Flutterby™! : NeoCon musings

In the discussion about Iraq recently I've been hearing from a bunch of people who got their conservative views back in the days of the Soviet Union. They were rightly horrified by what was going on over there, and thought that appeasement was a bad idea. We can talk forever about what role Reagan had in the collapse of the USSR, or whether Gorbachev was an instigator or a reactionary, however...

In all of these discussions I haven't heard any one of them who seems to understand why the Soviet Union occurred, and continued for so long, and it's the reason we're having so much trouble in Iraq. Most of those of us who remember the evils of the Soviet Union remember it as bad because we know people who were oppressed under the regime. We've met the people who filled the trunk with stuff they hoped would stop bullets and drove full-speed through the border crossing ducked down while the windows exploded around them, or who crawled under the searchlights and barbed wire. We've talked with those who spent time in prison for expressing their thoughts.

But there were others who found their place in that political system, who supported it and rose through the ranks, or who were supported by it. And while the tipping point eventually drove those who were once supported by it to rebel, if they can't make it under the new system it could easily tip back.

When I hear these people rant in favor of the Dubya foreign policy, or of the intervention in Iraq, I miss that perspective and that understanding. And I fear that unless the knowledge that government exists in the mind of the governed percolates up into our foreign policy, that our intervention will be for naught and Iraq will tip back.

No answers, just a big gaping hole that I'd like to see filled.