From: MaxPlumm@aol.com
Date: Tue Feb 18 2003 - 14:34:51 MST
Mez wrote:
"What I complain about is when the US goes into a country and props up
a dictator. Or even worse, when the US overthrows a democratically
elected government to install a dictator. Sadly, both of these are
standard events for the US. Consider the following examples:"
"- In 1953 the US helped the Shah of Iran mount a coup against Mohammed
Mossadegh, the democratically elected prime minister. For the next 27
years we supported the Shah, a corrupt dictator who stole from and
oppressed his own people, because he allowed us to use Iran as a base
for force projection close to the Soviet border. The rise of
fundamentalist Islam in Iran can be directly traced to our support of
a regime that repressed the people and left fundamentalist Islamic
groups as the few willing and able to resist the dictator we'd
installed."
I can just as easily say that the US should be blamed more for NOT
maintaining the Shah's Peacock Throne in 1979. Especially when one considers
that the abdication of the Shah led to the ceasing of Iran "as a base for
force projection close to the Soviet border". With no more US presence in
Iran, this gave the Soviets a free hand in the region and allowed them to
proceed with their invasion of Afghanistan in December 1979. This led to the
US and Chinese needing to support the Mujahadeen to expel the Soviets, which
in turn led to the rise of Osama Bin Laden and his cronies. So, to use your
logic, the rise of the terrorism that now threatens US and international
security can be directly traced to our lack of support of a regime that
opposed fundamentalist Islamic groups.
Not every decision made by the United States during the Cold War was
laudable, but effort does need to be made to examine each decision in the
international context of the time. Syngman Rhee of South Korea, Nguyen Van
Thieu of South Vietnam, and a host of other regimes we kept afloat during the
Cold War (or attempted to) were by no means ideal ones, they were just a
hundred times better than their Communist (in most cases) alternatives.
If you are going to lambaste the US for just 'imposing its will' abroad
during the Cold War, then it is only fair and appropriate that you outline
the record of its adversaries, the Soviet Union and its proxies, the
countries who dictated most of the US counter-actions. I mean, are you
suggesting that the Sandanistas in Nicaragua were the poster child for
positive regimes in the world? Did they not "rape, pillage, etc.., etc…" on
grand scales? Where is your criticism (and the necessary perspective that
would provide in regard to US actions, good and bad) of these contemporary
regimes?
Getting back to the specific example I chose, it is my feeling that the
Carter administration's handling of the Iranian Revolution was particularly
disastrous. Especially when it went counter to that of several preceding
administrations that had hoped to establish a pro-western bulwark in that
region (something we could very much use now) all in the name of a "Human
Rights first" doctrine. A doctrine based on the concept of getting past our,
in President Carter's words, "inordinate fear of communism". All this
doctrine did do, in fact, was embolden the Soviet Union, do nothing to stop
nightmares in Ethiopia and Cambodia, and place an even worse regime in power
in Iran.
Our foreign policy of that era was not based on 'spreading freedom and
democracy', it was based on the containment of expansionist Communism which
was in our direct national interest (along with the rest of the free world).
Freedom and democracy took hold in a number of our proxy states, something
that cannot be said for our adversaries in the conflict. The US track record
when they remove regimes and rebuild nations is in my view a very good one.
Especially when one examines West Germany, Italy, South Korea, Japan, etc…
Afghanistan is certainly better off under the Karzai regime than Mullah
Omar's, and so too will Iraq be better off without Saddam Hussein. Past
policy decisions cannot be used to remove the possibility of a particular
action today. World dynamics are perpetually changing. We aligned ourselves
with the Soviet Union against the Nazis because it was in our national
interest to do so, just as subsequently aiding the Mujahadeen in opposing the
expansionist Soviet Union was in our national interest. We had absolutely no
moral or political connection with either of these entities, but the
overriding realpolitik of the day required alliances.
If our actions in Iraq are based on "selfish" issues of national interest
rather than the "spreading of freedom and democracy" and the end result is
still a better quality of life for the Iraqi people, I don't see what the
problem is. Altruism didn't motivate our actions in World War II or the Cold
War and its many proxies, yet millions nonetheless benefited.
Regards,
Max Plumm
"At every turn, we have been beset by those who find everything wrong with
America and little that is right."
-Richard Nixon
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