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Author Topic: Zimbabwe: Mugabe alleges coup attempt, blames UK activist
Hephaestion
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posted 10 March 2006 05:20 AM      Profile for Hephaestion   Author's Homepage        Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
The psychotic homophobe Mugabe is blaming all his ills on queers... wow, that's so unlike him!

quote:
The government of Zimbabwe strongman Robert Mugabe on Thursday accused British gay rights leader Peter Tatchell of being behind an alleged coup plot.

The government showed off a cache of arms on Zimbabwe television that is claimed had been seized at the home of one of the plotters.

The government claimed that the man, Peter Hitschmann, was a leader of the Zimbabwean Freedom Movement and that it was a paramilitary organization intent on overthrowing the government.

The creation of the ZFM was announced last year in London by Tatchell, a longtime critic of Mugabe and the government's record on human rights.

At the time Tatchell said he was not a member of the organization but was merely getting its message out to Britons. Since then little has been heard of the ZFM.

But Thursday, in announcing Hitschmann's arrest the government accused the opposition Movement for Democratic Change of being part of the plot.

The government said that two members of the party also had been arrested, and suggested the party's leader also faced charges. Mugabe accuses the MDC of working with Western countries to try to oust him from power.

In London Thatchell again denied any involvement with with the ZFM and accused the Mugabe regime of "propaganda". 


On the other hand, if Tatchell *is* involved, GOOD ON HIM!!!

[ 10 March 2006: Message edited by: Hephaestion ]


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TheBabbler
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posted 10 March 2006 06:57 AM      Profile for TheBabbler   Author's Homepage     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
That reminds me of an earlier supposed plot against Mugabe, that was alleged by a PR hack with ties to the Mugabe AND Canadian Government at the time. (Incidentally I was not aware of his ties to the former Gov't until I did a search just now trying to find a source to back up my vague memories)
Read all about it here

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Cueball
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posted 10 March 2006 07:07 AM      Profile for Cueball   Author's Homepage     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
I remember the time that Saddam Hussein alledged that American in the UNSCOM weapons inspection teams were spies for the CIA, and the US unilaterally withdrew the UN inspection teams, blaming the withdrawal on Saddams intransigence.

A ridiculous joke of course coming from the tired, paranoid and perpetually belicose Hussein. The US and Britain of course responded to the accusation by launching further bombing runs in the "No Fly" zones in Iraq.

Anyone remember those raids?

Anyone remember that the accusation turned out to be true and that it was revealed a few months later that the American members of UNSCOM team had installed a divice in UNSCOM communications tracking center, so that it would feed Saddam Husseins telephone conversations to the CIA SIGINT station in the Gulf?

This doesn't mean I am saying that this Thatchell fellow is involved, but that just because Mugabe is spinning a tale, it doesn't mean that elements of the story are not factual, just because it it Mugabe saying what is being said.

[ 10 March 2006: Message edited by: Cueball ]


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Hephaestion
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posted 10 March 2006 07:24 AM      Profile for Hephaestion   Author's Homepage        Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
If Peter Tatchell does anything concrete to bring down Robert Mugabe, I'll send him a card, maybe even flowers. Tatchell would be a better leader of the UK than Blair.
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Cueball
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posted 10 March 2006 07:26 AM      Profile for Cueball   Author's Homepage     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
I'm not going to waste my breath on Mugabe. He is at least as offensive as the mass murderers Bush and Blair.
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goyanamasu
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posted 10 March 2006 07:34 AM      Profile for goyanamasu     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
Mugabe also 'bugged' an attorney's office in Montreal in a case his spies built up against a political rival accused of an assassination attempt.

If memory serves, the assassination accusation surfaced around the same dates as the riff Cueball is doing on the Iraq eavesdropping by the CIA.

The question about Mugabe I find most interesting is re: land reform. How easy it is to pit the landless against the settler class or the latifundia system. Yet land reform, to be effective, takes time and requires many careful shifts in the distribution of technology, education, you name it. Otherwise it serves only as a way to win over the masses against the leaders 'sworn enemies', whoever they are.

A quick glance at any Africa timeline, BTW, will show at a glance, that every head-of-state on that continent must watch their back.

Today Ghana celebrates its 49th year of Independence. They promise even bigger celebration a year from now for the 50th!


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Cueball
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posted 10 March 2006 07:43 AM      Profile for Cueball   Author's Homepage     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
I have to admit that all of this scapegoating of gay people is taking on a disturbing shape.

Continually now amongst governments under threat, or sanction by the west the movement for gay rights is being associated with imperialist activities of the US and Great Britain, as a sign of the moral degredation of the west.


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Hephaestion
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posted 10 March 2006 07:44 AM      Profile for Hephaestion   Author's Homepage        Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
I remember celebrating Zimbabwe's independence with the International Students' Organization (and a bunch'a Canucks, of course) when I was in university. We had a number of Zimbabwian students there at the time (several studying to be nurses), and they were SO happy! We got drunk and played Bob Marley music, I danced with Zimbabwian women -- women! -- and we had a *great* time.

*sigh* They were filled with such hope, and promise, and I have no idea where they ended up or how they are. Mugabe is a rotten, evil man.

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Cueball
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posted 10 March 2006 07:46 AM      Profile for Cueball   Author's Homepage     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
I am presently reading Robert Fisk's "The War for Civilization. It seems that even if Fisk is only half right there are an awful lot of those types of people out there.

[ 10 March 2006: Message edited by: Cueball ]


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Hephaestion
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posted 10 March 2006 07:57 AM      Profile for Hephaestion   Author's Homepage        Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
quote:
Originally posted by Cueball:

I have to admit that all of this scapegoating of gay people is taking on a disturbing shape.


I've been saying...

Continually now amongst governments under threat, or sanction by the west the movement for gay rights is being associated with imperialist activities of the US and Great Britain, as a sign of the moral degredation of the west.

Even more repugnant, Little Boots' propagandists and assorted underlings like Rice are more than willing to use legitimate stories of atrocities against queers as part of the justification to invade, attack, demonize, etc., but they continue to attack us within their own borders. On top of everything else, it's the rankest hypocrisy, and I am dumbfounded that it passes by most 'murcans -- even "liberals" -- without comment.

Oh, that's right. We're only a game piece. A pawn...

[ 10 March 2006: Message edited by: Hephaestion ]


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Hephaestion
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posted 10 March 2006 08:10 AM      Profile for Hephaestion   Author's Homepage        Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
BTW, Q... regarding queers being associated with/blamed on "the west" and/or colonizing powers, this is nothing new. As was shown on another thread about Gandhi, that practice has been in place for a considerable period.

You might feel it's "taking on a disturbing shape", but it's been that same menacing shape for a long, long time.

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Hephaestion
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posted 10 March 2006 08:51 AM      Profile for Hephaestion   Author's Homepage        Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
This is a very valid observation, that I skipped over earlier (although I noted it) in order to address another point:

quote:
The question about Mugabe I find most interesting is re: land reform. How easy it is to pit the landless against the settler class or the latifundia system. Yet land reform, to be effective, takes time and requires many careful shifts in the distribution of technology, education, you name it. Otherwise it serves only as a way to win over the masses against the leaders 'sworn enemies', whoever they are.


Agreed. All of it. So who has done it well? Cuba, under Castro? Vietnam, uner Ho Chi Minh? China, under... Mao? Zedong? The United States under FDR? Canada under Sifton?

(Okay, I was just kidding with a couple there...) But who?

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Cueball
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posted 10 March 2006 08:53 AM      Profile for Cueball   Author's Homepage     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
I think the phenomena is accelerating, now that conditions for gay people are improving in the west, so to speak. For instance, we has some discussion about gay people being taken out of Hitler's camps and then being ferried of to jail by both the Americans and the Russians.

Back then there was no milage in damning the enemies sinful and depreaved society because of its lieberal attitudes toward homosexuality. Supression of gay people was a given. Everybody did it.


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kuri
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posted 10 March 2006 08:55 AM      Profile for kuri   Author's Homepage     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
quote:
Originally posted by Hephaestion:
But who?

I believe Brazil is having some success. It's slow, but that's kind of the point, right?


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Hephaestion
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posted 10 March 2006 09:09 AM      Profile for Hephaestion   Author's Homepage        Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
Well, I'm sure Fidel (babble Fidel, that is) will be along shortly to extoll the glories of Cuban socialist land reform (and I have to admit to some admiration for Ho's genuine commitment to it in Vietnam), but what about Venezuala, The Mouse That Roared? How is Hugo doing on that score?
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Cueball
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posted 10 March 2006 09:17 AM      Profile for Cueball   Author's Homepage     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
One of the interesting things about the land reform program in Vietnam, was that at the begining heavily under the influence of Chinese cadre, the land reform program began to take on much the same shape as that of the Chinese revolution, which basicly amounted to: "string em up if they can't take a joke."

However the Viet Minh was not solely a communist organization, unlike the CPC (theirs not ours, and not the one that we had here before the one that we now have here.) As a result there were substantial middle class nationalist elements in the government, even though the Communist Party had taken sole power by subsuming the diverse elements of the vatrious nationalist parites within it. So when the Vietnamese land reform program became overly influenced by the "Great Leap Forward" ides of the Maoist, there was a great hue and cry from many party loyalist, and Ho Chi Minh (wait for it) appologized for the excess, and much was done to curtail the more radical cadre.


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Cueball
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posted 10 March 2006 09:28 AM      Profile for Cueball   Author's Homepage     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
Hey. Maybe that is not so interesting. Its just one of those things that pops into my head when I think about Ho Chi Minh.

He also used to have young female "secretaries" working for him up until the day he died.

Anyway the story goes that near the end of his life he pleaded for a new non-vietnamese secretary, specifying that he would like to have a secretary from China. According to the story he was sick and tired of having beautiful young ladies call him "Uncle Ho," which is what all Vietnamese felt obliged to call him.

Humiliated by his own stardom.


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Hephaestion
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posted 10 March 2006 10:08 AM      Profile for Hephaestion   Author's Homepage        Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
No, it's entertaining, Q... But we've strayed.

Queers, Zinbabwe and land reform are what we're trying to discuss, in between anecdotes.

So who knows anything about where Chavez stands on land reform? Or queer rights, for that matter?

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goyanamasu
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posted 10 March 2006 10:52 AM      Profile for goyanamasu     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
Hugo Chavez and Land Reform There is a document I'll try to dig out. Says that redistribution of land is slow going.

I remember that agricultural markets are discussed re: the local markets being vital to smallholders as this class of farming is transformed.

Smallholding in beef production, given the role of the what we call 'range' and they call 'llanera'.

We all need to get wiser about the gaucho, the cowboy, in the Bolivarian revolution. They played a progressive role. They happen also to be the most threatened by feedlot operations, as many here from the West will understand. IAC Chavez identifies with them in a personal manner and probably sees dividing the land as an issue that must address their interests.

Off the top, interested babblers should click below:

http://www.handsoffvenezuela.org/


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Heavy Sharper
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posted 10 March 2006 07:28 PM      Profile for Heavy Sharper        Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
What's funny is that white left-liberals in Zimbabwe supported Mugabe's anti-Smith guerilla movement...And given that White left-liberals are more likely to be gay than most demographics, Mugab'es homophobia is especially despicable and treasonous. He even bitches about European imperialism in Zimbabwe while at the same time using the Big Baptist Book of BS to justify his stance.

Hopefully Thatchell's men can put a bullet in the back of the fucker's head.


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Cueball
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posted 10 March 2006 07:29 PM      Profile for Cueball   Author's Homepage     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
quote:
Originally posted by Heavy Sharper:
What's funny is that white left-liberals in Zimbabwe supported Mugabe's anti-Smith guerilla movement...And given that White left-liberals are more likely to be gay than most demographics, Mugab'es homophobia is especially despicable and treasonous. He even bitches about European imperialism in Zimbabwe while at the same time using the Big Baptist Book of BS to justify his stance.

Hopefully Thatchell's men can put a bullet in the back of the fucker's head.


[ 10 March 2006: Message edited by: Cueball ]


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Boom Boom
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posted 10 March 2006 07:39 PM      Profile for Boom Boom     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
Saturday, January 12, 2002: Archbishop Tutu calls Robert Mugabe 'bonkers'

Archbishop Desmond Tutu says Robert Mugabe is "bonkers".

He has called on the Zimbabwe president to hand over leadership, claiming he isn't "as sensible as he used to be".

The Archbishop says Mugabe used to be one Africa's best leaders but will only be remembered for being power crazy.

He said: "It is a great sadness what has happened to President Mugabe. He was one of Africa's best leaders, a bright spark, a debonair, well-spoken and well-read person."

He added: "Mugabe seems to have gone bonkers in a big way.

- snip -


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Boom Boom
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posted 10 March 2006 07:50 PM      Profile for Boom Boom     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
Tuesday, March 31st 1998: Archbishop Tutu Speaks Out for Gay Tolerance

"Some of the churches in Zimbabwe sadly came out in support of President Robert Mugabe in the thoroughly reprehensible homophobic statements that he has made," Archbishop Tutu told ENI.

"The answer is straightforward," said Tutu. "It is a matter of ordinary justice. We struggled against apartheid in South Africa because we were being blamed and made to suffer for something we could do nothing about. It is the same with homosexuality. The orientation is a given, not a matter of choice."

Archbishop Tutu said he could not have fought against the discrimination of apartheid and not also fight against the discrimination inflicted on gay men and lesbians. His church, he said, is "still confused" on the issue.

"Our church [Anglican] says that the orientation is okay, but gay sex activity is wrong. That is crazy. We say the expression of love in a monogamous, heterosexual relationship is more than just the physical but includes touching, embracing, kissing, maybe the genital act. The totality of this makes each of us grow to become giving, increasingly godlike and compassionate," said Tutu. "I hope that one day we will have the courage of our theology."


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M. Spector
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posted 10 March 2006 07:53 PM      Profile for M. Spector   Author's Homepage     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
quote:
Originally posted by Hephaestion:
Queers, Zinbabwe and land reform are what we're trying to discuss, in between anecdotes.
Zimbabwe's land reform is not doing too well:
quote:
[Mugabe] began to address the land issue in the early nineties. He made speeches saying that seventy percent of the best land in Zimbabwe had been taken from Aficans by force and often at gunpoint without compensation during the colonial period. This situation had not been set right after independence due to the 1980-90 'willing seller, willing buyer' terms of the 1979 Lancaster House agreement. There had not been enough willing sellers or enough indigenous money to buy, and British government support for land-re-acquisiton had amounted to a derisory £44m. Consequently the white farming community ended this period still holding 80% of the land it held under white rule. Mugabe argued that this land should now be returned to the land-hungry black Zimbabwean people. In 1991 his goverment passed a Land Acquisition Act allowing for compulsory state purchase of land. No significant action was taken under the Act, however, because of IMF and World Bank insistence on restrictive conditions including payment of full market-value compensation for land acquisitions (UNDP Report: 'Zimbabwe Human Development Report 1999' ).

In 1997 Mugabe returned to the issue. He argued that it is neither reasonable nor possible for the land to be bought back by the Zimbabwe government at full market prices. This would in effect be asking a country which is already poor to pay the cost of buying back most of the best of its own territory, at a cost of several billion pounds. Consequently, he said, legislation was to be introduced to acquire 1500 largely white-owned commercial farms compulsorily. There would be compensation only for land improvements but not for the land itself.

The announcement of this planned new legislation met intense opposition from commercial interests both at home and abroad. It was seen as a threat not just to Zimbabwe's white farmers and other white commercial interests, but also to similar landowners in other ex-colonial territories and the wider ethic of property rights in the global free-market economy. Thus Zimbabwe's Commercial Farmers Union (CFU) and the linked Zimbabwe Tobacco Association (ZTA), were able to form an immediate alliance with international allies. The World Bank and the IMF, the British and other western governments, and the western press united with the CFU and ZTA in condemning 'Mugabe's land grab'.


Source

[ 10 March 2006: Message edited by: M. Spector ]


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Fidel
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posted 10 March 2006 08:17 PM      Profile for Fidel     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
Zimbabwe is another depressing legacy of colonialism.

How many years has it been since land reforms began ?.

How many years did it take the U.S. to pick itself off its laissez-faire knees with Keynesian-militarism ?.

Remember Patrice Lumumba. Africa needs to be united.


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rici
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posted 10 March 2006 08:23 PM      Profile for rici     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
Fidel: I'm disappointed. I was sure you were going to find a way of lauding Mugabe's one-party "socialist" government.


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Fidel
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posted 10 March 2006 09:11 PM      Profile for Fidel     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
Socialism is still more appealing to the poorest people on earth than most examples of third world capitalism. Eighty-five percent of the democratic capitalist third world currently exports food to "the market" while millions will starve to death this year and the next and the one after that.

Anywhere from four to thirteen million children will die of the capitalist economic long run every year due to planned and enforced, free market genocide.

There were 500 chronically hungry people 25 years ago, Today, the number is over eight hundred million. If the cure for AIDS in Africa was a glass of clean water, millions would still die in agony.

Capitalism is a colossal failure - a dead end for humanity.

Viva la revolucion!

[ 10 March 2006: Message edited by: Fidel ]


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M. Spector
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posted 10 March 2006 09:55 PM      Profile for M. Spector   Author's Homepage     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
quote:
Originally posted by rici:
Fidel: I'm disappointed. I was sure you were going to find a way of lauding Mugabe's one-party "socialist" government.
What do you mean "one-party"? Are you suggesting there are no opposition parties? Or that there are no elections?

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rici
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posted 10 March 2006 10:23 PM      Profile for rici     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
Clearly there are both opposition parties and elections. However, there is also pretty compelling evidence that the consistent dominance of ZANU-PF has involved a number of practices inconsistent with democracy, including vote-rigging, media control, and severe harassment of the opposition.

So it is effectively a one-party state, which is (as we will recall) Mugabe's original proposal for Zimbabwe.

I felt compelled to put quotes around "socialist" because I have a hard time with Mugabe's claim that he is one, but he does claim that. I claim to be a socialist too, but Mugabe and I clearly disagree about what that might mean. (Of course, it matters to no-one what I claim to be.)

I can't see anyone claiming that Zimbabwe is a demonstration of the success of whatever policy framework Mugabe expouses, be it socialism or not. And that's my argument with proposing one-party rule as a plausible model; in almost all cases, it's turned out that the cure is just as bad as the disease.


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Fidel
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posted 10 March 2006 11:14 PM      Profile for Fidel     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
Does anyone realize the recent history of Africa in general and that much of the continent is struggling with an AIDS epidemic ?. Can we blame socialism for that too?.

Anybody remember Ian Smith's Rhodesia and what a poverty-stricken hell hole that country was ?.


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rici
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posted 10 March 2006 11:16 PM      Profile for rici     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
Fidel, you're obstinately claiming that I'm blaming socialism for the problems. I'm not. I'm blaming self-seeking authoritarianism.
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Cueball
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posted 10 March 2006 11:24 PM      Profile for Cueball   Author's Homepage     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
And then Dr. Bethune pounded his fist upon the table and shouted: "I want a second vaccination against these bastards!"
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Fidel
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posted 10 March 2006 11:34 PM      Profile for Fidel     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
No, I did not say that. What I am saying is, where did they start from?. What did they have to work with in any country where colonialism's legacy was wide-spread illiteracy and abject poverty as national wealth was looted and economies basically cash crops decade after decade ?.

Zimbabwe was probably in worse shape in 1979 than Cuba was in 1959. More examples ? Singapore and China were fourth world nations in worse shape economically and wrt to mortality rates than India when Lee Kwan Yew and Mao tookover. By the same token, what has democratic Central America achieved being as close to and trading freely with the richest nation on earth in the mean time ?. Nation-building does not happen in ten years or even twenty years. America was still on its knees in 1939 after Herbert Hoover's mismanagement of a fairly industrialized economy with public education already in place in 1929. You can't do the quarter mile in under 12s with a broken down Edsel in almost all cases, is what I'm saying. This should be glaringly obvious.

quote:
lan Smith promised the whites who elected him Prime Minister of Rhodesia in 1982 that he would keep Rhodesia white, at any cost. To stop the black guerrilla fighters trying to overthrow his regime, Smith rationed food for Africans whom he believed were feeding the guerrillas. This cruel measure only served to starve the already undernourished black population. Studies found that over 90% of Rhodesia's black children were malnourished and nutritional deficiencies were the major cause of infant death. Smith rounded up blacks into concentration camps he called "protective" villages. Believing that ignorant people were less likely to revolt, he cut funding for black education, spending $5 on each black child compared to $80 on each white child. His all white Parliament passed a law protecting officials who took actions for the suppression of "terrorism", enabling the police and military to commit atrocities. An international trade boycott against Rhodesia arose, but while the US publicly condemned the government, it continued to do business there. In 1971, President Nixon lifted the chrome embargo against Rhodesia at a time when there was a surplus of chrome in the US. Blacks were eventually given the right to vote for some officials, but the opposition to Smith's government grew so strong that he was ultimately forced to give up some power to blacks. In 1979, Rhodesia became Zimbabwe, a country primarily ruled by blacks.

Meet the Friendly Dictators

[ 11 March 2006: Message edited by: Fidel ]


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Cueball
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posted 10 March 2006 11:36 PM      Profile for Cueball   Author's Homepage     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
Woah. that post is stretched out like a top fuel drag racer.
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Fidel
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posted 10 March 2006 11:40 PM      Profile for Fidel     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
quote:
Originally posted by Cueball:
And then Dr. Bethune pounded his fist upon the table and shouted: "I want a second vaccination against these bastards!"

Lee Kwan Cueball is as good a socialist as any in this thread.

[ 11 March 2006: Message edited by: Fidel ]


From: Viva La Revolución | Registered: Apr 2004  |  IP: Logged
Hephaestion
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posted 10 March 2006 11:55 PM      Profile for Hephaestion   Author's Homepage        Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
quote:
"I hope that one day we will have the courage of our theology."


Desmond Tutu is an awesome man.

From: goodbye... :-( | Registered: Dec 2003  |  IP: Logged
M. Spector
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posted 10 March 2006 11:59 PM      Profile for M. Spector   Author's Homepage     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
quote:
Originally posted by rici:
Clearly there are both opposition parties and elections. However, there is also pretty compelling evidence that the consistent dominance of ZANU-PF has involved a number of practices inconsistent with democracy, including vote-rigging, media control, and severe harassment of the opposition.

So it is effectively a one-party state, which is (as we will recall) Mugabe's original proposal for Zimbabwe.


It's not a one-party state. You have been taken in by imperialist propaganda.

The main opposition parties are largely funded by imperialist foreign countries, like the United States. The largest one, the Movement for Democratic Change, won 57 out of 120 parliamentary seats in the 2000 general election and 41 seats in 2005. That doesn't sound like a one-party state to me.

The MDC has loudly complained about rigged elections, but the evidence is less than compelling, and not everyone is convinced.

quote:
"It is the view of the mission that the 2005 parliamentary elections in Zimbabwe reflect the free will of the people of Zimbabwe" said South African Labour Minister Membathisi Mdladlana, who led the South African government observer mission for the elections.
Mdladlana said the elections on Thursday "by and large" conformed to election guidelines adopted by southern African leaders last year for holding a democratic vote.

"Let me congratulate the people of Zimbabwe for holding a peaceful, credible and well-organised election which we feel reflects the will of the people" said Phumzile Mlambo Ngcuka, the South African cabinet minister that led the 55-member, 11-country observer mission from the Southern African Development Community.

Mlambo Ngcuka said the observer mission had asked the opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) to provide evidence to support their claims of discrepancies in 32 of the 120 constituencies.

"We have received complaints and asked for information. We still don't have it. There is not much more we can do." she said. Source



After the 2002 elections the South African observer team said the results "should be considered legitimate." Namibia's observers characterized the election as "watertight, without room for rigging." Nigerian observers saw nothing to question the integrity of the vote. An observer from the Organization for African Unity called the election "transparent, credible, free and fair."

There is an active campaign of subversion by the imperialists against Mugabe, not unlike their campaign against Fidel Castro. The anti-Zimbabwe counterpart of the Helms-Burton Act is called the "Zimbabwe Democracy and Economic Recovery Act of 2001." (Ironically, it was sponsored by none other than the late Sen. Helms himself).

The law instructed American officials in international financial institutions to "oppose and vote against any extension... of any loan, credit, or guarantee to the government of Zimbabwe," and to vote against any "cancellation or reduction of indebtedness owed by the government of Zimbabwe," until such time as President Bush was satisfied that Zimbabwe was knuckling under to the globalization demands being made by the IMF and the World Bank for privatization of government enterprises and utilities, tax reduction, deregulation, removal of foreign investment/ownership restrictions, and reductions in social spending.

The law also authorized Bush to fund "an independent and free press and electronic media in Zimbabwe," referring to anti-government media. Six million dollars was granted for aid to "democracy and governance programs," a euphemism for funding opposition parties and NGOs seeking to topple the government.

So you will excuse me if I'm skeptical about the State Department's propaganda about rigged elections and one-party government.


From: One millihelen: The amount of beauty required to launch one ship. | Registered: Feb 2005  |  IP: Logged
rici
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posted 11 March 2006 12:54 AM      Profile for rici     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
quote:
Originally posted by Fidel:
You can't do the quarter mile in under 12s with a broken down Edsel in almost all cases, is what I'm saying.

Well, in this particular case (and many others) it didn't work very well with the super-powered V-8 Authoritariamobile either, did it?

I mean, Mugabe won. He had a lot of public support. And he had a lot of external support, too.

He also had some problems to deal with, of course. There were the white plantation owners, who had no intention of giving up their land; the Constitution agreed to (or imposed by) the Lancaster House Agreement limited the land reform program (but certainly did not prevent it from starting). There was the government of South Africa, clearly on the side of the aforementioned elite. And there was an internal power struggle going on in and between the various resistance movements. Plus the civil war had done quite a bit of damage to the country.

Nonetheless, and with some fits and starts, the new government did manage to make some progress. Mugabe continued to win elections, and probably would have won the 1990 election even had that election been conducted fairly. Pressure from South Africa was decreasing as South Africa moved towards the end of apartheid.

Meanwhile, though, Mugabe was moving towards an increasingly authoritarian rulership, and -- as often happens in such cases -- democratic governance was being replaced with clientilism, corruption and cronyism. Not only did this exacerbate internal conflict, it reduced external support.

I don't have a good answer to the question of why AIDS spread so much more rapidly in Zimbabwe (and South Africa) than in other countries, but it has been suggested that Mugabe's government contributed to the problem, by stigmatizing sufferers and by not reacting soon enough. Mugabe's homophobia might certainly be relevant to that question.


From: Lima, Perú | Registered: Jun 2002  |  IP: Logged
M. Spector
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posted 11 March 2006 01:34 AM      Profile for M. Spector   Author's Homepage     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
There are many theories about why AIDS has hit Zimbabwe so severely: re-using dirty needles in health care; the prevalence of uncircumcised men; violence against women, etc.

It has certainly devastated Zimbabwe socially and economically. The country's health budget is about $1 a month per person, which means that the anti-retroviral drug treatments are virtually nonexistent. One quarter of all adults are infected with HIV. It's not regarded as a "gay disease" because the main means of transmission is heterosexual activity, and probably always has been.

[ 11 March 2006: Message edited by: M. Spector ]


From: One millihelen: The amount of beauty required to launch one ship. | Registered: Feb 2005  |  IP: Logged
Fidel
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posted 11 March 2006 01:37 AM      Profile for Fidel     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
quote:
Originally posted by rici:

Well, in this particular case (and many others) it didn't work very well with the super-powered V-Authoritariamobile either, did it?


Well since you're not going to comment on what I've just said, I can ignore most of this because it just doesn't make any sense to me.

quote:
Pressure from South Africa was decreasing as South Africa moved towards the end of apartheid.

S. African apartheid was pushed and shoved out of the way by socialists and world opinion, and no thanks to countries that violated the trade sanctions, I might add.

quote:
I don't have a good answer to the question of why AIDS spread so much more rapidly in Zimbabwe (and South Africa) than in other countries, but it has been suggested that Mugabe's government contributed to the problem, by stigmatizing sufferers and by not reacting soon enough. Mugabe's homophobia might certainly be relevant to that question.

That's a lot of nonsense. AIDS doesn't respect borders, and the rate was just as high in Botswana and surrounding countries.

[ 11 March 2006: Message edited by: Fidel ]


From: Viva La Revolución | Registered: Apr 2004  |  IP: Logged
rici
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posted 11 March 2006 02:09 AM      Profile for rici     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
quote:
Originally posted by M. Spector:
It has certainly devastated Zimbabwe socially and economically. The country's health budget is about $1 a month per person, which means that the anti-retroviral drug treatments are virtually nonexistent. One quarter of all adults are infected with HIV. It's not regarded as a "gay disease" because the main means of transmission is heterosexual activity, and probably always has been.

No question about that. It may not be regarded as a "gay disease" now, but it certainly was in the 1990s, although that was probably incorrect, as you say. Nonetheless, the discourse about HIV/AIDS in Zimbabwe in the late 90s was quite strange and unpleasant.

I find the dirty needle theory a bit far-fetched, myself, but I suppose it is possible.

The good news, from what I've heard, is that the public health campaign is having some positive results.

The cost of drug treatment is unconscionable and that is in no way Zimbabwe's fault; nor is the issue I didn't mention earlier, which was the structural adjustment program imposed by the IMF, particularly with regard to grain reserves in 1992. That was homocidal, at least; of course, the IMF tried to wiggle out of its responsibility afterwards.

With respect to the 2005 election, I have no real information on it, but the SAOM report makes a point of saying it was "much improved" over the 2000 and 2002 elections. I hope things are getting more open. I really do.

PS: read your PMs.


From: Lima, Perú | Registered: Jun 2002  |  IP: Logged
Ken Burch
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posted 11 March 2006 02:13 AM      Profile for Ken Burch     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
I hope that Fidel and Spector will at least agree that, whatever obstacles Zimbabwe has had to face, none of them were put in place by gay people and that Mugabe is totally wrong to have said that homosexuality and lesbianism were unAfrican, as he has repeatedly said.

Zimbabwe's problems, like Cuba's, will never be solved by the use of dictatorship. They can be solved, or at least reduced, by allowing open discussion of the issues at hand and by not wasting the time of those countries' security services by having them hassle and oppress people who have done those regimes no harm.


From: A seedy truckstop on the Information Superhighway | Registered: Feb 2005  |  IP: Logged
Cueball
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posted 11 March 2006 03:13 AM      Profile for Cueball   Author's Homepage     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
That would be nice.
From: Out from under the bridge and out for a stroll | Registered: Dec 2003  |  IP: Logged
Fidel
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posted 11 March 2006 06:15 AM      Profile for Fidel     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
quote:
Originally posted by Ken Burch:
I hope that Fidel and Spector will at least agree that, whatever obstacles Zimbabwe has had to face, none of them were put in place by gay people and that Mugabe is totally wrong to have said that homosexuality and lesbianism were unAfrican, as he has repeatedly said.

I absolutely agree with you Ken. Mugabe's Zimbabwe is not what many socialists would hold up as a model for the future. Again, I think we have to keep in mind that Africa is home to the five poorest countries in the world, and this side of the world's poorest, Dominican Republic and Haiti, take some beating for that honour. Of 12 major wars in Africa, the CIA has been involved in 11 of them. There have been many socialists murdered in Africa in the last century. At least one Canadian company has financed a war over diamonds in Sierra Leone that I know of. And Angola ... my gawd!

Patrice Lumumba was the first and last democratically elected Prime Minister of the Congo and represented their best chance for a united Africa. The imperialists caged him like an animal and tortured him to fucking death.

Africa has suffered horrors and setbacks unimanigable to us in the west. Most of those countries will have to actually get on their knees before they can stand. Some of the original IMF loan principals have been paid back three times over by some of these countries, and they are still mired in oppressive debt. Former World Bank chief, Joseph Stiglitz, has described obligatory debt repayment plans imposed on these countries as colonialism. After WWII, Japan, Cuba, China and those that would become the Asian tiger economies, were all poor to very poor third and fourth world nations. None of them laboured under the yoke of Washington consensus for economic austerity, and they've never looked back.

[ 12 March 2006: Message edited by: Fidel ]


From: Viva La Revolución | Registered: Apr 2004  |  IP: Logged
Ken Burch
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posted 12 March 2006 02:13 AM      Profile for Ken Burch     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
So, as the bald man with the goatee once asked,

"What is to be done"?


From: A seedy truckstop on the Information Superhighway | Registered: Feb 2005  |  IP: Logged
West Coast Greeny
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posted 12 March 2006 04:45 AM      Profile for West Coast Greeny     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
quote:
Originally posted by Ken Burch:
So, as the bald man with the goatee once asked,

"What is to be done"?


That is a question that requires an answer the length of an encyclopedia, but there are 3 main points.

1) Give African resources back to Africans.
2) Help them to manage it thier resources in the best way possible.
3) Pray.

Because Africans are a 1/2 generation away from being caught in the greatest catastrophe in human history.


From: Ewe of eh. | Registered: Sep 2004  |  IP: Logged
goyanamasu
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posted 12 March 2006 06:24 AM      Profile for goyanamasu     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
Schematic approaches to what's best for Africa, especially coming from a Westerner, have everything wrong, nothing right.

Take merely one second to think about it, please.

Start by reading the schematic approaches of the neo-marxists of the 1960s. Pure pipe dreams.


As for helping 'them manage their own resources', this is the opposite of what oil and mineral extraction industries based in, say, Calgary try to do. Those based in France have a more complex approach we know. In Europe this is known as Francafrique by some. I call it neocolonialism. Just to show one tiny edge to West Coast Greeny take a look at the collaboration on the part of the Socialist International this entails.

No major power trains execs and engineers, turns over its blueprints and planning depts, or tries to replicate the parts and supply side in such a way that these vital aspects of extraction or marketing could fall into the hands of the Africans, which includes South Africa and the Mediterranian Coast.

Schematic do-gooder language, however, serves as camouflage for the realities imposed by the way first world countries invest in and dispose of the African continent's resources. So why not stop writing little lists like this?


Immanuel Wallerstein, a man I respect, was the one who got EVERYTHING wrong about Africa in his doctoral thesis back in the '60s. I.W. tried to explain the difficulties faced by socialist regimes in African countries newly gaining independence. Back then, he had no idea how the twists and turns of reality, not schematic socialist plans that fit on a napkin, would pervert the best laid plans for African reform.

One big question we should begin to address is whether China can be played off against the Western capitalist powers in a manner similar to the Soviet block versus the same. Or is China's approach (currently it looks like it's so) firmly entrenched in the neocolonial model (to be used as a bargaining chip with the West) so that it keeps African social and economic development marginal?


From: End Arbitrary Management Style Now | Registered: Mar 2006  |  IP: Logged
Fidel
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posted 12 March 2006 07:07 AM      Profile for Fidel     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
Ya! Whatever.

Lumumba didn't start out a Marxist and threatening the west by allying with the Soviets.
In the 1960's, it was a remarkable event for the UN as the first black men was allowed to speak. Imperialists saw everything and anything as the red menace and threat to empire.

Castro asked for help from the U.S. in the beginning. Both men were ignored by imperialists and U.S. colonialists alike.

I think Wallerstein is exactly right. The biggest threat to western imperialism is for every small former-colony and about-to-be colony to swing hard to the left and arm itself with nukes to the eye teeth.

That's the fix for Africa, and that's the fix for the rest of the world as Iran is trying to do now. Nobody carpet bombs Russia for its oil and natural gas. Nobody pulls operation shock and appall on China after their semi-literate Harvard grad president gives the order.


From: Viva La Revolución | Registered: Apr 2004  |  IP: Logged
Boom Boom
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posted 12 March 2006 07:10 AM      Profile for Boom Boom     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
I don't think Western policy makers have much to contribute on the direction of Zimbabwe, but I do think Robert Mugabe has outlived any usefulness he may have for the people of that sad country. I think Desmond Tutu had it right in the links I posted above.
From: Make the rich pay! | Registered: Dec 2004  |  IP: Logged
Fidel
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posted 12 March 2006 07:20 AM      Profile for Fidel     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
Africa is the largest continent to become absolutely poorer since 1980. UNICEF reports say by year 2015 Africa will still only be able to feed less than half of its population. Arfica's problems are much larger than Robert Mugabe.

For Africa, the choices are socialism or increasing barbarism. Colonialists out of Africa!


From: Viva La Revolución | Registered: Apr 2004  |  IP: Logged
goyanamasu
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posted 12 March 2006 07:23 AM      Profile for goyanamasu     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
Fidel: I'll have to share that one. You quoting Wallerstein. Yeah, the solution for Zimbabwe is for Mugabe to negotiate an arms deal for nuclear weapons.

Have you gone absolutely mad?

quote:
I think Wallerstein is exactly right. The biggest threat to western imperialism is for every small former-colony and about-to-be colony to swing hard to the left and arm itself with nukes to the eye teeth.

Believe what you will, what gives you the right to say you agree with somebody and then misquote them so that they appear to be a complete and utter ass?


From: End Arbitrary Management Style Now | Registered: Mar 2006  |  IP: Logged
Fidel
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posted 12 March 2006 07:28 AM      Profile for Fidel     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
I did not quote Wallerstein. I merely said I agreed with him full stop. The next sentence is me talking, not him. Asshat!

The solution in Africa is simple. Western imperialists OUT! Then socialism!

And what's absolutely mad is one nuclear superpower's operation SHOCK AND APPALL over Baghdad. That's what's "mad."

It's clear to Iran now that NOT having nukes is what causes mega-death and destruction since 1991 in a neighboring country that did not posess nukes.

[ 12 March 2006: Message edited by: Fidel ]


From: Viva La Revolución | Registered: Apr 2004  |  IP: Logged
West Coast Greeny
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posted 12 March 2006 04:49 PM      Profile for West Coast Greeny     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
Fidel? Are you saying Iran SHOULD have nukes? Or it's justified for Iran to seek having nukes? Or is the best thing for Iran to do is to get nukes? Or none of the above.

Because arming yourself to the teeth isn't going to solve anything, and Iran is one of the last countries in the world that I would wan't to have nukes.

I'm not talking about any sort of socialist revolution at all, I'm just saying that African resources shouldn't fall under the influence the US, or Europe, or any other country. That only causes violence, starvation, suffering, etc. as militant factions compete to take over these resources, and compete for the support of larger, foreign military forces.


From: Ewe of eh. | Registered: Sep 2004  |  IP: Logged
kuri
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posted 12 March 2006 08:01 PM      Profile for kuri   Author's Homepage     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
Can't speak for Fidel, but it wouldn't be a totally out to lunch idea. States with nuclear power have historically had less conventional wars in their own territory and thus less death and destruction. The US and the Soviets fought proxy, keeping their own populations safe, so it's no wonder that developing nations what some of that security, too.

Kenneth Waltz: "The Spread of Nuclear Weapons: More May Better"

Of course, actual, working missile defences would radically upset that strategic scenario but in the current situation, I find it hard to challenge Iran acquiring nuclear weapons when you have Iraq as the perfect example of what happens to a non-nuclear state in the US's "bad books". This isn't a defence of Iran's domestic regime, whose internal survival nuclear weapons will not likely effect anyway, but I do defend Iran's right to sovereignty as a nation.


From: an employer more progressive than rabble.ca | Registered: Jun 2003  |  IP: Logged
Fidel
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posted 12 March 2006 08:31 PM      Profile for Fidel     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
quote:
Originally posted by West Coast Greeny:
Fidel? Are you saying Iran SHOULD have nukes? Or it's justified for Iran to seek having nukes? Or is the best thing for Iran to do is to get nukes? Or none of the above.

I'm not saying it would be a good thing, no. But how else would oil or mineral-rich nations interpret unprovoked NATO and U.S. attacks on sovereign nations?. Keep in mind that over 1.5 million innocent Iraqi men, women and children have perished since 1991 when you factor in devastating effects of a U.S.-led trade sanctions on Iraq, a desert nation. The same warmongers are menacing Iran already. They would likely understand that not posessing WMD leaves them vulnerable to propaganda wars on a scale not seen since the 1940's followed by aerial bombing.

quote:
Because arming yourself to the teeth isn't going to solve anything, and Iran is one of the last countries in the world that I would wan't to have nukes.

They're human beings. I understand that the leader of Iran is crude and ignorant, but intelligence among world leaders is not a pre-requisite for the job, apparently. When lie after lie about Iraq and WMD were exposed to the world, warmongering chickenhawks hid themselves behind noble motives, like promoting democracy in the Middle East. Over 40 years ago, the CIA orchestrated the murder of thousands of socialists in Iraq and Iran. What they're actually doing is making the world safe for their hypocrisy. Iranian's may have been thought of as "barbarians" and hillbillys by Iraqi's at one time. But the west managed to arm Iraq's enemies to the eye teeth and menacing them from all sides in the latter half of the last century. That's the darker side of capitalism. We also have to remember that Iraq is the cradle of western civilization. What can we offer them in the way of democracy, really ?.

Africa needs socialism.

[ 12 March 2006: Message edited by: Fidel ]


From: Viva La Revolución | Registered: Apr 2004  |  IP: Logged
DrConway
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posted 13 March 2006 01:28 AM      Profile for DrConway     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
"I do not fear the man with 500 bombs. I fear the man with one."

I don't know who said that, but it's a good aphorism to keep in mind.


From: You shall not side with the great against the powerless. | Registered: May 2001  |  IP: Logged

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