At 23:07 25-5-01 -0400, John Giorgis wrote:
>At 01:25 PM 5/25/01 +0200 J. van Baardwijk wrote:
> >You're absolutely right about that; yet when I read your post, it seems to
> >me like you believe that the West had that moral right, but the East didn't
> >have that right. The East believed the West's intentions to be aggresive.
> >Did they have less of a moral right to defend themselves?
>
>Do you believe that openly declaring that you intend to take by force every
>other country in the world counts as self-defence? Does actively
>attempting to take over every country that you can (cf. Poland,
>Czechoslovakia, Hungary, Romania, Bulgaria, Greece, Turkey, Afghanistan,
>Angola, Nicaragua, El Salvador, etc.) count as self-defence also?
What? Greece and Turkey were taken over by the Soviet Union? And we *still*
let them join NATO? Incredible...
Nicaragua wasn't "taken over" by the Soviet Union, btw. It had an *elected*
Marxist government. I reallly don't understand you -- you seem to believe
that any country with a non-US-friendly goverment (whether elected or not)
is "taken over by the Soviet Union". Do you also call countries with a
pro-US government "taken over by the US"? Somehow, I doubt you do.
Now, back to the topic of self-defence.
No, taking over countries doesn't count as self-defence, but I never said
it was. I wasn't even arguing about that. I believe that in a potential
conflict, both sides have the right to defend themselves -- apparently, you
don't believe that.
You argue that is was morally right for the West to defend itself against
the East (by having a huge military presence along the entire border with
the Eastern block), but that is was morally wrong for the East to have a
huge military presence on their side of that same border. That is
absolutely ridiculous. We are allowed to defend ourselves, but they aren't?
Puh-lease. Why should they have any less right to defend themselves?
Because they weren't capitalists? Because they were called "evil"? (What do
you think the West was called in the Eastern Block, huh? Exactly: evil.)
>Geesh, Jeroen, you sound like Weyoun defending the Dominion.
Jeez, thanks for the compliment! :)
Well, Weyoun *is* one of my favourite characters on ST:DS9. I find him
quite fascinating...
Jeroen
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