Say NO to intervention in Darfur!

http://www.boston.com/news/globe/ideas/articles/2006/04/23/peace_corp/?page=full http://www.seanet.com/~jimxc/Politics/April2006_4.html#jrm4178

"Nah I actually think the world should intervene in an instance such as this. Genocide is no laughing matter and if possible the powerful nations should step in to sort things out." HELL NO! This is EXACTLY the kind of thinking the Founding Fathers frowned upon. It's the same sick-minded mentality that informed the decision to get involved in Kosovo. Even if one thinks it's a "good cause" it'll STILL bilk the taxpayers, STILL cost American lives, and STILL create enemies out of people who are doing nothing to harm America. People who feel strongly about the genocide in Darfur should put up their OWN money to fund an intervention and hire mercenaries to carry it out. The George Cloonies of the world have no right, none at all, to steal from my pocket or to get me killed so that they can feel better about themselves. At a time when America is dealing with... - an invasion from South of the border - almost historic levels of gov't debt - terrorists who hate and want to kill us - stagnant growth in real wages for low and middle income workers - unprecedented consumer debt - environmental problems - a possible dollar collapse (if gold prices are any indication) - a collosal trade deficit - the aftermath of Katrina ...we DO NOT have the luxury of running around the world trying to live up to the Spider Man foreign policy! In fact, no nation has ever truly had such a luxury--believing oneself all powerful, specially responsible for the world, or any similar arrogant sentiment is EXACTLY the mindset that brought about the fall of the world's great empires and civilizations. And if we're going to get involved in stopping all the world's atrocities, where does it end? Zimbabwe? East Timor? Tibet? It NEVER ends--not until America is destitude and as miserable as all the people we're supposedly responsible to save. Hey maybe THAT'S the real design of all the various neocons, Wilsonians, open-borders types, redistributionists, and one-worlders out there. Fuck those people! America First!

"Lindbergh lives on in spirit, if not body." Lindbergh was the man! Robert Taft was pretty awesome too.

given limited resources, obviously America has to weigh costs against benefits. but you underestimate the intangible benefits that accrue, Buddhadev. http://www.nationalreview.com/goldberg/goldberg050300.asp http://www.nationalreview.com/goldberg/goldberg051000.asp

"but you underestimate the intangible benefits that accrue, Buddhadev" Those things that the Jonah Goldbergs of the world see as "intangible benefits" are born of exactly the mentality I oppose. America has every right to just be a normal country and live and prosper. It's folly to replace the wisdom of Founders with the teachings of Spider Man. Do you feel differently? Fine, then write a cheque and/or pick up an M16 on your own to make it happen. Jonah Goldberg is the biggest fraud and coward out there. It was awesome when Juan Cole pwn3d him in the flame war they had about Iran's 1997 election. Jonah was of appropriate age to enlist when the Iraq war started, but mysteriously decided to sit out. What a fat, disgusting waste of flesh that man is! I've seen his nutball Africa invasion idea before. I find everything he said in that article sickenning. America's greatness is not on trial and doesn't need to be justified to the world or anyone else. America was just as great in 1905 as it was when we won WWII or when the Soviet Union collapsed. Furthermore, true patriotism isn't a quest for "national greatness." If you're a patriot, you love your country the way you love your mother--not because she's "great," but because she's YOUR mother. I'm reminded of a great quote by free market economist, William Graham Sumner: "My patriotism," he wrote, "is outraged by the notion that the United States never was a great nation until in a petty three months campaign it knocked to pieces a poor, decrepit, bankrupt old state like Spain."

So Jonah was basically a chiken-hawk?

"Those things that the Jonah Goldbergs of the world see as 'intangible benefits' are born of exactly the mentality I oppose." you really fail to distinguish between those who recognize the only intangibles that matter are those that benefit America (Goldberg, I, you), and those who do not (Joe Ray). shrinking Barnett's "gap" is in America's best interest, as is giving purpose to a generation, as is gaining the "good will" of those non-patriots holding the mentality opposed (who see the action as altruistic).

Hey folks, gonna be away on orders for the next few days so I'll pick this back up when I return.

hard question the morality of intervention is indisputable, but the advisability of it is open to debate. How much will it cost? What will we replace the current order with? How long do we plan to be there? How many people will we be willing to kill to save others? As stated above, we have finite resources. It might be worse to go in and not finish the job than to "let nature take its course" and deal with the winners You have to be realistic about this, and look at what can be done considering americas rescources and willpower. Will we simply replace one genocidal oppressor with another? If we do, (and we have done this in the past), it should only be for some measureable benefit to the united states. I vote no for direct military intervention Perhaps we could hire some mercs to do the dirty work for us

http://www.tcsdaily.com/article.aspx?id=050306G

"Stay safe Buddhadev!" Thanks! I appreciate the well wishes. However, it was just a CPR instructor class at Madigan Hospital (Ft. Lewis) so the only threat to my safety would've been getting into a traffic accident during the 50 mile commute. :-) "Are you saying that we have no responsibility to the world as a whole?" On the contrary, I believe every human being born on this earth has a tremendous moral obligation to the world as a whole and will answer to G-d for how he or she kept that obligation. The difference between our views is that I don't believe any human beings or human isntitutions have either the moral right or the capability to be G-d. "I don't buy it. That mentality undermines what we value as a society-- mutual benefit through cooperation." What the Cloonies of the world seek isn't cooperation. It's coercion. "Why should we not take your approach to domestic matters? Outside of our tribe/clan?" There are a few answers to this. For one thing why should we not take YOUR approach to interspecies matters? Maybe spotted owls would like to vote in our elections? I'm not trying to be funny: I'm just showing you the logical extension of the one-worlder post-modernist fluff you're subscribing to. While all the cool kids are certainly really amped about things like being uniters rather than dividers and like trashing the ideas of "isolationism," "polarization," "divisiveness," and "statification," the fact is that these things are necessary to maintain order and freedom in a political context:--just as labels and classifications are necessary to maintain order and freedom in an intellectual context. Another answer is that I don't necessarily have a problem with the concept of ethno-specific nation-states (such as modern Israel or Apartheid South Africa). America isn't really an ethno-specific nation-state, but I would have no problem with ending anti-discrimination laws so as to allow people to establish ethno-specific institutions and communities within America. And the simplest and most direct answer is that our government was instituted to protect the rights of the governed. "you really fail to distinguish between those who recognize the only intangibles that matter are those that benefit America (Goldberg, I, you), and those who do not (Joe Ray)." Ugh, I just got grouped with Jonah Goldberg! I think I need to go cower in my shower now and wash the "dirty" off! Anyway, no, I don't fail to distinguish, I just don't see that the benefits are anywhere near worth the cost. Again, those who disagree are free to foot the bill or pick up M-16s and go take care of it themselves, but they are NOT free to compel others to do those things. "shrinking Barnett's "gap" is in America's best interest," It's in your best interest to get along well with your kid's teacher, but that doesn't mean it's in your best interest to liquidate your kid's college fund to buy his teacher a car. "as is giving purpose to a generation," Please don't take offense to this, but this sort of pompous, pretentious bullshit you hear from interventionists is one of my biggest pet peeves. I understand the tremendous contempt that neocons have for the idea of the American bourgeoise just quitely going about their peaceful and productive lives, but the fact is that "generations" don't need to be "given a purpose." And it's the height of hubris for any person to believe that he or his institution have the right or qualification to go about "giving" it. Next we can cue that line about how "the world is soooo interconnected these days that we can't afford to ignore anything because everything affects us!" or the Spider Man quote. Please excuse me while I go barf! "as is gaining the 'good will' of those non-patriots holding the mentality opposed (who see the action as altruistic)." The liquidation and redistribution of America's wealth and prosperity would certainly make the various socialists and one-worlders happy. However, the "good will" of such people isn't worth a single American life or a single American dollar. Again, those who diagree are free to pledge their OWN lives and dollars to whatever cause they happen to see as "altruistic." REAL altruism is giving of YOURSELF--not compelling others to give.

you do understand I (and Jonah, Barnett) believe American self-interest trumps all other considerations and are making the argument for intervention from that perspective, right?

Taba: I have no problem giving YOU the benefit of the doubt that you're just misguided rather than disloyal to America. It's the Jonah Goldbergs of the world that I worry about. Info:

I see an odd dichotomy in your post. On one hand you reference an obligation to God's work, yet in the very next sentence you dismiss acting in God's stead. I see it as a simple choice-- we can either do everything within our ability to improve the lives of others or we do nothing at all. How will we answer God when He asks, "Why did you help your fellow American but not all of your fellow men?"

I'm glad you asked this. I think this is an area a lot of people are confused about. Yes, there is a difference between doing G-d's will and playing G-d. Doing what you can to help others and better the world is doing G-d's will. Using governmental power to compel the taxpayers to do so is PLAYING GOD.

What's fluff is anthropomorphizing spotted owls to make a point about human political ideals.

They don't need to be "anthropomorphized" to make my point. You see, that's just it. You view humanity's divisions as arbitrary, but if I wanted to follow you into the intellectual abyss of post-modernism, I could say the same thing about species distinctions.

If spotted owls were rationally capable of voting in an election I would wonder why they were not included.

I fear getting sidetracked, but this is interesting. What constitutes "rational capability"? By what standards and criteria are such things to be measured? Who gets to make that determination and by what right?

Instead, to each their kingdom.

Indeed.

I support environmental initiatives to preserve the spotted owl species and their native habitat even at the expense of corporate profits and even some human dead-weight loss.

Wow! Can I occaisionally borrow that crown of yours that gives you the right to determine which humans are "dead weight" and which ones are are not?

By that same rationale I support the continued efforts to promote freedom from terror and oppression even at the expense of human lives, whether they be American or Sudanese.

Two things: (1)You not only support the efforts to do those things, but you also support the efforts to use force to make others support the efforts to do those things. (2) How many human lives are expendable to you? I mean, after all, one way to end terror and oppression could be to kill everyone who's being terrorized and oppressed. Would you countenance that? Why not?

Although it is tradition, the belief that all those deserving the benefits of our way of life somehow make it here is preposterous.

It certainly is preposterous: just as preposterous as the ideas of people arrogant enough to believe themselves worthy of determining what everyone else deserves and who they deserve to get it from.

If I believe in the equality of man, and the inalienable rights bestowed upon us by our creator, then I believe in that for ALL people.

Even the "dead-weight" people and the people whose lives you're willing to expend to pursue your ideological goals? Also, believing in the equality of man is something quite apart from believing oneself capable or worthy of bringing it about. I don't mean this as an insult, but I have to seriously wonder about whoever it was on this forum who considered you a member of the "far right." Your ideology seems, ultimately, to stem more from Rousseau, post-modernism, Trotskyism. You seem to not only be a socialist internationalist, but an ardent and radical one at that. Any agreement you have with conservative or capitalist ideas seem to be only when you recognize the utility of them. If I'm wrong, I apologzie, but please tell me how I'm wrong without getting angry.

Although I'm hardly a utopianist, I'd have to say that your view of political order is fairly cynical.

It's not cynicism, it's conservatism.

Political initiatives to improve the human condition have come out of both adversity and harmony. Has one promoted more advancement than the other? It could very well be. To limit our understanding of how we as a society improve to historical methods ignores the natural order of things, IMHO. We improve upon our processes until the most efficient, beneficial process evolves. There is no reason to believe that our political structure is immune from this pressure.

I'm sure you realize that you're essentially advocating for the radical communist concept of permanent revolution. But anyway, which "natural order of things" are you referring to? Please explain it to me. Also who gets to decide upon the "improvement processes" you speak of? And by what right?

Our system was certainly instituted for such a purpose, but the ideals our system was founded on are universal.

Just because a government has been founded on universalist principles doesn't mean it has either the right or capability to become a world government. But I actually don't believe our system is a purely universalist ideological construct the way that Radical Islam, Soviet Communism, and the ideas behind the French Revolution are.

I'll respond at length later, but just to clarify, I would never call you a "chickenhawk." I am aware of your military background and do not consider you a hypocrite at all. Whether or not you seem to view human life as expendable is something entirely separate from that question. It was Jonah Goldberg that I might have called a "chickenhawk" -- I'm sure you've got far, far more courage in one of your fingernail clippings than he has in his whole body. For that matter, you're probably a better fighter than Fred Ettish as well. :-)

"Actuallu I think this is a role for the UN." Oh right because they have such a great record in dealing with similar instances in the past.

Again, there is an odd dichotomy in your post. If the measure of favoring God's will is to "do what you can," would it not be incumbent onto the President to do what he can? Of course it would be. Part of what the President can do is use the power vested in his office. Part of what I can do is use the power vested in my .38 to rob people and donate the proceeds to humanitarian causes around the world. That doesn't mean G-d expects me to do that or would look kindly upon it.

There is no exclusion for governmental power in terms of doing God's will.

That's something that a Shi'ite Ayatollah might agree with, but not something I'd subscribe to. While we're on the subject of what should be done with governmental power: do you share this same view for domestic plicy? There are many in America who live in terror from violence and lack of economic power to better themselves. Should taxes be raised to redistribute wealth to these people?

You don't believe that ascribing a completely human act unto a spotted owl in order to prove a point is anthropomorphizing? I disagree.

I'm not trying to say it's not anthropomorphizing. I'm trying to say that it doesn't matter if it is or not.

Species distinctions are just that. Distinctions.

Exactly. And I see national borders and the separations of families, nation states, cultures, and peoples as important distinctions as well. You can't have your post-modernist ideology and eat it too.

There is no serious movement (I emphasize the word serious) to endow non-human species with the same rights and obligations as humans themselves.

Is moral legitimacy established by volume? Nazism, Communism, and Radical Wahabbism are all serious movements, but do they really deserve more moral legitimacy than VHEM? I honestly think they have LESS moral legitimacy than VHEM since VHEM isn't forcing anyone to do things their way.

In terms of spotted owls and voting? I don't know. The ability to actually go through the process of voting without any help, supervision and/or prompting would be a useful start.

There are people who vote who don't meet all of the above criteria. We ARE getting sidetracked now, though. I'm ok with leaving the owl discussion alone at the moment. I'm just trying to point out the importance of divisions and distinctions to prevent the utter silliness that world politics would be without them. Certainly divisions are often fuzzy, but that doesn't mean they don't exist. Speciation, for example, is fuzzy: there have been experiments with plants wherein Plant A is able to polinate plants B & C, but B & C are unable to pollinate each other. Donkeys and horses can mate and produce offspring, but are still members of different species.

I'm disappointed. Dead-weight loss is an economics terms associated with the value lost by certain actions.

Thank you. I didn't know that. Somehow, I'll manage to overcome my sense of shame.

This is different from sitting by and watching the Sudanese slaughter thousands of innocent people how?

Because the course of action you suggest involves taking from others and exploiting them without their consent. And also because it's the difference between negative and positive action. I don't subscribe to the radical leftwing Cass Sunstein view that there is no difference between negative and positive obligation. But you apparently do hold such a belief. The question is how far you're willing to go with it: you can always do "more." You could donate all your discretionary income to hire mercs to guard innocent Sudanese Christians, but what's discretionary? Do you really need computer and internet access? For that matter, do you even really need a second kidney? You could sell yours on the Chinese black market and donate the proceeds. Or you could realize that you don't have a positive obligation to liquidate yourself, pull your nose out of their business, and go back to a peaceful, productive life. And please don't insult my intelligence by making some reference to 'the Kitty Genovese Syndrome'. That BS has seen its day.

I think any question of how many lives would be "expendable" is a fairly insincere one that is beneath you. I never said, nor have I ever implied, that human lives are "expendable".

Don't think that throwing a hissy fit will get you out of answering the question. No one called you a "chickenhawk." You've stated that you favor intervention and that American and Sudanese lives are part of the price you're willing to pay for that. The fact that your own life is part of that price only protects you from the charge of hyprocrisy--not any other charge. So the question remains, how many lives? Can it ever be too many? Again, you could easily end terror and oppression by killing all those who are terrorized and oppressed!

I know I was wrong in what I thought you meant by "dead weight." I thought my saying "I didn't know that" would make that clear. In any case, it didn't matter because you later said "I support the continued efforts to promote freedom from terror and oppression even at the expense of human lives, whether they be American or Sudanese." This brought about my question of how many lives and my observation that one would be able to end all terror and oppression by killing all of the world's oppressed and terrorized. The "how many lives?" question is appropriate for hawks of all flavors: chicken and otherwise.

Yea were too busy fucking up the middle east....

None of Our Business To George Clooney and the other Americans who demonstrated and demanded that the U.S. intervene in the Darfur region of Sudan, I have a simple and clear message: Buy yourself a gun and plenty of ammunition, and go intervene yourself. In the 1930s, a tougher breed of Americans didn't just demonstrate. They formed the Abraham Lincoln Brigade, went to Spain and fought in the Spanish Civil War. A famous movie star, Errol Flynn, risked his life and suffered wounds carrying money through enemy lines to the loyalist forces. Of course, Flynn was no sissy. Before becoming an actor, he was a deep-water sailor and smuggler and barroom brawler par excellence. He was real man, not an image of a man. Today's liberals are made of softer stuff. They don't want to fight or get shot at. They are too wealthy and live too comfortable a life. They want some poor American kid making $1,200 a month to go to the African desert and get killed. It's a heck of a note when rich people can salve their conscience by sending poor kids to fight and die instead of going themselves. Granted, Clooney would have to do without his personal assistant, script, air-conditioned trailer and stunt people, but who knows, he might find real combat exhilarating. The fighting in Darfur is not a conflict of good guy versus bad guy. It is bad guy versus bad guy. Both sides are armed. Both sides have committed atrocities. Both sides show as much sympathy and mercy for the other as a rattlesnake does for a mouse. It is not a conflict of white versus black. Both sides are black. It is not a Muslim-versus-Christian conflict. Both sides are Muslim. It might have even started the way the old range wars started in Wyoming in the 19th century. One side is nomadic herdsmen; the other side is farmers. When farmers try to keep herds from grass and water, there is sure to be gunfire, whether in Sudan or in 19th-century Wyoming. The conflict is, most of all, none of our business. It does not affect the United States one iota. If it goes on for 10 years, it will not affect the United States. If it is resolved tomorrow, it will not affect the United States. We have no strategic or national interests whatsoever in Sudan. If the people in Sudan wish to kill each other, that is their business, not ours. It is past time for the American people to demand that Congress and the president stop sending American youth to die in other people's wars. The idea of using American youth as a hypocritical humanitarian police force (hypocritical because liberals are always selective in choosing their crises) is both obscene and unconstitutional. These young men and women join the armed forces to defend America, not to inject themselves into other people's local quarrels. If George Bush sends American military forces to Sudan, Osama bin Laden will be so elated he'll dance a jig. He's already warned that Western intervention in Sudan would be another attack against Islam. Our forces would find themselves in yet another hornet's nest. And what are they going to do? Pick one side and shoot the other? Or shoot people on both sides? Whatever, our intervention will increase the human misery, not make it better. The casualty statistics you keep hearing are unreliable, though I don't doubt they are high. As for genocide, that word has been defined so loosely you could be charged with it for shooting a burglar. We did nothing when Stalin and Mao were slaughtering millions; we did nothing when Pol Pot murdered a third to a half of the Cambodian population. We did nothing when the Ibos were wiped out in the Nigeria Civil War. What's happening in Sudan is Little League compared with all the mass murders we've ignored. Americans ought to remember Mogadishu. The people in western Sudan are so poor, they'll kill you for your boots. But a barefooted poor man with a gun is just as lethal as a college-educated American boy. There are large pockets of human misery all over the world, and we definitely are not the world's policeman. Why American liberals have decided to get excited about Darfur, I don't know. I wouldn't be surprised to find out that the rebel faction has hired a public-relations firm. At any rate, let those itching to intervene go themselves and put their bodies on the line. They have no right whatsoever to deprive an American mother of her son just so they can feel good about themselves at their next cocktail party.

Reese makes good points in that column, as usual. The portrayal of the supposed victims in the Sudan is just as ridiculously one-sided as the media surrounding the bombing of Kosovo was. It's amazing how people STILL don't know that we basically fought on Al Qaeda's side in that conflict.

As for the "chickenhawk" thing, it's a fairly common practice to accuse chickenhawks of viewing soldier's lives as expendable. If you need proof, here's a simple Google search to confirm my point. Note that I accused you of using chickenhawk rhetoric, not actually calling me a chickenhawk. It's above, in my last paragraph, in case you need verification.

I'm still getting a chuckle from this "logic." The word "thimble" happens to yield over 11,000 joint matches with the word "expendable." Ergo by your logic, I could be guilty of using "thimble rhetoric." I know what you meant, but using that search to support your point was just silly. Now, don't go blowing up at me again. I'm just having some good clean fun here. Seriously though, I would urge you to really take another look at your ideology--not because I'm trying to "win" this discussion somehow, but because I find your views genuinely scary. It's the very concepts of universalism, utopianism, and a worship of collective power that have wrought the world's worst regimes: Communism, Nazism, radical Islam, and even some of the excesses of Christianity when it gets into its nutty mode. And that's what I find beautiful about genuine western Conservatism: it approaches politics with a sense of skepticism; where other ideologies worship power and revolution, it worships prudence and caution; it can ee the world as it is and *mostly* accept it that way; it is, essentially, an ideology for adults: for people who have lives and responsibilities and much to lose. There's nothing wrong with revisiting your views. I've done so several times in my life. If you haven't already, I would recommend the works of the following to you: Joseph d'Maistre, Edmund Burke, and Russel Kirk. Most people on this forum (for whatever reason) seem to think you're a conservative. Give being an *actual* conservative a chance.

A least everyone recognizes that the UN couldnt break up a 3rd grade food fight.

Info, I haven't lost interest and will post again soon. In the meantime, I'm noticing how increasingly angry you're getting. I have a suggestion, go and click on this thread to read about an idea for something that will undoubtedly make you a happier person. Later.

"At some point you have to step back and wonder if there will ever be a Nuremburg trial against the US, and what people will say about us afterward. Were we taken over by a hostile group of neo-conservative politicians? Or were the American people mindless fops that believed everything they were told and went along with it." No reason to even wonder, extra-military justice in the form of war crimes trials has been the final right of a victor. The reason is that justice in many of these places is only possible after a total victory. So only a superpower can force such an instance. The standard should be much lower obviously. Hell, start with Henry Kissinger and move forward from there. Reasons to intervene: 1. Germany 2. the former Yugoslavia 3, Rwanda 4. Bin Laden's praise for the Sudanese government and the Janjaweed