Re: Evaluation of U.S. Role in World Affairs (was RE: META:Greg Burch's request)

From: Damien Sullivan (phoenix@ugcs.caltech.edu)
Date: Thu Apr 03 2003 - 13:16:49 MST

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    On Thu, Apr 03, 2003 at 05:30:08AM -0500, MaxPlumm@aol.com wrote:

    > As I illustrated in my last post to you, it is highly dubious to suggest that
    > Greece would've been capable of "wandering between democracy and
    > authoritarianism" had the United States allowed the Soviet proxies in that
    > country to emerge victorious in their civil war.

    We interfered in 1947-1949, you said. What did we do when the army took over
    from the democracy in the 1960s?

    > "Costa Rica has been democratic for a long long time."The rest of Latin
    > America was having trouble with democracy since long before Communism; it's
    > not clear what the latter had to do with anything."

    > "Oh, India's another counterexample. Definitely still developing, but
    > democratic since independence, and leading the Nonaligned Bloc."
    > Or Iran, which after 1979 was neither pro-US authoritarian nor pro-Soviet

    > How do these examples invalidate the Cold War? Neither the USSR, nor the

    I wasn't trying to invalidate the Cold War. I was trying to invalidate the
    claim that democracy wasn't an option in the developing world, that we could
    only choose between pro-US authoritarianism and Soviet totalitarianism. Yet
    there were in fact democracies in the developing world.

    -xx- Damien X-)



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