Gautam Mukunda wrote: > >> Because if it requires changing an enemy that treats >> fine his subjects to a genocidal ally, the pragmatic >> position of the USA _will_ do it. > > First - it is, in fact, the nice thing about the > interests of the US that we won't ever be in that > situation. > This is not a fact.
> Because American interests are so closely > tied to American principles, that situation is quite > impossible. But, even if it were, no, we _wouldn't_ > do it. There is no possibility that we would > do it. There's no case of us ever doing it. So I > deny that claim. We wouldn't. > The most recent example that still hurts was the replacement of the Communist regime of Afghanistan by the Talibans. It was a replacement of _bad_ by _worse_, and it was fully supported by the USA. >> And all Eastern Europe was better under the dominion of >> the USSR than it was under the previous dominant power >> [[ok, I'm cheating a little bit in bringing _that_ evil >> power to this discussion O:-)]] > > Yes, but the purpose of the Second World War was _not_ > to free Poland from Nazi tyranny to replace it with a > slightly less bad Soviet tyranny. > The purpose of WW2 was destroying the Nazi regime. The price of this destruction was giving Poland etc to Stalin. >> But the USA Army did it in Vietnam. Heck, the USA Army is doing >> it in Colombia right now, using defoliating poisons to destroy the >> cocaine plantations while poisoning children at the same time. > > While I'm not thrilled about our Colombia policy, we're > not doing it _on purpose_. Actually, I want a cite on that. > I have none - I watched a documentary on TV, where images of damaged children were shown, and their parents were interviwed. > I'm pretty familiar with our > Colombia deployment and I don't think we have anything > approaching the men available to do what you are > describing. > Therea are just half a dozen pilots that spread the poison over the rain forest. > In terms of Vietnam - without > fighting that whole battle over again - by the standards of > anti-guerrilla campaigns we fought a very clean war, one > far better than that fought by our enemies. When we > caught a major violator of human rights - Calley - we > prosecuted him. I believe that he is still in jail. > Admittedly, I would have had him shot, but I think you'd > be hard pressed to find a similar example. > My point in bringing up Vietnam is that this is an example of the policy of chosing a corrupt ally instead of a moderately evil enemy. >> There's no need to make the USSR look more satanic than it was. >> The human rights record in East Europe was far better than in >> Latin America, during the dark ages of the cold war. > > Not true _at all_. I think you're basically buying > generations of Communist propaganda here, Alberto. > Maybe :-) > It's simply not true. While the economy was not > nearly as good in Latin America (well, depending on where > you were) in just about every country political freedom > was considerably greater than it was in Eastern Europe. > But the mass-murders weren�t. Take again Argentina, with a minuscule population, that mass-murdered about 30,000 people in less than 10 years, because of political crimes. There�s no Eastern European country that comes even two orders of magnitude to that. Even "Democratic" Germany killed _hundreds_ of people. > Nor, for that matter, was it entirely, or even > largely, an American responsibility. Take some > responsibility for your own region of > the world, for goodness sake. We aren't omnipotent. > That�s right, but during the Cold War there wasn�t too much indepedence in the external policies. And the eastern european regimes also had a huge local collaboration. > The greatest part of > the destiny of any country lies with the people of that country. > Yep >> If the USA wants to be a new kind of Empire, there are moments >> when the USA must _not_ act in its own interest. > > There are moments when we can _refrain_ from acting when > it might be in our interest, possibly. But I believe that > our interests are, over the long > run, the interests of the people of the world. > Over the long run, the Universe will be dead :-) > As opposed to, say, fighting a war in Yugoslavia, > invading Somalia, and so on. > I agree that these were good, selfless actions. >> I agree with that. Again, this is not my point. I question >> the morality of "destroy my enemies and replace them by >> allies". This policy is amoral, and makes the USA no >> better than the USSR or the Roman Empire, because >> sometimes it will make the USA replace benevolent >> dictators by genocidal maniacs. > > When my enemies are immoral, then it's a perfectly moral > policy. > Only if the replacement is less immoral than the replaced. > During the Second World War we fought to destroy our > enemy (Nazi Germany) and replace it with our ally > (what would become the Federal Republic of Germany). > By _your_ standard, this makes the Allies in the Second > World War no better than the Roman Empire, and makes > the Western allies no better than the USSR. > For that matter, it makes the Nazis the same as the allies. > I can play WW2 games too, Alberto :-) > :-) But I didn�t say that replacing enemy X by ally Y was amoral, I said that _if_ the unique criterium for replacing X by Y is ally-ness than it is an amoral criterium. > The difference is _whom_ you replace, and with > _whom_ you replace them. Note also that the more power > the US has in controlling the new government, the better > it ends up being. The US has its > greatest influence in the Western hemisphere - and every > Western hemisphere government (save Cuba) is democratic. > And Cuba, of course, is the country > where we have the least influence. Even more clearly, in > Japan and Germany, where we had total discretion as to > the governments we would create, we > created two liberal democracies with human rights records > every bit as good as our own. That says something. > Yes, it does. [[of course AFAIK England had some say in the making of Germany, but that�s not the point here]] Again, this is not my point. I never said that the USA has been a promoter of evil, etc. I just said that the policy of replacing enemies by allies, no matter who are them, is amoral. Just because the USA replaced Nazi Germany by a democratic Germany and Imperial Japan by a democratic Japan *doesn�t* entitle the USA to replace everything at will. >> Argentina [and Uruguay] _had_ a Western-European standard of living >> during the XX century. And Venezuela got enough oil to be able to >> get it. > > When? Saudi Arabia has more oil than Venezuela, and > it doesn't. Oil isn't enough. In some ways, oil > probably hurts you, actually. > Venezuela _could_ have become a rich country during the 70s. >> But Argentina adopted the unbelievably stupid economic >> policy that was _dictated_ by the IMF. Heck, the IMF >> even suggested that Brazil should replicate Argentina's >> currency board! If the collapse of Argentina was >> that chaos, can you imagine the same thing happening to >> Brazil? I imagine that by now we would be building >> A-Bombs and selling them to Iraq > > And, for a very long time, the currency board worked. > It was quite successful. > Do you know that one-line joke? "Everything is fine until now", thought the suicider as he crossed the 15th floor. > Now, I'm not a universal defender of the IMF. I > think it's made a lot of mistakes. But it's an > indepedent institution, not an arm of the American > government. > Whose members are majoritarily indicated by the gov.USA. > And it has always _tried_ to do the best it can, > to the best of its knowledge. Unless you're arguing > that the IMF purposely tries to harm the economies of > the countries it is aiding, I don't really > see what your point is, to be honest. > No, I apply Hanlon�s razor to the IMF :-) > Why, for that matter, do you think industrialization > will be painless? > I don�t. But the way the IMF behaved in the Argentinian crisis was a perfect example for those that equate IMF to Satan: they supported Argentina until they _really_ needed support, and in that moment they withdrew all support. Alberto Monteiro
