He Might Have A Point

McIlheran wrote that the "last time America screwed an ally, bad things happened:

So when the Communists launched a post-Americans attack on South Vietnam, Congress did nothing but yank out the rug. Some 65,000 South Vietnamese were murdered by the invading northerners, some 250,000 died in re-education camps, uncounted thousands more died trying to flee by sea, and the slaughter in Cambodia, with a toll in the millions, became a byword for genocide. This was the result of Congress' domestic politics.

And, Herman notes, the North's victory encouraged Marxist regimes in Africa, the Americas and Afghanistan. It also convinced the Ayatollah Khomeini that America would do nothing to stop him from imposing theocracy on Iran. We're paying the price for that yet.

For the unfamiliar, McIlheran tends to forgive Republicans everything and Democrats, nothing. Even if it's the Republicans fault. Which made me think of two friendships that the Reagan administration made, and the results of when they screwed them over:

With Friends Like These, Who Needs Enemies?

On Sunday, McBride asked an inane question wondering if it was OK for Pakistan to be put under dictatorial control as opposed to having the opposite, like freedom. No one responded. (Where is John when you need him?)

Now she has a posting in which she offers a rebuttal to an editorial in the Milwaukee Sentinel Journal. Her post is classical McBride, with her unique view of reality through her special Neoconovision glasses, and her usual xenophobic rantings.

The part that particularly stands out is this:

I don't feel good about it, but Pakistan is a nuclear country. I'd rather have the country under the control of a pro-American, anti-terrorist Musharraf dictatorship than have our government pressure him into removing the iron fist that is preventing his government from falling, and see the country fall into the hands of extremist elements that align with terrorists instead.

It makes me recall two other leaders that were befriended by the ultimate Republican icon, Ronald Bonzo Reagan. One would be Osama bin Laden, who was fighting those mean old Russians in Afghanistan. He was doing what America supposedly wanted, and then blew up the Twin Towers. Now we are the ones fighting bin Laden in Afghanistan, when we aren't being distracted by having wars in oil-rich countries.

The other would be Saddam Hussein, who Reagan sold chemical weapons to, because he was making war on Iran. Unfortunately, Hussein was given enough chemicals, the he had enough left over that he could use on the Kurds. Of course, we know the rest of the story to that story.

So, if McBride, a conservative, says that she would rather have Musharraf run a dictatorship and keep the nuclear weapons, rather than allow terrorists, like judges and lawyers and citizens do radical things like have a constitution and free elections, I think we can all tell what the obvious choice would be. Let'em vote!