Irony

[Barklessdog]

I was watching the news last night and one story was how we are trying to support Mussahreff in Pakistan as a leader who was a dictator but lost to anti American parties under democracy. The next story was America condemning the new Cuban dictator.

Does anyone else find irony in this?

[uwe]

No, but foreign policy is mostly driven by utalitarian motives. There are good and bad dictators to every nation's interests. Pinochet, who destoyed an albeit leftist democratic government in Chile in bloodshed, was a good dictator to the US, Castro, who has killed less people, isn't. Idi Amin was a good dictator to the USSR (and before that, ironically, to Israel), but the guy who ruled Afghanistan before the military coup that installed the Russian-friendly regime (then overturned by the mujadin or Rambo, I don't remember which) wasn't. Pol Pot, a mass murderer, was a good dictator to China, his Vietnamese trained and supported opponent who eventually ousted him, wasn't. Adolf Hitler was a good dictator to Joseph Stalin and vice versa until Adolf changed his mind in 1941  (and Joseph and his then American friends took him subsequently to the cleaners for it). Saddam was a fine dictator to the US as long as he counterbalanced Iran (then and now a democracy of sorts though you might not like the people they vote for), not so a fine dictator when he took that weekend trip to Kuwait.

It's not irony, it's cynicism. But nearly all states have done it and continue to do it. When it comes down to foreign policy, the means and aims of democracies and dictatorships are very, very similar, uncomfortably so. The important difference lies in how they treat their own people.

Uwe