From: Harvey Newstrom (mail@HarveyNewstrom.com)
Date: Fri Dec 27 2002 - 10:27:35 MST
John K Clark wrote,
> The USA never supported the Taliban but it did support people who would
> years later become the Taliban. It must have seemed like a good
> idea at the
> time, they were fighting evil, the USSR, and nobody predicted they would
> resent the USA for having helped them, I don't fully understand it to this
> day.
That's the problem with US actions. We assume that everybody sees our side
as good, the other side as evil, and can't predict that the people will
revolt. We are doing it again in Iraq. I really doubt there is a
groundswell of support within Iraq hoping that we will overthrow their
government and liberate their people. They don't want our "help" or
"liberation". I don't know why the US can't see this. Claims that they do
want our help is just wishful thinking at best or disinformation at worst.
When we mischaracterize the situation we naturally create faulty
predictions. Iraq will turn into a big mess like Vietnam or Afghanistan,
and everybody will act surprised and claim that the mess was unexpected.
> >Before Iraq was our enemy we supported them against Iran
>
> True and that was a mistake, the USA makes lots of mistakes, but
> again I can
> see why it looked like a good idea at the time.
So can I. Can you also see how the locals might blame us for our mistake
and what we left behind? I don't expect the US to be perfect, but the
confusion about why anybody might hate us or not support us does seem to
turn a blind eye to our past actions.
> > It is a complicated situation and it is not clear that what
> > the US does is good.
>
> Many thing are morally ambiguous but not everything is, going to
> war against
> Afghanistan one year ago was a flat out good idea, I'll let you
> know in one
> year if the war with Iraq was equally wise.
You are mostly focusing on the anti-terrorist activities. Do you also think
universal surveillance is good, secret trials are good, government
monitoring of all internet activities and credit card purchases is good? It
is easy to praise the government for what it does to other people. What do
you think about the government's curtailing of rights for us here at home?
If you get arrested, will you be glad to forgo your right to an attorney, a
jury trial, a phone call, the right to see the evidence against you and to
face your accusers? When it comes to your own rights, will you be as happy
to give them away?
-- Harvey Newstrom, CISSP <http://HarveyNewstrom.com>
This archive was generated by hypermail 2.1.5 : Wed Jan 15 2003 - 17:58:55 MST