Maybe but than Americans will have no investment in China-it’s more reward to the Euros or Japan or whoever invests in it.
If South Africa had developed nukes they would have to be utterly mad and idiotic to use it since as Heinlein pointed out in one of his essays America, USSR, and China would rain utter destruction upon them.
http://en.wikinews.org/wiki/Number_of_cholera_death_in_Zimbabwe_surpasses_4,000
Just one epidemic.
So you *admit *it - America’s economic self-interest, not concern for the Chinese, is the driving factor.
Funny - South Africa *did *develop nukes, no international action of any sort followed. Hell, we likely gave them to/developed them with Israel, who still retain theirs. So the Apartheid government exported WMDs, of all three of the ChemBioNuclear types. *Brown *people countries like Iraq get invaded and occupied for that. South Africa gets “constructive engagement” (Yes, clearly that Newspeak re-arranger was kept very busy by the US govt)
And if we had used them, it would have been on another African country - I doubt very much a rain of fire would have followed. Rwanda, DRC, Biafra, Darfur, Mozambique, Angola etbloodycetera all serve as my cite.
Funny, I could have *sworn *I was specifically referring to *your *reference to "The MDC’s supporters, white farmers, and their black workers have constantly been attacked and killed. ":dubious: Cholera has fuck all to do with that, unless you’re contending that Mugabe is *deliberately *introducing it into the water. Which, BTW, *was *one of the diseases the Rhodesian Govt used.
Please try and focus on the argument you’re actually having, not the one you’d like to have. We were comparing the Rhodesians deliberately killing people with Mugabe deliberately killing people. If you *want *to argue about the , oh, let’s call it “collateral damage”, I’m sure I can start referencing the devastation the Bush War left on the country for you. But that’s a different argument for now, so do keep up, dear boy.
Both are factors. If it benefits both America and China it’s a win-win situation.
I meant if they used nukes.
No Mugabe did not delibrately use cholera but his idiotic economic policies have led to the conditions right for a cholera epidemic.
You have only demonstrated the first benefit. You have failed to show the positive for the Chinese as motivation.
And it’s all still irrelevant to Apartheid.
Like I said - South Africa could have left the cities of half-a-dozen other African countries as smoking craters and no-one in the West or Russia would have done squat. Firstly, because the great Powers have only ever shown concern for what they can get from Africa. Secondly, because if SA had that ability, MAD comes into effect with any other nuclear players. Thirdly - minority government means the powerless majority make great human shields.
So like I intimated - the Fallacy of False Equivalence. Irrelevant to my point.
China is thriving economically, a new middle class is booming, and etc.
Great Powers do care if nuclear weapons are used-why else are they so worried about North Korea and Iran? If South Africa actually used nukes they are determined.
Than is it false equivalence to blame Stalin for the famines caused by the destruction of the kulaks?
For the last time (hopefully) - you have to show that that is a deliberate reason for the policy, not a post hoc excuse.
And once again - even if this were the case, it would still have squat to do with Reagan and South Africa. The Apartheid government is not the current Chinese government. Defending the current US policy to the latter in no way excuses engagement with the latter. Completely different circumstances, completely different (in fact, opposite) motivations: “We need an ally *against *the Commies” vs “We need to ally *with *these Commies (and their factories)”
Because North Korea is within striking range of Japan, South Korea, the Chinese factories and even parts of America. Similarly, Iran is within range of Israel & Europe. American/Western self-interest, again.
South Africa, on the other hand, was only really a threat to a bunch of brown people.
Please. We actually tested our nukes and no-one said word one until years later. Nor have we ever been censured for exporting WMDs. America only cares when its own ox is being gored.
What? No, it’s false equivalence to conflate deliberate and direct murder with disastrous social policies. Unless you contend that the social policies were **mostly **and **deliberately **done to cause the deaths in the first place, which I don’t think even Mao has been accused of.
Listen, I’m not quibbling over who killed more people, I’m talking about deliberate murder here. Intent, you know?
As a realist I care more about what actually happens rather than abstract reasons.
You don’t think the USSR would care or the PRC?
Testing our nukes and using it on a population as a weapons are two different things.
Once again I care about results more than abstract reasons. For instance while the Rhodesians may have delibrately murdered several hundred people that’s small potatoes to how many people have died due to Mugabe’s foolish policies.
Can we apply that same rationale to the U.S. invasion of Iraq? How does the number of innocent Iraqis killed as “collateral damage” compare to the number of Americans deliberately killed by terrorists?
Say the guy that constantly pushes hypothetical points and assumes that they can override more realistically based ones.
Which has what to do with anything? I’m talking about the actual reasons for US involvement in the PRC - pure economics. YOU were the one who advanced an abstract reason of encouraging democracy.
No, neither would have cared.
Tell that to Iran, Pakistan, North Korea. America sure seems to care about the having of nukes just as much as the using of them.
And that doesn’t address the far bigger issue of Pretoria being an ACTIVE exporter and user of all kinds of WMDs.
Remind me - what was the reasoning behind invading Iraq, again? So how come for Reagan, the WMD-mongers were his best pals?
Oh yeah, I forgot, Reagan got on just fine with Saddam, too.:dubious:
This would only not be a foolish argument if the ones killed by bio-weapons were the only ones the Rhodesian government killed. You don’t get to compare everyone who died under Mugabe with just those hundreds. You have to compare them to **everyone **they killed in theBush War, or as a direct result of the Bush War. Let me tell you, that isn’t “small potatoes”. It’s almost a million people dead and millions more displaced, just because some Whites tried to buck the winds of change. And you’re defending their actions as “small potatoes”. :rolleyes:
Is it spring break or something?
What, you think Curtis is sitting on Daytona Beach clucking his tongue in disapproval at the drunken scantily clad coeds frolicking in the surf?
Hmmm.
If anybody needs me, I’ll be in Daytona.
I meant in the indirect sense.
Iran and North Korea will export these nukes and/or cannot be trusted to have those weapons responsibly.
And the ZANU-PF launched their own atrocities according to your own link including killing blacks who worked on white farms. Also most of the casualties you cited comes from the Mozambique Civil War
I think you meant in the irrelevant sense, then.
Did you miss where SA likely exported its nuke technology and *definitely *did export its other WMD tech?
Aaah, my old friend, tu quoque, I wondered where you’d gone.
Which was started and funded by first the Rhodesians and then the Apartheid Government. So all those death are at their hands, by your own logic.
Yes and that’s a good reason against South Africa but again we haven’t invaded North Korea or Iran.
Except they were Mozambicans who were waging civil war.
…and no one was asking you to invade Apartheid South Africa, either, just stop aiding the racist despots and aid the oppressed majority instead.
Sheesh, is “invade” the American RW’s first answer for everything?
A “civil war” that would not have been fought at all without the Rhodesians funding, training AND allowing the rebels to be based in their country. Get that? If the *Rhodesians *hadn’t started it, there would have been no civil war, no RENAMO, no 900 000 dead. Theirs is the blame. Payback for FRELIMO support of ZANU-PF. That and general anti-Communism, I suppose.
Which we ended up doing and again let me repeat: I would have opposed President Reagan supporting Apartheid South Africa.
No thanks to Reagan and his active opposition.
…but you have no problem making excuses for him after the fact, rather than admit the truth - the man was a nutjob racist.
Supporting South Africa=/=Racist.
Supporting South Africa = condoning racism.