Comments on: Daily mad nonsense

By: Harry Hutton

Harry Hutton — Thu, 10 Mar 2005 23:27:00 +0000

The Sandinistas were voted back in last November.

By: dsquared

dsquared — Thu, 10 Mar 2005 01:21:00 +0000

The Sandinistas were voted out in 1990, which is not in the 1980s or the Reagan years.

By: Luc

Luc — Wed, 09 Mar 2005 20:58:00 +0000

The guard guy must be a Jessup fan. He send a group of refugees back into a minefield.

How do you train people to execute such orders ("We had orders. We had our orders, so we followed them.") and maintain morale? That is what this Jessup character was referring to. You ask him to train and lead such a force, and then complain about the means and measures taken to achieve it.

I think it is a classic. "You can't handle the Truth!"
(Or the Iraq war variant "We don't do bodycounts.")

But then it was a lousy movie.

By: john b

john b — Wed, 09 Mar 2005 20:09:00 +0000

DDuff – you’re absolutely right – as I said, I’d have some respect on principle for people who supported US 1980s LatAm policy out of realpolitik. I don’t, however, have any respect for people who falsely claim(ed) to support it for human rights reasons.

By: Andrew Bartlett

Andrew Bartlett — Wed, 09 Mar 2005 19:07:00 +0000

If it does, surely I can kill them now – after all, they aren’t democratically elected so they should be fair game. Surely they have less right to life than before they were voted out?

Were you a Tory, David?

By: Andrew Bartlett

Andrew Bartlett — Wed, 09 Mar 2005 19:05:00 +0000

Yes, but the Tories were voted out. Does that mean it would retrospectively justify me killing a bunch of the fucks?

By: David Duff

David Duff — Wed, 09 Mar 2005 15:49:00 +0000

But weren't the Sandanistas voted out?

And what's wrong with 'realpolitik', it's better than rainbow, pie-in the-sky politik!

By: john b

john b — Wed, 09 Mar 2005 12:51:00 +0000

US LatAm policy under Reagan was vicious 'at least he's our bastard' realpolitik, which involved backing dictators and training local militias who went on to murder civilians and dissidents.

Someone could try and claim that repressive tactics were justified given the perceived threat the USSR posed against the US. But if they were instead to try and claim that the relevant policies were good for the people of Latin America, then they would definitionally be defending death squads.

By: David Duff

David Duff — Wed, 09 Mar 2005 12:28:00 +0000

I’m blessed if I can see how you can morph a eulogy to a former trade union leader, Lane Kirkland, past-president of the AFL-CIO, into "Oliver Kamm defends CIA-backed death squads". Perhaps you could explain it for me?

By: dsquared

dsquared — Wed, 09 Mar 2005 09:13:00 +0000

The Cuban border sentry bloke is, natch, a fan of "A Few Good Men", a film that I never got. Jack Nicholson is all "WE GUARD YOU WHILE YOU SLEEP! YOU CAN'T HANDLE THE TRUTH!" and all I could think is "how is this remotely relevant to the offence you are accused of, which is murdering one of your own recruits in a base in Cuba?".

I simply don't believe that the USA has ever been under any particular danger of Cuban invasion, or for that matter whether beating unpopular soldiers to death as they slept would help all that much if it was.