Should countries refuse to honor debts run up by dictators?

[Vince278]

Originally posted by Comrade Tassadar
Ha!!! This would be great!!!
Russia creates an even LARGER debt with every nation in the world, and then the regieme in Russia changes

I'm in FULL support of this

You're catching on...

[RGBVideo]

As I said, it should be part of UN sanctions, otherwise it generally is unworkable in principle.

[DAVOUT]

Originally posted by shawnmmcc

This misses the entire point! So it's OK to sell the arms to a genocidal monster, aka Saddam Hussein, as long as he controls the oil wealth to fund it? There's nothing wrong with China and the Europeans funding the high tech weapons (we are talking attack helicopters here) used in the Sudan to wipe out the black Christian and nativists in the South, so oil development can continue under the control of an Arab dictatorship in the North. Talk about Odious Debt.

[/SIZE]

You are mixing up two problems : the sales of armament and the loans financing the sales. It is the good way not to find a solution.

I was referring to the financial side of any transactions. It seems pretty obvious that the repayment of loans made for not productive purchases will be extremely more difficult to document convincingly than the repayment of loans made for financing peaceful projects.

[Boris Godunov]

Absolutely in favor. Considering all the rhetoric conservatives throw around about how evil dictators are and how they oppress their people with their excess, it seems quite fair to not expect the oppressed people to have to foot the bill for the dictator's said excesses.

Making loans to dictators should be as risky as possible.

[Mr. Harley]

Vince, I peaked back onto this before going to sleep. I just had one horrifying thought, before I get to your post. Ted and Tuomerehu, if you make defining Odious Debt part of UN sanctions, then the bastards who loaned the dictator money for the weapons (if this is the case) are more than likely going to be on the security committee. Think about it. Who supplies weapons on credit - Soviets (I don't know about Russia, I have seen indications they are largely cash and carry now, like the Israeli's), EU and the USA big time, PRC. See a problem. Great idea, but it's going to have to be some exterior body, maybe working starting off the world court.

Vince, I suspect we are looking at this from a totally different vantage point. Unless I get it wrong, alot of your arguments look at the dictator and the civilian population. I brought that up as background.

I am going for the free market solution. To borrow an analogy that I think largely works - the moves by banks in the USA to make bankruptcy laws work in their favor. The banks make credit easy to get, knowing the rules, and now want to change the rules so they don't have to actually judge someone's credit history.

I want the arms trade to get stuck in that paradigm. If you are loaning money to a dictator, let's use Saddam as an easy case, then your cash is at risk. If he gets overthrown, greedy/stupid, monstrous, or in some combo of the three, then you're going to lose your debtor. The country is not responsible for those things you loaned the dictator money for. Only permanent items still there (aka collateral - plus certain other items as in food aid) are things you still get money for, like a house in a bankrupcy.

I know the analogy is not perfect, but it suffices. Shut off the arms/money to these states, and it gives the opposition forces a chance. Without it, you just have lots of dead Kurds or Shia. That's why Davout's case won't change a thing, of course the dictator will plunder the country's national resources and pledge them for the weapons to keep him in power. No duh.

Dictators will still exist if Odious Debt becomes recognized and accepted. At least some of them won't have much more than light infranty units. Insurgents will have a chance. Please note this does not apply to Turkmen's in western China, people in that kind of situation don't have a chance, period. However, that is the exception, not the rule.

[:) Smiley]

What would happen if some nation refused to pay its debt. Is there any real means of enforcement?

[DAVOUT]

Originally posted by Smiley
What would happen if some nation refused to pay its debt. Is there any real means of enforcement?

They have their foreign properties seized (if any), and a very bad mark for future credit ratings. Their access to credit will certainly be limited to Word Bank for major infrastructure projects, and IMF for restarting the economy.

[Whoha]

Well Germany was forced to pay war reparations after WW1, wasn't exactly the smartest thing to have done.

[Ned]

Shawn, et al., you make very good point about illegal arms trade to dictators under UN sanction. The people who are doing it are on the SC. In the case of Saddam, he was able to acquire large amounts of Russian and French arms even while under sanction.

I would make it a rule (international treaty) that when large amounts of illegal arms are found in a country under sanction, the country that produced the arms may no longer collect on any debt from a liberated people. This would really put teeth into UN sanctions.

[DAVOUT]

Originally posted by Ned
In the case of Saddam, he was able to acquire large amounts of Russian and French arms even while under sanction.

You are able to document that statement I am sure.

[Ned]

Davout, I have listened to embedded reporters giving eyewitness reports of huge amount of new French and Russian weapons. Naturally the French had denied selling the weapons (directly) to Saddam as most of them are contained in crates marked "Jordan." But what I propose is "strict liability" so that countries like France cannot do what they obviously did, sell to Jordan knowing that Saddam was the ultimate buyer.

[DAVOUT]

Ned,
I am desappointed with your evidences. You did not yet affirm that the crates contained WMD, but you are likely thinking about it.

[Q Classic]

reparations are different from honoring old debts.

[Ned]

Davout, I never implied France was supplying WMD, did I?

Besides, would the French media honestly report what American embedded reporters found in Iraq? I am not surprised at all that you have never heard of this before.

[Ned]

Originally posted by Q Cubed
reparations are different from honoring old debts.

Good point, Q. We should impose on Saddam's backers the requirements that they assume Saddam's reparation obligations to his victims!