Hi E; Re: "Dude, what took you so long?!"
Why should I bother to comment on an issue that I don't think is important? You guys are using it to beat each other up over partisan political issues. I don't agree with either version, I just got tired of hearing the facts so badly misrepresented.
On the one hand, the neocons, like the government in Brave New World, want to assure the public that "we have always been at war with EastAsia", LOL. So they deny the fact that during the 1980s, Saddam's Iraq was an ally of the US. This despite the photograph of whoever shaking the guy's hand. It's like they want to prove that the US is a pristine nation, one whose cause is just, simple and unfaltering (except when the Democrats are in power, LOL).
On the other hand, the liberals want to blame all the world's difficulties on the Republicans. But what will future historians have to say about Roosevelt's policies during WW2? The guy pursued a policy of extermination against unarmed German and Japanese civilians, culminating in developing the technology of man-made fire storms and nuking two cities in Japan. Kennedy and Johnson ramped up a useless and bloody war in Vietnam. Clinton bombed the bejesus out of parts of Yugoslavia and stuck US forces into several places in the world where they did not belong, particularly Somalia and Haiti. Carter was fairly innocent, but he was only in for one term and didn't really have a chance to stretch his legs.
From my point of view, Saddam was the natural ally of the US against Islamic fundamentalism in Iran. So of course we assisted him in his bloody war. When the Iranians began fomenting rebellion in the Kurdish regions, we were happy to see Iraq take control of them again, though we were not necessarily happy to see the use of poison gasses against those rebels (and the Iranians).
I don't see the US as some virgin pure country, or as evil incarnate. From my point of view, we're just another country, one with people more similar to people in other countries than different (though of course, being human, we are inordinately capable of finding distinguishing differences between humans).
The moral contradictions in our foreign policy are moral contradictions that are shared literally by every single country on this planet, not only every single country now, but by every single country that has ever existed over the thousands of years of the history of this planet. This is a blood-soaked planet, get used to it.
And even countries that avoid war get soiled by assisting causes that are now generally agreed to be evil. For example, Sweden, for example, traded with the Nazis and provided them important ores. And at the same time, Switzerland reprocessed the gold pried out of the mouths of concentration camp victims, and sold weapons to Germany.
-- Carl |
