From: cmort@NCoast.ORG (Christopher Morton)
Subject: Re: Cuba : Is an embargo still necessary?
Reply-To: cmort@ncoast.org (Christopher Morton)
Organization: North Coast Public Access *NIX, Cleveland, OH
Date: Thu, 24 Dec 1992 15:25:39 GMT
Followup-To: talk.politics.misc

As quoted from <1992Dec24.041110.2302@vlsi.polymtl.ca> by d40937@aiken (Jean Yves Desbiens):

> Christopher Morton (cmort@NCoast.ORG) wrote:
> : Do you or did you support sanctions against South Africa?
> : 
> :      a. The demise of National Socialism and the lack of Nazi Germany to 
> :      support Afrikaans fascism has eliminated any real reason to be very
> :      concerned about apartheid, hasn't it?  We don't need to worry about
> :      RSAF as a base for hostile German forces, do we?
> 
> For someone who supposedly doesn't want to flame, your very 
> condescending way of replying surely makes me want to set you ablaze;
> such an arrogant argumentation , taking my post and changing selective
> words to proove a point, won't sway me that's for sure.
> 
I figured it wouldn't sway you.  I didn't think you'd like it either.  Of 
course I don't have any obligation to post things that you LIKE.  That you
were SOOOO agitated by it certainly indicates that it got to you.  Good.

> Your link between germany and the Afrikaans is preposterous, fascism
> existed in south africa before Hitler, Germany didn't invent it, and
> it still exists in many place. As for the spread of apartheid , 't
> apartheid is a homegrown solution and there wasn't 
> any reason for it to spread, where could it go. The only other country 

Really?  The borders of RSAF can expand as far as they have men and materiel
to expand them.

"Fascism" existed in South Africa before Hitler?  How about describing this
"fascism"?  The antecedents of NAZISM originated in Austria.

> in africa with a somewhat similar structure was Rhodesia and it
> became a pluralist ( with some problems ) society before the first
> sanctions took affect. You are confusing the fact that before 
> the last few years there was a clear distinction between private 
> matters (racism) and global matters (communism) the latter 
> upstaging the former by far. It is a fact that Cuba tried to 

"PRIVATE"?  RSAF's neighbors didn't think it was so "private", especially
when SADF personnel were wandering back and forth across their borders at 
will, KILLING people.

> export communism when it was in its hey days but it is not the
> case now, It is also a fact that apartheid was a purely south
> african institution that wasn't meant for export and it is 
> when its disadvantages began to outweigh its advantages ( for
> the whites there ) that it began unraveling. The reason Cuba

People in Angola and Mozambique might disagree.  Other places too.

> is under the boot of the US is because it makes a nice easy target
> with political gains to be made amongst the cuban american, if this is
> not so then explain why China is on much better terms with the
> US even though they are reputed for their zero tolerance to dissidents
> and other evil foes. 

China has nuclear weapons.  If Cuba did, we'd be nicer to them too.

> :      b. Do you feel that, "The US's overpowering
> :      urge to rid the world of every fascist country like a plague
> :      that must be eradicated smacks of hipocrisy(sic) after its support
> :      of the Soviet Union during WWII and Yugoslavia afterwards. For the US, if
> :      someone is not an ally, he must be an ennemi(sic)."
> 
> First , the US didn't really help the USSR during WWII, they had begun
> to fight back the germans before D-day. I submit that if D-day hadn't

Then the Soviets built all of those P-39s, P-40s, P-47s, White halftracks, 
etc, etc, etc. themselves?  Lend Lease was just a myth?  Buy a history book,
you might enjoy it.

> come, the russians would have beaten the germans by themselves. The Russians
> were asking for a second front since 1942, but by the time they got it
> in June 1944 it was no longer absolutly necessary. At the end of the war,
> the americans wanted as much to beat the germans as to prevent the
> russians from taking all germany. So again their motives were not
> pure in their *help* of the russians. 
> 
Can you name somebody with "pure" motives?  I didn't think so.

> The US did not have and still does not have to urge to get rid of every 
> fascist country, only those that cross its path. There are numerous 
> examples troughout the 20th century :
> 
> - Haiti , the original coup in 1933 that put Papa Doc in power was US backed ;

Yes, and?  I suppose we invaded Finland, Latvia, Lithuania, Estonia, 
Afghanistan, Poland and Czechoslovakia too....

> - Iraq , Sadaam was a good guy (sic) until he attacked the oil fieilds
>   of Koweit, the US supported him during the Iran-Iraq war; 

Just like Stalin was temporarily a "good guy" as long as he was fighting the
Germans.  Think we should have left him to the Germans?  Maybe we would have
had "pure motives" then....

> - Afghanistan , the Moujahadine are not saints, they are now fighting
>   themselves and they grew and still grow opium for the heroin market;.

Let's bomb your hometown flat, torture your parents and rape your sister, then
see what YOU are willing to sell....

> None of these involvments were justified locally, but what's good 
> for the US is good for the world :-| so they were still done.

I'd list ALL of the dictators that the Soviets and Chinese and CUBANS have
supported, but I have to be someplace in an hour....

> : I supported sanctions against RSAF.  If you did too, then I detect some 
> : hypocrisy in YOUR position vis a vis Cuba.  Why is it ok to impose sanctions
> : on South Africa and NOT ok against Cuba which is even LESS democratic than
> : RSAF, which at least provides a semblance of democracy to a PORTION of its
> : population...?
> 
> Democracy in south africa is a joke, democracy must apply to all if

Then Cuba doesn't even have a sense of humor yet.

> it is to be meaningfull. Compared to the other countries
> that the US has associated itself with, the cuban's human rights
> record is not even close to being the worse. Hypocrisy is

I have friends whose relatives became fertilizer on the Isle of Pines who
disagree.

> country for a reason X and doesn't do anything when another
> country does something a lot worse. That's what the US does on a 
> regular basis, selective moral comtempt. I supported the sanctions
> and as I explained earlier, if the cuban embargo was based on a true
> altruistic do good attitude it would be applied consistently against
> all those countries that infrindge international law, if it is
> not so it must be a purely political decision. 
> 
I'll be damned if I can name ANYTHING based on "true altruism" which has
caused less harm than good.

> BTW : I am canadian, we were the first to support the sanctions against
> south africa, we do not support the cuban embargo though, we can travel
> to Cuba without hastle and their goods are readily available here.

Wrong kind of dictatorship I guess....



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