Quote Originally Posted by Crocodile View Post
An interesting thought, maybe a bit off topic. I think you mean that the capitalist US is crushing the socialistic regimes? You see, as far as I know, Israel had been sided with the USSR at the earlier stages - the secular Jews were, at their majority, socialists. I'm not exactly sure what went wrong between the USSR and Israel, maybe Israel was a way too nationalist, or the formation of Israel inspired nationalistic Jewish movement inside the USSR, which was crushed by Stalin, and Israel did not like that.. not sure. Anyway, I think the nationalistic considerations prevail any other in Israel, so Israel would probably be less sensitive to the socialism-capitalism shift. Meaning, there would still be Israel by now.
My impression is that the US essentially "bought" Israel's support, with the backing of American Jews and evangelical Christians. And that is probably very lucky for Israel...

They got aid, gifts, weapons etc, etc... Not that the USSR could not have supplied that, but perhaps not immediately at the time when Israel needed it the most, in the very early days of the new state, when the USSR too, was in a bad condition after the War. Israel got into wars early on in its history and could not be too fussy about who to liaise with, when its very survival as a nation was at stake. That's my personal guess based on what little I know of Israels history.

I also think the USSR would have judged Israel to be behaving in an imperialistic way after it annexed the West Bank... The PLO was socialist, and so was Syria. I guess the USSR from an ideological standpoint did not have much choice other than to support the obvious socialists and/or "imperialistically opressed" party in the conflict, i.e. the Palestinians. Plus, they were already supporting several socialist Arab states and could not very well support the arch enemy of these countries at the same time!

Quote Originally Posted by Crocodile
I'm not 100% thrilled with what the US was and is doing, but to say the US is responsible for just about anything (which I think is implied from some posts of some people on this forum) is paranoia.
Nobody has been claiming that, other than you yourself, when making that accusation towards me!

There are no doubt plenty of popular movements or conflicts going on around the globe that the US have no finger in supporting. I do not see the US trying to influence the EU greatly in how to solve the Euro crisis (good!) and the US does not show any interest in several long running conflicts in Africa. The US has not had any opportunity to get involved in most of the internal problems in China. Neither is it supporting either side or manipulating at all in the long running Falklands saga.

However, in the case of Syria, I believe that the US and UK are involved, based on reports, and based on the very one-sided media coverage. The same was (obviously) true in the case of Libya.

There have been plenty of suggestions about US involvement in revolutions etc, etc recently, as I said earlier. Organising coups and uprisings, is and has been standard fare for US intelligence agencies for many decades. It is well known and documented that this has happened in South and Central America and I would be very surprised if you are not aware of this fact.

Several eyewitnesses report having seen SAS operatives in Syria, and that the rebels are covertly armed by Western forces.

There is nothing paranoid in saying that there usually is no smoke without fire, which is all I am doing. I'll await the proof that might well come with the latest Wikileaks!

The final point on this is that the press and state officials in both Russia and China seem to be holding the same opinions, along with the majority of the poulation there. Plus no doubt many, many more countries that I do not keep track of.
So if I am paranoid I am in good company with the world's future super power, China, and a country that has excellent political analysts and probably has much better insight in Syria than any other major power (Russia).

Quote Originally Posted by Crocodile
At the same time, Americans are tired of the situation when the country is constantly at war, the public money is spent lavishly on nothing productive and people are constantly dying somewhere on the other side of the globe for many years. The real motivation of 'fighting terrorism' is something of the past.
In this, I agree with you. I think "regular" Americans to a large degree are taken for a ride by a government that does not necessarily represent their best interests and that allows media to manipulate them.

These wars and constant manipulations around the world is not in the economic interests of the nation, or its people. They are however in the interest of large corporations that have managed to manipulate the government and even public opinion. I believe that the US is largely run by its multinational corporations, contrary to the interests of its people.

Compare with the USSR and its various undertakings, such as the Afghanistan war and economically supporting regimes around the world, like North Korea and Cuba. How did this help regular citizens? Not at all, probably, but I suppose some elite group(s) somewhere benefited from what was going on (while some of it might have been motivated by a feeling of being under constant threat and having to maximise the number of allies and buffer states.)