cougarguard.com — unofficial BYU Cougars / LDS sports, football, basketball forum and message board  

Go Back   cougarguard.com — unofficial BYU Cougars / LDS sports, football, basketball forum and message board > non-Sports > Current Events

Reply
 
Thread Tools Display Modes
Old 12-01-2006, 07:10 PM   #51
Archaea
Assistant to the Regional Manager
 
Archaea's Avatar
 
Join Date: Aug 2005
Location: The Orgasmatron
Posts: 24,338
Archaea is an unknown quantity at this point
Default

Quote:
Originally Posted by hoyacoug View Post
None of those cultures ever adopted that point of view, and each of their empires subsequently collapsed. You haven't given me a great example of how their foreign policy led to preservation!

You are failing to see that promoting law and order and human rights can also promote selfish interesll. Countries that observe law, order and human rights also tend to be more stable economically and, thus, better trading partners. They also pose less of a threat to our security interests. Same thing with BP, for example, who is spending billions of dollars on finding alternatives to oil. It is great for the world that they do it, and it is also great for them because then they will have a product that they can profit from at the end.

Another example: dolphin safe tuna. People got angry that tuna nets were killing dolphins, so corporations made their nets dolphin safe. You almost can't buy tuna today that doesn't say "dolphin safe" on the label. They did something good at considerable expense which then came back to be beneficial for them in the end (by attracting customers again).
Nothing created by man will last forever. You assume, falsely, that foreign policy led to their downfall. Usually, if not always, it was internal policy that failed these cultures. They did last hundreds, if not thousand of years. How much longer should they last?

That naive approach is simply cart before apple, which is my objection to Bush's approach. You don't give democracy to people wanting stability, economic success and who are not educated.

You must also engage in a costs benefit approach in light of very limited dollars.

An approach of curing the world's ills does not create stability as there is not enough money anywhere to solve ills.

For a society to become stable, it needs these things created internally, not externally.

First, economic viability, economic freedom and resources or skills which one can market. Without that, that society can never succeed.

Second, it needs to have a reason to exist. Many of the world's nations have been forced together unnaturally by colonial powers. Artificial nations are less likely to last.

Third, the internal structure of governance must mature as the people become more educated.

Fourth, the society must protect itself from outside predators.

It is naive, costly and will not ever succeed to think we can solve any or most of Africa's problems. It is a collection of feudal nations, a greatly illiterate populace, with badly allocated resources, and horrible governments.

The naive police advocated since Carter will simply send our nation reeling sooner than natural causes will incur it.

We cannot impose civility in the Sudan, Somalia or any where else for that matter. Until the internal population consent to be governed, no amount of police force can succeed.

Until the people consent to governing themselves intelligently, no amount of AIDS expenditures will succeed.

I doubt many of those cultures will survive, as they lack the internal characteristics for them to survive.
__________________
Ἓν οἶδα ὅτι οὐδὲν οἶδα
Archaea is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 12-01-2006, 07:30 PM   #52
UtahDan
Senior Member
 
UtahDan's Avatar
 
Join Date: Aug 2005
Location: The Bluth Home
Posts: 3,877
UtahDan is on a distinguished road
Default

( NOTE: I had to delete your first quote and part of others, apparently there is a limit to how many characters there can be in one post, lets call it an "anti-blow hard" device)

I know you keep wanting to bring the conversation back to AIDS only, but as I said before I am now talking about a larger point nad have been for several posts now. What I then tried to explain, and maybe not succinctly, is that the larger point still may tell us somethign about your point. Let me see if I can be more clear and anwer your questions.

1. The larger point is that many who believe that it is not for us to solve Iraq's problems believe that we should try to solve Africas problems.

2. A narrower point is that putting troops in the Sudan would present many of the same challenges that being in Iraq has, that is, there is an ongoing civil war involving muslim arabs and it is certain that at least one side of that fight would not welcome us.

3. Moving back to the big picture, we went to Iraq for selfish reasons and, finding no WMD, have stayed for what I believe are a mix of noble and selfish purposes. What we are learning is that our good intentions in trying to give democracy to Iraq have not been well recieved, that the gift is not particularly wanted, that our idea of what is rational is different from theirs and that it is very difficult to bring about the desired outcome.
Speaking broadly, we are learning that not only can we not solve the problem, we cannot even really identify a problem that Iraqis think needs addressing.

What does this teach us about trying to "fix" Africa in any sense? That we cannot expect help, that our efforts will at best not be appreciated and at worst we will be blamed for any problems that result, that our help may not be wanted and that we may not be able to affect the desired outcome anyway. You aren't going to hear me say that these are reasons not to attempt these things in either case and I have said over and again that I think we should help with AIDS because of the innocent victims. My bottom line point is that many who seem to believe that we shouldn't attempt to fix Iraq want us to fix Africa, what I am insinuating I suppose is that one they find politically objectionable and the other not but there is no consistency as to where we ought to intervene as a general principle. As I say, that is a point which is a step removed from talking about AIDS, except to the extent I have already said.


Quote:
Originally Posted by hoyacoug View Post
This, again, is dealing with a secondary issue to the issue I am raising here, but I will say that obviously intervention is a difficult issue. The US cannot be involved in every human rights issue throughout the world. It simply isn't practical. That said, I think most would agree that there does come a line where US intervention does become justified and necessary. Where that line is probably cannot be clearly defined, any more than terrorism can be defined, and it will vary from person to person. So, sticking to the topic, I find it obvious that the potential for 120 million AIDS related deaths (most of which will occur in Africa) within the next 25 years IS worthy of intervention. I wouldn't be at all surprised, by the way, if 125 million deaths is more than the total number of people who have died in every war ever fought.
This again depends on what you mean by intervene. If what you mean is money, then I can go along with that because we throw tons of money at all kinds of suspect things. Really, this is a moot point in many ways because we are already pouring a ton of money into this very effort. The President was talking about it again today, in fact, and soliciting other nations to do likewise. I think I agreed that we should do this at the outset of this discussion.

If what you are talking about is putting troops on the ground (which is where I have been trying in vain to move the conversation) to save lives in Darfur, then we are back to my point that this is apples to apples to Iraq in many ways.


Quote:
Originally Posted by hoyacoug View Post
How can you seriously try to separate the toppling of the government from the aftermath? Isn't that like saying, "Well, we successfully started our campfire, you can't focus on the fact that it burned down the forest." The two issues go hand in hand. Toppling a government isn't difficult. We could topple every government in the world tomorrow if we wanted to. The aftermath IS the issue. Then what? The aftermath we are talking about is the aftermath of US involvement. In Iraq, our involvement has created a disaster. In Sudan, there is no aftermath yet because we have not yet acted.
How is the question of whether the current situation is the aftermath of invasion or the state that things have evolved to without an invasion relevant to my point that, regardless, both sitations are civil war and disorder with muslim arabs on both sides? My point is that the current situsations are very much the same and that if we interject ourselves in the Sudan we will face many of the same challenges for that reason. I agree that they are not identical, but in each case you have disturbed the order that pre-existed you arrival and someone will then be motivated to get you to leave. Are you arguing that since we won't be toppling a dictator that we will be well recieved there?

Quote:
Originally Posted by hoyacoug View Post
Why the fatalism with Darfur and not with Iraq?
At last, I've gotten through! My point is EXACTLY that it is ironic that so many are fatalistic about Iraq but optimistic about Darfur. I don't think I have advanced a plan or said we should NEVER put troops there, I have just been pointing out that it is not remarkably different in terms of the challenges we will face to those we now face in Iraq. The position you have adopted is consistent and I'm certain I have said on this board in the past that I think it is the correct one.


Quote:
Originally Posted by hoyacoug View Post
When did I say Afghanistan attacked us? I said we were attacked (passive voice, assigns no subject) and I said that attack required a response. Those responsible happened to be in Afghanistan at the time (which is not the same as saying Afghanistan attacked us). Certainly you understand that terrorists are frequently not state actors, don't you?
You said:

Quote:
Originally Posted by hoyacoug View Post
In Afghanistan, we were attacked, and our need to preserve our own security demanded a response.
If you will agree that this sentence is vague, then I will admit that mI was intentionally obtuse with my question. I have no idea what "in Afghanistan, we were attacked" means. What I assume you mean is that in the case of Afghanistan we were attacked. It sounds so straight forward when you put it that way and so easily distinguishable from Iraq. Yet the reality, of course, is that the Taliban didn't attack us and most of the 9-11 terrorist were Saudi's. Also, we killed a lot of innocent Afghanis over there. So what's the difference between Afghanistan and Iraq? Oh yes, we found no WMD in Iraq. It would be like if we found no terrorist camps in Afghanistan. But what I am pointing to is that both are equally pre-emptive. In the end what we were wanting to pre-empt in Afghanistan we actually found and not so in Iraq, but the logic for going is nearly identical. I head in this direction because I tire a little of "Afghanistan was obviously right to do and Iraq obviously wrong" when the reality is that a priori they are very similar indeed. Maybe I need to start a new thread for this question, but how would you feel about the invasion if we found WMD's aplenty and yet found ourselves in the identical quagmire we are now in?

Quote:
Originally Posted by hoyacoug View Post
How small does that leap appear now? By the way, for all the rhetoric I hear about "not letting a threat like that gather and wait for it to come to fruition," I have yet to hear an explanation for why other proponents of that viewpoint, and I imagine yourself included, do not favor an invasion of N. Korea, Saudi Arabia or Iran.
The first part is easy (pay attention this is something you can learn from me): in hindsight it looks like a much larger leap and I and other were probably wrong.

The second part does not have a single answer, but they are all easy answers. We don't invade North Korea because they already have nukes and are a client state of nuclear China. Saudi Arabia we don't invade because, at least nominally, they are our partner and whereas we seem have had some success in modifying their behavior (though of course not always and of course we have failed in important areas) we never modified Saddam's behavior. Last, invading Iran is impossible for two reasons: (a) we don't have the military capability to do it and (b) we have learned in Iraq that in the short term you lose more lives in an invasion than you do to a WMD. This is a lesson we will unlearn instantaneously if one ever goes off in a US city. The reality is that if the political will existed, we could also invade Iran. Let us hope that the events necessary to create that will never come to pass.


Quote:
Originally Posted by hoyacoug View Post
We do have an interest there- preservation of law, order and human life and respect. I hope we do get involved, and I hope we actually have a plan before becoming involved. Whether or not Cindy Sheehan protests is not of paramount concern to me.
Don't we also have the same interest in ending poverty in Mexico? Don't we have that same interest in a hundred different things around the globe? As you assert these interests, aren't you guilty of the same selectivity of application you accuse me of above? Isn't it true that our politics inform how and where we apply our principles, or worse.......maybe they are post-hoc rationalizations. :-) Hmmmm. Perhaps we aren't as different as it would seem.
__________________
The Bible tells us how to go to heaven, not how the heavens go. -Galileo

Last edited by UtahDan; 12-01-2006 at 07:39 PM.
UtahDan is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 12-01-2006, 07:33 PM   #53
UtahDan
Senior Member
 
UtahDan's Avatar
 
Join Date: Aug 2005
Location: The Bluth Home
Posts: 3,877
UtahDan is on a distinguished road
Default

Quote:
Originally Posted by hoyacoug View Post
You are failing to see that promoting law and order and human rights can also promote selfish interests. Countries that observe law, order and human rights also tend to be more stable economically and, thus, better trading partners. They also pose less of a threat to our security interests.
How do you feel about promoting these things through, oh I don't know......regime change? :-)
__________________
The Bible tells us how to go to heaven, not how the heavens go. -Galileo
UtahDan is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 12-01-2006, 07:38 PM   #54
creekster
Senior Member
 
creekster's Avatar
 
Join Date: Aug 2005
Location: the far corner of my mind
Posts: 8,711
creekster is an unknown quantity at this point
Default

Quote:
Originally Posted by hoyacoug
You are failing to see that promoting law and order and human rights can also promote selfish interests. Countries that observe law, order and human rights also tend to be more stable economically and, thus, better trading partners. They also pose less of a threat to our security interests.
So Hoyacoug is a law and order type who is highly interested in improving the stability of nations to, among other things, improve their value as consumers of our goods? I would not have guessed.
__________________
Sorry for th e tpyos.
creekster is offline   Reply With Quote
Reply

Bookmarks

Thread Tools
Display Modes

Posting Rules
You may not post new threads
You may not post replies
You may not post attachments
You may not edit your posts

BB code is On
Smilies are On
[IMG] code is On
HTML code is Off

Forum Jump


All times are GMT. The time now is 12:32 PM.


Powered by vBulletin® Version 3.8.2
Copyright ©2000 - 2024, Jelsoft Enterprises Ltd.