January 18, 2006
Watching the Bad Guys Turn on Each Other
Watching Syria's former Vice President Adbul Halim Khaddam declare war on his old boss Bashar Assad from his cushy hideout in Paris is great in a watch-the-bad-guys-turn-on-each-other sort of way. But as I say in my new TCS piece: The Enemy of Your Enemy is Sometimes Your Enemy.
Posted by Michael J. Totten at January 18, 2006 03:15 AMMJT,
Did you see the pro-Syrian protests yesterday?
Thousands of Lebanese Protest Against U.S.
Posted by: SoCalJustice at January 18, 2006 06:46 AM'Thousands'... how impressive...
But Lebanon will achieve freedom & prosperity, no matter what.
Posted by: Montreal at January 18, 2006 12:32 PMTerrific piece on Khaddam! As they'd say in Beirut, he and Bashar are patently "Khariet kalb wou maasoumi" (dog doo-doo divided). Thanks.
Posted by: john raymond at January 18, 2006 06:15 PMGreat title, fine idea. I do hope Bush will NOT try to replace the current Assad bastard with "our" bastard. But looking at history gives me reasons to fear this.
Why not apply the "still an enemy" to your favorite US pres., FDR, and the USSR commies?
Because, in practice, the big devil you're actively fighting always seems worse than the other devil you might help to fight your active enemy devil.
The alternatives are: a) not fight the big devil, or b) in fighting, take far more casualties than if you treated the other devil as a friend (of the third kind)--or else the war will drag on longer.
I wish FDR had been tougher on Stalin while Hitler was still fighting him. Insofar as the "West" fought the Nazis to keep Poland free, it failed by this criteria.
In Syria, and Lebanon, they need democracy -- even if a huge number of Syrians, or Lebanese, hate America. The America-haters should be laughed at for hating democracy and freedom.
Posted by: Tom Grey - Libertay Dad at January 19, 2006 02:08 AM
