[ila]

Originally Posted by ila

As with any topic there is more than one view. I think the Soviet Union was more the aggressor in the post WWII world. Stalin's policies of occupying European countries and setting up puppet governments was seen as provocative by the west. The attempt to cut off Berlin was a continuation of Stalin's attempts to dominate Europe.

Originally Posted by GGadmirer

You're right, ila there's always more than one view and I for one disagree very strongly with what you're saying here.
There have been more than fifty interventions by the US involving souvereign countries since WWII and Irak and Afganistan are just two of them.
How about all those democratically elected governments in South and Middle America that were replaced through US intervention. Chili, Bolivia, Nicaragua, Guatamala......need I go on? All these democratically elected governments were replaced by US puppets and more often than not monstrous dictators, like for instance the infamous Pinochet.
Documents have shown that also the preparations for the attempted coup in Venezuela a few years ago were funded and supported by the US.
'Democracy' is just a word US presidents like to use in their speeches. It is not something people in foreign lands are meant to enjoy.

I think the citizens of Finland, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Romania, Bulgaria, Hungary, Poland, Ukraine, Czechoslovakia, and East Germany (and yes I know Czechoslovakia and East Germany no longer exist as such) might have a case to show that there was intervention in their affairs. Those are just the countries where there was direct intervention that resulted in either a communist puppet government being installed or the country being absorbed into the Soviet Union. There are other formerly independent countries, such as Georgia, Armenia, and Azerbaijan, that had been part of the Russian empire and the Soviet Union until recently. Then there are other countries that have had a great influence exerted on them from the Soviet Union; Iran, Iraq, Syria, Egypt, Cuba, and many more from South America.