New Testingstan

adr wrote:i love that fucking face. its clever and totally original in all situations

I hate that fucking face. It's not clever, it's tired and a crutch for people who can't express original thoughts.

I think someone should do that rar, but with posts per day.

Darth Fanboy wrote:I hate that fucking face. It's not clever, it's tired and a crutch for people who can't express original thoughts.

:troll:

RogueIce wrote:Fine. You name a better smilie for indicating you're trolling.

You know, I disagree with a lot of the stuff my government does, but that doesn't prevent me from saying "how the fuck is that stuff our fault" occasionally.

Especially in re: Libya, I'm not sure exactly what we could have done there except not participate, and I get the feeling that doing that was going to get us painted as "on the side of Ghadaffi. We intervened in about the most limited way we can, and yet there are still cries of "foul imperialist aggressor."

I'm not saying I agree with the intervention, but then again, I seem to have a higher (and at times lower) tolerance for watching atrocities on television/in the news and going, "Eh, us trying to fix it will make it worse," than a lot of people seem to.

It seems to me that the human race (maybe its just america, but I really don't think this is the kind of thing that is just american) is very compassionate and very angry. People seem to default as in-the-group (i'll use people/non-people), and when suffering is witnessed, there appears to be a desire to get involved and end it. Once a group of people get deemed* "non-people", then we stop seeing their suffering the same way, it can still penetrate, but it has to get bad. The deeming of "non-people" also seems to be something that can be undone, but not easily, taking generational timescales.

* Who does the deeming is sort of a collective process, and while the government and the media can influence it, I think there are some really unpredictable elements in it as well. "Non-people" is a relative term in this case, I am probably a non-person to a violent muslim extremist, or even to a radical, violent christian conservative - and maybe even a few members of TEO, the way they tend to talk about americans, particularly the ones that fall into the upper end of the middle-class ranges (or union members). It seems to me that the best way to get yourself (as a group) deemed "non-person" is to be strongly opposed to someones beliefs, and the stronger the beliefs, the more easily even a little disagreement gets you into the "non-person" box.

I cant decide if Libya was a good idea or not, probably take decades to see all the effects but sure as shit i'm tired of playing world cop.

Aaron wrote:I cant decide if Libya was a good idea or not, probably take decades to see all the effects but sure as shit i'm tired of playing world cop.

That's pretty much where I am. I have no idea if it was a good idea, and I'd have rather kept the sword in the scabbard until I knew, but I can understand the point of those who feel jerked around.

There I go, empathizing again. Next thing you know I'm going to start wondering if an intervention on behalf of "those who feel jerked around" is justified...

my attitude is quite simple: if europe wants to go do some intervening it can fucking go do it itself

RogueIce wrote:Fine. You name a better smilie for indicating you're trolling.

Just look at the top of the page. If it says 'New Testingstan' you're probably ok making that assumption.

Well it's very difficult not to want to intervene when you get reports of things like "soldiers being issued Viagra so they can rape" and "bombardment of residential areas by Navy ships"

Aaron wrote:I cant decide if Libya was a good idea or not, probably take decades to see all the effects but sure as shit i'm tired of playing world cop.

because we've had such a fantastic success rate at disposing tinpot dictators in the middle east

Darth Fanboy wrote:Well it's very difficult not to want to intervene when you get reports of things like "soldiers being issued Viagra so they can rape" and "bombardment of residential areas by Navy ships"

Yeah that was the motivation lol

oh those oil fields and gaddafi doing his own thing had nothing to do with it

no no gotta protect the wimminz and freedoms you see, imperialism is just a side-effect of that

starku wrote:

Darth Fanboy wrote:Well it's very difficult not to want to intervene when you get reports of things like "soldiers being issued Viagra so they can rape" and "bombardment of residential areas by Navy ships"

Yeah that was the motivation lol

will people ever learn that the reasons used to convince the people that we should intervene may be different than the reasons of the interventionists to intervene

n

How about in situations where the reasons may well have been positive

Like the Balkans

The situation is not improved

Motivation does not change outcomes

starku wrote: Yeah that was the motivation lol

Dooey Jo wrote:oh those oil fields and gaddafi doing his own thing had nothing to do with it

no no gotta protect the wimminz and freedoms you see, imperialism is just a side-effect of that

Because sitting by and doing nothing while people are raped and killed wanton is the moral choice? I won't disagree that the Qaddafi-factor made it much more tantalizing for Western intervention but the idea that "no intervention ever of any kind in any situation" is bullshit.

Edit: italicized portion

Stop conflating 'moral choice' with a specific set of options, methods or outcomes

It makes you look simple-minded

And seriously honestly did you forget the old 'why not all these other similar or worse situations'

starku wrote:Stop conflating 'moral choice' with a specific set of options, methods or outcomes

It makes you look simple-minded

And seriously honestly did you forget the old 'why not all these other similar or worse situations'

I really don't care how I look, I personally think that sitting by and doing nothing to help people that are suffering is terrible, and that people or governments with the ability to help can and should do so.

The question that the US Government/Military has failed to properly handle is "what do we do that doesn't royally screw up the situation even worse?" They answered that question wrong in Afghanistan, and then ignored that spectacularly overwhelming piece of evidence to go after Iraq, and then ignored that spectacularly overwhelming piece of evidence to intervene in Libya, although by not using much if anything in the way of ground forces it hasn't swayed the public opinion as much. But these past failures don't mean that the US should not take action in similar situations in the future, but it does mean that said actions need to be entirely different (non military, more diplomatic etc...)

I don't think you understand what people are talking about, honestly

If you keep fuckign up in a way that creates huge misery at huge expense, but enriches others, does it remain the 'moral choice' to do it

Or is 'moral' code for 'makes you feel good that they claim they tried'

starku wrote:I don't think you understand what people are talking about, honestly

If you keep fuckign up in a way that creates huge misery at huge expense, but enriches others, does it remain the 'moral choice' to do it

Or is 'moral' code for 'makes you feel good that they claim they tried'

You're misrepresenting my stance. I agree with you that it is not the moral choice to intervene for the sake of intervention, where I disagree is that "do nothing at all" should not be the default course of action as the result of that. The objective would then be to find a better way, and that does not mean "but until then go in and bomb the shit outta 'dem".

Do you think the problem is more that america tends of only use one tool in the box or that they don't bother fully understanding a situation

Because a guy hanging his fist on the table saying BUT WE MUST DO SOEMTHING should remember that someones the best thin you can do is nothing

The west was happy to buy oil from Gadaffi since at least 2006. It's possible Western public opinion would have demanded sanctions or an oil embargo after he crushed the rebels, but if that's the case he just sells to China and the market just shifts around; this side of an outright blockade, Libyan oil is getting to the world market.

I think the Lybian intervention was a genuine humanitarian one--with a side of revenge against Gadaffi, but still I think the base motivation was "we're not going to sit back and watch this fat obnoxious jerkoff murderize Benghazi". Because as an imperialist oil grab or attempt to set up a new client to replace Egypt, it doesn't make much sense, and whatever Obama's other faults, neo-Wilsonian imperial adventures that don't make any sense were his predecessor's thing, not his.

And I don't really think "Why not elsewhere?" is as difficult a problem as some people think: everything lined up in Libya to make an intervention possible and politically palatable--Arab League support, military opposition that actually controlled territory, popular anti-Gadaffi sentiment within the country, no important allies (including us), and no chance for Libya to fight back. Of course it's completely hypocritical to intervene in Libya against a longtime enemy while our friends in Bahrain and our other friends the Saudis roll tanks into Pearl Square, but I'm not sure why consistently sitting back while dictators slaughter protesters is somehow a better or more ethical policy than inconsistently intervening.

If only morals saved lives I guess

this is like the prime directive arguments


i wonder if history would show some kind of cycle

adventure for a while

swing toward noninterventenaitalism when you realize that sucks

then see bad shit and say we have to do something

but it goes wrong so it swings back


repeat forever