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Edited by Mrph1 on Nov 30th 2023 at 11:03:59 AM
It makes you totally incapable of getting the necessary political backing to start a war. The reason political realism is an almost inescapable reality of international relations is because, particularly in regards to military decisions, certain elite interests have a very disproportionate amount of influence. In aggregate, those interests are largely self-interested and generally rational. If a war does not benefit a country's political elite, it's not happening.
edited 1st Jun '16 3:55:23 PM by CaptainCapsase
Have you ever considered that your view is a luxury you're able to afford due to living in a safe country that's not overrun by war and destruction?
You and I can sit in our safe ivory towers and talk about the morality of intervention and if it's humanitarian or not till the cows come home, because in the end we're not the ones who have our lives on the line. We're not the ones stuck on a mountain praying for an aid drop from a US plane, we're not the ones whose only hope of returning home is a French airstrikes combined with Kurdish militias, we're not the ones who don't get our humanitarian aid because nobody is willing to send troops to guard the aid shipments.
edited 1st Jun '16 3:56:18 PM by Silasw
“And the Bunny nails it!” ~ Gabrael “If the UN can get through a day without everyone strangling everyone else so can we.” ~ Cyran
Have you ever considered that every form of media is carefully crafted to shape your perception of the world and events going on throughout? Market trends tend to cause all media to converge on positions supported by the political elite, with the democratic process under normal circumstances being the discourse and debate between those elites. Common people have some influence on that process, depending on the state, but not as much as we'd like to think.
edited 1st Jun '16 3:58:19 PM by CaptainCapsase
Hate to break it to you but nobody in this thread belongs to those elite interests. That's your problem really—you think you know what makes state actors tick, and then you try and apply that reasoning to why those of us in this thread hold political beliefs. Sadly, it doesn't work that way.
I want ISIS dead. That is my sole reason for backing intervention. I want it dead for humanitarian reasons, and nothing else. I'm guessing, based on his prior posts, that Silas feels the same way.
Have you ever considered that other people could be as knowledgeable about world affairs as you are and just think you're wrong?
And once again—I, at least, don't care what the "political elites'" motives are for stopping ISIS, because ISIS needs to be stopped. We could have started bombing them because we didn't like the colour of al-Baghdadi's socks and it would still be a-okay by me.
edited 1st Jun '16 3:58:43 PM by AmbarSonofDeshar
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It's not a shadowy cabal; organizations of all sorts from clubs to corporations to nations have agency beyond any of the individual actors within it, which comes from the rules such organizations impose on human interaction; it's much like how ants form what we call a Hive Mind, but with a human social network. That's how the "False Consciousness", if you want to use Marx's term for this phenomena actually works, and while it can be very effective in the short term for supporting a war effort, without a real and clear threat, it falls flat in due time.
edited 1st Jun '16 4:04:21 PM by CaptainCapsase
I've considered it, but I've always spent years studying and working inside the political system, you know what I discovered?
They're not that competent. The rational elites you talk about? They're people, often they're smart rational people but they're still people, still people with human emotions and feelings, they're not robots programmed to pull strings so as to ensure maximum benefit for the state.
They have beliefs, ideas, emotions and everything else. They screw up, they screw up a lot, they try and do what they honestly believe is good and they screw up.
Yes there are smoke filled rooms where few elites plot how to do the best for themselves and screw over others. But they're small rooms. More often then not it's simply people who due to their environment and surrounding honestly think they're doing good when in fact they're doing bad.
It's comforting to think that the world is run by some grand evil conspiracy, it makes sense of the madness, it gives meaning to events and grants us a great evil to rail against. But it's not true, this isn't a story with a big bad villain, it's a world where shit sometimes just happens, where things don't make sense, where people who honestly think they're doing good do bad.
The smoke filled room of puppet masters is a nice fantasy to make sense of the madness of reality, but it's just that, a fantasy, the madness isn't controlled, it's just madness.
“And the Bunny nails it!” ~ Gabrael “If the UN can get through a day without everyone strangling everyone else so can we.” ~ CyranThe "False Consciousness" idea is one of the (many) things I dislike about Marxism-it basically assumes that you either agree with it, or you're brainwashed.
Leviticus 19:34![]()
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It's madness which lends itself to a greater overarching order; not dictated by men in smoked filled rooms (usually), but rather by the emergent group-think phenomena that are present sufficiently complex social network possesses.
@Protagonist: It's more complicated than that; it's a sociological theory for why people in the lower class, who are, under sociological theory, assumed to be rational actors in aggregate, put up with their position in life, despite the inherent unfairness, or why they tend to support wars when every indication is that war is virtually only ever a decision that is by the elite and for the elite.
edited 1st Jun '16 4:09:40 PM by CaptainCapsase
While I (strongly) disagree with Capase's viewpoint, I wouldn't call it quite a conspiracy theory. What they're proposing is more along the lines of "people are being dumb because of a hidden sociological mechanic".
Leviticus 19:34
X5 This came out of a discussion about the US's role in Syria and if Clinton's support of it makes her an unsupportable candidate, sadly Capsase hasn't responded to the points made about why Syria is a good thing and we've just drifted as the rest of us respond to an ever shifting goalpost.
X3 That think is formed and changed at a basic level, it's one person talking to one other person. That's how you topple empires and bring ruin to continents, the group-think can be changed and moved, likewise not every person is a perfect little robot that moves according to the think, when you fail to account for the human factor you fail to account for a key piece of the puzzle.
edited 1st Jun '16 4:11:24 PM by Silasw
“And the Bunny nails it!” ~ Gabrael “If the UN can get through a day without everyone strangling everyone else so can we.” ~ CyranOkay then, I feel as if I really should apologize for getting everyone pissed off again. Under normal circumstances, my mind tends to jump between topics very quickly, and there's really nothing I like more than a constantly changing discussion about no topic in particular, usually centered on abstract matters.
When I get frustrated with a particular topic, my first instinct is to try and change it. Which is probably why I end up bringing the topic all over the place since political discussions are generally frustrating if not infuriating to all involved when its not in an echo chamber.
Being accustomed to an academic setting, I also have noticed I have a tendency to start playing devil's advocate whenever I feel a debate is becoming too one-sided, hence for example me attempting to come up with a somewhat reasonable rationale for Trump's ludicrous (in my view) foreign policy suggestions, and me taking a far more anti-interventionist stance than I actually hold; I'm still not of the opinion that intervention in Syria is likely to bring about satisfactory results, but I'm not a total pacifist; there are indeed cases where I could envision myself, very cautiously supporting military intervention, though my first instinct is always to try and identify an ulterior motive behind it, and determine for myself whether or not that motive is compatible with the theoretically noble rationale proposed.
Now in particular, I feel I ought to apologize to @Ambar and @silasw for being rather confrontational and potentially condescending.
edited 1st Jun '16 4:26:46 PM by CaptainCapsase
There's no need to say sorry to me, I very much enjoyed this and certainly didn't take any offence at anything. Plus I'm pretty sure I snarked you a bit back.
If you wanna talk about Syria a bit more come on over to the Arab Spring thread, it's a fair bit calmer and would mean I'd have one less tab I need to keep open.
As for "a constantly changing discussion about no topic in particular", I think you might be in the wrong section for that, we're called On-Topic Conversations for a reason.
Tvtropes' community never fails to deliver digital CMOHs.
One last thing I'd like to add is that I often find myself in an extreme hurry trying to type up a post, even when I'm covering a topic that's extremely complex, such as the extent to which networks of people exhibit traits associated with a Hive Mind, and often end up completely failing to capture the point I'm trying to get across (in this case, the notion that people don't always have an accurate assessment of their situation, especially when you have one of the world's largest and most advanced intelligence agencies undoubtedly at work behind the scenes.)
edited 1st Jun '16 5:19:44 PM by CaptainCapsase
So, since we're already on the topic of "media narrative", Katie Couric reportedly engaged in some
Manipulative Editing for the documentary "Under the Gun", making it seem as though 2nd Amendment advocates were caught in a Stunned Silence when asked about the possibility of a felon or terrorist getting a firearm, rather than having readied responses.
Edit: According to the article, Couric claims that she wasn't the one to do it, but her editors, and she expressed "misgivings" when she saw it in a pre-screening.
edited 1st Jun '16 6:51:54 PM by ironballs16
"Why would I inflict myself on somebody else?"

That a poll says the USA is the greatest threat to world peace =/= the US should ignore people who've asked for help. The Iraqi government wants American help in getting rid of ISIS. Other states in the Middle East want American help getting rid of ISIS. Even Iran, not one of the USA's traditional boosters, is pretty okay with the Americans wanting to get rid of ISIS.
This is my problem with your argument, and with the notion that what you're advocating is political realism. Realism would dictate that every situation is different and has to be approached on its own merits. Intervention against ISIS is not the Iraq War, any more than defending South Korea from North Korea is the Vietnam War.
As for airstrikes only delaying ISIS...let's accept that for the moment. I'm good with delaying ISIS. I'm good with anything that delays genocidal madmen from killing more people. Again, this isn't Iraq. This isn't Vietnam. This is a war where you guys were invited in by sitting governments and regional groups alike. Your repeat efforts to create a false equivalence are exactly that.
And no, interventionism doesn't make you an imperialist. To be an imperialist you'd have to want something back. I don't think Silas is looking to be King of Syria. Or to get more oil for that matter. I know I'm certainly not. I just want the ISIS leadership dead. Period, end of sentence. I suppose to you that makes me a warmongering monster.
@Protagonist
Dictionary definition of empire. You guys are, by that definition, an empire. Just ask all the Native American tribes and former Mexican states that you incorporated into your body politic and subjugated to your federal government.
None of which is to say you're inherently bad. But you are by definition an empire.
edited 1st Jun '16 3:54:41 PM by AmbarSonofDeshar