When will they learn? Supporting terrorists and other “bad actors” for short term gain will probably hurt us in the long run.
Examples:
1980s - The US supports “freedom fighters” with money, Stinger missiles, and training to fight the Soviets.
Outcome - Soviets took off, and then the Taliban and Osama bin Laden took over and gained incredible prominance. Huge backfire.
1970s & 80s - The US supports Saddam Hussein in his war against Iran. We ignore his previous history as a horrible dictator in the estimation that Iran posed a larger threat to the region.
Outcome - The war kills millions but resolves nothing. Saddam uses the money, training, and weapons he got from the US to rebuild a huge force that invades Kuwait shortly thereafter. We all know the story from there.
The moral of the story - Bad guys are bad guys are bad guys. Just becuase we may have a mutual enemy for the time being, we shouldn’t blindly give them what they need! What happens if they’re successful? We have a terrorist group in control of Iran with a whole lot of American stuff! Is that favorable?
Second thought - Why is covert action so useful now, but not when we were facing Iraq? Possibly because overt action isn’t politically feasable? Or, is the U.S. already getting bogged down in an Iraqi quagmire, and we simply can’t attack Iran and occupy Iraq at the same time?
Let’s say, the US supports the MEK. That would make the US a state sponsor of a terrorist organization. The US is committed to destabilizing goverments which sponsor terrorist organizations. Which means the US would have to destabilize itself. Tada!
Hunh, here and I always thought it was War ON Terror, not War OF Terror. Really need to get my hearing checked one of these days…
Anyway, I’m sure someone will be along presently to explain that these guys won’t be terrorists at all because they’ll be operating under a different name, under US military supervision, etc. etc.
On it’s face, given the information presented in that article, I would say this is a bad idea. That said, there may be factors that could influence my decision. The MEK is bad. Are they worse than a nuclear-powered Iran? Maybe, maybe not. And I’d like to add the obvious counter-example to your list there, ShoNuff: US support of Stalin, 1941. Was that a bad idea, too? Or was Stalin not a “bad guy”?
Sometimes, the lesser of two evils must be chose - that’s just life. So, which is the lesser evil: Iran, or the MEK? I’d say in this case, support of the MEK would be bad, for numerous reasons. But the risk of hypocricy is certainly not one of them.
Jeff
On the face of it, this appears like a bad idea for a number of reasons. One of which is: Why is a “covert” plan reported on ABC News?
One consideration must always be “compared to what?” Although this plan of supporting terrorists sounds like a bad idea, making war also sounds like a bad idea and letting Iran develop nuclear weapons does too. I wish someone had some good ideas.
Most likely, someone at the Pentagon who doesn’t like their boss went to the press to try to head this off.
Could it be a deliberately leaked trial balloon? It doesn’t sound like it to me.
As the article states, this has been considered for a long time but never adopted. A better idea, in my opinion, would be to beam into Iran powerful television broadcasts featuring democratic Iranian exiles. This is a country where we should wage propaganda war only.
I agree 100%. I was just reading this article today, and it says the same thing. The US is losing credibility due to our support of evil when it suits our agenda. That is probably why so many lies and half truths about the US are taken at face value nowadays. “the US wants to commit genocide in Afghanistan”, “the US (and the US alone) is responsible for infant deaths in Iraq”, etc.
Hmm. you left out that whole ‘collapse of the soviet union’ thing. Plus, Bin Ladin didn’t really hate the US until we stationed troops in Saudi Arabia, which had nothing to do with Afghanistan.
Myth. The US provided 1% of Iraqs conventional weapons. China, Russia & France gave 81% combined. Why do you think all of Iraqs tanks, planes and rifles in the iraqi war were soviet made? I think Brazil sold Iraq more conventional weapons than the US.
True. The US’s support of the governments in China, Pakistan, Russia, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, etc. because they are useful to us will backfire. At the very least, we should be pushing as hard and as publically as we can for reforms while we use their help.
What do you mean? THe US has supported covert action in Iraq for quite some time. But Iraq is much more brutal with rebellion than Iran. I think 4 or 5 years ago the US offered assistance to the Kurds but they refused it.
Plus, supposedly, the US said we’d assist a rebellion in Iraq in 1991 and backed off.
All in all, the US offering support to reformers in Iran to take up arms (if that is the goal) will backfire hard. All it will do is unite the Iranian people and squash the reform movement, making it appear traitorous and imperialistic. Not good at all.
I disagree with your premise that our options are either 1, support the MEK or 2, allow a nuclear Iran. There are dozens of other covert or overt policy options that don’t involve supporting terrorist groups. And, you’re correct, IMO, that supporting Stalin was a good decision. But that was overt policy, and I believe that that situation had only two options. Either 1, support Stalin or 2, lose the war. Not really a choice.
[quote] From Calculus of Logic
[/quote. Hmm. you left out that whole ‘collapse of the soviet union’ thing. Plus, Bin Ladin didn’t really hate the US until we stationed troops in Saudi Arabia, which had nothing to do with Afghanistan.[/quote]
The 1979 Soviet invasion of Afghanistan galvanized bin Laden. He supported the Afghan resistance, which became a jihad. Ironically, the U.S. became a major supporter of the Afghan resistance, or mujahideen, working with Saudi Arabia and Pakistan to set up Islamic schools in Pakistan for Afghan refugees. These schools later evolved into virtual training centers for Islamic radicals. Cite.
The point here is that Osama Bin Laden is, and always has been, a bad guy. We supported the mujahadeen becuase they were fighting the Soviets, but turned a blind eye to the unintended consequences of their actions. The recent articles of American government officials warning about the possibility of a terrorist shooting down jetliners from shoulder-launched missiles. Guess what those missiles are. Singers! From the CIA! Given to the mujahadeen, not used, and kept in storage.
And, I’m sorry, but I don’t understand your reference to the collapse of the USSR here. The war in Afghanistan ended in 1988, and the Soviets hung around for a little bit longer. Sure, their pullout was probably a sign of decaying power, but I just don’t get the relevance here.
I’m not saying that the U.S. was the only supporter of Saddam Hussein, but a very important one. See GWU’s summary of declasified documents relating to US support of Iraq here. "The 1984 public U.S. condemnation of chemical weapons use in the Iran-Iraq war, which said, referring to the Ayatollah Khomeini’s refusal to agree to end hostilities until Saddam Hussein was ejected from power, "The United States finds the present Iranian regime’s intransigent refusal to deviate from its avowed objective of eliminating the legitimate government of neighboring Iraq to be inconsistent with the accepted norms of behavior among nations and the moral and religious basis which it claims."
Yes, we supported covert action in Iraq for a long time. But, in the end, it was decided that covert wasn’t enough, and we invaded. Why Iraq and not Iran? What’s the difference?
Iraq is more brutal towards revolutionaries? Cite please? Iran’s plenty brutal. Lot’s of things, like being a “counter-revolutionary” or a “bandit” are punishable by death.
There are plenty of covert things we could do that don’t involve sponsoring terrorist groups. Funding revolutionary groups, information and disinformation campaigns, election “assistance”, etc. So much to do, why tie ourselves to yet another bad actor?
If a country gives money to terroists and tells them its’s a good idea to go attack America. WHAT SHOULD AMERICA DO ABOUT IT? Do you think blaming America will stop these people from killing us. Will electing a democrat stop the terrorists like Clinton in 93. Saying sorry won’t stop them. Because for every person we say we are sorry to there will be one who hates us saying sorry to the wrong side.
Yes the USA has made mistakes and continues to make mistakes we we deal with any crappy country that will work with us and not do us harm. We just can’t make everybody happy. And yes we did play chess with these countries during the cold war. At the time we thought it was the right thing to do.
I for one am not going to put up my country being attacked even if we deserve it. The rules are you are with us or against us. If you plot to kill the people of the USA we will make it very bad for you.
We can’t stop all of the terrorists at the borders we have to hunt them down. I am not going to run from terrorists they are going to run from me.
I heard you complain about how bad America is what is your solution?
I think the people in those countries have attitudes too. When they come over to kill us that is where I draw the line.
I disagree. Why are all these terrorists muslim men from the middle east? Why aren’t there any vietnamese or Chilean terrorists if US arrogance is the motivation? 15 of the 19 hijackers were from Saudi Arabia, which has an academic culture that raises people to scapegoat and hate the US. american conservatism has nothing to do with that. If US arrogance were the issue, the terrorists would come from Latin America, South East Asia, Africa, and the middle east. But they don’t.
This is no different than when jerry Falwell said 9/11 was because the US was abandoning christianity. He was drawing weak ties between two unrelated things because it gave him a soapbox to push his politics.
