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From: baba@flairvax.UUCP (Baba ROM DOS)
Newsgroups: net.politics
Subject: Re: Deja vu in the Philippines
Message-ID: <809@flairvax.UUCP>
Date: Fri, 2-Nov-84 18:28:59 EST
Article-I.D.: flairvax.809
Posted: Fri Nov  2 18:28:59 1984
Date-Received: Sat, 3-Nov-84 21:47:10 EST
References: <798@flairvax.UUCP>, <270@qantel.UUCP>
Organization: Fairchild AI Lab, Palo Alto, CA
Lines: 29

>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