These are rather strong and nonsensical words Mr. Wojtek. Can you please elobarate as to why you would characterize my remarks in such a bizzare fashion? I am really curious to know what prompted these remarks. Of course your remarks are an example of the success of the propaganda campaign mounted to distort the history of what happened in Rwanda and the Congo in the 1990s. I challenge you to engage in an actual discussion about what happened in Rwanda and the Congo (any serious discussion cannot seperate the two) rather than just hurl nonsense about the place. I await your response.
Joe W.
----------------------------------------
> Date: Sat, 29 Apr 2006 15:58:55 -0700
> From: wsokol52 at yahoo.com
> Subject: Re: [lbo-talk] Re: "Save Darfur" etc (and other responses)
> To: lbo-talk at lbo-talk.org
>
>
>
> --- Dwayne Monroe <idoru345 at yahoo.com> wrote:
>
> >
> > An intriguing list of actions. I don't think US
> > troops were deployed under the UN flag in many of
> > these operations (if any).
>
> Two points. First, the selection of troops for UN
> missions is done usually from countries within the
> region or that share same culture or stakes precisely
> to avoid the impression of imperialist intervetion.
>
> Second, if memory I serves the US intervened on the
> "good" side (Naser's) in the Suez Canal crisis (I am
> not sure if they sent troops, though). Without the US
> veto, Europeans would have invaded.
>
> As to the rest of your comments, I fully agree with
> ravi that US is not exceptionally evil. Other
> countries have more than a fair share of brutal thugs.
> The problem that you the US lefties face (I liked
> that phrase, ravi, thank you), it that you tend to see
> the world in manichaen terms - as a struggle between
> good and evil. Most yanks do, to be sure, but you
> tend to reverse the signs of those polarities, and
> what most yanks see as a "shining city on a hill" you
> perceive as a snake pit of barbarism and sheer
> aggression, and vice versa. As a result, you have an
> idealized image of the so-called Third World countries
> just like most mainstream US-ers have an idealized
> image of "America the Beautiful" that can do no wrong
> - and you also have a demonized image of the US as
> hell on earth, just like most mainstrem US-ers
> perceive the Third World.
>
> The reality, as ravi aptly observed is that the Third
> World can be just as thuggish and imperialist as the
> Us, it just does not have the same capacity as the US.
> But they can accomplish more than the US, even with
> simple means, like machetes.
>
> Killing a million people just with machetes is much
> more personal than, say, releasing the payload from a
> B-52 cruising at a high altitude. The B-52 pilot can
> at least delude himself that he is just attacking
> military targets and minimising "collateral damage."
> The guys who chop off heads of four-year old children
> with machetes, or chop of the legs of their victims so
> they cannot escape and then return the next day to
> finish the job, have no such illusions. I also
> understand that despite the hell the US created in
> Iraq during the last two or so years, it still falls
> short of a million killed by the guys with machetes
> just in four months.
>
> So the right way to phrase the question is not how the
> US intervention compares to some idealizaded peaceful
> resoultion that never was, but how it compares to the
> actions of other powers, major and minor. And quite
> honestly, I do not think that the US looks that bad in
> this company. Or phrasing it differently, the number
> of war criminals (convicted or not) per capita is
> lower in the US than in many, if not most, countries.
> The US may fall short of its ideal of being a shining
> city on a hill, but it is not a murderous hellhole
> either. It is neither exceptionally good, nor
> exceptionally bad. In fact, it is not exceptional at
> all.
>
> PS. Joe Wanzala, you sound to me like a Holocaust
> denier. If you posted the same crap about the Nazi
> Holocaust as you did about the Rwandan, you would be
> booted out of this list and many other places.
>
> Wojtek
>
>
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