On Mon, 21 Jul 2003, Jonathan Schwarz wrote:
> On Monday, July 21, 2003, at 09:40 AM, Brad DeLong
> <delong at econ.Berkeley.EDU> wrote:
>
> >>> Are you saying that you think that Ho Chi Minh was better than Nguyen
> >>> Van Thieu, that Mao Zedong was better than Chang Kaishek, and that
> >>> Kim Il Sung was better than Syngman Rhee?
> >>>
> >>> Brad DeLong
> >>
> >> Brad, I don't think these are the right questions.... Generally
> >> speaking, any attack by one country on another leads to the
> >> political system in the country under attack becoming harsher....
> >> It's likely that Afghanistan would have been a much nicer place and
> >> wouldn't have ruled by Mullah Omar in 2001 if the Soviet Union
> >> hadn't invaded and torn it to shreds. Similar answers can be given
> >> to your questions regarding Vietnam, and, to a lesser extent, China
> >> and North Korea.
> >
> > Quite frankly, no. Mao Zedong and Kim Il Sung did the attacking.
>
> Uh huh. Just to humor me, I ask that you assume that I'm an idiot, and
> give me a brief summary of the relevant history.
>
> > Ho Chi Minh is different: a Communist-Nationalist leader fighting
> > foreign European colonialists and neocolonialists. But I've never
> > seen anyone seriously argue that Ho was not a convinced Communist--a
> > believer in total state control, collectivized agriculture, and lots
> > of other very bad things.
>
> Right. And I've never seen anyone seriously argue that Mullah Omar
> wasn't a convinced Islamist. But my point was that that's not the point
> -- countries aren't the embodiment of one person. Different people will
> come to power under different conditions.
>
> Do you see what I mean? If there were still a Soviet Union, someone
> could say, well, Mullah Omar was a believer in lots of very bad things.
> In fact, if there still were a Soviet Union, I guarantee lots of people
> WOULD say that. I suspect in that case you'd think of them as
> apologists for the Soviet attack on Afghanistan.
>
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