South Africa

Ok... so we've looked at Ireland... which to me.. (and I am involved, living in England civillians were under threat for 30 years... I was once 600 yards away from a bomb exploding in London) and I think the Republicans have a case.


But what of South Africa?


Civillians were targetted by the ANC under Nelson Mandela (who has the Nobel Peace Prize) but were they terrorists?


Surely, any white civillian who took part in an election which denied a vote to the majority of its' people (the blacks) was tacitly supporting aparteid. And therefore were the civillians legitimate targets for the ANC?


All I am trying to prove with these examples is no case is as clear cut as supporters of the current conflict seem to suggest.


The Gulf War (as another example) where the USA and its allies drove out an invading force from Kuwait and replaced it with a government which although friendly to the West, treats its civillians terribly.


Keith

I'm just curious Keith...I wasn't aware that the US replaced any government in Kuwait...we just helped them repel the incursion by Baghdad, as far as I understand it. Is there something I'm not aware of? Did we actually facilitate a major change in the Kuwaiti regime? And by the way, I remember reading some years ago that Kuwait had the highest per capita income in the entire world...that's a lot of pretty rich guys, sort of...just how does the Kuwaiti government treat its civilians horribly? Now in Iraq, the government does treat its civilians horribly, diverting every available dollar to the miltary and letting some of them starve, gassing the Kurds, etc. In Kuwait, for the citizenry to have the highest per capita income in the world, the government obviously isn't robbing them. I think I also read they all get free schooling and medical care, too, along with their $50K+ median incomes. Doesn't sound all that bad to me. Or am I misunderstanding what you are trying to say?

The rich are very rich in Kuwait... but the poor are extremely poor... have little or no human rights and have no vote... a puppet regime indeed.(Although I am not suggesting Kuwait run by Saddam would be any better of course)


If it wasn't for the trade Kuwait does with the West.. the USA and its allies would have stayed well away.


Where, for example, was the USA and its fight against terrorism when over a million people died in Rwanda?

Good question...and I think the answer is probably that we respond first where it is in our interests to do so. Do you feel there is something wrong with that? I think in an ideal world, perhaps it would not be so, but this is far from an ideal world. If we can right a wrong and serve our own interests too...what's wrong with that? We can't be everything to everyone so there is an order of priorities...not fair, perhaps...but it's not an entirely fair world, sadly enough. Defending free access to oil or our own citizens does sadly take precedence over settling bloody disputes between countries we have little interest in.

I guess that has always been my problem in life. I am an idealist.

the poor in kuwait are not kuwaities. they are people allowed to immigrate to do the jobs the locals dont want. much as in our country. in our country we pretend to treat them better.

the fight in ruwanda was an internal struggle which we had no business in, but did stand aside and watch the slaughter, but it did happen almost unnoticed before much could be done. after the outside world came in and helped the losing side, the hutsies, i think, they came back and hatcheded to death half a million of the tutsies.