So if i rape your wife but don’t kill her and wear her skin as a coat, you should write me a letter of thanks, because at least i’m not a psycho. Good to know.
Gesundheit!
I’d say a more accurate comparions would be to be nice to the eccentric folks down the block who aren’t hurting anyone. Ajerbaijan, to my knowledge, doesn’t have an insane Arab trying to institute super-evil-death-Sharia or reincarnating himself as Stalin.
Of course not. It’s Azerbaijan for Christ’s sake.
Why does he have to be an Arab for us to worry about? As America, the “Beacon of Democracy” in the world, we should be opposed to this crap as it begins, before Aliyev or his son become corrupted mass killers.
Chechens aren’t Arabs either, and look what a Godawful mess Chechnya is (or should I say “Allah-awful”?)
Not that there is a huge fundamentalist wacko movement in Azerbaijan as far as I know, but I believe in preventive common sense and morality. Lots of places wouldn’t be as screwed up as they are today if the U.S. had supported common sense and morality there. Aliyev ain’t Stalin, but he ain’t Prince Charming, either.
P.S. Just think how different Iran might be if the U.S. had given a damn about them between WWII and the hostage crisis…other than as a source of cheap petroleum. And then think how differently the Iran-Iraq situation might have been, and on down the line. And then remember that Iran is literally next door to Azerbaijan, and that roughly 25% of Iranians are ethnic Azeris.
The history of Iran and Azerbaijan has gone differently in the past 200 years or so because of Russian conquest of the Caucasus, but believe me, I can certainly see the pendulum swinging the other way.
(3000 posts! Woohoo!)
First of all, congrats on the 3000th! That’s great!
And I might say that we DID give a damn–but we worked with all those countries on one overriding principle–that they not go Commie, that they stayed on our side as much as possible against the Soviets, and that those who had become part of the USSR not spread the “revolution”.
In fact, wasn’t Azerbaijan behind the Iron Curtain, which we spent untold billions and lots of lives to lift all over the world? Isn’t that “doing something”?
That said, it does set my teeth on edge to see us “coddling dictators” but we don’t want any of these guys going Kim Il-sung on us.
Like that strategy worked for Saddam Hussein…
Lifting the “Iron Curtain” (which is a large exaggeration IMO) and keeping nations from “going Commie” is pretty useless if they continue to function as totalitarian dictatorships in most respects.
Azerbaijan never wanted to be part of the Russian Empire to begin with, much less the Soviet Union. But now that they’ve been independent for 12 years, we’ve done squat to help them and/or push them toward democratic ways, unless you count promoting capitalist development by cutting huge oil consortium deals.
Actually, it has always seemed to me that the primary goal of lifting the Iron Curtain (and historically most of the rest of U.S. foreign policy for the last 100 years or so) was not the human rights situations in other nations, but rather the opening up of markets to Western businesses. It didn’t really matter whether the regimes were democratic or dictatorial, as long as there was money to be made, and there seems to have been little difference between Democratic and Republican administrations in regard to this policy.
I think you could drop the word “administration” from the title of the Op, and it would still be basicly correct.
Well, why not? It’s our policy now, isn’t it? To invade foreign countries to relieve the hapless population from their cruel, despotic, murderous leaders?
“I have a little list”
Can we invade ourselves? 
Yes, in Nov. 2004! Viva El Dean!