Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Path: utzoo!linus!philabs!cmcl2!yale!husc6!uwvax!rutgers!caip!think!mit-eddie!genrad!decvax!cca!mirror!misc!inmet!janw From: janw@inmet.UUCP Newsgroups: talk.politics.misc Subject: Re: A Pleasant Precedent Message-ID: <117200223@inmet> Date: Wed, 8-Oct-86 01:02:00 EDT Article-I.D.: inmet.117200223 Posted: Wed Oct 8 01:02:00 1986 Date-Received: Thu, 16-Oct-86 06:50:54 EDT References: <8675@duke.duke.UUCP> Lines: 162 Nf-ID: #R:duke.duke.UUCP:-867500:inmet:117200223:000:7079 Nf-From: inmet.UUCP!janw Oct 8 01:02:00 1986 [rjn@duke.UUCP ] >Actually I have come to look forward to your articles. Thanks. >If it's from you I'm almost positive it will be some piece of >commie blasting right wing propaganda (which you have every right >to post to the net). Commie blasting - yes... but that's not necessarily right-wing. Look at it this way: I dislike monopolistic corporations - espe- cially those that own whole countries and groups of countries - these are called Communist governments. I also dislike theocracy - and Communist rule is one. I also don't like militarism - and Communists turn nations into military machines. These are not right-wing causes. As for propaganda - I see a line dividing my opinionated postings from propaganda, even though it may be invisible to you. It is that I never use an argument to convince others that is not con- vincing to myself. >>U.S. never supported Pinochet. Are you arguing that, having >>supported one dictator, we are now duty-bound to support another? >>If not, what's wrong with cutting Mugabe's aid? >The US may not have officially supported Pinochet, but Jesse Helms >sure has, to the tune of providing him with secret information. He did not act for the administration in this, but against it - nor for any other branch of government. >I do not consider Mugabe in a league with any of those I mentioned. I'd say Marcos's rule was more democratic. But even if less, the argument stands: having supported a tyrannical ruler X, are we duty bound to support every ruler less tyrannical than X? >>The USA is the Jelly Giant, the paper tiger; >>bashing it is safe, hence all the cries of bully, bully. To test >>the charge of bullying small countries, consider their UN voting >>records: even El Salvador agrees with the U.S. something like >>20% of the time. So much for that myth. >Bullying takes many forms. And not bullying, only one form. Consider something much more substantial than U.N. votes: the oil prices that have been crip- pling Western economies for a decade - a vital interest if any- thing is. U.S. surely had the raw power to bully the Saudis and the Shah into concessions - but this wasn't seriously considered. Or consider the neighbors, Canada and Mexico - quite defenseless if the USA was really a bully. The US and Cuba become enemies; embargo is declared - do the neighbors feel constrained to follow suit? On the contrary, Canada steps up its trade with Cuba, Mexi- co becomes best friends with Castro - just to show these bullying Yankees. Do they pay any price for the boldness? Of course not. It is simply amazing how non-bullying a superpower may be. > Humanitarian aid should not be based on politics. Then it should be private. Government is political. >>As for dictators, no big nation is as fastidious as the U.S. in >>choosing its allies - but you simply can't avoid some of them be- >>ing dictatorships - this is the state of the world. >>Using one dictator against another is often necessary. >But we're not just any 'big nation'. We put ourselves forward as >the good guys. We damage this image every time we support an unpopular >leader or hold back humanitarian aid because of politics. We are the good guys compared to the other guys. Saints don't be- long in politics, internal or international. If you listen to the Harare speakers, we aren't the good guys at all - we are cri- ticized harshly, the Soviets not at all. So what image is there to damage? There is, however, an image to improve: that of a ready scape- goat. If trashing the U.S. carried a price, it would be much more scarce, and the image would improve. >>>Let's apply our policies evenly and stop aid to any country which >>>denies basic civil rights to its citizens. >>That would have lost WWII - no military aid for Stalin! >As far as losing WWII, who knows? No one can say for certain so >that is not a very good argument. I think it would - but if you concede it *might* - the argument is still good. >>Foreign aid is not charity. It is, and must be, a tool of >>foreign policy. Promoting civil rights is *part* of that. >There is a difference between military aid and humanitarian aid. Agreed. >I certainly don't think we should give military aid to our enemies. That depends... against *worse* enemies we might. >I also don't think we should give military aid to anyone who does not >give its citizens basic human rights. There's no clear connection - unless the arms are used to suppress human rights. I would certainly agree we shouldn't give them handcuffs and tear gas... As for arms - what if the country is an aggression victim, and we are likely to be next? Stalin's regime was as bad as Hitler's. I still think military aid to it was justified - at least until 1943, when the tide turned. And non-military aid had the same goal - to help the USSR withstand the Wehrmacht. There are also degrees in human rights suppression. South Korea is not a democratic paradise - but people in it are free enough to say that. North Korea is the most consummate slave state in the world. Compared to it, the differences in human rights between South Korea and Denmark are negligible. I am definitely for military aid to South Korea. >Humanitarian aid should be given to anyone who needs it, no matter what. (1) There's not enough to go around. (2) It is the people's money. Don't you think the government needs the people's mandate to give it away? (At least the majority's - I am arguing democracy now, not libertarianism). And if the mandate is: help some of the needy but keep *our* in- terests in sight when selecting them - don't you think that's legit? >Military aid should be a tool of foreign policy, not humanitarian aid. So don't call all non-military aid humanitarian... This confuses the issue by blending two characteristics: the inventory and the goal of the aid. Call it civil aid or something. If it's permis- sible to give away napalm for political reasons, it's not less but more permissible to give aspirin for the same reasons. You are comparing this to aid with no strings attached. But compare it also with no aid. I think all governmental aid should be a tool of national policy - which is what the government is for. Purely humanitarian aid - charity - ought to be private and go to private people. Only private people can be charitable or generous because only they can give away what is their own. Governments have nothing of their own, they just supervise some of the people's resourses. Yet there *is* a way we can, through government, help the needy of the world so that the help won't be misused but will benefit the giver and the receiver: relax immigration policy. As a rule, immigrants work hard and take jobs Americans shun; they earn lit- tle by U.S. standards and compared to how they benefit the econo- my; but they earn much more than they did at home, anf they help their relatives in the old country. All gain, no one loses. Jan Wasilewsky