--- In [EMAIL PROTECTED], "Alberto Monteiro" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>
>Dan Minette wrote:
> >
> >>AFAIK, there was no case where the USA or the USSR *directly* ruled
> >>a foreign country. It's easier to find Qislings to do the dirty job.
> >
> >Japan was directly ruled by the United States for several years after
>WWII.
> >
>But that was an exception...
>
We also directly ruled part of Germany. The point is that we had absolute
power over the country, and we set it up for self government. The actions
of a government when it has full power, in my opinion, give the strongest
clues to its inherent intentions.
>>In the same decade, Viet Nam, after the fall of Saigon killed 750k,
> >
>Uh? Really? How did they kill those people?
>
There were a number of ways. The greatest numbers died when they were
forced out from the cities where they lived into the countryside where they
had to fend for themselves. There were also numerous deaths in reeducation
camps.
> >and the Pot Pol killed about 2M. >In the great leap forward and the
>cultural revolution, estimates are that >China killed 40M to 80M. >
>Fight with fairplay! We are comparing USA and USSR, not China!
>Pol Pot was maoist.
Well, at least during the great leap forward, China was very close to a
client state of the Soviet Union. The SovUnion give it aid, miltiary
hardware, etc. Pot Pol is a fairly complex question. At that time there
was a wedge between the Soviet Union and China, but both were supporting
Viet Nam. It is considered probably, but not certain that the SovUnion was
giving aid to Pot Pol.
>But,again, were those people killed *by* the commie g*v, or by >disastrous
>actions taken by the commies?
That's probably true. My memory is that he was weakly alligned with the
SovUnion, but he was more cloesly aligned with Lybia.
>
>
>
> >> But does the fight for "democracy" require the support >of >>
>"dictatorships"???
> >
> >Well, what choice did the US have? >
>What Carter did. Support only democracies.
>
As much as might have wanted to, he could not do that. The only democracy
in the Middle East was/is Israel. I don't think there were any true African
democracies at that time. Obviously Japan was a democracy in the late '70s,
and Taiwan and the Philippians sorta were at that time, but that's about it.
He supported the less objectionable non-democratic governments. He was
different from Nixon, Ford, Reagan, and Bush in that he would not support
all anti-communist governments, but he would have isolated the US from
almost all of the third world if he would only deal with democracies.
The strongest example of Carter's support of non-democratic governments is
his support of Egypt.
> >There weren't that many democracies in >the third world. >
>Yes - because those fragile democracies that were eventually
>installed were sabotaged by the CIA and the KGB :-P
>
Democracies are hard to come by. When the US had control, as with Japan and
West Germany (with its allies in West Germany) it instituted democracies.
That, to me, is a strong indication of intent. It even looked the other way
when Castro took over because it thought that Castro would be more
democratic than Bastista.
I�m not arguing that support for democratic institutions existed in every
case. In several instances, the US opposed democratic governments. But,
there is enough difficulty in keeping democracies without looking for the
Cold War as the cause.
Now that the Cold War is over, and the US and its allies have essentially
won, one can see the effect of their natural prejudice. The areas in the
third world that are most democratic are those that are most influenced by
the West. South America has many more democracies than Africa, for example.
>Ok, but those institutions might be mined by a constant support to
>foreign dictatorships.
>
Well, the US has supported foreign dictatorships since at least the Monroe
Doctrine (1823) without anything like that happening. Why should things
change now? I think that one key factor is the fact that the military is
not a privledged class in the United States. As mentioned before, a
military career is not the best way to riches, fame and fortune in the US.
Most soldiers in the army are just ordinary young people who went into the
service because it interested them, or they needed money for college, or
there were no job prospects, etc. I cannot imagine these folks violating
their oaths and attacking citizens because the were following their
generals.
Dan'm Traeki Ring of Crystallized Knowledge.
Known for calculating, but not known for shutting up
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