[FeeTinesAMady]

Not right. If the US was peaceful, there wouldn't be much of an argument for developing nuclear weapons, but the US is the most aggressive nation in the world, and nuclear weapons are the only thing that give them pause. The actions of the US since the end of World War II - invading other nations at will, interfering in their internal affairs, starting secret wars - give legitimacy to nations who want to develop nuclear weapons for their own defense. Nuclear weapons bring safety from you.

[allemagne]

As far as superpowers in history go, the United States post WWII is downright benevolent. The other contenders in recent memory being: the Soviet Union, the British Empire, Nazi Germany, Imperial Japan, the French Empire, the Italian Empire, Austria-Hungary, and so on and so forth.

Once the United States starts claiming pieces of South America and Arabia as their sovereign territory you can start shouting about Iran's self defense. The United States is far from perfect, and all the criticisms you leveled are completely true. But be honest about the situation. The only thing that Iran's government is protecting by developing nuclear weapons is their own corrupt regime and their influence in the middle east.

[Ar-Curunir]

Why run an overt colony system when you can achieve the same control by destabilizing existing governments?

The CIA is known for its activities in countries like, gee, Iran, where they overthrew the existing DEMOCRATICALLY elected government and installed a monarch instead.

Or see the case of Guatemala, where on the advice of businessmen the democratic government was overthrown on charges of 'communism' with lots of help from the US.

Benevolent superpower my ass.

[saiya-jin]

Yeah, iranians screwed up when they took US embassy hostages. It's a fact (too lazy to put references) that that embassy was actively messing with the iranian state (I would like to see how US would react if some foreign embassy did same intensity stuff in US) and that revolution was overthrowing corrupt dictator directly installed by UK & US. They should just politely kicked them out of country, and not giving US administration more cannon fodder.

Without those hostages situation, right now Iran might have been on par with Dubai/Abu Dhabi or similar. They have the richness in oil & gas. Been there backpacking last year, people are amazingly, no AMAZINGLY friendly and nice. One of best trips of my life. They have their issues, some rather big ones, but so does other places.

beginner's mistakes...

[FeeTinesAMady]

> the United States post WWII is downright benevolent

You must be joking. Read what ex-CIA agent John Stockwell has to say about that: http://www.serendipity.li/cia/stock1.html

The CIA went into foreign countries and purposely destabilized them and started civil wars. It continues to this day: see the Arab Spring. The Soviet Union's actions were quite tame by comparison.

For every Soviet or Russian invasion, there's a corresponding US one that is just as bad: Vietnam, Iraq, Afghanistan, and the US interferes with the internal politics of many more nations to boot. See Pinochet in Chile, the Shah in Iran (although the British had a big part in that too). Russia threatens its immediate neighbors, yes. But at least they oppose the US. Think they are all bad? They keep Snowden safe and sound. The US threatens any nation in the world that doesn't fall into line. When they thought Snowden was on board an official government aircraft, they had their cronies in Europe force it down in violation of international law. Think that the European nations make their own decisions? Think again.

This is the threat that the US poses to the world, and most of the world is already under their control. Iran isn't, so they are threatened with war. They've been threatened with war since Bush's idiotic "Axis of Evil" speech. Since before that. You think they don't have the right to try to defend themselves? To prevent that? Nuclear weapons, in this world, bring freedom. See how North Korea has never been invaded. See how the US knows better than to engage Russia in outright conflict. Nations that have nuclear weapons can have actual independence.

With the Trans-Pacific Partnership, they are trying to force their laws onto the entire world, and that is just one of many such agreements. Canada is already a puppet state of the US. The current state of the world is that no nation can try to free themselves of US influence without getting an internal revolution or even an outright invasion, and that is a much bigger threat than Russia is, or China, or Iran, or anyone.

[saiya-jin]

not that I don't agree with all you say but... having lived under outright occupation by vast amounts of russian forces (former czechoslovakia), seeing how lack of freedom of speech, travel and... well just lack of freedom, centrally planned everything and the rest of it screws up entire generation of people, I would still opt for US.

But that's the thing, that goes thought topics here too - US stepped down, and is continuing downwards, from "that hunky good friend of yours that you don't piss off and do what he says, and all is more than OK, otherwise he'll steal your lunch and breaks your leg" to simply lesser of all evils... BRAVO :(

[spopejoy]

As far as superpowers in history go, the United States post WWII is downright benevolent

I'm not sure the citizens of Guatemala, El Salvador, Nicaragua, Uruguay, Paraguay, Brazil, Argentina, Chile, D.R., Honduras, Panama, the Philippines, Vietnam, or any of the other sovereign nations the US has invaded, would agree with this statement.

[leroy_masochist]

Sorry, please remind me of when the US invaded Paraguay, Brazil, Argentina, or Chile?

Our involvement in Vietnam was in fact, at the time, conducted with the full cooperation of a sovereign country, the Republic of South Vietnam. To be fair, US forces definitely did violate the sovereignty of Laos and Cambodia during that conflict.

I believe I understand your general point here, but can we at least get basic facts right when we have these discussions?

[mjrpes]

Just because the US doesn't invade by name, doesn't mean they aren't involved, often at a fundamental level. Look a Chile; Nixon gave the orders and supplied to weapons and CIA support behind the coup that brought Pinochet into power. 3,000 people were killed and 200,000 were exiled during his reign. The US has always tried to get its way by pulling strings behind the curtain, where public awareness is absent.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Covert_United_States_foreign_re...

Also take a look at East Timor.

http://www2.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB176/

U.S. support was fundamental to a conflict that killed 100-180,000 Timorese. But not many are aware of this.

[kaoD]

Check http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_intervention_in_C...

E.g.:

> The U.S. provided material support to the military regime after the coup, although criticizing it in public. A document released by the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) in 2000, titled "CIA Activities in Chile", revealed that the CIA actively supported the military junta after the overthrow of Allende and that it made many of Pinochet's officers into paid contacts of the CIA or U.S. military, even though some were known to be involved in human rights abuses.

Brazil: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1964_Brazilian_coup_d'%C3%A9tat...

Nowadays invasions aren't explicit like in colonial times (where every superpower raced to colonize as much as possible), but there is definitely covert "warfare" going on.

[spopejoy]

Thanks for asking! Argentina: 1890. Chile: 1891, plus direct support for the 1973 coup. Sorry about Paraguay and Brazil, US merely engineered and directly advised murderous corrupt dictatorships. Invasions however also include Bolivia, Costa Rica, Cuba, Grenada, Haiti, Mexico, Uruguay, and Venezuela.

Regarding South Vietnam, does "full cooperation" include assassination of their president in 1963?

[leroy_masochist]

The examples you cited for Argentina and Chile were -- in both cases -- the US sending a landing party of Marines to defend the embassy grounds during political unrest. That's an "invasion"? OK....

[SEJeff]

Replace US with Russia and the comment still fits perfectly. I don't disagree with much of what you say, but there are others who are just as bad or worse, just on a much smaller scale

[FeeTinesAMady]

Not even close. Read the other comments in this subthread.