Mr. K’s ‘Freedom Doctrine’ floored
| AN OUTSIDERS VIEW |
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| Ken Fuller |
This week, let’s take a look at just two of the many interesting items on the Internet concerning the situation in Egypt.
A blog by Tom Scocca (“What comes after Mubarak?” reproduced on 21stcenturymanifesto.wordpress.com) takes issue with Charles Krauthammer, whose Washington Post column on Feb. 10 argues that the USA should model its approach in the Middle East after that adopted by the Truman administration in Europe after World War II. (If Krauthammer’s name rings a bell, it’s because his column also appears in the Manila Times.)
Krauthammer recalls that the Truman approach meant doing everything possible, both overt and covert, to ensure that communists failed to gain the reins of government outside of the Soviet sphere of influence in Europe.
While in Western Europe, this partially took the form of throwing money at “democratic” governments (Marshall aid was granted on condition that the communists were kept out), on the periphery of the continent it often took a more brutal form. There, says Scocca, it meant “encouraging our allies to outlaw the Communist Party, then to smash the communists for being outlaws. In Greece, that eventually meant supporting a military coup and a right-wing junta, a dictatorship that ran on torture.”.... MORE
Source: The Daily Tribune
URL: http://www.tribuneonline.org/commentary/20110222com5.html
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