giving the panama canal to the panamanians is the biggest bitch made move in modern American history (besides a few 21st century decisions) and is the biggest marker of President Jimmy Carter being a trash president, the argument that we were trying to not be perceived as imperialist is retarded, we were by far the greatest empire at the time and should'nt have kowtowed to some third world babies, if we wanted to be nice we coud've made it more in their interest but relinquishing control is a disgrace to our history, the shit we've done in the middle east since its shocking we cared about being perceived as imperialists and worrying about their people throwing a fit
It made sense in cold war politics. In the mid 60s the developing world was decisively swinging right into the western sphere of influence, but then LBJ fucked everything up by insisting on committing to the Vietnam war, which was a huge propaganda victory for the USSR and made the developing world a battle ground again. The states had also assisted two dozen Latin American coups in the last 50 years and was finally feeling pretty cozy after Allende was overthrown, so they needed to hand off the canal to buy some goodwill with the rest of the poor shithole nations on earth and to not risk upsetting their hold over Latin America.
>>18484860yeah im aware at the time they thought it was strategically ideal I get wicked history hindsight especially for things that were done that ultimately seem unnecessary and this is one of the big more recent ones that makes us look limp dicked imo, ever since Carter we've looked limp dicked time and time again, its why its a shame with Trump because at times he shows that strength but too often he uses it wrong or makes threats with no backing prepared
>>18484860>It made sense in cold war politics.No it didn't.
>>18484877>makes us look limp dickedThe whole Vietnam war had been about not looking limp dicked and it went terribly. We were trying to be "the good guys" again
>>18484877>ever since Carter we've looked limp dicked time and time againWhy are you so obsessed about image politics and looking tough?
>>18484897limp dicked is just a vague undefined phrase, most wars are not worth fighting and vietnam is included in that we should have never entered that war but its not like we had a massive marvel of engineering we built in that country>>18484907its not about looking tough at all, its about not letting countries take what is yours and try and use some form of guilt to make America in this case be concerned about being seen as imperialistic, we weren't taking over Panama, we were running our canal and that involved being involved in their country and for reasons that are ultimately pointless and damaging in the long run we gave up control of something that was primarily ours so we didn't look mean, a few decades before we did far worse things in countries we scarcely had a right to be in
