Confusion

[Brad De Long]

>
>Surely U.S. forces are worth maintaining in South Korea as long as
>North Korea is ruled by, in Eric Hobsbawm's phrase, "totalitarian
>megalomaniacs"?
>
>
>Brad DeLong
>
>
>The Yugoslavian communists also did a great job by keeping their
>country united (at least until Vatican, Germany and other rogue
>states started to intervene in internal matters, leading to this
>horrible civil war). Also the Soviet communists also did a great
>job, trying to avoid the transition to market economy, which killed
>as people as Stalin did (with much worse economic results...). And
>what about Castro, who protected the Cuban people from US backed
>genocide (like in Guatemala)? Not to mention the heroic Vietnam
>Army, who defeated the (Also US backed) Khmer Rouge. And many Afghans
>probably would welcome the Red Army, if they came back to free the
>Afghanistan from the Talibans (and wonder who supported them in the
>80´s....)
>
>			Alexandre Fenelon

I agree with you that Afghanistan would be much, much better off had 
the U.S. never used it to try to inflict a Vietnam-in-reverse on 
Russia. But is that supposed to be an argument that Kim Il Sung and 
Kim Jong Il are nice guys?

If you can't even call a totalitarian megalomaniac a totalitarian 
megalomaniac, you have no business trying to do global politics.

Brad DeLong