Was Assad correct all along
Discussion
Effective regime change costs gigantobucks. See: Germany and Japan, 1945 and after. There is no political will to attempt such huge changes now.
Saying that force underpins all governments is a bit pointless unless you are saying that a bloody dictatorship is really the same thing as a limited government. Sure, both ultimately depend on force, but which would you prefer to have? The idea that some people just can't cope with limited government seems pessimistic and even a tad colonial.
Saying that force underpins all governments is a bit pointless unless you are saying that a bloody dictatorship is really the same thing as a limited government. Sure, both ultimately depend on force, but which would you prefer to have? The idea that some people just can't cope with limited government seems pessimistic and even a tad colonial.
Breadvan72 said:
Effective regime change costs gigantobucks. See: Germany and Japan, 1945 and after. There is no political will to attempt such huge changes now.
Saying that force underpins all governments is a bit pointless unless you are saying that a bloody dictatorship is really the same thing as a limited government. Sure, both ultimately depend on force, but which would you prefer to have? The idea that some people just can't cope with limited government seems pessimistic and even a tad colonial.
Agreed with almost all of that, but just how irresponsible are the West in fomenting regime change then walking away and leaving a vacuum?Saying that force underpins all governments is a bit pointless unless you are saying that a bloody dictatorship is really the same thing as a limited government. Sure, both ultimately depend on force, but which would you prefer to have? The idea that some people just can't cope with limited government seems pessimistic and even a tad colonial.
No-one even vaguely sane would argue that Gaddafi was anything other than a grade 1 tyrant, but he did at least preserve a fragile peace that meant most people in Libya had a mostly stable life most of the time. A very long way from perfect, but equally a very long way better than that which they currently 'enjoy'.
So unless we're prepared to the job properly and accept that gigantobucks need to spent, surely the West would be better off from partially intervening. It's very hard to watch a dictator exercising brutality, but unless we can genuinely offer something better other than "ooh, democracy, that'll solve everything" we should restrict our input to gradual change through trade deals and the like.
I hate to say this, but for many people a stable dictatorship is better than limited government.
Breadvan72 said:
Saying that force underpins all governments is a bit pointless unless you are saying that a bloody dictatorship is really the same thing as a limited government. Sure, both ultimately depend on force, but which would you prefer to have? .
I think you'll find some of the youthful exuberance that became the Arab spring imagined a third way, a utopian ideal of liberal freedom or even anarchy, and the Islamic state imagine a fourth easy where eventually (once all the infidels are dead) a peaceful utopian theocratic state can flourish. Both as unrealistic as each other, yes we have the least worst option but nobody seems to want to replicate it, I wonder why?Edited by FredClogs on Wednesday 27th August 20:33
Regiment said:
What Saddam, Gaddaffi and Assad did was provide stability to the region. What the west should have done was to provide support to them, helping them to build their countries up.
Not that I'm an expert on Middle East relations but probably would have been no worse than it is now.
I agree. Not that I'm an expert on Middle East relations but probably would have been no worse than it is now.
Look, for instance, at Saudi Arabia. Ghastly place with ghastly people in charge. But it would be hard to describe "democratised" Iraq as somehow better. Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya and others have proved nicely that you can "bomb a country to democracy".
Qwert1e said:
It also occurs to me as possible that if "the west" had stayed on-side with Saddam Huusein the Middle East might have ended up better off. But we will never know.
When he kept attacking other countries and using chemical warfare on civilians it became a bit tricky to continue to "stay on-side" with him.Mr Gearchange said:
We should have learned to leave the f
k alone by now.
The west meddling in Afghanistan against the Russians armed and trained large elements of Al Qaeda.
The west meddling in Iraq left a ststorm behind which ironically is now creating the terrorist state which was the pretence for going in there in the first place.
Our invasion of Afghanistan following 9/11 was idiotic - the taliban never did anything to anyone but their own people- but bombing the crap out of them left us with a lot of dead soldiers and a lot of radicallised Muslims here and abroad.
Our arming and support of the rebels in Syria has equipped IS with some heavy duty military hardware.
We support and prop up governments who fund and equip the various lunatic factions of Islam.
Despot dictators were quite ironically the least of our worries - I was never worried about the Russians in Afghanistan, Sadam in Iraq, Gadaffi in Lybia or Assad in Syria. I'm much more concerned about what the world looks like now they have gone.
Leave it alone. No good comes of playing world police.
+1 Hear, hear!!! The West have spent hundreds of billions playing the role of "World Police" all it's achieved is a less stable Middle-East and run up a bloody huge bill and left thousands of families missing loved ones killed in battle. The only winners are the companies that manufacture the weapons. Think of how productively the money could have been used elsewhere instead.k alone by now.The west meddling in Afghanistan against the Russians armed and trained large elements of Al Qaeda.
The west meddling in Iraq left a s
tstorm behind which ironically is now creating the terrorist state which was the pretence for going in there in the first place.Our invasion of Afghanistan following 9/11 was idiotic - the taliban never did anything to anyone but their own people- but bombing the crap out of them left us with a lot of dead soldiers and a lot of radicallised Muslims here and abroad.
Our arming and support of the rebels in Syria has equipped IS with some heavy duty military hardware.
We support and prop up governments who fund and equip the various lunatic factions of Islam.
Despot dictators were quite ironically the least of our worries - I was never worried about the Russians in Afghanistan, Sadam in Iraq, Gadaffi in Lybia or Assad in Syria. I'm much more concerned about what the world looks like now they have gone.
Leave it alone. No good comes of playing world police.
Edited by Mr Gearchange on Wednesday 27th August 17:34
Regiment said:
What Saddam, Gaddaffi and Assad did was provide stability to the region. What the west should have done was to provide support to them, helping them to build their countries up.
Not that I'm an expert on Middle East relations but probably would have been no worse than it is now.
I don't think it could possibly get worse than it is now. Some of the videos circulated by IS can be described as nothing but attempted genocide as far as I'm concerned. Not that I'm an expert on Middle East relations but probably would have been no worse than it is now.
One in particular has 1500+ lined up in a row at the docks and shot in the head one by one and thrown in the water. The dock itself is covered in blood like an abattoir.
That coupled with summary executions all over, armed convoys ransacking villages, torture, beheadings, crucifixions - I honestly don't see how it could be worse.
Dictators are s
t but at least they control things to a degree. Breadvan72 said:
it's what we did after the bombing stopped that mattered. Recently, we do the bombing, and then we bugger off.
Precisely.The whole modern idea of warfare by USA and Israel, namely "stand-off and bomb" is utter and complete rubbish. All it can possibly do is create more enemies, as they have found out.
Qwert1e said:
Breadvan72 said:
it's what we did after the bombing stopped that mattered. Recently, we do the bombing, and then we bugger off.
Precisely.The whole modern idea of warfare by USA and Israel, namely "stand-off and bomb" is utter and complete rubbish. All it can possibly do is create more enemies, as they have found out.
It's quickly becoming obvious to me that the solution isn't in Syria or Iraq. I think that a lot of the problems stem from how Muslims are treated elsewhere. Certainly in Palestine and to a lesser extent in Kashmir, we're turning a blind eye to a lot of bad stuff. If the international community started playing hardball with Israel and told India and Pakistan to sort their s
t out then I think a lot of heat would go out of the global jihad - probably not with the crazy people, but certainly with those who if they aren't supportive are certainly sympathetic. Regiment said:
What Saddam, Gaddaffi and Assad did was provide stability to the region. What the west should have done was to provide support to them, helping them to build their countries up.
Not that I'm an expert on Middle East relations but probably would have been no worse than it is now.
That's precisely what The West does.Not that I'm an expert on Middle East relations but probably would have been no worse than it is now.
We supported Saddam Hussein in the 1980's & the Taliban in Afghanistan where we gave aid & training to Osama Bin Laden & co.
Once these regimes which we helped install get too big for their boots we take military action & the cycle starts all over again. Both military spending & infrastructure development contracts are vital parts of what makes The West the power that it is.
You gotta smash something up before you can rebuild it. Didn't you learn anything in the sand pit?
It's all gravy, baby
ATG said:
Which is exactly what we did in Syria. How well has that worked out?
We also have a number of examples in the region where involvement does jot end well. So as there appears to be no ideal solution, I'd rather we kept out of it. Less cost both fiscally and in terms of the lives of our soldiers.
I'd much sooner the other local powers led any charge to sort things out. Let's see Iran, Saudia, Jordan, even Israel all work together to stop the idiot extremist factions on all sides. I'd be happy with billions being chucked into the pot to help if they did this. Otherwise we are quite evidently dawned if we do, and dawned if we don't. That's not worth a single life of ours IMO.
ATG said:
Mr Gearchange said:
We should have learned to leave the fk alone by now.
Which is exactly what we did in Syria. How well has that worked out? k alone by now. Whist we didn't put people on the ground (officially) we stood on the sidelines and meddled.
We barracked the regime for it's handling of the uprising - it was headline news every night about what Assad was doing to his people. We supplied the 'rebels' with funds and equipment.
Now we have a major issue with UK jihadists who have gone out there and will be returned battle hardened and radicalised - or who are now spilling over into Iraq with IS.
If we had just let Assad get on with it he would have crushed the uprising pretty quickly with some help from the Russians - but we made that very difficult for him. I'm not saying that would have been intrinsically 'right' - but it is arguably a better situation than we have now.
You might also argue that had we not gone into Iraq in the first place the region would have been kept stable and none of this would have happened in the first place. The Iraq war brought into play all manner of tribalists and fundamentalist from across the middle east - some stateless terror groups and other state sponsored and funded units from the likes of Iran.
I used to be an idealist - and believed that we should intervene where necessary as an arbiter of peace and decency - as the referee with a big stick. The more I see of our interventions - particularly in the Middle East and Islamic states the more I think we should just leave it alone - we seem to make it worse for the locals and worse for our own domestic security.
These middle eastern civilisations have been around for a lot longer than us westerners - leave them to sort their own affairs out. If democracy really is something they want - they will find their own way to it eventually.
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