[lit-ideas] Re: Turning the tables...
- From: "Lawrence Helm" <lawrencehelm@xxxxxxxxxxxx>
- To: <lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Sat, 4 Feb 2006 08:14:58 -0800
Well, yes of course Bush sounds good because he is an ordinary human made up
of the same things we all are. He is a pretty good person. I don't trust
the evidence of the conspiracy theorists who claim to be able to read his
mind and know what he really thinks. I don't believe in conspiracy theories
that create monsters out of individuals or classes of people. Bush is
fairly sentimental about the weak, injured, and helpless. He isn't nearly
as conservative as the far right would like.
Your facts are not correct in regard to Saddam Hussein. I read what our
people thought at the time. They called him a thug. The only reason they
supported him was because they figured Khomeini was a worse thug. By "our
people" I mean the people in Washington. Out in the field many of our
diplomats were "Arabists," meaning they had fallen in love with the people
they were stationed with. That was true of our Iraqi ambassador, April
Glaspie, as well. She really did like Saddam and tired to help him but
ultimately did him more harm than good.
And no Iraq under Saddam was not a counterweight to Islamism. Saddam
supported the Islamists. He paid the families of every successful suicide
bomber -- $25,000 if memory serves me. Since Saddam is no longer in the
terrorist-sponser business, Iran has taken that particular service over.
Iran rewards such families $50,000 for each successful suicide bomber.
By benign dictators, the advisors had some existing ones in mind. I believe
Morocco or Tunisia and one of the Gulf States served as a model. They
thought that Afghanistan and Iraq should be patterned after those
governments. Bush disagreed and chose democracy instead.
As to your suggestion that we have been controlling the various Middle
Eastern nations and doing all sorts of rapacious acts, that isn't true. We
made deals with dictators during the Cold War, but after it was over, we
reverted to type and left the Middle East. We took a peace dividend and
emasculated the CIA. We didn't even do too much when terrorists killed our
ambassadors and businessmen. The Muslim children have learned to hate us
because they were taught to do so. That was a function of the madrassas.
They are also taught a variety of conspiracy theories which they believe as
well.
As to controlling profits of benign dictators, that simply isn't true.
These nations are independent of us. We don't have all that much to do with
Tunisia and Morocco. We do in some of the gulf states but we don't control
the situation. When the Saudis insisted on certain behavior we complied.
When they wanted us out we went. When they decided they weren't going to
help us find Al Quaeda members we gritted our teeth and backed away. Our
control over Saudi Arabia is in terms of "we can protect you if you want our
protection." It is in our interest to keep the oil flowing and in their
interest to be protected from their local enemies like Iraq and Iran.
Social Scientists and anthropologists tell us that the people over there are
not just like us. They have different presuppositions, different
traditions. Their religion includes the Jihad. It is good for them to kill
enemies and infidels under certain circumstances and thanks to Khomeini and
Qutb those circumstances have been enlarged and increased.
As to the mission to make the world safe from democracy, yes I think a lot
of people would like to do that. This concept was created by the democratic
president Wilson and he attempted to apply such principles in the aftermath
of World War One. The people back home however leaned more toward
isolationism and defeated his attempts to get us into the League of Nations.
Later day Wilsonians are called Neocons and they would like to see us do
everything possible to foster Liberal-Democracy throughout the world. As it
turns out there aren't many Neocons. The reason we went into Afghanistan
and Iraq wasn't to spread democracy but to combat an enemy who had declared
war against us. But since we had to change their regimes, democracy was
chosen as the ideal replacement.
As to Bush being inherently Wilsonian, that isn't true. He opposed
Clinton's Nation Building (democracy spreading) efforts during his regime.
One of Bush's platform planks was that he would not engage in nation
building. However, events overcame him.
Lawrence
-----Original Message-----
From: lit-ideas-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx [mailto:lit-ideas-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx]
On Behalf Of Ursula Stange
Sent: Saturday, February 04, 2006 6:10 AM
To: lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: [lit-ideas] Turning the tables...
Lawrence Helm wrote:
>Perhaps Bush would have followed the advice of those who thought a benign
>dictatorship most appropriate for the region if not for the Neocon idea of
>exporting democracy...
>
You sure know how to make Bush sound good, Lawrence. A benign
dictator...yeah right. As though Bush or anyone around him really cared
for the freedom of the Iraqi people. The US government was perfectly
happy with Saddam Hussein when he was their bad guy. They didn't mind
his internal repression. They didn't mind his wars -- even helped him
-- even encouraged him. But when he didn't want to play at being their
bad guy any longer and struck out on bad guyness of his own, they
planned to take him out. They assured him that he had the right --
maybe even their blessing -- to invade Kuwait (for their stealing of
Iraqi oil, he said).
Iraq had for decades been a secular counterweight against the Islamic
fundamentalism in the Middle East. It was the most western, the most
modern Arab society in the Middle East. Now it will surely fall into
the other camp with a vengeance. For ordinary Iraqis, things will get
much worse before anything gets any better And my world will be less
safe because of it.
And as for benign dictators, the US would only approve if they kept the
upper hand and controlled the profits (and how benign could that be?).
And people being the same the world over, opposition would grow, and
benignity would have to end.
Imagine for a minute that your worst fears had come true some fifty
years ago. We, for almost all our lives and our children for all
theirs, have lived under an Islamic dictatorship, controlled from
overseas, which steals our national wealth, which looks down on us,
which persecutes us, which kills us when we don't cooperate, which
installs brutal dictators over us who also rule only for their own greed
and survival. Wouldn't you join our version of Hezbollah and if not,
at least secretly enjoy its successes against the infidel? Wouldn't
the fundamentalists (religious and American) use every opportunity to
recruit young people to rally round the flag and the cross in secret
organizations? And when those young people were found out or betrayed
and whole towns of women and children made to pay with their lives for
hiding them (whether they did or not), wouldn't you begin to support
(maybe even seek) the death and destruction of any and all Islamic
fundamentalists, even when they are not personally guilty? And when
that happens, picture them standing tall on their stolen wealth and
asking "Why do they hate us so."
Picture, also, Canada having seen this going on for generations and
fearing for its own safety. Wouldn't Canada be smart to develop a
nuclear capability to ward off such a future for ourselves -- maybe even
to push the infidel back out of North America entirely?
Those are people over there just like us over here. When they're
shoved, they shove back. When they're scared (as they should be after
the display of shock and awe next door), they swagger and shout to hide
it. How do you think Iranian citizens feel when they see the hell Iraq
is in and hear Bush talk about how they must be next. They support
their government, of course, when it tells them the only way to be safe
is to be armed, even if it bankrupts their national treasury. Look what
US citizens are willing to put up with just because they're scared. If
we send a bully with a big dog to their neighbourhood, they will push
their biggest bully with their biggest dog out to meet him. And why not?
And I haven't even mentioned the immorality of assuming that you have a
right to keep this from "possibly" happening to you by making it
"certainly" happen to someone else.
I can't believe that you really think the US is on some mission to make
the world safe for democracy. Their only mission is to make the world
safe for themselves. Unfortunately, they're so stupid and so morally
bankrupt and so unimaginative, they think the way to do that is to be
the biggest bully on the block. And all of us will suffer for it.
They're taking us back to the days before the UN when everybody had
secret treaties with everybody else and when someone stepped on someone
else's toes, whole regions of the world screamed in pain and fell into
war before anyone could stop it. It all makes the late forties and
early fifties look positively hopeful.
Ursula
dismayed in North Bay
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