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Politics : Foreign Affairs Discussion Group -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Dayuhan who wrote (107053)	7/22/2003 12:45:57 AM
From: Jacob Snyder	Respond to of 281500

<...the only force that had the discipline and mass appeal to stand against the French (in Vietnam) was the Communist party.> And, today, the only force that has the discipline and mass appeal to stand against the Americans in Iraq, and 30 other nations, are the Islamists. I look, in vain, for any other force, any other ideology, that can assume the mantle of nationalism that the socialists let fall. There is none. The secular dictators, like Nasser and Assad and Hussain, they have failed. They brought poverty, and the humiliation of military defeats. With nationalism and Islam welded together, they are unstoppable. The only way to defeat the Islamists, is to separate them from the nationalists. Our present policy achieves the exact opposite. By occupying Iraq, and by backing Sharon 100%, we prove Bin Laden right. "See, it is a Crusade. They want to steal our oil, bring in missionaries, have their soldiers break down the doors of our houses at midnight and paw at our women."

To: Dayuhan who wrote (107053)	7/22/2003 8:12:52 AM
From: Brumar89	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 281500

If the US had refused to allow the British to bring French forces into Vietnam in 1945,... So it was our job to stop the British from helping the French get back into Indochina. What should we have done to stop them? The Vietnamese had to go through a Communist phase to free themselves, largely because we refused to help them. Vietnamese Communism is America's fault. Just like everything else bad in the world.

To: Dayuhan who wrote (107053)	7/22/2003 10:27:49 PM
From: Hawkmoon	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 281500

The US refused to support freedom in the developing world, in the form of resistance to colonialism, and stuck with the European colonists instead. I utterly disagree. The US, while not sporting a 100% record in opposing European colonization, was one of the primary forces for advancing it in the post-WWII period. Look at the stance the US took against France-UK during the Suez crisis of 1956. Eisenhower's pressure was decisive in forcing them to pack up and leave the area. And face it, after the costs and destruction of WWII, few European nations were in a position to maintain their control over their former colonies in the face of Marxist insurgencies. But what also proved to be the case was that in the face of this vacuum of political power, the US often subordinated the concept of pursuing nation building and democracy in these former colonies, to the fighting the cold war in a series of proxy wars. And obviously, we required stability at almost any cost to fight that battle, or so the perception was. Defeat Communism first, then push democratic reforms in these colonies. Well... Communism has been defeated as a major political/economic ideology and now we're paying the price for delaying these needed democratic reforms.. But I'm still a believer that globalization is going to be the ultimate force for democracy. People can only accept their government's excuses for so long as to why they can have what the rest of the world has. And there are going to be quite a few "special interest" who will prefer imposing their ideas of a perfect society upon those who have something else in mind. The Internet is probably the greatest weapon available towards defeating totalitarianism and forcing political accountability to the citizens of a nation. Hawk