History does repeat itself

[davegolf]

This administration appears to be practicing the same philosophy as did Roosevelt in the early 30's when it comes to genocide and persecution in the Middle East currently. .



"President Roosevelt advised him (Ambassador Dodd) on June 16, 1933:[35]

The German authorities are treating Jews shamefully and the Jews in this country are greatly excited. But this is also not a government affair. We can do nothing except for American citizens who happen to be made victims. We must protect them, and whatever we can do to moderate the general persecution by unofficial and personal influence ought to be done."

Roosevelt's position later changed drastically and I ask will that happen soon in the Middle East. The policy to moderate the general persecution by unofficial and personal influence failed then as history has proved - can it work now - I think not. Who will be the first world leader to step up to the plate and say enough is enough and lead a coalition to stamp out ISIS. I fear it may take another 9/11 before some admit our policy needs changing and we engage the enemy - yes they are the enemy of "humanity" and everything civil. .

 

[TheOriginalHappyGoat]

Question.

I asked this below, but maybe you didn't see it.

Do you think it is or should be America's job to step in militarily to stop crimes against humanity anywhere they happen in the world?

 

[joelefty]

Should we go over there and just kill everyone


yes history does repeat itself, you post moronic statements on a almost daily basis.

What the middle east has become is a sectarian war of shia v sunni. , this was all made possible by the asinine decision to invade a sovereign country that was no threat to the USA.

Study what happened in Tikrit after the shias ran out ISIS.

sometimes Dave there just isn't a answer other than let them fight it out.

 

[meridian]

I think Dave is right.

We should drop a few H-bombs in the Middle East. We've spent zillions of dollars making them but have never used them. Why not use them where they are needed. If this doesn't solve the problem, we can always blame Pres. Obama for making stupid decision.

Long live Dr. Strangelove! Long live Dick Cheney! Long live Davegolf!

 

[davegolf]

Re: Question.


I think there is a point where America needs to take the lead and say enough is enough and stop the genocide. I would think a good leader could put an all powerful coalition together and stop the insanity. Stop their money, food, fuel and weapons and starve them to death using a few surgical strikes here and there to quicken the desired results.

 

[TheOriginalHappyGoat]

Should we have done more in Darfur?

Far more people died there than so far in ISIS-controlled areas. By orders of magnitude. Rwanda? Guatemala?

How about Sri Lanka?

In all of these cases, many more were killed than so far by ISIS. Should we have gone in?

I ask all of this because if you don't think we should have intervened in all of those cases, but do think we should intervene more directly against ISIS, I think you need to explain what makes these atrocities worthy of U.S. action, when the previous - much more deadly ones - were not.

 

[Noodle]

Originally posted by davegolf:

This administration appears to be practicing the same philosophy as did Roosevelt in the early 30's when it comes to genocide and persecution in the Middle East currently. .




"President Roosevelt advised him (Ambassador Dodd) on June 16, 1933:[35]

The German authorities are treating Jews shamefully and the Jews in this country are greatly excited. But this is also not a government affair. We can do nothing except for American citizens who happen to be made victims. We must protect them, and whatever we can do to moderate the general persecution by unofficial and personal influence ought to be done."

Roosevelt's position later changed drastically and I ask will that happen soon in the Middle East. The policy to moderate the general persecution by unofficial and personal influence failed then as history has proved - can it work now - I think not. Who will be the first world leader to step up to the plate and say enough is enough and lead a coalition to stamp out ISIS. I fear it may take another 9/11 before some admit our policy needs changing and we engage the enemy - yes they are the enemy of "humanity" and everything civil. .

You really need to work on formatting your posts better. I thought you were claiming that the current German government is "treating Jews shamefully" rather than referring to the 1930s.

And I don't think anyone has suggested that ISIS is just some folks treating people poorly, or that they should not be wiped out. Quite the contrary, in fact. There is really no way to analogize ISIS to Nazi Germany. The only similarity is that the Nazis were bad people who killed many, and ISIS are bad people who have killed many.

 

[davegolf]

Re: Should we have done more in Darfur?


I think in unseen ways and good policy we did intervene in those areas because those atrocities were not repetitive. ISIS is a different animal requiring different strategies. We know at least for now our current strategy is not working. At some point we will need to review and I think the President in his statement this weekend maybe rethinking. The Iran warship issue fomenting in the seas near Libya may result in some answers whether we like those answers or not. It is showing the true color of Iran's political intentions.

 

[joelefty]

Those attroticities were not repetitive

WHAT? You just done the unthinkable, you actually topped yourself.

 

[Marvin the Martian]

The question that doesn't get answered

Someone a few week's ago was complaining on a friend's facebook page that we were ignoring Christians being victims of genocide and we needed to get involved. I asked the same question, I supported involvement in Darfur and Rwanda. I asked if he did. He never answered, just said Christians were being slaughtered and we had to get involved. I asked again, and again he only replied that we had to stop Christians from being victims of genocide.

I get that if one is a Christian, one can relate to these deaths more than Darfur. But I don't think we can base our foreign policy simply on religion. If we want to work toward what the UN was supposed to be, I have no objections. I openly support the world fighting against genocide. But it has to be a global effort. We should not just choose people who look like us, think like us, or worship like us.

Frankly, the UN needs access to troops and the guts to use them. It should be a requirement that all permanent members have 30,000 committed to use, and all temporary members 5,000 troops. These troops are only available for call-up once the UN has declared genocide. That is 200,000 men. Now the problem is how long it takes to declare a genocide. I believe Colin Powell in 2004 is still about the only person of power in any government/UN to declare Darfur genocide. Everyone else is afraid doing so will trigger some requirement on their end to take action. Thus the UN is as neutered as the League of Nations.

I don't doubt genocide is happening, I also don't doubt that at the moment it isn't close to the ones you listed. I have no problems being a genocide hawk. It is the one time I am far more hawkish than most of the left. But I am not going to push for action now unless we commit to ending ALL genocide.

But I would push for drastic changes to the UN Charter specifying exactly what is genocide and the role of the security council members to provide troops above should genocide be declared. The fact Darfur still isn't officially genocide makes me believe the UN isn't serious in their definition. I stand by the belief that if the UN actively took out a couple genocidal dictators, future dictators may stop at just making groups 2nd class citizens. Not perfect by any means, but better than the alternative.

 

[davegolf]

USA Today New Alert


US warship heads to Yemini waters to block Iranian weapons.

 

[TheOriginalHappyGoat]

That is an absurdly ridiculous statement.

The U.S.-supported Guatemalan government decimated their Mayan population. But the Reagan administration backed the government because it was anticommunist.

Similarly, we turned a blind eye to the genocide in Sri Lanka.

Darfur? Sanctions that didn't work.

Rwanda? We went out of our way to avoid getting involved and just let them get on with the killing. The Clinton administration knew the extent of the genocide, but didn't want to get involved after the Somalia disaster.

In what ways were any of these decisions good policy or help stop/prevent the genocide/war crimes?

 

[Noodle]

I guess you got some of what you wanted then? nm


nm

 

[davegolf]

Re: That is an absurdly ridiculous statement.

Never said they were good decisions.
Posted from Rivals Mobile

 

[TheOriginalHappyGoat]

WHAT?

You just said two posts ago: "in unseen ways and good policy we did intervene."

Dear Lord, Dave, either back up what you said, or admit you were wrong.

And if you admit you were wrong, or are otherwise unable to back up what you said, then my original question stands:

What makes ISIS different? Why should we do more than we did in those other cases?

 

[TheOriginalHappyGoat]

That is exactly the question.

My problem with people like Dave isn't the idea that America should step in and fight against genocide. My problem is that their definition of genocide seems to be driven less by the extent of the killing, and more by the number of Christians they see murdered on the news.

 

[Noodle]

why don't we turn the question around


Do you think our response to the current situation should be commensurate with how we have dealt with previous genocides? Is there a threshold number of people that have to be killed before we do something more than we are doing now? Is it 1,000? 10,000? 100,000?

And why should Dave "need to explain what makes these atrocities worthy of U.S. action, when the previous - much more deadly ones - were not"? Dave expressed his opinion that we need to do something to address what is happening now, yet you want to grill him about past atrocities that our nation allowed to go unchecked.

I'm not saying I agree with Dave that we need to take action--although frankly I don't think he has ever spelled out what he would like to see happen. But to blast Dave because he may or may not have supported action during previous genocides or other mass killings is rather silly.

We f'ed up in Darfur and Rwanda. But the lesson to be learned from our past should not be that next time someone is murdering 100,000s of people we will take action, else we are doomed to simply repeat the past every decade or two, perhaps at best in smaller increments of the number of people slaughtered.

Again, I am not suggesting that we should be sending in troops and the like, bombing Iran, or whatever Dave (or anyone else) is proposing. But too many people are wringing their hands, moaning "woe is us, that is really awful but it's just too hard to come up with a solution. Get back to us when a 20,000 more people are killed."

 

[TheOriginalHappyGoat]

You misunderstand what I'm saying.

I'm trying to get Dave to flesh out why he thinks we should do something. I want to get him to specify an actual foreign policy doctrine that explains why we need to be more involved.

Please note his ridiculous claim below that we actually did plenty in these other situations. That's the kind of incoherence I am trying to break through.

 

[Noodle]

Re: You misunderstand what I'm saying.

I saw his statement. But so what? It has nothing to do with whether or not we should be doing more today. Yet that all others are posting about in this thread. In other words, all anyone seems to want to do is react to the original poster, yet he never even said what he thinks we should be doing. So my takeaway is that you and others don't think the situation with respect to ISIS is bad enough yet to warrant more.

So, again, at what point does it become bad enough to take stronger action? Where do you draw a line in the sand?

 

[TheOriginalHappyGoat]

You're not going to let me avoid forming my own opinion, are you?

I'm not sure I have an answer. That's why I was spending my energy hounding Dave.

Let me think about it.

 

[meridian]

Is Dave going to applaud Pres. Obama then? nm

NM