This is almost too easy, but a friend sent me this link and believes what it says. So, in the spirit of a good debate, here goes.

A free rag called Impact published the following article:

During most of the 20th century, U.S. officials claimed that our foreign policy was based on defending freedom and democracy against the threat of communist dictatorship. In truth, Washington was primarily concerned with defending capitalist regimes?–no matter how bloodthirsty or brutal?–and suppressing popular, democratic, and radical movements against such regimes. U.S. participation in the anti-Communist invasion of Russia in 1918, close U.S. business ties with Nazi Germany and Fascist Japan during the 1930s, the totally unnecessary atomic bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945, and the use of violence and subversion to thwart postwar leftist victories in Greece, Italy, France and Japan all helped fuel global opposition to U.S. imperialism.

The usual America did business with Nazis and the Japanese, blah, blah, blah. Did the author really have to link to a definition of imperialism? I wonder who the President was for most of the 30's? I believe it was Liberal icon FDR. The Right at that time was very isolationist. As for the "totally unnecessary bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki", well Sir, I have to say that the thousands people killed in those two attacks were the citizens of one of the most brutal regimes the century saw. They raped their way through the near east, including China, Korea, and Indochina. The bombs were dropped simply because the risk to American Marines and Sailors was too high. As the Japanese showed at Okinawa and other islands, they were willing to fight to the death and take as many Americans with them as possible. Take a look at what Imperialism really is.

Although the limits of Soviet-style socialism became clear enough, the United States was much more widely reviled and dreaded in the years after the Second World War. After forcing the partition of Korea and installing a right-wing dictator in the southern part of the country, the U.S. fought a war to preserve its little protectorate in the early 1950s?–and four million people died as a result. Under similar circumstances, the U.S. waged another war in Vietnam in the 1960s and early 1970s?–and another four million people died. In 1965-1967, the U.S. government gave the green light to the Indonesian Army to arrest and execute 1 million people suspected of being radicals

The limits of Soviet-style socialism weren't just made clear, the limits of any type of socialism were shown in a way that no one could miss. As for Korea, Truman involved us in that war, Ike got us out. Vietnam? Kennedy started it, Johnson screwed it up, and we fought it with one hand tied around our nuts. Just to set the record straight, we bailed the French out of this one, remember French-Indochina? As for Indonesia, how can a country such as the US "give the green light" to the most populous Islamic state in the world to do anything. More rhetoric that has no back-up.

Many people have died at the hands of U.S. invaders in Lebanon, the Dominican Republic, Haiti, Grenada, Panama, Libya, Somalia and other Third World countries. And many more have died at the hands of dictators and death squads supported by Washington?–in Nicaragua, Guatemala, El Salvador, Argentina, Chile, Iran, the Congo, the Philippines and elsewhere. Before his arrest and imprisonment by the U.S.-supported apartheid regime in South Africa, Nelson Mandela warned that "American imperialism... must be fought and decisively beaten down." Before his capture and execution by U.S.-trained troops in Bolivia, Che Guevara concluded that the U.S. government had become "the great enemy of mankind."

I'll just pick a few of his examples to expound on. Let's start with Lebanon, that bastion of democracy. We went to Lebanon as peace keepers. We made the mistake of becoming another faction, just like the Druse, Phalangists, and the PLO. Was it a mistake to attempt to stop the conflict in a country which was once known as "Paris on the Mediterranean"? Maybe. That mistake was nothing compared with letting the worlds oldest terrorist Arafat skip out to Tunis. Libya, they downed an airliner with innocent people aboard. They have recently agreed to payments for the families of the victims. Lastly, Somalia. Aidid was the sole person responsible for the decimation of that country. We arrived there with the expectation of freeing up the food for the people of that nation that Aidid was using for political purposes. Was that wrong? I was there. I was on a ship that ferried the Pakistani peacekeepers. It was a just cause. I guess we were just there because of the numerous natural resources they possess such as dirt, and, uh, dirt.

As for Nelson Mandela, Ive made my thoughts clear on him before (and if my links were working I'd show what I'd said). Che Guevara? He helped whisk the most oppressive leader in the world today into power.

In 1991, the first Bush Administration used Saddam Hussein's attack on Kuwait as a pretext for killing 200,000 Iraqis, stationing U.S. troops near the holiest Islamic sites in Saudi Arabia, and increasing aid to Israel. In the decade that followed, U.S.-enforced economic sanctions killed more than one million Iraqis and U.S. bombs killed thousands of Yugoslavs. But as the new millennium dawned, widespread opposition to U.S. militarism and corporate-led "globalization" was becoming difficult to ignore, even in the heart of the Empire.

That number, 200,000 has been discredited by all but the most crazed organizations. The stationing of US troops near "the holiest Islamic sites" was because the country that contains these sites asked us there to protect them. Couldn't get away without mentioning Israel could you? You contained yourself much better than most far lefties. As for the-US enforced sanctions, they were under the auspices of the UN.

I'll continue this later, as I have to put the kids to bed. Read the article for yourself and decide.