baba@flairvax.UUCP (Baba ROM DOS) (10/26/84)
(sigh) By all reports, the Philippines are going to explode. Once again, an American client regime has so alienated the population that a revolution seems inevitable. Since Marcos calls his opponents communists (and some of them are), and because the US needs its military bases in the Philippines, the US government and particularly the Reagan administration have provided unswerving and largely unquestioning support for his regime. Now it may be too late to break the association of the US with Marcos in the minds of Filipinos. You would think that after Iran and Nicaragua we would have learned something. When a superpower installs and/or backs a strongman in a client state, the client leadership is artificially secure and can easily become insensitive to popular sentiment and the public good. It is both practically and morally necessary to make our full support contingent on responsible leadership. Baba
gabor@qantel.UUCP (Gabor Fencsik@ex2642) (10/30/84)
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Philippines exploding? Revolution inevitable? Maybe yes and maybe no.
Along with Iran and Nicaragua, there is another pattern of events just as
spectacular. Greece, Portugal, Spain and Argentina were run by repressive
military regimes enjoying U.S. support. They are now democracies enjoying
U.S. support. These changes happened in just one decade with almost zero
violence. Brazil is moving in the same direction.
Aside from the Helms-Buckley-Kirkpatrick wing, I don't think the U.S has
shown a marked preference for repressive regimes as such. The foreign
policy establishment has a genuine aversion to risk and upheaval. It will
therefore support the status quo, whatever it is, even if a change is clearly
in our national interest. A good illustration: even the collapse of OPEC
is not, apparently, considered desirable in some foreign policy circles.
It would be 'destabilizing', you see.
baba@flairvax.UUCP (Baba ROM DOS) (11/03/84)
>Along with Iran and Nicaragua, there is another pattern of events just as >spectacular. Greece, Portugal, Spain and Argentina were run by repressive >military regimes enjoying U.S. support. They are now democracies enjoying >U.S. support. These changes happened in just one decade with almost zero >violence. Brazil is moving in the same direction. True, but the relationships of Greece and Argentina with the US are still strained by popular (and populist) resentment of the role of the US in supporting their former juntas. >Aside from the Helms-Buckley-Kirkpatrick wing, I don't think the U.S has >shown a marked preference for repressive regimes as such. The foreign >policy establishment has a genuine aversion to risk and upheaval. It will >therefore support the status quo, whatever it is, even if a change is clearly >in our national interest. The Palavi and Somoza "dynasties" were installed by acts of the US government that changed the status quo in Persia and Nicaragua in a way that suited US interests at the time. Marcos may have come to power in the Philippines on his own, but his subversion of the fledgling democratic institutions there constituted a change from the status quo, and was at least tacitly supported by the US government. World power politics is a tough game, and the US cannot always afford to take the high road. When we do find it necessary to meddle in the internal affairs of other countries, though, we had best learn to take some responsibility for what happens down the line. Baba