orb@whuxl.UUCP (SEVENER) (03/19/86)
Some lame excuses from Bill Tanenbaum for our government's past history of supporting dictatorships, invasions and overthrows of democratic governments: > Unfortunately, if the (relatively) bad guys interfere in the internal > affairs of other countries, and the (relatively) good guys do not, the > (relatively) bad guys will end up calling the shots. This is the unfortunate > reality of the world we live in. The problem is always one of choosing > the lesser evil. Complete non-interventionism is the road to disaster. > The world would be a far better place if the Western Powers had intervened > in Germany in 1933 or 1936, or even 1938. The problem is to pick the > right interventions and avoid the wrong ones. It's a very difficult > problem indeed. We can do without your simplicities, just as we can > do without the simplicities of the Right. > -- > Bill Tanenbaum - AT&T Bell Labs - Naperville IL ihnp4!ihlpg!tan I'm afraid the history of interventions by the US government hardly supports your statement, Bill. The US helped install Anastasio Somoza in power years ago. What was the result? Decades of murders, tortures, censorship and the takeover of Nicaraguan lands to the point the Somoza family owned 30% of all the land in Nicaragua. Was helping this "bad guy" good? Please explain to me how. Or take the CIA and International Monetary Fund's assistance in overthrowing and assassinating Salvador Allende, the *democratically* elected President of Chile. In the first place, I would like to know how overthrowing a democratically elected government is "helping the good guys"? Chile was the only country in South America to have an uninterrupted tradition of democracy for decades. Since the US government helped install Augusto Pinochet as military dictator, democracy there has been eliminated. Thousands of Chilean citizens have turned up "missing" under Pinochet's regime while Human Rights organizations also point to repeated instances of torture and imprisonment for political dissidents. This is an "improvement" over an unbroken tradition of democracy spanning decades? Please explain to me how. This is not to say that *all* US intervention has been bad. The US helped foster a democratic tradition in the Philipines which came to fruition despite Reagan's support for Marcos in the victory of Cory Aquino. The US also helped foster democracy in Japan and helped pick Europe off its feet with the Marshall Plan. But unfortunately when the US has supported dictatorships or overthrown democracies dictatorships and oppression has been precisely the result of those policies. The US mistakenly supported the French in trying to regain Indochina as a French colony- the results? Decades of war and a Communist dictatorship. If Reagan truly supports *democracy* in Nicaragua then he should have put pressure on Arturo Cruz to *RUN* in the 1984 elections in Nicaragua instead of snubbing his nose at the democratic process. There *IS* another choice besides left or rightwing dictatorships and terrorism- namely democracy. THAT should be our public policy. tim sevener whuxn!orb