4 ms·
> Given the choice between a government that poses no threat to it but is illiberal and any possibility of a liberal government the US always opts to harm the i
by yongjik 7y ago
> Given the choice between a government that poses no threat to it but is illiberal and any possibility of a liberal government the US always opts to harm the illiberal government.
This makes sense only if you define "liberal" as "aligned with the interests of Washington and/or American corporations". For god's sake, USA supported Saddam Hussein while he was gassing Kurdish civilians during the Iran-Iraq war.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_support_for_Iraq_during_the_Iran%E2%80%93Iraq_War https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_support_for_Iraq...
> Joost R. Hiltermann says that when the Iraqi military turned its chemical weapons on the Kurds during the war, killing approximately 5,000 people in the town of Halabja and injuring thousands more, the Reagan administration actually sought to obscure Iraqi leadership culpability by suggesting, inaccurately, that the Iranians may have carried out the attack.
- chibg10 7y ago"Supported" in the sense of "not letting being conquered completely by Iran." Who was carrying out its own mass executions of non-Muslims and implementing its own cultural revolution around that time. America definitely had some self-interest in protecting Iraq, but it's not like the alternative was clearly a better choice either.
- yongjik 7y ago> "Supported" in the sense of "not letting being conquered completely by Iran." Iraq started the war.
- chibg10 7y agoRight, that doesn't mean it went well for them. The US didn't provide significant aid to Iraq until it feared the Hussein government being overrun altogether. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_support_for_Iraq_during_the_Iran–Iraq_War#Support https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_support_for_Ir...
- deleted 7y ago[deleted]
- barry-cotter 7y agoIn a war between secularists and theocrats the liberal power will have no difficulty in deciding which side it finds more ideologically simpatico.