by George Shaw
Member since:
February 16, 2006

Many of you have heard the old saying, "The enemy of my enemy is my friend."

March 15, 2011 09:37 PM UTC
views: 0 | 6 people recommend this | comments: 16

Here is a link to an article that shows some of the dangers of following that dictum. The article also shows a text-book example of "blow-back." For too many years the U.S. has sided with dictators and terrorists, hoping to use them to achieve certain goals. Blow-back is when the events that come about later, after those goals are achieved, under-cut and destroy other goals.

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article27689.htm

Comments: 16

lena k. Mar 15, 2011, 9:39pm UTC
thank you for the info
George Shaw Mar 15, 2011, 9:46pm UTC
Hi, lena, thanks for stopping by.
lynn a. Mar 15, 2011, 10:36pm UTC
Definitely something to think about. It wears us all down to know that time after time a dictator has been propped up by our government to then turn around and do horrible things. I just don't get it. Wrong is wrong in any season.
George Shaw Mar 15, 2011, 11:29pm UTC
Yes, but the "brightest guys in the room" just don't see it that way. That is one of the benefits of Wikileaks --people now get a chance to see some of the dirty linen.
Jim G. Mar 15, 2011, 10:36pm UTC
That's a great link, George. I always thought that Kirkpartick was a whacko hawk. Thus Peter King's attack on Islam, eh?
George Shaw Mar 15, 2011, 11:29pm UTC
Jim, if we tried to make this stuff up it wouldn't sell.
libramoon .. Mar 15, 2011, 11:34pm UTC
always be wary of that law of unintended consequences
George Shaw Mar 16, 2011, 12:14am UTC
That is very true, libramoon.
Thomas R. Mar 16, 2011, 12:29am UTC
We are like Dr. Faustus! We surrender any moral integrity in order to achieve power and success. The dictators and terrorists are like Mephistopheles who will serve us for a term of years, but at the end of the term, the devil will claim our soul and we will be eternally damned. Our leaders aren't even intelligent enough to learn a lesson from literature!
George Shaw Mar 16, 2011, 12:46am UTC
The people who make those decisions have so much hubris that they think they can finesse all those problems, and when the blow-back comes, "Hey, is a no my fault." Since many Americans have no use for history, there is always a large number have haven't the foggiest idea of what happened. It is like the large number of Americans who still believe there were WMD in Iraq and that Iraq was involved in 9/11.
tame mainstay Mar 17, 2011, 11:54am UTC
Extracts from link:

The defining struggle in Muslim-majority countries will not be between U.S.-supported dictators and radical Islamists. The future will belong to the victor in an ideological struggle between moderate Islam and the jihadist version.

Yet our policy has empowered the jihadists by revealing the stark contradictions between what Americans say about democracy and what we actually do. By supporting dictators who promise to be the enemy of our enemy, we have become our enemy’s best friend.

tame: That's EXACTLY right!
George Shaw Mar 17, 2011, 12:27pm UTC
Will they ever learn? I am afraid not.
tame mainstay Mar 17, 2011, 2:00pm UTC
George: Will they ever learn? I am afraid not.

tame: Yep. Show me ignorant and arrogant and I'll show you unreachable and unteachable.

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