----- Original Message ----- From: "Doug Pensinger" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: "Killer Bs Discussion" <brin-l@mccmedia.com> Sent: Thursday, May 12, 2005 4:28 PM Subject: Re: Br!n: Re: more neocons
> Dan wrote: > > >> I think its arguable that many of the mentioned countries, the the > >> Philippians frex as well as many others (such as Iran) were able to move > >> away from their dictatorial governments _despite_ the U.S., not because > > of its influence. > > > > If this were true, then one should look at countries with less US > > influence and find a greater percentage of working democracies for > > longer periods of time than those with greater US influence. > > Allow me to rephrase a little because I don't really think our influence > is a simple matter. I believe our influence via military/industrial > channels was negative but that our cultural influence was positive and one > the people of many countries wish to emulate. OK, but I was specificly referring to the leverage our government had with other governments. We clearly have a strong cultural influence in Arab countries....even one of the Palestinians celebrating 9-11 was wearing a US sports tee shirt. Yet, that is an area where we have little leverage. We had a lot more leverage in Tawain and the Phillipeans. >Military/industrial people want control and large profits at the expense of the native people. The military wanted to keep Communism at bay. I think I can see that as their bias. > A people that elects a government that wants to distribute the wealth of > their country fairly among the people is much less profitable than a > dictator that takes his cut and allows the multinationals to do as they > will. OK, using that hypothesis, we should see multinationals all over the dictatorships in Africa and virtually none in places like India, which has been democatic for >50 years, right? It doesn't seem to work that way. Now, I'd be happy to agree that businesses are after profit, which is inherently an amoral stand. If a horrid dictatorship is sitting on easy to obtain oil, there will be a company that will more than happy to make a profit off it. If that dictatorship poses a threat to the US, there would still be US companies selling to it (e.g. Haliburton selling A-bomb triggers to Iraq in the 90s). But my point wasn't about the influence of the US culture or businesses, it was about the US government. Insofar as the military desire to see no more Communist governments came into play, I can understand why anti-Communist dictatorships would be embraced. When Communism fell, that needed did also, and the right-wing dictatorships lost their bargining chip with the US. This meant that the US's leverage with those countries increased, and, by my hypothesis, the percentage of dictatorships in countries in Latin America should have fallen significantly after the end of the Cold war. By your hypothesis, there should have been a much smaller effect. The military would still want control, and multinationals would still want profit. Only if one agrees that the military wanted to defend the US at virtually all costs can one argue for a strong military influence resulting in the preservation of right-wing dictatorships. I would agree to this bias by the military during the Cold war, but not afterwards. Dan M. _______________________________________________ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
