>Do you think Americans just
> woke up one fine day and thought
>" You know what I'd really like,
>I'd like to rule the poorest country
>in the world, Afghanistan"?
No. Nor do I think a group of twenty fanatics decided to get on board some
airliners, hijack them, and ram the WTC and the Pentagon because we are "a
shining beacon of freedom" as Bush said.
To take one past example, the US helped replace the popularly supported
Prime Minister of Iran, installed and propped up a dictator, the Shah, who
ruled Iran with an iron fist for 25 years. When he was finally overthrown,
the Iranians stormed the US embassy and took hostages. They hated the US for
what we had done to them. Not because we are a shining beacon of freedom.
They didn't take hostages or storm the embassys of other countries. Why?
>It's not complicated,
>no need to look for hidden motives,
The motives arn't hidden, just unmentioned in most of the hysterical media
commentary. IMHO America should practice free trade with all, and entangling
alliances with none. We should get out of the business of creating and
propping up monarchies, micomanaging world affairs with military
interventions and embargoes. If an oil company wants to business with a
sultan and later finds their investments threatened with nationalization or
seizure, that is the price of doing business with such people, and that
price should be reflected in the cost of that oil, so we can all make
rational choices.
Pat Fallon
pfallon@ptd.net
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b30 : Sat May 11 2002 - 17:44:13 MDT