Michael, you're wrong from so many different angles it's difficult to even respond...lol
<Your drumbeat of anti-American analysis...>
First of all, I am pro-American, and anti-Bush. It is my patriotic duty, as a loyal American, to oppose disastrous ideas and failing policies. I don't accept the totalitarian notion that a leader embodies his nation, or that criticism of the leader equals hatred of the nation. And neither did any of America's Founding Fathers accept that notion. So quit throwing mud.
Second, Saddam and his henchmen were doing their killing, using chemical weapons on the Kurds, when Saddam and the U.S. government were allies. Some of the people in the current Administration had smiling photo-ops with Saddam, back in the 1980s. Then, there was that episode in 1991, when we stood by and watched Saddam slaughter the Shiites. Where were these bleeding-heart NeoCon humanitarian imperialists then? It is you who need to explain why we suddenly become humanitarians re Iraq, after a total absense of any humanitarian concern there, for decades.
How many counter-examples to your Myth, do I need to bring up? How many examples, of where the U.S. has overthrown democractically elected governments, imposed its will by force, over the opposition of the conquered people?
I could use any of 30 different examples (50, if I gave it another 5 minutes of thought), but here's one: After the defeat of the French in 1954, by the Viet Minh, the Geneva Accords divided the nation in half, and said there would elections subsequently, to reunite the nation. Those elections didn't happen, because the U.S. put in place a unelected puppet in the South, a despot as bad as Saddam. His name was Diem, and he was a murderous thug. He had a lot of very weird relations, who were also murderous thugs, and he put them all in positions of power. They Disappeared thousands of their political opponents, while in power. Not just Communists, but anybody who criticized them, like the Buddhist monks. It was generally acknowledged, by observers across the political spectrum, even by U.S. government officials, that, if a free and fair election had been held, Ho Chi Minh would have won, and been President of a reunited Vietnam in 1956. But that result was unacceptable to the Cold Warriors, so the will of the Vietnamese people was ignored.
This is the essential hypocrisy. We say we are the champions of the Free World, we say we believe in elections and sovereignty, yet we insist on things coming out our way, having the "right" people win those elections. Everywhere the "wrong" people win elections (again, I can come up with many, many examples), we subvert the result, by force. |
