Is the U.S. always against tyranny?
Bush declares an “ultimate goal of ending tyranny in our world”; Patterson declares that the U.S. has a history of supporting “a succession of tyrannical states with murderous records of oppression against their own people,” that it does so today, and that Bush simply ignores inconvenient realities. You might consider assigning individual students and/or small groups to investigate what role, if any, the U.S. may have played in supporting Augusto Pinochet in Chile. (Pinochet is accused of many human rights violations by today’s Chilean government.) Or students might research U.S. policy toward apartheid South Africa during the period when Nelson Mandela was imprisoned. Students might also inquire into the nature of governments in Uzbekistan, Saudi Arabia, and Egypt as well as those Patterson names, Pakistan and China. Are these governments tyrannical? How? If they are tyrannical, why does the Bush administration have friendly relations with each? 2. Does the U.S promote democracy, incl
