To: Jacob Snyder who wrote (100698 ) 6/11/2003 3:19:19 AM From: D. Long Read Replies (1) | Respond to 1. When our army has gone into third world nations, post-Cold-War, we are 0-for-2, so far, on making democracy: Afghanistan and Kuwait. Since we have indefinitely put off elections, and the withdrawal of our army, from Iraq, it's increasingly clear we are going to be 0-for-3. 2. When looking at the methods and ideology used post-Cold-War, all that's happened is, the CIA manuals have had the word "communist" replaced with "islamist". Nothing else has changed. The rhetoric used to demonize Islamists is identical, word for word, to that used to demonize Communists. And I see us doing the same kind of "lesser-evil" compromises we did in the Cold War: arming Afghan warlords, making nice with the Mujahedeen Khalq. similar because the threat is similar - an internationalist, revisionist totalitarian ideology existentially opposed to the United States. A primary threat. Dealing with dirty men to get to your enemies is a far cry from your whole "creating tyranny wherever we go" thesis.3. When looking at the methods and ideology used pre-Cold War, in the period 1898-1945, again, there are astonishing parallels to current events. When I looked at Mark Twain's criticism of our colonial conquest of the Phillipines, and the Administration's rhetoric justifying it ("bringing christianity and civilization to the savages, liberating the oppressed from Spanish tyranny"), it sounds amazingly like the discussion of the current war. Mark Twain's criticisms of the war 105 years ago, can be used, unchanged even in the details, to criticize this war.
