An interesting newgroup posting about recent subjects.
----------
> From: John S. Novak, III <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
> Newsgroups: rec.arts.sf.written.robert-jordan
> Subject: Re: The Moratorium
> Date: Saturday, September 29, 2001 11:59 AM
>
> In article <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>,
> Kenneth G. Cavness wrote:
>
> > I've been meaning to ask the educated people here something that I've
> > been wondering...
>
> > What is it about America that she helps to create her own enemies?
> > Castro, Hussein, Stalin, bin Laden -- they were all supported by
> > America at one point or another, weren't they? (I'm not quite
> > sure about Castro, but I seem to recall that he was educated in
> > America); is it that we just have Really Bad Perception, or is it
> > that we just keep running across the Law of Unintended Consequences?
>
> Stalin isn't quite in the same class.
> Stalin was pretty much a self-made man, as it were, and would have
> been thoroughly reprehensible and demonic without any interaction from
> us at all.
>
> As for the rest, in my opinion, it's a combination of realpolitik,
> short term vs long term goals, and human nature.
>
> In each case of Castro, Hussein, and bin Laden, they started out
> during the Cold War as people willing to take American dollars to
> either:
>
> 1) Fight the Soviets directly
> 2) Fight the Soviets indirectly, or
> 3) Support America and her interests.
>
> In the context of anywhere from the 50's to the 80's, this pretty much
> made sense. The first law of Realpolitik in a Cold War mentality is,
> the enemy of my enemy is my friend. In order to further the long term
> goal of the destruction of Communism and the de-fanging of Russia
> (which were, quite simply, the highest priority we had nationally,
> from about 1950 to 1990) almost anything could be made to make sense.
> After all, the Soviets had shown a willingness to kill their own
> people by the millions in order to safegarud their regime, and had
> lots and lots of nukes.
>
> For those too young to remember living through the era of a _strong_
> Soviet Union (as opposed to the crumbling empre of post 1985, or the
> crumbled ruins of 1989) let me just tell you, it was pretty damn scary
> if you let yourself think about it.
>
> That's where human nature enters in to it.
>
> Castro was more than a little too socialist for our liking, especially
> right here in the Western Hemisphere a few miles off our coasts.
> Given the McCarthy and post-McCarthy era, I really can't see that
> playing out any differently. We effectively _had_ to spurn him--
> hard-- and he predictably turned to the Soviets. After that, and even
> today, there's just too much bad blood on both sides to do anything
> about it. (Although with Jesse and Strom stepping down, you never
> know.)
>
> Ego-- human nature.
>
> Hussein was someone willing to take our money to sight against Iran,
> which, again, seemed like a good idea at the time. It was something
> conceived in the era of the Soviets, again, and either implicitly or
> explicitly, the thought was that the Soviets would be around for long
> enough to balance him out through Iran, or SYria, or some other
> intermediary nation. Pan-Arabism (secular or religious) was in the
> interests of neither the West nor the Soviets unless one side could
> control it completely; and that couldn't happen without an escalation
> beyond what either Superpower wanted.
>
> It was only when the post-Soviet power vacuum burst across the screen
> that things started turning bad, and Hussein lost his counterbalance
> and started thinking seriously about pan-Arabism.
>
> Greed-- human nature.
>
> Bin Laden was mostly the same. At the time, who would have thought
> that arming someone agaisnt the Soviets (and remember, at the time, we
> really didn't know how close they were to collapse-- a push westward
> through the 'Stans was thought to be a credible geopolitical strategy
> on the part of the Soviets to basically envelope the Gulf region)
> would create such a fucking nightmare?
>
> Bin Laden was probably the least predictable fuck-up of all, because
> apparently, what _really_ set him off was... protecting Saudi Arabia
> from Hussein? This is something that *only* makes sense through the
> insane lens of bin Laden's particular brand of Islam. (I've been led
> to believe that it's either Wahabism, or a subsect thereof. If we
> have any Islamic scholars, I'll let them comment.)
>
> Even on our best days, we've never been very good at predicting the
> actions of complete psychopaths, nor at predicting what particular
> incident is going to kick them from "unbalanced" into "complete
> nutter."
>
> And make no mistake, bin Laden _is_ insane, on a grand scale. One
> need only look at some of his writings to get just the merest flavor
> of it. He's taken a book mostly dedicated to peace and the tolerance
> of other cultures and faiths, and twisted it wholesale into a doctrine
> of total cultural insulation and annihilation. His call to arms
> against the Saudis and the Americans is that we protected the Saudis
> from Iraq. He denigrates the West's attempt to cut off his money
> supply and claims that this is evidence that we "worship money," and
> then almost in the same breath calculates what *he* thinks oil should
> be selling for and declares jihad because the last 30 years of oil
> sales are $36e12 less than he thinks they should be, and demands
> $30,000 for each living Muslim as recompense for the "theft."
>
> Insanity-- human nature.
>
> There's more than enough blame to go around on this score, from the
> Soviets' rapacious appetite for land, subject, and domination; to our
> emphasis of the short term over the long term (although I'd be hard
> pressed to come up with different courses of action, if I had to act
> without 30 or 40 years of historical foreknowledge). But the bulk of
> the responsibility, as always, has to lie with the people perpetrating
> these acts. Even in his insanity, bin Laden is rational enough to
> know that what he's doing is wrong, if based on a criminal justice
> outlook for the simple reason that he very carefully hides himself
> from day to day view for fear of reprisal.
>
> (And no, I don't think bin Laden should be treated as a domestic or
> private criminal. These attacks are not a civil matter.)
>
> --
> John S. Novak, III [EMAIL PROTECTED]
> The Humblest Man on the Net
>
