Gautam Mukunda wrote:
>
> First, from The New Republic: "There was no blowback. America's involvement
> in Afghanistan in the 1980s didn't help create Osama bin Laden; Saudi
> Arabia's involvement in Afghanistan in the 1980s helped create Osama bin
> Laden, in large part because the United States was too timid to direct the
> war itself. Similarly, it wasn't America's intervention in Afghanistan in
> the 1990s that created the Taliban; it was Pakistan's intervention and
> America's non-intervention. Doves might consider this as they counsel the
> U.S. to respond to September 11 by leaving the rest of the world to its own
> devices. After all, it was leaving the rest of the world to its own devices
> that got us into this in the first place."
>
> http://www.tnr.com/100801/trb100801.html
>
> In fact, Bin Laden didn't even arrive in Afghanistan until the mid to late
> 1980s - if your source can't even get that right, it has little or no
> credibility. In 1979 he was still a Saudi playboy.
>
> _Even if it were true_ that Bin Laden had at one point been aided by the
> US - that wouldn't mean anything in the current situation. Aiding the
> mujaheddeen was a good idea. A very good idea. It led, quite directly, to
> the fall of the Soviet Union (most of us think that was a good thing) and
> was a bipartisan policy begun by Jimmy Carter and continued by Reagan.
> There was no way at the time to predict that someone like Bin Laden would
> turn against the United States - or, for that matter, even survive the war,
> given the casualty rates involved. So we didn't help Bin Laden in the
> 1980s, and if we had, it would, given what we knew at the time, have been a
> good idea.
>
> Third, why on earth are you so determined to believe that everything is our
> fault? Who the hell is Hazhir Teimourian, for that matter? What do you
> want us to do, Doug, only work with saints who have halos if you look
> closely? There aren't very many of them out there. There is something
> profoundly wrong with this worldview. The United States is part of the
> world. It has interests in the world. There are bad people in the world.
> Sometimes they fight other bad people. As I have no particular desire to
> try and conquer the entire world, sometimes you have to sponsor some bad
> people in fighting other bad people who are more of a threat to us.
> Occassionally, some of these people will turn on us. First, doesn't that
> give us a _greater_ responsibility to deal with them, as we did to Noriega
> and are about to do with Hussein? Who was, btw, far less of a client to the
> US than you seem to imagine - our only real help to him was sharing some
> intelligence during the Iran-Iraq war. You might have noticed during the
> Gulf War that all of the equipment used by the Iraqi army was Soviet. And
> since Iran was a sworn enemy to the US that had already killed bunches of
> American citizens while Hussein was not, why should we not have acted
> against the Iranian government? As far as I can tell, Doug, your vision of
> foreign policy is that everything we do is wrong whatever the context. I
> suppose the logical conclusion is that we should do nothing. Given all of
> the good that the United States has done in the world in the twentieth
> century, and all of the bad things that have happened when we have withdrawn
> from it, I question that policy assessment.
>
> Sometimes you make mistakes. Sometimes you have to work with people you'd
> rather not. And sometimes some of those people turn against you. But
> sometimes they don't, and you can't know which. And even if they do, you
> might occassionally want to think about what we do achieve. Supporting the
> mujahedeen in their just battle to free their country from a Soviet
> invasion - or is invading a country only bad when we do it to establish a
> free government, but okay when the USSR does it to establish a Communist
> dictatorship, btw? That would be just in and of itself, regardless of
> outside concerns. We had the nice externality that it would cripple the
> Soviet Union. Well, that was a good thing too. If you, in 1979, could have
> predicted that the people we supported might, in the future, have turned
> against us, then prove it and I'll vote for you for President on the grounds
> of omniscience.
>
I could have told you that if you get in to bed with the devil
you'll have hell to pay, that's a no-brainer.
When has propping up a dictator or supporting a despot worked to our
advantage in the long run? From Marcos to the Shah, Papa Doc, to
Hussain, the clowns in Viet Nam or the zeros in Central America too
numerous to count, when has it ever been anything but an
embarrassment to our country and a black mark on our record?
Doesn't Alberto's opinion of the U.S. give you a clue as to the
effectiveness of our policy? He said:
"I have to repress my childhood education to accept
the idea that _both_ sides in the Cold War - and not
only the USA allies - were pro-dictatorship,
pro-torture, against free press and against human
rights."
We all know Alberto to be, reasonable, well educated, fiscally
conservative (with a Republican like distrust of big government)
family man. That he would have the above impression of my country -
whose very existence is supposed to represent human rights and
freedoms - is profoundly embarrassing to me. How many millions of
people across the globe have this kind of impression of us because
of our past indiscretions?
There are many things good and right about our country, but
supporting morally depraved dictators isn't one of them. To resume
this kind of policy, one we seem to have thankfully abandoned in
recent years, would be a travesty.
--
Doug
email: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
http://www.zo.com/~brighto
"Now people stand themselves next to the righteous
And they believe the things they say are true
They speak in terms of what divides us
To justify the violence they do"
Jackson Browne, It Is One
