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KimchiNinja
Joined: 01 May 2012
Location: Gangnam
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 Posted: Tue Oct 14, 2014 12:02 am Post subject: Germans refuse to fight "Islamic State" |
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Germans are darn cool people.
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Germany’s New Foreign Policy: Same Reluctance to Fight
Belgium, the Netherlands and Denmark, whose combined populations are less than half that of their German neighbor, have sent warplanes to strike Islamic State. Germany is sitting this conflict out.
“Germany has a deep aversion to using force,” Mats Berdal, a professor in the Department of War Studies at King’s College in London, said by phone. “Yet it’s important to get a broad coalition for symbolic effect. Chancellor Merkel needs to think hard about this because the consequences of what can be called a death cult could be very severe.” [exaggeration, fear-mongering]
Germany spends about 1.3 percent of gross domestic product on military spending, persistently short of the 2 percent level pledged informally by North Atlantic Treaty Organization allies. [smart]
Still, as Islamic State’s footprint expands and atrocities mount, the pressure may become too great for Germany to ignore the moral repercussions and stay on the sidelines. [nonsense, more fear-mongering]
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2014-10-13/germany-awol-as-neighbors-join-strikes-on-islamic-state.html |
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KimchiNinja
Joined: 01 May 2012
Location: Gangnam
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| Posted: Tue Oct 14, 2014 12:15 am Post subject: |
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So let's cut to it -- the West is in it for the oil and doesn't care about the innocents that get slaughtered. Same old story, different imaginary "enemy". They want to peer pressure the Germans into getting involved and put up some money (just look at the above biased article, shameless). But the Germans have been down that road, and don't want any more blood on their hands. Good for them.
Also, it appears Germans use almost no Middle East oil. They buy clean oil (not covered in blood) from Russia and OECD countries.
Pg 7: http://www.iea.org/publications/freepublications/publication/germanyoss.pdf |
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Fox
Joined: 04 Mar 2009
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| Posted: Tue Oct 14, 2014 12:53 am Post subject: |
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| KimchiNinja wrote: |
| Chancellor Merkel needs to think hard about this because the consequences of what can be called a death cult could be very severe.” |
Fighting a "death cult?" Foreign policy has devolved into a global game of Dungeon's & Dragons? Maybe in the last fight the caliph will transform into a Balrog or something, then Germany's going to feel really stupid about not having tagged along for experience points and loot.
Flippant sardonicism aside, good. Leaving Middle Easterners to resolve Middle Eastern problems would be the healthiest approach in the long term. Yes, one can argue that there's an element of Western culpability in the current situation, but so long as the West keeps intervening militarily, there will always remain an element of Western culpability. |
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KimchiNinja
Joined: 01 May 2012
Location: Gangnam
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| Posted: Tue Oct 14, 2014 12:56 am Post subject: |
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| Fox wrote: |
| KimchiNinja wrote: |
| Chancellor Merkel needs to think hard about this because the consequences of what can be called a death cult could be very severe.” |
Fighting a "death cult?" Foreign policy has devolved into a global game of Dungeon's & Dragons? Maybe in the last fight the caliph will transform into a Balrog or something, then Germany's going to feel really stupid about not having tagged along for experience points and loot. |
LMAO, nice one.  |
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aq8knyus
Joined: 28 Jul 2010
Location: London
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| Posted: Tue Oct 14, 2014 8:45 am Post subject: |
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| Fox wrote: |
| KimchiNinja wrote: |
| Chancellor Merkel needs to think hard about this because the consequences of what can be called a death cult could be very severe.” |
Fighting a "death cult?" Foreign policy has devolved into a global game of Dungeon's & Dragons? Maybe in the last fight the caliph will transform into a Balrog or something, then Germany's going to feel really stupid about not having tagged along for experience points and loot.
Flippant sardonicism aside, good. Leaving Middle Easterners to resolve Middle Eastern problems would be the healthiest approach in the long term. Yes, one can argue that there's an element of Western culpability in the current situation, but so long as the West keeps intervening militarily, there will always remain an element of Western culpability. |
The problem is that left to their own devices there would not be any resolution, no side has the power to gain the upper hand and thus bring conflict to an end.
Without any outside intervention MENA powers would be free to pursue their objectives without restraint.
Without outside actors intervening to guard their own interests the peoples of the MENA would just be in a perpetual state of war with no hope of peace.
The problem is that US is a lazy imperialist. It builds an empire and a network of client states and then proceeds to ignore the region till the next disaster happens. |
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Kuros
Joined: 27 Apr 2004
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| Posted: Tue Oct 14, 2014 8:56 am Post subject: |
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| aq8knyus wrote: |
| Fox wrote: |
| KimchiNinja wrote: |
| Chancellor Merkel needs to think hard about this because the consequences of what can be called a death cult could be very severe.” |
Fighting a "death cult?" Foreign policy has devolved into a global game of Dungeon's & Dragons? Maybe in the last fight the caliph will transform into a Balrog or something, then Germany's going to feel really stupid about not having tagged along for experience points and loot.
Flippant sardonicism aside, good. Leaving Middle Easterners to resolve Middle Eastern problems would be the healthiest approach in the long term. Yes, one can argue that there's an element of Western culpability in the current situation, but so long as the West keeps intervening militarily, there will always remain an element of Western culpability. |
The problem is that left to their own devices there would not be any resolution, no side has the power to gain the upper hand and thus bring conflict to an end.
Without any outside intervention MENA powers would be free to pursue their objectives without restraint.
Without outside actors intervening to guard their own interests the peoples of the MENA would just be in a perpetual state of war with no hope of peace.
The problem is that US is a lazy imperialist. It builds an empire and a network of client states and then proceeds to ignore the region till the next disaster happens. |
Oh, the US is a lazy imperialist, as opposed to who? The British Empire? Which relished setting tribe against tribe, such as the Sunni against the Shi'a, when it controlled Iraq not 100 years ago?
https://www.globalpolicy.org/iraq-conflict-the-historical-background-/british-colonialism-and-repression-in-iraq/48076.html
| Gertrude Bell wrote: |
"...We rushed into the business with our usual disregard for a comprehensive political scheme. We treated Mesop[otamia] as if it were an isolated unit, instead of which it is part of Arabia.... When people talk of our muddling through it throws me into a passion. Muddle through! why yes, so we do-wading through blood and tears that need never have been shed."
"...There's no getting out of the conclusion that we have made an immense failure here. The system must have been far more at fault than anything that I or anyone else suspected. It will have to be fundamentally changed and what that may mean exactly I don't know." |
| Quote: |
| 6,000 to 10,000 Iraqis and around 500 British and Indian soldiers died during the revolt [of 1920]. The RAF flew missions totalling 4,008 hours, dropped 97 tons of bombs and fired 183,861 rounds for the loss of nine men killed, seven wounded and 11 aircraft destroyed behind rebel lines. The revolt caused British officials to drastically reconsider their strategy in Iraq. The revolt cost the British government 40 million pounds, which was twice the amount of the annual budget allotted for Iraq and a huge factor in reconsidering their strategy in Iraq. It had cost more than the entire British-funded Arab rising against the Ottoman Empire in 1917-1918. |
The problem is imperialism.
Last edited by Kuros on Tue Oct 14, 2014 9:01 am; edited 1 time in total |
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aq8knyus
Joined: 28 Jul 2010
Location: London
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| Posted: Tue Oct 14, 2014 9:01 am Post subject: |
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| KimchiNinja wrote: |
So let's cut to it -- the West is in it for the oil and doesn't care about the innocents that get slaughtered. Same old story, different imaginary "enemy". They want to peer pressure the Germans into getting involved and put up some money (just look at the above biased article, shameless). But the Germans have been down that road, and don't want any more blood on their hands. Good for them.
Also, it appears Germans use almost no Middle East oil. They buy clean oil (not covered in blood) from Russia and OECD countries.
Pg 7: http://www.iea.org/publications/freepublications/publication/germanyoss.pdf |
The Germans know that with Arab allies, a little help from Turkey and the European heavy weights of the UK and France the coalition doesn't need any additional support for air strikes.
They can just sit back and let the others take the risks and paint targets on their backs. it is nothing to do with nobility, just a hard headed calculation that joining airstrikes is not in their interests and wouldn't contribute much to the effort anyway.
However, they are contributing in others ways, namely in supplying weapons to the Kurds and help in training their forces. Hardly the actions of a country who thinks the threat is 'imaginary'. |
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aq8knyus
Joined: 28 Jul 2010
Location: London
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| Posted: Tue Oct 14, 2014 9:14 am Post subject: |
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| Quote: |
| Oh, the US is a lazy imperialist, as opposed to who? The British Empire? Which relished setting tribe against tribe, such as the Sunni against the Shi'a, when it controlled Iraq not 100 years ago? |
I don't see what you point is...how does the failed policy of a defunct empire way back when invalidate the claim that the US has been an absent minded, lazy and increasingly incompetent imperialist?
Firstly, I said before that I support the western attempts at creating a pro-western staus quo in the MENA. It is not like I am anti-American, but c'mon the US is quite obviously an empire and an imperialist.
My problem is that over the last few years it has not been a very attentive one and has let the region go to hell.
| Quote: |
| Which relished setting tribe against tribe, such as the Sunni against the Shi'a, when it controlled Iraq not 100 years ago? |
Like the Sunni and Shia needed any help from the Brits in stoking tensions.
Although for the record the British Empire did eventually maintain a firm hold on the MENA and stabilized it's position of pre-eminence.
Though broken by WWII, bankrupted by two global wars in quick succession and bereft of US support the whole thing did eventually collapse in short order during the late 50s and early 60s. |
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Kuros
Joined: 27 Apr 2004
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| Posted: Tue Oct 14, 2014 9:56 am Post subject: |
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| aq8knyus wrote: |
| Quote: |
| Oh, the US is a lazy imperialist, as opposed to who? The British Empire? Which relished setting tribe against tribe, such as the Sunni against the Shi'a, when it controlled Iraq not 100 years ago? |
I don't see what you point is...how does the failed policy of a defunct empire way back when invalidate the claim that the US has been an absent minded, lazy and increasingly incompetent imperialist?
Firstly, I said before that I support the western attempts at creating a pro-western staus quo in the MENA. It is not like I am anti-American, but c'mon the US is quite obviously an empire and an imperialist.
My problem is that over the last few years it has not been a very attentive one and has let the region go to hell. |
The point is that your last sentence summarizes imperialism. All imperialisms are ad hoc, disorganized, ignorant of the conditions on the ground, and lazy as only parasties can be.
The US is quite obviously lazy, an empire, an imperialist, and in that sense it is like all other imperialist powers! |
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aq8knyus
Joined: 28 Jul 2010
Location: London
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| Posted: Tue Oct 14, 2014 10:07 am Post subject: |
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| Kuros wrote: |
| aq8knyus wrote: |
| Quote: |
| Oh, the US is a lazy imperialist, as opposed to who? The British Empire? Which relished setting tribe against tribe, such as the Sunni against the Shi'a, when it controlled Iraq not 100 years ago? |
I don't see what you point is...how does the failed policy of a defunct empire way back when invalidate the claim that the US has been an absent minded, lazy and increasingly incompetent imperialist?
Firstly, I said before that I support the western attempts at creating a pro-western staus quo in the MENA. It is not like I am anti-American, but c'mon the US is quite obviously an empire and an imperialist.
My problem is that over the last few years it has not been a very attentive one and has let the region go to hell. |
The point is that your last sentence summarizes imperialism. All imperialisms are ad hoc, disorganized, ignorant of the conditions on the ground, and lazy as only parasties can be.
The US is quite obviously lazy, an empire, an imperialist, and in that sense it is like all other imperialist powers! |
Empires wouldn't last for hundreds of years if they were all lazy and ignorant. However, lets not get sidetracked into a discussion about the nature of imperialism.
We seem to both agree that the US is imperialist and that it has been lazy. |
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Kuros
Joined: 27 Apr 2004
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| Posted: Tue Oct 14, 2014 11:20 am Post subject: |
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| aq8knyus wrote: |
| Kuros wrote: |
| aq8knyus wrote: |
| Quote: |
| Oh, the US is a lazy imperialist, as opposed to who? The British Empire? Which relished setting tribe against tribe, such as the Sunni against the Shi'a, when it controlled Iraq not 100 years ago? |
I don't see what you point is...how does the failed policy of a defunct empire way back when invalidate the claim that the US has been an absent minded, lazy and increasingly incompetent imperialist?
Firstly, I said before that I support the western attempts at creating a pro-western staus quo in the MENA. It is not like I am anti-American, but c'mon the US is quite obviously an empire and an imperialist.
My problem is that over the last few years it has not been a very attentive one and has let the region go to hell. |
The point is that your last sentence summarizes imperialism. All imperialisms are ad hoc, disorganized, ignorant of the conditions on the ground, and lazy as only parasties can be.
The US is quite obviously lazy, an empire, an imperialist, and in that sense it is like all other imperialist powers! |
Empires wouldn't last for hundreds of years if they were all lazy and ignorant. However, lets not get sidetracked into a discussion about the nature of imperialism.
We seem to both agree that the US is imperialist and that it has been lazy. |
The core subject is that Germany refuses to get involved in the coalition against ISIS, correct?
Maybe Germany understands something about the nature of imperialism, particularly given its history. Imperialism doesn't solve problems, it creates problems. Thus, a vigorous imperialism (as opposed to a lazy imperialism), would not solve the underlying conditions which allowed ISIS to arise. After all, both Iraq and Syria are weak, compromised states. Imperialism has the tools with which to create civil wars and ethnic conflicts. But stability? Imperialism doesn't really do stability too well. |
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Leon
Joined: 31 May 2010
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| Posted: Tue Oct 14, 2014 3:28 pm Post subject: |
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I am for humanitarian air drops, and am for arming the Kurds so they don't get massacred, plus they have been consistently an actual moderate reliable partner. I think IS is obviously barbaric, and if I thought we could actually be effective at intervention I'd probably support it, but I do not see any hope of us improving the situation beyond what I outlined in the first sentence.
A controversial article, and if applied too broadly it can lead to apologism for allowing massacres, but still a viewpoint worth considering.
| Quote: |
| An unpleasant truth often overlooked is that although war is a great evil, it does have a great virtue: it can resolve political conflicts and lead to peace. This can happen when all belligerents become exhausted or when one wins decisively. Either way the key is that the fighting must continue until a resolution is reached. War brings peace only after passing a culminating phase of violence. Hopes of military success must fade for accommodation to become more attractive than further combat. |
http://peacelearner.files.wordpress.com/2010/01/edward-luttwak-give-war-a-chance1.pdf |
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Fox
Joined: 04 Mar 2009
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| Posted: Tue Oct 14, 2014 3:33 pm Post subject: |
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| aq8knyus wrote: |
The problem is that left to their own devices there would not be any resolution, no side has the power to gain the upper hand and thus bring conflict to an end.
Without any outside intervention MENA powers would be free to pursue their objectives without restraint.
Without outside actors intervening to guard their own interests the peoples of the MENA would just be in a perpetual state of war with no hope of peace.
The problem is that US is a lazy imperialist. It builds an empire and a network of client states and then proceeds to ignore the region till the next disaster happens. |
You're essentially saying that without Europeans on hand to constantantly pick "winners" at the point of a gun, the Middle East will always and forever be in conflict; that these people have absolutely no agency, and even over time cannot resolve their differences as Europeans have managed to do. Even if this were true I don't think it would justify the policy you're defending, but I also don't believe it's true, at least in the long run. I reject your "White Man's Imperial Burden," which is defective both in principle and based upon experience. I also think the only reason you're pushing this idea is that the alternative would be admitting that the wars of aggression in which your homeland has previously engaged were in error. Bullets & bombs for the sake of face saving is repugnant. By contrast, if you admit those previous wars were in error, it would be nothing but foolishness to apply the same approach yet again and expect a superior outcome.
You've spoken before about the importance of maintaining "the dominance of the West," yet the philosophy you espouse here is precisely why I'm nowhere near as enthusiastic about Western "dominance" as you seem to be. |
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mithridates
Joined: 03 Mar 2003
Location: President's office, Korean Space Agency
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aq8knyus
Joined: 28 Jul 2010
Location: London
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| Posted: Tue Oct 14, 2014 5:46 pm Post subject: |
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| Kuros wrote: |
| aq8knyus wrote: |
| Kuros wrote: |
| aq8knyus wrote: |
| Quote: |
| Oh, the US is a lazy imperialist, as opposed to who? The British Empire? Which relished setting tribe against tribe, such as the Sunni against the Shi'a, when it controlled Iraq not 100 years ago? |
I don't see what you point is...how does the failed policy of a defunct empire way back when invalidate the claim that the US has been an absent minded, lazy and increasingly incompetent imperialist?
Firstly, I said before that I support the western attempts at creating a pro-western staus quo in the MENA. It is not like I am anti-American, but c'mon the US is quite obviously an empire and an imperialist.
My problem is that over the last few years it has not been a very attentive one and has let the region go to hell. |
The point is that your last sentence summarizes imperialism. All imperialisms are ad hoc, disorganized, ignorant of the conditions on the ground, and lazy as only parasties can be.
The US is quite obviously lazy, an empire, an imperialist, and in that sense it is like all other imperialist powers! |
Empires wouldn't last for hundreds of years if they were all lazy and ignorant. However, lets not get sidetracked into a discussion about the nature of imperialism.
We seem to both agree that the US is imperialist and that it has been lazy. |
The core subject is that Germany refuses to get involved in the coalition against ISIS, correct?
Maybe Germany understands something about the nature of imperialism, particularly given its history. Imperialism doesn't solve problems, it creates problems. Thus, a vigorous imperialism (as opposed to a lazy imperialism), would not solve the underlying conditions which allowed ISIS to arise. After all, both Iraq and Syria are weak, compromised states. Imperialism has the tools with which to create civil wars and ethnic conflicts. But stability? Imperialism doesn't really do stability too well. |
I would argue that the end of empire, first the Ottoman and then the British has left the region in turmoil.
The US and SU maintained an uneasy staus quo and then since the end of the Cold War there has been uneven attention to the region.
The imperialism of the US might not be strong enough to create peace, but frankly they and their symbolic allies are the only hope of bringing some sort of sanity to the region. |
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