posted
Okay, I hear the accusation a LOT that the United States is hypocritical to support a tyrannical nation when we share a common foe, only to turn against them when they appear to become a danger to us. Iraq, Afghanistan, and others are all cited as examples.
I didn't want to derail another thread, but I have to ask. IS this actually hypocritical? Putting aside specific cases for a moment, is there something morally wrong with giving military support to a government we know to be evil, if in doing so, we believe that we are putting a halt to a greater evil? And once we have thrown our lot in with this unsavory ally, are we then honor-bound never to oppose them again? Does military support equal tacit endorsement of a corrupt regime?
Posts: 2048 | Registered: Jul 2000
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posted
Did anyone ever see that movie about Steve Prefontaine Without Limits? The thing that stuck with me about that was when his coach was trying to convince him to pace himself However, Steve said if he didn't run a race as hard as he could it felt like cheating.
Off topic, I suppose, but it's what I thought about when I read this.
Would you hire a child molester as a cop to hunt down murders? What about emptying our prisons to fight wars?
I can see how "my enemy's enemy is my friend" works in theory, but has it really ever worked in practice? (Long term, that is.)
posted
Perhaps it's OK in a Machivellian sort of way, but I have found that political activity follows its own rules and can rarely be parallelled with any sort of moral system.
Posts: 8504 | Registered: Aug 1999
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Braveheart is a good example of how you can get screwed with that philosophy. In fact Saddam and the taliban were brought to power under that policy. And it has created havoc in Central America.
Posts: 9871 | Registered: Aug 2001
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posted
No, Geoff, it's not hypocritical. It's just overwhelmingly stupid and short sighted, in my opinion.
It's sort of like putting down hot coals so you can pick up a block of frozen nitrogen. While it may temporarily ease the pain of the burn, it will do other far less pleasant things to you.
So, if you like this endless cycle of violence, have a blast.
I would prefer for my children to live in more peaceful times than I.
Of course, I'm not trying to get re-elected, nor do I have mad propaganda at my disposal. Sooo keep ignoring me. Posts: 755 | Registered: May 2001
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It's a foolish thing to do, because it's not looking at the long term repercussions. THIS is why a lot of countries hate the United States. It's not because of jealousy, it's policies like this. It needs to change... Something different has to be done.
Posts: 9942 | Registered: Mar 2003
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posted
Are we talking, "the enemy of our enemy is our friend" here?
As I see it, there are times when our government makes the mistake of thinking that the enemy of our enemy is our real friend. That seems to me to be what happened with Saddam and Iraq. When we were all mad at Iran and Saddam was going to war with them, we supported him by giving him some things (technological and biological) that he probably should never have gotten. I don't think that the powers that be in the adminstration in question stopped to think that there might come a time when Saddam would not be our friend in any sense of the word and might very well be in a position to use the things that they gave him against us. Stupid move, in my opinion.
Two rules: you never say anything about anyone that you don't want to get back to them; and you never give anyone anything they can use against you if they get mad at you. These rules, which are kind of the same in some ways, should apply equally to life and politics.
Posts: 2454 | Registered: Jan 2003
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Two rules: Never sit bare-assed on a cactus, and never go jogging in silk boxers. I guess these rules are the same in some ways. But they should apply equally nowehere else in life. Posts: 2532 | Registered: Jul 2001
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You never give anyone anything they can use against you if they get mad at you.--littlemissattitude, Good advice. We blew it by giving Osama and other mujahadeen in Afghanistan too many Stingers and other SAM systems for use against the Red Army. Now, years after the earlier war in Aghanistan is over, Stingers are floating around via black markets. Anyone with enough cash can get one. Personally, I'm surprised an airliner hasn't been shot down already on US soil. And countermeasures for our airline fleet are estimated to cost $10 Billion+.
I'll post something on-topic about US hypocrisy later.
Posts: 6316 | Registered: Jun 2003
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First...forgive me, but...has the U.S.A. supported tyrants to help us - the rest of the world - ?
Because, you must realize, we can not be sure what means "a greater evil" to the U.S.A.
Or...maybe the U.S.A. had some kind of "personal" interest in the situation...a personal-greater-evil of some kind...you name it, economical, strategical, economically strategical...
We - the rest of the world - can't always distinguish wich one is wich one...so maybe that's the reason why you hear a LOT of these accusations.
Anyways, to fight evil using a lesser evil, tends to make you indistinguishable from both of them...
And YES, military support equals endorsement of a corrupt regime...or equals hypocrisy. You choose.
Posts: 9 | Registered: Aug 2003
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How good is anyone, individually or nation-wise, at predicting the long-term consequences of any given action?
Perhaps it is stupid to think that current allies will always be so, but it might be forgivable to think that aiding someone now might give you influence over them at a later date.
IMO, the biggest problem with short-sightedness that the U.S. has is in constantly underestimating the inhumanity of human beings in general. Assuming people in general will act for the good of all seems a bad bet. Is it wrong to assume that other nations will act in their own interests, possibly to the detriment of global interests? I don't think so.
Posts: 471 | Registered: Jul 2002
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"How good is anyone, individually or nation-wise, at predicting the long-term consequences of any given action?"
Some people are very good at it, actually. There are historical patterns which are studied to make national policy. Wolfowitz and company, I believe, have a very good idea about where their policies are headed, because they have studied the past.
As a sociological group, I think humans are pretty predictable.
Posts: 10890 | Registered: May 2003
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posted
I don't think it's hypocritical, for the reasons stated above. We faught beside the Soviets in World War II, only to have a 40-year-long period of hostile relations and a very costly arms race with them. We knew they weren't nice guys going into the war, but the Germans were worse. Some of the end-war and post-war policy of the US was obviously geared up for hostilities with the USSR.
Posts: 903 | Registered: May 2003
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posted
Supporting one despotic regime over another is not hypocritical on its face. It's only hypocritical if you claim (as the US always does) that we are attacking the enemy regime because they are despotic.
Of course, it is possible for one regime to be more despotic than another, eg Germany was worse than Russia around WW2 time although both were dictatorships. But in such cases it seems like we should ally ourselves with dictators only if we must do so in order to save ourselves from some sort of international emergency (as was the case in WW2). There was no big crisis forcing us to support Hussein against Iran.
Posts: 4600 | Registered: Mar 2000
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That queasy feeling of incompleteness that follows the detailed, logical arguement (or better - narration)- Where does all this information come from ? When will it come to an end ? Will I ever 'get the story straight' ? Certainty ? Can one ever be certain ? Is Certainty in the end simply a temporary equilibrium of (Re)Negotiation and Power ?
There seems, at least, to be implicit and explicit agreement about the 'existence' of Good and Evil, manifestations of which (fabricated, historical, actual....) create 'enthusiasm' - for Action, for Certainty.
All senses scream 'too much' - perhaps the last and only message 'we' can send ourselves.
Emerson, Whitman, Thoreau, Lowell, Crane, Pound, Eliot, Lowell again, Bishop, Hart-Crane, Agassiz, there was so much more than War - then, so much more. And here, now, we can barely get confusion !
An aesthetic of Explanation in a context of Futility...
Hypocrisy ! If only - there is nobody there ! Hypocrisy was a beautiful human failing.
posted
It's not hypocritical merely unsound. Often the United States has these people return to bite us. What is hypocritical is when the United States, the pillar of democracy, rigs an election so that the CAPITALIST candidate wins. For a long time that was our African policy. We really do worship the Almighty Dollar.
And our god is a fickle master.
Posts: 650 | Registered: Aug 2003
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Ryan> By "CAPITALIST" I assume you mean the candidate who's not a Communist (or said to be--I realize such interventions are not always all they're cracked up to be)? The candidate who doesn't support a bloody and failed form of dictatorship?
Isn't it kind of absurd to vote for the end of democracy? Isn't it kind of absurd to let people?
As to the rest: I firmly believe all historical analysis, in the sense of "what impact will these policies have?", is futile, and will remain so until we discover a way to reach or view real alternate histories. Such analysis may be interesting; it may even be in some sense useful; but there is no way to know if it is really, truly accurate.
Anyway, I happen to agree with Geoffrey's presumed implication; I do not think it is hypocritical in the least to aid one enemy in destroying another, or to turn on that enemy afterwards. It may not be wise, but it is not hypocritical.
What I sometimes think people forget is that many governments, and especially ours, are made up of shifting people with shifting agendas. It seems odd to attribute hypocrisy to, say, Reagan for reversing something that, say, Truman did. Reagan may well have disagreed with Truman from the beginning. He may have agreed at first and seen unpleasant consequences. Or he may have believed that Truman's action was appropriate at the time and now needs adjusting. Since these are actions of completely different people, we should attribute hypocrisy to the second only if he himself says one thing and does another.
Posts: 1041 | Registered: Feb 2002
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Maccabus, are you saying that countries who willingly elect a communist shouldn't be allowed to? Basically, they can have free elections, as long as they vote the way we want?
Oh, and I like this quote. "Dance with the devil and the devil don't change, the devil changes you."
Posts: 9871 | Registered: Aug 2001
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posted
Perhaps we should keep in mind that due to the requirements of diplomacy, what the government says is not always what the government thinks. When the president smiles and shakes hands with a foreign diplomat, it does not mean our head of state privately endorses the actions of that foreign country. In most cases, threats and reprimands are not openly voiced until the blooming of open hostility. Usually, displeasure is displayed more privately, because the pride of nations is such that public accusations must be rebuffed. I believe the appropriate quote is "discretion is the better part of valor."
To more directly address Geoff's orginal question, I don't think it is hypcritical at all. The problem is that while we may disagree with what some countries do, our ability to influence the situation is very, very limited. In many cases, we cannot do anything short of invading to change the internal situation. As we all know, this has a very high political and economic cost, not to mention the price in human lives. So what are we to do?
The key example right now is Pakistan. We know that President Mushareef has done (and continues to do) some unsavory things, things that are unquestionably "unamerican." In fact, before 11 September the American government was pretty open in condemning some of the policies of the Pakistani government. What good did it do? Not much at all.
Then 11 September comes along, and the US government has two choices: continue to chastise the Pakistani government and shun their much-needed help, or mute some of the criticism in the hope that we might be able to positively influence them later, and in the meantime make this war considerably easier for ourselves.
We chose the latter option, and I think it was the right choice. Not incidentally, the American government has more influence in Pakistan than ever. I guarantee that Mushareef pays more attention to the president now than he did three years ago.
On the other hand, there have been some truly revolting (ha!) examples of the American government propping up immoral foreign leaders. Diem in Vietnam is one of the best examples, but there are many others. The task of nation-building is a very tricky one, but sometimes it cannot be avoided. Germany was left to fester after World War I, and the results were terrible.
I think that the US government has strong principles that it adheres to, but sometimes this is not readily appearent to the observer.
Posts: 224 | Registered: Aug 2002
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Kayla> Not "as long as they vote the way we want" but "as long as they vote in a way that will allow them to keep voting in the future". Recent history is rife with nations inexperienced in democracy who voted in dictators and then never got the chance to vote them out. (For that matter, it happened in ancient Greece and Rome...) If the US tries to prevent that from happening again, does that mean we are being undemocratic?
Posts: 1041 | Registered: Feb 2002
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Golly Maccabeus, not even I want to violate a country's sovreignty that bad. The thing is the US governments policy has far too often been influenced by money, but done in the name of democracy.
Posts: 650 | Registered: Aug 2003
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posted
Maybe we shouldn't have allied with the Soviets in World War II. They would have kept out of the whole stinkin' war if Hitler hadn't turned his back on that whole non-agression treaty thing they had going there.
It's not like the war would have been lost without the Soviets as our allies...they still would have been at war with Germany anyways. Could the Russians have really put up much of a fight against the U.S forces after Germany had fallen? I doubt it. I can't say for certain how things would have played out had they not been our official allies...so I guess it's stupid to assume.
Still, that might have averted the whole mess with Germany being divided up for so long, and there was the Cold War too. Correct me if I'm wrong, but lets not forget, the Soviet government killed more of its own people than the German government killed Jews.
About all of it? Or just the part about the Soviet government killing more of its own than the German government killing Jews?
If it's the second thing, then I really hope I'm not wrong about that. That was something my grade 12 history teacher once told the class...that's pretty bad if my history teacher was wrong about something so important.
posted
In case you had a problem with the whole post, I have this to say:
I'm just throwing the idea out there. Things turned out well enough...so maybe things happened the way they had to happen...but I wont stop having a problem with a nation that continues to ally itself with anyone in order to get rid of what they think is a greater evil.
Posts: 149 | Registered: Aug 2003
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posted
You're absolutely right - I think I read one estimate that put the deaths of Soviets at the hands of Stalin's regime at 20-25 million. Most died in 'man-made' famines resulting from utterly idiotic agricultural and industrial policies. What I hope you're joking about is a post-WWII American annihilation of the USSR.
Why didn't anyone try to stop them? I would suggest that the Depression, combined with both Stalin and the United States' isolationist policies meant that people either didn't really know or didn't really care. It sucks that it happened, don't get me wrong. However, I don't think your suggestion of annihilating the USSR would have helped. Far from it.
Posts: 2945 | Registered: Apr 2000
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posted
Back to the original topic. Doesn't our political process have a lot to do with the short sightedness of our geopolitics? If a president wants to get reelected they do what they have to do to keep people happy in the short term. And they only have to justify their decisions to the people of that time. We can sit back all day long and criticize the decisions of past presidents but there is nobody to answer for those decisions. The current administration will invariably deflect the criticism and blame on his predecessor or anybody else available to take a fall. Maybe the funniest part about this is that when a current presidents decisions take heat the usually claim that they did it for the future generations. Now I’m just ranting. I thought I’d just throw some random opinions out there, and if they are unpopular then this guy-> told me to say it and if not then they were all my own. Posts: 17 | Registered: May 2003
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posted
The number one goal of the US foriegn policy is not the rehabilitation of other countries.
It is not the promotion of democracies or of free-market economies around the world.
It is not the saving of lives in other countries.
It is not being the moral superior or international cop.
The main job of the US Government is to protect the US from any threats.
So when our government had to decide between whether we wanted a mad dictator running around in Chile, or a Soviet sponsored mad dictator taking control of Chile, we chose the regular Mad Dictator, not because he was better. We chose him because he was less likely to invade the US than the Soviet Union was.
There were other who used the fear of the Soviets to thier own advantages. These include people like Pinochet, who appeared to our diplomats as a calm respectful man. These also included big businesses who had the most to fear from Soviet takeover, and the most too loose if liberal policies were brought into other countries that would have undermined profits.
So yes, the US used foriegn countries to protect itself. This may not be nice or Christian. It is, however, what a government does.
So when the religious zealots took over Iran, and threatened to spread their zealotry through out the Muslim world, and aim its hatred to the US, the US found what it considered a patsy to do its fighting for it--Iraq.
The Iraq/Iran war was a disaster for everyone involved--accept the US. We saw the army of a nation sworn to destroy the US crushed. We saw the people of Iran realize how narrow minded and dangerous was the rule of thier clerics. We saw the elected government in Iran turn more liberal.
We also helped are Hussein. The threat of Hussein at the time was thin. He was secular, not one of the religious fanatics threatening the US. He was a Soviet friend who, thanks to our donations, could be turned to the US cause. The deal may not have turned out great for the US, but it made sense at the time.
That is what politics is--doing what makes sense at the time with the people you are forced to deal with.
Posts: 11895 | Registered: Apr 2002
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Just wait until this kind of 'pragmatics' turns to perceived 'internal' problems - or should I say - turns on itself...
Posts: 575 | Registered: Jan 2002
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When did it ever make sense to give chemical and biological weapon capability to someone who we knew was in the habit of torturing and killing his own people?
Posts: 2454 | Registered: Jan 2003
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posted
It is hypocrisy, insofar as the US, as represented by both it's populace and its government, continue to claim that they have certain ideals which they want to express and increase throughout the world.
Of course, unless that ideal is enlightened self-interest and pragmatism.
And my argument makes just about every nation hypocritical. But that doesn't mean any of them have to be so.
In other words, if there is a greater evil, one must find ways to combat it yourself, and be open about it, and to justify your actions within the system you claim to work under.
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