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From: carnes@gargoyle.UUCP (Richard Carnes)
Newsgroups: net.politics
Subject: Re: In the Name of God
Message-ID: <380@gargoyle.UUCP>
Date: Tue, 18-Mar-86 23:37:35 EST
Article-I.D.: gargoyle.380
Posted: Tue Mar 18 23:37:35 1986
Date-Received: Thu, 20-Mar-86 18:08:14 EST
References: <1680@ihlpg.UUCP> <707@mtuxn.UUCP> <356@gargoyle.UUCP> <725@mtuxn.UUCP> <79@gilbbs.UUCP> <1712@ihlpg.UUCP>
Reply-To: carnes@gargoyle.UUCP (Richard Carnes)
Organization: U. of Chicago, Computer Science Dept.
Lines: 54

In article <1712@ihlpg.UUCP> tan@ihlpg.UUCP (Bill Tanenbaum) writes:

>Unfortunately, if the (relatively) bad guys interfere in the internal
>affairs of other countries, and the (relatively) good guys do not, the
>(relatively) bad guys will end up calling the shots.  

Highly debatable, Bill.  The way you describe it, it sounds as if
whoever intervenes in Third World Country X the most, wins, as if the
people in those countries are just pawns to be manipulated by the
White Hats and the Black Hats.  But I think it is no accident that
communist influence is strongest today where the US has attempted to
intervene to "stop communism" (as in Vietnam and Cuba); and where the
US has had the wisdom to allow self-determination by the people,
there communist influence has declined, as in the Philippines and, I
believe, Nigeria during and after the civil war, Angola after the
Clark Amendment, and Zimbabwe, which may be left-leaning but is no
surrogate of Moscow.  Some may quibble about some of these countries,
but I think the general point holds.  Indeed, some countries, like
Egypt and Ghana, have gotten fed up with the Russkies and kicked them
out without any help from us.

If the Reagan Administration gets its way and intervenes massively in
Nicaragua to "stop communism", the one thing you may be certain of is
that Nicaragua will be "another Cuba" within ten or fifteen years.
To find out how this will happen, read the history of the Vietnam
War.  A principal reason is that the Nicaraguan Revolution is
nationalist in origin, motivated by the desire for self-determination
of the people of Nicaragua.  This means for them, above all, getting
out from under the boot of the Yankees, who engineered and supported
the Somoza dictatorship for some fifty years.  There is no way the
Nicaraguans are going to let norteamericanos determine its future and
its government.  The surest way to support hardline Leninists in
Managua is to give the Nicaraguan people the perception that their
democratically chosen government, and the gains the revolution has
achieved, are under attack by the United States or its proxies; this
will drive them into the waiting arms, or gaping jaws, of hardline
communists, on the theory that whoever supports them in opposing the
United States can't be all that bad.

Never, beginning from the time of Jefferson, has North America
allowed self-determination for the people of Central America.  Maybe
it is too much to hope that wisdom will prevail now, when most
Americans cannot locate Nicaragua on a map and are daily told by
their government that a communist plot is afoot that threatens San
Diego and El Paso.  But it is about time that America started living
up to its great belief, nobly expressed in the Declaration of
Independence, in self-determination.  For in the most Realpolitik
sense, the US cannot advance its interests by betraying its ideals,
which are its chief strength.  A true realist understands that
America's strength inheres primarily not in its military might, but
in the Jeffersonian ideals it holds up and exemplifies to the world.
Sometimes.
-- 
Richard Carnes, ihnp4!gargoyle!carnes