From: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> > > Are you familiar with The Guardian? The Guardian that wrote, only a few > days after September 11th, that if you've always hated Americans, the > attack was no reason to stop hating them? Maybe you feel that way, but it > tends to make me consider them a less than credible source. >
A good newspaper carries a wide variety of opinions. The Guardian does that, so does Melbourne's The Age, so does the NYTimes. We the readers can decide whether an article is credible or not. Not all articles are good. I thought that one was. > And, in fact, even what it wrote there is not what you were saying. OK. Think of the word that means "without giving an explicit go ahead or promise of support nevertheless included some form of encouragement towards an action or a hint of pleasure at a possible outcome". That's the word I'm trying to use, OK? > It says that they made it > clear that they supported democracy, but didn't explicitly say don't > overthrow Chavez. They probably should have, but that's vastly different > from what you were accusing them of. Should they have told the officials - > not under any circumstances? No, actually they shouldn't, because there > are circumstances in which one would have been justified, and Chavez was > treading fairly close to that line. How can you champion democracy and then say or imply or whatever that there is a case of any sort for a non democratic transfer of power? Is that like being a little bit pregnant? Again, democracy means that it is the right of the voters to make whatever bloody choice of government they want to make. Are we talking at cross purposes here? I just do not get how you can think that any US government can "suggest" a non democratic method of changing government while still claiming to be the bastion of democracy it does. If you think otherwise then we just have to agree to disagree. It is one thing to voice your disapproval publicly, it is a conspiracy to voice it privately with people who later undertake such a coup. It is political stupidity to get yourself into the position where you are perceived to have given any sort of encouragement, rather than outright disapproval, of any form of non democratic transfer of power. > We do know that the Administration called Cardona and told him > to not, under any circumstances, dissolve the National Assembly. Which he > did despite our influence. Which suggests, don't you think, that maybe he > wasn't under American control anyways? Why not mention that piece of > evidence? Fair enough, but I haven't tried to imply that the coup was under US control. I don't know of anyone that has said that. I don't think it was in any way controlled by the US government or Whitehouse. Actually, control is not a word that comes to mind regarding any of the events. For all I know the Venezuelan military had every intention of restoring/expanding democracy after removing Chavez. Doesn't matter what the intent was, really, what I commented on was the reaction of the Bush Admin. It was clumsy, ill thought, arrogant and politically very, very stupid. Like a King abhors regicide, a democracy must abhor a coup. Even if the coup is justified it is still a coup and is therefore the antithesis of democracy. But here is yet another case of the US seeming to say one thing (democracy is right) and yet doing (congratulating) a non democratic solution. And then owning up to having spoken about the likelihood of a coup - oh, and we don't much like your president but don't you dare stage a coup, oh no don't stage a coup to get rid of him even if neither of us likes him - with the conspirators. > If, despite our calls, he still dissolved the Assembly, why do > you think he would have refrained from overthrowing Chavez whatever we said > to him? In either case, why accuse the US of supporting a right-wing coup > against a democrat when it wasn't a right-wing coup, so far as we can tell > (it's an odd right-wing coup that is triggered by a 500,000 person popular > demonstration organized by unions that is fired upon by the picked thugs of > the President) and the most you can say we did is not come out strongly > enough for your satisfaction against it? If democracy is the greatest of virtues then you should automatically abhor and decry any attack on democracy. That was not done. Fleischer and co looked like the cat that had the canary and their christmas cake at the same time. About a coup. Had it been about an election result, no problem. Had it been for a constitutional resolution of a troublesome regime, no problem. Of a transfer of power by military coup - big problem. Perceptions matter. Without them, government and society doesn't work. Brett
