Does it matter what the answer to that question is?
It's just a question. Similar to who are the worst people in history?
Do you want to argue we should have allied with Hitler instead of Stalin?
Not particularly. Is that what troubles you, you might claim that Stalin was worse than Hitler and you couldn't handle the thought?
Iran's ruling government hated the US regardless.
I recall that Iran's ruling government despised the US because we put the Shah into power and supported him throughout his regime.
If Castro hadn't formed a military alliance with the Soviet Union
It might have been warmer if we hadn't tried to throw Castro out of power immediately after we overthrew Batista, and put Castro into power.
Saddam didn't consider us an enemy till we prevented his taking Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, and the other Gulf emirates.
I make note that's your position.
This isn't a complete list (who has the time?), but we have supported Western Europe against the Warsaw Pact, South Korea vs North Korea, Taiwan vs Communist China, Israel vs many of its Arab neighbors. The countries we supported are today much more advanced than their neighbors by any measure - economics, human rights, democracy.
That's really a list of countries against "measures" as opposed to a list of "values" and "countries".
Mexico has an abysmal human rights record, for example, and the US never mentions it, which might lead you to assume that the human rights record of Mexico is pretty good. Democracy...we had no objection when the democratically elected leader, Chavez was overthrown [temporarily].
In a very recent speech, Bush said that one of the best ways to turn dictatorships into Democracies was through trade, in particular free trade. [Three cheers, I agree with that whole heartedly]. He then proposed that the Americas be a free trade zone...with the exception of Cuba. I have a difficult time reconciling those statements.
Of course given what I've actually seen Bush accomplish with trade .... the actions are all anti free trade.
jttmab |
