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| Cutting and running on our allies |
| 2006-11-23 |
| MANY AMERICANS have been wondering why so many Iraqis are willing to fight for militias and terrorist groups but not for the American-backed government. Look at it from their perspective. Would you stake your life on a regime whose existence depends on Washington's continuing support? Given our long, shameful record of leaving allies in the lurch, that has never seemed to be a smart bet. We have been betraying friends since our first overseas conflict, against the Barbary pirates who captured ships off the African coast and enslaved their crews. To defeat the pasha of Tripoli, the U.S. made common cause with his brother, Hamet Karamanli. In 1804, American envoy William Eaton led a motley force of mercenaries and Marines across North Africa to install Karamanli on the throne. The offensive was called off prematurely when President Jefferson's envoy reached a deal with the pasha to free his American captives in return for $60,000. Karamanli was evacuated to the U.S., but his family members were left as hostages. Eaton raged: "Our too credulous ally is sacrificed to a policy, at the recollection of which, honor recoils, and humanity bleeds." Something similar could have been said about U.S. conduct after World War I. President Wilson was the leading champion of "national self-determination" at the Paris Peace Conference in 1919, yet the U.S. did nothing to safeguard the states he helped midwife. We stood by, for instance, when Czechoslovakia and Poland were occupied by the Nazis. This callous indifference was repeated after World War II when we did too little to save the Eastern Europeans from Russian occupation. |
| Posted by:tipper |
| #3 Don't worry, grom. Your credentials as resident Gutless Bile Master are safe. You must be as happy as a pig in shit about Olmert - gives you the perfect excuse to kvetch and moan at every turn. When that becomes boring you can take shots at Bush. Damn, bring a tear to mine eye to see such a happy asshole. |
| Posted by: .com 2006-11-23 23:35 |
| #2 Good piece. |
| Posted by: gromgoru 2006-11-23 17:58 |
| #1 I once thought Max Boot was, as far as the El Lay Times goes, remarkably nearly almost okay. But this is nothing less than a hit piece. Who got us into the messes, right or wrong and cherry-picked for effect, and who pulled us out, right or wrong, and the political context of those decisions is given short and selective shrift. Duh, Iraq. In the current situation, it is clearly the DhimmiDonks, Moonbats, and Tranzis, ably assisted by the 50-1 ratio of MSM hit pieces (the Daily Drone) to reality (those occasional op-ed pieces they allowed for the gossamer pretense of neutrality), who have engineered public perceptions for partisan gain - oh, and fuck the Iraqis is the end result. Of course, being Arabs, the Iraqi Arabs are helping in every way they can, but regards your point, cutting off US support, it's your guys who're abandoning Iraq. It was your agenda so long - have you conveniently "forgotten"? Lol, yeah right. And let's put a fine point on it... your use of the word "allies" in regard to Iraq is nothing short of hysterical - le classique straw man. That is one wild-assed exaggeration in regard to Arabs in general, and Iraqi Arabs in particular. Only the Kurds could possibly be considered our "allies" in Iraq. And look how they're doing... great, because they're not idiots, not Arabs, not fools bent on sectarian revenge and hate. You'll note that the failure of the Arabs has nothing, nothing whatsoever, to do with us, Max, my boy. No, the Arabs aren't allies by any stretch, negating your entire article, and for what it's worth after that sinks in, what's going to happen to Iraq after "we" have nuked our support will be courtesy of your DhimmiDonk assholes and your employer and the ilk on your island of delusion. It will be a slaughter you can be proud of, man. Really. The astounding disingenuousness of the El Lay Times asstards lamenting the failure -> quagmire -> cut & run, their Meme Themes of Choice for the last 2+ years, and spreading it out into an anti-US meme, "we" are cutting and running, is beyond asinine, it's black comedy. Fuck off Max. Fuck off and Die. Oh, and please pass it on. My regards to the NYT / LAT / etc empire: may your stock continue to fall, your staff continue to be felled in great swaths, and everyone who supports anything you pursue continue to pay for it, reaping pain instead of profit, derision instead of acclaim, ignominy instead of fame... until you are, deservedly, no more. *pfffft* |
| Posted by: .com 2006-11-23 11:36 |