Another country starts to fall into Daesh control... Of course, it's the one where USA armed "opposition"

[C0ckney]

saying that our interventions have caused damage in the past does not justify further damaging interventions! when you're in a hole you have to stop digging at some point.

[kentonio]

saying that our interventions have caused damage in the past does not justify further damaging interventions! when you're in a hole you have to stop digging at some point.

I fully agree, but saying that just because neo-cons keep using invasion as a pre-text for commercial gain means we should never intervene seems equally unjustified to me. There was a post Iraq war window when the situation could have turned out well if there hadn't been complete idiots running the show.

[C0ckney]

well, my argument is that we shouldn't intervene because our interventions not only cause a lot of death and destruction, but also that they made the situations in those places far worse.

and i wonder if what you say about the iraq is true. of course, there were many terrible mistakes made in the wake of the invasion, but even if they hadn't been made, many of the same forces would have been unleashed. it's hard to say, of course; but in any case, the west has tried different approaches in the countries it's intervened in and all have failed completely.

[PLATO]

Once again I see no one is looking to the history of how Libya became a state and why that was behind the inevitable civil war. Obviously some things were "quitter" under the ruthless dictator. However he had to be a ruthless dictator to hold the country together. Libya should never have been a single country (Thanks Italy!).

The point of NICE MOBIUS and Ellestar ignores the fact that a civil war was almost inevitable.

Sure, it could have been delayed if Gaddafi had been allowed to slaughter the tens of thousands that he was on the way to doing when the West intervened, but all that would have done is delay the inevitable until after his death and make it even harder for the sides to reconcile.

Equally surely, the West probably could have done a better job with the aftermath of its intervention. The West has shown an unbelievable reluctance to follow up with military action in productive ways...mainly due to a lack of political will.

Still...even with everything that has happened, the Libyians are seeing some progress in working out their own difficulties and trying to build a united country. Major concessions have just recently been made by both major sides and unity government is now a possibility. It is noteworthy that they accomplished this on their own and outside of the UN process.

The West intervention may well have caused the bloodshed and strife to have been less that it would have been in the long run. I believe that most people look at the Libyan situation through to narrow a lense...

[Saras]

LOL. So you destroy everything, take their oil and...

... give it to the Russians:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/West_Qurna_Field

[DinoDoc]

The point of NICE MOBIUS and Ellestar ignores the fact that a civil war was almost inevitable.

Sure, it could have been delayed if Gaddafi had been allowed to slaughter the tens of thousands that he was on the way to doing when the West intervened, but all that would have done is delay the inevitable until after his death and make it even harder for the sides to reconcile.

Why was Libya our problem to begin with?

[kentonio]

well, my argument is that we shouldn't intervene because our interventions not only cause a lot of death and destruction, but also that they made the situations in those places far worse.

and i wonder if what you say about the iraq is true. of course, there were many terrible mistakes made in the wake of the invasion, but even if they hadn't been made, many of the same forces would have been unleashed. it's hard to say, of course; but in any case, the west has tried different approaches in the countries it's intervened in and all have failed completely.

I'm not convinced we have tried many different approaches, the American way of waging war and dealing with less developed nations hasn't really changed much. After Hussain you had a temporary rise in Iraqi Shia/Kurd optimism and a rise in Sunni fear that the majority Shia would take revenge for the years of Sunni dominance. At that point a swift and intelligent restructuring of the army and police forces to ensure all factions were represented in the top leadership, a truth and reconciliation effort introduced to try and resolve simmering old issues and a focus on creating a fair and just constitution that met the needs of the Iraqis instead of being pushed on them by Americans could have resulted in a much more positive outcome. Instead we had de-Baathification, power handed to exiles, heavy handed attempts to push US ideology onto the locals and of course the often brutal and callous anti-insurgent tactics which did little more than convince the Iraqi population that the people kicking in their doors and shooting people from armed convoys were actually the enemy.

I suppose my question would really be: why couldn't it work? Why should we expect that people in Iraq are incapable of living in a peaceful country? If the sectarian divisions are so deep they cannot be healed internally then break it up into separate countries. Why not?

[Ellestar]

I fully agree, but saying that just because neo-cons keep using invasion as a pre-text for commercial gain means we should never intervene seems equally unjustified to me. There was a post Iraq war window when the situation could have turned out well if there hadn't been complete idiots running the show.

Actually, there is a very simple solution that doesn't require stopping interventions. The real problem is that capitalists buy off politicians for their commercial gains, and noone is repsonsible for anything. So, make it so, let's say a thousand really important people (rich capitalists, known politicians, high-ranked government officials) put their asses and their assets on the line. Sure, USA invades, but if it fails to make things better, this thousand people, who personally signed a deal, gets their all property confiscated and they're put in Guantamao, foever. That will easily fix the problem.

Yeah, and in that thousand people should be everyone who profits from that invasion - major military contractors, owners of oil firms who want to get contracts in that conquered country etc.

In any case, it will never happen, after all, democracy is all about irresponsibility (in dictatorships at least an "evil dictator" can ask you for whatever you've done).

[Ellestar]

You equated the extremists of each. I simply pointed out that Democracy is different than Communism or Sharia in that you can support Democracy without supporting oppression, whereas there are forms of oppression that are fundamental tenants built into Sharia and Communism.

Communism (though not all communist systems) is a social, religious, economic, and political system. Capitalism is largely an economic system. Democracy is largely a political system. Neither is comprehensive the way Communism is.

So USA are extremists, right? After all, they invade other countries to enforce their own ideas of "democracy", and fail, by the way. Well, i fully agree

Anyway, you're talking about theory. In theory, Communism is also a good thing. In practice, Democracy doesn't exist, just like Communism doesn't exist. So it's pointless to say that theoretical Democracy is better than a real Communism.

The people can have had a large amount of power in any system when they band together in enough numbers. Democracy has a built in function for allowing that without toppling the system. In the US the Labor movement, Womens' Rights movement, Civil Rights movement were all successful at changing the country from within using the system that was in place.

Again, in theory. In practice, all these movements worked when there was a big threat of USSR and a revolution inside your own country was looming over the horison. The moment USSR collapsed, real wages in USA stopped growing right that instant, and now they're falling. The moment a main leader of an an opposing political system collapsed, Capitalists went back to their normal state of robbing common people. Nah, they actually did it all the time, but their ability to get away with it increased with the fall of USSR.

Peace movement existed only when there was USSR, so it was kinda scary to start anyhing. Now, when USA mosly does what it wants, irregardless of international laws, your so called "democracy" shows a lack of "built in function for allowing that" (c). People voted for Obama because he promised to stop wars. He started even more wars. Face it, these "built in functions" just don't work. Capitalists do what they want, people have no say in it.

People who try to oppress others are always wrong to do so whatever ideology they claim to follow. I agree. Some ideologies just require it, while others can function without that oppression.

Capitalism has a bilt-in oppression system where capitalists own everything and workers usually don't own even a home, are not guaranteed to have a work, pension or a medical aid. Actually, it's the Stalin's constitution (that was discussed together with a common population) that granted all these basic rights to common people. If democracy is so good, why doesn't it guarantee basic human rights to it's citizens? Come on, do you really believe if people really had any power at all, they wouldn't have voted to have at least a basic human rights? Why Stalin gave that power to people to make a constitution together with him, and "democracies" don't?

So, while Сommunism certainly had a lot of problems, in many cases it was a more advanced and more democratic political system than so called "Western democracy".

And that also shows why it's important to have different political systems in the world - Communists were forced to give more "freedom", and Capitalists were forced to give a bigger share of profit and more rights to it's citizens. Both political systems become better as a result. Now, without a visible counter-balance, "democracies" start to deteriorate into oppression, police state and lower standards of living.

Also, your focus on "oppression" shows that you're successfully brainwashed by capitalists to think that "freedom" that you "have" in a "democratic" society is some philosophical concept instead of something that is actually important, but will reduce capitalist's profits, like, i don't know, guaranteed basic human rights?

It's not true that it requires exploitation of people. That exploitation is actually a way of undercutting the foundation of the economy for a quick local gain at the expense of the system in general.

Again, check basic resource consumption (like oil or metal) per capita. Planet doesn't have enough oil to reach Western quality of life.

We could achieve a very high standard of living for everyone in the world with modern technology if we wanted to do so as humans. (Sadly we don't tend to care much about others even within our own borders, and outside our own borders significantly less still.)

That's correct, but it will be ok standard of living for everyone, very high is impossible (again, see resource consumption per capita). And that's what Communism tried to do - to give everyone a small but fair share of riches. Capitalist's goal is, obviously, completely opposite.

Not the opposite. The opposite would be trying to decrease the quality of life. The reality is they generally don't care much if it increases or decreases.

You tell the wrong thing, and you know it. It's a very simple line of logic - Capitalists want to increase profits. One way to do it is to reduce wages (and that's exactly what they do with globalization). Reduced wages mean lower quality of life. So, Capitalist's goal is to reduce quality of life of others so to make more profit.

I didn't claim we rebuilt Iraq.

But that's the point, right? Why USSR did it, say, in Afghanistan (and many other countries), and USA doesn't? Actually, USSR didn't even REbuilt, USSR just built new things. USA doesn't even replace what it destroys.

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/02/12/world/asia/kabuls-soviet-ruins-offer-a-reminder-of-imperial-ambitions.html?_r=0

If you, like, genuinely care about people suffering under dictators, as you claim when you invade, then why don't you do anything? And if that's exactly what a common population like you thinks?

The truth is, USSR claimed that it's goal was to care about common people, and it did. "Democracy" claims the same, but it doesn't. Now, in which case common people have more real power?

There is no official religion in the US.

Oh come on. It's called "free market", "democracy", "capitalism", but most of the time just "money". You even start wars to promote it, like all religious fanatics do.

[Aeson]

So it's pointless to say that theoretical Democracy is better than a real Communism.

I'm not talking theoretical. I'm talking about the reality that democracy doesn't require any oppression of it's people. All democracy does is put the power into the hands of the people to decide who will hold office. What people do with it is up to them. They can choose to elect leaders who oppress them or others, but they aren't required to.

Communism as an ideology requires oppressing it's own citizens' rights to choose for themselves how to live their lives in at least some respects.

In practice, all these movements worked when there was a big threat of USSR and a revolution inside your own country was looming over the horison.

You need to look at a timeline. Labor and Women's rights started well before there was a USSR. Gay Rights gained most of it's ground after the USSR had fell. Civil Rights happened during the Cold War, but the USSR had nothing to do with that. If anything the fear of Communism in the US put a damper on the development of personal freedoms.

Capitalism has a bilt-in oppression system where capitalists own everything and workers usually don't own even a home, are not guaranteed to have a work, pension or a medical aid.

You keep confusing capitalism with democracy. They are not the same thing. Also, there is nothing baked into capitalism that you claim. Everyone can be a "capitalist" in a free market. Most people in the US make good incomes (especially when compared world-wide and historically), they just choose to consume rather than to invest or save. There does need to be a better safety net in the US than there is, but let me put it this way ... there are US citizens who go to other countries and build nice houses (some cases even mansions), have live-in maids and drivers ... off the money they get on SSI (disability) or Social Security (retirement).

Universal healthcare is not incompatible with a capitalist economy either, there are several examples where it works. The US is stupid for not going that route, but it's the choice of the population. If enough US citizens wanted universal healthcare, we would have it. That's how democracy works. It will likely happen in the US some time in the coming decades.

Actually, it's the Stalin's constitution (that was discussed together with a common population) that granted all these basic rights to common people. If democracy is so good, why doesn't it guarantee basic human rights to it's citizens?

Americans had (and have) far more human rights allowed them by their government than Soviets had. That's why an American during the Cold War could travel anywhere they wanted in the world (except places that wouldn't let them in, like the USSR), and even live outside the US if they chose. The USSR on the other hand wouldn't allow it's people to travel in most cases, and even killed people who were trying to leave.

Come on, do you really believe if people really had any power at all, they wouldn't have voted to have at least a basic human rights? Why Stalin gave that power to people to make a constitution together with him, and "democracies" don't?

You really should read up on the US Constitution. The US Constitution can be (and has been) amended via democratic process. The US citizen enjoys far more rights than citizens of the USSR did.

And that also shows why it's important to have different political systems in the world - Communists were forced to give more "freedom", and Capitalists were forced to give a bigger share of profit and more rights to it's citizens. Both political systems become better as a result. Now, without a visible counter-balance, "democracies" start to deteriorate into oppression, police state and lower standards of living.

Actually it's due to external threats that democracies have shown themselves to fail the most (in regard to humanity, not necessarily in standard of living). During the Cold War it was fear of Communism spreading which lead the US population to support various conflicts around the world. Now the threat from Islamist extremism is driving those types of excursions.

Fear brings out the worst in people, whatever the system.

Again, check basic resource consumption (like oil or metal) per capita. Planet doesn't have enough oil to reach Western quality of life.

There are other forms of energy, and materials use that don't directly compete for energy (like petroleum based products). Right now they aren't developed extensively because oil is cheap, and they are not. If demand for energy increases, higher priced forms of energy will become economically feasible. (Even with oil extraction you see this, with higher oil prices different forms of extraction become economical.)

There's no good reason why 7 billion people (or 10) can't enjoy a quality of life much like that in the US. You need to change some things, mainly personal transport and "disposables", but it can be done. Everyone can have high-end electronics, as many digital products as they can possibly consume, good food to eat, healthcare, and a nice place to live. We aren't at any hard limits on the things required for such a life. We just can't all drive around SUVs and such unnecessary excesses.

That's correct, but it will be ok standard of living for everyone, very high is impossible (again, see resource consumption per capita). And that's what Communism tried to do - to give everyone a small but fair share of riches. Capitalist's goal is, obviously, completely opposite.

Communism failed to do it. Capitalism has done it better. The reality is someone doing the lowest paid job in the US had a higher standard of living than the person doing the same job in the USSR ... and likely more than anyone in the USSR outside of corrupt party officials.

It's a very simple line of logic - Capitalists want to increase profits. One way to do it is to reduce wages (and that's exactly what they do with globalization). Reduced wages mean lower quality of life. So, Capitalist's goal is to reduce quality of life of others so to make more profit.

No, you're just wrong. The person in the developing nation who gets one of these jobs actually is increasing their standard of living. That's why they accept the job, because it offers an opportunity to do better than what they had before.

The person in the US who "loses" that job generally finds a new one. (Otherwise we'd have seen rampant unemployment during globalization. But most of the time the US unemployment has been near full employment.

The current problems are largely in immigration restrictions and lack of worker protections in various places around the world.

But that's the point, right? Why USSR did it, say, in Afghanistan (and many other countries), and USA doesn't? Actually, USSR didn't even REbuilt, USSR just built new things. USA doesn't even replace what it destroys.

I'd be interested to see the comparison in amount of money invested in Afghanistan by the US and USSR in their excursions there. I admit I don't know enough about the issue to judge who did more. I certainly don't think we did enough, and it would have been much better if the US and USSR had worked together than opposed each other.

I've always argued we should have spent more on infrastructure (not just in invasions), I think it should be the main focus of our international policy to help build infrastructure and new businesses in peaceful developing nations. In fact this is what I do with a rather significant portion of my personal income, time, and energy.

If you, like, genuinely care about people suffering under dictators, as you claim when you invade, then why don't you do anything?

a) I haven't supported any of these invasions we are talking about.
b) I am doing what I can personally, since realistically the US population isn't ready to do it as a nation.

You speak about how the US doesn't give it's citizens any rights, but the reality is that US citizens have more power as individuals to affect their lives and the world than the citizens of any other nation in the history of humanity. It's why I can go to the Philippines and send kids to college, give unemployed people work improving previously unimproved land, give out no interest loans or donations to help with business opportunities or medical emergencies. Nothing in democracy or free markets or capitalism tries to stop me from doing it, it gives me the opportunity to do it. (Or alternatively, it gives me the opportunity to waste it all on personal consumption. Sadly most of us do that most of the time.) The USSR wouldn't have even allowed me to leave the country ... and there's no way I could do what I am able to do now on the income of someone in the USSR either unless I was a corrupt party official, in which case I certainly wouldn't be the type of person who would do such a thing.

It's our failing as a people and as a nation that we don't use those opportunities better, but throwing away democracy and free markets, and even capitalism would simply make things worse, not better. Social democracy with free market capitalism are the best engine we have. They produce more value than the alternatives. The area to focus on improving isn't the engine, it's directionality. We need to distribute the wealth created better, and democracy has shown it has the capability of doing that. Movements such as the Labor movement did that rather well for US workers. Similar movements need to and slowly are moving to protect workers in developing nations, as well as to continue advancing in already developed nations. There's a growing support for increasing minimum wage significantly and/or earned income credits in the US. Yes, there was some stagnation lately for those at the low end of the income spectrum in the US, but it's important to remember that that stagnation occurred at a very high level of income relative to most of the rest of the world. In general (there are exceptions), we whine about not being able to pay the bills (rent, car, internet, electricity, etc), but it's largely because we go for a level of consumption that even well off people in other developed nations don't dream of.

Throwing away the engine would be fatal. It just needs to be pointed in a better direction.

[kentonio]

Actually, there is a very simple solution that doesn't require stopping interventions. The real problem is that capitalists buy off politicians for their commercial gains, and noone is repsonsible for anything. So, make it so, let's say a thousand really important people (rich capitalists, known politicians, high-ranked government officials) put their asses and their assets on the line. Sure, USA invades, but if it fails to make things better, this thousand people, who personally signed a deal, gets their all property confiscated and they're put in Guantamao, foever. That will easily fix the problem.

I have no problem with this sensible solution.

[Ellestar]

Communism failed to do it. Capitalism has done it better. The reality is someone doing the lowest paid job in the US had a higher standard of living than the person doing the same job in the USSR ... and likely more than anyone in the USSR outside of corrupt party officials.

That's absolutely not true. You don't account for starting and in-process conditions at all. Just like Russian Empire was much poorer than Western Europe, USSR was about as much poorer than Western Europe 100 years thereafter. But that's just the start of the story.

Russian Empire was agrarian country. It gone through one of the most brutal civil wars. It went through universal literacy program. It gone through industrialization, from almost zero. Then it lost 13% of it's population and about 50% of it's factories in WW2. Through all it's history USSR competed with the West with a much lower population (which includes a much lower number of scientists and engineers) and economy, and was able to keep up. We had much higer defence spending. We weren't exploiting colonies - actually, we were losing resources by building things in foreign countries - even at the moment of a fall of USSR, when we loaned crazy amounts of money, others owed us just as much - and we built things in much cheaper (PPP) communist money. Despite all these things, communism was able to keep standard of living disparity about even for all that time.

And many other problems, like closed borders or a lack of freedom of press, were because of that standard of living disparity, not because of communism itself. Seriously, just look a little further than propaganda. If a 100 kg boxer beats a 50 kg boxer, it doesn't mean that 50 kg boxer slacked in training, it means he just had a much worse starting conditions.

[Aeson]

You cant blame the lack of personal liberties on being poor.

[rah]

Considering all the other absurdities that he has claimed, I don't see why he can't include this one.

You eventually have to stop blaming the where we started excuse.

America started out well behind Europe and was eventually able to catch up in a shorter time than Russia had.

Maybe if Russia hadn't been saddled with a worthless monarchy and and even more worthless bastardization of Communism they might have caught up too. Russia was more than equal to the US in terms of raw resources and population.

[C0ckney]

Once again I see no one is looking to the history of how Libya became a state and why that was behind the inevitable civil war. Obviously some things were "quitter" under the ruthless dictator. However he had to be a ruthless dictator to hold the country together. Libya should never have been a single country (Thanks Italy!).

The point of NICE MOBIUS and Ellestar ignores the fact that a civil war was almost inevitable.

Sure, it could have been delayed if Gaddafi had been allowed to slaughter the tens of thousands that he was on the way to doing when the West intervened, but all that would have done is delay the inevitable until after his death and make it even harder for the sides to reconcile.

Equally surely, the West probably could have done a better job with the aftermath of its intervention. The West has shown an unbelievable reluctance to follow up with military action in productive ways...mainly due to a lack of political will.

Still...even with everything that has happened, the Libyians are seeing some progress in working out their own difficulties and trying to build a united country. Major concessions have just recently been made by both major sides and unity government is now a possibility. It is noteworthy that they accomplished this on their own and outside of the UN process.

The West intervention may well have caused the bloodshed and strife to have been less that it would have been in the long run. I believe that most people look at the Libyan situation through to narrow a lense...

well, it's fine to say to that libya should never have been a country, but that does little to change the reality that it was. gaddafi would certainly have killed some, though i think tens of thousand is probably an overestimate, but he had managed to hold libya together for a long time and there's no reason why he couldn't have continued to do so. lots of dictators have managed to after failed uprisings after all.

the agreement may be good, but i wouldn't get too excited about it just yet. it appears that many on the members of both parliaments are not happy with it, and therefore it may in fact exacerbate the divisions as many of those who are not happy have power over the militias; we'll have to wait and see but i'm not holding my breath. i did love the spin about wanting to do things on their own without the UN (whose envoy left in exasperation) though.