The Croatian Situation

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The Croatian Situation

Post by Username17 »

Split from the Happy New Year thread - fbmf

josephbt at [unixtime wrote:1167667190[/unixtime]]happy new year from croatia.


[T]his is in no manner intended as a personal attack, but what is up with your country even existing?

I'm not a Serbian murder apologist or anything, and I'm aware of the secret money-printing scandals and worse perpetrated by the ultra-nationalist Serbian "Socialist" party that precipitated the collapse of Yugoslavia. But last I checked, the Checkered Flag was still banned by international treaty.

I mean, regardless of the very real, very horrific events of the recent past, there's still the events of the slightly less recent past that to my knowledge still apply. That is, Nippon can't raise a flag with imperial light rays projecting from the red sun; Deutschland can't put a backwards Swastika on anything, and well... Croatia can't put a shield with a checkerboard on a flag. That was the deal. At the end of world war 2.

And yet:
Image

So seriously, what gives? I know a lot went down over there, but who said "Mother May I?" when the old illegal flag was being proposed? I'm confused.

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Re: 2007

Post by josephbt »

you might compare the feelings and thoughts of people here(some 30% according to latest polls) with those of people from the confederate states after they lost the civil war. bitter feelings towards the allies for destroying a fascist sattelite state. the fact that people that founded the "first independent croatian state" also made laws of racial purity and managed to wipe out some 90% of hebrew, gypsy and various slav populations(during four years of ww2) doesn't seem to concern them.
although the communists sent some of the pro-nazi ww2 govenment people to the jail had had others shot, there were "almost" no stallin-like mass executions. that's why ww2 pro-nazi sentiment remained in the general populace and was left unchecked until it bloomed in the early '90.
the ustaše(croat nazi party from ww2) revival took place when it was most needed - during an attack on the newly formed croatian state by the age-old serbian opressors. many symbols took new forms, but not new meanings.

so you see, this isn't the "old" nazi associated checkerboard flag.
the old flag had a white space as the first space on the red-white checkerboard amblem. the new flag has a red space as the first space, so it isn't the old flag, right? no nazi stuff here, move along, nothing to see.
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Re: 2007

Post by Username17 »

Thanks. I've been wondering what the loophole was since the Bosnian secession.

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Re: 2007

Post by Lago_AM3P »

FrankTrollman, josephbt, it occured to me when trying to do some independent research of the Bosnia debacle that most of what I thought I knew was American laziness and media spin.

In your own words, could you summarize the conflict and the lessons to take away from it?
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Re: 2007

Post by Username17 »

Lago_AM3P at [unixtime wrote:1167767332[/unixtime]]FrankTrollman, josephbt, it occured to me when trying to do some independent research of the Bosnia debacle that most of what I thought I knew was American laziness and media spin.

In your own words, could you summarize the conflict and the lessons to take away from it?


Ouch. That's like summarizing Proust. Anyway, I'll try to give a short version that's vaguely balanced. First, let's put up some ground rules: there are no "good guys". No ethnic group, religious sect, or political party wears white hats in that region. There are groups that are being victimized at any particular time, but I wouldn't bet a dollar against any of them nailing people to floors or throwing children into open wells with hand grenades if they got the chance.

The context: The region that was formerly known as Yugoslavia is part of Europe, but essentially also part of the Middle East. You can get to Rome or Istanbul in a day, and Serbia has its own Patriarch of Eastern Orthodoxy. The religions of Orthodoxy, Catholicism, and Islam are as big there as anywhere on the planet and just as divisive. Crusades/Jihads from all three religions have washed across these lands and died the dirt red with blood even into the last couple of hundred years.

The Players: There are a lot of people who live in the region. About twenty four million people - in turn about the population of New York. The region is called "land of the South Slavs" - which is a little bit like saying "land of the south asians" or something. Pretty much every tribe from the Roman days considers itself to be a unique people today, and while a lot of them ended up with countries out of the wars - a lot of them did not. Expect more bad blood in the years to come.

The setup: World War I was fought for the region of Yugoslavia. Archduke Ferdinand was assassinated in Sarajevo, sparking the great war which set fire to the entire subcontinent of Europe. At the conclusion, the Austrian Empire was broken up, and segments of the Yugoslavian region became independent nations for he first time in history (recall that nationhood itself was only invented a few hundred years earlier and they spent most of that period as part of the Ottoman or Austrian empires). The kingdom of Yugoslavia lasted from 1918 to 1941. During this period it was a reasonably successful country of primarily Serbs, Croats, and Slovenes (there will be a test!)

Nazi Occupation: OK, lots of shit went down in 1941, but for Yugoslavia it meant that the Axis took the region. The Croats were traditionally more Catholic and less Eastern Orthodox or Islamic, so the Axis chose to back Croatia as its puppet (recall that Italy is an Axis power and the Pope backs Hitler). Like every Axis nation, the new administration does horrible horrible things. Their attrocities are widespread and basically out of the scope of this overview, but I'm sure you can imagine.

Iron Curtain: Yugoslavia reforms in 1945 when Soviet troops liberate the region from Axis control. Then the nation immediately is forced into the Warsaw Pact and becomes a Soviet Sattelite state. Yugoslavia is actually a model of togetherness, because the local dictator happens to be Marshall TITO - a great hero of the partisan resistance against the Nazis and a famous communist and freedom fighter. He also happens to be Croatian himself and declines to allow widespread revenge killings against his own people now that Nazi weaponry no longer allows them to torture people to death.

Soviet Collapse: With the withdrawal of Soviet Support, Yugoslavia becomes an independent state in truth rather than name, and begins shopping around for sponsorship. Different countries (Germany, Ukraine, Turkey) make separate deals to sponsor different groups as client states, causing political tensions at the top.

The Kosovo Problem: Kosovo is the last holdout of a Serbian kingdom before the Ottomans conquered the entire region in their great Jihad. It's historically important to the Serbian people, but it sucks. Really, it's a hell hole and people don't want to live there. So some time in the last couple of hundred years of occupation, most of the Serbs moved out - going to Belgrade or something where they could get jobs instead of not and this really bothered a lot of Serbian nationalists (not that they were willing to move back to a place with no industry or agriculture). A political party arose in Yugoslavia calling themselves "Socialists" (hearkening back to the days of Russian sponsored economies, but also perhaps a not-so-subtle nod to the tactics of past fascist regimes which called themselves "National Socialists" or "Nazis"). They wanted to restore a Serbian identity to Kosovo - and the present occupants (mostly Albanians) be damned.

Like Printing Money: Milosovic's Socialist Party didn't have the votes to push that through. Herzegovenians, Slovenes, Albanians, Bosnians, Montanegrans, and even liberal Serbs just weren't in to spending public funds on a project to essentially sponsor the nationalist identity of one tribe in a multi-ethnic country. So you'd think the process would be dead, right? Hells no! The fascists took the printing presses and began printing up a bunch of money at night and then financing the project anyway without public oversight. The results were... predictable. People found out, the vast amount of "flawless" counterfeit currency in circulation caused a panic and confidence in the nation and the currency - paper money was worthless, people began starving. Mass hysteria.

Stolen Elections: Slobodan Milosevic became president of Yugoslavia during the panic, through manipulation of the weird electoral process and outright fraud (sound familiar?). Predictably, provinces of Yugoslavia started running for the door, hoping to leave others with the check. Germany had a backroom deal with the province of Slovenia and they seceded without a hitch.

Eight Years of Burning: For the next eight years (1991-1999), the region fragmented and burned. Fascist regimes sprung up in most or all of the former Yugoslav republics, each able to use the very real threat of ethnic cleansing from the other ethnic groups to incite ethnic cleansing against the other groups and to solidify their control over their respective countries. This was bad for Europe, as it sent a bad message to the rest of the world that they couldn't stop genocide in their own back yard.

Kosovo War: The Serb's had a deal with Russia, where the Russians would be willing to back them pretty much whatever they did because Russia needed friends badly after the fall of the Soviet Union and they had a long history of working together. Fighting Serbia was widely regarded as essentially impossible because of the very real chance it would bring about World War III. Clinton pulled an end run around that by bribing Russia heavily to stay out of it and then sending in bombers and troops. The Serbian Fascists were forced to withdraw from Kosovo, and with failure so incredible the continued vote fixing by Milosevic to remain in power was no longer credible - mass riots ensued when he claimed his next electoral victory and he was turned over to the Hague for trial. Shortly before he was to be found guilty he died, presumably suicide, but it's hard to prove.

Fear of the Shadow: Fascism has been on the wane in the region ever since - with the Serb Ultra-Nationalists essentially defanged and the European Community given a blank cheque to assault nations which invade across borders, the fear of the other isn't really that credible in the region. Croatia isn't going to be invaded by Serbs or Slovenes any time soon, so the military build up and cultural protection policies are becoming harder and harder to sell to the populace or the Sabor (parliament).

---

Right. That's a very short version of that situation. I can basically rattle off various crimes against humanity for as long as it takes to get you to vomit in disgust and anger, and of course all of these have been used as propaganda tools to dehumanize various groups so that new crimes against humanity can be perpetrated.

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Re: 2007

Post by Lago_AM3P »

Okay, so why did the GOP get so upset when Clinton elected to forcibly intervene? Was it because of the threat of WW3 and they didn't know about his secret alliance?

I wasn't very old at the time (around 15 when the conflicts ended), but holy shit does that scare the crap out of me in hindsight.
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Re: 2007

Post by Username17 »

Lago_AM3P at [unixtime wrote:1167780753[/unixtime]]Okay, so why did the GOP get so upset when Clinton elected to forcibly intervene? Was it because of the threat of WW3 and they didn't know about his secret alliance?

I wasn't very old at the time (around 15 when the conflicts ended), but holy shit does that scare the crap out of me in hindsight.


If I was going to be charitable I'd... not... say... anything.

Frankly, the Republican cynicism on this issue is mind boggling. The reason that they opposed military intervention in Kosovo and Somalia is because Clinton was doing it. As soon as it was Bush sending roops then anyone who opposed the war was a "traitor".

Here's a list of talking points. They were written up for use to sway public opinion against the war in Kosovo by conservative columnists and radio talking-heads. Point by point, it details how to make an argument that Clinton's sending of troops is irresponsible and dangerous, that we're throwing our troops away and may be creating a new generation of terrorists and a larger war. And yet, these are the same people who told us that people with reservations about Iraq are evil.

Some of those arguments have a kernal of truth to them.Some of them do. But of course, it's in such charged language that unraveling the fact from fiction is pretty much impossible - and of course that's how it's designed.

Donald Rumsfeld, 1999 on Kosovo wrote:There is always a risk in gradualism. It pacifies the hesitant and the tentative.What it doesn't do is shock and awe and alter the calculations of the people you're dealing with.


Donald Rumsfeld, 1999 wrote:I would not say that we've been effective in this campaign because it seems to me that the goal in life is to avoid crises, not to manage them once you're in them. And I feel that this was an avoidable -- probably an avoidable situation.


Honestly, if you smacked te shit out of them, there wouldn't be anything left. It's pure power. If some other guy is doing it, no matter what the reason, they are against it. If they are doing it, no matter what the reason, then anyone who even questions why is a mutant traitor scum who deserves to be shot. For treason.

It's a rhetorical stance. And it doesn't matter what anyone else is doing at all.

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Re: 2007

Post by ambersloan »

IMO the only relevant thing to remember about this part of the world is Bismark's remark about some damn foolish thing in the Balkans.....
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Re: 2007

Post by power_word_wedgie »

FrankTrollman at [unixtime wrote:1167784275[/unixtime]]
Frankly, the Republican cynicism on this issue is mind boggling. The reason that they opposed military intervention in Kosovo and Somalia is because Clinton was doing it. As soon as it was Bush sending roops then anyone who opposed the war was a "traitor".


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_i ... in_Somalia

Actually, GHW Bush was the one that started the intervention in Somalia in which Clinton inherited - it was Operation Good Hope (HA! HA! HA! ... Sorry, the name always cracks me up). Thus, since Somalia was FUBARed by all that took part in it during both President's actions that people were really reluctant about taking part in any other action. Basically what the Somali gunmen would do is surround themselves with civilians so that if the marines fired back at them, there was an excellent chance of civilian casualties and thus it was a lose-lose proposition for the US and the UN. Thus, this along with the fact that the plan wasn't really drawn up that well made it a losing proposition, and thus when Rwanda and Yugoslavia came along, people weren't too excited about taking part in ethnic brawls.

[edit]It goes in cycles:

1) You have an engagement so that you take part but you take on heavy losses on your part which stings quite a bit. People start saying, "No more war", and people listen.

2) Since the losses in the last engagement, you don't take part and thus there is heavy human casualties on the population due to your inactivity. Then afterwards everyone critiques the situation and blames you for not saving people by getting involved when you have the chance.

Rinse. Lather. Repeat.

As serious as a heart attack, that's how it usually goes down. Different presidents, same situation.

[/edit]

Also note that the Republican party during this time (1990's) really wanted to withdraw from the world stage - keep in mind that a popular rallying cry from them was to withdraw from the UN and make other nations have to pay for it since, in their eyes, it seemed that the UN wasn't doing actions that were popular to them.
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Re: 2007

Post by PhoneLobster »

Cycles?

Cycles?

What so the SAME republican dudes felt really sad about their last pet wars total cock up and out of their resulting natural and impossible to overcome pacifist tendencies opposed Clinton's forays.

But then the magical cycle, entirely coincidentally, changed so that a mere blink of an eye later when Bush wanted a much crazier more poorly executed war they were compelled to support it with such vemenance as to label all those that opposed it as traitors out of their newly rediscovered also impossible to overcome desire to kill eeevvviiiil at any cost?

There is NO CYCLE. The US has a very long history of very very bad military interventions. Executed for bad reasons in incompetent ways for bad results. The US doesn't go around alternately learning from its mistakes then forgetting again, it just rolls on to the next mistake, if any opposition occurs its independent of history as proven when the same politicians display their desire to throw themselves with gusto into the next quagmire their own dude wants to go to.
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Re: 2007

Post by power_word_wedgie »

PhoneLobster at [unixtime wrote:1167799421[/unixtime]]Cycles?

Cycles?


Yep.

What so the SAME republican dudes felt really sad about their last pet wars total cock up and out of their resulting natural and impossible to overcome pacifist tendencies opposed Clinton's forays.


Honestly, i have no idea of what this is saying.

But then the magical cycle, entirely coincidentally, changed so that a mere blink of an eye later when Bush wanted a much crazier more poorly executed war they were compelled to support it with such vemenance as to label all those that opposed it as traitors out of their newly rediscovered also impossible to overcome desire to kill eeevvviiiil at any cost?


No, I'm not saying that it is coincidential:

1) They learned that by taking the sidelines for Yugoslavia and Rwanda that doing nothing and not helping out kills people as well and,

2) Remember that 9/11 happened around prior to the latest Afghanistan/Iraq stuff which turned many Republicans and Democrats for the "kill evil" thing. It's just that on average that most people (Democrats first and now slowly Republicans) are starting to once again go away from it due to the casualties.

There is NO CYCLE. The US has a very long history of very very bad military interventions. Executed for bad reasons in incompetent ways for bad results. The US doesn't go around alternately learning from its mistakes then forgetting again, it just rolls on to the next mistake, if any opposition occurs its independent of history as proven when the same politicians display their desire to throw themselves with gusto into the next quagmire their own dude wants to go to.


Well, I think World War I and World War II worked out for us. Yes, there have been many bad military interventions but some turned out fine. (Haven't heard too much bad stuff bout Grenada, the US finally did get into Kosovo and things started to calm down after then, etc.) Of course, YMMV on what is "good" and what is "bad". However, the point is that even if you say it always turns bad, it still is a cycle:

1) The US get's too involved (including miliatarily) at turns out *bad* (just to go along with what you are saying), then:

2) Then most US people think, hey that last military operation went bad, thus maybe we shouldn't get involved with the next one (ie. intially Bosnia and Rwanda). Heavy civilian war casualties happen due to US (or nobody else) not getting involved. Thus, people judge after the actrocities that someone should have gotten involved, then:

Back to step 1. Wash. Rinse. Repeat.

(However 9/11 did "rev" thing up a little.)

[edit]Also, if it helps clarify things, I didn't mean that this only applied to Republicans or Democrats; really this has more to do with both administrations due to the US populace opinion cycling back and forth.[/edit]
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Re: 2007

Post by Catharz »

Yet another interesting history lesson from Frank Trollman :)
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Re: 2007

Post by Crissa »

These same dudes who didn't want to touch Bosnia and blamed Clinton for wag-the-dog said in the run-up to the election in 2000 that they wanted to invade Iraq and Iran.

Look, we invaded Iraq, and they're reading to invade Iran.

This is no cycle - the same guy who worked for Ford, (Vietnam end) gave nerve gas to Saddam, supported Desert Storm, dissed intervention in the Balkins, and promoted invading Iraq just yulogized Saddam by talking about what a horrible guy he was and deserved to be executed.

Good thing he was laid off on Nov 9, 2006, huh?

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Re: 2007

Post by josephbt »


FrankTrollman wrote:First, let's put up some ground rules: there are no "good guys". No ethnic group, religious sect, or political party wears white hats in that region. There are groups that are being victimized at any particular time, but I wouldn't bet a dollar against any of them nailing people to floors or throwing children into open wells with hand grenades if they got the chance.
This needs repeating - NO WHITE HATS. None whatsoever.
"Even" the WW2 victors, the partisans, commited some serious attrocities, most notorious of which is Bleiburg mass murder. Some 25.000 people were killed in the space of a week. Most graves were never found, because of an abundance of natural grottos in the area.
Of course, the losing party resented this, so they retaliated during the wars of the early '90. And then the other guys retaliated back....

FrankTrollman wrote:Iron Curtain: Yugoslavia reforms in 1945 when Soviet troops liberate the region from Axis control. Then the nation immediately is forced into the Warsaw Pact and becomes a Soviet Sattelite state.

Wrong on this one. Ever since ties with USSR were cut in 1949, Yugoslavia was not a memeber of any great alliances like NATO or Warsaw Pact. In fact, it founded, along with Egypt and India, The Non-Aligned States.
FrankTrollman wrote:Yugoslavia is actually a model of togetherness, because the local dictator happens to be Marshall TITO - a great hero of the partisan resistance against the Nazis and a famous communist and freedom fighter.
Actually, it wasn't so bad, living in the Yugoslavia. I know, i've been there. You sort off had money, kinda could buy stuff, and sorta had freedom of speech and movement. Still was sorta.
FrankTrollman wrote:The Kosovo Problem: Kosovo is the last holdout of a Serbian kingdom before the Ottomans conquered the entire region in their great Jihad. It's historically important to the Serbian people, but it sucks. Really, it's a hell hole and people don't want to live there. So some time in the last couple of hundred years of occupation, most of the Serbs moved out
To make the point clearer - some 9% Serbs live there. The rest is Albanian "minority". Go figure.

FrankTrollman wrote:Fear of the Shadow: Fascism has been on the wane in the region
I'd rather say that people against fascism have been on the rise. That way it almost balances out. And you have to realise this - a good deal of people still think that Croatia did nothing wrong when they joined the Axis in the WW2. The reasoning is: "Do whatever you have to do to get your own independant state." Even if it means having konz-kamppen and eliminating entire populations of minorities.
FrankTrollman wrote:Croatia isn't going to be invaded by Serbs or Slovenes any time soon, so the military build up and cultural protection policies are becoming harder and harder to sell to the populace or the Sabor (parliament).
And an amen to that one. This years budget cut to the army and an increase to various education plans met with a great approval in the general populace.
As far as other things are concerned, Croats don't get beaten up when they go to Serbia anymore, Serbian cars don't go up in flames the minute they enter Croatia, Bosnians are on the slow recovery(but still a recovery). Kosovo still burns, unfortunatly. Govenments still suck, but people are getting better in the head.

The lesson to take away? Don't hate. Forget the sins of the fathers. Remember the dead, but not how they died. Most of all, live in the present and for the future. (damn it, i sound like a hippy)
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Re: 2007

Post by power_word_wedgie »

Crissa at [unixtime wrote:1167818136[/unixtime]]These same dudes who didn't want to touch Bosnia and blamed Clinton for wag-the-dog said in the run-up to the election in 2000 that they wanted to invade Iraq and Iran.


Do you have a link stating that they wanted to invade Iraq and Iran? If anything, during the 2000 debates, the Republican candidate sounded like he wanted to withdraw from the international stage while the Democratic candidate wanted to stay a global nation. That was one of the positives for Gore during the debates.

Look, we invaded Iraq, and they're reading to invade Iran.


After 9/11 and after the US populace saw what happened to Rwanda and Yugoslavia when we did very little to nothing.

This is no cycle - the same guy who worked for Ford, (Vietnam end)


Actually, this helps prove out the cycle. Ford (and in part Nixon) were under a lot of pressure to get out of Vietnam because people were sick of fighting there. Eisenhower started with advisors, but in essence it was the Democratic presidents (mainly Johnson) that escalated the war.

gave nerve gas to Saddam,


Yep, not a good choice. But Reagan didn't invade.

supported Desert Storm,


Yes we did. However, note that GHW Bush wasn't one of the vanguards to the invasion at first: remember, it was Margaret Thather that was saying to Bush to "stop waffling" and take a stand in Kuwait. Also, one of the "successes" of that action was that we did put limitations on the offensive - just the retaking of Kuwait which was previously invaded.

dissed intervention in the Balkins,


However, one of the main reasons for dissing the intervention in the Balkans was that we had just gone through a completely negative engagement in Somalia. (You forgot that one in the list - as well as Beirut and Grenada under Reagan and Haiti)

and promoted invading Iraq


Yes, more and more this seems to be a mistake. However, both Democrats and Republicans were big on the invasion at the onset and the Republicans just paid the price in the last elections.

just yulogized Saddam by talking about what a horrible guy he was and deserved to be executed.


However, most people were saying that the guy was a lousy guy. Heck, even human rights groups were saying he was a lousy guy. However, as a minor point, it was interesting that an Iraqi government official noted that the US was trying to get his execution delayed and even brought up the point to Iraq of the feasibility via the Iraqi constitution without the Iraq President's (who is a Kurdish Sunni and some note might ahve been reluctant to sign) signature.

Good thing he was laid off on Nov 9, 2006, huh?


Yeah, he's now a lame duck. However (and I agree that there is an excellent chance of a Democratic president in the next cycle), it will be interesting what the next president does. I think people who think that a Democratic president is magically going to bring back all carrier groups and soldiers to the US are going to be in for a rude awakening. Time will tell.
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Re: 2007

Post by Username17 »

pww wrote:Do you have a link stating that they wanted to invade Iraq and Iran?


Sure.

Donald Rumsfeld, 1998, to Clinton.

Project for a new American Century, 1998 wrote:We urge you to seize that opportunity, and to enunciate a new strategy that would secure the interests of the U.S. and our friends and allies around the world. That strategy should aim, above all, at the removal of Saddam Hussein’s regime from power. We stand ready to offer our full support in this difficult but necessary endeavor.


Invading Iraq has been on the table since before 9/11, before Geaorge Bush Jr. was nominated. The theory was that invading specifically Iraq and conquering it would show the world how mighty we were and force all the lesser countries into line.

However, even while they were demanding that we invade Iraq to "finish the job" started by Bush Sr., they were dragging their feet and undermining the country in its efforts to pull the squabbling Balkan powers off each other. Totally cynical. Remember, this isn't just the same political party, there are Hawks and Doves in the Democrats or Labour as well, this is actually the very same people.

It's not responding to public opinion cycles. It's not a principled stand. It's a cynical and tunnel visioned stance demanding that the United States be at war constantly - but only in the precise places of the Earth that they happen to be poised to embezzle a lot of money.

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Re: 2007

Post by Lago_AM3P »

Clinton wanted to invade Iraq at one point?!

I thought he was supposed to be some kind of international politics supergenius. What the hell... we (non-neoconservatives) were telling people back in 2000-2001 that invading Iraq was a stupendously bad idea. I didn't know this stupidity was lasting that long.

What was the idea behind that, anyway? Did they not know how ruthless Saddam's regime was (had to be) to hold the 'country' together and then it'd be our job? Did they underestimate the amount of resistance? Did they expect to have a larger military/someone would take the dive and start a draft? What?
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Re: 2007

Post by Username17 »

Lago_AM3P at [unixtime wrote:1167846486[/unixtime]]Clinton wanted to invade Iraq at one point?!


Heh. No. He did not.

Rumsfeld and Wolfowitz wanted Clinton to invade Iraq. They threatened dire consequences to American power and prosperity if America didn't invade Iraq.

Now, Clinton was no angel. He bombed Iraq and maintained the sanctions against that country that essentially crippled the civilian economy without seriously threatening the military control over the region. To be fair, he didn't really have a lot of choice - withdrawing American forces from the UN sanctions against Iraq would have been a domestic and international fiasco. It would have taken a long time and a lot of effort to disengage America from that jive stupid policy, and since it was started by Republicans, only Republicans could have ended it without being branded as traitors.

I thought he was supposed to be some kind of international politics supergenius. What the hell... we (non-neoconservatives) were telling people back in 2000-2001 that invading Iraq was a stupendously bad idea. I didn't know this stupidity was lasting that long.


Oh yes. Actually, we were saying this back in '88-'89 too.

A little bit of backstory on that: Gulf War I was manufactured, by Donald Rumsfeld. Donald Rumsfeld gave Saddam Hussein a pair of golden spurs and told him that he could invade Kuwait and that the United States would sit it out and cheer him on - and hilarity ensued.

What was the idea behind that, anyway? Did they not know how ruthless Saddam's regime was (had to be) to hold the 'country' together and then it'd be our job? Did they underestimate the amount of resistance? Did they expect to have a larger military/someone would take the dive and start a draft? What?


OK, here's the neo-con theory of war:

The relative power of the United States has been falling steadily since the end of World War II. As the only major industrialized country on the planet that didn't get bombed flat during that conflict the US was able to outproduce all countries simultaneously and had comparative and absolute advantage in the production of all goods and services. As such, the US could undersell all nations at everything, and essentially demand every country to sign over their first born children just to keep from starving a generation. Unsurprisingly, most nations of the world did just that, and signed up to the American Empire (not actually called that).

So as other nations rebuilt and specialized, there eventually came a time when the US was no longer able to command comparative advantage on anything, and we were being outproduced in all categories by some nation somewhere (for example, Germany and Japan make better Automobiles for less money). As such, the only thing that kept our standard of living up was that the rest of the nations needed our currency as a pinnacle of monetary stability around the world. In short: we were reduced to simply financing other countries in exchange for them shipping us their frankly superior goods and services.

But Wait! There's still one thing that the US does better than anyone else: War. The American soldier is better trained and better equipped than any soldier except possibly the Israeli soldier (and we equip and train them too!) - so it is literally possible for us to knock over any government on the planet. So if we can export war, we can have a balanced trade standard. That is, we can essentially conquer nations with natural resources and take them. This "loot based" economic expansion allows us to maintain our standard of living without having to constantly innovate and compete economically with nations that might have a better education system than we do.

Perhaps more importantly, our soldiers and equipment are so awesome that we can literally kick over a country with far less investment than other nations traditionally invest in conquering countries, leaving a large pile of troops in reserve to threaten the rest of the world. Once the other nations see that we can kick over their sandbox and set their taxes to 100% whenever we want just with our reserves, they'll all fall over themselves to pay more modest tithes to keep us smiling. Getting small amount of tribute from the whole planet can keep our standard of living up without ever having to compete in the world markets again.

And all we have to do is take a very small number of soldiers and smash a rising military power's government to pieces.

----

The flaws in this argument are obvious, and were pointed out years before it was ever put into practice. In retrospect, it's even more ludicrous than it was before hand. It doesn't really matter how few soldiers it takes you to arrest the government, because if you don't have enough boots on the ground to patrol the regine and act as a police force you can't extract any resources.

And of course, as soon as you start an economy of looting you are telling the rest of the world that you're a dangerous maniac who can't be trusted and then everyone cuts off tribute and attempts to get nuclear weapons - hastening the fall of your "empire" to a ridiculous extent.

So yeah, the plan was absurd, and it failed for precisely the reasons that its detractors said it would. I really don't know what the neocons are thinking these days - they can't seriously think that their plan was any good.

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Re: 2007

Post by Lago_AM3P »

So as other nations rebuilt and specialized, there eventually came a time when the US was no longer able to command comparative advantage on anything, and we were being outproduced in all categories by some nation somewhere (for example, Germany and Japan make better Automobiles for less money). As such, the only thing that kept our standard of living up was that the rest of the nations needed our currency as a pinnacle of monetary stability around the world. In short: we were reduced to simply financing other countries in exchange for them shipping us their frankly superior goods and services.


I want to know why exactly this is supposed to be a big deal. There are a lot of first world countries that get outproduced on everything important and yet the civilians in these countries have a standard of living just as high or even higher than the United States.

Actually, I don't quite understand how this works, myself. I mean, how exactly do the people in Scandanavia live so awesomely while the people in India live in abject poverty?
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Re: 2007

Post by Zherog »

FrankTrollman at [unixtime wrote:1167848173[/unixtime]]
But Wait! There's still one thing that the US does better than anyone else: War. The American soldier is better trained and better equipped than any soldier except possibly the Israeli soldier (and we equip and train them too!) - so it is literally possible for us to knock over any government on the planet. So if we can export war, we can have a balanced trade standard. That is, we can essentially conquer nations with natural resources and take them. This "loot based" economic expansion allows us to maintain our standard of living without having to constantly innovate and compete economically with nations that might have a better education system than we do.


Heh. Kill stuff, take their loot. It's D&D, but on a global scale.
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Re: 2007

Post by Username17 »

Lago_AM3P at [unixtime wrote:1167856035[/unixtime]]

I want to know why exactly this is supposed to be a big deal. There are a lot of first world countries that get outproduced on everything important and yet the civilians in these countries have a standard of living just as high or even higher than the United States.

Actually, I don't quite understand how this works, myself. I mean, how exactly do the people in Scandanavia live so awesomely while the people in India live in abject poverty?


It's a little bit complex... or at least it is supposed to be. Here's the short version:

  1. Vast Bank Accounts.
  2. Socialism
  3. Minimal Corruption


So Scandanavia benefits from having the North Sea Oil, but they don't actually draw into that money particularly - the wealth just gets turned over into a bank account while the nation is run at a balanced standard.

Then the people of Scandanavia are willing to put up with very high levels of taxation and high prices. You can't even get out of a restaraunt in Denmark without coughing up like 20 euro. The extracted value from that, however, is turned over to make a very solid iron rice bowl and healthcare system for everyone.

This in turn means that noone ever stops being a consumer in that area even when they are unemployed or sick, so demand stays high and production doesn't have to cycle down. And of course, that means that the economy can continue to reinvest continually in research and capital so that a product being "Swedish" has connotations of being "quality" around the world. This means that products made domestically in their areas can command the high prices that everything commands in their own region when sent abroad - and the Scandanavian people take a cut of all those sales which is reinvested in their own socialist policies that ensure that their people continue to get free healthcare, free education, subsidized transportation, and a minimal dole that ensures that their economy keeps chugging along being able to deliver that...

By contrast, in India they have extractive policies on the ground left over from feudal days that leave impoverished locals coughing up whatever they make to the local strongmen which means that there isn't a pool of consumers able to purchase goods and services produced for the local markets, so local markets don't produce goods and services. And that means that the locals don't have jobs, so the moneys they cough up to the local strongmen are pretty minimal.

In short: the more you loot out of the economy, the less of an economy there is, and the less you can loot out of the economy. "Profit" and "loot" are in this case the same. By allowing your corporations to take in windfall profits, this takes exactly the same amount of wealth out of the hands of consumers as if you simply had burglars with truncheons taking peoples' wealth away in santa sacks.

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Re: 2007

Post by PhoneLobster »

Frank wrote:2. Socialism


You know it never ceases to annoy me when the opponents of social justice pretend that socialist policies are NOT well known to be wildly successful for strengthening economies and creating a large affluent middle class.

And dumb greedy voting chumps believe them because they know nothing about anything and are eager to vote their way right out of a withering middle class because some utterly obvious lie monger has told them that unemployed disabled single mothers are TOTALLY getting mega rich off money stollen personally from them.

Seriously the second a politician starts talking about "welfare reform" or "private health choices" they are usually rather obviously labelling themselves as among the most horrific of human scum.
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Re: 2007

Post by Lago_AM3P »

You know it never ceases to annoy me when the opponents of social justice pretend that socialist policies are NOT well known to be wildly successful for strengthening economies and creating a large affluent middle class.


Did you know that Sweden's Great Depression ended years before World World II even started due to employing a mixture of Keynesian/socialist economics that Roosevelt wouldn't have even dreamed of?

At least, that's what I heard.
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Re: 2007

Post by User3 »

Side note: Rumsfield actually did NOT push the first Gulf War. However! He and a bunch of other neo-cons had a theory as early as 1993, that Iraq was responsible for every single act of Terrorism.

I don't have the book on me, but the book Hubris covers this topic adequately. And then some.

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Re: 2007

Post by power_word_wedgie »

FrankTrollman at [unixtime wrote:1167845227[/unixtime]]
pww wrote:Do you have a link stating that they wanted to invade Iraq and Iran?


Sure.

Donald Rumsfeld, 1998, to Clinton.

Project for a new American Century, 1998 wrote:We urge you to seize that opportunity, and to enunciate a new strategy that would secure the interests of the U.S. and our friends and allies around the world. That strategy should aim, above all, at the removal of Saddam Hussein’s regime from power. We stand ready to offer our full support in this difficult but necessary endeavor.


Actually, there's nothing in the above quote that literally saids that they want to invade Iraq: The only thing that it calls out is the removal of Saddam Hussein's regime from power.

And frankly it was a popular opinion of many people at that time, not just Republicans. For example:

http://www.newsmax.com/archives/ic/2005 ... 2804.shtml

Stephanopoulos Urged Foreign Assassination

Christian Coalition founder Pat Robertson prompted a firestorm of media outrage on Tuesday after he suggested that the Bush administration should assassinate a foreign leader who posed a threat to the U.S. - in this case, Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez.

But when senior Clinton advisor George Stephanopoulos publicly argued for the same kind of assassination policy in 1997, the press voiced no objection at all.

Fresh from his influential White House post, Stephanopoulos devoted an entire column in Newsweek to the topic of whether the U.S. should take out Saddam Hussein.

His headlined? "Why We Should Kill Saddam."

"Assassination may be Clinton's best option," the future "This Week" host urged. "If we can kill Saddam, we should."

Though Iraq war critics now argue that by 1997, the Iraqi dictator was "in a box" and posed no threat whatsoever to the U.S., Stephanopoulos contended that Saddam deserved swift and lethal justice.

"We've exhausted other efforts to stop him, and killing him certainly seems more proportionate to his crimes and discriminate in its effect than massive bombing raids that will inevitably kill innocent civilians," the diminutive former aide contended.

Stephanopoulos even offered a way to get around the presidential ban on foreign assassinations:

"If Clinton decides we can and should assassinate Saddam, he could call in national-security adviser Sandy Berger and sign a secret National Security Decision Directive authorizing it."

The Stephanopoulos plan: "First, we could offer to provide money and materiel to Iraqi exiles willing to lead an effort to overthrow Saddam. . . . The second option is a targeted airstrike against the homes or bunkers where Saddam is most likely to be hiding."

The one-time top Clinton aide said that, far from violating international principles, assassinating Saddam would be the moral thing to do, arguing, "What's unlawful - and unpopular with the allies - is not necessarily immoral."

Stephanopoulos also noted that killing Saddam could pay big political dividends at home, saying the mission would make Clinton "a huge winner if it succeeded."


http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/in ... 021598.htm

One of the Clinton administration's covert actions against Saddam Hussein in the 1994-1995 period was the so-called "zipless coup" aimed at quickly removing the Iraqi leader. The plotting involved supporting exiled Iraqi military and political leaders who operated from Amman, Jordan. The goal was to find, encourage and assist some senior Iraqi officer to take his troops, kill or overpower Saddam's immediate guards and then take the leader himself.

Whoever this military leader was, the expectation was he would have to be a Sunni and Ba'ath Party member and seize power for himself. This is in the tradition of Iraq, where the last two leaders, including Saddam, gained power through killing predecessors.

When the House and Senate intelligence committees were briefed about the operation, this former intelligence official said, "there was no objection."

One weakness of this approach, one source said, was the lack of assurance as to the reliability of any new leader who would gain power in Iraq through assassination. The Clinton administration's CIA-developed plot collapsed because the Iraqi military exile group was infiltrated by Saddam Hussein's agents. The CIA's plotters inside the country were picked up and executed, and the project was ended.


Now, the closest I could find to supporting ground troops was this:

http://www.findarticles.com/p/articles/ ... i_20106589

Noam Chomsky could not have done a better job scripting the media coverage of the November showdown with Iraq. The range of acceptable debate ran the gamut from assassinating Saddam Hussein (the liberal position), to bombing Baghdad (the centrist position), to sending in the ground troops (the rightwing position).


However, there's little support for peace figuring these responses in the same link:

George Stephanopolous, Clinton's former senior adviser, who plays a liberal on ABC's This Week, said on November 9 that "assassination is the more moral course."

Sam Donaldson, the ostensibly liberal co-host of the show. concurred: The United States should get rid of Saddam "under cover of law."

Newsweek's Jonathan Alter went along for the ride. On November 17, he wrote, "It won't be easy to take him out.... But we need to try, because the only language Saddam has ever understood is force."

"Take him down," added Newsweek's puerile editorial section, "Conventional Wisdom."

Traditional hawks like William Safire, A.M. Rosenthal, and Jim Hoagland were all of a feather, screeching for an attack. And William Kristol, editor of the conservative magazine The Weekly Standard, said only U.S. ground troops could dislodge Saddam.

At Ted Koppel's prompting, Lawrence Eagleburger urged a sustained bombing of Iraq. A few days later, Eagleburger and Stephanopolous were on Good Morning America with another free-wheeling debate. Stephanopolous called again for assassination ("It's illegal, but not immoral") while Eagleburger took the high road ("We should blast him day after day").


So you have a wide range of aggression. In fact, though there was calls for ground troops from the conservatives, the liberal position was actually the illegal position: an assassination of a sovereign leader.

Actually, to meander back on topic, though some conservatives may have been wanting to deploy ground troops, the debacle in Somalia made it so that most Americans didn't want to do so. Thus, when Yugoslavia and Rwanda came along, they (along with the politicians) were reluctant to support ground troops. Most countries were too concerned about themselves and their needs - in fact, differing countries had differing views for the future of the Balkan countries.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Croatian_W ... dependence

1989-1995 The World Stood Apart

While on the one hand, crisis emerged in Yugoslavia with the weakening of the Communism in Eastern Europe and the rise of nationalism, on the other the world stood by as developments unfolded. Yet the Western press was full of warnings of impending tragedy in the Balkans right from the start. As the war unfolded in Croatia there were many warnings that this was a prelude for much worse ethnic conflict in Bosnia and Kosovo.

The role of the international community in the war would become a matter of much controversy. Many commemtators today condemn the lack of international interest in the war at the time. However they had other matters on their mind. The war developed at a time when the attention of the USA and the world was on Iraq, and the Gulf War in 1991, along with a sharp rise in oil prices and a slowdown in the growth of the world economy. Thereafter it was if the rising influence of nationalist and separatist ideologies found their counterpart in Western and Russian policies of laissez-faire. This was not unique to the Balkans, the European nations refused to intervene for example in Rwanda despite culminating in blatant ethnic cleansing on an even worse scale in 1994.

At first in 1989-91, the international community tried to deny the problem and tended to support the Yugolsav government. The UN imposed a weapons trade embargo for all former Yugoslav republics. It placed the seceding republics in an inferior position, as they had no control over the Yugoslav weaponry which was by and large controlled by the Serb forces.

Official recognition of the new states of Slovenia and Croatia and of the status of the SFR Yugoslavia became a controversial issue at the time for foreign governments.

By mid-December 1991, other newly formed states such as Lithuania, Latvia, and Ukraine, recognized Croatia's and Slovenia's independence. Meanwhile Croatia and Slovenia recognized each other (the Vatican also recognised Catholic Croatia - with recognition even coming from Iceland.

Then, between December 19 and December 23, several other European countries, including Germany, Sweden and Italy announced their recognition of Croatia's (and Slovenia's) independence. The European Union as a whole recognized the independence of the two breakaway republics on January 15, 1992.

Each of the major foreign governments acted somewhat differently.

United Kingdom

Particular attention has been focused on the John Major-led government of the UK for insisting on policies of strict non-intervention. Some historians today see this as helping support the "might is right" powers of the time.

Germany

Nearby western European countries were mostly responsive to the demands of the Croatians, notably Germany. Helmut Kohl's government of Germany might have been ready to take more affirmative action if it had not been occupied with its own borders, and if it didn't face such resistance elsewhere in the European Union.

Russia

The eastern countries, e.g. Russia and Greece, were old Serbian allies. They opposed recognition of Croatia. Russia sided with Serbia but was not seen as actively encouraging Serbian efforts towards expansion. If anything, Boris Yeltsin's government was a moderating influence. However the large changes occurring in Russia at the time were one reason that put the Western nations on their guard, afraid of taking any military action that might have provoked a wider conflict. That fear was no longer so present in 1999, but in the early 1990s it was not so easy to decipher how Russia might react.

United States

The USA was among the more conservative forces in the west, like the United Kingdom (with John Major as Prime Minister) in insisting for non-intervention at first. The administration was led by George Bush as President until end-1992. Matters changed with Bill Clinton, who took a more aggressive stance on the issue and played a more forceful intervention role. In 1995 the US, using the latest Predator and other tracking devices, thoroughly observed the movements or the Croat Army and Gotovina's forces in preparation for Operation Storm. Successive US Secretaries of State Lawrence Eagleburger and Warren Christopher strongly criticised the moves of Germany and others arguing that this would escalate the war.
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