Monday, December 26, 2005

The Law of Unintended Consequences


When the US and Brits overthrew the democratically elected goverment of Iran in 1953 I am sure they did not envision the Iranian "we hate the great satan" Islamic revolution of 1979. Also as the Carter and Reagan administrations pumped billions into Afghanistan in support for the cut throat jihadis in the 1980's to fight the Evil Empire they didn't glimpse the tumbling bodies or dust clouds of lower Manhattan in September of 2001.

Like horrors are surely to emerge from the ashes of shock and awe as the democracy now created in Iraq has divided the country along ethnic and religious lines.

3 comments:

Rafael said...
This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.
Rafael said...

mamdani has a powerful take on good muslim bad muslim politics. discusses the historical facts from these articles and applies them to the eventually-ironic demonizing and befriending of muslims. realists are idiots in a post-cold war era i think. i thought eye for an eye left everyone looking like dirty pirates.

reminds me of the seinfeld where george acts against his instincts that have gotten him nowhere in life and ends up with a hot blonde. if the administration did the exact opposite of its vulturistic instinct, we'd have the hot blonde-state for sure.

Rafael said...

i cant sleep so i'll add more of whats on my mind:

...also reminds me of an article written in 03 about a taliban fighter in afghanistan who had a friend in the northern alliance and would write notes to him. an elder with a donkey would act as a messenger of these notes which the friend would read and immediately burn. like-minded friends each, in dissimilar groups shooting at each other. the allegiances on the ground are flimsy and which one is the good muslim and bad muslim? what's clear is that the more innocent people the US kills, the less i will want to pay taxes.

happy politics:

look at evo, him and his cabinet are docking their pay in half to fund education programs and such. this is what happens when the first indigenous leader takes power. no valentino suits and private jets, just regular button-down shirts, sleeves rolled up, belly hanging out a bit, addressing his country as if he had just plowed fields all day. real men dont where make-up, not even on tv. sweat and grease show labor on a face. finally we may see the monroe doctrine subverted. bolivia, lula, venezuela, chile after teh run off election, mexico (hopefully), argentina, and others really embracing the left.

as the EZLN site reads:

"abajo y a la izquierda queda el corazon"

"down and to the left the heart lays."