In another discussion" Winning the war in Iraq" at http://forum.onlineopinion.com.au/thread.asp?discussion=2052&page=0#43893, a contributor sought to excuse the role of the U.S. and its allies in overthrowing popular democratically elected governments thus:

"You remember the war on Communism, that great evil of the 20th
century? The US made a number of decisions about the socialist
regimes in the region. It backed just about anyone who was
anti-communist."

In reality, the rulers of Soviet Union often acted just as energetically as the U.S. against the spread of 'communism'. Examples include:

* Stalin's orders conveyed to the Greek partisans who had practically liberated Greece from the occupying Germans in late 1944 to disarm, which led to many of them being massacred by former German collaborators and decades of corrupt rule by right-wing governments and military dictators.

* Similar orders which were defied by Yugoslavia's Tito and which, ironically, led to the first split in the 'socialist' camp with Yugoslavia voting to support, under UN auspices, the destructive U.S. war against Korea in 1950;

* The Vietnamese Communist Party's suppression of those opposed to the return of French colonial rule in 1945;

* The Vietnamese Communist Party being made by its Soviet and Chinese 'allies' to allow the division of the country into two and the establishment of a corrupt unelected regime in the South;

The above are just some examples which illustrate that the argument given by Cold Warriors to excuse their overthrow of democratically elected governments or the suppression of popular political movements in Chile, Guatemala, Iraq, British Guayana, Indonesia, etc, was a lie.

For resources about Greece, see http://wiki.phantis.com/index.php/Greek_Civil_War http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greek_Civil_War http://www.marxists.org/subject/greek-civil-war/index.htm

For resources about Vietnam, see my posts in other threads at http://forum.onlineopinion.com.au/thread.asp?article=6974&page=0#106544 http://forum.onlineopinion.com.au/thread.asp?discussion=2052&page=0#44756

Is it more productive to ask the question the other way around?

Was the bringing about of the 'evil' of 'communism' necessary to effect the subversion of democracy in the 'free world'?

Communism is now all but gone, but the subversion of democracy has never been so thoroughgoing.

But then the question would be begged, as to by what agency communism was brought about, wouldn't it?

It was surely of the utmost importance that fundamental democratic principles were upheld at all times.

They weren't. Far from it.

Those that so vehemently advocate democracy were seen the world over to just step outside of its bounds whenever it suited them.

They have fundamentally blown it... and enormously invigorated non-democratic causes by doing so.

What more can I say.

Yeah Ludwig, international communists everywhere are enormously invigorated? What pompous nonsense.

The non-democratic causes never have played by the rules and never will.

Dagget is yet to give any response to the challenge that the Soviets behaviour in 1945/6 was NOT in any way representative of their behaviour in the decades after that. The fact that Stalin honoured the agreements made among the allies immediately after WW2 is irrelevant. It took only a few more years for him to start reneging on the deals. For example his attempt to drive the allies out of Berlin.

Then there was Chinese and Russian support for the North Korean communists invasion of South Korea. I wonder if Ludwig or Dagget has ever considered how happy the South Koreans are that they, at least, were able to be saved from the clutches of "the Dear leader".

After that there was Soviet and Chinese support for the invasion of South Vietnam. The South Vietnamese were so overjoyed when the communists arrived that millions of them were prepared to risk their lives on unseaworthy boats to escape.

There was the soviet crushing of the Czech's. Then there was the Soviet involvement in Cuba including their attempts to place missiles there. And later still their 1978 invasion of Afghanistan.

The loony-left revisionists have sought to redeem the reputation of the Soviet Union despite the fact that NO nation in history has killed so many of its own citizens. Of course this scenario requires the reader to suspend their disbelief while the proponent explains the vast nature of the conspiracy to cover up this reality. OF COURSE one cannot trust the "reputable" media as they are under the control of their paymasters, the evil "BIG CAPITAL". One can only trust Naomi Klein to tell us the truth.

As far as I can tell, the USA since the early 20th century has had only two foreign policy principles:

* Might is right
* The end justifies the means

Sure, it's always couched in some bulldust about freedom and democracy, but it still amounts to the same sh!t.

I note that Paul.L's mode has shifted from that of a shallow pretence of rational appraisal of the evidence at hand back to that of extreme hysterical McCarthyite anti-communism.

Elsewhere (http://forum.onlineopinion.com.au/thread.asp?discussion=2052&page=0#44716) Paul.L acknowledges that the splitting of Vietnam into two and the imposition of a corrupt unelected dictatorship on the South was a "less than equitable settlement", but now that is forgotten and the resistance of the southerners to the regime (including those returning southerners who were made to move north under the terms of the iniquitous 1954 settlement) as an 'invasion'.

---

The point of this thread, as I wrote above, is to challenge Paul.L's excusing of the crimes of Kissinger and his ilk against the people of Chile, Iran, Guatemala, Indonesia, Vietnam, Cambodia, Laos, etc. on the grounds that they somehow believed that, in doing so, they were fighting against totalitarian communism. (Clearly they were fighting against popular social movements that threatened the corporate interests that Kissinger served, but that is an entirely different question).

In regard to North Korea, I am still waiting for Paul.L to acknowledge the evidence I gave (http://forum.onlineopinion.com.au/thread.asp?discussion=2052&page=0#44660) that Donald Rumsfeld, whom, as we all know, was steadfastly opposed to the possession by oppressive third world dictatorships of WMD's, in 2000, whilst director of a Swiss engineering company ABB approved the sale of "nuclear technology to North Korea, including the capacity to produce plutonium".

In regard to the Korean War, I mentioned this example to make the point that Stalin's attempts to give Yugoslavia back to the capitalist world, even against the wishes of the people living there, paradoxically, led to the socialist government that emerged there very quickly siding with the capitalist world against 'communism'.

These, and almost countless other examples make utter nonsense of Kissinger's public rationales for his crimes.

(tobecontinued)