As J.E. Dyer pointed out a few days ago, the standard treatment of the Cold War in the academy of the 1970s and 1980s was that it was a bad idea. That argument had many facets, but among the most consistently presented of them was the theme that the artificial Cold War scare had been used to justify close American relations with anti-Communist dictators.
This anti–Cold War bias has, to my mind, waned slightly, in part because of the work of historians like John Lewis Gaddis, and in part because it’s now history, and as such is safe for everyone to be in favor of. Indeed, it’s so safe that President Obama is free to call for Sputnik moments.
Still, the argument about American foreign policy endures. Since both Democratic and Republican presidents fought the Cold War, our policy, whatever you care to say about it, was bipartisan. Yet by and large, the charge of friendship with autocrats is used to tar Republicans. As Mark Mazower, a historian at Columbia, put it last year, “the kind of values talk that Reagan . . . injected into the Republican Party” is “tolerance for nasty dictators so long as they were not Reds.”
As John made clear in his earlier post, in regard to the binary choice between authoritarians and totalitarians, the argument about whom the U.S. should work with in pursuit of its national interests in this imperfect world is an old, long, and complicated one, and the only immediately nonsensical position is that we should simply ally ourselves with the absolutely pure. But what is really wonderful is to watch media liberals suddenly — now that we have a Democrat as president — discovering the virtues of American collaborations with the autocrats. Here, for instance, is Chris Matthews on MSNBC’s Hardball on Tuesday:
[Americans] do not like seeing people treat their friends badly. We treated Diem terribly, we let him get butchered then killed in Vietnam even though he was our ally for all those years. We watched the Shah become, as Henry Kissinger called him, a “flying Dutchman” before he died. Americans do sense when we’re being right with people.
Well, we did – or rather, President Kennedy did — treat Diem terribly. But this sudden surge of sympathy for the Shah, coming from the left, is remarkable, for — in his day — the Shah was close to the top of the left’s list of villains. By itself, this is Cold War revisionism run wild.
Even worse, though, is the way Matthews personalizes it. It wasn’t just Diem we treated badly: it was millions of our friends in Vietnam. Sure, one man matters, especially when he’s president. But we’re not going to “be right with people” if all we do is worry about the fate of their unelected leaders.
I read somewhere they’re probably waiting until the skies become overcast when it will be harder for the Israelis to spot them from the air and take them out.
Other than decimating Hamas, what is Israel’s goal? To reoccupy Gaza indefinitely? I doubt it. To hand it back to the dysfunctional PA? I hope not. To provoke such panic in Gaza that Egypt is forced to take responsibility? Good luck with that. This has all the makings of another hopelessly moral exercise. But if it restores part of Israel’s deterrent I suppose that’s nothing to sneeze at.
i am not sure what kinda news you are watching but there is 400 deaths and over 1700 people injured and 70% of these 2100 people are children. please no matter what, we should be humans before being israelites. how can i stand here knowing that my people are inflicting the same kind of pain and torture on others that we have endured in the past. we live in fear of their retaliation here and in guilt these children with their bodies soaking in blood from our weapons are hunting me and i am sure i am not the only one that feels this way. it’s not a good feeling.
my opinion is as simple as hamas. hamas is nothing but a low down dirtty bunch of 2 bit tererits. isral is and will always will be the home for the jewish pepole. they were driven out of there centeruies and now they have it back.and the united nations will make sure they stay thair. so if hamas thinks differantly let them face the rath of god.all they are doing is fofilling the revelations and they dont even see it.and thats ok with me. when j.c. gets here they are totaly boned.so in short to the israley pepole hang in there help is on his way and vengence will be his.