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From: mc68020@gilbbs.UUCP (Tom Keller)
Newsgroups: net.politics
Subject: Re: Tim Sevener's inability to read English
Message-ID: <109@gilbbs.UUCP>
Date: Mon, 24-Mar-86 17:11:19 EST
Article-I.D.: gilbbs.109
Posted: Mon Mar 24 17:11:19 1986
Date-Received: Sat, 29-Mar-86 09:15:09 EST
References: <1680@ihlpg.UUCP> <707@mtuxn.UUCP>, <356@gargoyle.UUCP> <1720@ihlpg.UUCP>
Organization: Gil's Place, Santa Rosa CA
Lines: 45

In article <1720@ihlpg.UUCP>, tan@ihlpg.UUCP (Bill Tanenbaum) writes:
> > The US mistakenly
> > supported the French in trying to regain Indochina as a French
> > colony- the results? Decades of war and a Communist dictatorship.
> ---------
> Supporting French colonialism was a mistake.  However, it is highly
> probable that the Communist dictatorship would have
> resulted anyway.

   Oh really?  On what information do you base this higly amusing conclusion,
Bill?  The fact is that Ho Chi Mihn and his followers tried for years to 
avoid associated with the communists, in their fight for *FREEDOM* AND 
*INDEPENDENCE* from France.  They were finally forced (as were the Sandinistas)
to turn to Moscow to avoid being obliterated.  The fact is that had the US and
the UN not supported France in their murderous attempt to maintain their
colonial power in VietNam, there would now be a reasonably stable democracy.

> I agree.  However, when democracy is not a reasonable possibility,
> we have to work with what we have.  Would you be morally opposed to
> helping (for example) Pakistan against a Soviet invasion or Soviet
> supported insurgents. After, all, Tim, Pakistan is a dictatorship.

   Hold it a minute.  Bill, this is a bullshit arguement.  In Nicaraugua,
we are dealing with a purely civil war, between two factions of the same
nation.  The duly elected Sandinista government (which is most decidedly
*NOT* wholly communist), and the Contras (who mostly, at the leadership
level, represent Samoza's former muscle squads, and who have no interest
in establishing a democracy of any sort in Nicaraugua).  IN Pakistan, we
are dealing with a FOREIGN invasion.  However, in the case of Pakistan, I
would say that support there would be questionable as well.

   I do not accept the standard procedure of this nation that if a government
*SAYS* it is anti-communist, we will support it, regardless of how bad it is,
how corrupt, how vicious and cruel.  No sir.

-- 

====================================

Disclaimer:  I hereby disclaim any and all responsibility for disclaimers.

tom keller
{ihnp4, dual}!ptsfa!gilbbs!mc68020

(* we may not be big, but we're small! *)