[Kamui4356]

Originally Posted by bhamlaxy

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.

True, but that's not what we went in on. Those were attempts to justify the war after the initial reasons were revealed to be wrong. Had it turned out that Iraq was making wmds, and supporting al qaeda, we would have been fully justified and wouldn't need those additional excuses.

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.

The problem with that arguement is there are political reasons not related to the economy for all those too. You can't say they were solely made based on economic considerations. Let's not forget that most of those "countless other examples" you mention in passing were against regimes the Soviet Union created and supported. Capitalism and communism seem to have very little impact on the decision making process for a nation to sell weapons to people who probably shouldn't have them as long as it's in their short term interest.

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.

I'm saying that capitalism isn't responsible for that, and there are plenty of examples of communist nations enacting similar policies. Further communism gives too much control to the central governemnt and invites abuses. Capitalism spreads things around, which helps prevent widespread abuses. Sure you may get an Enron every now and then under capitalism, but at least they didn't have control over the entire economy. Under socialism that's a very real possibility.

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.

No, it hasn't gotten anywhere because thanks to the fuck up of the Iraq war, the US doesn't have the international clout to take action. Worse China has a veto on the UN security counsal, so we can't get anything done that way. If we were to send troops unilaterally, it would be portrayed as yet another example of american imperialism by the very people who are currently critizing the US for not taking action. Besides, it is not our responsibility to solve all of the world's problems.

Let's not forget the US contributes more in foriegn aid than any other nation.

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.

True, they have a hybrid economy. Unfortunately I believe their economy incorporated the worst aspects of each, rather than the best.

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.

Which they'd be doing anyway, since they'd need the oil regardless of their economic system. Besides, if there's oil there, under your arguement, shouldn't the US take action to save those people as an excuse to secure the oil supplies?

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.

The problem is they won't even if the US, EU, and AU pledge to support them logisticly.

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.

The soviets provided arms to communist groups in Africa for most of the cold war. In addition, the varients produced in other countries were for the most part authorized by the soviets. AK varients make up the majority or arms you'll see in africa. They most certainly did not come from the US, as you'd be seeing more M-16 varients if that were the case.

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.

Most of that in the form of higher end weapon systems like planes and tanks. In terms of small arms, you can trace them directly back to the soviets. Unless you want to argue that the AK-47 and rpg-7 are of US manufacture.

You keep saying how capitalism is bad and did all these things, while ignoring the same things done by communism. Let's not forget about things like the Khmer Rouge, where Pol Pot tried to enforce pure communism, resulting in the deaths of millions.

I'll say it again, yes capitalism is bad, but communism is far worse as history shows.