At 11:00 AM 3/24/99 -0800, you wrote:
>But I don't think that the argument that Winston Churchill was a bad man
>because he ordered British intervention in Greece in the closing stages of
>World War II is a winner. I don't know anyone who thinks that the Greek
>people would have had a happier time in the years since World War II if
>their domestic politics had been more like the politics of Bulgaria,
>Romania, Czechoslovakia, Hungary, Poland, or Yugoslavia.
Whether or not the Greek people would have been happier depends on which Greeks you ask. If you ask the people who were members of the anti-fascist resistance who were suppressed in favor of the Greek Nazis by the British, you might get a different view than the one you present.
Besides, this ignores other options which were available. Why is the only alternative to Western support of Greek fascists, who ruthlessly consolidated their power, Greecian membership in the Warsaw Pact? Why not something resembling the politics of France or Belgium? Why couldn't Greece have developed into a democracy which respected civil liberties?
Sometimes I'm completely baffled at your persistence in clinging to the standard Cold War rationale for the often brutal and inexcusable crimes of the West. With a little knowledge of history, it is almost trivially easy to show, as others on this list have already done, that the reason for Western involvement in Greece (and there are many other examples around the world) had nothing to do with a concern for the well being of the people of Greece. Or rather, any concern for the people of Greece was incidental and was not a significant factor in the West's decision to intervene.
Brett