Guns advocacy OT! 516

In comp.os.linux.advocacy, Jose Maria Lopez Hernandez wrote on Thu, 17 Feb 2005 20:41:05 +0100

Not to mention supporting person regimes.

Pinochet comes to mind, and of course Saddam. Dunno if we supported Argentina, or anyone in Africa (Idi Amin?).

And then there's the Shah, whose secret police rivaled the feared KGB, from all accounts. His toppling was arguably a blessing from God (since the mullahs replaced a monarchy with an Islam-based theocracy), though I'm wondering if it did much for the common man. We also supported the muhajedeen (?) when the USSR decided to invade Afghanistan. (Q: What makes us better invaders than them? A: We won. Q: Is this brain-dead logic? A: Yes.) Apparently we trained them a bit *too* well...

And then there's Israel, though at least Israel goes through the motions of having a parliamentary system. (I would hope they allow the Palestinians who are Israeli citizens to vote, too. I'd have to look. It doesn't look all that democratic from the Palestinian standpoint, although the Israelis don't look too unhappy about it.)

Or one can look at Kurdistan. Where's that, you might ask? Good question. Turkey, you see, is one of our allies, and they don't like the notion of an independent Kurdistan. Not at all. So we softpedal Kurdish interests. Color me slightly confused on US policy here. (For that matter, color US policy slightly confused here.)

Saudi Arabia is another theocracy, but they're a good theocracy, as opposed to Iran, which is a bad theocracy. I guess it's because Saudi still has royalty, but I can't tell, really. They did vote recently, which is a good thing, but apparently there was some snafus in getting women idenbreasty cards, and I don't think it's legal for them to drive yet.

And then there's (sigh) North "I'm Kim Jong-Il and I'm PERFECTLY SANE!!! And I have NUCLEAR WEAPONS! That's right, I DO! I DO! And I can AIM then ANYWHERE to somewhere in the general vicinity EAST of IMPERIALIST JAPAN!!111!1!!! I must TALK TO the US...ALONE!!!!! About their systematic CAMPAIGN to OPPRESS the North Korean Government....erm, I mean, PEOPLE!!!!" Korea. Uh, we'll get back to you, Kim; the check's in the mail.

And people wonder why our West Asia policy is so confused. I can't say we have a real good track record here. Not that our East Asia policy is that much better; we are now friends with Japan even though we planted them, and the Chinese and Taiwanese stare at each other but we're not exactly boiling over with enthusiasm to invade Beijing to win Taiwanese independence. Dare I mention Tibet?

(Though I think Kim Jong-Il was confused already. Anybody in the CIA got a white jacket and a tranquilizer dart? :-) )

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