Intervention - Rwanda

[Haggis_McMutton]

I wouldn't say you're"responsible", but it's pretty akin, in my mind, to walking down an alleyway one night, seeing a crackhead committing a brutal rape and you continuing to walk and whistle unconcerned in your path cause "it's not your problem". You aren't responsible as in you couldn't be jailed for it, but it is a morally reprehensible act.

What if, by confronting the rapist, you get stabbed and die, and the rapist still rapes the woman. Then you've left your kids without a parent. What then?

-TG

There are a spectrum of options between "running towards the rapist shouting 'You leave her alone'" and walking on murmuring to yourself "not my problem, life's a bitch".

Stopping the Rwandan genocide would have hardly taken "all that we have". The level of international effort it would have taken to stop that thing is more akin to running out of sight and dialing 911.

[BigBallinStalin]

Where is the option for political intervention, for example getting in the face of the African Union (in a diplomatic way) and telling them to sort it out, or at least to club together and make safe zones for refugees around the edges of the conflict and provide purely humanitarian and medical aid directly into those camps? To talk with the Chinese (who hold a lot of political and economic power across Africa right now) and get them to flex their political muscles to make this happen.

Why are the only options to do nothing or to incur financial or military costs ourselves?

Yeah, that's still military intervention. If group X tells group Y to send its military there, then that's military intervention on X's part (recall: "proxy wars"). You won't get a war for free, so group X will usually subsidize those kinds of activities (thus the "diplomatic" move actually becomes a military intervention).

"Telling" A, B, and C to set up refugee camps counts as rhetoric. This thread isn't about rhetoric; it's about actual spending and actually doing something (hence, the Voluntarily Pay for X option).

No one here can really talk to the Chinese, and no voter actually possesses that piece to the political puzzle--the politicians do, and the US State Department, DoD, blah blah blah which are largely hands-off from the electorate. The poll asks You, the Voter, to do something, and in order for the poll to retain some semblance of reality, I omitted the extraordinary option of you and a few others asking Senator So-and-So to talk to X to do something in exchange for nothing (no subsidies--i.e. no foreign aid) so that situation D can be resolved.

[BigBallinStalin]

I wouldn't say you're"responsible", but it's pretty akin, in my mind, to walking down an alleyway one night, seeing a crackhead committing a brutal rape and you continuing to walk and whistle unconcerned in your path cause "it's not your problem". You aren't responsible as in you couldn't be jailed for it, but it is a morally reprehensible act.

What if, by confronting the rapist, you get stabbed and die, and the rapist still rapes the woman. Then you've left your kids without a parent. What then?

-TG

There are a spectrum of options between "running towards the rapist shouting 'You leave her alone'" and walking on murmuring to yourself "not my problem, life's a bitch".

Stopping the Rwandan genocide would have hardly taken "all that we have". The level of international effort it would have taken to stop that thing is more akin to running out of sight and dialing 911.

If it was that easy, (i.e. if the price was so low), then why didn't any effectively 'make that call'?

(I'm thinking that it wasn't that easy, but I don't know much about the Rwanda conflict).
*(I'll respond to your previous post when I can hammer out something more serious).

[Nordik]

Been there, done that shit. Don't really care to go back. It's a truly fucked up situation. Gotta say that I lean toward just leaving them to do as they please until things start to actually affect us in a real way. And the aid won't reach the people that it should.

Sometimes you have to do what is right though. There are a few situations such as this and what was Yugoslavia where military intervention is needed.

But the issue isn't so much what needs to be done "today". The issue is how to solve the underlying problems.

[Woodruff]

Been there, done that shit. Don't really care to go back. It's a truly fucked up situation. Gotta say that I lean toward just leaving them to do as they please until things start to actually affect us in a real way. And the aid won't reach the people that it should.

Sometimes you have to do what is right though.

I don't really disagree with that. It speaks to my heart. Unfortunately, if you're going to do that, then you need to be doing it everywhere.

There are a few situations such as this and what was Yugoslavia where military intervention is needed.

After what I saw in Rwanda, quite honestly, I'm happy to have that intervention be done by someone else.

But the issue isn't so much what needs to be done "today". The issue is how to solve the underlying problems.

That I absolutely agree with. Unfortunately, much of the underlying problems are the result of our colonial meanderings and the resultant tensions hatreds caused by them. (And by "our", I mean "The West's in general".) We seem to have a nasty habit of fixing one problem by creating two more.

[patches70]

Sometimes you have to do what is right though. There are a few situations such as this and what was Yugoslavia where military intervention is needed.

What's this "you" stuff? In the poll not a single person voted to join the military. It's always send someone else, but not yourself. People are all for military intervention all the time in all kinds of situations but damned if those same people will join the military and do it themselves.

[Woodruff]

Sometimes you have to do what is right though. There are a few situations such as this and what was Yugoslavia where military intervention is needed.

What's this "you" stuff? In the poll not a single person voted to join the military. It's always send someone else, but not yourself. People are all for military intervention all the time in all kinds of situations but damned if those same people will join the military and do it themselves.

Well...some of us already have. <smile>

[patches70]

Sometimes you have to do what is right though. There are a few situations such as this and what was Yugoslavia where military intervention is needed.

What's this "you" stuff? In the poll not a single person voted to join the military. It's always send someone else, but not yourself. People are all for military intervention all the time in all kinds of situations but damned if those same people will join the military and do it themselves.

Well...some of us already have. <smile>

Yeah, and I see how anxious you are to "do the right thing" because you have some idea of what that actually entails. Its not so easy as others seem to think it would be.

[Nordik]

What's this "you" stuff? In the poll not a single person voted to join the military. It's always send someone else, but not yourself. People are all for military intervention all the time in all kinds of situations but damned if those same people will join the military and do it themselves.

I come from a country where military service is mandatory for... well not all any longer, but still...

The whole idea that I would join the military is silly. It joins me if anything.

A lot of Europe is like that.

[BigBallinStalin]

Been there, done that shit. Don't really care to go back. It's a truly fucked up situation. Gotta say that I lean toward just leaving them to do as they please until things start to actually affect us in a real way. And the aid won't reach the people that it should.

Sometimes you have to do what is right though.

I don't really disagree with that. It speaks to my heart. Unfortunately, if you're going to do that, then you need to be doing it everywhere.

There are a few situations such as this and what was Yugoslavia where military intervention is needed.

After what I saw in Rwanda, quite honestly, I'm happy to have that intervention be done by someone else.

But the issue isn't so much what needs to be done "today". The issue is how to solve the underlying problems.

That I absolutely agree with. Unfortunately, much of the underlying problems are the result of our colonial meanderings and the resultant tensions hatreds caused by them. (And by "our", I mean "The West's in general".) We seem to have a nasty habit of fixing one problem by creating two more.

And is government capable of systemically overcoming that problem?

With regard to the US and intervention, the answer is no.

But here's the dangerous part which obviates the need for that recognizing of limits:

Sometimes you have to do what is right though.

Yeah, sometimes you just gotta do the 'right' thing. The moral rhetoric can be persuasive but is not critical and is not sufficient.

(Not directly picking on Nordik here; a lot of people feel compelled to do the right thing but don't have the resources/time to explain the means or even justify not doing anything).

[Woodruff]

That I absolutely agree with. Unfortunately, much of the underlying problems are the result of our colonial meanderings and the resultant tensions hatreds caused by them. (And by "our", I mean "The West's in general".) We seem to have a nasty habit of fixing one problem by creating two more.

And is government capable of systemically overcoming that problem?
With regard to the US and intervention, the answer is no.

I believe it is. It simply requires using foresight and trajectory in planning, rather than shortsightedness. Would we always be successful in doing that? Of course not. But we certainly could have avoided many of the problems we've created, in my opinion.

[Nordik]

And is government capable of systemically overcoming that problem?

With regard to the US and intervention, the answer is no.

Worked pretty well in Yugoslavia. Still tensions there, but at least they aren't killing each other.

[BigBallinStalin]

That I absolutely agree with. Unfortunately, much of the underlying problems are the result of our colonial meanderings and the resultant tensions hatreds caused by them. (And by "our", I mean "The West's in general".) We seem to have a nasty habit of fixing one problem by creating two more.

And is government capable of systemically overcoming that problem?
With regard to the US and intervention, the answer is no.

I believe it is. It simply requires using foresight and trajectory in planning, rather than shortsightedness. Would we always be successful in doing that? Of course not. But we certainly could have avoided many of the problems we've created, in my opinion.

If we were to form a mercenary group, and our profit was based on voluntary exchange, then I'd agree with you.

I agree that foresight and trajectory in planning would be great, but given the entire decision-making process involved, you're holding an unreal expectation about government planning and its limits.

[BigBallinStalin]

And is government capable of systemically overcoming that problem?

With regard to the US and intervention, the answer is no.

Worked pretty well in Yugoslavia. Still tensions there, but at least they aren't killing each other.

What do you mean by "pretty well"? And at what cost? Ask qwert and sax about the Balkans. You'll love it!


And, even if I would agree with some great example, it doesn't demonstrate that the US is systematically capable of resolving this problem: "We seem to have a nasty habit of fixing one problem by creating two more." In other words, there's a difference between particular points and the overall pattern.

[Nordik]

And is government capable of systemically overcoming that problem?

With regard to the US and intervention, the answer is no.

Worked pretty well in Yugoslavia. Still tensions there, but at least they aren't killing each other.

What do you mean by "pretty well"? And at what cost? Ask qwert and sax about the Balkans. You'll love it!


And, even if I would agree with some great example, it doesn't demonstrate that the US is systematically capable of resolving this problem: "We seem to have a nasty habit of fixing one problem by creating two more." In other words, there's a difference between particular points and the overall pattern.

To be perfectly honest, NATO stepped in too late in Yugoslavia. Things had gotten pretty damn nasty by that point. But the fact remains that they did help stop the fighting.

As long as the international community is behind an intervention, it tends to go relatively smoothly.

The issue the US has is that they seem to think that the "American way" is the only way. The sectors in Afghanistan where the British and Canadians were the major force were just as nasty as the ones that the Americans fought in, but the Poms and Canucks were much more likely to listen to the locals and adhere to local customs. Hence why they've had far fewer casualties (even per capita).

Of course that is changing now that the country is destabilising again, but there was definitely a window of opportunity there where the country could have been made to work. Sadly it wasn't taken....

[Woodruff]

That I absolutely agree with. Unfortunately, much of the underlying problems are the result of our colonial meanderings and the resultant tensions hatreds caused by them. (And by "our", I mean "The West's in general".) We seem to have a nasty habit of fixing one problem by creating two more.

And is government capable of systemically overcoming that problem?
With regard to the US and intervention, the answer is no.

I believe it is. It simply requires using foresight and trajectory in planning, rather than shortsightedness. Would we always be successful in doing that? Of course not. But we certainly could have avoided many of the problems we've created, in my opinion.

If we were to form a mercenary group, and our profit was based on voluntary exchange, then I'd agree with you.

I agree that foresight and trajectory in planning would be great, but given the entire decision-making process involved, you're holding an unreal expectation about government planning and its limits.

We did well after World War II. I see no reason why a smaller but similar plan wasn't engaged in Afghanistan and Iraq, PARTICULARLY since it should have been commonly expected for those two military actions to have royally pissed off Muslims in general and particularly given how much money we were spending there anyway. I don't believe the US is systemically unable to avoid the creation of these problems...I believe that we simply don't bother.

[Nordik]

We did well after World War II. I see no reason why a smaller but similar plan wasn't engaged in Afghanistan and Iraq, PARTICULARLY since it should have been commonly expected for those two military actions to have royally pissed off Muslims in general and particularly given how much money we were spending there anyway. I don't believe the US is systemically unable to avoid the creation of these problems...I believe that we simply don't bother.

Yes you did do well after WW2.

I believe that no one thought about it. It was kind of stuck together as an afterthought and it shows.

[saxitoxin]

The sectors in Afghanistan where the British and Canadians were the major force were just as nasty as the ones that the Americans fought in, but the Poms and Canucks were much more likely to listen to the locals and adhere to local customs. Hence why they've had far fewer casualties (even per capita).

you're on a roll today

Denmark, whose soldiers are currently operating in Helmand Province in Afghanistan, has lost the most ISAF soldiers per capita of population, according to figures compiled by 21 Søndag. The programme, which compared overall losses with domestic population size, showed Denmark with 3.8 soldiers killed in action per million population. Canada’s losses were at 3.2 losses per million and the United Kingdom was at 2.3 per million. American losses were 2.1 per million population. (http://politiken.dk/newsinenglish/ECE65 ... a-figures/)

Anyway, you were referring to an urban legend from Iraq [berets vs. helmets] that (loudly) made the rounds a decade ago but was (quietly) debunked.

Until the Black Watch moved north, the British military had been operating exclusively in southern Iraq, where the violence has never matched the mayhem in the American-occupied sector around Baghdad. The relative calm allowed the British to adopt a less bristling posture on patrol, to wear their soft regimental berets instead of Kevlar helmets and keep their weapons lowered rather than peer at Iraqis through gun sights.

It also gave rise to a certain smugness among British officers and media, which cast the contrast as one between the "heavy-handed" American approach and the less hostile tactics of "the lads." There were jokes over beers in Basra that, to an American, the concept of winning Iraqi hearts and minds meant one bullet to the heart, one to the head. The British media even coined a phrase to describe the British style: "softly, softly."

The Black Watch tried to bring that culture north with them when they merged operations with the 24th Marine Expeditionary Unit based south of Baghdad in a deployment that ended Saturday.

The British began the assignment patrolling in their berets. They handed out leaflets in Arabic explaining they were a "Scottish" regiment in case Iraqis mistook them for Americans, and proclaimed they had only come to help build a safe and free Iraq.

Insurgents responded with two suicide car bombings and a roadside bomb in the first week of operations, killing four British soldiers and gravely injuring two. The shooting of the Iraqi driver at the checkpoint occurred just an hour after the second car bomb had blown the legs off two of the Black Watch gunner's colleagues.

"After the suicide bombings against us, I went to an American soldier I know here and put my hands up. I said, 'I confess, I was one of those who sat around in Basra criticizing your approach.' (http://articles.latimes.com/2004/dec/05/world/fg-brits5)

[BigBallinStalin]

And is government capable of systemically overcoming that problem?

With regard to the US and intervention, the answer is no.

Worked pretty well in Yugoslavia. Still tensions there, but at least they aren't killing each other.

What do you mean by "pretty well"? And at what cost? Ask qwert and sax about the Balkans. You'll love it!


And, even if I would agree with some great example, it doesn't demonstrate that the US is systematically capable of resolving this problem: "We seem to have a nasty habit of fixing one problem by creating two more." In other words, there's a difference between particular points and the overall pattern.

To be perfectly honest, NATO stepped in too late in Yugoslavia. Things had gotten pretty damn nasty by that point. But the fact remains that they did help stop the fighting.

As long as the international community is behind an intervention, it tends to go relatively smoothly.

The issue the US has is that they seem to think that the "American way" is the only way. The sectors in Afghanistan where the British and Canadians were the major force were just as nasty as the ones that the Americans fought in, but the Poms and Canucks were much more likely to listen to the locals and adhere to local customs. Hence why they've had far fewer casualties (even per capita).

Of course that is changing now that the country is destabilising again, but there was definitely a window of opportunity there where the country could have been made to work. Sadly it wasn't taken....

We're talking about different things at this point.