Teach me - Should the USA rethink our stance?

[HP]

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You don't want to send in the military to help in places where it affects American interests, but you do want to send it in places where they're not affected?

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I think the argument is the people in Zimbabwe would have benefited more by an American invasion than the people in Iraq have benefited from an America invasion, given say the same amount of American resources put into each invasion

[NicksDad1970]

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What I'm still trying to find out is for the people out there that suggest a military presence isn't the answer then what is?

Is it to put financial struggles on the country, Maybe an oil embargo? Hoping to break their will and get them to conform to what we deem as proper?

Oh, I do realize that many/most of the times the USA goes in and uses force it's as much for our gain as it is the people we're going in to help. I don't like it and I wish the USA would help people even if they don't have oil or something of value.

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3 things.

1) Embargos don't work. Don't listen to what you see on TV. They never have and they never will. The simple reason is that creating an embargo just makes it much more financially rewarding for other people to break it. So all an embargo by the US does is put money into the pockets of France or China or Russia who don't care.

And an oil embargo would never happen. All that would do is jack up prices for Americans while not hurt whoever you want to boycott.

2) Unfortunately, nothing can take the place of sending troops in. While it's waning, the US is still a hegemonic state and thus this is what has to be done.

3) You're 3rd point contradicts yourself. You don't want to send in the military to help in places where it affects American interests, but you do want to send it in places where they're not affected? The US gives more money than any in the world (by a large margin) in charity to poorer countries to help them. But, when it comes to sending in troops, Zimbabwe is not up there with Iraq. Plus, if troops were sent in, there would be 1 million people marching on washington complaining that the US has no business going into another country. Creating a fair democratic, capitalist country is an American "agenda."


Overall, I find it dissapointing how many people get sucked into this belief that America is "bad."

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I don't know if you were thinking I was saying the US was bad. I'm not at all. My general line of thinking is use force etc. But like I said I was trying to learn from people who think differently.

As far as where you say I contradicted myself all I can say is I didn't express myself properly.

What I was trying to say is IF we're going to use our armed forces to resolve the injustices in the world I WISH we'd do it whether it helps us or not.

[The Bride]

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A very gross survey seems to show that countries that export valuable natural commodities seem possess these maladaptive governments. Why?

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I think the most obvious answer is that a well-educated workforce and substantial infrastructure are not that important if you are simply digging something out of the ground and selling it.

[The Bride]

To try and answer the OP, I think we in the US tend to see war as more precise tool than in reality it actually is. The military has a vested interest in portraying this view as well.

Wars that have been 'successful' tend to be the ones with precise, concrete objectives over resources or land etc. Basically, both sides line up and kill one another till one or the other decide its not worth it.

Wars fought for more ideological reasons (battling communism, democratizing a region etc) seem to me more likely to end in failure. The blunt tool of killing people no longer realizes the goal, not least because the enemy is not obvious, and we anger the very people we are trying to help. In these situations I think the political process is more useful and a lot cheaper, both in lives and money.

[guids]

bpa,

great post. If you could find a pundit who would get the point across like that, he'd be a millionaire in no time.

[danlux]

I think what the OP is trying to say that he finally doesn't accept everything he's been told about the U.S., and the role that the U.S. plays in the world. It's a good thing to question, or at least find out information.

As for war, I believe it is absolutely impossible to win any kind of "limited" war, e.g. Iraq, Vietnam, without having the support of almost the entire world. It simply doesn't work.

War isn't some simple mission, and I think part of the problem of the military is that they're awesome at achieving mission objectives. The military is very efficient when it needs to be.

This makes the military fantastic for all-out wars, like WWI and II. They are basically told to do whatever it takes to win, you have the full support of the entire country. The war ends when the country you're fighting against surreneders.

The problem with wars like Iraq are you're not trying to get someone to surrender, hell I don't even know what we're trying to do anymore. The point is, you win wars by eliminating the will of the enemy. Something tells me it's pretty hard to eliminate the will of suicide bombers without inflicting massive civillian damage like we did in Dresden, Berlin, Tokyo, Hiroshima, Nagasaki, etc.

We have learned through two world wars how modern warfare is simply mechanized death. With the addition of nuclear weapons we now have the ability to completely end life on earth, which means the only real way to win wars is to try to avoid them competely. This is what we did with the Soviet Union, and we won. Basically, both countries won, because the people of both countries remained safe.

I was watching the Republican debate tonight, and it struck me as sad the way politicians act nowadays. Ron Paul was asked a question about American foreign policy, and he mentioned how the result of American foreign policy meddling in Iraq and Palestine was the reason the 9/11 hijackers attacked America. He was simply saying that the terrorists didn't attack us because we were rich and had freedom, but attacked us because we are in their countries.

Of course immediately after he said this, every other candidates buzzer went off for them to get their sound bite of denouncing this man who said we had "invited 9/11". What Ron Paul meant was it is important to be honest with ourselves and what we do in the world.

A very easy way to look at U.S. policy is: How would we feel if what we were doing in other countries happened to us? Some of the time we'd be genuinely happy for the help when we need it, and sometimes it will majorly piss us off.