I am new to this forum so please accept my apologies if I am going about this the wrong way. (should there possibly be a poll, only i ask two question???) As an English person, I am always interested in the views of the people who live in their country. If I want to know about American opinions, I ask Americans, if I want to now the Chinese stance I ask the Chinese.

I specifically wanted to know what foreign intervention Americans are disgusted at (in other words ashamed to be American for the duration) and which interventions have been most loved. I am talking Basically in the last 50 years exlcuding WWII.

I would presume the least liked would be Vietnam, and the most liked would be the First Gulf?

Thankyou

You are correct Vietnam for many of us was a bad war as much for the stupid way it was fought as the outcome. I have been in favor of both Gulf wars. I also thought the conflict in Bosnia was necessary.

In my opinion, Vietnam was inexcusable. Too many fine soldiers lost their lives for a cause that was asinine. Don't get me wrong, I value those soldiers' sacrifice and I value it just as much as any other. The war was a terrible crime committed against them by the upper echelons of the government, a government that lost sight of the fact that they were playing Risk with real armies. These men were sent out to fight the "Red plague", some abstract idea that the government concoted to try to explain it away as a real threat and a reason to put so many innocent lives in danger. The government owes them all an apology for doing that to their lives.

On the reverse, I think the bombing campaign against Slobodan Milosevic was necessary and laudable. While I regret that President Clinton didn't go through the UN or Congress, he did stop a genocidal maniac.

The slight problem I had with Kosovo was that there should have been more ground troops there. When the bombing started Ethnic cleansing actually incresed in its scale and ferocity because people we so annoyed. Whatsmore the area is still a ticking time bomb now, however fortunately several key components (the evil leaders basically) have been removed.

There was a classic CIA sponsored coup in Iran in 1953. The democratically elected Prime Minister Mossadegh (also pro-communist) at the time was planning to nationalise the oil industry (and so take it out of the hands of Western corporations). Fearing a large increase in Iranian oil prices, the CIA (along with British agents) hired a General to stage a coup. The Iranian system of democracy was then replaced with an absolute ruler (Shah Mohammed Reza Pahlevi)

Understandable at the time, when the West feared the spread of communism, however Pahlevi was a bit of a tyrant and as his support came from the US and Britain, this led to the avergae Iranian hating the West. Pahlevi's inability to run a country decently then led to the 1979 revolution, where the current theocracy took power.

On the whole I admire the US for most of its foreign interventions - and I fully appreciate the fact that my own country is a prospering democracy today because the US helped us in WW2. However I think that sponsoring Middle East dictators in order to ensure that oil remains cheap is shameful and mistaken. What happened in Iran could easily happen in Saudi Arabia - a popular revolution deposing the monarchy leading to a very anti-West country.

I agree with Pikachu, in that the '53 coup in Iran has had greater long-term negative strategic consequences than any other intervention.

If "shame" is the operative term, then I feel our involvement in Chile from '64 to '73 fits that niche.

Should we look at a mere debacle - a complete operational failure resulting in everyone we sent in-country being killed or captured, then Albania from '49 to '53 fits the bill. Kim Philby was the Brit Liaison on that one, and turned over all operational details to the Soviets, effectively sabotaging the op before it even began.

I don't think there has been a 'loved' military intervention in the last 50 years and that is why the Powell doctrine has become so important. We only use military intervention when there is no other alternative. Furthermore, I don't think Americans have ever been more disgusted with military intervention then they were in Vietnam. It went on for way to long and there was never any clear exit strategy.

If we had an intervention that was popular Id say the Gulf War was probably it. Since WWII there had been serious questions about U.S. resolve due in part to the idiotic way the Vietnam war was handled.

There was very little popular support for the Bosnia bombing campaign, but I think people realized that ethnic cleansing can't be appeased. Now the situation in Iraq threatens to undermine the confidence that was so hard to regain in the post Vietnam era. The most popular interventions are the ones that are over quickly and you can gauge the popularity with a calender.

Thats just one Americans opinion, still I think most Americans walk a fine line between supporting our troops and despising the use of military means to accomplish political ends.

Worst:

Vietnam war: Jungle war. Politicals always doing the strategies and not the generals who know more than the politicals

Best:

Soviet invasion of Afghanistan: American intelligence officials helped a ragtag team of civilians defeat the invading USSR

I take issue with that being the best intervention. It was successful in its short-term goals, yes - so in a very narrow scope you may be right. But the long-term strategic consequences have been awful in the extreme. Elements of the Pakistani ISI and Saudi intelligence sinking their tentacles deeply into the region, years of chaos in Afghanistan after we completely abandon the country post-Soviet withdrawal, the tremendous expansion of violently radical Islam like a cancer in Kashmir and Central Asia. We are still reaping the benefits of the best intervention.

By the way, the Afghan Mujahideen weren't quite a rag-tag team of civilians; they were experienced and hardened mountain guerrillas who were already giving the Soviets a hard time outside the cities. They needed very little in the way of training. Opening up a weapons and ammunition pipeline helped them quite a bit - providing them with the Stingers made the ultimate cost unbearable to the Soviets.

Go America,
I am in disbelief.
The US intervention in the Soviet war on Afghanistan led to the terrorist groups we are now blaming for attacks on the US. We taught and armed them in this time, enlisted the aid of Osama Bin Laden and his 'freedom fighters' against the Russians, clandestinely for the most part. Admitting to US involvement in thwarting the invasion is almost conspiracy theory, except it is true. We then left the guerilla troops we had trained against the Soviets with plenty of arms, but without aid to rebuild, we abandonned the country. The Taliban took control and guerilla troops were eventually to use the same arms and training against us in the near future, at least as recent history is told. The links to this activity are too many to even post, but I will if need be.
To say this is the 'best' invasion we ever had is at best to claim that arming Bin Laden and his group to defeat the Soviets, abandoning them, only to have them retaliate later upon us, was is a good thing. From you, I am truly SHOCKED. Mostly at lack of knowledge of recently accepted history.

I personally dont believe this timeline scenario, but it is the commonly told theory/history of events.

To answer the question;
Worst: Vietnam or recent invasion of Iraq
Best: WW2

No question that the most hated US intervention was Vietnam. But even though we techinically lost it, in a way we won it strategically because the immense quanitity of Russian supplied war materials we destroyed put a huge strain on the Soviet economy and contributed to the eventual downfall of the USSR. Maybe we shouldn't have been there at all, but given that we were I think we could have and should have won that one. Militarily we did actually, but lost it politically at home through sheer incompetence.

The '53 coup in Iran did indeed turn out badly but it needn't have. The Shah was doing ok until we in turn destablized him for no good reason, paving the way for the Ayatollahs.

The best? Grenada. Short and sweet, averting another Cuba. The removal of Noriega in Panama went that way as well. Both of course went so well because of the enormous disparity of force.

Afghanistan may have been the one that enjoyed the most popular support, but not the one where the USSR invaded. After 911 it was clear that we were going to Afghanistan because it was a snakepit of terrorism. The reason I doubt that it was not the 'best intervention' is simply because it was too long overdue. I don't think it could be characterized as 'loved' but there were very few people opposed to it both in the U.S. and abroad. There is also some question as to how much intervention the U.S. actually provided during the USSRs invasion. A few stinger missiles were helpfull but hardly decisive.

Soviet/Afghan war, US involvement:
In March 1985, President Reagan signed National Security Decision Directive 166,...[which] authorize[d] stepped-up covert military aid to the mujahideen, and it made clear that the secret Afghan war had a new goal: to defeat Soviet troops in Afghanistan through covert action and encourage a Soviet withdrawal. The new covert U.S. assistance began with a dramatic increase in arms supplies -- a steady rise to 65,000 tons annually by 1987, ... as well as a "ceaseless stream" of CIA and Pentagon specialists who traveled to the secret headquarters of Pakistan's ISI on the main road near Rawalpindi, Pakistan. There the CIA specialists met with Pakistani intelligence officers to help plan operations for the Afghan rebels.
http://www.globalresearch.ca/articles/CHO109C.html

Interview with Zbigniew Brzezinski,
President Jimmy Carter's National Security Adviser

Q: When the Soviets justified their intervention by asserting that they intended to fight against a secret involvement of the United States in Afghanistan, people didn't believe them. However, there was a basis of truth. You don't regret anything today?

B: Regret what? That secret operation was an excellent idea. It had the effect of drawing the Russians into the Afghan trap and you want me to regret it? The day that the Soviets officially crossed the border, I wrote to President Carter. We now have the opportunity of giving to the USSR its Vietnam war. Indeed, for almost 10 years, Moscow had to carry on a war unsupportable by the government, a conflict that brought about the demoralization and finally the breakup of the Soviet empire.

Q: And neither do you regret having supported the Islamic fundamentalism, having given arms and advice to future terrorists?

B: What is most important to the history of the world? The Taliban or the collapse of the Soviet empire? Some stirred-up Moslems or the liberation of Central Europe and the end of the cold war?
http://www.globalresearch.ca/articles/BRZ110A.html

As his unclassified CIA biography states, bin Laden left Saudi Arabia to fight the Soviet army in Afghanistan after Moscow’s invasion in 1979. By 1984, he was running a front organization known as Maktab al-Khidamar - the MAK - which funneled money, arms and fighters from the outside world into the Afghan war.
What the CIA bio conveniently fails to specify (in its unclassified form, at least) is that the MAK was nurtured by Pakistan’s state security services, the Inter-Services Intelligence agency, or ISI, the CIA’s primary conduit for conducting the covert war against Moscow’s occupation.

So bin Laden, along with a small group of Islamic militants from Egypt, Pakistan, Lebanon, Syria and Palestinian refugee camps all over the Middle East, became the “reliable” partners of the CIA in its war against Moscow.

http://www.msnbc.com/news/190144.asp

This sounds frighteningly similar to the current Iraq war that you seem to hate...

Anyway...the worst American intervention: Vietnam
The Best: World War II

CP

It does because NATO did try and go through the UN and the UN didn't support the move. I use this as part of my argument for the Iraq war. People frown upon it now but in 5 to 10 years they may applaud it.

Worst: Vietnam
Best: Bosnia/Kosovo

I can see how this topic may easily lose focus and become very hard to follow. Perhaps we should try and stick to just giving our own opinions of the best and worst without debating it with others. (Anti-Social I know )

I know this sounds boring, but I can see the thread going out of control and having to be closed. I am new here, so please accept my apologies if this sounds contentious or silly. I merely want to continue hearing your personal views on the Best and Worst.

I would also like to mention that I stated in the opening post that you cannot include WW2, since anyone with half a brain would suggest that it was the best intervention, but as always I would like to hear someone claim otherwise. Perhaps in a new post?

Oops, I didn't see the excluding WWII part...Hmm, in that case our best intervention was probably: the Cold War...stopping the spread of communism.

CP

I find that funny!

I would like to see what evidence you would put forward to suggest how the US stopped the spread of Communism? I know it is difficult, we will never really know either way because we only saw one outcome. Its not entirely clear what would have happened had the US not done anything though.

I also object to the idea that you viewed the entire cold war as one big intervention, there were so many and I am not sure you can group them all together like that. Furthermore, the war was primarily won because of economics and the fact that Russia could not sustain herself with such a large miltary budget, mainly a result of the arms race in the early stages and economic stagnation in its final days....

PD: Not sure if that is for this topic...But I think that Reagan was a major player in the stoppage of Communist expansion.

CP

I view every conflict from WWI to the end of the Cold War one large conflict. If anyone would like to debate this I'll start another thread.