So it's okay to bomb people if our locals don't know they exist? Lol. Okay.
How, pray tell, did you arrive at that meaning out of my statement?
So I have to understand what's wrong with those countries to be able to pass judgement on whether or not they get bombed? There's only two reasons as to why we should be bombing another country or the citizens of another country.
1. They ask specifically for help.
2. We are at war with them.
The point was very simple - if you wish to help a nation, it would be a very good idea to actually study those nations so that you can have an idea of how to help.
See - I was suggesting that our politicians who were making decisions did not understand what was going on and, therefor, made many of the wrong decisions.
Any other reason to bomb that country or put boots on the ground has an ulterior motive as we've seen in the middle east. Now please challenge me on this. I want you to tell me how the US government did not have an ulterior motive in the middle east. Lol.
What's to challenge?
An "Ulterior Motive" could be as simple as politicians wanting a reason to send tax payer dollars to corporations in the defense industry. To argue that politicians have only a singular stated objective with any action they take (be it a vote in favor of a war or a vote in favor of Taco Bell for lunch) would be naive.
Of course politicians have ulterior motives, as do the people they grant authority over various budgets, and so do the people who command the forces that consume that budget. Everyone has ulterior motives, including the people in the nations we visit.
The question is what ulterior motives you are referring to.
Some people argue that the ulterior motive was to benefit our alien overlords (the reptilians, or something). I doubt that is the point you were trying to make, but I don't really see how I'm supposed to argue with an idea that isn't stated.
I'm very good at arguing with myself, but this isn't exactly a comedy routine.
Again; I have to study the collapse of a country to be able to judge whether or not the US has to bomb people and step into situations we are rarely wanted.
If you studied the country, you would understand exactly why the issue of whether or not we should introduce our military came to light.
Yugoslavia was breaking down into civil wars - more properly into ethnic cleansing.
What do Americans see when we look over there? A bunch of white people.
What do the Slavic people see? Croatians (Catholic Serbs), Bosnians (Muslim Serbs), Serbs (Eastern Orthodox Serbs)... but then you have smaller divisions that break down into some business and family relations and some language differences (Montenegrin technically has its own alphabet with characters that Serbs from Serbia consider to be typographical errors).
To make matters more complex, some of these states were in league with the U.N. and were requesting help amidst what amounted to a series of ethnic succession wars.
So, from a U.N. standpoint - what is the point of being part of the U.N. if the nations of the U.N. aren't going to step in and do something about entire ethnic groups being buried in mass graves?
But this isn't a simple "good guy/bad guy" deal. Sure - you could go in and blow up some of the invading army assets - but the next time a vote goes the wrong way in a certain region, the guns come out. Some Bosnians start killing some Serbs, and next thing you know - Serbia is invading to protect their family...
So, how do you fix that?
If you believe what you and I were taught in history class - you go in, destroy the dictator, and hold an election so the people can be happy.
Right?
Democracy creates peace, right?
This is incorrect, and it flies in the face of history.
Democracy is little more than a war simulated at a 1:1 attrition ratio. The only way democracy works is if the issues being voted on are minimal in their impact. If I, as an individual of German lineage, can vote to prohibit an Irish man from owning the type of factory I own - or otherwise targeting his demographic for special registration/certification that serves to limit his ability to compete with my field of expertise... then why should any Irish man accept the legitimacy of the vote?
If I, as a majority, can regularly vote in whatever way I please to preserve whatever advantages I may have over you and to restrict your freedoms in life - then why would you EVER want to be a part of the country?
This is the distinction between a nation of laws and a nation of men.
Much of Europe is a Nation of Men, not a Nation of Laws - decisions are made on the basis of "We are French" or "We are Danish" 'and this is how we do things.'
To compare, we have to look at the differences in culture that gave rise to these nations. America is a very unique nation in this way.
America was formed not as a nation of protestants, of puritains, of british, or of farmers. It was formed as a nation of laws. America formed from a population that, due to its remote location from the British Empire, was fundamentally difficult to control. Thousands who would become the progenitors of the revolution were born into a world where there was no one to tell them what could and couldn't be done, legally. There was vast terrain that could be settled at will if local 'authorities' were not to one's liking.
It was through this environment that many from Europe who would normally be at odds were able to live peacefully together. While there were still racial biases between the British settlers and their Irish slaves (as well as the free Irish), there was a fundamental difficulty in implementing oppressive economic or political pressures when the subjects of that oppression could simply move to a vacant area and do things, themselves.
This had a profound impact, later, when the Continental Congress came into being. It could be thought of as a "United Colonies" and was more of an open forum for colonial leadership than an actual government. Disputes between colonies were frequent and it solidified the need for a more powerful government that could actually express some authority over the colonies (which would come in the wake of the near break-down of the colonies into civil war following the Revolutionary War).
The establishment of a national government that could levy taxes and form a military were key to having a nation with any kind of borders - but most of the colonies refused to even look at the Constitution until fundamental limitations were placed on the national government.
These became known as the Bill of Rights. Contrary to what your civics teacher probably told you - the Bill of Rights does not grant individuals rights, nor does it actually have the purpose of enforcing your rights.
The Bill of Rights exists as a set of strict limitations on the types of laws and actions that the government can take (which are conveniently ignored in today's world). The government is not to set types of speech that come with a punishment. The government is not to write laws concerning religion or its practice. The government is not to write laws prohibiting peaceful assembly or regulating it in any manner. The government is not to force citizens to yield their homes to soldiers (this was common practice in Europe at the time). The government is not to write laws for or commission searches and seizures of property without just cause (I'm translating the full constitutional context, there). Any powers not expressly stated to be the authority of the federal government are to be reserved to the States - IE, if the States have not expressly granted the nation the authority to do something - the national government can't do it without an amendment to the Constitution.
These are, basically, laws for the laws - or laws that government must abide by.
This is what is meant by a nation of laws. The laws define the nation, not the people.
Frankly, this is an alien concept throughout much of Europe, and this is because - for time eternal - Europe has developed from competing tribal systems/nations that become distinct through cultures that establish marital patterns and in turn lead to divisions of language and physiological distinction (a guy who was in Kosovo during our operations there told me that you could tell a Serb from a Bosnian by looking at the nose... I've no idea, and I feel creepy trying to look through pictures on the internet to see if that's true).
Borders are a product of where that culture spreads to and clashes with a different culture. A process of competition eventually leads to war that creates a sharp ridge in where people of those cultures choose to settle. Depending upon the age of the border and the will of the various peoples to contest it, that border will eventually become peaceful and mutually recognized (as in much of mainland Europe). People just get tired of killing each other and decide to stick to their territories. Although these borders can lapse back into war - which is generally how wars have always worked.
Now...
If we'd done our research, we'd have realized that going in, blowing things up, and trying to encourage everyone to vote on things was ... just ****ing stupid - because the concept of governments is different (although many of the U.N. nations understand this, quite frankly, they used the U.S's enthusiasm and naivete to further their own interests in the region... again - because they see things as a tribal issue more so than a legal/structure issue).
However, the notion of a limited government that is not "for the people of ____" but for the concept of legal absolutes is simply alien to most of Europe and, frankly, the world. So you aren't going to convince them to abide by a constitution that tries to limit the authority of a government that will be run by a large majority a single ethnic group.
Worse, research into the people would show that Serbs and many of their branching ethnic groups are -very- collectivist in their thinking. This means that Serbia is wherever the Serb goes. This will pose huge issues with townships of predominantly Croats in a territory that is majority Bosnian.
Thus, the concept of a limited government is just not there and even an attempt to replicate the U.S. Constitution would fail as no one would understand the importance of -not- using the government's power to do whatever the hell they thought should be done. They are nations of men, not a nation of laws.
Thus, the -only- real option if we wanted to help would be to allow a strong unifying totalitarian in the line of Tito to beat down the special interest groups.
This runs contrary to the concepts of government that we are taught in America - but it is the only way a region like the former Yugoslav Republic is going to see peace amongst its highly collectivist ethnic groups for any length of time.
Eventually, concepts of a limited government that is operated by a democratic republic could float, there. But these are largely foreign ideas to many in the region that conflict with culture and tradition. It will take generations (or one hell of a catastrophic doomsday scenario) to change that.
If it even should be changed (I argue that it should, as relying upon benevolent dictators is a deadly gamble... but we've failed, in America, to keep a proper check on our politicians, so it's not like we can point many fingers).
But this is not a conversation/study many politicians (who set our national policies) have time for ... or want to be had (if they stand to gain from the knee-jerk reaction of 'drop the bomb on the villain').
Our military is too large.
Agreed. I actually think the federal military should be sold at auction (minus the people, of course) - spare, perhaps, for key elements of the Navy and Marines. The states should take up most of the concerns with defending the nation as a whole via the National Guard (IE - the National Guard is what should be bigger, if anything) and very little/no federal funding should go toward the National Guard (all of it owned and operated by the State governments).
The federal government will have the responsibility of making sure that the states can organize their units together and will have the authority to declare emergencies where they are called to service to defend the nation as a whole (and operate as if they were one military).
All export restrictions on arms should be released. If -IRAN- wants an F-22, Iran should get an F-22 if and only if they are willing to pay whatever the company that is making it is charging. I am no fan of Iran and I honestly believe that they could be bombed off the face of the planet without being missed. That said - if they are willing to pay for our weapons (no government aid should go to any foreign country - let charities do that if they feel so empowered to do so) - then they can have our weapons. They can contemplate the wisdom of using the weapons we designed and built against us, later.
America should become a net exporter of defense contract services. We should not be trying to protect the oceans of the world and the borders of every country on our tax payers' dime. If a country or company wants to contract Americans experienced in war fighting or security - they should be able to.
If we're going to be soldiers for hire, we should let the free market handle it as opposed to trying to make it a government policy.
@Underlined; How do you know who I voted for? Lol.
It was largely meant as an address to people at large.
@bold So no normal upstanding white folk' voted for Obama? Alright man. I think your third eye is a little too open.
And you got this meaning out of my statement, how?
Who do you think should be president?
Ideologically, I'm an anarchist.
I do not believe any government will be able to resist the temptation of expanding its own power.
Even in the limited government model, a government will eventually run a surplus budget (take in more tax revenue than is spent). This, invariably, leads to the discussion of what it should be spent on. This is where people begin adding their own ambitions into the framework of government. Surplus budget income is dedicated to various pet projects of politicians who then use these items to campaign on.
Years later, when a deficit occurs and taxes need to either be temporarily increased or spending cut - the taxes are always increased. The completely unnecessary project is -never- cut, as there were plenty of people who were happy about it being implemented.
Thus, the power and authority of government has crept, the amount of money it claims from the population has increased, and there will be another surplus in the coming years that needs to be spent.
This will continue until the framework of a constitution has been trashed and people are able to vote to literally steal money from each others' bank accounts (it happened in Greece - though not quite as the politicians advertised....). At which point, the vote will be meaningless unless it is with a bullet to the opposing groups' head.
This is the cycle of all nations.
The notion that people don't need a nation has never truly been floated.
I believe that there should be no institution with arbitrary legal authority over humanity. We can settle our affairs through contract negotiations, metric standards long since established in industry, and through risk sharing investments (insurance policies).
All functions of criminal and civil legal systems can be carried out via mediation between affiliated insurance companies and bounties levied by the same.
From a more realistic and immediate perspective, I'm not a big fan of any of the presidential candidates of the past several elections - even many of the primary candidates.
The problem is not so much who the President is - but what Congress isn't. We do not have a principled Congress, any longer - we have a party line congress that places political agendas above functional governing principles. Democrat or Republican - both essentially play a game of bargaining who gets what amount of power.
The Republicans, spare perhaps for some of the infamous "tea party" group, will not repeal Obamacare. They want to replace it with their own "Republicare" to be able to have their own set of rules and control over the government.
Right now, the U.S. is torn between Social Fascism and Corporate Fascism. In the end - we get Fascism out of the deal be it for the sake of the collective or corporate interest.
Why can't I tie George Zimmerman into this? He saw someone, murdered them, claimed self defense, and got away with it. The US does it everyday.
Because you are ignorant of the facts of the case.
Just as you are ignorant of our foreign policy and our reasons for intervention in many other nations.
Rarely has it been "self defense" - nor did we even make the claim to self defense. Usually, it is the argument of "regional security" - which means protection of nations we consider allies or whom we have signed frivolous defense treaties with (which is why the issue in Ukraine is troublesome - we have "Mutual Defense Pacts" with many of these nations and will eventually have to choose whether to honor those when Russia presses a direct invasion or to ignore those.... and -THAT- will be a hard call to make, since it will be one huge cluster**** if NATO gets involved - yet what's the point of being friends with all of us if we refuse to honor our agreements to defend each other from invasion?)
Ukraine boils down into a very similar issue of Serbia and Kosovo.
It's not going to be solved simply by blowing up some Russians and declaring Ukraine to be a nation.
Frankly, I've made the argument that Europe would be better off to ally with Russia within the next two years as it will be the easiest way to preserve their cultural identity as a sub-nation... which is not what they will be able to do once ISIS begins sweeping through the Balkans.
I will probably never understand how American nation wanted to help us by bombing us. From a perspective of a Yugoslav (Oh, yeah, the ideal still exists.) I think that people who experienced bombing will first think of the blood and tears and of their loved ones who lost their lives before they will think that some country so far away from us wanted to help us. And they called it Noble Anvil which we so stupidly translated wrongly to Merciful Angel. But then again is there a difference?
Perhaps it's a bit of cultural lensing.
What Americans saw was people being put into mass graves and armies sweeping through towns to leave almost no one behind (how many were killed and how many simply fled ahead of the invasion would be hard to know from our perspective - but of course the media interpretation is that they all were killed... from some of the soldiers that I know who were over there - they left the impression it wouldn't have been far from the truth). That is what America wanted to stop.
How do you stop an army? Destroy it.
But the overwhelming majority of Americans can barely place Yugoslavia on a map, let alone have any idea -why- people were killing each other over there.
Americans like a simple good-guy/bad-guy problem. The invading armies are the bad guy. The civilians being killed are the good guys. Blow up the bad guys and the problem is solved, right?
But then when the good guys turn around and become the bad guys a year later... we don't get it. So we go back and blow up the bad guy.... and... why are the good guys killing people, now?
In the end - all we end up doing is confusing a bunch of people and ourselves - not to mention pissing them off.
March 24th, 1999 If it was only then when American nation so kindly helped us...
I remember the Kosovo bombing campaign. I was ten years old, then.
My father was a Vietnam veteran, and I grew up with him having a rather "you send in the military to leave behind burning buildings and screaming widows" mentality - kind of a hard edge. I heard about the news and was watching some of the bombs drop live on TV. I remember greeting my father when he got home: "Dad! Did you hear? We're going to war, we're going to get the bad guys!"
He looked at me and said: "It isn't anything to be happy about. Right now, people are dying."
He and I never really discussed the issues concerning Yugoslavia before he died. I imagine he knew more about what was going on over there than most - he seemed to know a lot about the areas of the world that used to be under Russian influence (perhaps his growing up during the Cold War and being similar to myself in his curiosity and desire to know about things).
I suspect he was in disagreement with our decision to get involved in a war we didn't understand.
Either way - it was a comment of his that stuck with me for years... and when I met a young lass from Montenegro who was, at that very time, in a bomb shelter... it made sense why that comment stuck with me.
I think that the article that this dude found wanted to point out that NATO bombed Federal Republic of Yugoslavia with this Yugoslavia-Serbia, meaning NATO bombed what we know today as Serbia and Montenegro 1999, but the main air force was bombing Serbia because Montenegro had Milo Đukanović, even then.
Remember when you told me that it was peaceful there in Croatia 1999? Sjećaš se šta sam ti rekla?
I don't think that anyone here who started this discussion about Yugoslavia and the war and the bombing in '90s has any idea how hard this subject still is here on Balkans and what is it doing to people. And those who think that NATO and Americans saved us should come here and see how they saved us, and from what they saved us, and those who think that they did only bombing on FRY 1999 and peaceful negotiations few years before they should come here to see how they did far more than you think they did. Ask Albanians in Kosovo, ask Bosnians in BiH, ask Croats in Croatia... Do ask Yugoslavs how they country was destroyed...
Frankly, this overlooks the fact that you all were doing a damned good job of destroying yourselves.
While I'll be the first to admit that America made decisions for the sake of political expedience and caused far more damage than she should have, by that same token, to deflect the entirety of the tragedies onto other nations is intellectually dishonest.
There are many ways to see the world, and quite a few of them exist from outside the Balkans. Discrediting those views - however painful they may be to entertain - may be one of the greatest faults of the culture that spawned such influential individuals as Tesla.
