Re: another perspective

[<SDonell73@aol.com>]

In a message dated 9/16/02 5:26:15 AM Pacific Daylight Time, swan@haysco.net writes:

> Sandy, I was a young kid during WW II, but I can remember the older people often saying, "Well, we will have to fight Russia next." Even then people realized they were not our friends. We simply had a mutual enemy. We are experiencing the same thing today. We have no real friends in the Middle East. The fact that sometimes we share mutual interests with otherwise hostile countries there doesn't make them our allies.


Bob,

Thanks for your response. Sounds like you have a few years on me. I was even younger during WWII, but I was interested in international relations in general and military affairs in particular, I never heard what you describe until the events that occurred after the war when the Soviets had to be forceably persuaded to leave those parts of Iran which they had used for Lend Lease depots during WWII, and of course there was the hassle with the Greek communists attempting a take over there, in addition to the goings on in Central Europe. 

In studying the history of the period, I don't seeYalta was as much a sellout is a good faith agreement gone wrong. Stalin was a very evil person, and one whom we had to be wary, but we have dealt with such people as allies in the past as well as the present with relatively positive results. Perhaps you can delineate those areas of the Yalta agreement which you see as a sellout.

Regarding the Middle East, we have had many friends there for long periods of time. The Saudi's have been our friends at least since 1945 when FDR met King Ibn Saud and established the Saudis as our number one friend among the oil producing countries there. And then there's the Kuwaiti's who are friendly, well at least since 1990. Qatar is allowing the U.S. Forces there to use their country as a base of operations. And most of those countries there are opposed to the current thrust of the Moslemists who are trying to spread a militant Islam against the Western world, if for no other reason that most of the friendlies are ruled by monarchs, and don't want to allow radical politics to infest their countries. I witnessed that in Kuwait, after the war, when I worked for their government as a consultant, developing new information systems to replace the ones that had been destroyed by the Iraqis. The Al Sabah family is petrified of such people gaining a foothold there. The same can be said of the Saudi's. Jordan is another country which comes to mind which is very friendly to Americans. The widow of King Hussein comes from the United States, her father, Najib Halliby was the head of the FAA and President of Pan Am. Most of these countries are former colonies of the UK, and they continue to retain good relations with Great Britain. With the decline of their power in the area, the US has taken their place as their primary western contact.

Having said all that, this is off topic for the Korean War. I'd be glad to continue the discussion off the board.

Regards,

Sandy