International Interventions and their comparability

That would be a better fit for the Arab Spring or possibly the Middle East/North Africa threads, since it doesn’t really have to do with the idea of interventionism itself.

Edit: out of context page topper, is out of context.

Edited by megaeliz on Feb 18th 2019 at 11:16:21 AM

Yes. Even when acting against Assad (which is not the main action in Syrian by any means) the US has been acting alongside locals who rose up in revolt independently of any US action (compare with say Iraq where there wa no popular revolt against Saddam). When it comes to the main action against ISIS the US has been acting with a level of UN mandate (I’m going off memory but I believe there’s a UN resolution authorising action against ISIS but the wording is deliberately vague is what action it authorises) and has been acting alongside France (who remember stayed out of Iraq), local forces (the Kurds) and regional allies.

Hell part of why Obama didn’t move against Assad directly was because he couldn’t get support from key US allies, the UK had a big internal political fight over Syria due to a rise in isolationism over here.

Due to the nature of such conflicts statistics are really an easy thing to get, however I’d suggest you compare and contract the successful interventions I’ve mentioned with Rwanda (where the US stayed out of things due to a rise in isolationism after the mess of Somalia), Lebanon after the withdrawn of US troops, Bosnia before the US got involved and Syria in comparison to Libya (two Arab Spring revolts against brutal dictators, one where a direct international intervention occurred to remove the dictator (Libya) and one where the international community stood on the sidelines and just threw a few guns to sympathetic rebels occasionally (Syria)).

If you don’t want your comments removed, perhaps you should refrain from name calling and petty insults. Though, that your arguments have so little substance you’ve had to resort to that is quite telling.

Now, speaking of mental gymnastics:

How is this not an example of “caring what our money is used for”? It’s not like Shokin was just some opposition politician, just one of Ukraine’s “friends”, he was deeply and consistently corrupt throughout his entire career. He used his office to target internationally-recognized anti-corruption initiatives, maliciously fired reformists, blocked cases against his friends and abused his authority to enrich himself at the expense of the public.

What I’m wondering, then, is where you propose we draw the line. Obviously you don’t believe corruption should be a dealbreaker for aid, so what would it take? Do we give aid to any country that doesn’t directly attack us, the hitman in your analogy? What about human rights violations? Should we give military hardware to countries who then turn around and use it to violently suppress dissent? That’s a purely internal matter after all, so by your standards it should be fine.

It’s hard to construe your position as anything but specifically pro-Shokin here, which is not a great position to be holding.

Also:

Let the record show that I admitted no such thing. I found the analogy you drew with Russia withholding aid from the US to be entirely uncompelling, as Russia and the US are not allies as Ukraine and the US are, and Russia has no moral high ground to stand on when it comes to the subject of corruption.

Edited by archonspeaks on Feb 18th 2019 at 7:02:51 AM

Unfounded and conspiratorial statement devoid of anything approaching nuance, nice.

I'm sure the Kurds would love your opposition to their continued survival.

Corruption does not mean "doing stuff you personally do not approve of", refusing to give aid if corruption is not addressed is the opposite of being corrupt.

If I were a conspiracy theorist, I might wonder about paid Russian shills.

From a purely technical standpoint, I'd argue that explicit anti-corruption drives in corrupt countries are ineffectual, little more than purges with a good pretext. I'm entirely in favor of aids with strings attached, but I think those strings should be:

• Increased democratic representativeness and accountability: set the rules up so that people in power need as much of the population supporting them as possible. Gerrymandering, bloc voting, voter suppression, all that crap must go.
• Increased empowerment of these people to share information and make their will known. Freedoms of speech, of assembly, of the press, of information (government transparency), the right to (not be denied) access to the Internet...
• Increased independence of the branches of government, especially the judiciary.
• Constitutional guarantees when it comes to due process.

These types of liberal reforms, especially the first two, are extremely hard to argue against, and astoundingly powerful. Evidence seems to suggest that once these are set in place, countries just sort themselves out, and corruption in particular crumbles under scrutiny, while prosperity comes from the winning coalition being so big that their interest aligns with everybody else's. Even within the US, the difference between, say, West Virginua or Mississipi, and Massachusetts or Vermont, are telling.

Conversely, pushing for the removal of one specific corrupt official, looks more interventionist and sovereignty-bending while at the same time being only a band-aid. Removing a bad person in a bad system will just get them replaced by another. Fix the system, and it will expulse or reform the bad person on its own.

Edited by Oruka on Feb 18th 2019 at 1:25:41 AM

There's precedent for that. The IMF bailout for Indonesia in the wake of the 1997 Asian financial crisis came with a set of stipulations; some were ill-advised, like an austerity measure, but the requirement to set up an anti-corruption commission has yielded huge dividends since.

"some were ill-advised, like an austerity measure"

The IMF is infamous for nigh-Libertarian 'restructuring' plans involving massive privatization and government cutting. I hear they've moved on to more evidence-based suggestions?

We have not agreed on that. Your inane view that doing something and some civilians dying is just as bad as doing nothing and many civilians dying is as ridiculous now as it was before.

So yes, I absolutely can use that argument. Have the intellectual honesty to admit that you want to leave the Kurds to die.

Okay, first off, you’re probably going to get bounced again. This is far from a productive way to handle this conversation. You’re the only one here who’s hurled insults and been unable to remain civil. The accusations of strawmen are in particularly bad faith given the way you’ve refused to engage with posters here.

Second off, nobody here is accusing you of being a Russian agent. What you’ve been called out for doing (doing unintentionally, I believe) is advancing Russian apologia. Your position on the issue of Shokin is internally inconsistent. By your own admission, the US should take steps to ensure (and I quote) that our aid money isn’t used to “keep the corruption and repression going”. However, you don’t believe that the US should take such steps in regards to Ukraine. Unless you’re for some reason in favor of corruption in Ukraine, which I will take you at your word that you are not, this is a contradictory set of positions and comes off intentionally or otherwise as blatant apologia for a corrupt and destabilizing force in Ukraine, one Russia has taken pains to keep in place. This is the same apologia Russia itself has advanced in this case. Putting forward a dishonest argument like that casts doubt on your entire position.

Finally, insisting something, as you’ve pointed out, does not make it true.

The US is not Russia. Your analogy was that the US withholding aid until Ukraine removed a corrupt politician is the same as Russia withholding aid until the US removed an opposition politician. There is no comparison between those two things whatsoever, for a multitude of reasons that have been laid out multiple times by multiple posters. Insisting the analogy is accurate does not make it so. If, as you stated, we should make sure our money isn’t used to furthermore corruption, then asking for corruption to be fought in a country we provide aid to is wholly consistent.

Edited by archonspeaks on Feb 20th 2019 at 1:02:30 AM

Guys don’t engage with people ban dodging, it encourages them and isn’t good for the forum, we have a holler button.

Move from US thread.

"And you think the people living under an oppressive, brutal authoritarian regime would prefer life under it to liberation?"

As someone who is in fact, living under a oprevise regime, i can feel to have voice heard here.

In one hand, we need and intervention and this Is just a fact, chavismo Is not going to go without a fight and none here in LA Is going to do it, in this case i said Perú already did beyond what it need to do.

On the other Hand i just dont Trust you about it, people kept taking about doing "right"but the track récord Is lacking so far, also this Isnt a video game were you cant do awfull shit and Sort saying "oh well, next Time" specially since some shit you did like abu grab or drone strike it just get pass around, for me this Is just top privilege speaking "we did some tinny binny mistakes here but we can do better next Time" after all, it Will never happen to you.

And with saudí Arabia Is a serious blindspot because they have gond away with tons of shit over and over again, Is something you Will have to deal eventually to put your Monet were your mouth Is.

Hmm, true. The fact that there's an intervention that needs doing doesn't automatically qualify anyone to do it.

I cant blame anyone for not trusting the US. We have a history of abandoning our allies when it isn't front page news anymore. An international effort, perhaps under UN administration (with the US providing most of the resources) or, if that's a political non-starter, something like the G20. We have and can do good things in other countries, but someone needs to keep us accountable.

Hard to keep a country accountable when it is so much more powerful than everyone else.

The issue isn’t just accountability but also the fact that there really isn’t anyone else capable of performing large interventions.

Yeah. The US have all. Population, a lot of millitary bases through the world. It's a well done war machinary, I admire USA for it.

Interventions are, as a rule, not done for the benefit of the people on the receiving end. If a country decides to intervene in a situation in another country, it's because they think doing so will benefit them, not because it will make the world a better place. In the best case scenario, it's a win-win situation where the intervention benefits both parties. In the worst case, it turns into a clusterfuck where nobody benefits.

Which means it's certainly reasonable to be suspicious of interventions as a rule — but being suspicious about it is not the same thing as axiomatically rejecting them all as a bad idea.

Yes, this is a belief that you can hold.

But it's only a convincing argument to those who agree with you, for those of us who are motivated by the Greater Good and do not believe that being in government magically makes one indifferent to it, it's the opposite of convincing.

Yes, states often are self-interested to some degree. And that effects the people who compose them, but to claim they cannot be motivated by the Greater Good is just ridiculous.

The historical record is pretty clear. The US probably has the best overall record regarding international interventions, and, well, I know that I don't have to point out the problems in our record. Still, overall, there is no reason why the US, or the international community, couldn't commit to doing a better job. A prosperous, peaceful world does benefit everyone, after all.