Iraq vs. Georgia

[Epsilon Delta]

Ahhh... the NY times bashing Haliburton... who woulda thunk it

Yet with those stories on Haliburton being contracted to help rebuild the Iraqi oil infrastructure... I still did not see where we are taking all this oil from Iraq.... you know... the basis behind the whole 'no blood for oil' argument

Didn't read the first link, I take.

 

[52ndStreet]

There does seem to be a double standard that the West always seem to have with regards to these invasions.Its O.K. for western countries to invade, but when a Communist
country invades, people start to panic, or scream out Hitlers name,or call them Nazis.

 

[editec]

There does seem to be a double standard that the West always seem to have with regards to these invasions.Its O.K. for western countries to invade, but when a Communist
country invades, people start to panic, or scream out Hitlers name,or call them Nazis.

Oh, if I had to characterize the reports I'm hearing, this is more a Stalinesque than Tuetonic invasion.

 

[random3434]

Oh, if I had to characterize the reports I'm hearing, this is more a Stalinesque than Tuetonic invasion.

Have you watched this yet?




[ame=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O_jCdbcAjNM]YouTube - Who's to blame for the Russian Georgian conflict?[/ame]

 

[Tech_Esq]

Have you watched this yet?




YouTube - Who's to blame for the Russian Georgian conflict?

Yes I watched it. What's your point about it?

 

[Tristan]

There does seem to be a double standard that the West always seem to have with regards to these invasions.Its O.K. for western countries to invade, but when a Communist
country invades, people start to panic, or scream out Hitlers name,or call them Nazis.

It's one standard. It's OK for a free country to liberate a country ruled by tyrants. It's not OK for dictators and tyrants to invade free countries.

Georgia- Free and sovereign.

Iraq- not free and not sovereign.

One standard.

 

[Epsilon Delta]

It's one standard. It's OK for a free country to liberate a country ruled by tyrants. It's not OK for dictators and tyrants to invade free countries.

Georgia- Free and sovereign.

Iraq- not free and not sovereign.

One standard.

What about Chile? Guatemala? Nicaragua? Venezuela? ...Iran?

How do those come into the equation?

Or what about flipping the question around, is it OK to support dictators if they further the interests of "free" countries? But it's not ok to support them if they further the interests of other "unfree" countries? Or are you saying don't support dictators at all? I hope you're saying that, although that would mean that your point of view is far removed from US Foreign Policy for the past 200 years.

 

[Tristan]

What about Chile? Guatemala? Nicaragua? Venezuela? ...Iran?

How do those come into the equation?

Or what about flipping the question around, is it OK to support dictators if they further the interests of "free" countries? But it's not ok to support them if they further the interests of other "unfree" countries? Or are you saying don't support dictators at all? I hope you're saying that, although that would mean that your point of view is far removed from US Foreign Policy for the past 200 years.

What about them?

What dictators are in the habbit of supporting free countries?

I'm not an expert on U.S. Foreign Policy and I'm not trying to defend it's entire history. My philosophy is force is only OK in defense of yourself or your allies. (like England, Korea, Kuwait etc etc) It's not OK for dictators or totalitarian governments to use force ever. (because those governments are not "OK" from the get-go)

I don't support every U.S. War but it's certainly fine to support some bad governments against worse ones. For example, Iran had a pretty bad government in 1979 but the Ayatollah Khumayni's government is/was much worse. (for us and the Iranians)

 

[Epsilon Delta]

What about them?

What dictators are in the habbit of supporting free countries?

I'm not an expert on U.S. Foreign Policy and I'm not trying to defend it's entire history. My philosophy is force is only OK in defense of yourself or your allies. (like England, Korea, Kuwait etc etc) It's not OK for dictators or totalitarian governments to use force ever. (because those governments are not "OK" from the get-go)

I don't support every U.S. War but it's certainly fine to support some bad governments against worse ones. For example, Iran had a pretty bad government in 1979 but the Ayatollah Khumayni's government is/was much worse. (for us and the Iranians)

I'll tell you what about them- They all had democratically elected governments toppled (or at the very least attempted to) by US intervention, followed by imposed autocratic militarist regimes (Guatemala in 1954 (success), Chile in 1973 (success), Nicaragua in 1984 (partly a failure), Venezuela in 2002 (failure)).

And I said free countries that support dictators, and dictators that further the interest of 'free countries' (simplified- by 'further the interests', I mean the interest of investors and corporations, or military interests.) Of these latter ones there's several examples- Apartheid South Africa, Pinochet in Chile, Somoza in Nicaragua, the Shah of Iran, Suharto in Indonesia, and so on so forth. These murderous regimes had two main 'constituencies', the domestic elite and the foreign elites of their patron countries, and so they basically had to cater to them to keep power at the expense of the vast majority of their own populations (sometimes they even had to be protected from their own populations).

You bring up the interesting example of Iran, but what a lot of people seem to forget is the backdrop to 1979, which was 1953. Iran did have a parliamentary democracy, obviously imperfect but far less so than the absolute dictatorship of the Shah. In 1953 US and British interests convinced their governments to covertly overthrow the Iranian parliament, chiefly due to the fact that the parliament and prime minister Mossadegh wanted to increase royalties to the government from the British-Iranian Oil Company, going so far as to want to nationalize it. Remember, this was before the evil fundamentalists were a real big part of the scene. Needless to say, the CIA operation was a big success, and the Shah was instituted as the brutal autocrat and sole ruler for the following 26 years, ample time for massive unrest to boil under the surface of his Rentier State, and of course to make the Islamic Revolution a reality.

Moral of the story, you gotta be real careful about the consequences. If you don't agree with some US foreign policy issues then speak out against them. You say that tyrannical governments should never use force, because they are illegitimate in the first place: that's true. So what about the fact that Saddam Hussein was the third largest recipient of US aid in the 1980s, when he was flagrantly displaying total abuse of power by gassing Kurds and Iranians. Because the Ayatollah was worse than Hussein? Then why invade Iraq NOW and not Iran? Iran's still ruled by basically the same group of people. Do the Ayatollahs weight heavier than Hussein on the 'bad' scale? Then why so cozy with the Saudi Autocrat Family? They're far more dictatorial and fundamentalist than Iran, so where are the threats to the Saudi monarchy? They're committing basically the same crimes that Iran's accused of, if not worse. So where is "moral equivalence"?

 

[editec]

Ossetia has been part of Georgia for about four centuries. The Georgians were there first, BTW. the Ossetians migrated from Russia.

NORTH ossetia, likewise.

I don't have a pony in this race, but I do not believe that this civil war is about FREEDOM, I believe it's about money and power.

Do I believe Moscow is concerned with freedom for Ossetia?

Hell no!

Do I believe the White House is concerned with Freedom of Georgia?

Hell no.

Both of these empires are wrapping themselves in flags of self determination and noble ideas, when neither of them really supports those things.

This embroglio is about two rapacious Empires vieing for position in the world hegemony game.