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Re: Amen!

Written by Ivan at 11 Apr 2003 01:00:59:

As an answer to: Re: Amen! written by chImp at 11 Apr 2003 00:34:24:

The 'evil' reference there is not mere name-calling: it is that these countries are particularly avid supporters of international terrorism, which is the 'evil' these references were about. There is a huge difference between merely saying "We're good, they are evil" and identifying particular behaviors or practices as evil and denouncing those who adhere to those.

As for the Soviet regime being 'civilized,' at root 'civilized means nothing more than living in settled, relatively stable communities. Big deal! (We really do need a word that expresses more than just 'city-dweller') That regime made war on their own subjects. A government derives its just powers from the consent of the governed - but the residents of the USSR were captives, they never had a chance to give or withhold their consent. As for inspiring 'nostalgy' - virtually any situation which lasts a substantial period of time will inspire nostalgia among some people. Many ex-prisoners find themselves nostalgic for the orderliness and lack of required decision-making within the prison walls - a particularly apt analogy for the victims of socialism (whether in the guise of communism, fascism, naziism, or other form), mohammedanism, and other inhuman totalitarian philosophies.

>The Bush administration clearly demonizes Al Qaeda and everyone suspected of having a link with it. Don't you remember the "Axis of Evil" speech? And Reagan called the Soviet Union as the "source of all evil". Soviet Union in the 80's was a quite civilizes country and many, many Russians look back at those times with nostalgy.
>>Okay, you're wrong. The Bush administration never used logic remotely like this to justify the extension of the war against world terrorism to the territory of Iraq. The primary argument has consistently been that the Ba'athist regime harbors and sponsors terrorist organizations and was developing various weapons of mass destruction for use against the USA and its friends and allies (and if he was not continuing to pursue these, he could have avoided invasion by giving the inspectors the documentation to show what had happened to what he was known to have had and the opportunity to confirm it). Hussein was known to have stated many times over the past dozen years that the biggest regret he had was that he did not wait the few years it would have taken to have nuclear weapons before invading Kuwait.


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