Since I did not say it was the best policy, there is nothing to disagree with. I just got finished saying that I was agnostic on engagement in Vietnam.
It would be nice to identify some points of agreement.
Your assertion that our foreign policy has always preferred control over benevolence is wrong. We rescued Europe with the Marshall Plan; promoted democracy; and supported the electoral rights of democratic socialist parties. We rebuilt Japan; promoted land reform; and helped establish democracy. We gave billions in foreign aid to Third World countries, and established multilateral institutions like the World Bank primarily with American capital to support development. As I said, we embraced Castro when he presented himself as an agrarian reformer, and only became hostile when he announced his allegiance to Moscow. Similarly, we first aided the Sandanistas when they came to power. We supported the Social Democrats in El Salvador, and promoted land reform. We may not have been perfect, but in the aftermath of WWII, we had an awful lot on our plate.
I do not remember the context of the Kissinger quote, but he might just as well have been talking about detente. We limited our confrontation with the Soviet Union in order to avoid a major war. Do you think that was a prudent policy?
Without the concept of the "lesser evil", one cannot justify any sort of war. Clearly, war is "an evil", even if it justified. We choose it because we are facing a worse alternative. Once you accept that, it is no problem to accept that, in exigent circumstances, a thug may be preferable to a revolutionary, or to chaos.
As for Washington, I think that people are pretty decent, and do the job they are hired to do, by and large. |
