When society breaks down

[Harabec]

I've written in another thread somewhere about Syria having no "good sides".

This article is an example of that.

While the rest of the world talks about "bringing Assad down" or "helping the rebels" and such, I see this conflict of a perfect example of a lose-lose situation, where both parties have devolved into a barbaric "we vs them" mentality without a hint of actually wanting a better future for the citizenry.

As I watch the news, I see modern countries feeling morally obliged to resolve the conflict and releasing statements based on that, but what do you do when the system cheats on you? when you have NO good side to pick from "against the evil doers"?

 

[Craig234]

Sounds like you might be too picky about what a good side to back is. Bottom line is to look for organizations who will help end the killing.

What we start to dictate the also have to have certain political loyalties and not have certain religious practices and so on it gets a bit much for a humanitarian project.

Sometimes 'there are no good sides' and it helps if we help get one organized.

 

[Anarchist420]

No govt should intervene in the affairs of any other.

For the record, I've long supported not helping the rebels because the rebels are just as violent if not more so than Assad but mainly because America would be more oppressed with more taxes.

 

[Craig234]

No govt should intervene in the affairs of any other.

For just a start, the French don't help the American colonies and the United States is never created.

So Sorry, England, about Hitler being on his way to invade you but there's no such thing as 'allies', you get no help with him. I think that's an example of terrible simple ideology.

 

[Agent11]

Neither Syria or the rebels could be considered our allies however. If they claimed to want to create a liberal democratic republic founded on the ideals of the enlightenment that would be worth consideration, however they are backed by jihadis.

 

[Craig234]

Neither Syria or the rebels could be considered our allies however. If they claimed to want to create a liberal democratic republic founded on the ideals of the enlightenment that would be worth consideration, however they are backed by jihadis.

We'll save your lives from being slaughtered by a tyrant, if you kiss our asses forever after.

Beg for aid, dogs, I said beg. Beg louder!

 

[Agent11]

Because aiding the Afghani's during the Russian occupation didn't have any unforeseen ramifications and they loved us forever right?

 

[Craig234]

Because aiding the Afghani's during the Russian occupation didn't have any unforeseen ramifications and they loved us forever right?

The first thing to note is that we didn't give a crap about the Afghani's - only about wanting the Russians defeated.

If we'd have put a little effort into helping Afghani's more we might have done better with the later relations.

Maybe not - but that was kind of my point too, saving people from slaughter shouldn't need to guarantee you slavish worship. Ya, some gratitude is nice, but do the right thing.

A lot of these problems are actually exacerbated by Western policies. England groomed radical Islamist groups in Saudi Arabia back when it suited their purposes to get a force against the Arab nationalists - directly helping create a strong Muslim Brotherhood as I recall.

The world has gotten very messy - in a good part because of the spread of arms and strengthening of militas done in proxy wars by the superpowers. How many of the murdering throngs around the world use the AK-47's? And with all that, the US is the #1 arms merchant in the world (and one where Republicans in Congress are blocking our ratifying the first UN treaty on the global arms trade that passed with 154 countries voting yes against North Korea, Iran and Syria).

Assad is still backed by Iran and Russia - given he's one of the last holdouts as Iran is now surrounded by US-allied countries with our neocons saying it's a platform to attack them.

We have a pretty one-sided approach, where we have the right to create the most powerful proxy military with nuclear weapons in the neighborhood, but no one else can.

We haven't quite figured out how to deal with an Afghanistan where the closest person we can support is a corrupt guy who used to work for a US oil company.

So, we're planning the expedient thing, leave it where it seems the country will be in a sort of civil war with the Taliban against whatever forces we established.

No easy answers. But our humanitarian aid and some security help does seem to help.

 

[cubby1223]

For just a start, the French don't help the American colonies and the United States is never created.

So Sorry, England, about Hitler being on his way to invade you but there's no such thing as 'allies', you get no help with him. I think that's an example of terrible simple ideology.

Just go back one more step, we would be even better off if Germany had not intervened into England.

And England should have left the U.S. colonies alone.

That also then means the North and South should have split instead of having the Civil War which resulted in so many deaths. Well, not that blacks in the South were treated much better post civil war, compared to the unknown if the South became an independent country...

 

[Harabec]

Sounds like you might be too picky about what a good side to back is. Bottom line is to look for organizations who will help end the killing.

What we start to dictate the also have to have certain political loyalties and not have certain religious practices and so on it gets a bit much for a humanitarian project.

Sometimes 'there are no good sides' and it helps if we help get one organized.

Do you mean setting up a full-scale effort and coming like (as funny as it may sound) "alien overlords"? meaning, not aligned with anyone currently fighting, but with the ultimate goal of helping those caught in the crossfire, in any means deemed fit.

 

[Craig234]

Do you mean setting up a full-scale effort and coming like (as funny as it may sound) "alien overlords"? meaning, not aligned with anyone currently fighting, but with the ultimate goal of helping those caught in the crossfire, in any means deemed fit.

Well, I hesitate to say one size fits all, there are ranges of things - we've mostly just helped stop violence, we've set up some really bad governments (e.g., the Shah of Iran), and we've done some pretty creative things such as when we helped Japan move from an emperor-worshipping society to a democratic one that was very intensive and expensive (we also subsidized their economy to make them a competitor to China in Asia).

Thing is, we do something crappy sometimes and then people turn off to it.

We actually tried pretty hard in pre-war Vietnam, but couldn't do what was needed - we got stuck with a pretty hated and inflexible dictator who made his minority religion oppressive towards the majority for years, and just didn't really make the investment in creating a better system than what seemed like the general of the month approach that wasn't quality democracy in the middle of a war where we sort of fundamentally had made a wrong turn opposing the people's freedoms in the name of anti-communism.

It's not a bad analogy in ways to our current 'no good options' like Syria. We had the chance to make an ally of Ho Chi Minh for decades and who knows how that would have gone, but while he was a legitimate leader for freedom for his people we snubbed looking for an alliance earlier, he was also a murderous competitor for power in his country.

I don't recall much of any American who supported allying with him on behalf of the Vietnames people's freedoms by denying our support to France to re-colonize them after WWII (most Americans don't know the US paid up to 90% of French war costs for them while they occuied Vietnam) - that's 'just how things were done' and not supporting European colonization was a pretty big radical diplomatic shift for us I think mainly Kennedy made for the US.

We thought we were making a shining democracry on the hill with Vietnam - if that sounds familiar to things like our intentions in Iraq.

As citizens we ask, 'don't we know how to do this by now?' But most of our institutions have never been much about the interests of the people, more about how to establish control. Remember in the 1980s how we'd supply big groups of forces trained to torture and kidnap people like professors and labor leaders in Central America as our approach.

And yet 'look how well Japan turned out'. So it's complicated how to help effectively.

For example, Afghanistan is a pretty uneducated and fundamentalist country, it seems, where the wealth that is there is organized around warlords and corruption.

How do you fix that?

 

[Agent11]

This is sort of an odd world view you have, if peace regardless of ideology was the goal the ideal way to attain that would have been to support Assad and crush the rebellion before it had an opportunity to gain momentum.

Ideology matters however, which is why I say we should stay out of it and let Russia decide if and when THEY want to get involved. Syria has always been within Russia's sphere of influence and not ours. Whatever analyst is saying that any action we take will change this and or improve things in any way needs to be fired.

 

[Craig234]

This is sort of an odd world view you have, if peace regardless of ideology was the goal the ideal way to attain that would have been to support Assad and crush the rebellion before it had an opportunity to gain momentum.

Ideology matters however, which is why I say we should stay out of it and let Russia decide if and when THEY want to get involved. Syria has always been within Russia's sphere of influence and not ours. Whatever analyst is saying that any action we take will change this and or improve things in any way needs to be fired.

I'm not saying to leave tyrrany untouched, but I don't have any simply one liners what to do about every case of it either.

The thing with leaving it in Russia's hands, is that they seem to have a pretty high tolerance for that tyranny - sort of like our worse periods - and there is a rebellion.

That's why I said we might not be able to afford to be terribly picky about supporting only people who will be our lapdogs and not do anything we don't like.

I don't want to replace one tyranny with another, but there should be alternatives to that that are better. It takes expertise on our party to help find or even make them.

 

[Murloc]

I don't want to replace one tyranny with another, but there should be alternatives to that that are better. It takes expertise on our party to help find or even make them.

this is meddling with foreign politics and I can't say it works.

Everyone should stay neutral and let the UN act, which would surely happen in case of someone going on a conquering rampage or annexing countries by invading them, but not in grey cases such as this one.

 

[Craig234]

this is meddling with foreign politics and I can't say it works.

Everyone should stay neutral and let the UN act, which would surely happen in case of someone going on a conquering rampage or annexing countries by invading them, but not in grey cases such as this one.

It's a question, what limits to we want on a government slaughtering its own people.

There's a strong moral objection to just allowing it.

This is a tricky issue, because it's so much a matter of opinion when it goes from 'secessionist terrorists' to 'freedom fighters against a tyrant'.

 

[woolfe9998]

I agree with the OP and others who have said do not get involved. This is no longer a situation with a tyrannical government killing an unarmed populace. The rebels here are armed and from what I hear, giving as much as they are getting. It's more in the vein of a civil war at this point than some kind of humanitarian crisis where we have a moral imperative to step in.

Also, I think it's perfectly reasonable to make demands in exchange for aid. We aren't talking about ass kissing here. We'll talking about not supporting terrorism against the US and its allies. So far as I can see, these rebels, though they probably aren't anywhere near all jihadis, can't really make that kind of assurance.

 

[werepossum]

I agree with the OP and others who have said do not get involved. This is no longer a situation with a tyrannical government killing an unarmed populace. The rebels here are armed and from what I hear, giving as much as they are getting. It's more in the vein of a civil war at this point than some kind of humanitarian crisis where we have a moral imperative to step in.

Also, I think it's perfectly reasonable to make demands in exchange for aid. We aren't talking about ass kissing here. We'll talking about not supporting terrorism against the US and its allies. So far as I can see, these rebels, though they probably aren't anywhere near all jihadis, can't really make that kind of assurance.

At the end of the day, there is some value in people being free. We may be trading one terrorist-backing government for another, perhaps even a worse one. But at least if we have to attack them it will be for the actions of their democratically elected government, not for the actions of a government which victimizes them as much as do the terrorists. They'll have the opportunity to choose peace, whether or not they have the will.

 

[JTsyo]

Just go back one more step, we would be even better off if Germany had not intervened into England.

And England should have left the U.S. colonies alone.

That also then means the North and South should have split instead of having the Civil War which resulted in so many deaths. Well, not that blacks in the South were treated much better post civil war, compared to the unknown if the South became an independent country...

There was no US colonies, only British ones.