01-07-2004, 04:52 PM
Saw the propping up of a great variety of governments all over the world by the colonial powers, governments who found common cause with their colonial "allies." See the Catholic bourgoise in Viet Nam, for example.
The U.S. propped up a variety of "unstable" or at least non-populist governments as a means to an end: to face down the Communist hegemony threatened by the expansion of the USSR's agenda on a global scale. Undoing that network of "getting in bed with folks who you really aren't eye to eye with ideologically" is not an easy thing, due to the nature of political power, nor is it a situation easily resolved in the short term. Look at how long the road is to a more open society in El Salvador, for example.
And on a different note, look at the "propped up by the Brits" government in Rhodesia-ZImbabwe, and it fall, led to. The fear of what chaos will ensue once the props are withdrawn is very real.
The U.S. propped up a variety of "unstable" or at least non-populist governments as a means to an end: to face down the Communist hegemony threatened by the expansion of the USSR's agenda on a global scale. Undoing that network of "getting in bed with folks who you really aren't eye to eye with ideologically" is not an easy thing, due to the nature of political power, nor is it a situation easily resolved in the short term. Look at how long the road is to a more open society in El Salvador, for example.
And on a different note, look at the "propped up by the Brits" government in Rhodesia-ZImbabwe, and it fall, led to. The fear of what chaos will ensue once the props are withdrawn is very real.
Cry 'Havoc' and let slip the Men 'O War!
In War, the outcome is never final. --Carl von Clausewitz--
Igitur qui desiderat pacem, praeparet bellum
John 11:35 - consider why.
In Memory of Pete
In War, the outcome is never final. --Carl von Clausewitz--
Igitur qui desiderat pacem, praeparet bellum
John 11:35 - consider why.
In Memory of Pete