Jeez, Dachs, if you think that the American government only works for American corporate interests, or if you that that social-climbing son of single-mother-numbers-runner Clinton (my work supervisor c.1989 - 1991 was neighbors with the Clintons) -- who married into an old money family -- was motivated by guilt, then I weep for your naivete.
I also don't think any one nation is the source of evil. The US is simply the current head of the reactionary forces of the world.
I am a class warrior, and practitioner of what I believe, not some single-minded automaton spouting Party line. Although I am quite adept at that, too. This is not a WH exercise in Monday morning history quarterbacking. (Actually, it's a game forum). Real lives are lost everyday from the same system that creates immense wealth for a select few, while African children pick through discarded electronics to recycle component and radioactive material who will likely not see a 23rd birthday. A system that has created a climate wher ten times as many deaths occur as a result of heat than all other natural disasters COMBINED. I have been dealing with this a lot this past summer.
And don't tell my Cuban Communist Angolan War veteran friends that Cuban blood was wasted. The Angolan War was not just about Angola, it was also about beginning to nail the lid on the coffin of Apartheid -- something those veterans are proud to have been a part of.
Leaders are readers. Not the other way around.
Make history, don't be history.
Sent via mobile.
This is a fairly bizarre post (which is about par for the course from you, I suppose). I don't really see a coherent effort at arguing with what I actually have to say with facts. I don't really see a coherent anything at all, really.
You once again repeat your claim that I am naïve for suggesting that the American government was not motivated by financial, mineral, or aggressive power-political factors in playing the role that it did during the Great Lakes and Congo conflicts. But you don't actually back this up with anything other than, "I know a guy who said Clinton was a greedy social climber THEREFORE American policy in Africa in the 1990s
was ALL ABOUT THE MONEY BOYS". Any efforts to demonstrate that America and Americans did not actually benefit from the Congo Wars by securing "control" of Congo mineral resources is shouted down with repeated shrill cries of "naïveté!"
You have far more to say about class warfare. This isn't particularly coherent, either, of course. Between the self-congratulatory assertions of how much you're doing to Help Real People and the insinuations that I am engaging in pedantic "Monday-morning quarterbacking" by second-guessing decisions (whose?), there isn't really much substance. You talk about death from heat exhaustion, radioactive waste, the One Percent, and it's all just a weird jumble of bog-standard boring ultra-left talking points, most of which have absolutely nothing whatsoever to do with either me or the point I'm trying to make.
And then you bring up your alleged Cuban veterans of Angola - ooh look at me I know Real Revolutionary Barricaders gaise, bask in my aura of authenticity! - and how they'd be awfully pissed off to hear people say that their Bold and Courageous Fighting was wasted. Okay, whatever. You'd say the same thing in defense of a "capitalist imperialist" war, like a hypothetical one in Syria, I'm sure. And no, there's no obvious, direct link to draw between the Angolan war (and the actions of SWAPO, which were more or less related) and the end of
apartheid. One could make the argument that Cuba's efforts created a more real threat to South African security than might otherwise have existed, and therefore helped mobilize Afrikaner opinion in favor of wars and policies that would probably have been significantly less popular, therefore
extending segregationist and imperialist policies. So yes, I feel perfectly justified in saying that the Angolan intervention was largely a waste of Cuban blood and treasure because the MPLA eventually solved its Savimbi problem without the support of Castro's condottieri.
Anyway. This is like talking to a freaking Whoopie cushion. I guess I'll just back away slowly from here on out.
I refute that this was a "
uniquely poor effort" entirely.
But thanks for the truly educational stuff, anyway.
Still, nowhere have I ever suggested, or rather intended to suggest (since, who knows, someone may have taken me to mean that I did), that humanitarian aid shouldn't include a concerted, sincere, and persistent diplomatic effort.
Now, how about a list of conflicts that haven't been successfully resolved by military action?
I think that in order for something to qualify as a refutation, you have to provide evidence, or at least reasoning, for why something is not the way somebody else says it is.

I would say that it was uniquely poor because your response to my claim that there was no military intervention against the forces causing atrocities in the Congo was to bring up the existence of...the forces causing atrocities in the Congo.
Here's an example of something similar. Say that at some point during Game 7 of the NBA Finals, the Spurs team and coaching staff gets together. Gregg Popovich basically tells everybody, "Okay, guys, I don't know how we can handle LeBron. We've tried doubling him in the post, we've tried cutting off his passing lanes by fronting Miami's shooters, we've tried straight zone, and even Timmy can't totally stop him in the restricted area. We need a solution." Some assistant comes up and says, "Guys! Guys. There's a lockdown defender in this very building. Why don't we use him?" Everybody looks at him expectantly. The assistant leans forward conspiratorially, then says, "Let's put in
LeBron James. He'll shut that guy down for sure!"
That's what I mean. I don't think I've ever seen somebody suggest something that silly before. That's why I called it unique.
Anyway. I am in no way here to argue in favor of American military intervention in Syria, or that of any other country. That's not what I do. Prescriptive policies aren't my thing. The point that I
am trying to make is that humanitarian aid is well and good in a country suffering from violence, but
it won't stop the violence. It's a Band-Aid on the global conscience at best, a way for Concerned Citizens to pat themselves on the back and say "okay, well, at least we're doing something to help" when the very thing that's making life so crappy for people - the war - is still happening. Care packages, blankets, clothes, and tents don't stop the bullets. Often, as I mentioned in the Congo example, aid not backed up by force can be seized by the very people who are sustaining the war, and used to finance their struggle.
It's nice that you think that this aid must be accompanied by "a concerted, sincere, and persistent diplomatic effort", but I don't think that you - or anybody else, including me - has any idea what that means, or whether it will help anything. It's basically meaningless boilerplate. And what happens if this mythical Diplomatic Solution doesn't end up working? The list of conflicts that have kept rolling while endless negotiations are drawn out to no point or purpose is long and depressing.
And sure, there are plenty of armies that have spun their wheels in endless repetitive conflict that doesn't solve anything, too. That's usually why intervention gets brought up in the first place.

Naturally, people should have a good idea of how the military side of an intervention ought to work, just as with the diplomatic or humanitarian angles. But that's, again, not why I'm here. You can argue that, if a military intervention in a given conflict had been pursued differently, it might have turned out better (or worse). The problem with a purely humanitarian approach, however, is that you can't change the fundamental calculus of being at the mercy of the men with guns that are actually fighting the war. No amount of aid, or aid differently disbursed, will change that. Humanitarian solutions must be pursued in a context without violence, and there are only two ways to make sure that happens: either get the protection of an army, or stop the war somehow (also usually involving an army).