Raise the Hammer

The British, Italian and French interventions in Russia were as much the result of incredible confusion over the Russian civil war as any inordinate fear of Soviet domination. The Bolsheviks did not have a secure reign on Russian and began being challenged by anti Bolshevik forces that emerged through out the former Imperial proper of Russia. White Russians (rightist), Mensheviks all splintered from Lenin's fold and pressed their own agendas.

In 1918 the Allies were desperate to reestablish an eastern front against Germany. With local Soviet permission an expeditionary force was landed at Murmansk. As the situation became more cloudy and the fighting within Russia itself more pronounced the White Russians pressed the Allies for support noting that they had always been loyal to the Allied cause. The Bolsheviks now began expelling and executing non Bolshevik socialists. Direct intervention by allied soldiers in this conflict was on a relatively small scale in Russia proper and the Ukraine. In fact French forces in the Ukraine reported being bewildered by what was happening, and not being certain who they were supposed to be helping.

By November 1920 The Bolsheviks had wrested control territorially from any remaining areas of White Russian influence. They had also crushed any national aspirations of peoples like the Tartars, Uzbeks and Kazaks.

One could argue the allies involvement in the Russian Civil War was that of accidental tourists. War weary western europeans had no stomach for a continued conflict in the east particularly in Russia.

Here are a list of some of the regimes supported by Russia and China through the selling of arms and propping up of governments.

Iran, Sudan, Chad, Libya, Syria, Myanmar, North Korea, Viet Nam, Cuba, Venezuela, Zimbabwe.

Shall we stack up human rights abuses now? To portray Americas support of less than savoury regimes throughout the world since the end of WWII out of context is misleading and disingenuous and displays and incredible amount of naivete. In every single case from the Shah to the House of Saud, there were/are global geopolitical rationales to justify them. Does it leave a bad taste in your mouth?....sure. Is it necessary? Yep

America is not the boogey man. When the tsunami hit Indonesia.... what were the first tv images we saw? Dozens and dozens of helicopters with the words UNITED STATES MARINES on the side of them dropping food and evacuating people.

Our government couldn't send anybody in a timely fashion because we didn't have any planes with working compasses that could make it there.

Haiti: same thing.

Kosovo and the Balkans. While the Europeans hummed and hawed it was finally the US which said enough is enough and decided to start bombing the piss out of Serbia to stop it. Embarassed, the Europeans had no choice but to follow suit and man up.

Have you heard of THE MARSHALL PLAN? It was a little investment the United States made which would be the equivalent today of TRILLIONS of dollars to help Europe rebuild after WWII.

You will probably argue now that the only reason they do these things is so that years down the road they can franchise out McDonalds and subvert the young of these places.

I'm done. Keep living in the Land of HR Puff N' Stuff. Next time there is a global crisis maybe Jimmy and Freddie the magic flute will fix it.