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Maybe I'm the one with a messed up morality, I don't know. I remember seeing videos of the death of Hussein, I wasn't really into it but I knew a lot of people who were cheering and even a few who laughed because it was a "bad man" who died. I saw that as nothing more than petty revenge, and I saw the people who laughed at death as twisted because this is a guy who had no impact on their personal lives. Sure, the government did terrible things under Hussein's rule, but nobody remembers all the terrible things that our very own country has done, Vietnam has a lot of examples but it is not the only time. This is coming from the guy who thinks that torture may be necessary at times to save lives. While I think it's wrong that innocents get hurt, I understand that casualties happen when using mass weapons.
Let's all gather our money and hate to track down and kill a guy. What for? His army kidnapped and raped. So you fund another army who also happens to kidnap and rape.
Some people like to stir s@$! up. Some people like to make scapegoats. Hey guys, let's all kill all the bad men in this world. No one's really taking the time to notice that maybe it's not the bad men corrupting the world but terrible humanity and it's violent and controlling behaviors that produces these "bad men". I don't think that a lot of people who like to rile people up realize just how similar they are to the people they rally against. Ignorance can found some of the gravest injustices.
You know what I really hate though, when someone gets angry at me for not wanting to get stirred up in issues far away that I'm not really well informed on or even necessarily involved in; especially when I have much more impertinent issues at my doorstep. Some people would rather hammer up someone else's home instead of take care of their own woodwork.
Yes, lobbying is wrong, when what you are lobbying for is to take other people's money and children and throw them at something that they didnt sign up for!
But that's what lobbying ALWAYS IS 100% of the time.
Lobbying for something like more protections for victims of child abuse means expanding government agencies that provide such protection including law enforcement, child protective services, and sundry other bureaucracies.There is no law or executive order you can lobby for that will not cost money, which by your definition is "someone else's" therefore you are against all lobbying, all protesting, and really any voicing of your own opinion through voting.
I wonder if back in the old days, when the Roman legions got back from looting Gaul or Judaea or wherever, if the citizens sat around and talked about who they should "go help" next.
The United States just successfully raped, broke and looted Iraq and have successfully turned it into a banana republic. Afghanistan has been bombed for over ten years now because their government had the temerity to ask that reasonable extradition measures be observed. Libya has been thoroughly looted and turned over to a real witches' cabal of Islamic fundamentalists, CIA stooges and disaffected Qaddafi hacks. Who can "we" "help" next? Syria? Iran? Uganda?
Meanwhile, somewhere in Pakistan a killer robot blows up some tribal wedding, somewhere in Afghanistan a Marine murders 20 civilians, somewhere in sub-Saharan Africa military advisors are teaching counterinsurgency techniques to local troops, just like they used to do to Central American death squads.
"We" are not a force for good in this world.
Smash imperialism!
Vive le Galt!
The fact that you lump in Kony with the rest of that stuff is a prime example of disingenuous false equivalence. I'm sorry but using a soupçon military power to bring a man already indicted for war crimes to trial and justice isn't the same as sacking a sovereign state. It just isn't. Not only is it not in the same ballpark, it's not even the same sport.
I'm as cynical as the next guy--more even!--but I don't see the corporatist machinations behind aiding a state in delivering a terrorist to justice. It's as close to an altruistic act as we're likely to get.
Yes, lobbying is wrong, when what you are lobbying for is to take other people's money and children and throw them at something that they didnt sign up for!But that's what lobbying ALWAYS IS 100% of the time.
Lobbying for something like more protections for victims of child abuse means expanding government agencies that provide such protection including law enforcement, child protective services, and sundry other bureaucracies.There is no law or executive order you can lobby for that will not cost money, which by your definition is "someone else's" therefore you are against all lobbying, all protesting, and really any voicing of your own opinion through voting.
Yes, you are 100% correct.
When you ignore the qualifier "something that they didnt sign up for." Or the fact that we were talking about military operations, specifically. But hey, whatevs, blast away. You got me, Im advocating child abuse. /facepalm
They say that watching the same events over and over again and still expecting different results is a symptom of insanity. Imho, after over 100 years of naked American imperialist aggression against pretty much the entire globe except maybe England, Canada and Australia, if you still think that foreign American intervention is still a good idea, well...
I don't pretend to be all up on the latest world developments, BUT--The US no longer can rely upon its position as unassailable world Cold War hegemon. I've been reading articles on all my favorite commie websites about a new "scramble for Africa" for influence between the US, China and other powers. France has been bombing up and down the African coast. The "Arab Spring," on the one hand, has destabilized many once rock-solid US allies; on the other it has provided the cover for the jacking of Libya and may still provide cover against Syria. If I recall, NATO blew up some famous library in Tripoli that had served as the meeting place for Qadaffi's sit-down with members of the OAS or whatever it was called. South Africa's president, if I recall, was one of those calling for a peaceful settlement in Libya, which indicates that there might be some rogue states south of the Sahara.
Add that to the whole region surrounding Uganda is full of butchers from that nasty Rwanda business, Museveni is a big jerk, too, and--oh yeah, that's right, the US is the biggest terrorist on the planet!
Under these circumstances, I would trust the altruistic nature of an armed US intervention about as much as I trust you with my Grateful Dead records, Citizen Meatrace.
Yes, lobbying is wrong, when what you are lobbying for is to take other people's money and children and throw them at something that they didnt sign up for!But that's what lobbying ALWAYS IS 100% of the time.
Lobbying for something like more protections for victims of child abuse means expanding government agencies that provide such protection including law enforcement, child protective services, and sundry other bureaucracies.There is no law or executive order you can lobby for that will not cost money, which by your definition is "someone else's" therefore you are against all lobbying, all protesting, and really any voicing of your own opinion through voting.
Yes, you are 100% correct.
When you ignore the qualifier "something that they didnt sign up for." Or the fact that we were talking about military operations, specifically. But hey, whatevs, blast away. You got me, Im advocating child abuse. /facepalm
I was commenting on the "taking other peoples' money" bit. But as to the "stuff they didn't sign up for" bull, I have to imagine anyone joining the military knows exactly what they're getting into. Doing what they're freaking told.
Under these circumstances, I would trust the altruistic nature of an armed US intervention about as much as I trust you with my Grateful Dead records, Citizen Meatrace.
All the stuff you said is all well and good. I won't try to argue with it. But again, the fact that sub-saharan africa is a wretched hive of scum and villainy is no real excuse not to lend a hand. We're NOT participating in armed intervention, we're sending counterinsurgency consultants. As it happens I am against putting our troops on the ground in Uganda, but as far as I can tell that's not what is being asked.
From Vietnam to Nicaragua to Afghanistan "counterinsurgency consultant" has been newsspeak for training torturers, death squads and assassins.
It's difficult to try to argue with someone who clearly believes anything the US military participates in is solely for the purposes of supressing the proletariat and expanding the American empire.
Are you even able to admit that this MIGHT be a different paradigm, seeing as it is born of citizen action and not the MIC?
It's difficult to try to argue with someone who clearly believes anything the US military participates in is solely for the purposes of supressing the proletariat and expanding the American empire.
Yeah, I know.
Are you even able to admit that this MIGHT be a different paradigm, seeing as it is born of citizen action and not the MIC?
No.
But, I will shut up for at least 24 hours so that others may express their opinion.
I mean, I find myself in an odd place in this thread. I'm arguing for some level of military involvement, which I'm typically very against. There are those right circumstances though, where the risk is minimal and the reward is great, when it's done for the right reasons and not for expanding the American Empire.
I understand (though don't agree with) absolutists on either side. Saying we should never be involved militarily in external conflicts that aren't a matter of national defense puts us in an odd position of saying, like, we shouldn't have had ground troops in Europe during WWII. Though I also don't believe we need be the world's policeman, I believe someone has to. We are still an economic and military superpower who has a powerful extremist contingent who wants to become isolationist and not even participate in the UN. If we have no means to bring our weight to bear on a humanitarian issue, even one with complex military entanglements, what precisely are conscientious American citizens meant to do when they see injustice and suffering abroad?
Basically what I'm saying is that I understand your position, and other positions espoused in this thread, but I can't help but feel that many of them are nothing but hoops to jump through to rationalize one's own callousness.
I was commenting on the "taking other peoples' money" bit. But as to the "stuff they didn't sign up for" bull, I have to imagine anyone joining the military knows exactly what they're getting into. Doing what they're freaking told.
Cant disagree. All I am asking, since ultimately we are the ones that tell the military what to do, that we tell them to do the right things. For instance, military advisors. Sure it sounds great on paper. But as often as not, military advisors are sent just to be killed to start full-scale war. (side rant) just like sanctions. sure sound great on paper. In reality, they just rally whatever country around their own despotic leader, strengthening said leaders position and mostly lead to war.
Saying we should never be involved militarily in external conflicts that aren't a matter of national defense puts us in an odd position of saying, like, we shouldn't have had ground troops in Europe during WWII.
Im interested why you think this. Japan went all humanitarian intervention on Pearl Harbor, so we (justly) declared war. Since we declared war on them, Hitler declared against us, to which we (again, justly) responded for defensive purposes. WWII was the last time that we fought a (mostly) justified defensive war.
EDIT-
If we have no means to bring our weight to bear on a humanitarian issue, even one with complex military entanglements, what precisely are conscientious American citizens meant to do when they see injustice and suffering abroad?
See: first 18 minutes of Kony video
Im interested why you think this. Japan went all humanitarian intervention on Pearl Harbor, so we (justly) declared war. Since we declared war on them, Hitler declared against us, to which we (again, justly) responded for defensive purposes. WWII was the last time that we fought a (mostly) justified defensive war.
We didn't though. We didn't just defend our territory, we got involved in WWII on the ground in Europe, where there was no threat to us, rather than simply defending from a sea attack or having a "Atlantic Theater".
One could argue that engaging in this manner would either a)force Germany to ignore the American front or b)deplete a large amount of their resources from the "real" war in Europe.
Me personally, I feel the same as I do about Saddam.
Why stop at one?
If you are not willing to commit to hunt down every war criminal, dictator, murderer, etc. then you should not support the hunting of this one.
Well, IF we were hunting down war criminals and dictators with the intent of doing good, we could figure out
1) How many resources it would take to take them out
2) Their level of evil (use kilonazi's for a measurement)
3) What the downsides of taking them out would be.
Then use a cost/benefit/risk analysis, figure out how much we were willing to put into it, and take out the ones that were the most worth taking out. We wouldn't get them all, but we could make the world a better place by their direct removal and by encouraging folks to at least keep the evil to a dull roar.
That would be a perfectly reasonable way of doing it.
The problem is its not what we do. The US by and large invades places based on the interests of those people paying our government officials a lot of money.
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For the low-hanging fruit argument:
How about we first stop supporting dictators before we start toppleing them or hunting war criminals down? It seems like that would be easier.
Agreed. However, I forget which piece of entertainment had the character say it, but 'if we only dealt with the good guys, there'd be no one to talk to'.
Saying we should never be involved militarily in external conflicts that aren't a matter of national defense puts us in an odd position of saying, like, we shouldn't have had ground troops in Europe during WWII.Im interested why you think this. Japan went all humanitarian intervention on Pearl Harbor, so we (justly) declared war. Since we declared war on them, Hitler declared against us, to which we (again, justly) responded for defensive purposes. WWII was the last time that we fought a (mostly) justified defensive war.We didn't though. We didn't just defend our territory, we got involved in WWII on the ground in Europe, where there was no threat to us, rather than simply defending from a sea attack or having a "Atlantic Theater".
One could argue that engaging in this manner would either a)force Germany to ignore the American front or b)deplete a large amount of their resources from the "real" war in Europe.
Yeah, but now youre moving the goalposts. Hitler declared against us, so it was no longer an external conflict not in the interest of national defense, IMO, of course.
For the low-hanging fruit argument:
How about we first stop supporting dictators before we start toppleing them or hunting war criminals down? It seems like that would be easier.The problem with the theory that we can just supply equipment and training to help fight these bad guys is that the guys we're supplying them to aren't all that much better and often end up using that equipment and training against their own people. Witness the School of the Americas for the South American version. Or our deals with Mubarak in Egypt, Bahrain, etc, etc.
I won't go as far as the Goblin above, but the US does throw it's weight around and it's far more in a realpolitik, national interest way than "world police". That's just what's used to sell it to the public.
OTOH, some of those more public interventions do a lot of good in really bad situations.
The US makes a better hegemonic superpower than most who've tried it, but that isn't saying much.
Exactly, the unintended consequences are proving to be disastrous. In hindsight, it probably wasnt a good idea to train and arm al-quaida to fight the Soviets, or build the Shah of Iran a nuclear plant, or re-install the Shah of Iran, or arm Saddam to fight the Iranians, whom we also armed.
Edit- Also, for the low hanging fruit, How would we pay for it? China would be in an uproar, for fear that they'd be on the list. Same with Saudi Arabia. Where would the financing come from? Certainly not the Eurozone, theyve got problems of their own. Not Russia or India or South America, for fear that they'd be on target as well.(although maybe China would. theyve been making out decently off of our efforts in Iraq and Afghanistan.)
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From a speech that I adore:
"Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired signifies, in the final sense, a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and are not clothed.
This world in arms is not spending money alone.
It is spending the sweat of its laborers, the genius of its scientists, the hopes of its children.
The cost of one modern heavy bomber is this: a modern brick school in more than 30 cities.
It is two electric power plants, each serving a town of 60,000 population. It is two fine, fully equipped hospitals.
It is some fifty miles of concrete pavement.
We pay for a single fighter plane with a half million bushels of wheat.
We pay for a single destroyer with new homes that could have housed more than 8,000 people.
This is, I repeat, the best way of life to be found on the road the world has been taking."
Eisenhower 1953
EDIT Before I forget, BNW, you win at life for the kilonazi measurement. 8)
Yeah, but now youre moving the goalposts. Hitler declared against us, so it was no longer an external conflict not in the interest of national defense, IMO, of course.
I'm not moving goalposts at all. There's a huge gulf between defending our sovereign state militarily, and becoming friends of our enemies overseas and getting involved an a clusterf~~% of a world war. You're saying we had to do the latter in order to affect the former, and I completely disagree. Germany would ONLY have been a threat to us directly on the eastern seaboard, which would have been costly for them to attack. So by defending that area and developing technologies to defeat the u-boats we would have been able to defend ourselves effectively.
To go further and say something, like, "oh but if Germany defeated the allied powers it would set its sights on us next", while totally true, opens the door to preemptive actions of all sorts.
ANY conflict can be rationalized and justified as being for national defense. Only actual, immediate defense of our borders keeps us in the state you propose, and would have kept us out of the European ground war portion of WWII (though, obviously, we would still have fought in the Pacific).
Yeah, ok. As long as you realise that its probably only you that has that as a definition of defensive war.
If war is declared against us, it behooves us to defend ourselves in any way possible. And whats the best defense again?
Ah, but you see, threats to America's Asian markets ARE threats to America--at least, in the logic of American foreign policy since, oh, let's say 1898. "Open Door" policy and all that.
And there would have been no way for the USA to inherit control of Britain and France's colonial empires if the Nazis had won.
I'm sorry, but I just cant see how anyone could think that attacking someone who actually declared war on us would be anything but a justified war. It wouldnt be pre-emptive in the least, as they had already declared against us.
Also.
This reminds me of the movie Walk Hard, where Dewey tries pcp for the first time.
(unfortunately I cant find the youtube video for this scene, which is a shame cos it's hilarious.)
Yeah, ok. As long as you realise that its probably only you that has that as a definition of defensive war.
If war is declared against us, it behooves us to defend ourselves in any way possible. And whats the best defense again?
Well clearly Al-Qaeda declared war on us. They've as much as said so. Therefore we don't NEED to declare war, we are in war. As such it behooves us to kick over all the hornets nests in the middle east and establish a long, ridiculously costly, and universally despised occupation of any country we see fit.
Unless your definition of defense is actually ONLY DEFENSE it means you can easily rationalize all the s@!# America has done since WWII, including Vietnam.
I don't think I'm the only one who thinks self-defense does NOT include preemptive strikes.
Preemptive means attacking BEFORE YOU ARE ATTACKED. Not attacking before someone says they'll attack you.
No matter how many times I say "I'm gonna git you", you can't pull out your dirty harry and wack me until I actually try. The possible exception being Texas where they just don't give a f*~!.
One of my co-workers--he's a lieutenant in the Reserves, I think--is getting shipped out to Uganda.
There's actually quite a few reservists employed at UPS. They almost universally prefer being deployed--even to a combat zone--to loading trucks.
No matter how many times I say "I'm gonna git you", you can't pull out your dirty harry and wack me until I actually try. The possible exception being Texas where they just don't give a f+@*.
If you say "I am going to shoot you" and then reach under your coat you have just planted a very legal bullet on your chest in EVERY state in the union, not just Texas. As long as the facts can be verified, and i haven't been threatening to shoot you or committing some other illegal act the shooting is legally justified. There's no law that says you have to hope they shoot first and miss before you can shoot back, just that the belief that your life is on the line NOW has to be reasonable.
If a country says "I'm going to invade you , assembles an army and plants it right on your border you'd have to be an idiot to wait for them to hit you first if you can disrupt their plans.
If a country says "I'm going to invade you , assembles an army and plants it right on your border you'd have to be an idiot to wait for them to hit you first if you can disrupt their plans.
Agreed. And since Germany DIDN'T do that to the US in WWII...
The rest of your post is pedantic, even for you.
If a country says "I'm going to invade you , assembles an army and plants it right on your border you'd have to be an idiot to wait for them to hit you first if you can disrupt their plans.Agreed. And since Germany DIDN'T do that to the US in WWII...
The rest of your post is pedantic, even for you.
Not in the least. You tried claiming a requirement for self defense that isn't used by any state was used everywhere in the us but texas. Your point is simply wrong whether on the individual or national level and that problem isn't going to go away by insulting me. If someone says "I'm going to get you" that goes a long way towards establishing reasonable belief that you're in danger: a declaration of war is a country's way of saying "I'm going to get you".
The entire reason that an individual cannot blow someone making threats away is that as long as the threat isn't immediate there is time to let the authorities handle it. There was no authority higher than a nation at the time, and I'm not really sure there is one now.
The entire reason that an individual cannot blow someone making threats away is that as long as the threat isn't immediate there is time to let the authorities handle it. There was no authority higher than a nation at the time, and I'm not really sure there is one now.
So if I say to you, BNW, I'm gonna get you. Regardless of how toothless and impotent that threat is, you have the absolute right to track me down and murder me.
Gotcha.
[Does a little happy dance now that Darkwing Duck is back.]
IIRC, in the late 19th-century, what led to boots on the ground British imperialism in Uganda was a throwdown between Methodist missionaries who, amongst other things, had persuaded all the royal catamites not to let their pederastic king stick his thing up their butts.
Ah, the march of progress!
The entire reason that an individual cannot blow someone making threats away is that as long as the threat isn't immediate there is time to let the authorities handle it. There was no authority higher than a nation at the time, and I'm not really sure there is one now.
So if I say to you, BNW, I'm gonna get you. Regardless of how toothless and impotent that threat is, you have the absolute right to track me down and murder me.
Gotcha.
I didn't say that. I didn't Imply that. I didn't hint at that. Stop acting as if thats what i said. Try responding to the entire post rather than just one sentence.
If you say I'm going to get you I'm (legally) required to let the police handle it if there's time. The problem here is that there was no higher authority for a nation to turn to if another nation threatens them.
Germany had, at that point, said I'm going to get you Poland and invaded poland. It said I'm going to get you Russia and invaded Russia. It said I'm going to get you England and then bombed England. It said I'm going to get you France and then invaded France. Threats at a full scale invasion are pretty laughable, but they can still use subs to sink ships, use subs to attack civilian targets along the coast, saboteurs to cause massive civilian casualties. The threat was hardly toothless.
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An interesting exploration of Ugandan perspective.
This might make me sound like an arrogant git but...
I thought everyone had known about the Lord's Resistance Army for years and years.
Don't people buy decent newspapers any more?
The idea that this is anything but old news just seems weird. It's like the '90s all over again.
If this video achieves anything then Americans should be asking their government what they've been doing since the early 1990s.
... all too weird...
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An interesting exploration of Ugandan perspective.
This might make me sound like an arrogant git but...
I thought everyone had known about the Lord's Resistance Army for years and years.
Don't people buy decent newspapers any more?
The idea that this is anything but old news just seems weird. It's like the '90s all over again.
If this video achieves anything then Americans should be asking their government what they've been doing since the early 1990s.
... all too weird...
Dude, this is America. We don't give a crap about anything until the media tells us to, or someone posts it as a Facebook update.
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Dude, this is America. We don't give a crap about anything until the media tells us to, or someone posts it as a Facebook update.
It's true.
What I haven't been able to determine is whether Kony has prophetic fits where he sees dead spirits like his predecessor (whom he might've murdered) did.
And, no, Geraint, nobody reads decent newspapers anymore. They're either all published by Murdoch or they're going bankrupt!
An interesting exploration of Ugandan perspective.
This might make me sound like an arrogant git but...
I thought everyone had known about the Lord's Resistance Army for years and years.
Don't people buy decent newspapers any more?
The idea that this is anything but old news just seems weird. It's like the '90s all over again.
If this video achieves anything then Americans should be asking their government what they've been doing since the early 1990s.
... all too weird...
I was aware -- ironically enough because of the church I was attending at the time. We were supporting some mission work in Africa (I don't remember if it was in Uganda or one of its neighbors but I do remember it was close). Part of the news we received was about the LRA and how it was being a huge problem. The missionaries wanted some pressure politically to help solve the humanitarian issues (not just the LRA but to put pressure on governments to do better too).
Now getting anything going in the USA is generally rather difficult. We start on the isolationist end of the scale and go into xenophobia from there -- but that doesn't mean people weren't trying to get things done.
Personally I think the policies we implemented under President Bush (the younger) were/are the correct way to go about this (as well as more humanitarian aid directed towards the people, and government assistance as their government improves too) -- as such I haven't been yelling loudly about it (no point when things are in motion the way you want them to go).
Is everything perfect? No -- are we doing things to help make the problme better while being careful to not worsen the situation? Yes. That's about the best I think we can honestly ask for at the moment.
Germany had, at that point, said I'm going to get you Poland and invaded poland. It said I'm going to get you Russia and invaded Russia. It said I'm going to get you England and then bombed England. It said I'm going to get you France and then invaded France. Threats at a full scale invasion are pretty laughable, but they can still use subs to sink ships, use subs to attack civilian targets along the coast, saboteurs to cause massive civilian casualties. The threat was hardly toothless.
Now go back and read my posts on the matter.
I contend that every sub Germany decided to send at the eastern seaboard would have cost them far more than they could have gained by it. They're thousands of miles away, not our neighbor like the other invaded countries. We do not share a border with Germany. They were no imminent threat to us.
Now go back and read my posts on the matter.
They were read. Insulting insinuations that I can't read or didn't read your posts are a poor substitute for an argument.
I contend that every sub Germany decided to send at the eastern seaboard would have cost them far more than they could have gained by it
This relies on the idea that Nazi Germany would be acting rationally. Their track record indicated otherwise
Now go back and read my posts on the matter.They were read. Insulting insinuations that I can't read or didn't read your posts are a poor substitute for an argument.
I was merely trying to refer you to something you perhaps missed. I was not insinuating that you couldn't read, but perhaps that you yourself had gotten so wrapped up in arguing your point that you hadn't really digested mine. Also, it has been days and DAYS since those posts were made. Review is always good, no?
Imminent threat is the key to my argument, which I've previously made. I feel Germany was not an imminent threat to the United States in 1941. They may well have become one had we not intervened, but that's a weird sort of hindsight argument. As with the allegorical physical altercation, the lack of imminent threat demands a different response.
Imminent threat is the key to my argument, which I've previously made. I feel Germany was not an imminent threat to the United States in 1941. They may well have become one had we not intervened, but that's a weird sort of hindsight argument. As with the allegorical physical altercation, the lack of imminent threat demands a different response.
As said above, I do not believe that Immanent is a moral requirement on self defense for either a country or an individual. A level of certainty that temporal proximity indirectly helps to provide yes, but not the immediacy itself. If someone is threatening to come back and kill me in a month, their belief is credible, and the police are unable/unwilling to stop them (or in the case of a nation there are no police) I see no moral imperative to automatically guarantee the less moral person the first shot.