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To Intervene or Not to Intervene - America's Democracy Dilemma

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current event by gheorghe on 31 October 2006, tagged as worldaffairs

The American traveler/expat visiting Eastern Europe will often hear the story of post-WWII newly Soviet-occupied nations having waited for half a century for the Americans to come to their rescue. The United States (or rather, the West) never bothered.

Of course, this Eastern Europe problem is largely forgotten now that most of the countries involved have joined NATO/EU; and other pressing problems are at hand (see Iraq). However, the 50th Anniversary of the Hungarian Uprising gives Anne Applebaum of the Washington Post the opportunity to wonder if the United States would ever be prepared to intervene in favor of democracy, given repeated failures to do so in the past.

Should America live up to its own ideals and ignore the complex realities of foreign relations? Or should the United States declare that it pursues solely its own interests and give up the Superman costume?

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Disingenuous by PowerPointSamurai :: NR7

I think one thing Ms. Applebaum is willfully or ignorantly neglecting to mention are the teensy issue of a nuclear arsenal pointed at us at the time. There was also the mess with the Suez Crisis going on at the time.

So it's easy for her to criticize, but what was her alternate plan? Precipitate WWIII? Perhaps continue containment of the Soviet Union so they could collapse? I also think she has some serious historical myopia going on, since I think most people of that era would've laughed in her face for this suggestion. People were scared shitless of the Soviets around this time. They had a HUGE army that looked like a juggernaut. Sputnik 1 is launched just a few months later in 1957! This is the "height-of-the-cold-war-duck-and-cover-better-dead-than-red" era. I honestly can't fathom how low the Washington Post's standards must be for actually publishing such drivel in such denial of actual historical events.

Posted 31 October 2006, Hide, Reply