[Carlhole]

I had not seen this recently released film before. There was a world screening of it in January of 2009. Most people around here will have been quite familiar with the information presented in it for a long time now, but it's still very good.

Plenty about petroleum geopolitics, too. Peak oil discussed about half way through.

Film: The New American Century

Puts it all in chronological perspective.

Of course, just because we've recently had an election does not mean that this story ended with the old administration. Even though the US has seemingly endless economic difficulties right now, the Obama Administration finds room in the budget for Afghanistan and Pakistan.

[outcast]

Nothing new here, we all know Iraq was a fraud for several years now.

[vision-master]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Carlhole', 'I') had not seen this recently released film before. There was a world screening of it in January of 2009. Most people around here will have been quite familiar with the information presented in it for a long time now, but it's still very good.

Plenty about petroleum geopolitics, too. Peak oil discussed about half way through.

Film: The New American Century

Puts it all in chronological perspective.

Of course, just because we've recently had an election does not mean that this story ended with the old administration. Even though the US has seemingly endless economic difficulties right now, the Obama Administration finds room in the budget for Afghanistan and Pakistan.

[dorlomin]

Awful film. I was about 23 minutes in and gave up. It has the Soviets in 'last desperate bid to expand their influence' invading Afghanistan, and America repsonding by giving weapons and money to 'Osama bin Landen and his freedom fighters' (sic) to push the Soviets back to their borders. Well for a start the Soviets (superficialy) won the 60s and 70s with a steady stream of pro Soviet or non aligned independence movements coming to power. In the immidiate lead up to the invasion Angola, Mozabique and Zimbabwe all displaced pro western colonial administrations (or colonists in Rhodesia) with non aligned or pro Soviet governments such as Samora Michelle in Mozambique. The very pro US Shah lost power in Persia\ Iran, and liberation theology was rapidly spreading in South and Central America. The US had also suffered a serious defeate in the field in SE Asia. Afghanistan was a Communist government in a bit of trouble so the Soviets mearly repeated what they had done in Prague 68 and Hungary 1956, that is invade and bolster the pro Moscow government with steel.

The US then sought out AFGHAN allies (via the ISI in Pakistan) and it was overwhelmingly AFGHAN tribes and there eyewatering groups of shifting alliances. The "Afghan Arabs" were only perhipheral to all this. They were playboys playing Jihad. And it was 'Shiek' Azzam who was their head until he was killed in 89 (Zawahiri is often accused although the list of potential bombers is long and distinguished). Bin Laden was still in university in 1980 (probibly their are some conflicting reports).

Just before I turned off the movie it was discussing the Clinton years and the neocons frustration at among other things "resurgent Russian power" and it actualy had the bleeding nerve to show a picutre of Putin. Russias resurgence was only during the run up of oil prices in the 2000s, roughly from 03 onwards. Yeltsin was the President during the Clinton years.

What is good in this has been covered far better by Adam Curtis' "The Power of Nighmares"

Edited as Im a fool I watched a bit more. At 32 minutes 50 seconds is a tells us that the US 'officialy declared war on North Vietnam'. Errrrrrrr no. The US NEVER declared war on North Vietnam. I defy anyone to prove that they did.