Mpacha,

I have already sufficiently explained where my opinion comes from and why I hold it. Clearly my opinion bothers you for some reason or another but if you want to convince me (or others for that matter) you’re going to have to do more than just say “absurd” repeatedly in several posts. Well, you’ve certainly failed to convince me that you are even knowledgable on the subject (past what you read in mass media) let alone knowledgabe enough to prove my friend wrong.

Mpacha,

You’re not being particularly clear in making your point. First you say that SA was capable of invading any of these smaller African countries but didn’t and thats the proof that they didn’t have expansionist policies and then you say that SA couldn’t possibly invade anywhere because they didn’t have the resources and thats the reason that they couldn’t possibly have expansionist policies. Its very confusing and makes it difficult understand what point you’re actually making.

Now I’ve explained where my opinion on SA’s expansionism comes from and I am very interested to hear your counter arguments but they have been completely confusing and you haven’t offered up any proof either. Under the circumstances you’ll forgive me (I’m sure) for not being convinced by your point/points.

EDIT: As far as I am aware SA had both covert and overt dealings in the affairs in every country it bordered (same source as before). Are you denying that SA got involved in the conflict in Angola?
NB, it is worth noting that expansionism does not always involve the invasion of other countries and the annexation of their territory – just look at US dealings in Latin America.

I’ll just add that you’re completely right in saying that I know very little about affairs in the south of Africa and it isn’t my area of interest at all. On the other hand, you don’t seem particularly knowledgable either – certainly not authoritative enough to be convincing to me.

If you only have to avoid air attacks and can hide your forces that’s a good point, but if you have to meet your enemies in open battle it then comes down to who can look first, shoot first.

This is true – however there is a tendency on this forum and others for people to think that US tactics and weapons are infallible and will decimate all of the enemy’s targets within the openinng hours of a conflict. I tend to disagree. True that if forces are engaging in a conflict in which they have to come out in numbers they will, by definition, be more vulnerable. However, the US has only limited abilities in the number of weapons it can fire off and the number of sortie rates it can fly. And if you’re attacking forces in the field you’re not attacking their logistics and support structure – in Yugoslavia the US proved not to be able to do both effectively. India is a much harder nut to crack. Sure its the US would be victorious eventually, however, the fact is that it wouldn’t be a matter of hours or days before they could significantly degrade enemy capabilities – more like weeks or months (in my opinion).

Firstly, the correct spelling is “APARTHEID”.

Thank you for pointing that out. I wasn’t sure of the correct spelling.

Secondly, you shouldn’t get involved in african politic’s since you clearly have no knowledge of this! There was never any attempt to spread apartheid. The objective was to protect South Africa from an increasingly hostile continent.

Indeed, just like it was Hitler’s intention to defend Germany from those hostile Poles and Czechoslovaks. To claim that the Apartheid regime in South Africa had no expansionist policies is absurd. Its like claiming the US has no expansionit policies.

Cuba never became involved with the intention of “protecting” Angola from South Africa, she had her own agenda.

This is undoubtedly true – I’ll be the first to admit that no state every acts purely in the interest of others. The net effect was still the curbing of South Africa’s expansionist policies and the fact remains that there are many Africans who are deeply grateful for the deployment of Cuban troops at this time.

Whilst, South African policies may have been bad, Cuba was no better! Cuba helped to enforce “apartheid” against the Ovimbundu tribe, amongst others but you don’t hear of this because no “whities” are involved. Just as nobody creates as greater fuss about Mugabe as they did about the white regime in South Africa. Africa is a lot more complex than the “European” guilt ridden history books.

I’m sure that all this is true and that Cuba is no holy state but my point was that being ‘no holy state’ and being almost as psychotic as Hitler are very very different things.

hitler was a successful statesman in ways but he was still a monster and was crazy and did so much harm and damage.

Um… Hitler was not a successful statesman, he took control of a Germany that was in a pretty bad way, built it up into a war machine and ultimately got it totally destroyed. Culminating in his suicide and the arrest and execution of much of his power base – not success by my measure. Castro on the other hand has managed to provide world class healthcare and a decent education for his population in spite of not being allowed to trade or cooperate with Cuba’s biggest potential trade partner. And more than that he managed to fight increasingly imperialistic, racist appartheid forces in southern africa.

castro aint as pysocotic as hitler but not far off.

Lets take a look at their crazy evil ways shall we? Hitler; based a state on a racial (and racist) chauvanistic policy determined to change all of society into a race based caste system. He first advocated then actually undertook the physical extermination of not only Jews but several other large European ethnic groups. But does it stop there? Oh no. He, in his manic conviction, beleived that German lands should stretch from the British Isles all the way across Europe and N. Africa to British colonies in India. The rest going to the Japanese while America would be bombed into submission by super-long-range aviation. but he didn’t just beleive it, he tried to make it happen, dragging the world into a conflict in which 50 million+ people lost their lives – mostly civilians and many killed directly in his genocidal policies (that number was 50,000,000+ by the way).
Castro; He takes control of his country (at the time a puppet of the local regional power) in order to bring it a revolution where the people would come to power and destroy the harsh class system. He tries to export this revolution abroad and so the US tries to invade. In order to prevent another invasion he allows the Russians to help. Later he kills or imprisions political dissidents (mostly sponsored by the same regional, now super, power that tried to invade not so long ago) and some of them are tortured. Apart from trying to export his revolution (based on giving poor people rights and not on sadistic racist policies) and imprisioning political dissidents what has Castro done that is so bad? Anything even coming close to Hitler? Hitler tortured political dissidents for breakfast – not even for breakfast – it was like brushing his teeth or getting out of bed in the morning for him… He has the blood of 50,000,000 people on his now, thankfully, dead hands, Castro… He’s small fry.