From: yarvin@cs.yale.edu (Norman Yarvin)
Newsgroups: alt.current-events.somalia
Subject: Re: U.S. Is Not Going to War in Somalia for any Good Reasons
Date: 16 Dec 1992 15:33:26 -0500
Organization: Yale Computer Science Department
NNTP-Posting-Host: cathy.na.cs.yale.edu

egl1@cunixf.cc.columbia.edu (Elizabeth G. Levy) writes:
>>  The
>>political tactics were similar to those used by the revolution in China, by
>>partisans in Yugoslavia, by guerrillas in Zimbabwe, and by the communist
>>rebellion in Zaire.  In all these places the doctrine that was spread to the
>>peasants was communist.  In all these places the method of spreading the
>>doctrine was to shoot people who expressed disagreement, or who were likely
>>to do so.
>
>Perhaps.  Tactics generally are studied and disseminated.  That's what
>military colleges are for, after all.  What you're describing is
>perhaps a model for rebellion as much as anything else.

A communist rebellion is only suited for producing a communist state as the
end product.  Consider this: communist countries have always made extremely
shoddy goods.  Bicycles, cars, washing machines, whatever.  Manufacturing is
done poorly.  Crop yields are low, and of what food does get produced, a
good portion rots in the distribution system.

This is not because the leaders of the country _liked_ producing shoddy
goods.  It is not because they _decided_ to have their crops rot.  It is
because during the revolution, the people who knew how to do these things
well were shot.  They were, after all, the "class enemies".  A good number
of them were relatively wealthy.  And after they were gone, there was noone
who knew how to do these things right.

>  Further, to
>kill those who may disagree with you has been true since long before
>the Romans.

It is an ancient barbarian tactic.  However with the invention of printed
matter it generally died out.  Print immensely facilitates the spread of
ideas, so that the number of people who need to be killed becomes too large
to stomach.  For most people, that is.  Not for the communists.  They would
move into a village in the Congo, and kill the schoolteachers, their
students, and anybody else they could find who knew how to read.  March them
out into the woods and blast away.  The same thing happened in Vietnam, time
and time again.  It is not much of an exaggeration to say these people were
bent on wiping out civilization.

>  I've argued that a lot of these insurrections may have
>gone over to Communism because they were anti-America primarily, and
>Communism was a handy ideology to have when you're anti-American.
>(The Iranian Revolution provided perhaps another model of
>anti-American ideology.)

To say that a person turned to communism because he was anti-American is
like saying someone turned to cannibalism because his job was miserable: it
may in a way be true, but that does not justify it.

--
Norman Yarvin						yarvin@cs.yale.edu
 "Self-Esteem: An erroneous appraisal."
		-- Ambrose Bierce, _The Devil's Dictionary_
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