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  • Who freed Asia?

    Who freed Asia?


    Asians, not the U.S. forged democracies, despite the president's rhetoric.
    By Ian Buruma

    August 31, 2007

    President Bush is not generally known for his firm grasp of history. But this has not stopped him from using history to justify his policies -- most recently in a speech to U.S. veterans in which he defended his aim to "stay the course" in Iraq by pointing out the consequences of the American withdrawal from the war in Vietnam. But lost in the criticism of that analogy was Bush's mention of the Korean War and the occupation of Japan after World War II as success stories in America's efforts to bring freedom to Asia and, by extension, the world.

    Was Bush right to boast of the United States' role in giving Japan, Korea and other places in Asia under American protection their freedom? As he put it to the veterans: "Will today's generation of Americans resist the allure of retreat, and will we do in the Middle East what the veterans in this room did in Asia?"

    What exactly did the U.S. do in Asia? The first few years of the occupation of Japan were indeed a remarkable success for democracy. Instead of helping Japanese of the old school restore an authoritarian system, Gen. Douglas MacArthur's administration helped Japanese liberals restore and improve their prewar democratic institutions. Trade unions were given more clout. Women got the vote. Civil liberties were boosted. And the semi-divine Japanese emperor was brought down to earth. Much of the credit for this goes to the Japanese themselves and the idealistic, left-leaning New Dealers in MacArthur's government who supported them.

    When China fell to Mao Tse-tung's communists, however, and North Korea got Chinese and Soviet backing for an invasion of South Korea, democratic idealism was stopped in its tracks. In Japan, former war criminals were released from prison, "reds" were purged and right-wing governments led by some of those same former war criminals got enthusiastic American backing. Democracy, instead of being nurtured, was distorted, with active American encouragement, to make sure the right stayed in power and the left was kept at bay.

    The South Koreans certainly have much to thank Americans for. Without the U.N. intervention in the Korean War, led by the U.S., the South would have been taken over by Kim Il Sung, the "Great Leader," and its current freedom and prosperity would never have been possible. But South Korean democracy was not something the U.S. gave to the Koreans, or even always encouraged. From the late 1940s to the late 1980s, Washington played along with, and sometimes actively backed, anti-communist authoritarian rulers who grabbed and consolidated their power through violent coups and the suppression of dissent.

    The same was true in the Philippines, Taiwan and Indonesia, and indeed in the Middle East, where democracy has yet to take root. As long as the Cold War lasted, military strongmen and civilian dictators were consistently favored by U.S. administrations in the name of fighting communism; anything to keep the left down, even the kind of left that would have been regarded as simply liberal in the democratic West.

    Now, it is true that for most people, life under right-wing Asian strongmen was, on the whole, to be preferred to life under Mao, Pol Pot, Kim Il Sung or even Ho Chi Minh. But to call the citizens under South Korea's Park Chung-hee, Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos, Indonesia's Gen. Suharto or Taiwan's Chiang Kai-shek "free" would be an abomination. The happy fact that Koreans, Filipinos, Indonesians and Taiwanese did eventually become free, or at least freer, is not so much to the credit of the U.S. as to the people who fought for their freedoms themselves. It was only in the late 1980s, when the communist empires were crumbling, that U.S. governments actively backed democratic politicians and demonstrators in Seoul, Manila and Taipei. The heroes of Asian democracy are not Americans but Asians.

    Bush is right to claim that people in the Middle East would like to be as prosperous and free as the South Koreans, but his notion that the war in Iraq is simply a continuation of U.S. policies in Asia could not be more mistaken.

    In Asia, as in the Middle East, U.S. strategy was conservative: propping up dictators against communism until they were toppled by their own people. In the Middle East today, it is reckless and radical: invading a country, wrecking its institutions and expecting that freedom will grow in the ensuing state of anarchy.

    To confuse these very different enterprises and pretend that they are the same is not only wrong but dangerous -- and deeply disappointing to those of us who still regard the United States as a force for good.

    Ian Buruma is the author, most recently, of "Murder in Amsterdam: The Death of Theo van Gogh and the Limits of Tolerance." He is a professor at Bard College and a contributing editor to The Times' opinion pages.

    Who freed Asia? - Los Angeles Times
    An interesting commentary on Asia.

    This is an ideal example of how spin can change the perception of historical event to suit the mood and the situation!

    However, the facts cannot be wished away and changed!


    "Some have learnt many Tricks of sly Evasion, Instead of Truth they use Equivocation, And eke it out with mental Reservation, Which is to good Men an Abomination."

    I don't have to attend every argument I'm invited to.

    HAKUNA MATATA

  • #2
    No matter the Liberals socialists how to defend their idealogies, Right Wing Dictators >>> Communists, FACT even under the Cold War years.
    Last edited by Enzo Ferrari; 04 Sep 07,, 10:25.

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    • #3
      I see another spin from the article. The author starts AFTER WW2. The US freed Asia from the Japanese. That, no one can deny.
      "Only Nixon can go to China." -- Old Vulcan proverb.

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      • #4
        Originally posted by Enzo Ferrari View Post
        No matter the Liberals socialists how to defend their idealogies, Right Wing Dictators >>> Communists, FACT even under the Cold War years.
        Thats right ... communism killed 100 million people in the last century, thats a heck of alot more then all these so called "CIA propped" dictators the liberals are always talking about.

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        • #5
          Originally posted by Ray View Post
          An interesting commentary on Asia.

          This is an ideal example of how spin can change the perception of historical event to suit the mood and the situation!

          However, the facts cannot be wished away and changed!
          Asian freedom is largely a work in progress. The US and our allies freed most of Asia from Japanese domination. With our imposition of the current Japanese constitution, we can logically claim to have freed Japan from totalitarian rule. Much of the rest of the democratic movement in Asia finds its intellectual base in the United States. But, in each individual country, much work was done by the inhabitants. True enough, the US provides the money in the form of an economic system and from time to time even more direct monetary help. We also provide military protection of fledgling democracies. Still, I would say that the locals are freeing themselves.

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          • #6
            chris,

            communism killed 100 million people in the last century, thats a heck of alot more then all these so called "CIA propped" dictators the liberals are always talking about.
            why put quotes around CIA-propped? the point of the matter is, yes, the US-supported alternative was better than if the commies took over. but that does NOT mean it was some glorious picnic for the people under the right-wing dictatorships.
            There is a cult of ignorance in the United States, and there has always been. The strain of anti-intellectualism has been a constant thread winding its way through our political and cultural life, nurtured by the false notion that democracy means that "My ignorance is just as good as your knowledge."- Isaac Asimov

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            • #7
              Actually Asia freed itself from imperial domination.

              Japanese are but a part of the whole game! ;)


              "Some have learnt many Tricks of sly Evasion, Instead of Truth they use Equivocation, And eke it out with mental Reservation, Which is to good Men an Abomination."

              I don't have to attend every argument I'm invited to.

              HAKUNA MATATA

              Comment


              • #8
                Notwithstanding the title, if this quoted section constitutes the entire article, the point of it seems to be that US actions in the middle east today do not at all resemble those of past days in the far east.

                But he doesn't take into mention that the US has attempted the same operations and policies in the middle east (Hussein, Pahlavi, the mujahedin...)
                to ill effect.

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