[bhamlaxy]

That's all well and good, but you brought up Kuwait. That means we're talking about desert storm, not the current operation in Iraq.

The current operation we went in under the excuse that Iraq was partly resonsible for 9-11 and they were making wmds in violation of UN resolutions and repreented an imminent threat, making a strike justified. This wasn't true of course, but if it had been action would indeed have been justified.

I know, but desert storm AND the current operation in Iraq are both good examples.

For the current operation, again, it is debatable whether or not the high up politicians who drew up the Iraq plans actually knew they had no WMD's, in which case although they sold the war from a WMD/Terror perspective, they had hidden motives, many of which are tied to the economy. Publicly, there have been something like 18 given justifications for Iraq, including "Bringing democracy to an oppressed people" and "Getting a genocidal dictator out of power", both of which are clear violations to sovereignty.

This argument came about because I argued we intervene for economic reasons, which leads us valuing people solely on how they can help us economically, which justifies these huge invasions when a TINY force could stop mass genocide of Africans, whom we don't care about because they can't further our economic interests. You argued no, it's because the Darfur thing is an issue of sovereignty, which we don't interfere in. You're argument fails at the point where there are dozens of examples of where didn't give a shit about sovereignty, and interfered in other countries to further our economic standing. Examples include support of a coup in Venezuela in 2002, the Taiwan Security Enhancement Act and other military policies designed to prevent China from reuniting with Taiwan, and countless other examples of funding rebel groups or insurgency groups against regimes who were not economically in line with American policy.

What I'm trying to say is capitalism has led to this mentality where if you can't help the US economy, you are worthless in the eyes of the government. We can support rebellions and coups, invade countries, or threaten invasion in order to protect economic interests, but we won't send a few hundred troops to prevent the deaths of millions of Africans, because they are deemed worthless to us.

In something like Dafur, there's no such justifications that can be used as an excuse to go in. Many in congress have called for military action, but it hasn't gotten anywhere.

Of course, it hasn't gotten anywhere because it is viewed as a waste of military resources, because helping Africans doesn't present any economic advantage to us.

China could send troops. They're still somewhat socialist, and they may not have the logistics to support an operation on their own, but many contries not willing to send troops themselves would be willing to support other nations who do with logistics. Of course they're too busy funding the people commiting the genocide in Darfur to do anything to stop it.

China is pretty far from being truly socialist. Although the government maintains control of most large enterprises, they lack the true aspects of socialism, like even distribution of wealth and control of prices.

The integration with capitalism continues to place enormous focus on acquisition of capital at whatever cost, even human life. This of course leads to China continuing to support the Sudanese government in order to secure oil, with that money going right into the hands of the perpetrators of genocide.

Even if this weren't the case, you are right, China does lack the logistical capability to invade countries far away. The focus of the US military is placed heavily on mobility. We can launch campaigns across the world with relative precision and efficiency. China on the other hand has different focus; dominance within Asia and the strategic capability to take down Taiwan if necessary.

Oh and just where did all the guns and rpgs that were used to turn africa into the nightmare it currently is come from. Somehow I doubt the US was the one who supplied all these groups with massive quanities of AK-47s.

First, if you are implying that AK47 means it came from the Soviet Union, thats wrong. The AK47 and its variants are produced throughout the world by dozens of companies. And this argument doesn't apply at the point where I'm arguing that after the death of Stalin, the Soviet Union effectively threw the baby out with the bath water by not only shifting from Stalins political policies (bad, of course) but also moving away from his more socialist policies, effectively poisoning their system with capitalism.

Additionally, the US is to blame for all the guns and RPGs that turned Africa into a nightmare. Not only is the US by far the biggest arms exporter in the world, nearly 4 times higher than the 2nd highest, but the US sold arms to many regimes who committed the most atrocious acts in Africa. The US sold arms to 8 of 9 governments involved in the wars in Congo, gave billions in aid over the years to countries like Liberia, Somalia, Sudan, and the former Zaire. The US sells Africa tens of millions of dollars worth of weapons a year.