Print

Please login or register.
1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever
Login with username, password and session length

[SalmonGod]

Hm, I guess we're talking past each other: As far as I can tell, we already agree on the fundamentals of this issue: The US military is too big, military action is often, but not always a bad thing, conflict prevention and development aid are preferrable to military action, etc etc.

Maybe it's a cultural issue: When a German talks like you do, they usually espouse some sort of vulgar pacifism, usually accompanied by a big helping of anti-Americanism and NIMBYism. And I guess when an American talks like I do, they're usually Republican and quite far on the hawkish side.
Maybe we should just skip ahead to the specifics: When do you consider military intervention to be desirable or even just justifiable?

Maybe, yeah.  Ideologically, I am a pacifist... but not a strict one.  I believe that the nature of violence varies according to scale, and I fundamentally disagree with the nature of large scale violence.  I started to type out an explanation but it's probably best not to get into the details of that now.

What's important in relation to what you're saying is I also understand it's necessary to concede the reality that ideologies don't amount to much when most of the world doesn't share them.  We have to survive within the reality that is created by the collective behaviors of other people, even if we believe those people are stupid and wrong.

When do I consider military intervention to be desirable or justifiable?...

Short answer:  Only blanket response I can give is in the clearest cases of a situation violently out of control, and a clearly delineated group being primarily responsible for that.  Only military engagement by the U.S. I'm aware of that I'm alright with since WW2 is the intervention in Libya.  Even if the aftermath hasn't turned out to be a good political situation, there was no question that Gaddafi had gone completely insane and was going to continue indiscriminately mass-murdering his own people until somebody stopped him.

Long answer:  I know that military involvement is really justified and desirable in a lot more situations than that, but outside of such situations, there are so many nuanced factors that I can't really give an answer to your question as stated.  I can tell you that the reason I'm not alright with most U.S. applications of military power is because there are too many corrupting influences involved, too little restraint, and they are not balanced against other approaches that would suit our professed intentions.  But it sounds like you already agree with that.  Problem is this is such a deep and pervasive facet of U.S. politics that it's hard to express this point of view without coming off as rabidly anti-American.

[Flying Dice]

He did mention Italy, and you initially put it in the same category as the rest of the non-Greece examples.

Whoops, yeah. That's what I get for posting tired and hours after the fact.

To be fair, though, it is one of those cases where it's not entirely clear-cut: Italy founded its own republic post-WWII, we didn't start or join any wars, we didn't fund a revolution or assassinate a PM/president, but we did engage in a lot of soft warfare, mainly through the CIA's efforts. Propaganda campaigns, funding right-wing political parties, &c. I initially discarded it as an example because Italy was a self-made democracy, but things like this are rarely clearcut; I don't personally agree that the U.S. was responsible for keeping Italy democratic and non-communist during the Cold War, but there's enough there for someone to make a reasonable case for the U.S. cutting the far-left parties off before they had a chance to take political ground and potentially flip Italy--it's not an argument I would agree with, but it's rather foolish to act as if everything you don't agree with is utterly stupid.

/shrugs

[Arcvasti]

Meanwhile, as he was leaving the event, a reporter asked Carson how he would respond to Hurricane Joaquin if he were in the White House.

"I don't know," he replied.

I, at first, read that "he" as referring to Hurricane Joaquin and was confused.

[Bauglir]

Meanwhile, as he was leaving the event, a reporter asked Carson how he would respond to Hurricane Joaquin if he were in the White House.

"I don't know," he replied.

I, at first, read that "he" as referring to Hurricane Joaquin and was confused.

if that was the intended question, i have to admit "I don't know" would be a pretty good answer

>Hurricane Joaquin! At this time of day, at this time of year, in this part of the country, localized entirely within the Oval Office.
>... Yes.
>... May I see it?
>... No.

[Helgoland]

Short answer:  Only blanket response I can give is in the clearest cases of a situation violently out of control, and a clearly delineated group being primarily responsible for that.  Only military engagement by the U.S. I'm aware of that I'm alright with since WW2 is the intervention in Libya.  Even if the aftermath hasn't turned out to be a good political situation, there was no question that Gaddafi had gone completely insane and was going to continue indiscriminately mass-murdering his own people until somebody stopped him.

Long answer:  I know that military involvement is really justified and desirable in a lot more situations than that, but outside of such situations, there are so many nuanced factors that I can't really give an answer to your question as stated.  I can tell you that the reason I'm not alright with most U.S. applications of military power is because there are too many corrupting influences involved, too little restraint, and they are not balanced against other approaches that would suit our professed intentions.  But it sounds like you already agree with that.  Problem is this is such a deep and pervasive facet of U.S. politics that it's hard to express this point of view without coming off as rabidly anti-American.

I must admit, I would have a hard time establishing necessary and sufficient criteria as well... A good approach would probably to state that war is an inherently destructive, non-creative force, and that we must thus weigh the benefits of intervention - people not getting killed in the short term - against all the social, political, religious etc structures that will be destroyed. That was the core problem with Iraq: Yes, Hussein was a fairly terrible dictator, but when weighed against the consequences of an invasion like the one in 2003 he wasn't that bad. That doesn't mean we should prop up his colleagues when they're faced with internal resistance: A different way of ousting him might have had different, less destructive consequences.
But even if we could establish such criteria, the question of implementation would remain: Who gets to decide that they're met, that military action is justified or necessary? The Security Council has proven itself to be terrible at that job, the US political machine as well... This one is a much harder question.

[Loud Whispers]

Iraq might've stood a chance if their army hadn't been disbanded afterwards. All Baathist party members were cleaned out of power in the government and military. But this is like clearing everyone who was a member of the CCP in China, in order to be in the military you had to be a member of the ruling party. So what you end up doing is leaving a state without a military whilst leaving hundreds of thousands of veterans and officers unemployed with lots of free time on their hands. Inevitably, a home grown army appears stronger than the government army, and the influx of foreign fighters just hits the hammer home. The Iraq war could've worked the same way the Libyan war could've worked - when the latter needed foreign troops on the ground to help disarm fighters and enforce the government's will there was very little in the way of support.

[MetalSlimeHunt]

Oh yeah, the monthly mass shooting happened already. Oregon.

[Helgoland]

Just heard it on the radio - 40th mass shooting at an educational facility this year, or something like that. There's a fair number of Oregonites here, right? I hope no-one's hurt.

[SalmonGod]

But even if we could establish such criteria, the question of implementation would remain: Who gets to decide that they're met, that military action is justified or necessary?

I don't believe anyone is truly in a position to comprehend the millions of lives effected by military action, even on an abstracted level, with enough clarity to justify this level of responsibility in any situation, except unusually clear-cut cases as I mentioned before.

This is why I'm an anarchist.  I cannot engage the line of questioning beyond this point, because I don't think there's any acceptable answer.  Conceding ideology to reality can only go so far until you're completely betraying yourself.  Given a concrete situation, I can lay out preferences for how I would like that situation to develop, but if asked who I think should have that kind of power in a hypothetical vacuum, my answer can only be no-one.

[redwallzyl]

o joy looks like its the monthly mass shooting! how long before "should have all had guns" and depressed Obama speech time.



http://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2015/10/01/445034424/active-shooter-reported-at-oregon-community-college

[penguinofhonor]

.

[MetalSlimeHunt]

A+ for promptness, can't get much earlier in October than this. And apparently there's a bunch of shit about how the shooter posted about this being his beta uprising on /rk9/, but like every other time that happens timestamps will probably disprove.

For the record, this is what the average /rk9/ poster is like. [V. Loud, Rip Headphone Users]

[misko27]

Oh yeah, the monthly mass shooting happened already. Oregon.

Yeah. I don't think there's anything special about it in particular, so it probably won't even involve politics all that much unless the candidates feel the need to mention it. Clinton might use the opportunity to remind people that Sanders voted down the Brady Bill, and Republicans might argue over who is most beloved by the NRA. And we can hear Trump on Guns.

Looking over the politics circuit now, they don't seem to be mentioning it. If not, this might be the wrong place to discuss it, since nothing has changed.

But even if we could establish such criteria, the question of implementation would remain: Who gets to decide that they're met, that military action is justified or necessary?

I don't believe anyone is truly in a position to comprehend the millions of lives effected by military action, even on an abstracted level, with enough clarity to justify this level of responsibility in any situation, except unusually clear-cut cases as I mentioned before.

This is why I'm an anarchist.  I cannot engage the line of questioning beyond this point, because I don't think there's any acceptable answer.  Conceding ideology to reality can only go so far until you're completely betraying yourself.  Given a concrete situation, I can lay out preferences for how I would like that situation to develop, but if asked who I think should have that kind of power in a hypothetical vacuum, my answer can only be no-one.

Now see, this is why I'm not. I say conceding reality to ideology can only go so far until your actions and beliefs become useless virtuals and hypotheticals that aren't worth the limited time I have on this Earth considering. Blood and flesh, pain and pleasure: these are the things that drive me. They cut, they sting, and they are oh-so-real. And decisions made by me and others can fundamentally affect this calculus. And if I believe that someone - for whatever reason, in whatever way: good or bad, noble or base, rational or irrational, intentional or accidental - can change this equation, alter the course of events, and manipulate the variables of my life and the lives of others, my only answer is to engage with what is.

A+ for promptness, can't get much earlier in October than this. And apparently there's a bunch of shit about how the shooter posted about this being his beta uprising on /rk9/, but like every other time that happens timestamps will probably disprove.

For the record, this is what the average /rk9/ poster is like. [V. Loud, Rip Headphone Users]

Well I'm glad that I had already done this to myself once today, so my volume was low. 4chan never turns out do have done anything really newsworthy, so let's hope it dies down before the mainstream gets a hold of it.

[My Name is Immaterial]

A+ for promptness, can't get much earlier in October than this. And apparently there's a bunch of shit about how the shooter posted about this being his beta uprising on /rk9/, but like every other time that happens timestamps will probably disprove.

For the record, this is what the average /rk9/ poster is like. [V. Loud, Rip Headphone Users]

Google is being unhelp on giving me any specifics about /rk9/. Can you provide some?

[MetalSlimeHunt]

This is one subject I'm happy to have ignorance on. My understanding is that /rk9/ is filled with users who call themselves /robots/ based on their inability to interact socially with people or be anything other than disgusting petulant manchildren who hold their piss-stained underwear over everyone else. They refer to outsiders as "normies", and the loud screeching you heard in the audio file is the "REEEEE", a held sound that some of them use to force people to do what they want.

Essentially, they're a board of malignant parasites who are proud of it, and none of them have ever contributed anything to society.