Helping countries that turned to out be enemies.

How about lending your crystal ball, that tells you which will be hostile in the future, to the government? I am sure they could use it.

McGentrix wrote:

How about lending your crystal ball, that tells you which will be hostile in the future, to the government? I am sure they could use it.

Something to this, of course.

But it does avoid responsibility for rather large errors of judgement such as, say, supporting the Shah's repressive and murderous regime.

We support countries that serve our purpose. We supported Iraq against Iran. At the time, that was in our best interests. We supported the Afghani rebels against Russia, that was in our best interest. Who knew what the future would bring

, but we can't worry about the future when the present is so demanding. Especially in regards to foriegn policy.

The US supports those we need to and condemns those we need to to support America's needs at the present time. Many times that has come back to bite us in the ass, but many times it has not.

McGentrix wrote:

We support countries that serve our purpose. We supported Iraq against Iran. At the time, that was in our best interests. We supported the Afghani rebels against Russia, that was in our best interest. Who knew what the future would bring

Well, when you got an "ally" on your hands who doesnt hesitate using poison gas on enemy soldiers, and then whole towns of his own civilians - for example - it doesnt, like blueflame noted, take a whole lot of intelligence to figure out you've got a future headache on your hands.

McGentrix wrote:

, but we can't worry about the future when the present is so demanding. Especially in regards to foriegn policy.

Well, if you take that line then you'll be guaranteed to have an acutely "demanding" present on your hands forever. To achieve more stability (and thus safety for your own country, too) in the long-term, requires looking further than the logic of "my enemy's enemy is my friend".

Think what you want of the EU, but that is one thing Europeans learned. In the 18th, 19th and early 20th century, the perennially changing alliances based on the logic of supporting your enemy's enemies etc led to ever new wars - which in the end just cost needless lives and destruction on all sides. At some point you have to "worry about the future" if you want to get your country safe from such cycles, and the Europeans did.

My old sig line kinda sums it up:

Realpolitik is the most short-sighted form of foreign policy imaginable, always sowing the seeds of tomorrow's trouble in its tactics to tackle today's enemies.

McGentrix wrote:

The US supports those we need to and condemns those we need to to support America's needs at the present time. Many times that has come back to bite us in the ass, but many times it has not.

This naked realpolitik logic of your post does also kinda beg the question how sincere your laments about rescuing the brutally abused Iraqis from their evil dictatorship were... if it hadnt been in America's interest to help them, you're saying, it wouldn't have.

In fact, you're saying it was all-right to support Saddam in the 80s when it was fighting against Iran because it was "in America's interest" - never mind that he was already torturing and killing many 10,000s of his own civilians in prisons and camps, and used poison gas against enemy soldiers. Yeah, does makes one wonder about the sincerity of arguments about 'saving Iraqis from dictatorship'.

The US government has made many mistakes and done many things right.