Dan Minette wrote:
>
> 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.
>
Ah, btw, I almost quoted here a question to the exams needed
to enter br universities; it was something like: "why did
the USA help reconstruct Germany and Japan after WW2?" and
the *correct* answer was: "because the USA imperialism
wanted to keep them outside the Soviet sphere of influence".
So, I guess I may suspect I've been brainwashed for some
time O:-)
> (...) 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.
>
No; at that time China even invaded VietNam.
>>>> 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.
>
But other countries were converging to democratic forms
of g*vernment. For example, I would say that *now* Iran
is also a democracy - changing their ayatollah class
might be as hard as USA voters trying to change the
Supreme Court.
> I don't think there were any true African
> democracies at that time.
>
Africa is a serious problem. They changed from tribal
monarchies to colonies, and they went back to tribal
monarchies with rifles and tanks.
> Obviously Japan was a democracy in the late '70s,
> and Taiwan and the Philippians sorta were at that time,
> but that's about it.
>
You forgot India, the biggest democracy in the world.
[He = Carter]
> 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.
>
But isn't the USA naturally isolated? You close your
frontiers to all other people in the world!
> The strongest example of Carter's support of
> non-democratic governments is his support of Egypt.
>
But Egypt has a caricature of democracy; there are elections,
there aren't many human rights violations, etc.
>
> 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.
>
Yes, South America has had democratic governments for most
countries and most time for the past 10 years. The exceptions
are Peru [with an elected dictator :-)] and Colombia [that
doesn't have a g*vernment; BTW, how would Heinlein evaluate
Colombia? It's the closest thing to his utopia! :-)))))].
Exceptions are Guiana and Suriname.
Alberto Monteiro
