22 Nov 09
Originally posted by FMFMugabe most egregious -- Idi's 300 000 is tame by comparison, although his stagecraft was better -- Ahmadinejab least.
[b]Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez has defended jailed killer "Carlos the Jackal" and several world leaders he says are wrongly considered "bad guys".
[quote]In a speech to international socialist politicians, Mr Chavez said "Carlos", a Venezuelan, was not a terrorist but a key "revolutionary fighter".
He is serving a life sentence in France for murde ...[text shortened]... against human decency and which one is the least egregious offender?[/b]
Chavez is jumping on a fairly crammed political bandwagon though, I expect to hear warm praise of Kim Il Sung next.
22 Nov 09
Originally posted by KazetNagorraJust showing true colours.
When I initially read this I was most appalled by his praise of Idi Amin... but on second thought, didn't Mugabe kill more than he did?
Anyway, if Chavez ever had any marbles, he's lost them.
It's not insane to play the Mugabe game if you understand the politics. You just have to accept that the revolution comes first and people's lives after. And you have to shoulder the burden of leadership knowing that your election to power is a question of historical inevitability, not democracy -- a useful but meaningless fiction.
22 Nov 09
Originally posted by Bosse de Nageyou're not accounting for inflation.
Mugabe most egregious -- Idi's 300 000 is tame by comparison, although his stagecraft was better -- Ahmadinejab least.
Chavez is jumping on a fairly crammed political bandwagon though, I expect to hear warm praise of Kim Il Sung next.
22 Nov 09
Originally posted by Bosse de NageI have to cry foul!! First of all, Ahmadinejibberjabberer is still alive and kicking. Secondly, he has not had adequate time to wipe away the Zionist nation as if it were the one and only cancerous lesion on the face of the earth. These things take time folks. All in due time, all in due time. After all, getting WMD's up and running take a great deal of time as well as years of world wide inaction as they stand idly by twitling their thumbs. No worries though, if and when they do have nukes I am sure we can reason with them. You know, just don't mention the Holocaust as being a historical event and I am sure we will be able to reason with them. 🙄
[b]Mugabe most egregious -- Idi's 300 000 is tame by comparison, although his stagecraft was better -- Ahmadinejab least.
22 Nov 09
Originally posted by whodeyAhmadinejad may be a corrupt fool, but he's nowhere near the killing megalomanic dictators like Idi Amin or Mugabe - also, he doesn't have as much power.
I have to cry foul!! First of all, Ahmadinejibberjabberer is still alive and kicking. Secondly, he has not had adequate time to wipe away the Zionist nation as if it were the one and only cancerous lesion on the face of the earth. These things take time folks. All in due time, all in due time. After all, getting WMD's up and running take a great deal of ...[text shortened]... e Holocaust as being a historical event and I am sure we will be able to reason with them. 🙄
23 Nov 09
Originally posted by FMFWas I the one that started this thread by complaining about Chavez' statement supporting the "egregious 4"? Of all the bones I'd pick with Chavez, spouting off on how these 4 people weren't really so bad would be well down on my list.
So Chavez's daft rhetoric and support for his Egregious Four is of more concern to you than the U.S. material and diplomatic support for the likes of Mobutu and Soeharto - with ghastly death tolls attached?
As for the other question, I still do not think, even in retrospect, that supporting the Taliban against the Russians was such a blunder on Reagan's part. At the time, the Russians were the more dangerous enemy. It made sense to use the Taliban to help contain them. What later trouble the Taliban wrought is a different issue.
Of course, the obvious parallel is to supporting the Russians during WWII. Even had FDR foreseen the impending cold war, supporting the Russians against the Nazis was the correct decision. In the near term, you need to do what is necessary to defeat the greater evil. Churchill, for example, proposed invading the Balkans instead of Normandy to as to forestall Russian control over the Balkans and Eastern Europe. I believe that Roosevelt's decision to do what was best to defeat Germany was the wisest course of action.
"If Hitler invaded Hell, I would make at least a favourable reference to the Devil in the House of Commons."
- Winston Churchill
23 Nov 09
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Originally posted by KazetNagorraReally? And what if he has his way and kills off all the Zionists? How many are there? I suspect more than Idi ever killed. In fact, how many has he killed in his own country to surpress opposition? You do recognize that he engages in this don't you? I guess to find out, I'll just turn on Al Jezeera to get the fair and balanced truth about the matter. Then again, if he beings to make WMD's and supplies them to terrorist organizations around the globe, there may be no way to pin the deaths on him.
Ahmadinejad may be a corrupt fool, but he's nowhere near the killing megalomanic dictators like Idi Amin or Mugabe - also, he doesn't have as much power.
In short, people like Idi Amin are long dead an gone, however, people like Abjemnndabber have probably another fifty years or so to live. The jury, therefore, is still out. I hope I am wrong about him, but I don't think I am.
23 Nov 09
Originally posted by sh76Well, er... the "other question" as you put it, concerned Mobutu and Soeharto and Saddam Hussein. How much more "evil" were the alternatives to these three, for instance?
As for the other question,..
Soeharto used U.S. and U.K. weapons to kill whole villages full of innocent people in East Timor. What exactly was the "evil" in play in that scenario?
You said: "I don't think that supporting one person for the narrow goal of helping that person defeat a perceived greater evil is quite the same thing as supporting that person in general or supporting that person's cause."
You need to explain how arming a dictator like Soeharto to the teeth was somehow NOT "supporting that person in general or supporting that person's cause" and INSTEAD only "supporting one person for the narrow goal of helping that person defeat a perceived greater evil".
If you can't or won't, then you might understand why many reasonable people around the world would see your apologism/rationalization as little more than a hollow internalized Cold War mantra, designed then - and even still functioning now - to disguise the fact that the kind of "evil" you say you were opposing, flourished every bit as strongly in the countries governed by your proxies and payrolled 'strongmen'.
What "greater good" was at stake in Indonesia, for example?