The Two Fronts Part III

2001-10-12 00:48:00

The Lesser of Two Evils

The next major criticism of the United States is that it has supported some fairly bad guys in the past. Sometimes it was not obvious at first that these leaders were very undesirable.

The trouble with these criticisms is that most of them I have seen are very one-sided and leave out consideration of the all important question:

Why has the United States supported bad dudes as Saddam Hussein, Pinochet of Chile Noriega of Panama and others?

Is it just because we are evil to the core and want to see the triumph of evil over good?

Of course not.

Is it because we have a low regard for freedom and love dictatorships?

Again the answer has to be no (speaking collectively).

What is the answer then?

The answer is that it is not a perfect world and none of the leaders of any country are without flaw.

The next question is that if we are not looking for perfection then what do we look for?

Answer: The most important thing to look for is...

Intention.

What has been our intention?

Has it been world conquest?

No.

Has it been to expand our territories by force?

No. We have had this opportunity numerous times and passed it up.

Has it been to bring suffering to mankind or to any people?

No.

So what are our basic intentions as a country?

The answer is simple. In spite of backsliding, the United States and many other democratic countries seek to preserve the gains in freedom, social and scientific progress and free market prosperity that we have achieved for ourselves and the free world.

This is not true of all countries. Some totalitarian, or strongly religious states seek to restrict freedom, are against progress and do not believe in a free market.

What the United States is criticized for here is a result of natural evolution rather than some evil design.

When there are two nations in existence with any type of relationship, the nation with less wealth and power will seek assistance from the stronger and the stronger will seek some type of reciprocal benefit for assistance offered.

Such a relationship can be beneficial to both parties if intention is good and both honor their commitments and expectations.

But if one of the nations alters their course or makes changes to the original agreements then the nation damaged will of course seek to influence the rogue nation back on course, just as we individuals would do in our relationships.

It should be no surprise or point for criticism that the rich and powerful nations become involved with the less powerful for (except for forceful conquest) both sides usually desire it.

Some wonder why we supported Saddam Hussein when he turned out to be such a threat to peace. The reason of course, is that at the time he seemed to be much less of a threat than was Iran as I wrote about in the post titled, "Human Error" on Sept 16.

Saddam desired our help and we desired to give it in order to diffuse a bothersome enemy. There was no way to know he would turn out the way he did.

Some criticize us for supporting Afghanistan during its war with the Soviets because Osama Bin Laden is now using them to his advantage against us. Yet our assistance to Afghanistan was a key element in bankrupting the Soviet empire and greatly reducing the Russian aims at world conquest.

One of the strongest criticisms of the United States was its stand against the Chilean government of Allende and its support of Pinochet who later turned out to be quite the tyrant.

Before I elaborate on this it is important to look at the underlying principle at play.

Many third world countries have a constitution spelling out as many liberties as there are in the United States or any other free nation, yet the people continue to be ruled by tyrants.

Why is this?

The answer is that the freedom and quality of government is predicated as much on the consciousness of the people as it is on the legal foundations of that government. If a people do not have the spirit of freedom in their consciousness then no document will give it to them and they will willingly accept tyrants as their masters.

Therefore, what will happen on a regular basis in these developing nations is that one tyrant will be replaced by another until the day comes that the people have had enough and demand good government.

When the United States then sees a tyrant or troublemaker of some kind it will use its influence to remove him. What then happens is, by the law of averages, he will be replaced about half the time by someone worse and we will then be blamed for supporting the bad guy.

Nixon, of Watergate fame, was too heavy handed in his attempts to influence other nations, yet in many cases his reason was just, but his methods were not wise.

Taking that into consideration let us examine why he handled Chile the way he did.

In 1970 Salvador Allende, a socialist of communist philosophy, was running for President of Chile and because there were so many candidates there was a strong possibility that he could win the election. Nixon and his group did everything possible to insure his defeat yet he still pulled off a victory with about a third of the vote.

Even though the majority of the people did not want communism, those opposed were so divided that their votes were diffused by the numerous candidates.

The U.S. opposed Allende because our country was philosophically opposed to communism, but there was another major reason. That is, at Chile's invitation, many U.S. companies made major investments in the country, especially in mining. If there were a communist takeover of Chile then it was feared their assets would be nationalized (stolen by the government) and these companies would lose many millions.

Amazingly, many criticize large corporations for having such concerns using catch phrases such as "greedy corporations" or "capitalistic pigs," etc. The trouble is that such criticisms are usually very hypocritical. Which one of us, having trusted a friend with the loan of a car, would not use our influence to retain the title when it becomes obvious he may steal it? If you or I then would seek to keep our own valuable possessions under our control, why do we criticize corporations for doing the same thing???

In addition to this, many forget that a big corporation is more than a few fat cats, but there are many average people depending on the stock they own for retirement, sending the kids to school etc. When you think of a large corporation losing money you must also think in terms of many struggling people like yourself losing money, hopes and dreams.

Despite U.S. influence to the contrary, Allende won the election and assumed power and when he did the fears of the United States (and other foreign countries) and the corporations were realized for the new regime began stealing the assets of foreign companies.

The Chilean government therefore moved quickly to socialize the economy, taking over the copper mines, other foreign firms, industries, banks, and large estates. They totally nationalized the foreign copper firms, which were mainly owned by two United States companies, Kennecott and Anaconda.

One has to be numb to reality to think that these corporations would take such a loss lying down. Who would?

Of course, they used all the influence at their disposal to get the government to "do something."

After a year in office for Allende, the economy turned sour as it always does under enforced socialism, inflation eventually reached 500% and many people including a large portion of the military became disgruntled. The Nixon administration, fearing another Cuba in our hemisphere, threw support behind the military in the hope that they would overthrow the government. As far as quality of government a communist regime or a military dictatorship is pretty much a tossup, but because of the worldwide threat from the former the latter seemed more desirable.

As the socialists seized more and more private property and many in Allende's party insisted on an accelerated takeover increasing numbers of people became alarmed and a sharp division occurred among the people. The number of zealots toward the far left began to diminish and the power of the far right began to increase and a major conflict between these two seemed inevitable.

This finally occurred in September 1973 when the Military led by Pinochet took over the government by force. Allende died either by assassination or suicide, no one seems to know for sure, and a number of his associates were killed.

After this thousands of Allende's supporters were tortured and killed and a dictatorship of suppression and abuse reigned for years to come.

Despite Pinochet's alarming violation of civil rights he was not all bad. He worked at stabilizing the country with a goal of returning it toward democracy. A democratic constitution was presented to the people in 1980 and Pinochet himself called for free elections in 1988.

Pinochet wound up losing the election held in 1989 and Patricio Aylwin became the first democratically elected president since 1970.

Since this time the government and economy of Chile has greatly stabilized becoming one of the best in South America. It has made innovations (such as allowing citizens to invest their social security in the stock market) that politicians over the world are thinking of emulating.

While it is true that it is just to be abhorrent against Pinochet for his crimes and violence against his people, those who think this would not have happened if Allende had remained in power, are having wishful thinking. Before the military takeover there was a collapse of the economy and such a sharp angry division existed that a deadly showdown was unavoidable.

Assessment:

The United States was correct in its assessment that there was a danger that Chile would become another communist state and as such would use its influence to subvert other governments in the Western Hemisphere. Allende was getting financial aid from the Soviet Union and established close ties with North Korea, North Vietnam and Cuba. In this dangerous situation (at that time in history) I think it was correct to for the U.S. to use its influence to obtain a return of property to its citizens and influence a change of government.

The goal was right, but the tactics used by the Nixon administration were very devious just as were his tactics that caused his downfall through Watergate. There are numerous accusations of abuse and possible assassinations involved which are difficult to prove one way or another.

Some criticisms of the Nixon administration are just, but we must keep in mind that the people of the United States itself forced Nixon out of office.

The criticism of the fact that the U.S. was evil because it merely supported those opposed to Allende is not logical because there was just cause to be against him at the time. We had no way of knowing the quality of the government which may replace him but encouraging change was a calculated risk that seemed reasonable.

As it turned out Pinochet eventually allowed free elections which removed him of power and now Chile has an exemplary government.

Few consider the fact that if Allende had remained in power he would have had to use force also to stay there and it is quite possible that Chile would now be a communist dictatorship to this day. There is no way to know.

Looking at the whole picture it appears that despite the abuses that a leap in progress has been made for the country.

I have tried to present a glimpse of the whole picture (in miniature) here to illustrate that one of the most infamous accusations against the United States is not just a black and white case of the country being in the wrong. Because of the good end produced it is quite possible that we chose the lesser of two evils.

Those critical of U.S. policy will often name case after case of this country throwing support behind some bad guy giving the appearance that our government is evil incarnate. But just as I have taken one of the major examples cited and by the presentation of the facts have revealed that our support was not a simple case of choosing evil over good, even so could this be dome with every example of supposed U.S. "abuse."

Larry has told us that these abuses are actions of the second beast which is the United States as predicted in the Book of Revelations.

This is true to a degree but there are two other happenings that have caused beastly powers to come out of the United States which caused it to "speak the words of the dragon." These happenings were much more serious than any of our attempts to throw support behind the lesser of two evils. What are they?