> -----Original Message-----
> From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]]On
> Behalf Of Gautam Mukunda
[snip]
> Me:
> I would say that, in fact, it's that idealism that makes things worse,
> usually.
At best, that's an opinion, not a fact. Is there no place in your world
view for idealism? From here, it seems like you consider anyone who faces
facts about life's ambiguities to an idealist. You turned my suggestion
that we face the fact that some of the regimes we have supported had
terrible human rights records, even toward Americans in their countries
(remember, this started with your notion that nations that are politically
friendly to the U.S. are also usually friendly to U.S. citizens) into the
idea that I would rather sit on my hands than do something about the
situation.
Is it idealistic to denounce the murders of teachers and religious in the
name of fighting communism? Seems to me that it's the other way around --
arguing that the end justifies the means in those cases is right-wing
idealism. I don't known if you realize it, but you come off sounding like
that sort of thing is collateral damage, regrettable but inevitable in the
defense of the American Way. That's idealism!
Facing the reality of the behavior of the regimes we have supported is not a
way to criticize the intentions of those who made the political choices to
support them, as you have repeatedly argued. Intention is not all that
matters -- anybody who isn't completely idealistic recognizes that horrible
decisions are often made with good intentions (and right thing for wrong
reasons, of course). I see you repeatedly equating intentions and outcomes
rather than distinguishing them, which makes your arguments muddy.
> Fascism demands control of political life. Communism
> demands that
> the government control every facet of the life of a society. If you just
> want to count genocides (one standard) - you've got one by a Fascist (the
> Holocaust) and how many by Communists? Stalin, Mao, Pol Pot - at least
> three. But there have been more Fascist governments than Communist ones.
This is a good example. You've conflated political ideologies with the
morality of behavior. Although they are certainly closely related, it is a
weak way to argue because democracies have also committed genocides.
Political-economic systems cannot be judged only by their outcomes and
actions. There are principles involved; losing sight of those principles by
focusing only on good intentions and good outcomes is what leads to
amorality and behavior like genocide. The principles of communism reflect
wonderful intentions. And when communism puts an end to repression and
human rights violations, it has positive outcomes. But neither of those is
a decent argument for communism, are they?
> The
> ruthless realists like Kissinger and Nixon would have prevented it - they
> did delay it for some years. The idealists who wanted us out -
> they sat on
> their hands while millions died. So when we followed your advice
> and left,
> things got not just worse, but catastrophically worse.
Nixon was also ruthlessly realistic about hanging onto political power.
Shall we salute Watergate? Lest we veer off in some new direction, my point
is that these are not principles on which freedom and liberty rest; they are
not the basis for making judgments about whose politics to support.
> As for
> Allende - there is considerable evidence, first, that Allende committed
> suicide - there's no credible evidence that I'm aware of that we had him
> shot -
Those who claim it was suicide say that he committed suicide by refusing to
leave the palace when offered a chance to go into exile. There's a joke
about how he committed suicide with a machine gun that he reloaded several
times... but it's really not funny.
Whether we ordered the shooting or not, the CIA was clearly behind the coup.
That's responsibility.
> I don't believe in American
> omnipotence - every bad thing that happens in the world is not our fault.
No one here is arguing that -- why do you bring it up?
> In Iran, for example, during the fall of the Shah, we didn't even have a
> single agent on the ground who spoke Farsi. So I find it hard to believe
> that we were responsible for that. But that doesn't stop people from
> saying, constantly, how we toppled the Shah.
Who on earth thinks that? People constantly say that? Our Shah?
> If it happened, we must have
> had something to do with it. Same thing in Chile. The coup would have
> happened whether we supported it or opposed it - that's usually what
> happens, actually. We see something inevitable and say, hey, these guys
> will run the country with or without us - do we want them to be
> on our side
> or opposed to us? There's a fairly obvious answer to that question.
Well, gee whiz, if these things are going to happen anyway, why not disband
the CIA and just give the new government lots of support when the revolution
is over?
> I don't think we're that far apart, Gautam, I really don't. I do
> think you have a hard time admitting _anything_ the U.S. has done
> was flawed.
Yep.
> I actually think we are, because while there are certainly places where I
> criticize the US (Guatemala and Colombia in this discussion alone, for
> example) I don't believe every leftist piety about the virtue of our
> enemies.
If you're applying that label to someone's statements here, please be clear
about it and be ready to defend it. Otherwise, it's a straw man.
> I see the
> results of what happened when the government did as you would have it do -
> one such result was the Cambodian genocide - and I don't like it. My way
> would have avoided that. On _that ground alone_, my way would
> seem to work
> a lot better.
What is your way? Ruthless realism?
It sounds to me like your way is to have complete freedom to do anything you
want in the name of America without tolerance for those who would point out
the ambiguities of political and military action. The only principle I hear
is expediency.
> We should be ashamed of what happened in Guatemala. We
> should be a lot more ashamed of what happened in Cambodia, where
> we had the
> chance to do something and didn't - and it wasn't because of
> people like me
> that we didn't.
Oh, but it *was* people like you. And like me. Americans.
Nick
