Alternative Insight

Failures Of U.S. Foreign Policy - January 2008

United States foreign policy after World War II often failed to accomplish its objectives and behaved counterproductive. Force replaced diplomacy. Military solutions trampled negotiations. Counter-insurgency produced insurgents. The U.S. identified anti-communism as its principal guide to foreign policy during the Cold War, but similar policies continued after the Soviet Union's collapse and disintegration.

U.S. foreign policy in Europe during the Cold War has been considered successful. However, a comprehensive review of American foreign policy towards countries in other regions and in different eras, including post Cold War Europe, expose a consistent lack of statesmanship, ineffective methods of diplomacy and a disposition to use military force. The most significant political signpost of the recent post Cold War era is the formation of socio-economic blocs that exclude the United States, the nation that is regarded as winner of the Cold War. An ever-enlarging European Union, a Latin America Mercour, which is composed of more radical and less-friendly regimes to the U.S., and an Association of Southeast Asian nations plus three (ASEAN +China, Japan, South Korea), in which China is gaining a dominant role, are challenging U.S. political hegemony and economic leadership.

If the presentation appears one-sided, it is because U.S. administration policies have been one-sided and have exhibited patterns that caused international catastrophes. Interference in internal affairs of nations and direct American military involvement have not brought peace and stability to the world.

NOTE: This is the latest update of a previous article, and includes information occurring up to the year 2008. All facts have been verified and references appear within the article. Updates for the year 2007 are shown in green. There is no bibliography. Due to the lengthy discussion, specific sections can be addressed by using the links:

The European Scene
The Asian Scene
The Middle-East
African Scene
Central America and Caribbean
South America

The European Scene

"The Cold War really began with the Bolshevik Revolution of 1917; and it triggered a hot war in 1939 as soon as the British and French squandered the chance to secure a firm military alliance with the Soviet Union."
Michael Jabara Carley. 1939: The Alliance That Never Was and the Coming of World War II. Chicago: Ivan R. Dee, 1999.

During the Cold war, antagonists faced one another across European borders, but no military confrontations occurred between them. The U.S. stabilized Western Europe and prevented the Soviet Union from encroaching upon West European territory. The communist state maintained its sphere of influence in East Europe, and the U.S. reluctantly permitted this to happen. By late 1980, military burdens and internal policies greatly diminshed the power of the Soviet Union. The U.S. achieved its objectives without firing a bullet at its adversary. Nevertheless, the Cold War policies were not completely successful.

The forty year length of the Cold War created political (McCarthyism), social (polarization, crime and drugs) and economic (displacement of resources, budget deficits and inflation) tensions in the United States, especially during the 1960's and 1970's. It is entirely possible that the rigid policies of the Cold War dampened conflicts within the Soviet Union and hindered internal challenges to the communist system from occurring at an earlier time. Deterrence and détente, two key provisions of the Cold War stalemate, were conceived with the belief that conflict meant use of weapons of mass destruction, and use of these weapons meant mutual destruction to both major powers. The philosophies deterred attack but stimulated an arms race throughout the world. China, India, Pakistan, and Israel have added nuclear weapons to their military arsenals. Other nations, such as North Korea and Iran, are seeking weapons of mass destruction to deter possible attacks against them.

Russia, the principal remaining state of the Soviet Union, has a tepid relationship with the United States, while it increases economic ties with China and the European Union. After a decade of economic and social deterioration during Boris Yeltsin's mismanagement, President Putin's Russia has an expanding economy coupled with a slight drift back to the former Soviet Union's centralized system. A "cool war" with the United States has started. Another "Cold War" is not predicted, but an independent-minded Russia will assuredly prevent U.S. interests from exercising control in nations close to Russia's borders, and will counter attempts that undermine Russia's economic activities in the Middle East. Putin's Russia has expanded its military and developed new weapons, including testing of new Intercontinental Ballistic Missiles (ICBM) - and for good reason - the U.S. commitment to station anti-balllsitic missile systems in nations bordering on Russia have been perceived by the Russian President as a disguised threat to his nation.

President Bush's policies, which could be soothed to accomodate Russia, have instead provoked Russia. The Russian challenge could once again threaten United States world leadership, just as it did at the start of 1946.

Greece - 1946
The Truman Doctrine permitted military and economic aid to anti-Communist forces in the 1946 Greek civil war. This support occurred despite the Soviet Union's refusal to assist the Greek Communists in the struggle. The Truman Doctrine prevented a communist government from taking power in Greece, but the American interference in Greece affairs added to the initial post-war frictions between the East and the West and established a path to the Cold War.

Berlin - 1948
The four powers divided Berlin into specific zones of occupation. In early 1948, the western allies--United States, France and Great Britain--discussed the possibility of consolidating their three zones into one federated zone. On June 23, 1948, the ever wary Soviet Union reacted to the discussion and closed the Berlin border to allied vehicle and rail traffic.

The Soviet Union considered the allied sectors in isolated Berlin as espionage bases and not of strategic value to the allies. A Soviet embargo of the Three Powers' traffic became more than a case of harassment--it tested U.S. intentions in Berlin. The Soviet leaders expected the allies would compromise and evacuate Berlin. It didn't happen. The Berlin airlift brought adequate supplies to West Berlin, and forced the Soviet government to halt the blockade after seven months. Allied resolve in the Berlin airlift convinced the Soviet leaders that the West would struggle for each advantage and the adversaries would not easily find rapport. The U.S. successful response to the Soviet embargo moved the Cold War to an "eyeball-to-eyeball" confrontation and initiated the drastic arms race.

The U.S. strengthened its economic and military position by cooperating in European recovery.

Marshall Plan - 1948 to 1960
The Marshall plan provided economic resources for West Europe to recover from the war. It is undoubtedly the finest U.S. foreign policy achievement. Proposed and guided by General George C. Marshall, the plan assured markets for U.S. exports and smoothed the transition from a war economy to a peace economy. It is an example of using U.S. policy in a "win-win" situation that benefits the American people and supplies sustenance to others.

North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) - 1948 to 2008
The U.S. sponsored NATO grew in size and strength and prepared to act all through the Cold War years. Despite opportunities to provide assistance to East Europeans in their uprisings against Communist governments in Czechoslovakia in 1948, Hungary in 1956, the Czechs again in the Prague spring of 1968 and the Poles in the 70's, NATO refrained from modifying its doctrine of only attacking after being attacked. In the post Cold War era, after the Soviet Union had been humbled and could not retaliate, NATO changed its position from a defensive alliance to an offensive component of U.S. foreign policy. NATO warred against a hapless Yugoslavia in Kosovo. An expanded NATO, which includes East European nations, sent forces to Bosnia and Afghanistan but did not replace or augment U.S. troops in Iraq.

NATO's offensive tactics and far reaching thrusts provoked a challenge from The European Union (EU). In December 2004, Javier Solana, EU High Representative for Common Foreign and Security Policy, drafted a European security strategy that is based on "effective multilateralism" and use of international agencies. The words are now often used in NATO meetings and UN Security Council resolutions. In November 2003, Britain, France and Germany formulated plans to give the European Union a military planning facility that is independent of NATO. The "Big Three" have not made much of an advance to their objective.

NATO succeeded in preventing a Soviet military action against Western Europe. The same NATO aggressively promoted U.S. policies in the Balkans.

The Balkan Wars - Bosnia and Kosovo
The words Balkan wars create images of armies with long muskets and early 20th century colorful uniforms. Despite two World Wars, the creation of two international peace organizations, and several resolutions that resolved the Balkan borders, the area's problems continually revived and persisted. The ferocity of the antagonisms, killings, dislocations, and brutalities committed in the Balkans, and the military involvement of the U.S. and NATO in the disputes, indicate that a capitalist/communist hostility, the most accepted reason for previous disputes, and one that had never resulted in military strife in Europe, might have disguised the real reasons for America's role in the Cold War. Other likely reasons for the Cold War:

The Nato/Yugoslavia War
NATO's 1999 war against Yugoslavia inflicted more than 1000 casualties to its Serbian population. Physical destruction has been estimated in the range 40 to 100 billion dollars. All bridges acros the Danube river were destroyed. The Serbian infrastructure was temporarily paralyzed.

Although the return of the Kosovar refugees to their towns and villages seemed to prove that the ends justified the means, all the results of the Yugoslavia war should be considered: testing of weapons in all types of conditions that caused death and destruction, an acceptance that strong nations may attack weaker nations with the pretext of unfair treatment of their minorities, revival of war as a solution to problems, renewal of an arms race, the loss of sovereignty, and the uncomfortable feeling that no matter where you are in the world, if you don't agree with a specified policy you can become the target of a guided missile.

Because Kosovo contains sites of Serbia's most sacred churches and monasteries, Serbian nationalism locates Kosovo as the medieval center of a Serbian empire. In 1389, the Serbs lost the land to the Ottoman Turks in a decisive battle fought in Kosovo Polje, the Field of Blackbirds. Serbia was unable to reincorporate Kosovo into its territory until 1912, immediately after the first Balkan wars. Kosovo's status as an integral part of Serbia wavered between the two world wars. After World War II, the mostly Albanian populated land became officially attached to Yugoslavia.

As far back as 1939, the Yugoslavian parliament addressed its problems in Kosovo: an Albanian minority showed determination to force out the Serb population and to eventually declare independence. Albanian emigration to Kosovo and a high Albanian birthrate slowly shifted the demographics to favor the Albanians. The struggle to achieve independence by a minority that becomes a majority in a province of a nation is not unique. Central government suppression of minority rights during civil strife and the commission of atrocities on warring sides occur in many regions of the world. Basque Spain, Catholic Northern Ireland, Tamil Sri Lanka, Kurdish Turkey and Chechnya Russia have dominant ethnic minorities and rebellious forces, similar to the Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA), that engage governments and provoke retaliation.

Yugoslavia wasn't a threat to the United States or any European country. So, why did Yugoslavia and its Kosovo province receive extensive attention? Atrocities against Albanians have been cited as the reason for NATO's attack, but the mass excursion of Albanians friom Kosovo did not start until the NATO bombings of Kosovo, in which many Kosovars were killed. The Civil war in Kosovo and its atrocities were not unique and negotiations were still a viable path to resolution of the internecine warfare. Milosevich agreed to almost all NATO demands except the stationing of troops in sovereign Serbian territory. Possible reasons for the attack on Yugoslavia:

Washington, February 7, 2000—About five hundred civilians died in ninety separate incidents as a result of NATO bombing in Yugoslavia...--Human Rights Watch. (NATO estimates were 1500.)Considering the extent of the strife and mayhem, can U.S. policy in the Balkans be considered a success? The Kosovo war had counter-productive results:

In 2005, Montenegro detached itself from Yugoslavia, leaving only Serbia and an indeterminate Kosovo as the remaining entities of the former socialist state in the year 2006.

Bosnia Revisited
The Bosniak/Croat leaders realized in 1991 that any separation from the Yugoslavia Federation would not be approved by the leaders of the Serb population. Former Bosnian president Alija Izetbegovic presented the idealistic view that:

Bosnian unity can be maintained only if Bosnia is organized as a democratic and secular state which stresses the human and political rights of all individuals rather than the rights of national or confessional groups. Only a united Bosnia can be economically viable.

Nevertheless, the March 3, 1992 declaration of independence, in effect, informed the Bosnian Serbs that they would be separated from their fellow Serbs in Yugoslavia and be subservient to a new and unknown Bosnian authority. The Bosniaks and Croats were naive in expecting the Bosnian Serbs, who had major physical, economic and social control of Bosnia, to accept that proposition?

Yugoslavia President Milosevich had permitted Slovenia and Macedonia to become independent and did not overpower Croatia after the Catholic province declared its independence. Milosevich made the most serious compromises that established the Bosnia Federation at a meeting in Dayton, Ohio. The Yugoslavia president locked in the agreement by yielding a narrow strip of territory (see Goradze in the map below) to Bosnia. The Dayton peace agreements, that halted the war, arranged the map of Bosnia in almost the same manner as it had been divided at the initial start of the war. The present Croat/Bosniak Federation covers 51% of the territory and Srpska (Serb Republic) is contained in 49% of the Bosnian nation. During the war, Serbs controlled 70% of the Bosnian Republic.

What has happened to Bosnia and Kosovo?
Bosnia and Herzegovina
Bosnia and Herzogovina has been divided into a Serbia Republic (Sprska) and a Bosnia Federation that includes Muslim and Croatian regions. The divided nation has a three member presidency that consists of a representative from each major ethnic group, a Muslim, a Croat and a Serb, which rotates every 8 months. Ethnic identity determines voting patterns.

The republics have maintained separate armies. U.S. troops as a part of NATO remained in Bosnia until the end of 2004. On Dec. 2, 2004, a European Union force, consisting of almost the same troops as in NATO, assumed peace-keeping operations. Bosnia's appearance after drastic wars seems to be constituted worse than a pre-war successful diplomacy would have designed it.

At the end of 2004, the Bosnian republics began to show some cooperation.

More than a million refugees have returned home, even to villages where they are in the minority, dozens of culprits have been sent to the war crimes tribunal in The Hague and a common all-Bosnia defense ministry has been established.
Karel Kovanda, Czech Republic's UN ambassador , Dec. 16 edition of Mlada fronta Dnes.

The cooperative atmosphere was short lived. Dragan Mikerevic, Bosnian Serb government prime minister resigned on Dec. 17, 2004, in a protest to what he described as unconstitutional interference in his government's affairs by the country's Western administrator, Paddy Ashdown. High Representative Ashdown had fired nine Serb officials as punishment for the Bosnian Serb Republic's failure to arrest war crimes suspects and for Serb rebuke to the establishment of a common all-Bosnia defense ministry. In March 2005, High Representative Paddy Ashdown abruptly dismissed Croat President Dragan Covic after Covic's indictment for financial corruption, but before his trial took place.

Optimism and spin reconcile Bosniaks, Serbs and Croats living in a single centralized state. The optimism has not been realized.

  • The political trend since December 2005 has the Serb Republic (Srpska) developing its own characteristics and the Croat population maintaining a separation from the Bosniak population.
  • Bosnian leaders met in early November 2005 for a three-day meeting in Brussels. On November 14, 2005, they adjourned and failed to reach agreement on a new draft constitution. They met again in Washington D.C. to observe the tenth anniversary of the Dayton peace accords and, at that meeting, gave only a pledge to embark on a process of constitutional reform.
  • The UN High Commissioner for Refugees cites the figure of one million refugees having returned to homes in Bosnia. The one million figure is misleading: (1) Most returnees are elderly who have no other place to locate. (2) Many refugees have returned temporarily to reclaim property and sell homes before moving to a more acceptable location. (3) Jobs are not available.(4) The minority populations that realize they will be discriminated against in employment and education will eventually leave.
  • What advantage is it to the Serb population to unite with ethnicities with whom they have fought a vicious war? Enemies can live close without renewing violence, but would they want to unite and relive the experiences? Isn't it more likely Srpska will either remain separate or unite one day with Serbia that has a compatible population? The Dayton Accords contemplated the latter possibilty by constructing Srpska so that it is contiguous, except for the shared Brcko District (see map above).
  • Serbian President Boris Tadic (since 2004) has indicated that Srpska has a right to join with Serbia if Kosovo becomes an independent state. A November 2007 public opinion poll in Republika Srpska had 77 percent of Bosnian Serbs believing they should break away from Bosnia if Kosovo Albanians secede from Serbia.

Kosovo
The UN (KFOR) had 18,000 troops in Kosovo (2004). At the end of 2007, the UN still controlled police and justice functions in Kosovo while NATO controlled maintained order with 16,000 troops. The former Yugoslavia province has its own president, parliament, prime minister, cabinet, independent police force and judiciary. Back in December 12, 2003, the Kosovo parliament voted to invalidate all laws passed during Yugoslavia rule, but the top UN official, Harri Holkeri, who holds the ultimate authority in the disputed province, quickly declared parliament's move invalid--AP, Dec. 12, 2003.

Although mayhem has slowed since the early reports from 2003, six years after the end of hostilities, mayhem still existed in Kososvo.

According to statistics collected by the UN criminal tribunal for the former Yugoslavia at The Hague, 1,192 Serbs have been killed, 1,303 kidnapped and 1,305 wounded in Kosovo this year. Though nominally still under UN control, the southern province of Serbia is today dominated by a triumvirate of Albanian paramilitaries, mafiosi and terrorists. They control a host of smuggling operations and are implementing what many observers call their own brutal ethnic cleansing of minority groups, such as Serbs, Roma and Jews.
Isabel Vincent, National Post Wednesday, December 10, 2003, Canada.com

By mid- 2004, almost one-half of the Serbs living in Kosovo had been forced to leave. Serbia's ethnic presence and Serbian control of Kosovo has been almost eliminated.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 


Source: Glas Javnosti

On Dec. 3, 2004, Kosovo had a national election

Following the unopposed victory in a Dec. 3, 2004 election in Kosovo, which Serbs boycotted, and the election of the former KLA leader, Ramush Haradinaj, as President, Albanians now expect to declare independence and be recognised by the international community. However, Kosovo is still the legal province of Serbia and guaranteed as such by UN Resolution 1244 of 1999. (One problem) is that the new Kosovo Prime Minister has been indicted in Serbia on 108 counts of war crimes committed by his troops against Serb civilians, as well as other offenses. But he is also facing a possible indictment from the U.N. itself. The U.N.'s war crime tribunal, created in the aftermath of the Kosovo war, has already questioned him as part of an investigation into war crimes.
UN Development Program Agency, December 29, 2004

May 2004, R. Nicholas Burns, U.S. Under Secretary for Political Affairs, in a statement before the House Committee on International Relations:

The economy is a significant challenge for all the people of Kosovo, where unemployment runs at 60 percent or higher. Huge swaths of the economy are outside of formal structures, making them ripe targets for corruption and organized criminal activities. Investment and development are constrained by unreliable basic services that we take for granted, like electricity and telephone systems. Large and inefficient state enterprises are still not privatized and foreign investors are waiting for greater political clarity and decisions on Kosovo’s sovereignty before investing. The UN, after much delay, promulgated rules on eminent domain and land tenure that will allow privatization and other essential economic programs to move forward. With its status unresolved, however, Kosovo is not eligible for the IMF or World Bank assistance that it so urgently needs to develop a stable economy.

Note: Ramush Haradinaj was indicted for war crimes by The Hague-based United Nations tribunal (ICTY) in 2005. He was forced to leave his post.

While Serbia argues against it, the Kosovars are now assuming they will have independence:

PRISTINA, Serbia, Nov 28, 2006 (Reuters) - U.N. police in Kosovo fired teargas on Tuesday to disperse ethnic Albanians who smashed the windows of parliament and stoned U.N. headquarters, angry at a delay to their demand for independence from Serbia.

United Nations envoy, former Finnish President Martti Ahtisaari said that no more negotiations are to be held between Kosovo and Serbia on the future status of Kosovo. Ahtisaari said that he would postpone issuing a proposal on the future international position of Kosovo until year 2007. In 2007, he issued a proposal that recommended a supervised independence for Kosovo. Russia has blocked the adoption of the framework of Martti Ahtisaari's proposal.

Under Serbia’s new constitution, Kosovo is declared to be an "inseparable" part of Serbia. However, Agim Ceku, outgoing Prime Minister of the predominantly Albanian Kosovo, said that Kosovo would unilaterally declare itself independent if the UN does not grant it independence.

Serbian President Boris Tadic has has mentioned an autonomy that stops short of complete independence for Kosovo, with Kosovo technically a part of Serbia and Serbia controlling foreign policy and armed forces.

BELGRADE, Dec. 16 (Xinhua) -- Serbian President Boris Tadic said on Sunday he expects that Russia, China and other U.N. Security Council members will support Belgrade's stand that the negotiations on the future status of Kosovo province should continue.
"I will not accept any independence of Kosovo, not only because of the integrity of this country, but also because I am absolutely convinced that such a solution jeopardizes the development and future of the region of the Balkans and the Black Sea region, where there are many problems similar to that of Kosovo," Tadic said.

Russian President Vladimir Putin injected his opinion into the "independence for Kosovo" discussion by proclaiming that "if Kosovo is granted independence, then the Russian population in Georgi's republic of South Ossetia, should also be granted independence."

Nevertheless, Kosovo's politicians are preparing for independence:

PRISTINA, Serbia, Dec 26 (Reuters) - Kosovo's two main political parties have agreed to form a coalition government which will lead the breakaway province towards independence from Serbia early next year, party sources said on Wednesday.

In both Bosnia and Kosovo, U.S. policies succeeded in replacing a governing authority with poorly governing authorities, in trading the appearance of repression and incipient "ethnic cleansing" with violence leading to institutionalized "ethnic cleansing" and anarchy, and in complicating problems with war rather than resolving them with negotiation and diplomacy.

European Strife
The new Europe has rejected the treaties and agreements made by allied leaders after two world wars. The new Europe has a united and powerful Germany, a disintegrated Soviet Union, a divided Czechoslovakia and a fragmented Balkans. The United States (a non-European nation) possesses a military and cultural dominance that solicits cooperation from East European European nations but which is becoming less controlling in the Western European nations. It almost seems that Europe has strangely accepted a Nazi vision of Europe: stability enforced by dominance of a single nation and national identity characterized by ethnic identity.

Throughout the post-WWII years, the U.S. maintained good relations with the Western European countries, even with those that had socialist orientation. The United States

The U.S. acceptance of European regimes that were unacceptable to the U.S. State Department in other regions of the world was due to lack of American support for attacks on Europeans and fear of retaliation from other Europeans if an European country became a victim of an attack. A touch of cowardice and bully is also apparent - The U.S. has only attacked small and less industrialized Third World nations. Racism guides U.S. foreign policy.

Although leaders portray friendliness, U.S. relations deteriorated with the European countries that did not support the attack on Iraq (France, Germany and Russia). American policies, such as not permitting UN control in Iraq and denying contracts in Iraq to those who have not sent troops, antagonized European allies. The U.S. needed European assistance in its war on terrorism. Instead, American leaders pursued alienating, confrontational and controversial relations with major European countries. Charges that the American CIA violated European Union regulations by using European nations to imprison and interrogate suspected Al-Queda members captured by the U.S. have intensified the anger of European leaders to U.S. policies. Since Sarkozy became president in France, U.S. and French relations have greatly improved.

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The Asian Scene

U.S. foreign policy and military adventures in Asia have been counter-productive. Without resolving controversies in its favor, the U.S. temporarily destroyed the Indo-Chinese countries, allowed repressive regimes to flourish in other countries and stimulated what it wanted to prevent: North Korea's attempt to nuclear developments and China's rapid economic development.

KOREA

Korean War 1948-1952
In 1948 the United States had no alternative to military intervention in the Korean Civil War. America was obligated to prevent the Korean peninsula from becoming totally controlled by the northern Communists. Although the two Koreas threatened one another and it had become obvious that the stronger North Korea showed itself ready to settle the conflict by military force in 1948, the U.S. had not prepared a constructive Korean policy.

After U.S. troops were trapped in a southern area of the Korean peninsula, commanding General Douglas MacArthur landed troops at Inchon and launched a counterattack. Deemed a suicide venture by military experts, and ignored as an impossibility by the North Korean command, the surprise maneuver doomed the North Korean army and ignited an offensive that cleared the South of enemy forces. Instead of calling a truce, U.S. foreign policy drifted into its first great post-war error--a chilling prelude to a future of military catastrophes--U.S. troops continued into North Korea. This excursion generated a military confrontation with China, an additional 20 to 30 thousand American deaths, many more wounded, and hundreds of thousands of Korean casualties.

The military move across the 37th parallel escalated the Cold War and moved China closer to the Soviet Union orbit. After the truce, Korea remained as it had been in 1948, a divided nation. Uncertainty and war has threatened the Korean peninsula for decades. A strategic foothold on the Asian mainland and the economic progress of South Korea have often been described as the successful components of the Korean policy. The losses in American and Korean lives, the human tragedies due to the lack of reunification, and the escalation of East-West tensions offset the immediate successes.

Korea after 1952
The U.S. need for a strategic foothold on the Asian mainland seems unnecessary and redundant. Many South Koreans agree with that position.

A January 2005 poll indicated the South Koreans no longer regard U.S. troop presence as a benefit to their nation. To the question : "Which country is the most threatening to South Korea?" Research & Research, one of South Korea's largest pollsters, recorded that 39 percent of 800 respondents named the United States. North Korea came in second at 33 percent.

America's nuclear bases in Japan, in both offensive and defensive positions, are preferable to the bases in South Korea that contain a limited number of troops. South Korea has become a prosperous country and, with each succeeding year, becomes more competitive with the United States, more antagonistic to its benefactor and more allied with China. Meanwhile, U.S. diplomacy has not deterred North Korea from attempting to become a nuclear power or prevented China from becoming the dominant nation in Asia.

The U.S. and South Korea have negotiations for establishing a Free Trade Agreement. These negotiations broke down in December 2006. South Korea is still America's 7th largest trading partner, but Uncle Sam now has to contend with a growing trade deficit. In the first nine months of 2006, the U.S. exported $24.2 billion of goods to South Korea, imported $34.3 billion of merchamdise from the Asian nation and created a trade deficit of $10 billion.

The Korean war only ended in an armistice, a glorified cease-fire; no peace treaty has been signed and no official termination of hostilities exist. Despite the absence of a formal peace treaty, the peninsula peoples slowly and deliberately cross one another's borders for humanitarian, cultural and tourist purposes. South Korea is increasing its investments in North Korean ventures. Nevertheless, the U.S. continually challenges a hapless North Korea that might be able to cause havoc if attacked, but has insufficient military power to sustain offensive operations against any nation.

From a REUTERS report, December 30, 2004

SEOUL – North and South Korea have agreed to resume telecommunication services stopped half a century ago as South Korean companies start business at the jointly developed industrial park in the communist state, Seoul said on Thursday. KT Corp., South Korea's top fixed-line carrier, would offer landline phone calls and facsimile services for local firms operating at the Kaesong industrial park, just across the heavily militarised border, South Korea's unification ministry said in a statement.

The Kaesong project is the first major joint business venture since the Korean War and South Korean firms are being attracted to the project by cheap labour and land costs. The industrial complex is 10 km (6 miles) north of the heavily fortified border that divides the two Koreas.

As of August 2006, about 35 companies began operations at the Kaesong Industrial Complex.

Although still split by politics, South and North Korea have built a tourism centre on North Korea's Mount Kumgang as the showpiece.

S. Korean Tourists Greet New Year at North Korea's Tourist Spot
MOUNT GEUMGANG, North Korea, Jan. 1, 2005 (Yonhap) -- More than 1,000 South Korean tourists greeted the New Year Saturday on Mount Geumgang, one of the most popular tourist attractions in North Korea.

U.S. policy to contain North Korea and alienate that nation from the world's economic system becomes less successful each year. America's ambassador to South Korea, Alexander Vershbow has publicly referred to North Korea as a "criminal regime," which is engaged in money laundering, drug running, counterfeiting and other illicit activities. These remarks could be partly true, in the sense that some renegade North Koreans have been shown to be engaged in illicit activities. They could also apply to Mexico and Israel, and a host of other countries whose nationals have been know to engage in all of these activities. The "hermit kingdom" has shown its disdain for the pronouncement by calling it a "declaration of war."

In December 2006, the U.S. adminstration hit a new low in diplomacy. An AP Report:

(AP) -- The Bush administration wants North Korea's attention, so like a scolding parent it's trying to make it tougher for that country's eccentric leader to buy iPods, plasma televisions and Segway electric scooters. The U.S. government's first-ever effort to use trade sanctions to personally aggravate a foreign president expressly targets items believed to be favored by Kim Jong Il or presented by him as gifts to the roughly 600 loyalist families who run the communist government.

But the list of proposed luxury sanctions, obtained by The Associated Press, aims to make Kim's swanky life harder: No more cognac, Rolex watches, cigarettes, artwork, expensive cars, Harley Davidson motorcycles or even personal watercraft, such as Jet Skis.

The I-pod has become the new symbol of a "swanky life," which of course hardly affects the North Korean economy. The U.S. has about $33,000 in trade with the "hermit kingdom." Meanwhile, trade between North Korea and South Korea has exhibited an increasing trend. Two-way trade between North and South Korea, legalized in 1988, reached $1.1 billion in 2005 (and almost $1.35 billion in 2006). The U.S. continues bullying and threatening North Korea, but nothing chganges in North Korea. And the reason is obvious - the U.S. has little support for its policies.

Suzanne Goldenberg in Hanoi, Monday November 20, 2006
The Guardian

President George Bush suffered his most visible diplomatic setback since his party's defeat in mid-term elections yesterday when Asian leaders failed to back Washington's call for robust action against North Korea.
Mr Bush, in Vietnam on his first foreign trip since the elections, had lobbied strenuously for a unified strategy aimed at getting Pyongyang to abandon its nuclear ambitions, meeting the Russian, Chinese, South Korean and Japanese leaders on the sidelines of the summit.

Bush obtained a supportive Security Council Resolution - but evidently trhe action will not impede North Korea's nuclear ambitions.

Ed Helmore in New York, Sunday October 15, 2006
The Observer

The UN Security Council voted unanimously last night to impose sanctions on North Korea over its apparent nuclear test and declared that the action of the renegade nation was 'a clear threat to international security'.
The decision, which came after the US, Britain and France overcame last-minute differences with Russia and China, demands that North Korea eliminate all its nuclear weapons but, following demands by Russia and China, expressly rules out military action against the country.

After North Korea pledged to dismantle its nuclear facilities in return for economic compensation from the United States and other nations, and after South Korean president, Roh Moo-hyun and North Korean leader Kim Jong-il shook hands in Pyongyang on October 2, 2007, Pyongyang claimed aid was arriving too slow and disabling nuclear facilities would also slow. U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said that the U.S. is not prepared to expand relations with North Korea until its leadership has fully shut down its nuclear weapons program. U.S. nuclear envoy Christopher Hill, after returning from North Korea, said "there were clear differences in opinion between Washington and Pyongyang over the declaration of nuclear materials. Hill added resuming six-nation talks this year would be difficult."

Another diffculty is the election of a new South Korean president who isn't as eager to expand relations with North Korea as was his preecessor.

The Associated Press - Dec 20, 2007
SEOUL, South Korea (AP) — President-elect Lee Myung-bak said Thursday he would not shy from criticizing North Korea's authoritarian regime,

In retrospect, considering the nature of the North Korea regime, U.S. intervention in the Korean war, that saved South Korea sovereignty, benefited the South Korean people. Nevertheless, it is difficult to know if present-day North Korea is belligerent because it genuinely fears a U.S. attack or is belligerent because it has some diabolical purpose...for what reason; what can an aggressive North Korea accomplish? If the U.S. had a better defined and less confrontational policy, it is possible that it would have sooner achieved what it claims it always wanted; a non-threatening North Korea, a nuclear free Korean peninsula, peace and cooperation and possible unification of the two Koreas.

VIETNAM

Vietnamese War 1961-1975
The greatest foreign policy blunder in U.S. history (until the arming of the Afghanistan Mujaheedin and the occupation of Iraq) brought America 47,382 military dead, 10,811 non-combatant deaths, 153,382 wounded, and 10,173 captured. The American military devastated both North and South Vietnam, inflicted 1 million casualties upon their peoples and brought environmental catastrophes to large areas. Washington claimed counter-insurgency as the U.S role in the war. The insurgents countered the arrival of each American counter-insurgent with an increase in insurgent ranks.

Many arguments can be presented for the escalation of the war. One reason is the failure of the United States to adhere to provisions in the Final Declaration of the Geneva Conference on the Problem of Restoring Peace in Indo-China, July 21, 1954.

Article 5. The Conference takes note of the clauses in the agreement on the cessation of hostilities in Viet-Nam to the effect that no military base under the control of a foreign State may be established in the regrouping zones of the two parties, the latter having the obligation to see that the zones allotted to them shall not constitute part of any military alliance and shall not be utilized for the resumption of hostilities or in the service of an aggressive policy.

Article 7. The Conference declares that, so far as Viet-Nam is concerned. the settlement of political problems, effected on the basis of respect for the principles of independence, unity and territorial integrity, shall permit the Viet-Namese people to enjoy the fundamental freedoms, guaranteed by democratic institutions established as a result of free general elections by secret ballot. In order to ensure that sufficient progress in the restoration of peace has been made, and that all the necessary conditions obtain for free expression of the national will, general elections shall be held in July 1956, under the supervision of an international commission composed of representatives of the Member States of the International Supervisory Commission,(8) referred to in the agreement on the cessation of hostilities. Consultations will be held on this subject between the competent representative authorities of the two zones from 20 July 1955 onwards.

The United States established military bases in the Vietnam state (South Vietnam) and refused to allow the Vietnam state to participate in the free elections that were scheduled for July 1956.

Those guiding U.S. foreign policy used exaggerations, such as the skeptical Tonkin Bay attack on U.S. warships by small North Vietnamese speed boats, to justify intervention, and then cited dubious SEATO treaties and an amateurishly created "domino effect" to give legitimacy to intervention.

After years of turmoil and violence in Vietnam and at home, the U.S. realized its policy of a government "without elections" in Vietnam. The North took control of all of Vietnam without any election. This result might have been a blessing for a U.S. administration that had no cognizance of how a demoralized, ill equipped, corrupt and poorly led South Vietnam could govern Vietnam without leaning on U.S. military presence for a long period of time.

Vietnam after 1975
After its battles with China and Cambodia (both of which were accused by the U.S. administration as being partners with North Vietnam in the Vietnam War), the united Vietnam is a peaceful country and doesn't threaten neighbors. It is slowly becoming part of the international investment community, the position that the U.S. envisioned for a united Vietnam when it sent its forces to wage battle in the deltas and jungles of a relatively primitive country.

The United States and Vietnam signed a bilateral trade agreement in 2001 and three years later, the first U.S. scheduled flight since the war ended in 1975, a United Airlines’ Boeing 747-400 carrying more than 300 passengers, landed at Tan Son Nhat international airport in Ho Chi Minh City . Foreign investors poured US $4.2 billion into projects in Vietnam in 2004. U.S. exports to Vietnam reached $1.2 billion in 2004 and total bilateral trade was almost $6.5 billion. The United States is Vietnam’s largest overseas market and purchases one-fifth of all Vietnamese exports. In the first nine months of 2006, U.S. exports to Vietnam were US $723.8, imports were US $6,398.5, a huge deficit of US $5,674. Source:US Census Bureau, foreign trade statistics

In December, 2006, the U.S. Congress granted permanent normal trade relations to Vietnam, which ends the Cold War requirement that trade with the communist state be reviewed every year. On Dec. 20, 2006, President Bush signed the bill into law.

What happened to the "domino theory," a theory proposed by U.S. Asian experts, who said if the communists won the war then all of Southeast Asia would come under communist domination?

CAMBODIA

Cambodia 1968-1978
The destruction in Cambodia started before the end of the Vietnam campaign. The U.S. challenged the North Vietnamese military's use of a neutral territory for bringing troops and material to the South, and the U.S. carried the war into Cambodia with extensive bombings and military excursions. This "secret" war was the first time after WWII that the U.S. attacked a sovereign country in an undeclared war. The action set a precedent for future attacks.

After realizing they could not convince Cambodia's ruler, Prince Sihanouk, to take action against the North Vietnamese use of Cambodian jungle paths to bring soldiers and material to the Viet Cong, the CIA engineered Sihanouk's overthrow. The years following this action are one of the saddest of any country's history. Sihanouk, who brought a measure of stability and prosperity to his country during a wartime crisis, wanted to remain neutral. His disposal, exile and replacement by General Lon Nol , who quickly assumed dictator powers, brought violence and civil war to the country. The ultra- radical Khmer Rouge captured the leadership and brought the country to administrative and economic ruin. After the end of the Vietnam war, the united Socialist Republic of Vietnam invaded the country, ostensibly to create order. The war escalated to further civil wars and extended the killings and destruction that started with the U.S. policy of replacing Sihanouk.

Cambodia after 1978
The Khmer Rouge has been defeated. Sihanouk has died. Vietnam forces have vacated the country. Cambodia has an elected government and intermittent social stability. Human Rights groups accuse Prime Minister Hun Sen of jailing dissidents. Hun Sen's political Party has control of the military, and Cambodia's institutions seem to be weak and politicized.

America's position in the world has not been changed by Cambodia's flip-flop of governments. Cambodian life has been tragically punished due to a careless American policy.

CHINA

Containment guided the United States' policy towards China. Successive American administrations designed their policies to prevent China from developing into a world economic and military power that could challenge U.S. hegemony. The U.S. attitude towards China has grown from intense hostility without violent intent to a "constructive engagement," that cajoles, insults, accuses and tries everything to get China to do...what? Nobody is sure, and regardless of what the government states or implies, China has done what it wants--border wars with Vietnam and India, incorporating Tibet, controlling its people in a manner in which it feels they should be controlled. Meanwhile China grows economically and militarily more powerful each day. And each day the U.S. perceives China as an increasing threat. The containment of China has raised fears of an eventual conflict that will use the mightiest weapons to achieve victory.

The U.S. concerns with a war on terrorism, establishment of a viable Afghan government and its occupation of Iraq, defused its aggressive stance with China. The Asian dynamo's positive entrance into the world economy and its possibilities for U.S. investment and trade mellowed the "China bashers." America's diplomacy with China jelled into a more mutual arrangement; an accidental result of U.S. intensive attention to Middle East problems. In this mutual cooperation, China has assisted the U.S. attempts to resolve its dispute with North Korea, and the U.S. has assisted China in dampening its dispute with Taiwan. The friendly stance has been buffeted by an ill wind - planned joint manuevers of Chinese and Russian military forces, which were held held on Chinese territory,.

The military exercises were large scale and comprehensive, including army, navy, air force and submarine units, and possibly strategic bombers. The war games are a further step in the "strategic partnership" between Moscow and Beijing, which began after Washington and the European Union imposed arms embargoes on Beijing in the aftermath of the suppression in 1989 of the Chinese pro-democracy movement. Since then, China has become the major purchaser of Russian armaments, including fighter aircraft, missiles, submarines and naval destroyers. The joint exercises indicate Moscow's and Beijing's common interest in countering Washington's unilateral strategy.

China has taken a leading role in the Association of Southeast Asian nations (ASEAN), while advancing another association of East Asian nations. By establishing Free Trade areas for its members, these associations make it more difficult for U.S. exports to the Pacific area. Statistics indicate that the U.S. 2005 trade deficit with China will be $200 billion dollars.

U.S. foreign policy with China follows a familiar pattern of an aggressive stance, supporting Taiwan, constantly accusing China of violation of human rights and lack of democracy. China yawns, the world doesn't care and U.S. policies slowly sink...the U.S.

MYANMAR (Union of Burma)

The United States showed moral courage in attempting to either modify or overthrow an illegitimate military government in Myanmar. Nevertheless, moral imperatives don't move nations, and an amateurly directed U.S. policy towards Myanmar has harmed Burma's people and not brought freedom and democracy to Myanmar.

After Myanmar's ruling junta refused to recognize the 1990 overwhelming legislative election victory by the National League for Democracy (NLD), and placed NLD leader Aung San Suu Kyi under house arrest, the U.S. Congress passed the Customs and Trade Act, which enabled the president to impose new sanctions against Myanmar. On May 20, 1997, President Clinton issued Executive Order 13047, which took effect on May 21, banning most new U.S. investment in "economic development of resources in Myanmar ." To justify the ban, the president cited a "constant and continuing pattern of severe repression" of the democratic opposition by Burma's ruling junta. In 2003, the U.S. government banned imports from Myanmar. What were the results of U.S. actions against Myanmar?

Due to continuous sanctions against Myanmar and import restrictions of its goods to the U.S., the Myanmar garment industry closed more than 200 of its 400 factories, wages dropped and many workers were either unemployed or forced to take jobs in Thailand until the garment industry recovered. Asian nations, especially China, India and South Korea, the usual suspects, filled the vacuum created by American sanctions. China is investing in Myanmar mining and light industry. India is importing natural gas and proposes to construct a pipeleine from Myanmar to India. South Korea's Daewoo International has invested heavily in gas development projects. The previous $470 million/yr garment exports to the United States has been shifted to orders from Korean and Taiwan merchandisers who then sell the merchandise in Europe.

The CATO INSTITUTE has summarized the failure of U.S. sanctions against Myanmar (Burma).

U.S. SANCTIONS AGAINST BURMA , A Failure on All Fronts , by Leon T. Hadar

Present U.S. policy toward Burma is not going to bring meaningful change in the human rights practices of the regime and will probably make the bad situation in Burma even worse. Sanctions strengthen the hand of the ruling authorities by creating a scapegoat for their own internal policy failures and narrowing the opportunity of private individuals in Burma to expand their economic, social, and cultural contacts with the citizens of the West.

OTHER ASIA
Economic and military interests have dictated U.S. policy towards other Asiatic countries. The U.S. has contributed to the creation of economic powerhouses in Japan and Taiwan in order to create stable and friendly governments that allow the U.S. to maintain military bases. Other countries have not been as fortunate. Indonesia and the Philippines had their years of prosperity turn into near economic collapse, but have recovered. These countries maintained totalitarian and corrupt governments for decades and U.S. support to them generated insurrections, retaliations and violent confrontations. Although still subject to terrorism, Indonesia and the Philippines have started to evolve more stable institutions.
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The Middle-East

The post WWII policies liberated the Arab countries from foreign domination and enabled their governments to exercise greater control of oil resources. The United States had superior finances and technology for assisting the oil producers and became the favored partner. As energy became the most significant resource to the fast growing Western world, U.S. policy in the Middle East retreated to three words--get the oil. Several powerful oil producing nations remain antagonistic to the United States and the U.S. policy towards the Arab world has been one cause of terrorism. The hypocritical policy has created havoc for some of the area's nations. Lacking any apparent change, it portends a dangerous future.

IRAN

In 1946, the Soviet Union occupied parts of Northern Iran that had previously been attached to the Soviet Union. Truman demanded a Soviet retreat and succeeded in having the Russian troops removed. This overlooked event signified a basis for cooperation with the Soviet Union. The U.S. government ignored the Soviet acquiescence and headed into the Cold War. The next major Iranian event occurred in 1954 when Iranian Prime Minister Mossadegh threatened to nationalize the oil industry. He was forced to resign and soon the U.S. found its colleague, the anti-Communist Shah Pahlevi, firmly in power. The State Department failed to realize that the Shah considered Iran his personal fiefdom and that the uneven economic progress he brought to Iran did not have the support of the masses, especially those inclined to a more rigid Islam. This lack of foresight proved fatal to the Shah and American interests in Iran.

In 1979, the Iranians deposed the Shah and an Islamic movement, led by the Ayatollah Khomeini, gained control. Instead of using diplomacy with the new government and demonstrating restraint, U.S. policy reflected its bias against a regime that did not follow its dictates. Despite Iran's protests, the Carter government, with advice from the ubiquitous Henry Kissinger, allowed the Shah to enter the U.S. for medical treatment. This event provoked Iranian extremists to seize the American embassy and hold U.S. citizens as prisoners. The Shah eventually returned to Panama and died in Egypt. Relations with Iran rapidly declined to a total separation. The U.S. quickly lost any economic and strategic advantages it had established in Iran.

U.S. policy planners could not admit mistakes and their policy towards Iran continued on a destructive path. In Iraq's war against Iran, the U.S. provided arms and support to Saddam Hussein. During the war, Iran and Iraq attempted to prevent external trading by one another and.attacked oil tankers and merchant ships in the Persian Gulf. After Iraq bombed Iran's main oil exporting facility on Khark Island, Iran attacked a Kuwaiti tanker near Bahrain on May 13, 1984, and a Saudi tanker in Saudi waters on May 16.

Kuwait, in 1986, formally petitioned foreign powers to protect its shipping, and the U.S. responded in 1987. The U.S. Navy moved warships into the Persian Gulf to guard the Straits of Hormuz, a narrow waterway between the Persian Gulf and the Gulf of Oman, and to protect tanker shipping against possible Iranian aggression. In one aggression in the Persian Gulf, on May 17, 1987, the Iraqi air force bombed the USS Stark, killing 37 and injuring 21 Americans. The U.S. excused the aggression as a mistake.

The Iran/Iraq war, encouraged by U.S. military support to Iraq, caused massive destruction to both countries and to their Kurdish citizens. In a coda to the macabre concerto, on July 3, 1988, the U.S. cruiser Vincennes shot down an Iranian commercial Airbus in Iranian waters, after supposedly mistaking it for an Iranian F-14. Two hundred and ninety civilian passengers, included 66 children, were killed.

After these catastrophes, the U.S. tried to establish friendly relations with Iran and wondered why the Iranians were obstinate.

One major result of the bitter antagonism between the U.S. and Iran has been suspicion of Iranian involvement in terrorist attacks against U.S. military personnel. Although lacking definite proof, Iran has been accused of assisting the incipient Lebanese Hezbelloh in the 1983 bombing of the Beirut marine barracks in which 241 U.S. military personnel were killed, and involvement in the June 1996 bombing of a U.S. military barracks in Dhahran, Saudi Arabia, which claimed the lives of 19 U.S. servicemen. Two more recent events have impeded any rapproachement between the United States and Iran. The American occupation of Iraq has strengthened the Shiite majority in that country and made the U.S. suspicious that Iran will influence its co-religionists to favor Iranian policies. U.S. antagonism, pushed by Israel's fear of Iran, has provoked Iran to pursue nuclear weapons. Words lead to more bitter words and not any positive action. Iran's relations with America are as strained as the first day that the U.S. assisted the Shah after his downfall. Since America might not be able extend its military engagements beyond Iraq, Israel has shown intentions to halt Iran's nuclear program. The U.S. has become attached to Israel's policies and cannot achieve an agreement with Iran without compromising Israel's objectives.

The U.S. government can try to invoke its "democracy" message of rescuing the Iranian people from tyranny and leading it into being a democracy. However, in what was considered a democratic election, (but not democratic procedure since not all political persuasions could pursue office) in 2005, the Iranian people elected Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, the hardline mayor of Tehran, to becoming Iranian president with 61.69% of the vote in the second voting round. Turnout was estimated at almost 60% of eligible voters. Evidently, even a new democratic government in Iran won't easily change Iran's positions.

In retrospect, the United States has no issues with Iran that cannot be resolved by diplomacy. Iran directly supports those it considers being oppressed by Israel and is definitely opposed to the Israeli state. However, arguments that Iran supports international terrorism have never been adequately proved. Iran has no special reason to harm the United States and no capability to do harm without itself being demolished. The Islamic state has no territorial ambitions and can't spread its religious doctrines because of the limitations of Shiism in the Moslem world. Actually, Iran has often allied itself with U.S. interests by vigorously opposing the enemies of the United States. Iran has contested Saddam Hussein's Iraq, Afghanistan's Taliban, Soviet Union's communism and Osama bin Laden's Al Queda. Despite all this assistance to U.S. causes, although the insurgency in Iraq obtains most of its weapons from theft or sales of U.S. weapons, and all of its impetus from the U.S. occupation, the U.S., without providing proof, has tried to blame Iran for helping Iraqi insurgents. General Petraeus, Commander of US forces in Iraq , has absolved Iraq of being responsible for insurgent capability. His spokesperson, Col. Steven Boylan, told The Washington Times that Iran is not assisting insurgents in Iraq.

Decades of antagonism between the United States and The Islamic Republic have only reinforced the antagonisms and have propelled the two nations to a collision course. U.S. aggressive attitude and Israel's nuclear capability have propelled Iran's nuclear ambitions. While many, including the Baker-Hamilton Iraq Study Group, plead for dialogue, President Bush insists on confrontation. This confrontation persists despite a recent National Intelligence Estimate report indicating that Iran's nuclear weapons program was halted sometime in 2003.

The more the U.S. prods Iran, the more Iran retaliates, even going so far as having proposed to construct a nuclear weapon. More retaliation translates into more evidence for the U.S. to prove that the powerless Iranians, who have no real air force, no real navy and no modern army, are a danger and must be confronted. Somehow, the world doesn't seem to consider that U.S. policies towards Iran have been ultra-aggressive - arming Saddam Hussein (remember him?) in his war against Iran, sinking Iranian vessels in Iranian waters, downing an Iranian civilian airliner with a great loss of Iranian life and moving U.S. troops to Iran's border. All these provocations answer the questions - why do the Mullahs despise the U.S. and why do they talk aggressively?

Iran's positive qualities, all of which could be beneficial to the U.S., are politely neglected. Note there is no Al-Qaeda in Iran, no terrorists have been Iranians, and no terrorist attacks against U.S. interests have proceeded from Iran. Compare Iran to Saudi Arabia, the breeding ground for terrorists. Iran greatly assisted the U.S. in the initial stages of the reconstruction of Afghanistan, to which the U.S. gave no recognition.

In 1954, the United States assisted in replacing Iran's constitutional government with an autocratic government. In 2006, the U.S. is seeking to replace Iran's autocratic government with a constitutional government - another example of a counterproductive U.S. foreign policy.

IRAQ

U.S. policy towards Saddam Hussein's secular Iraq has been the reverse of its policy towards clerical Iran. The U.S. supported Iraq in the 1980's, but Hussein's 1990 invasion of Kuwait changed America's attitude. Within one month after the start of the war, U.S. led forces in the Persian Gulf war destroyed Iraq's military and eventually Iraq's economy. U.S. policy built up an intended friend, determined the intended friend was actually an enemy nation, and then saved the enemy nation by destroying it.

Accurate Iraqi casualty figures in the Gulf War, killed and wounded, have been difficult to verify. Estimates range from tens of thousands to 600,000. The PBS program Frontline broadcast its acceptance of the following figures:

According to "Gulf War Air Power Survey" by Thomas A. Keaney and Eliot A. Cohen, (a report commissioned by the U.S. Air Force; 1993-ISBN 0-16-041950-6), there were an estimated 10-12,000 Iraqi combat deaths in the air campaign and as many as 10,000 casualties in the ground war. This analysis is based on enemy prisoner of war reports. The Iraqi government says 2,300 civilians died during the air campaign. http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/gulf/appendix/death.html

Did all of this have to happen? By being cordial to Saddam Hussein for many years, the United States reinforced the Iraqi leader's power. State department dispatches indicate that Ambassador Glaspie gave Iraq a "green" light to invade Kuwait, or at least did not apply sufficient pressure to prevent the invasion.

Iraq had legitimate complaints: Kuwait had siphoned oil from the shifting sands of Iraqi territory: Kuwait owed a prostate Iraq some remuneration after having defended Kuwait against a possible Iran incursion: Kuwait walked out of discussions on the complaints and totally rebuffed Iraq. The United States could have arbitrated these complaints or forced the parties to comply with its directives. The U.S. policy makers had options. They chose to be complacent and indirectly paved the path to a punishing war.

The post-war policy continued a ferocious pattern, and U.S. and British planes bombed Iraq for the next twelve years. The bombings destroyed more "command and control" facilities and "radar bases" than Iraq could possibly have had. This senseless and vicious policy transformed Iraq from an emerging country with moderate prosperity into an impoverished country with a starving population. Statistics from a "UN Report on the Current Humanitarian Situation in Iraq, Mar. 1999:"

Consider the total population affected by the macabre figures and it is possible that one million Iraqis had their lives shortened by the punishing embargoes and bombing. Future generations will inherit the suffering. What were the purposes of this unstated U.S. policy?

The U.S. continually attempted to overthrow Saddam Hussein and continually failed. Rebellions by the Shiites and Kurds were encouraged and these rebellions reinforced Saddam's retribution and will. The U.S. claimed to protect the rebellious Kurd and Shiite minorities but allowed Turkey to attack the Kurds and didn't prevent Oman, a Persian Gulf sultanate, from terrorizing its Shiite minority.

The reasons for the U.S. policy towards Iraqi have been ambiguous. If the results follow policy, then the results indicate the unstated policy was the opposite of what was believed. The U.S. did not want a new Iraqi government. It wanted a continually unstable, embattled, embargoed and disrupted Iraq. Why? To maintain impotent a potentially strong Middle East country that could contend U.S. policy and arouse others in the region to challenge U.S. major partners.

After Iraq recovered from war and sanctions and entered a path to stability and progress, the combined U.S. and British invasion in 2003 destroyed additional physical plant and interrupted Iraq's return to normalcy. Post-war developments have continued the destruction with losses of basic services, widespread looting and crime and inept reconstruction efforts to rebuild infrastructure. The "we had to destroy them in order to save them policy" has brought internal conflicts, sabotage, and aggressive reactions.

The defeat of Saddam Hussein's regime and his capture happened too late. It occurred after an Iranian war, a Gulf war, Iraqi civil wars, sanctions and a joint American and British war against Iraq. The damage had been done. A failed policy did not prevent the damage. War, which is the last resort of inept diplomacy to resolve a problem, cannot undo the damage. The dramatization of the capture of a powerless Saddam Hussein, shriveled up in a dirt hole cannot disguise the facts that he was powerless before the invasion and already in a self-made hole. The United States has not been able to convince the world that the invasion did more than only displace Saddam Hussein and transfer his location.

The principal arguments for the invasion--finding and destroying weapons of mass destruction and being essential for the war on terrorism-- have been proven false. U.S. weapons of massive destruction have been used to learn that no Iraqi weapons of mass destruction exist. The war has not diminished terrorism--just the opposite--the battlefield has been changed and enlarged. Radical Islamists, who might have stayed home, found a cause and have entered Iraq. Nevertheless, the percentage of foreign insurgents in the entire insurgency is small. U.S. troops are mainly fighting a home-grown Iraq insurgency that has no visible end.

The attempt to establish a regime in Iraq that is partial to American interests threatens the economic life, cultural awareness and social identity of Iraq. This miscalculation may generate adverse reactions throughout the Middle East and provoke other Middle-East conflagrations. In Vietnam, America's departure did not leave a political vacuum--the Democratic Republic of Vietnam in North Vietnam had an established government and extended its authority. The retreat of American forces from Vietnam did not unleash internecine warfare--a repressive authority together with an allied National Liberation Front stifled opposition. A U.S. departure from Iraq will leave an untested government and might stir unresolved antagonisms into conflict. By invading and occupying Iraq, the Bush administration:

December 2005 pronouncements from President George W. Bush shifted the priorities and reasons for the war:

The year 2006 only continued the strife in Iraq with a greater fury. Finally there is an admission that the U.S. is not winning the war and, from many quarters, that the strife is a genuine Civil War. The Baker-Hamilton Iraq Study Group document has not provided a suitable guide for conducting the war. The U.S. government remains in a dilemma, proscrastinating each day in its decisions. The Shiite Iraqis trained to be policemen friends are attacked by coalition forces as torturers and enemies. The Sunni groups originally labelled as enemies are treated as friends and as enemies. Meanwhile almost two million Sunni Iraqis have left their homeland and exiled themselves to predominantly Syria and Jordan. Others are being ethnically cleansed from neignborhoods they shared with Shiites for centuries.

In the last decade of Saddam Hussein's reign, few Iraqis were being killed, no Iraqis were leaving, no Iraqis were fighting with each other, no Iraqis were being ethnically cleansed. The 2006 year closed with the execution of Iraq's former dictator leader, Saddam Hussein, for crimes against humanity.

After insurgent attacks and deaths of U.S. military surged, the Bush adminstration decided to implement its own surge. During 2007, more than 30,000 fresh U.S. troops arrived in Iraq and concentrated in the more troublesome areas, especially Baghdad. Combining the "surge" with enlisted support of Sunni militias to combat Al-Qaeda in Iraq, a move that incurred the wrath of the Maliki government, casualties in Iraq were severely reduced.

The surge had beneficial effects, but will it matter? Iraq is already a destroyed nation. An estimated four-and-a-half million Iraqis have been forced from their homes by the violence unleashed by the US-led invasion and occupation. The nation is separated into an autonomous Kurdish region (previously known as Northern Iraq), a southern Basra region region dominated by Shi'a, a western region controlled by Sunni insurgents who have become allied with U.S. military against Al-Qaeda in Iraq, a Baghdad that has ethnically cleansed neighborhoods, and a central region that has civil war, insurgent violence and unresolved ownership of contested oil fields.

One of the more serious consequence of U.S. policy in Iraq is the development of an American psyche that disregards the falsehoods that governed the attack on Iraq and accepts the concept of pre-emptive strike together with battlefield casualties. The U.S. government can originate any reason to attack other countries, suffer losses and not be constrained by public opinion. It is not too early to realize we are not witnessing the rebirth of an Iraqi people but the final whisper of an Iraqi civilization.

ISRAEL/PALESTINE

U.S. Middle East policy is driven, rather than guided, by the Israel-Palestinian conflict. Although the U.S. has the military and economic power and opportunities to force an acceptable solution to the strife, its wandering and contradictory policies have not prevented the violence.

The contradictions include acting as a sole arbitrator for bringing peace and then vetoing dozens of UN resolutions that criticized Israel and which, if implemented, might have compelled Israel to end the conflict. After decades of conflicts and debates, the conflict and debate continue. Since Israel's military strength is infinite times that of the Palestinians, the U.S. could serve to equalize the strengths. The U.S. insists the two parties compromise their differences, while knowing that a dominant Israel will not make concessions to a fragile Palestine. Each day Israel becomes stronger and the Palestinians become weaker.

The U.S. policy has strengthened Israel and weakened the Palestinians. The future is ominous. Israel's construction of a barrier wall, supposedly to prevent infiltration of suicide bombers into Israel, doesn't prevent Israeli F-15 bombers from entering Palestinian territory. The barrier's encroachment into Palestinian lands and its encirclement of Palestinian communities and major cities will bring the entire West Bank under Israeli control and decimate Palestinian life.

In effect, since President Jimmy Carter in 1979 negotiated the withdrawal of Israel from the Sinai and the estalishment of relations between Egypt and Israel, U.S wandering policies have allowed Israel to expand its territory and occupation, and have served to bring the Palestinian community closer to total destruction.

The hope that the demise of Yasser Arafat would bring agreement between Israel and a new Palestinian Authority (PA) is fading quickly. It is apparent that Israel wants surrender and is dictating the surrender terms to the PA. The fundamental issues remain:

Lack of resolution of the fundamental issues have created more difficult issues:

The United States has described Hamas as a terrorist organization, although Hamas can be considered a well organized, humanitarian and graft free organization that has provided welfare to the Palestinian people. Only its military wing, which considers itself in a legitimate battle against occupiers has participated in terrorist actions. Hamas has proposed several Hundas (truces), and has unilaterally refrained from military activity for many months on several occasions.

Counter-productive U.S. policies, such as demanding the Palestinian Authority to halt all terrorism before Israel halts and retreats from settlements, an impossible task for Abu Mazen, drove the Palestinian people to elect the Hamas Authority to a majority in the Palestinian parliament. A U.S. adminstration that places democracy for the Middle East on the top of its political agenda, has refused to recognize the democratically elected Hamas government. To add to the confusion, the Hamas Authority seized all the institutions in Gaza from Fatah; their reason being that Fatah officials had become too corrupt and had created an unmanageable atmosphere. Fatah retreated to the West Bank and established a competing government in the West Bank. This weak government.which represents only one segment of the Palestinian people, has been chosen by the western governments to seek a new peace plan with Israel.
Before Bush leaves office, he wants to be identified with a successful peace plan. To advance the peace objective, President Bush organized a one-day international conference at Annapolis, Maryland on December 12, 2007. The conference had no notable results and subsequent meetings of the Palestinian Authority and Israel have had no agreeemnts and have accomplished nothing to advance peace..

The U.S. has helped to achieve the opposite of what its wanted. It almost seems that the U.S. does not want a just solution to the problem; it only wants Israel to control the entire area, regardless of the injustices to the Palestinians.The continuing conflict and U.S. impartiality to Israel is cited as a principal reason for Arab and Muslim hostility to the United States. It is also one of the reasons for terrorism against the United States. The Israel/Palestinian war affects the military directions of many countries. It could lead to a nuclear war.

LEBANON

Once, the most prosperous, most beautiful and most hospitable of all of the Middle East countries has been partially destroyed by its indirect relationship to the Israeli/Palestinian conflict. U.S. involvement in Lebanon's affairs never had positive results. In the Eisenhower administration, during a short period of political uncertainty, U.S. marines landed on the Lebanese beaches. They stayed and they left. It was never clear why they had arrived. During the latter stages of the Israeli invasion of Lebanon in the 1980's, the U.S. together with other European countries dispatched warships and marines to Lebanon. Although the U.S. claimed it had entered a sovereign country to protect it, U.S. warships responded to spurious attacks on U.S. marines by shelling the Lebanese mountains and killing scores of people. A Lebanese group retaliated by blowing up the marine barracks and killing more than 200 marines. U.S. policy in Lebanon left many killed on both sides. It helped save Arafat's PLO and enabled him and his organization to move to Tunisia.

Lebanon is probably the most anti-Israel country in the world and, for this reason, despite U.S. protests, Syria maintained, until 2006, a strong presence in Lebanon. U.S. specification of Hezbollah as a terrorist organization has only complicated the situation and strenthened Hezbollah's representation in the Lebanese parliament. The radical Islamic group holds fourteen seats as part of the Resistance Bloc coalition, which has a total of 35 seats, in Lebanon's 128-member parliament under . Hezbollah-funded schools and hospitals serve thousands of mostly poor residents in southern Lebanon who favor the party because of its success in forcing Israel to end the Israeli occupation of southern Lebanon. The party's well-equipped private army has a significant arsenal that includes guns, rockets, a new drone spy plane and sufficient authority to operate almost as an independent government in southern Lebanon.

In 2006, Hezbollah had an opportunity to use its arsenal, but at great cost.
Hezbollah was responsible for violating Israel territory and abducting two of Israel's soldiers. Israel was responsible for the escalation of the crisis into a full scale war and for the terrible loss of lives. Regardless of Israel's horrific response, Hezbollah's border action served to destabilize and destroy parts of Lebanon. To save its reputation, Hezbollah allowed Lebanese to be killed. It has demonstrated its strength did not match its rhetoric, once again exposed the weakness and lack of solidarity of the Arab world and revealed the inability of international institutions to respond to the brutality of Israel's military. Who received blame for Israel's destructive actions? Many Lebanese are convinced that the U.S. propelled Israel to war against Hezbollah in order to destroy the Shiite ally of Iran and weaken Iranian influence in the Levant. Condoleeza Rice has been accused of requesting Israel to continue the war, including the dropping of fragmentation bombs after the truce had been ssigned, but before it went into effect.

A once peaceful Lebanon is now another powder keg; another arena where U.S. interference has had only a negative effect.

AFGHANISTAN

U.S. policies that countered Soviet Union influence in Afghanistan, which included the massive entry of Soviet troops in Afghanistan, will go down in history as the greatest blunder of American foreign policies. The policies exhibited a common feature of U.S. foreign policy: arming eventual enemies to combat perceived antagonists.

Although Afghanistan was never considered a part of the Cold war conflict, being that it was outside the U.S. sphere of influence and bordered the Soviet Union, American President Ronald Reagan provided assistance to the Mujaheedin in Afghanistan. The Mujaheedin eventually succeeded in forcing out Soviet troops, but enabled Radical Islam to flourish and Osama Bin Laden to establish terrorist training camps. The result of U.S. policies in Afghanistan: The greatest terrorist attack on U.S. soil with a loss of approximately 3000 lives.

The Soviet Union intervention in the internal conflicts of Afghanistan may have been improper but it did not include economic exploitation or permanent seizure of territory. It had benefits for the United States that the Reagan administration failed to recognize: Radical Islam was suppressed and poppy production was not permitted. The Soviet Union supplied forces from 1980-1986 to assist Babrak Kamal's Afghan regime to contain internal political frictions, prevent a Civil War from creating anarchy that could undo the economic progress of previous governments, and maintain the status quo in East-West spheres of influence. The Afghan internal politics, the Civil War and the Soviet Union intervention did not directly affect U.S. world hegemony or the Cold War balance of power. The Mujaheedin, whom the U.S. provided arms, material and finances through Pakistan, consisted of a radical Islam that had already shown itself to be hostile to American interests.

The Soviets retreated from Afghanistan in Feb. 1989, and the United States had an opportunity to let the war play out among Afghans. Continued U.S. arms shipments through Pakistan to the Mujaheedin forced the 1992 demise of the Najibullah government, which tried to carry out democratic reforms by creating a coalition government of reconciliation. A reactionary Islamic Taliban gained control of Afghanistan after the civil war caused more than 50,000 additional deaths. The Mujaheedin, characterized as freedom fighters and brought to fighting capability by U.S. arms, destroyed Afghanistan, caused an immense number of deaths, could not compromise among themselves to form a stable government, and became responsible for the Taliban emergence and its control of Afghanistan. The Taliban permitted terrorist groups to train on its territory. These terrorists have brought death to Americans and destruction to U.S. facilities. The most prominent vestige of U.S. intervention in the Afghanistan Civil War is Ibn Bin Laden.

The American administration reacted to the the 9/11 terrorist on its territory with appropriate attacks against terrorist bases in Afghanistan and with an overthrow and scattering of the Taliban regime. The battles have not ended and some of the same conditions that promoted the Afghanistan war exist--tribal rivalries, warlords, religious fundamentalism and poppy growing as a principal economic contribution. In effect, the U.S. replaced the Soviet Union in the war in Afghanistan.

In 2004, political trends were positive. Provincial warlords had been severely reduced in power and Taliban supporters were composed of loosely connected insurgents rather than a major fighting force. On December 7, 2004, Afghanistan elected Hamid Karzai was inaugurated as its first president. Karzai's government initiated a plan that allowed low-ranking Taliban forces to be granted amnesty from prosecution in exchange for surrender of their arms to US troops. Many accepted the deal. More recently, President Karzai extended amnesty to top Taliban leader's, including 2nd in command Mullah Mohammad Omar. The Mullah refused the offer.

If a sufficient number of Taliban followers accepted the amnesty offer, the withdrawal of the US’s 18,000 Afghanistan-based troops would have begun in June 2005. This has not happened. U.S.personnel, in a Jan. 4, 2006 interview, said "the insurgency grew stronger in 2005. It has become better organized with better-trained fighters and more advanced weaponry." NATO foreign ministers approved plans to send up to 6,000 soldiers, mostly European and Canadian, into volatile southern Afghanistan.

As the New Year of 2006 rolled in, trends were not positive. In economics, the major Afghan income is still due to about 4,600 tons of opium (320,000 tons of heroin) and 70 drug laboratories in southern Tajikistan and northern Afghanistan that process opium into heroin. The ominous political and military trends are not well reported. From the British newspaper, The Scotsman, Jan. 13:

Foreign fighters flood into Afghanistan by TIM RIPLEY:

HUNDREDS of foreign Islamic fighters are gathering in Afghanistan ahead of the deployment of 4,000 British troops to the country in the spring. British intelligence sources have told The Scotsman Islamic radicals sympathetic to al-Qaeda see Afghanistan as their new frontline and are starting to shift the focus of their anti-western campaign from Iraq.

The fighters, including Jordanians, Yemenis, Egyptians and Gulf Arabs, stepped up their campaign two months ago with a series of suicide bombings against NATO peacekeepers, United States troops and Afghan government leaders. "Attacks in Afghanistan are now running at more than 500 a month - it's getting as dangerous for westerners as Iraq in some places," said a British officer involved in planning the NATO peacekeeping mission in the south-west of the country.

January to December 2006 news reports verify the Scotsman report. Suicide bombings are on the rise.

General expects militant attacks in Afghanistan to spike
By Jason Straziuso, December 31, 2006, Associated Press

Violence rose sharply in Afghanistan in 2006, killing an estimated 4,000 people, the deadliest year since the U.S.-led coalition swept the Taliban from power in 2001.The number of U.S. troops killed in Afghanistan dropped slightly, from 93 in 2005 to 87 in 2006. But the number of casualties suffered by other NATO countries rose sharply.

The year 2007 saw more of the same violence but in more areas and with increased suicide bombings. Being as suicicde bombings had not been a Taliban weapon, the insurgency in Iraq has undoubtedly affected the insurgency in Afghanistan. Now identified as the neo-Taliban, the radical Islamists established communications and supply-lines in almost all of Afghanistan and opened new fronts against international forces.

The Pakistan-Afghanistan abyss by Paul Rogers
http://www.opendemocracy.net/article/conflicts/global_security/afghan_pakistan_abyss

There are now 51,000 foreign troops in Afghanistan, but they are still unable to cope with the resurgence. Of these troops, 40,000 are under Nato command in the International Security Assistance Force (Isaf): 15,000 from the United States, 25,000 from other Nato countries.

All this is against a background of changing tactics by Taliban militias in response to increased use of firepower by coalition troops. The last weeks of 2007 witnessed one of the largest paramilitary attacks for several of months when fifteen Afghan security guards were killed in an assault on a convoy of fuel-tankers in western Afghanistan, away from what had previously been the most significant areas of Taliban activity in the south and east.


One advance in Afghanistan has been in poppy production.

US General Predicts Record Poppy Haul, Published: 1/2/08, By JASON STRAZIUSO

KABUL, Afghanistan (AP) - The U.S. general in charge of NATO's Afghanistan mission said Wednesday he expects another year of "explosive growth" in the country's poppy fields, a harvest militants will turn into weapons for use against Afghan and NATO troops.

The Afghanistan insurgency is becoming part of an expanded Asian war. The insurgency in Iraq, the battle between the Turks and the Kurds, the instability in Pakistan and the Taliban resurgence are highly related. The questions now being asked are: Can NATO win the war in Afghanistan? Is Afghanistan returning to the days of the Russian occupation?

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African Scene

The African countries don't possess economic and military muscle and, for those reasons, the U.S. has generally treated central African countries with benign neglect. In some countries, notably Egypt, South Africa and Zimbabwe, U.S. policy has been mildly constructive.

Egypt has received U.S. financial and military assistance without compromising its national integrity. The assistance occurred after the U.S. refused to support the construction of the Aswan dam, an economic benefit to Egypt that the Soviet Union financed.

The South African policy, that included embargo of many goods, assisted in the termination of Apartheid and a government of reconciliation. In Zimbabwe, the United States did not contend the evolution of the former white led Rhodesia to a majority black led Zimbabwe. The political frameworks of the latter countries, where Nelson Mandela, an ardent communist, became the president of South Africa, and where Mugabe formed a leftist government in Zimbabwe, demonstrate that the U.S. could cooperate with leftist leaders and their government would not imperil U.S. interests. U.S. policies towards the African countries have not assisted them in alleviating their continual poverty, internal wars and economic catastrophes.

REPUBLIC of CONGO

The Republic of Congo, formerly Zaire, and previously the Republic of Congo, is an example of the complete cycle of a U.S. policy that ends in desolation.

In 1959, popular revolts and demands for independence from Belgium forced the Belgian government to negotiate with rebellious parties. During elections in 1960, the Congolese National Movement (MNC), directed by Patrice Lumumba, became the country's strongest party. Lumumba, already recognized as one of Africa's most vociferous leaders of anti-colonial liberation movements, became Prime Minister of the Congo Republic immediately before the country's independence on June 30, 1960. He had a difficult task and could not control the many factions that desired the Congo's resources and riches. His socialist leanings and avowed non-alignment policies prevented him from acquiring the U.S. as an ally. Within one month, Katanga, the Congo's richest province, with the assistance of the major powers, seceded. On September 14, Colonel Mobutu Sese Seko effectively neutralized the Congo's institutions and its leaders. The military placed Lumumba under house arrest and protection by the United Nations. After several transfers of his confinement, Patrice Lumumba, and two his comrades were killed on January 17, 1961. The official reason for his death--accidentally shot while attempting to escape.

The complicity of the United States and the CIA in this unfortunate episode has not been definitely proved. Many informed persons take it for granted that the CIA played a leading role in Lumumba's demise. In any case, the United States motivated the anti-Lumumba activities by demonstrating its disapproval of Lumumba and by not giving him adequate protection. U.S. total support for Mobutu, who seized power of the Congo in 1965 and reigned for 32 years, hints at U.S. involvement in the Congo's affairs. After changing the country name to Zaire, Mobutu ruled as a despot. In 1980, he banned all political parties, except his own. Although he created unity among the country's 200 ethnic groups and nationalized the mining industries, he personally controlled 70% of the country's wealth, valued at 5 billion dollars. At his death in 1997, he was personally responsible for 80% of Congo debts.

Laurent-Denise Kabila, originally an avowed comm