> -----Original Message-----
> From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]]On
> Behalf Of Dan Minette
[snip]
> My understanding of what Nick wrote was that, in many cases, the claim of
> fighting Communism was just a flimsy excuse for brutal actions by
> right wing
> dictatorships that we supported. I agree with that. It is not that the
> United States decision to fight communism was wrong; it was clearly right.
> It was that the United States often bought the flimsy excuses for brutal
> actions.
It was not just an excuse for the leadership in those countries, but also an
excuse for the United States to support them. Even if supporting them was
the lesser of two evils, as Gautam has said (and I'm not disputing that), we
shouldn't pretend that we were supporting governments that were friendly to
Americans and American principles. These have usually been "my enemy's
enemy is my friend." It wasn't hard for Latin American (and African and
other) governments to figure out that if they claimed to be fighting
communism, that turned on the faucet for U.S. money and military goods and
services.
> A quote from Mark Twain comes to mind here: Patriotism is the
> last refuge of
> the scoundrel. It is not that patriotism is wrong; it is usually a good
> thing. However, it is a darned good hiding place for scoundrels.
Any idea where Twain wrote that? I'm related to him and so I've made an
effort over the years to become familiar with everything he's written --
quite a task.
Nick
