Interventionism and Democracy
I vividly remember the First Persian Gulf war, mostly because it was the first war which was widely followed and televised by a then still relatively new cable news company called CNN, they focused on the sheer military spectacle of showing Tomahawk missile launches, stealth bombers, tanks and grainy TV missile strikes in Iraq. At the time I thought it was good thing to do, to attack nation and punish it for it's despotic actions against its own people. Youthful, idealistic and very naive I believed strongly in interventionism.
I also believed very strongly in the ideals behind the formation of the UN.
Over the years my understanding of geopolitics and military policy grew, through understanding of Soviet advances into Afghanistan, the 2nd world war and numerous other conflicts. I saw that most military actions are not carried out for ideals of freedom or overthrowing despotic rulers.
But I still believed in interventionism as a way to 'free' a nation from a tyrannically ruler, reinforced by seeing such a person take power within my own nation in Central Asia and countries around Central Africa where I lived at the time.
Seeing wars sprout out while the international world set on it's hands and watched made me angry, I wondered why military intervention doesn't take place in places like Somalia and Rwanda. Somalia was eventually addressed haphazardly as a humanitarian AID mission first, a military operation a far distant second, with limited ROE and slim political support from the Clinton Whitehouse and International world. It underestimated the Somalian people and paid for it in American lives, with some of it's own troops dragged through the streets. Post Somalia there was no space for intervention in Rwanda, the US kept away, European powers sent limited forces. All in all the Rwanda people entered a ethnic civil war of barbaric proportions. The UN set on its hands because no one wanted to get involved in what they regarded as a insignificant nation with internal problems. It was disheartening.
Then 9/11 occurred, I knew the US government would most definitely cease its containment of terrorism policy in Afghanistan and take a far keener interest in Central Asia as a whole.
I supported the war in Afghanistan, I felt that the SF approach of letting the Northern Alliance lead the way with US over watch and NATO support was indicative of how military intervention should be carried out. I knew it wouldn't work totally because a nation that has been at war with itself for close to 30 years takes decades to recover, political intervention by other Central Asian nations and proxy Cold war conflicts saw to that. But I still have hope.
The Iraq war was a far difficult proposition, unilateral intervention, lack of concrete allies, superceding UN policy; all this after leaving after 1991, with no support for the rebel movement that Bush Senior himself urged to "Rise up against Saddam". While I supported righting the wrong, I also thought it was pure suicide at the same time akin to dumping a girlfriend to her abusive father and then coming back years later to resuce her again.
I knew the reasons behind going to Iraq were wrong, but if the case was built properly with international support it would be far easier to support what basically is an invasion of a soverign nation. We all know how it was played and what the consequences have become.
We have seen over the last year and a half abuses and uprisings in Burma, Tibet, Darfur and Georgia. The whole wordl is again sititing on its hands, the UN is quickly becoming as insignificant as the League of Nations before it. The Security Council is a hotly played Poker face game between super powers with totally different agendas and viewpoints.
With the actions in Iraq and now Georgia the policy of interventionism is completely shelved for a long time. I don't think this is completely good idea. The US was wrong in going at it alone under compeltely dubious and false reasons, but it gave Russia the impetus to essentially do the same in Southern Assetia. The US cannot even criticize the Russian actions because it would bring up the reasons for going into Iraq, a dialog the government as a whole wants to avoid taking place in main stream media.
I still believe that balanced, planned, multilateral peace keeping force can be a force for democractic change in nations where there is conflict. I hope that multilateral peace kepping force gone emerge under a more focused and concrete UN structure.
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dagComment hidden because you are ignoring dag. (show it anyway)
I agree that multi-lateral intervention is sometimes a good idea. It would have been a good idea in Myanmar IMHO.
It's a shame that the whole intervention pot has been pissed in and spoiled by the Iraq debacle.
I'm not much of a nationalist. Bring on a democratic world government please - sans black helicopters. The UN is a poor governing body. Unfortunately I don't think we will get a truely effective world government until there is another massive world war or Aliens invade. Nothing brings a group of humans together like the fear of "the other".
Farhad2000We are seeing more world unity and cohesion through the emergence of global business then actual policy, as we grow closer economically between nations large conflicts are reduced as the nations with the most military might do not want to engage with nations with which they are economically tied.
But at the same time it leads to a situation where the American government cannot press China into relaxing its state controls on the populace and giving more democracy. However the silver lining is that as China grows more economically prosperous we will have a technocratic middle class emerge that will be more involved in the government and business enviroment, however this kind of change is glacial.
The world government idea is becoming more and more possible with the advances in technology, specifically in terms of communication connectivity and information gathering which would allow for tailor suited policy adjustments in different areas. I personally believe that national specialization would be beneficial for the world, if country A is good at producing cars, and country B is good for making computers there is trade and reliance between both nations, leading to increased cooperation.
Doc_MThough I'll disagree that the reasons for the Iraq war were intentionally dubious, I'll agree with just about everything else you said. This is a very nice essay, Farhad. Though the retaliation against Al Qaeda was unarguably unavoidable, I've said that the Iraq war was the "right war in the right place at the wrong time" and I still think it was. The intel community failed in ... intel ... and Bush and congress and the CIA and generals and the whole F-ing Government failed in judgment. And now, politicians are failing in comparing Russia's incursion into Georgia with the US incursion into Iraq so they can, as you said, avoid the comparison in general. It IS comparable in a number of ways, though I'm seeing the Russian move as one to actually CLAIM new territory... territory it BITTERLY lost, while America would love to get the F out of Iraq and let them rule themselves. Of course we want them to remain friends... a democratic foothold in the middle east... a chance to somewhat westernize a part of the middle east that is not Israel, Qatar, or UAE. I also think Russia and hard-line Putin in particular wants to send a message to the Ukraine (especially) and other nearby ex-USSR nations, that Russia is MOTHER Russia and they are just ex-Russian provinces allowed to exist by the Mother. A bit of psychological warfare in action.
You are damn right that interventionism has been on the hot seat lately and no one wants to touch it with a ten-foot pole and especially when it comes to messing with a superpower like Russia... a country with more thousand nukes than I have fingers.
(sidenote)
I AM in fact a nationalist, not because I was born here and think it is innately superior for that reason... that's just ridiculous, but because I LIKE it here and I respect it most of the time above what I see elsewhere. I don't have a problem with that attitude. If you like your country, its [at least foundational] ethics, and its freedoms, don't be afraid to cheer for it... say at the Olympics for example. ahem.
I do think you're right about China and the Chinese in general as well Farhad. China is oppressive, but increasing economic prosperity and popular control should blunt the blade of their government. Still, at the moment, their treatment of the "usual folks" and their treatment of those who believe in a particular faith other than is approved by the government is detestable. I have a very close friend who worries sickly for his missionary friends who risked going there to offer Christianity to those who wanted desperately to find out more about it.
The world government idea is problematic mostly due to issues like African warlords and Islamic theocracies... as well as Catholic theocracies for that matter. I don't see Vatican City teaming up with Iran in other words any time soon, but specialization sounds like a reasonable idea. The US specializes in technological development, science, and innovation. China specializes in production. Korea is in tech as well. The UK is in... jeez I don't know, surveillance camera tech? Canada could be in oil shale and land. Most of the desert countries in sun power? Problems arise with destitute countries, but those regions could be supported by us (correction, you) rich folk. There is hope yet, just distant. First we gotta stop killing each other.
What if the US donated its missile defense rockets and its laser-equipped missile-defeating jumbo jet tech to the UN to universalize it so-to-speak to keep the thought of at least nuclear war impossible? That might ease tension... a sort of universal deterrent to ANY ICBM launch. That or all these countries could just trade more and whine less. Team up against obvious terrorists (or if you want, mass murderers in general) maybe, but otherwise communicate FAR more. Get to know each other. Learn to speak a common language on common terms.
In my opinion, the LARGEST barrier to peace is that people simply have different RULES to live by in this world. Some are faith-based. Some are science-based. Some are philosophy-based. They are not often compatible and no one has the authority but a real GOD to say what rule systems are acceptable and what are not. And don't blame just religion for it. If you do, you need to study philosophy for a bit and you'll find that religion is by far not the only obstacle to agreement on "rules of life." That my friends is the problem on this planet.
Best thing that could happen is a freaking alien attack at this point lol. Team our shit up.
That or simply let economic development go as it is going... Have you seen the talks on the increasing GLOBAL prosperity?!! They are VERY hopeful! At the rate we are going, things may get better before they get worse. Charity is often a good way to have an effect btw.
NetRunnerI agree with all of you, except for wishing for an alien attack, since if they have the technology to get here, they'd also have the technology to mash us like bugs.
About the U.S. sharing anti-missile tech, the problem then would be whatever some other country comes up with to defeat/avoid them, like say, a stealth nuclear missile, or suitcase nukes, or bioweapons.
I do think we need to have more international cooperation, especially amongst the major powers. Unfortunately, while I'd like for them to do things like enforce a global ban on genocide, I think it's much more important that they police the proliferation of "WMD", though we've kinda lost our credibility on that front for maybe a decade or two.
Personally, I'll just be happy if the United States could unite again.
Doc_MAs a virologist and geneticist, I'll tell you that fear of biological terror is a mixed bag. Virologists and geneticists in general understand what the movies do not. Biological weapons are NOT something to be considered as anything but a doomsday weapon. There is no chance that these people can be inadvertently part of one of these programs. It would quickly become apparent by the data. And NO VIROLOGIST who is not a complete apocalyptic manic would continue.
The concept of the completely KILLER virus to a human population is DEAD? This can certainly be, but you'll be hard-pressed to find the ENORMOUSLY HIGH number of incredibly talented virologists needed to develop this particular strain. You have NO F-ING IDEA how complex virolgy IS!! And mutation?! That is RANDOM my friend. Good luck with that. Thank God for all this complexity.
dagComment hidden because you are ignoring dag. (show it anyway)
I'm curious Doc_M - what about tweaking an existing virus like Ebola, and making it more deadly?
Farhad2000I merely stated that the reasons going into Iraq were wrong, mostly because the administration over sold the threat and under sold the actual cost of going into Iraq. I felt like it was fear mongering more then anything else, riding of the events of 9/11, with threats like "Don't let the smoking gun be a mushroom cloud". There was such flimsy connections drawn between Al Qaeda and Saddam Hussein.
But the greatest mistake was the lack of concrete planning for actions after the nation was conquered, that to me is the biggest mistake of the entire campaign in Iraq. ORHA was given a month to figure out how to run a nation, the CPA hired fresh grad students who brought technological know how to a country that could not afford the solutions they pushed forward. The dismantling of the Iraq military forces and de-Baathization. It all seems like dangerous adventurism.
Democratization of the Middle East
This is one factor I really supported with regards to going into Iraq, the region as a whole is full of autocratic and despotic rulers. However Bush's promises never materalized into anything concrete, mostly because they didn't understand the situation on the ground, when Palestine held elections Hamas ended up winning, the new president of Iran, Sadr in Iraq, polling results in Egypt and Hezbollah in Lebanon. The US supports democracy but only on its own terms.
All the talk behind democracy faded after that, and I ultimately believe it was Saudi Arabia and Egypt who killed it, both nations that do not want to see any kind of democracy occurring anytime soon because of the strangle hold they have on power and money withing their respective nations. One of them happens to be the worlds largest oil supplier as well. The largest failing point was when the US sold billion dollars worth of arms to states like Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Egypt and so on after concerns over Iran.
The following is a comment I left on Dag's profile a while back regarding Democracy struggles in the Middle East in relation to autocratic rule, citing Israel as democratic nation in the Middle East.
Biological Weapons
I agree that not many would willing go down that path, the costs of development and more so actual deployment require a national industrial project to be effective enough.
I believe the threat is more based around acquired biological weapons from poorly secured sources like those in Russia. However even then we are looking at small contained actions like those in Japan Subway system by that cult.
With regards to Iraq possessing WMD and Bioweapons I find the case was always put forward not because they possibly existed, but because they had the knowledge. I think is the same reason people high up in the US fear Iran, because nuclear development and weaponization is within their grasp, even if they are not working towards that goal. Its the knowledge that scares them.
Doc_M>> ^dag:
I'm curious Doc_M - what about tweaking an existing virus like Ebola, and making it more deadly?
It's still extraordinarily complicated. The world's understanding of what makes certain viruses deadly is limited. Figuring out a single detail that makes a virus more deadly than another similar one is worthy of a paper in a TOP journal for sure. Heck, you might very well get a Nobel Prize if it's a slow year. Making certain viruses more dangerous is not trivial, but it is of course possible. BUT, only a completely insane person would want to do it for any reason other than research. (BTW, people actually DO this to some viruses for research, but the safety regulations and precautions used are pretty serious and safe).
Using a "good" virus, that being one that replicates and spreads well, doesn't work well as a weapon simply because it doesn't do much in a small time frame and it would likely spread globally. Using a really deadly virus such as Ebola wouldn't work well simply because it kills so fast that it can't spread well and is EASILY contained, see Africa... every year. The bottom line is that the world has become such that no virus could ever be used as a weapon simply because you'd either kill no one or everyone, everywhere. So don't worry about viral attacks from anyone. It is just too risky and complicated. Recombinant viruses honestly make better medicine than they do weapons. Don't believe "I am Legend"-style rumors. lol.
Bacteria on the other hand... scary crap.
MINKI had a personal crisis followed by an epiphany:
Politicians are scum.
Debating things just lends a glossy shine to the illusion of democracy.
"Disregard!" is my new policy.
NordlichReiterI want to know why we all cant just get on Xbox live and settle our problems virtually this way no one has to get hurt.
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