You are ignoring Soviet and Chinese help in stirring up some locations as well. Yes, western countries have done that too. But, to ignore the impact of similar activities by Russia and China is leaving out part of the equation. And puts too much blame on one side.

@Rob1948 No, that in many ways is my whole point, since Russia and China do stay for the long term and that is the whole source of their success, even using far fewer resources. Often they simply wait out the West's interest and only begin after we leave and they have usually been there for years before.

@Fernapple I agree on short term issues but you cannot ignore the fact that, often, none of the Cold War powers should be involved to begin with. Nor can you ignore the fact that, when one side interferes, the other pops up in opposition, often to the detriment of the “host” country.

@Rob1948 Thats very true, the tit for tat use of third world countries and other weaker nations as proxy wars is a great evil of the day. But in democracies politcians want to pose as global statesmen because they, (perhaps wrongly) think that it impresses voters. While in the former communist world dictators want to distract people from domestic failings, and strengthen their grip on power, by pointing to, often quite unreal, foreign threats. So the game suits both sides and while the rulers of the super powers play games to win often trivial support at home, the weaker nations will continue to suffer.

Some good points.

1. The days of European colonies were coming to an end but I think it was the USA's paranoia over the spread of communism that encouraged then to take over.in Vietnam

2. good point

3.Would Iraq have invaded Iran without the support of the USA.? Western interference in Iran goes way back to when the Anglo Iranian oil company was nationalised has had knock on effects right up until today

To say that the USA made the Soviet Union invade Afghanistan is a bit naïve.

4. bad blood between sectarian groups in the former Yugoslavia go way back to previous Soviet times and the break up gave them a chance to settle old scores. It was handled badly by the UN though.

5. Surely the Korean war shows the futility of war. Thousands dead , a country devastated and after it all nothing gained.

@Moravian on your first point, I noted Cold War pressures but, the problem started way earlier with colonial occupation and the efforts by communist rebels to kick France out.

2. Western influence goes back further to English interference with the Ottoman Empire in WWII and the partitioning of the Middle East thanks to British influence. Support, even arms deals, don’t force a country to invade another. And Iran-Iraq is exacerbated by the religious differences of the ruling factions of the two countries.

Yes, naive and that maybe an understatement.

4. Partitioning after WWII certainly helped as well.

5. Yes it does.

You may also remember that, T. Blair was the man who was two faced enough to conceal his religious affiliations until after he left office, gave the world a new word for a especially cowardly form of lying, created faith schools which have destroyed the education of many children while enriching the worst forms of theocrats, and in a country short of both land and housing gave his rich friends a tax break on second homes. Whatever his views on brexit, and everyone has to be right on something, he was undoubtedly the most evil little creep to ever crawl into number ten.

@Fernapple so you don't like him then

@Moravian You guessed !

@PalacinkyPDX I made my statement by looking at the whole picture not just direct combat deaths. When you factor in our role in producing weapons and the global arms trade plus the fact we invented and have used nuclear weapons. Looking at the whole picture we are definitely #1......

@PalacinkyPDX You definitely have a lot of valid points, it's kinda how you look at it. Good debate question though.

@PalacinkyPDX What you say is very true but maybe because the abhorrent activities of the UK were carried out in an earlier age when people were more "Christian" they are just accepted, whereas the activities of the USA were carried out in more enlightened times

Well we put him power just as we did 5 others that we had to go back and “ bring democracy “ to their countries.

@48thRonin Yes...he was a pawn and when his usefulness was over, they ousted him...He was scum the whole time, but depending on what the US wanted, he was made to look like a hero...as they say, history is written from the side of the victors, not the truth...

@thinktwice It’s only the truth because the masses have never had a way to be heard.

They would protest and cry out for public attention and their leaders would retaliate and we here in America would simply label them as rebels, terrorist, communist, and the attackers of democracy.

But just as in Syria and now Venezuela social media has made it possible for us to see their lives through a mostly unfiltered view.
So I can only hope that everyone will call out our political leaders as well as the mainstream media for attempting to mislead everyone for as long as they have.

@48thRonin You are correct...the days of simply accepting what was seen on a little black and white tv are over...the Vietnam war was fed to us as a fight against communism and when the protests began, every attempt was made to silence us...now that just about everyone has some way of posting online, we can get much more information directly...I have changed many of my views toward all sorts of thing because of this..