Home
About
Apple
Career
Experiences
General
Graphics
Hardware
History
Humor
Interface
Networking
OS
Opinion
Politics
Programming
Quotes
Reviews
Security
Software
Sound
Thought
Web
Cheap International
Airfare Online
Wachovia online banking
Get Free Coupons Online
Finding the perfect
discount hot tub
Payday Loans
Stock Trading Online
Stuffed Animals
Smart Investing Online
|
|
Relativism
The right thing for the right time?
By: David K. Every
|
Kind:
Created:
Size: |
Article
2003-04-20
14 KB |
|
|
 |
 he world is a complex place. What cracks me up are people that see no balance in situations, then claim to be balanced. They want to judge the past with 20/20 hindsight, with the skewed perception that everything we do is wrong; unfortunately the world is more complex than that.
Look the U.S. fixes what it can, when it can. We are looking to improve things; but this isn't a perfect world where we can jump from despot to utopia in a single bound. We are not omnipotent, contrary to some people's beliefs; and we need to be patient and work with the world on things. We are also not incompetent and clueless, contrary to what others believe; we just sometimes need to work with the situation we have, and tolerate not-so-nice people, and try to sway them to be nicer. We need to use politics, and work with scumbags, and tolerate things you'd rather not, if you want to get anything done. You can see incredible patience on our part, then some actions that demonstrate that we are tired of waiting. And there are certainly a few stupid moves mixed in. But most of the things we are criticized for, are just caricatures of what happened; and demonstrate more a bias of the attackers than the truth of the situation.
   
Look at Iraq; many blame us for both Saddam and the war. We shouldn't have helped him early on, we should have taken him out sooner, and we shouldn't have gone to war when we did. It seems no matter what we did, we were wrong in their minds.
Facts are facts. We had an unstable region with Iran and Syria both hostile to the U.S., freedom, and not always great regimes; and potential threats to the region. We looked for alternatives; and Saddam's Iraq was there. Not a great guy, but hadn't shown his full colors yet either. He didn't like Iran, and Syria and him weren't completely in love (Baathist rivalry, and so on). If we hadn't have helped Saddam, Iraq would have likely fallen to the Persians again; and we would have had a Shiite paradise from Syria to Iran. I don't think that would have made the world a better, more stable, place. At least we could work with Saddam, and play nice, and maybe balance that part of the world out; or so goes the state departments thinking. We don't have to like him, but at least by keeping equal power in the region, it will counter balance others and stabilize the region.
As Saddam started showing the depths of his character, we started distancing ourselves, and selling fewer weapons, and so on. He never was treated as a favored country or leader; he was at best tolerated, with some flirting at more niceties to come. We kept trying to assuage his massive ego, and play diplomatic games to try to put pressure to get him to do things we wanted. Like all countries we want to influence others to our way of thinking. But he kept doing things and sending warning signs that backed us off. He was sending the same signs to others (Russia, China, France, Germany, etc.), but they didn't seem to mind as much as we did. Ironic, since the Baathists seem modeled after the National Socialists, that they should all know so well. In the end Saddam invaded Kuwait, and we showed our dissatisfaction by kicking him out of Kuwait. Eventually we stepped up to the plate; when others would not.
Many blame us for not going to Baghdad at the time. We couldn't. We'd made agreements with the U.N. and Arab allies that we would not. We did what we could at the time; and just kick his ass out of Kuwait. What should we have done, broken our promises and proven ourselves untrustworthy? Ignored the U.N.? If we had done that we would have destroyed our credibility, not to mention all the people attacking us now would have been attacking us louder then. So we did the least wrong things for the time; and let the U.N. and Arabs screw up the world, under the promise that sanctions would fix things. They didn't. Then many of those people forcing our hand and not listening to us at the time, blame us for their policies.
We figured that a few years of pressures, would either convert Saddam to be more reasonable, or wake the world up to what a rat-bastard he was. The world didn't want to create a solution, because there was too much money to be made perpetuating the problem. So finally we go in, under some weak but justifiable excuses, because 20 years is enough. We'd been patient enough and facts are that the U.N. and Arabs and the rest of the world were never going to step up to their responsibility, and someone had to fix things. So we did. Was it a great solution? Nope. But it may have been better than the alternatives.
In many people's mind we were wrong for trying to work with the regime that was there and put there by the people in the first place; they are wrong. They think we are wrong for being the first to catch on this is not so nice a guy, and start separating from him; they are wrong. They think we should have known all along, when they didn't or worked with him more. You can't know until someone demonstrates which way they are going, and you can try to be nice and persuade them and see if they are redeemable. They think we should have gone in and invaded a sovereign country and break our agreements and just take Badhdad in the first gulf war; they are wrong. They think we are wrong for not doing more diplomatic this time; there's been 20 years, 12 years of sanctions, and 2 years waiting by this President. Again, they are wrong.
Facts, are facts, the U.N. (and some members) were blocking us because there was too much reward in the status quo, the U.N. would have delayed this problem forever, as the last 20 years demonstrates. The U.S. is far from perfect; but it isn't the clueless bully that many claim. Most of their claims as to what we should have done, are flat out wrong; but they'd rather hate us, or offer us their armchair diplomacy than think of the facts. We had to clean up their messes, and they have the audacity to criticize us for it. They can get mad at us and call us arrogant; but I think they need to look in a mirror.
So then we get into the argument; well we wouldn't have had to be there if we hadn't been in Iran in the first place. The reason the area was unstable was because we helped destabilize it with Iran. The Shah was a bad guy, and we put him in power, and then propped him up; and we turned the nation and region against us by supporting a despot like him.
First the facts, we didn't put the Shah in power. We helped someone that was less hostile to us, and our values, than the alternative. Since he was better than the alternative, we made nice with him, because better to have a not so horrible friend in the region, than a hostile and worse regime.
Was he a tyrannical bastard with Secret Police and the like? Yup. But compared to the regime before him, around him, and after him, he was a pussy-cat. He also was focused on progressive freedoms for his people, and dragged them from the 15th century to the 19th century in a generation, and was on his way to helping more. The problem is that there was some unrest because people don't like change, and he'd changed things too much, or not enough, depending on which group.
While the Shah suppressed a lot of unrest and voicing of dissatisfaction, he allowed some, and that built against him. He was overthrown. Frankly, if he'd been as bad as "they" said, or if we had been as powerful and used the CIA and so on, then a rebellion would have never been successful.
Now the rebellion was interesting. It was started by many young women and na•ve college kids, as well as more nefarious groups, that thought change wasn't happening fast enough (or too fast), or didn't like the repressive attitudes of the Shah, and well as many other groups that had one axe to grind or another, including those that wanted to revert away from being a secular country to a more spiritual state. They worked together for revolution; figuring any change was better than what they had; but they were wrong.
Once the revolution happened, the most brutal can seize the opportunity created by the power vacuum to take over; which they did. The most brutal, and thus most likely to win, were complete fundamentalists that eliminated secularism and most of the cultural and technological and economic gains. And things got much, much worse for the people. Most Iranians now talk longingly of the far more tolerant and better days under the Shah (at least those outside the country), and the future of the nation is much worse under the current regimes. So maybe the U.S. and its meddling wasn't that bad after all. Oh wait, I forgot, we're always wrong for trying to help the people.
In many people's mind we were wrong for trying to work with the regime that was there, or to help someone that wasn't perfect; they are wrong. You do what you can at the time, and the Shah was better than any of the alternatives. We should have known all along how bad the Shah was going to get. You can't know until someone demonstrates which way they are going. They think we shouldn't have supported someone that was doing more to educate and help his people than any of the alternatives or neighbors were doing. The Shah had modernized Iran and done pretty good things; and it took a few years of the new regime to dismantle most of it. If we ever do anything to free the Iranian people, or help those who are repressed in a regime that is far worse than what they had before, then many will claim we are wrong for meddling and making things better. I suspect the Iranians will respond will the same hatred of us, and our meddling, that the Iraqi's have. (Flowers thrown to our troops, tea and food offered, people crying in happiness at their new or returned freedom, and so on).
    
So then we get into the argument; well our meddling goes back further than Iran. Look at South Asia and Vietnam. Thiem (President of Vietnam) was a tyrannical bastard that the people couldn't get behind, so they chose Ho Chi Mihn because of us. And so we should have known better, and not been involved or tried, and so on.
Again, the truth is much more complex. Thiem wasn't a great guy, and used secret police and so on. But the communists were supporting worse people. Ho Chi Mihn had a serious ego as well, and didn't care who he worked with as long as he got power. He would have worked with us to kick out the French, but he would have made a deal with Satan if it meant power. We also didn't completely trust his allegiances or that once we helped him get power, that the truth of who he was, and what he stood for, wouldn't have been worse than the incompetence that was in there. His true colors showed once he took over, and he made Thiem seem like a boy scout; but that's forgiven because he didn't like us.
We also knew, and stated, that if one country fell to communism (and tyranny) that many others would as well. And had warnings about how bad things could get, including warnings about the Khmer Rouge and Pol Pot. We also knew that this was going to be a tricky thing to get involved in, and unlikely to win. We still tried.
We supported the lesser of two evils because we had no other choice, and we tried to protect the people, and our interests as much as we could, given the situation. Without our meddling, there was little doubt as to what was going to happen; a far more dictatorial and communist regime was going to fall over the region, and crush human rights far more than what they had.
Eventually we failed. Many reasons were involved. Yes, our own incompetence had something to do with it. But still many look at these events and see a gross misrepresentation of what happened. Both sides in that war were horrid; the south was just slightly less horrid. Those saying we should leave for peace, are ignoring what happened when we did leave; they did not get peace. But I suppose they blame us for that too.
In many people's mind we were wrong for trying to work with the regime that was there, or to help someone that wasn't perfect; they are wrong. You do what you can at the time, and Thiem was better than any of the alternatives. They think we shouldn't have supported someone that was doing more for his people than the alternatives were likely to. They ignore what happened when we gave up and left, or ignore that just would have happened earlier, or possibly worse had we not got involved in the first place. And so on.
     
We can go on and on; Korea, Israel, Afghanistan, and so on, and so on. Most of those attacking us, are attacking us from a very na•ve view of events, or a complete distortion of the facts, or biases out of context of the time and situation. They want to see everything we do as wrong; so they choose to see that, and ignore facts to the contrary.
There is this sport that is U.S. bashing. They are mad because aided puppets that were better than the others in the area, and mad because we let them rebel and make things worse. They get mad because we work with rat-bastards that are in place. Then they get mad because we don't work with other rat-bastards even more (like Chirac). Then they get mad when we didn't foresee that other worse rat-bastards were going to take over, and work with them first. Then we're wrong because we support the regimes and countries that are in place, or that we don't resist them more; depending on which we are doing. You notice a pattern? I do. In some people's mind the U.S. is always wrong; especially if they ignore all facts to the contrary.
This does NOT mean that the U.S. was always correct, wise, or perfect. Hardly. We could have probably done at least a little better in everything we've been involved in; given hindsight's knowledge. While I don't think the U.S. is always right, I just don't think it is always wrong either. You do what you can, when you can, based on the information you have, and live with the consequences. I think in most cases we tried, and the alternatives would have probably been worse. Most people ignore the alternatives of the time, or what happened when they got what they were asking for all along - but I'm sure to them, that too is our fault.
So they can delude themselves and ignore truths in order to feed their own hatreds or frustrations. They can believe that everything we do is wrong. I tend to discount their views as immature, and unwise, and hope the U.S. swings away from being more sensitive to their stupidity, and more towards rationality. We did what we could, when we could, based on the information we had at the time. We tried to make the world a better place; and more often than not, we succeed. In all honesty, if you look at world history, would the world really be a better place without the U.S.? I don't think so.
 Format for Printing  Mail
|
|
|
|
