Prostitution of the pen and the dark side of the free market

[fpb]

Four years ago, the government of the French Republic took the lead in refusing to support the Anglo-American invasion of Iraq. The French, who had taken a very active and successful part in the first Iraq war, simply did not think that an invasion followed by the occupation of an Arab country was a good idea. That was their prerogative (see

Comments

[kulibali]

The French oil company TotalFinaElf had the exclusive contract for Iraq's oil fields should the UN sanctions be dissolved.

While France was opposing the Iraq invasion, they were unilaterally invading Cote d'Ivoire, including destroying the air force of the legitimate government (http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=04/11/09/1526243), and massacring peaceful protesters (http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/3997885.stm).

In addition, during the 1990s, 60 percent of tropical hardwood sold in France came from the warlords of civil-war-torn Liberia (in John-Peter Pham, _Liberia, Portrait of a Failed State_).

This may not say anything about France's status as a ally of the US, but it says a lot about its stance as an upright and responsible member of the international community.

[fpb]

Boy, have you got the wrong cat by the tail. The "legitimate" government of Laurent Gbagbo had wrecked in a few years the successful state set up by Felix Houphuuet-Boigny with French support, and showed every sign of Mugabeizing the Ivory Coast. The French intervened to stop a civil war which had been caused by Gbagbo's corrupt and tribal policies, and his support for Muslim tribes. And IIRC, the peaceful crowd in question had wrecked the capital Abidjan and beaten up everyone they met. Do not believe everything you read in the papers; let alone the BBC, which is penetrated by Islamic interests from top to bottom. If you really want to hear about French crimes, I could do better myself (Rwanda). But then, it would be wise for a Yank to keep trap tightly shut about illegal interventions in other countries - y utds, que hacieren en Chile? Or about being an irresponsible member of the international community in general.

[jordan179]

But then, it would be wise for a Yank to keep trap tightly shut about illegal interventions in other countries - y utds, que hacieren en Chile?

???

In Chile, we gave money and advice to a native political faction, we did not march our own troops into the country and oust the regime by main force. I suggest you read up on the actual mechanics of the coup that ousted Allende.

Or about being an irresponsible member of the international community in general.

Doubly ???

Most of the trouble America has gotten into has been because we have tried to be a hyper-responsible member of the international community. We have intervened against invasions (such as the North Vietnamese invasion of South Vietnam) which most of the world community was willing to idly watch completed by conquest. If not for us, the Soviet bloc would have captured the Third World during the Cold War

[fpb]

When people brag of their own responsibility, others usually stop their noses. I suggest you ask a few Latin Americans about the responsibility of American intervention in Latin America over the decades. Even when they eventually converted to imposing democracy instead of brutal military tyranny, their bullying ways and imposition of inappropriate free marketeering managed to make democracy itself look odious. The results you can see right now in places such as Bolivia and Ecuador, where the anti-American backlash is entirely local in origin, let alone in Venezuela.

[jordan179]

I suggest you ask a few Latin Americans about the responsibility of American intervention in Latin America over the decades.

Latin Americans are of course willing to blame the failure of their countries to rise to Great Powers on America: it's easier and feels better than addressing their institutional problems. It won't produce any progress, however.

I'm not saying that we haven't interefered in Latin American countries' internal politics. So have the Russians, so have the British, so have the French.

I'm saying that the real problem is the aspects of those countries' internal politics that make them attractive -- and in some cases necessary -- to interfere in.

Even when they eventually converted to imposing democracy instead of brutal military tyranny, their bullying ways and imposition of inappropriate free marketeering managed to make democracy itself look odious.Oh my, how cruel of us, forcing countries to govern themselves! By the way, what is "inappropriate free marketeering?" When is "slave marketeering" preferable

[fpb]

Free marketeering, imposed from outside, certainly does make a mockery of democracy. You are allowed to elect your own leaders so long as they do what we tell them. Does it even occur to you that self-government includes letting people make their own mistakes? If indeed they are mistakes. I regard extreme liberism as a disastrous doctrine, so I am not even willing to concede that.

[kulibali]

First of all, I am a Canadian citizen, which you would know if you had taken 30 seconds to look at my profile

[fpb]

If I was wrong, I was wrong. I admit it. But don't come and tell me that the Americans did not engineer the Pinochet coup (in a country that had never known a military coup before), when the people who did it at the time are still bragging of their part in it now. Don't come and tell me that they did not play the same game dozens of times from at least the fifties to the eighties, on the principle that a military murderer and thief is better than a Communist military murderer and thief. And if we are to bring in personal experience, I was in Italy in the sixties and seventies when no less than five or six right-wing coups were attempted; and in the eighties, when no less a figure than the President of the Republic, Cossiga, revealed that most of these involved a "secret army" called Gladio, created and financed by the Americans. And since we are talking about France, you may remember that the estrangement between France and the US began when FDR, the hero of democracy, did everything in his power to support Vichy and exclude De

[notebuyer]

the principle that a military murderer and thief is better than a Communist military murderer and thief

Sounds good to me.

[fpb]

Murder has no colour. If you think otherwise, I am afraid I find myself forced to defriend you right now.

[jordan179]

If the choice is between two flavors of murderer for the local government, why would you want to see the Communist one in power in preference to the pro-Western one? I can see one and only one reason -- having a murderer on one's own side makes one look bad.

The problem is that, in a lot of the world, one only has the choice between different flavors of murderers. You accused me of failing to respect the sub-Saharan Africans -- in most of those countries, the leaders of all popular factions are murderers and will murder some more if they gain power. What alternative would you propose ... especially since you are rejecting "recolonialization?"

[fpb]

This is the kind of thinking that led the US to support murderous mujaheddeen against the Soviet Union in Afghanistan. What followed from that, we all know. It is OK to ally oneself with Stalin when one is trying to survive Hitler, but to assume that one has to take part in any monstrous struggle between monsters is plain stupid. When the struggle is between murderers, and when no desperate national interest is concerned, it is better not to be involved at all.

[jordan179]

This is the kind of thinking that led the US to support murderous mujaheddeen against the Soviet Union in Afghanistan. What followed from that, we all know.

The first thing that it helped cause was the defeat of international Communism and the fall of the Soviet Union. These were not trivial victories.

It is in the nature of things that in any large conflict (such as the Cold War), one will not be able to avoid unsavory allies. It is also in the nature of things that, after the war is won, some of those allies may turn into enemies.

It is OK to ally oneself with Stalin when one is trying to survive Hitler, but to assume that one has to take part in any monstrous struggle between monsters is plain stupid.

Why is it ok to ally with Stalin when one is trying to survive Hitler, but not to ally with the Afghan rebels (not all by any means of whom were Taliban) when trying to survive the Soviet Union?

When the struggle is between murderers, and when no desperate national interest is concerned, it is better not to be involved at all.

[fpb]

So you think that the Soviet Union would not have collapsed without the Afghanistan war? I disagree. And as for the resources of many third world countries being added to the Soviet Empire - they were. Are you old enough to remember the seventies? I am. The whole third world, except for a few Latin American military dictatorship, was in the Soviet Union's pockets. The West was besieged, under attack by terrorists from the inside and by economic warfare from the outside (the deliberate use of oil as a weapon). Inflation was up to 25% in some countries, unemployment in the tens of millions. And then, one day, the besieged citadel woke and found that there were no besiegers any more; that the Soviet Union was looking for deals, that the third world could no longer support the burden of their own debt, that the oil bloc could not keep up its artificial price in the face of their own internal hatreds - Saudi Arabia vs. Iraq vs. Iran - and that the Soviet Union was quite willing to underprice them anyway. Do you know what defeated

They both murder.

[notebuyer]

And yes, murder is bad. Torture is bad. But there is another distinction, made by Jeane Kirkpatrick:

Traditional autocrats leave in place existing allocations of wealth, power, status, and other

Re: They both murder.

[fpb]

Kirkpatrick's distinction always struck me as one of the most odious pieces of apologetics ever designed by a clever and unprincipled person to make followers believe that black is white. The moral characteristic of police states is exactly the same, whether they drape themselves in black or in red. The midnight knock at the door, the terrified rumours about what happens in certain buildings and certain camps in the country, the sudden disappearances - sometimes for no discernible reason - and the creeping fear and demoralization that follows them, do not change. Kirkpatrick would have done better to point out that, in point of fact, most Latino military murderers killed rather less than most Communists did. Pinochet's proven murders, for instance, are about four thousand, which makes him a positive slacker as compared to most Communists. But any notion that government by fear and disappearance does not violate the basics of humanity is unworthy of an honest person. If you want a reason why Kirkpatrick was universally hated in