Frankly, because two examples (Rhodesia and South Africa) don’t make for a well-substantiated pattern—especially when United States was less severe than most of the rest of the world in its condemnation of these states.
What about the Portuguese colonial wars, with Holden Roberto and the CIA backed FNLA and UPA?
Greece supported the Serbs in the Yugoslav wars for no more and no less reason than that its “national character” contained a self-identification with Eastern Orthodox significantly more than with Catholics or with Muslims. Now there’s predictive power. In any dispute between orthodox and non-orthodox, I know that Greece will back the orthodox. I know that Arab nations will back the Palestinians against Israel. America in the Cold War self-identified as anti-communist, so in any dispute between people identifying as communists and people that didn’t , I know America would back the people that didn’t.”
I could take a standard die and tell you, or even someone who had never seen a die before, that of its six faces, one, two, three, four, or five dots are always face up after a roll. In such a case, it’s not clear that’s better than not knowing anything—it would depend on exactly what you were doing with the information. The correct rule (when we only care about whether or not a six is rolled) is “one, two, three, four, or five dots are face up after a roll 5⁄6 of the time, and 1⁄6 of the time the six dots are face up.”
The Estado Novo), (“New State”), or the Second Republic, was the corporatist authoritarian regime installed in Portugal in 1933. It was established following the army-led coup d’état of 28 May 1926 against the democratic but unstable First Republic. The Estado Novo, greatly inspired by conservative and authoritarian ideologies, was developed by António de Oliveira Salazar, ruler of Portugal from 1932 to 1968, when he fell ill.
Opposed to communism, socialism, liberalism, and anti-colonialism, the pro-Roman Catholic Estado Novo regime advocated the retention of Portuguese colonies as a pluricontinental empire.
This isn’t explained by the US cutting losses by abandoning a doomed anti-communist regime, even with US support, those rebels didn’t win:
The combined forces of the MPLA, the UNITA, and the FNLA succeeded in their rebellion not because of their success in battle, but because of the Movimento das Forças Armadas’ coup in Portugal.
That coup succeeded significantly because of Portuguese defeats in Guinea.
By most accounts, Portugal’s counterinsurgency campaign in Angola was the most successful of all its campaigns in the Colonial War. Angola is a large territory, and the long distances from safe havens in neighboring countries supporting the rebel forces made it difficult for the latter to escape detection...Another factor was internecine struggles between three competing revolutionary movements - (FNLA, MPLA, and UNITA) - and their guerrilla armies. For most of the conflict, the three rebel groups spent as much time fighting each other as they did fighting the Portuguese...Strategy also played a role, as a successful hearts and minds campaign led by General Costa Gomes helped blunt the influence of the various revolutionary movements. Finally, unlike other overseas possessions, Portuguese Angola was able to receive support from a local ally, in this case South Africa...The combined forces of the MPLA, the UNITA, and the FNLA succeeded in their rebellion not because of their success in battle, but because of the Movimento das Forças Armadas’ coup in Portugal.
The US chose to support an anti-communist insurgency as a means of opposing colonial rule and also opposing communism. An excellent chance of having a successful colonialist anti-communist regime was dropped in favor of a decent chance of having an anti-communist anti-colonial regime and a decent chance of having a communist anti-colonial regime.
Anti-communism was one very important factor of American foreign policy after the second world war, but it wasn’t of overriding importance. American anti-white-rule positions towards Rhodesia and South Africa aren’t the only examples of how egalitarianism/anti-colonialism/etc. was a feature of American decision making in determining whom to support, how to support them, etc.
This example actually conforms to the language ArisKatsaris used regarding the main point of contention, “in any dispute between people identifying as communists and people that didn’t , I know America would back the people that didn’t.” This shifts the maximized policy goals from causing desired outcomes of conflicts to acting according to favored procedures, but doesn’t tell us if the procedure is just supporting favored groups or if it is also supporting groups acting according to favored norms.
I.e., it doesn’t help us distinguish between those procedures being almost exclusively based on the identity of the supported, i.e. “I feel it has primarily, perhaps even solely to do with concepts of self-identification,” or based substantially on the sorts of actions taken by the supported, i.e. “a violation of certain norms that the British government is known to follow consistently in practice, and expected to follow by a broad consensus of the British people—such consensus being strong enough that it can be considered part of their national character.” That is the main claim in question here, this comment of mine addresses an apparent shift in ArisKatsaris’ position on the minor point of opposition to white-minority colonial regimes.
He had first correctly said, “If the exceptions are about opposition to white-racist regimes, I believe this is explained by modern-day United States identifying itself even more as multiracial and egalitarian (atleast in regards to race), than it does as anti-communist.” He later said, “Frankly, because two examples (Rhodesia and South Africa) don’t make for a well-substantiated pattern—especially when United States was less severe than most of the rest of the world in its condemnation of these states”
I added a third example. Furthermore, I think there are good reasons to support his earlier statement besides examples of it actually occurring, in the way that I think there are good reasons to believe the US would oppose a military dictatorship of octopuses riding flying shark cavalry with laser weapons, despite the absence of even one example.
So on a side point at issue here, I think ArisKatsaris changed from a reasonable position to an unreasonable one. He also backs it up with literally true but misleading or inadequate statements like saying that the two examples cited don’t make a pattern, though there are more examples and there are also reasons other than the examples to believe his original statement was correct.
What about the Portuguese colonial wars, with Holden Roberto and the CIA backed FNLA and UPA?
I could take a standard die and tell you, or even someone who had never seen a die before, that of its six faces, one, two, three, four, or five dots are always face up after a roll. In such a case, it’s not clear that’s better than not knowing anything—it would depend on exactly what you were doing with the information. The correct rule (when we only care about whether or not a six is rolled) is “one, two, three, four, or five dots are face up after a roll 5⁄6 of the time, and 1⁄6 of the time the six dots are face up.”
That’s pretty well-explained by the anti-communist rule of thumb.
Wikipedia:
This isn’t explained by the US cutting losses by abandoning a doomed anti-communist regime, even with US support, those rebels didn’t win:
That coup succeeded significantly because of Portuguese defeats in Guinea.
The US chose to support an anti-communist insurgency as a means of opposing colonial rule and also opposing communism. An excellent chance of having a successful colonialist anti-communist regime was dropped in favor of a decent chance of having an anti-communist anti-colonial regime and a decent chance of having a communist anti-colonial regime.
Anti-communism was one very important factor of American foreign policy after the second world war, but it wasn’t of overriding importance. American anti-white-rule positions towards Rhodesia and South Africa aren’t the only examples of how egalitarianism/anti-colonialism/etc. was a feature of American decision making in determining whom to support, how to support them, etc.
This example actually conforms to the language ArisKatsaris used regarding the main point of contention, “in any dispute between people identifying as communists and people that didn’t , I know America would back the people that didn’t.” This shifts the maximized policy goals from causing desired outcomes of conflicts to acting according to favored procedures, but doesn’t tell us if the procedure is just supporting favored groups or if it is also supporting groups acting according to favored norms.
I.e., it doesn’t help us distinguish between those procedures being almost exclusively based on the identity of the supported, i.e. “I feel it has primarily, perhaps even solely to do with concepts of self-identification,” or based substantially on the sorts of actions taken by the supported, i.e. “a violation of certain norms that the British government is known to follow consistently in practice, and expected to follow by a broad consensus of the British people—such consensus being strong enough that it can be considered part of their national character.” That is the main claim in question here, this comment of mine addresses an apparent shift in ArisKatsaris’ position on the minor point of opposition to white-minority colonial regimes.
He had first correctly said, “If the exceptions are about opposition to white-racist regimes, I believe this is explained by modern-day United States identifying itself even more as multiracial and egalitarian (atleast in regards to race), than it does as anti-communist.” He later said, “Frankly, because two examples (Rhodesia and South Africa) don’t make for a well-substantiated pattern—especially when United States was less severe than most of the rest of the world in its condemnation of these states”
I added a third example. Furthermore, I think there are good reasons to support his earlier statement besides examples of it actually occurring, in the way that I think there are good reasons to believe the US would oppose a military dictatorship of octopuses riding flying shark cavalry with laser weapons, despite the absence of even one example.
So on a side point at issue here, I think ArisKatsaris changed from a reasonable position to an unreasonable one. He also backs it up with literally true but misleading or inadequate statements like saying that the two examples cited don’t make a pattern, though there are more examples and there are also reasons other than the examples to believe his original statement was correct.