[Peace-discuss] Hawaii to Iraq

[C. G. Estabrook]

Exactly right.  Kinzer's position seems similar to that of the
left-liberal extreme of respectable opinion regarding Vietnam,
e.g., Anthony Lewis in the NYT in 1969, that the war had begun
with "blundering efforts to do good" but had become a
"disaster" -- at a time when 70% of the public regarded it as
"fundamentally wrong and immoral," not "a mistake." --CGE


David Green wrote:

> I think that Kinzer does a great service, but I would
> have at least one concern. From the portions of the
> interview yesterday on DN that I saw, he seems to be
> saying that--for example--if only we hadn't overthrown
> Mossadegh in 1953, we would have had a liberal
> democracy in Iran all these years, and wouldn't the
> whole Middle East look different, implying that our
> leaders would be happy with that. Well, yes it would,
> and no they wouldn't, and that's exactly why we
> wouldn't allow that to happen. Kinzer still subscribes
> (I think) to the "good intentions gone wrong" version
> of history, rather than imperial intentions done well,
> if messily, with too many dead bodies left behind. We
> put a lot of effort into making sure that Arab
> nationalism could not set a bad example for the Middle
> East--in Iraq in 1958, in Egypt in 1967, etc. We put a
> lot of effort into making sure that Saudi Arabia does
> not become democratic, or Kuwiat, for that matter.
>
> David Green