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Politics : Sharks in the Septic Tank -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Neocon who wrote (26807)	9/13/2001 11:18:37 AM
From: X Y Zebra	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 82486

we are not prepared to garrison all of the states where forcing westernization would produce social and political turmoil, and therefore we encourage, but do not insist upon, democratization. Agreed, we should not. However, if these governments are not willing to allow freedom in their countries we should not provide any type of aid or trade that could possibly end up benefiting the ones in power. The world has changed. The protocols of security, immigration, aid, trade, etc. etc. etc. should change. For no other reason than we have seen how vulnerable we are. we are the largest economy, and are highly dependent upon foreign trade, including oil. We cannot afford to right off all regimes we disapprove us. There is plenty of oil in the world for our needs to be satisfied before we need to compromise our way of life by dealing with tyrannical powers based on the premise that we 'need' their oil. This is a time to renew efforts to learn how to use our resources better. The lessons of the 70's should not be forgotten. Trade should expand amongst friends, not maniacs. We should not even try "to right the world" as we sometimes do. We are NOT the world police. we are the only power that can organize for comparative stability, and therefore keep the international system relatively open and relatively peaceable. Are we ? That is an illusion that we try to believe, yet we really have not achieved. Since the demise of the USSR, in spite of having the opportunity to assist in creating a better world, the world has, in fact gotten worse as we just witnessed. "Relatively open and relatively peaceable" perhaps in the USA (until now), but conflicts have been continuos since the collapse of the USSR. Presumably we were all going to be the beneficiaries of a phantom peace dividend. Thus, we may sometimes feel the need to support, through economic or military aid, powers that are problematic. Another pipe dream... We may "feel" whatever we want, however. the record speaks for itself. Your term "problematic" does not reflect what the reality is. Tyranical, corrupt, oppressive, murderous is closer to this reality, in reference to such powers. For example, we tried to balance Iranian aspirations through cooperation with Iraq, until Iraq became too hot to deal with. It is not a science, after all. Exactly, we may try all we want but as we know, it has exploded in our face. Examples: Castro, Somoza, Saddam, even Bin Laden and many others, less famous. Part of the problem is "we the people" are kept uninformed, or worse, we are ignorant because we have no interest. So all the fkup's are come and gone and at best, sometimes we hear something due to some scandal that somehow got out of hand. Even then... it all fades away and the next act begins. I do not defend all decisions, I merely say that it is hard to be in the hot seat...... Then, given the past record and now the recent developments it is clear we should not have been doing the job of world cop. The only possible way I see that this country can assist to improve the world and minimizing the risk of retaliation is via trade, imo. This does not mean we eliminate it, but I believe the risk is reduced. Any assistance in the military level will put us at risk. If we are prepared to take it, and maybe we should, then fine, let's do it in a fashion that we protect our borders. Otherwise we are playing with fire and fire can burn.

To: Neocon who wrote (26807)	9/13/2001 11:35:01 AM
From: X Y Zebra	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 82486

One more thing... I believe that in many instances the USA means well when aid or support is given to other countries. However many of those actions are misunderstood or mismanaged. How many times the US has been generous in giving assistance to a country where the ones in power, who are corrupt and tyrannical, receive the benefit of such aid, and in fact they use it to continue to oppress their own people. Somoza in Nicaragua for one, received a lot of help and assistance to fight communism, yet he was a murderous son of a bitch that made the situation worse it empower the guerrillas by uniting the people and fight his government, which had become a killing machine. How many Somozas is it going to take to understand that an unsupervised and no strings attach assistance to a government that has become the private death-force of a corrupt individual, is in the end contra productive and it will work against us. Are we certain that those in power in the middle east and other places in Asia that we have supported in the past have become like Somoza... or worse? Unfortunately, we are feeding even training our own enemy. I cannot possibly feel any compassion for these tyrants, nor for those who blindly support them. And as of the recent event, believe me compassion is NOT on my list of feelings for these bastards.