Yes, it's an irrational spiral of violence, and there is not one
guilty side. As I said, we have our share of responsibility for it was
our own military who held the turture instruments. It was Saddam who
decided to gas his own people. It was Bin Laden who decided (maybe not
directly) to hit the towers. And it was the US foreign policy that
helped it happen, directly and knowingly as in South America or
indirectly and unknowingly (but should have known) in other cases.

I'm not saying "the US is bad, bad, bad"... I'm only trying to shed
some light into the heads of people in this newsgroup who candidly
believe in the Hollywod message that the US is marvelous and who can't
imagine why so many people throughout the world don't agree. I am
trying to balance the somewhat monotone and unrealistic chant of "the
US is right, everybody else is wrong".

Citizens like me are going to try to vote out Bush and other
incombants this November to pay for this misbehavior.

Thank you for that!

But can the
U.S. gov just decree that the whole world must obey human rights? No!
All we can do is take out a few of the biggest offenders. And during
that process there's going to be some heartbreak. People are going to
get killed. Human rights are going to be violated. Half of the
strongmen we support are going to stab us in the back later. That is
the nature of intervention.

Yes, but again, that is not what happened here, and I can't avoid the
suspicion that it neither is the case in other US interventions.

It's legal to kill your wife in Argentina if she embarrasses you. Do
we like that law? (divorced guys don't answer this one.) No, of
course not. But we can not impose all our domestic American standards
on the rest of the world just because we want to. Is it legal for the
president of Columbia to declare war on his own citizens and ask for
military help from the U.S. to stop drug farms? Yes it is. Do I like
it? No. Do I want to pay for it? No. Can I do anything about it?
I'm voting against all incumbents this November.

Hey, these are almost exactly my words a few weeks earlier in this
thread!

If I understand you Alex, you're basically blaming the U.S. government
for picking sides, right? Well, they're often forced to pick between
two evils. Support Sadamn Hussein or a radical Iattola or Sheik?
They all murder, bomb, rape and wage war. We hope that the thug we
support will eventually mend his ways and give in to our pressure to
treat his subjects better. But guess what Alex? We can't dictate
this. Not unless we show up with warships. Which, we actually hate
to do. And then everybody loses.

Agreed.