I am noticing a common thread among the answers from the "Right Wing". At the top of the line is relativism or morality (everybody else did it too, relative our power we are good, the devils we put in were better than the devils they put it...) This kind of logic never worked with my parents when I was a kid and I don't see why I should let the Right get away with it now. This is fallowed closely by taking an augment to extreme to discredit it. Next on the line is of course the making either-or choices that do not exploit all the options. And when all else fails, ridiculing the opposing idea. Nice try!
> If a US administration prefers one bastard to another, the people of the US are responsible for all the evil done by that bastard
Close but not quite. I don't think we always approved of everything our minions did. To the contrary, most of the times we would have wanted them to be better people. But in the end, our priority was to get our agenda ahead at all costs to the natives. And if this meant supporting a bastard whose methods we abhorred, so be it. Come out clean CB. How much blame do you assign to US for removing a democratically elected government in Iran, Chile, and elsewhere to put a dictator in charge?
> We could fail to take sides, but then we are responsible for all the evil that we failed to stop
Nope! Unlike what the propaganda machine has told you, the rest of the world does not demand America to play nanny. Do you know why Iranians are more pro-US now than they had ever been? Contrary to what you may think it has nothing to do with improving their opinion of US. It has to do with knowing their government did not get its cues from US to oppress them. So they don't blame US for their plight (I am excluding the ones you with about Carter and focusing on the new generation).
> It's very hard being an American and responsible for all the evil in the world.
So don't. If you don't like the job of being the global nanny, the global police, the fixer of UN, etc. resign from it and focus on fixing the zillions of problems that exist within US instead trying to fix the world.
> So now Bush has decided to eradicate evil, and you don't like that, either.
Do you have shrine built in his name in your bedroom? Do you light candles and pray to him? Get real and don't use kiddy talk. Tell me what he is doing which is eliminating "evil" (whatever you think that evil may be). When you start naming specific actions and put them in cause and effect context, then we can talk.
> If you happen to know any saints running around, please point them out, only please don't say Jimmy Carter.
Carter was not any better than the rest. He too believed he should meddle in everyone's business to control the world. America has failed to think out of the box. So long as this is the case, we'll be stuck in the cycle.
> I used to know some Iranians who would disagree with you, but Khomeini had them killed.
Actually, they would not have disagreed with me. They disagree with the opinion that Carter was any good. I know many of them and more about the internals of Iranian Revolution than you'll ever know. My family still maintains contact with the former chiefs and some of the political leaders.
Tell me something, having talked to those Iranians about Carter, do you feel any responsibility for the Khomeini coming to power?
Sun Tzu |
