BRUSSELS — The price of freedom, it is said, is eternal vigilance. But that price can take the form of morally squalid decisions in which innocent people bear the brunt of the cost of freedom's defense.
Under the cover of the Cold War, Western governments were regularly forced to make many strategically realistic but morally noxious decisions. Dictators like Zaire's Mobuto and Indonesia's Suharto were embraced on the principle that "he might be a bastard, but at least he's our bastard."
All sorts of dubious "freedom fighters," from the Contras in Nicaragua to Hissene Habre in Chad to Jonas Savimbi in Angola, received Western arms and political backing. Even the genocidal Khmer Rouge were, for a brief time, partly defended by the U.S. in their forest redoubts after their eviction from Phnom Penh.
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