>> ^vaire2ube:

why hide that you're doing good things, unless you have a secret motive that may not withstand scrutiny or conscience ... ie the history of all CIA actions everywhere...


I'd prefer they were more open about. Al-Shabab is bad and we are willing to use a lower burden of proof than "beyond a shadow of a doubt" when it comes to fighting them because getting rid of them sooner is worth making mistakes along the way. There are literally millions of innocent lives being destroyed the entire time the world is failing to deal with Al-Shabab.

And I have no delusions about America sending in the CIA for it's own profit, benefit and reasons. America wouldn't be there unless it thought it benefited by being there, and humanitarian reasons are NOT something America cares enough about to risk their own resources to only help foreigners. I still support that American actions coincidentally align with removing a horrific entity destroying the lives of millions of the most underprivileged people on the planet. It's too bad the Congo and Rwanda aren't strategically more important, at least enough to warrant outrage at genocides in progress.

conflations.
deflections..
and false equivalencies are all the dissenting arguments i am seeing.
and this is not due to me being a "leftist' and therefore not owning the ability to critically digest historical information and come to a conclusion.

someone spent 20 minutes to refute some of the data in this video only to find out the numbers were accurate BUT they did not reveal the specifics and hence the argument was invalid.
kinda like: "the yellow honda ran over a man today crushing his skull"
"HA! the car was GREEN"
"so it was but how does that change the fact the car crushed a mans skull?"

some have suggested that american interventionism is sometimes messy but usually a necessity.so while it may be complicated,sometimes america has had to do what the rest of the world would not.
this (falsely) implies that their is a thread of moral good when america attempts to straighten out an ugly situation in a foreign country and that sometimes,sadly,this leads to unintended consequences that may lead to blowback.
this is pure propaganda and i say this not because i hate my country but because if it were a true statement then america would be where ALL human rights,oppression and suffering under the hands of despotic governments resided worldwide.

see:rwanda,east timor,bangledesh there is a massive amount of places where america had a strict non-interventionist attitude.
and the reason is simple.those countries had nothing to offer,but our government seems to REALLY like working with dictators.easier to deal with one person who is friendly to american interests than a whole population that might (gasp/horror) have the ability to vote your interests down.so not only does america not give two shits about a country with no resources to exploit,they prefer despotic dictators and have installed them when necessary in the name of american interests.

war is always for the same things:resources,land and labor.now for thousands of years it was religion that was the driving force to get the average person to go out and slaughter but for the past 100 years it has been nationalism.

one last thing to address those who have mentioned alqaeda and what they post.
firstly:this has nothing to do with this video and is a false equivalency.
secondly:look up where alqaeda was on the FBI's most wanted list in 1999.look at who trained alqaeda,even funded them.notice anything?

so we can say vietnam was complicated.
ok..i can agree with that but lets remember it would have never even been issue if not for our government creating a false situation in which to enter vietnam in the first place.see:gulf of tonkin.
and again,has nothing to do with the premise of this video.

we can say muslims dont hate our freedom but rather they perceive us as immoral and decadent.
i would agree with that also if we were in the 1950's and the conversation was sayyid qutb and the muslim brotherhood but we are talking alqaeda which is the creation of the american intelligence CIA.
so it is america which created the complications we are speaking of.so whatever propaganda alqaeda uses now to recruit besides just pointing to us bombing the shit out of them is still indirectly a result of american interventionism.

neo-conservative ideology has nothing to do with being conseravtive but everything to do with using the massive might of the military to secure american interests globally.
might makes right.

lets also remember traditionally republicanism tended to be isolationist and faaar less hawkish.so ron paul is just being a traditional republican.of course now we live in bizzarro universe where everything is opposite so we have self-proclaimed republicans admonishing ron paul for ..what exactly? being a republican?
thats just weird.

and please understand that my points are not just some rage against america.i am not,by my commentary,ignoring the vast amount of good and noble things my country has done over the past 100 years or so but i also will not shut my eyes to what my countries foreign policy has done to so many small countries who happen to coincidently all be populated by brown people.

might i suggest:
chalmers johnson "blowback"
bryzenski's "the grand chessboard"
or the stellar book by john perkins "economic hitman"

maybe you will understand ron pauls position on these things.
/rant off

I will get back to you on this soon. Some good points to address.

In reply to this comment by bcglorf:
I don't see how a moral code can be held or followed without the need for justifying it's application, so it doesn't really bother me that is required by my own. Just look at every religion throughout history, even holding approximately the same moral code, the applications span from tyrant to saint depending on how it has been applied.

When it comes to something as severe as the act of ending another human life, I'll readily admit that how you justify it is huge. Is it not, however, equally important to justify the morality of your response to someone killing thousands?

In the extreme is WW2, which my grandfather and his brothers refused to participate on exactly the moral grounds you propose. They had to be willing to at least claim that morally, with a gun in their hand, they would watch their families murdered rather than shoot the killer. My conscience recoils at that.

That morality also insists that the lack of action taken in Rwanda's genocide by the world was the right moral decision. I reject that. I see the refusal to act to stop such a horrific genocide as morally evil and I oppose it. I don't feel that is weakened by the fact it depends upon using some judgment, logic and facts to reach that definition.


In reply to this comment by Kofi:
You seem to have a consequentialist morality. I sympathise with it greatly but find it an incoherent morality due to its double standards and subjectivity.

I guess my greivance is calling something moral that would otherwise not be moral. It seems to dilute the very notion. Call it just or necessary but do not call it moral. Calling it moral leads to all sorts of other "justifications" such as "pre-emptive war" (which I guess this was) and terrorism etc etc. (No I am not calling you a terrorist : I am just mentioning how such claims to morality can be contorted to suit ones needs).



In reply to this comment by bcglorf:
>> ^Kofi:

Political Realism demands sufficient national interest to act. That can come about in material gain such as resources and markets or regional political favour. Even the most liberal of governments does not act outside self-interest.
When questioned about the Libyan conflict and why the West was not pursuing other targets of similar standing, such as those in Sudan, Niger and Cote d'Ivoire Obama stated this same principle. The flip side of the coin is that some is better than none.
However, we have all been indoctrinated into thinking that killing to prevent killing is somehow moral. Morality is not about what is just, it is about what is good. If it is not moral to kill someone out of wartime then it is incoherent to say that it becomes moral in wartime. It may be just but it is not moral. One must recognise the difference between good and bad and right and wrong. Conflating good with right and bad with wrong leads to all sorts of problems.
Lastly, these rebels who executed Gaddafi are assumed to be forming a new government. What does it bode for the Libyan people that the new government values vengeance over law and order. Say what you will about Gadaffi, but if this is anything to go by the new government seems to be replicating the same precedent set 42 years ago.


Only if your morality is absolute, inflexible and immune to logic.

My moral compass declares the killing of another human being one of the worst things that can happen. That is DIFFERENT than someone that believes that killing another human being is the worst thing a person can do.

The difference is vitally important. By one compass, which my pacifist forefathers held to, killing one human to stop him from operating a Nazi gas chamber killing thousands every day is morally wrong and much worse than refusing to kill him and letting the people die. By my moral compass, failing to stop that man is by far the worse crime.

This applies directly to the NATO involvement in Libya, as Gaddafi had publicly declared his intention of waging a genocide against the opposition, and cleansing the nation of these cockroaches house by house. More over, Gaddafi had done it before, and was in the very process of seizing the military positioning required to do it. His own deputy minister to the UN stated on the day that NATO decided to participate in the UN mandated mission that Gaddafi was within hours of instituting a slaughter of innocents.

Yes, it's ugly.

Watch the documentary Ghosts of Rwanda to see something much, much worse.

The ugliness in this video of Gaddafi's capture is the conclusion of many similar deaths along the way to stopping a genocide in Libya. If we insist that our forces stay out, uninvolved, then it falls to less trained and less disciplined forces to act. In Rwanda it was the rebel army that finally ended the genocide, using an army consisting of a great many child soldiers. Brutally ugly, but it none the less stopped something much worse.

Watch this if only to see how ugly our world can really be. Go look up the videos of Al Shabab's 'victory' in Somalia this morning as they drag the bodies of 70+ AU peace keepers around before cheering crowds for some perspective too.

I don't see how a moral code can be held or followed without the need for justifying it's application, so it doesn't really bother me that is required by my own. Just look at every religion throughout history, even holding approximately the same moral code, the applications span from tyrant to saint depending on how it has been applied.

When it comes to something as severe as the act of ending another human life, I'll readily admit that how you justify it is huge. Is it not, however, equally important to justify the morality of your response to someone killing thousands?

In the extreme is WW2, which my grandfather and his brothers refused to participate on exactly the moral grounds you propose. They had to be willing to at least claim that morally, with a gun in their hand, they would watch their families murdered rather than shoot the killer. My conscience recoils at that.

That morality also insists that the lack of action taken in Rwanda's genocide by the world was the right moral decision. I reject that. I see the refusal to act to stop such a horrific genocide as morally evil and I oppose it. I don't feel that is weakened by the fact it depends upon using some judgment, logic and facts to reach that definition.


In reply to this comment by Kofi:
You seem to have a consequentialist morality. I sympathise with it greatly but find it an incoherent morality due to its double standards and subjectivity.

I guess my greivance is calling something moral that would otherwise not be moral. It seems to dilute the very notion. Call it just or necessary but do not call it moral. Calling it moral leads to all sorts of other "justifications" such as "pre-emptive war" (which I guess this was) and terrorism etc etc. (No I am not calling you a terrorist : I am just mentioning how such claims to morality can be contorted to suit ones needs).



In reply to this comment by bcglorf:
>> ^Kofi:

Political Realism demands sufficient national interest to act. That can come about in material gain such as resources and markets or regional political favour. Even the most liberal of governments does not act outside self-interest.
When questioned about the Libyan conflict and why the West was not pursuing other targets of similar standing, such as those in Sudan, Niger and Cote d'Ivoire Obama stated this same principle. The flip side of the coin is that some is better than none.
However, we have all been indoctrinated into thinking that killing to prevent killing is somehow moral. Morality is not about what is just, it is about what is good. If it is not moral to kill someone out of wartime then it is incoherent to say that it becomes moral in wartime. It may be just but it is not moral. One must recognise the difference between good and bad and right and wrong. Conflating good with right and bad with wrong leads to all sorts of problems.
Lastly, these rebels who executed Gaddafi are assumed to be forming a new government. What does it bode for the Libyan people that the new government values vengeance over law and order. Say what you will about Gadaffi, but if this is anything to go by the new government seems to be replicating the same precedent set 42 years ago.


Only if your morality is absolute, inflexible and immune to logic.

My moral compass declares the killing of another human being one of the worst things that can happen. That is DIFFERENT than someone that believes that killing another human being is the worst thing a person can do.

The difference is vitally important. By one compass, which my pacifist forefathers held to, killing one human to stop him from operating a Nazi gas chamber killing thousands every day is morally wrong and much worse than refusing to kill him and letting the people die. By my moral compass, failing to stop that man is by far the worse crime.

This applies directly to the NATO involvement in Libya, as Gaddafi had publicly declared his intention of waging a genocide against the opposition, and cleansing the nation of these cockroaches house by house. More over, Gaddafi had done it before, and was in the very process of seizing the military positioning required to do it. His own deputy minister to the UN stated on the day that NATO decided to participate in the UN mandated mission that Gaddafi was within hours of instituting a slaughter of innocents.

I agree with a lot of what blankfist is saying. It's time to starve the Federal government of its funds. Enough of its actions are immoral and evil, and I don't like having even a cent of my money furthering these actions.

I like Kucinich and Ron Paul too. Kucinich because if we are going to be taxed heavily by the government, the money should be spent well and in morally correct ways. But he's not running for President anymore and even if he was, most of what he supports would not get passed by Congress. So it's pointless to keep funding the Feds and hope that a Kucinich will some day become President and that hundreds of Kucinichs will some day take over Congress too.

So Ron Paul is all that's left, even though there's quite a bit of crazy stuff connected to him. At least with Paul's ideology, I can choose to support different causes with my money, and I can stop giving money to causes that start acting evil or immoral.

I don't think it's right to force people to help each other. If we are saying that we need to put a gun to the heads of the rich and force them to help the poor, sick, and elderly, that seems wrong to me. And that's what a lot of people seem to want. They want to use the force of law, backed by the threats of punishment and violence, to force rich people to help other people.

When I was in high school in 1999, I read a book on the Rwandan genocide of 1994 and how the world ignored the Genocide Convention of 1948, which required them to act when genocide occurs in the world. I was pretty pissed off that 400,000-1.2 million people were killed in Rwanda for genocidal reasons, and everyone ignored the Convention and did little about the genocide. But looking back, I don't think anyone should've signed the Genocide Convention. You shouldn't force people to help someone or some other country. It's wrong.

Is one's political philosophy an inner "moral code" or is it a function of where you sit on the economic ladder? Is it coincidence that the wealthy are conservative and largely Republican and the poor are largely liberal and Democratic? If you reversed the economic standing of a group of one versus the other, would that change their political view? Do the poor who win lotteries usually go a spending spree or immediately set about philanthropy and working for social justice? How far down the economic ladder does entitlement stop? If we are a truly a world community, should the US citizen living at the poverty level give up their cell phone so that a child can eat in Rwanda? After all, isn't that person at the US poverty level still earning in the top 10% of world income earners? Isn't that person uber-rich to the child in Rwanda? The group on the bottom will always look up at the next class above and think they're "greedy" for their excesses, however modest they may be. In the end, the world economy is driven by individuals pursuing their personal and separate interests. To paraphrase historian Will Durant on what lessons we learn from history, concerning economics, "freedom and equality are sworn enemies.......the greater the freedom, the greater the economic disparity in the classes, until it creates such tension that wealth is redistributed by legislation, or poverty is redistributed by revolution."

I think you're arguing whether or not this is a good system whereas I'm just stating that it's how it works. However, if we follow through on your example, those two men would probably face severe punishment (and/or death) for those actions because they went against the consensus of what the larger population thinks is moral behavior. Evolution by both natural and artificial selection.

While it's a subtle distinction, I believe it's an important one: There's a difference between making a decision based on your emotions and making a decision based on how it will effect other people. Yes, I believe that not causing harm or distress to other people is an objective base. I realize that's controversial.

I'm not arguing about whether it is good or not, I am saying it is madness. Witness the genocide in rwanda, or Nazi germany, or a million other examples of why morality by concensus and feeling is not moral by any definition. If it's all based on what people feel, and agree on, then if they feel that they don't like a group of people, and agree that they all should die, then in your world that's moral! The only thing that would stop such people would be judgment from another concensus. So basically, in your world anything people justify to themselves and get other people to agree on is moral behavior.

Do no harm is not an objective standard, that is such a simplistic way of looking at the world..there will always be exceptions. Such as defending your life, or someone else. You have to make judgments about right and wrong, what is good for more than yourself (which you have no way to determine), and do not harm doesn't cover them. If you had an opportunity to assassinate hitler, would you turn it down because of do no harm? What is the greater evil, killing him or letting him live? Why? For that matter, what makes hitler an objectively worse person than you are? Morality is always a moving target in your world; for it to be objective it can never move. It's insanity in every other case.

God told us that it's ok to beat a slave as long as we don't kill him. Only Israelites are above slavery.

In Exodus we're told that if a bull goes on a killing spree, the bull and the bull's owner are to be put to death. However, if the bull kills slaves, then the bull's owner owes the slaves' owners some cash.

The NT is a little softer (not surprisingly) on slaves, but still states that it's ok to own people so long as you treat them reasonably well.

Generally, were you ok with slavery and other immoral acts before your conversion? Did you really need to be told that these things were wrong? Or did you already know? I bet you already knew and I bet you were no less moral a person then than you are now.

I think you're utterly missing the point of what I have been talking about. It's not reading the bible that makes someone moral. Everyone has a God given conscience which tells them what's right from wrong. Murder is obejectively wrong because that is the law written on our hearts. However, that doesn't tell us how to live, it just gives us a general idea of what to do. That's why we need God to give us instructions on how to live a moral life

It's funny that you're railing against Christianity for slavery; Christians are the reason we abolished slavery. There has never been an abolitionist movement anywhere besides in the Christian west. Your morality by concensus failed to free any slaves, it took Christians to do it. The bible never says it okay to own slaves. Jesus taught that everyone is equal in the eyes of God. Anyone who follows that would know that keeping slaves was wrong. Gods message is progressive according to what people are ready to hear. The laws on divorce in the days of Moses were given because of the hardness of mens hearts. It took nearly 2000 years for people to be ready to free slaves..at the time, it just wasn't going to happen.

>> ^Yogi:
>> ^Trancecoach: how a famous megastar made the difficult journey to becoming a famous megastar. Haha yeah that is true...millionaire fighting against millionaires for a television show isn't exactly a documentary on Rwanda. Should be funny though I'm a huge Conan fan!

*quote button didn't work correctly

Very true, but it is quite interesting as well. Do you think if you won the lottery tomorrow and had millions of dollars you'd be content? Possibly, but likely no matter how much money you have you would strive for a goal. It may be short or long term but you would likely always find a way to challenge yourself. It's human nature, we always want something, whether it be for achievement of something we think we want or purely because we're insecure; too much is never enough.


My point is, even though it may not be something we can relate to specifically, the struggle faced by humans trying to achieve whatever goal they may have can be both entertaining and enlightening.

>> ^Trancecoach:

how a famous megastar made the difficult journey to becoming a famous megastar.


Haha yeah that is true...millionaire fighting against millionaires for a television show isn't exactly a documentary on Rwanda. Should be funny though I'm a huge Conan fan!

>> ^bcglorf:

as Americans we have to look in the mirror FIRST.
You can't do that unless you've got a mirror handy somewhere.
If I invent a time machine, and go back and beat out Clinton for the presidency and deploy American troops into Rwanda and save 700,000 lives by slowing the genocide it looks pretty good to us. BUT if you only look at America, and ignore the crimes of the Hutu militia's in Rwanda, all you would see is American intervention precipitating another African civil war that killed 100,000 Africans.
You can't judge the interactions between two nations in a vacuum where only one nation's crimes and failures are considered, which is the unfortunate turn Chomsky has been taking for awhile now.
You can't judge America's role in Libya without equally assessing the role of Gadhafi as well. Without assessing both you are not only being dishonest with your audience, but deliberately so.
Also notice that this is 15 minutes of a much longer speech.
My point sadly applies to pretty much all of Chomsky's work for the last couple of years .


I guess you just don't get it then.

as Americans we have to look in the mirror FIRST.

You can't do that unless you've got a mirror handy somewhere.

If I invent a time machine, and go back and beat out Clinton for the presidency and deploy American troops into Rwanda and save 700,000 lives by slowing the genocide it looks pretty good to us. BUT if you only look at America, and ignore the crimes of the Hutu militia's in Rwanda, all you would see is American intervention precipitating another African civil war that killed 100,000 Africans.

You can't judge the interactions between two nations in a vacuum where only one nation's crimes and failures are considered, which is the unfortunate turn Chomsky has been taking for awhile now.

You can't judge America's role in Libya without equally assessing the role of Gadhafi as well. Without assessing both you are not only being dishonest with your audience, but deliberately so.

Also notice that this is 15 minutes of a much longer speech.

My point sadly applies to pretty much all of Chomsky's work for the last couple of years .

>> ^Mazex:

Basically if another country isn't threatening your country, you shouldn't be invading or helping civil wars unless you have significant investments there. China and Russia aren't taking the easy way out, they are taking the correct way, it's none of their business and they have enough problems themselves. America are way too far into international conflicts, it's going to be a devastating bite back soon enough.


Um, I don't know if you're American or not, but if you are, you might want to rethink your viewpoint. You do realize that without the direct and indirect support of the French, Spanish, and Prussians, Americans would still be speaking the Queen's English, don't you? Have a read about how the international community basically ensured the birth of America at this site.

I'm certainly against invading another country (i.e. with the intent to control it after hostilities cease) but I'm also completely against condemning a relatively defenseless population to death simply because an intervention wouldn't be economically profitable. I think maybe you should read more about what happened in both Rwanda and Darfur to fully appreciate what happens when the world collectively shrugs at genocide.

I actually think this was a pointless interview. We gained no great insights, we heard no new information, etc... All of what was said has been said for weeks AND has been said better, i.e. reasons to be there and reasons not to be there.

Plus, I don't consider the CIA to be anything more than a tool anymore and hopefully it stays that way; as in the past you could make a case that the CIA was GETTING us involved in wars and shaping internal politics. I'm sure they still do this, but enough whistle-blowers came forward to create an environment were the CIA must tread carefully. Especially, after their complete and utter fuck-up of the century for the last Iraq war.

I appreciate this man's council, but in the end he has as much experience in leading a country as I do (armchair generals). He's very well informed in some international dealings, but his answer of "do nothing" is an old answer and it needs to be done away with to some degree. As it's an answer that does nothing; in fact it shows you the shear amount of apathy that our country feels is O.K. to use (like Cambodia, Ivory Coast, Rwanda, etc.). The problem as I see it is that the U.N. passed a unanimous security council resolution on Libya, a U.N. member. Libya said it would comply and then went on to do exactly what @bcglorf has said.

The solution I see is that NATO shouldn't be the watch dog here. The problem is that the U.N. is a useless body without fangs. It NEEDS fangs. The fact that EVERY security council member is not involved in this situation/resolution to me means that their "security club membership" should be nullified. I'm tired of people abusing the U.N. . It's perhaps our best way to solve many of these problems. But, when the military action is ALWAYS carried by NATO at the end of the day, I begin to believe that members that don't participate in resolutions THEY PASSED need to be kicked out of their position (I'm looking at you China).

Until the U.N. gains some fangs and the ability to enact resolutions that are passed UNANIMOUSLY (5 abstains for the countries too scared to take a stance), we will continue to carry the weight via the U.S. Armed Forces or NATO; otherwise, we let innocent people die. We could do nothing, but if we did do nothing the media needs to put the blame squarely at the feet of U.N. Security members that abstain; make them swim in the blood they've spilled by their political maneuvering called "abstain"... We don't do this, but I think it's time we did. If China wants to be a big boy, they need to learn about responsibilities related to their direct inaction. Likewise, Russia needs to learn that the Cold War is dead; holding their feet to the fire internationally might do that.

Eventually, this comes down to the media getting the story right and being willful enough to put countries to the question: Why?

Don't bring up the "reverse angle" of death and destruction. I know it will happen, but this is the cost of choosing and FIGHTING for any side. Death is everywhere; it doesn't make it right, but it makes it true...

Here is the vote for, Resolution 1973:

U.S.-Y*
Lebanon-Y
France-Y*
U.K.-Y*
Bosnia and Herzegovina-Y
Columbia-Y
Gabon-Y
Nigeria-Y
Portugal-Y
South Africa-Y

Abstained (the eternal worthless permanent security council members: China-they never do ANYTHING, and The Russian Federation-who seem to vote just to be contrary); I'll put a mark next to permanent members that abstained^:

^The Russian Federation-NA*
^China (as usual)-NA*
Brazil-NA
Germany-NA
India-NA

I find it hard to keep Russia and China on the security council (they'd whine like babies if removed) as they almost always abstain AND they don't help; in fact they do nothing. The other members are not permanent and may be cycled out in the upcoming year; making me not very concerned with their attitude.

*Permanent Security Council Members

So take it or leave it; but, I think our worldwide diplomacy from every country still revolves around the Cold War and WWII. It's terribly sad to me that we are still stuck on such ridiculous fears and ghostly machinations...

Has the world become a deus ex machina to politicians? Do they believe complex problems can be solved with the smallest of effort? This is what it seems to be coming to and it's scary to see people like Donal Trump in the runnings for president. Sarah Palin is a walking and breathing Captain Catherine Janeway in the sense that she believes she has answers and solutions that are easy to implement and as ridiculous as every piece of deus ex machina "Voyager" ever used. AND she is not alone...

I see this in our country and in others. Simplistic leanings that help no one except to further their own agenda. It's as though politicians and leaders use Rube Goldberg machines, yet these do have a purpose: they grab your attention, they pacify, they cause you to become their disease--ready to even spill the blood of what they hate. It's true in every country on the planet. So when Russia and China take the easy way out, that is what I think of them. It is also why they should NEVER be given leadership, as they seemingly don't know what it truly is or they abuse it.

/My long two cents with a little drama to get a dialogue started...

We've done more in Libya in two days than we did in Rwanda for two months. More than 800,000 people were slaughtered during their civil war while the world watched. I prefer not to repeat that mistake and - since Belgium doesn't have dibs on Libya - we can.
*lies