RE: Sidetracked to plutonium (#36454)
by Ron Palmer on July 19, 2004 at 11:10 AM

Just some responses.

De Klerk absolutely was a terrorist, if by terrorist we mean someone who utilizes fear and state force arbitrarily over a civilian population.

Heads of State & government are by their nature terroristic. Remember: the nature of the State is to vere towards totalitarianism.

SA did not invade anyone and were not threatening to invade anyone? Apperently you've not heard of Namibia?

South Africa "invaded" Namibia: then South West Africa as part of the World War 1 campaign against the Germans. Remember: South West Africa (Namibia) was a colony of Germany until 1915. The inavsion was part of the war effort against the Germans. During the 1970s & 1980s there were South Africans stationed at the border of Namibia & Angola for the defense of South Africa.

Apparently you've not heard of South African troops in Botswana?

This is typical Western ignorance. First it was not Botswana but Bophuthatswana: a black nominally independent homeland which I thought Westerers did not recognize. Though it is plain that you have confused the two. Botswana was the homeland the British built for the Tswana & granted independece in 1966. Bophutahtswana was the homeland the National Party government of South Africa built for the Tswana located in the north. Next: is was not South African troops, but simply a few members of the erstwhile AWB: a fringe paramilitary extra parliamentary political party which was heavily infiltrated by the De Klerk government.

Read Gavin Cawthra's "Brutal Force: The Apartheid War Machine," inter alia and then tell me that South Africa posed no threats to its neighbors.

No more so than it does now. Remember: it was the post Apartheid government in 1998 that invaded Lesotho.

Then on top of that look at the iuses of the ilitary, police, and security forces in South Africa especially in the period after 1976 and tell me about the benign nature of de Klerk's security state.

Which is begning to pale in comparison to Bush's security state in the United States of America.

You forget that unlike most of the left I understand the sad necessity of the use of force, even if I am loath to use it often.

This is the same tripe that lead to bombs falling on innocent civilians in Yugoslavia based on an erronerous pretext which was intigated by a specious document which Milosevic (of Montenegrin origin as a matter of fact) could never have accepted. Furthermroe: There was never any genocide on the scale as was reported in the biased mainstream press.

He - Reagan - claimed that the NP gov't was "reformist"

The National Party under P W Botha was indeed reformist. They enacted electoral reforms for the nation's (or rather the State's) Coloured & Indian communites though at the price of adopting an executive presidency which I see has still not been abolished or reversed. The Botha governmnet abolished petty Apartheid which had formerly segregated the cities.

i support this war now, reluctantly, because the ends will justify it

The ends do not justify the means.

because Saddam is evil and the world should weep no tears for the loss of him and his cronies,

So too is Robert Mugabe: when will we be expecting the bombs to fall & the U S to invade?

because I still believe that for all of the flaws of the United States, which I acknowledge and recognize, we still will try to offewr a better way in Iraq.

Have you seen the news lately? No weapons of mass destruction -generally accepted as a big lie for a quick & convenient pretext for the invasion at this point. / Abu Garhaib torture prison abuse scandal. / Iraqi insurgents / uprisings / political assasinations etc.

The war against Iraq has been exposed for the land grab & power play that it was.