Re: Machiavelli (Was: Iraq)

From: Dehede011@aol.com
Date: Mon Jan 27 2003 - 17:50:26 MST


In a message dated 1/27/2003 5:22:08 PM Central Standard Time,
kmb@kai-m-becker.de writes: Even in the 80s, everone knew that Taliban and
Mujaheddin were religious fundamentalists who would never follow western
values, but could easily convert into the same West-hating breed that ruled
Iran at that time. And US intelligence knew pretty well that Saddam has
always been a ruthless dictator. I just want to point out that supporting
groups with a high probability of becoming future enemies is not a wise
strategy. An even more unwise strategy is to support bad guy A against bad
guy B, then fear A getting to strong and support bad guy C against A. That's
a straight line to the Goedel number of foreign policy.

Kia,
       That sounds great. Unfortunately it ignores what we were doing. Put
simply we were helping them against the Soviet Union or against another enemy
that was even worse than these folks turned out to be.
       The Al Qaeda killed about 3000 people here but we helped them against
the Soviet Union. The Soviet Union has in the past been a far worse group
than the Al Qaeda has ever managed to be.
       Sadaam we helped against the Iranians. The Iranians had simply
captured the contents of our embassy contrary to every international law.
       I think you grab evidence that you can twist to your conclusions
without ever considering that evidence in its entirety.
Ron h.



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