You said: 'Everyone looks for allies, therefore one can usually point to some hypothetical "foreign support".'
I don't think I fully agree with you here. The more accurate way of saying this is: Everyone looks for allies and often finds them in some foreign power with interests that are not being served. For example, Germans supported the Russian revolution and the Russians supported the Chinese, and lest we forget, US supported the Taliban. This being the case, it is only natural to hold the foreign power responsible for the actions of their partners. Consider this as the political equivalent of being accessory to murder (both before and after the fact).
Now you could argue that the bulk of the responsibility lies with the murderer and not his facilitators. I tend to agree with this, sometimes. For example, you could argue that it was an unforeseen event that selling chemicals to Saddam would not have been used for pesticide, and would have been used for gassing the civilians. All these go towards the extent of responsibility but do not absolve all the guilt.
As it turns out you did not choose very good examples, which I suspect is because there are not that many of them to make. Burma and North Korea get plenty of support from China. The thugs in Africa would not have been able to maintain power without the West selling them the guns (or is it your position that guns don't kill people, people do it so it is ok for us to sell those brutal regimes all the guns they want?).
As for China and Soviet Union, they're size makes them the exception rather than the rule. What I mean here is that yes during their formative years they could not have survived without foreign support. BUT, their size meant that after a while they could maintain some measure of self-sustenance which is why they could break away from their foreign patrons. Even then, almost immediately after Stalin and Mao, the oppression started to diminish, albeit at a slow rate.
The whole point here is that nations, like people, can make mistakes. But in the absence of external interference to exacerbate those mistakes they will find their way and correct the process. |
