In a message dated 8/17/01 10:04:13 AM Eastern Daylight Time,
[EMAIL PROTECTED] writes:
<< According to your statement, whenever a *government* of a country
> commits a crime, the *people* of that country are also guilty of that
> crime. That is obviously not true. Hitler (who was democratically
> elected!) has committed genocide; by your standards, the entire German
> population of that time is guilty of genocide. By those same
> standards, the entire US population would be responsible for the
> deaths of people assassinated by the CIA.
>
> Well but we do hold the german people at least partially responsible
> for the actions of the Nazi's.
Then you also hold the US population (including yourself) at least partially
responsible for the deaths of people assassinated by the CIA?
Yes of course we as are responsible. That does not make us criminals but it
does mean that we have a responsibility as citizens to do what we can to
insure that our government behaves in an appropriate way. Now, John G and I
might disagree about what appropriate is but we would both agree (I think)
that in the US we have some control over what our government's policies are
so we are responsible.
> (I would argue that this very quickly changed into a dictatorship but
> lets not quibble about the differences between the US form of
> government and that of Nazi Germany. Given past statements I would
> guess you see them as essentially equivalent).
AFAIK, I never called the US government a fascist dictatorship. I criticized
the way in which you elect a president, but I've seen that same criticism
coming for US citizens on this list.
Frankly I cannot recall when you have made any statements about the US or its
citizens that were not critical.
> I think what annoys me most is your willingness to excuse any national
> behavior on the basis of past history with the exception of the US. We
> are not allowed to worry about sneak attacks even though we do have
> Pearl Harbor in our history and in our psyches.
You can worry all you want; the only problem with this is that (at least to
people outside the US) it seems like the US sometimes crosses the line
between "worrying about" and "getting paranoid about".
I am sure you are right. I am not arguing that the US is perfect but you are
willing to cut the NK a huge amount of slack. They can be paranoid to the
point of commiting crimes against their own people. The Russians can behave
horribly because of an historical fear of being invaded from western europe
even though the US has never had an intention to do so. That is ok but it is
not ok for the US to be fearful of anything.
(As for Pearl Harbor, there recently was a documentary on the Discovery
Channel that showed that the US had failed three or four times to recognize
signs that the Japanese were on their way to Pearl Harbor -- one of them was
when approaching aircraft appeared on a radar screen and then were
interpreted as a flock of birds...)
Which I think speaks to your arguement about the ability of the US to
anticipate an attack from NK. Intelligence interpretation is not a cut and
dried thing. It is hard to predict how countries will behave. War is never
really rationale.The reasons for not beginning a war always outweigh the
reasons to start a war and yet countries do this all the time. It was after
all NK that attacked SK in 1950 not the other way around. If anyone has a
right to be paranoid it is SK and its ally (us).
> The jews of Israel are not cut any slack because of the holocaust and
> in fact it is apparently reasonable in your world view to accuse them
> of the same crimes perpetrated on them by the Nazis.
Did I accuse Israel of committing genocide on the Palestinians? I really
don't remember saying that; I remember criticizing Israel for the way it
treats Palestinians, but I don't recall accusations of genocide.
I cannot of course quote the precise exchange because it was years ago but I
do remember you explicitly linking the behavior of Israel to the holocaust.
>>
