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World politics: Friend or not, just like in school.
Former Member
Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
It will be a few years before I'm old enough to vote. BUT. I do view countries the way I view people in my school. In many cases it is easy to see who is your friend, who is jealous of you, or who just hates what you're about.
I think adults make it more confusing than it has to be. If someone comes at you on the playground...you know who your friends are. Isn't it the same with global politics. (Or in this case the intent of Muslim extremists to destroy the West in general and America in particular.)
I think adults make it more confusing than it has to be. If someone comes at you on the playground...you know who your friends are. Isn't it the same with global politics. (Or in this case the intent of Muslim extremists to destroy the West in general and America in particular.)
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Simply put more often than not the immediate interests of our political leaders and their greedy backers make them blind to the long term consequences of their actions, if indeed they care at all since it wont be their "watch" necessarily by the times the hens come home roost.
Remember that OBL was once "our" man. In the pay of the CIA and most certainly heavily funded by Reagan/Bush administrations to fight against the Soviets in Afghanistan in the 1980's. So too was Saddam, funded, armed and prompted to go ahead and take on Iran (even when he used the gas against Halabja, for which our Government is so willing to villify him two decades later). Where were the complaints when he actually did it? there were none, none that were official at any rate.
The driving doctrine is often "The enemy of my enemy...." and it has been too clearly demonstrated (by any who care to dig deeper than the pablum on the evening news) that this tactic only leaves us open to having our own foreign pitbulls turning on us when we finally shaft them with another turn of foreign policy.
The terrorist threats to the West did not and do not arise out of some vacuum. They have a long running context of our own duplicity and political, economic, or military abuses throughout the developing world.
The sooner the public learns to understand this, the sooner we can find better ways than paranoia, disregard for civil liberties, and guns and bombs, to deal with the rest of the world. The right wingers will only make matters worse whilst lining their own pockets for a hasty retreat from the scene down the road.
I don't understand you, Clandestine. You claim to take this historical perspective, then shot focus like that.
Care to give me an approximation of when the problems in Afghanistan started?
Edited to add; I mean the causal problems, not the present troubles of post-Taleban restructuration.
Here's a little historical snippet I dug up which might get you started if you care to understand how US dealings in the world have a long running context which many of our detractors do NOT forget...
http://www.interage.com/usafghanistanhistory.html
See, now that's what I mean.
Firstly, you don't seem to have read my question to you, which asked for one thing only; a date of the problems of Afghanistan.
Secondly, you have a short lived focus which has a predominantly American centric viewpoint. You, as a nation, are dominant at the moment, but you have a relatively limited impact in the grand scheme of things. Hell, my College pre-dates your country.
Now, are you going to answer the question, or are you going to admit you don't know?
He is an American, talking in a thread started by an American, concerning America, the topic is bound to be a bit American centred, no?
Concerng the problems in Afghanistan over the past few decades then America has certainly played a major part, why not look at it?
Actually, it can be answered. There would be no point in my asking it if it couldn't. I have a date provided by an American, coincidentally.
Presumably because he then asks us all to look at the bigger picture without acknowledging or accepting bias through his own positionality?
I'm not denying some of his points are valid. I just think it's a bit rich for someone in that position to moralise without the caveat of reflexive subjectivity checking, don't you?
I don't think it can be done bedause there is never a time when you can say things are good then suddenly..........things are bad.
You have to look at specific problem, not problems surely and even then it will be almost impossible, surely you will end up going back to the start of human history with any such exercise?
Everyone has bias from theri own views, you can't draw broad conclusions you have to look at each individual argument..........
Now if you think I support America's or the West's economic hegemony or interventionism in terms of setting up puppet regimes which primarily serve our vested economic interests to the detriment of their own people, then think again.
As an American who has stepped out and experienced many parts of the world and which has settled finally in Europe and been active in EU and transatlantic policy circles for many years, I think I have the background to set forth some serious critiques of the general failure of Western governments (US chief amongst these due to its status as the leading world economic and military power, and the country of which I am a citizen) to act responsibly with our far more numerous global neighbours.
The question was asked, isnt it like the playground where you can recognise your enemy and your friends, I have argued quite relevantly that one cannot since the lines are often blurred and those once considered "friends" turn out to be nothing but people whom we are prepared to eliminate when they no longer do our bidding as we see fit.
So who then are the real bullies in the world and have we ourselves not planted the seeds that now return a yield of fanatical violence?
So you tell me, since you seem to be on about something on a more personal level than this thread asked for, when did "the" troubles begin in Afghanistan according to this countryman of mine? Somehow I think the answer will be quite amusing at any rate.
My point was simple. You wished to consider the historical perspective of the troubles in Afghanistan, but did so in a fairly narrow focussed and temporally scaled way. I accept, and agree with your points and thinking.
I don't. I'm well aware of your position to make a critical perspective of American foreign policy, and applaud you doing so.
Like I said.
I'm not disagreeing with you here.
1498.
I'm not arguing against your points; I think you're right with pretty much all of them. I'm just pointing out that you want a historical perspective, and yet, you don't take that focus beyond American-centred and short time-span events. To make a perfect discourse from what you have, I am arguing, needs contextualising within a wider economic and capitalist framework.
I couldnt give a toss about what tribesmen were up to in Afghanistan just under 600 years ago. It doesnt have much bearing on my point.
So lets try to keep things in the proper frame of reference please.
The economic disadvantaging of Afghanistan from a once flowering market economy doesn't have much relevance to its position as a fundamentalist nation?
Interesting.
Fundamentalism/extremism is bourne out of long term economic problem, and hence, I think it would be fair to say, that it is quite relevant.
600 years ago though the US could not have been a target of terrorism since it didnt exist!! People wonder why so many groups have arisen against us and Im pointing out within the context of time that America has actively expanded its assertion of control around the globe, that the destitution (of which you speak) which we have left in our wake in the ongoing search for more natural resources or markets to drain dry, has left people more open to the fanatical and violent doctrines of revenge promoted by such groups.
I really dont see why you are arguing with me about this for!
We are discussing modern history as it pertains to the current situation, not ancient history. Concepts of economic exploitation (for the purposes of this discussion) really began in earnest with the age of Empire and the subsequent industrial revolution. But even those go back beyond the scope of my comments.
And at any rate, we are going beyond the scope of the original point of the thread.
Besides I doubt even the originator of this thread wished to encourage a survey of 600 years of history. The question posed (by a fellow countryman of mine i might add) implies a questioning of the current situation and not what bedouins were doing along the silk road shortly after the New World was first discovered.
I'm just being overly picky.
Please accept my apologies, and let's continue with the thread as is.
vasco de Gama rounded the Cape of Good Hope, cutting off the transcontinental silk trade that had been the source of Afghanistani wealth.
Very good.
Nevertheless we continue to detract from the topic of the thread!
*slaps wrist and makes a hasty retreat*
Is this thread dead!:eek:
Oh well. point made. lol.
As Deeb is fond of saying....
Dude.Post.Dead
We do detract, but we've done so in a well argued and well defined way. We also made useful contributions to the philosophy of the politics board.
So, if people don't like it they can bite us.
Really??? you like biting???:eek:
*makes hasty retreat back to sex forum where she belongs.*
Sorry....me not like too serious threads....thought it was time to lighten the atmosphere in here. I'll leave
:yes: me and my monkey know where we belong.
If that event hadn't taken place, US backing the the mujahedeen tribes wouldn't have been...and potentially OBL wouldn't be in the position he is now.
The reality is that many of the world's problems date back to before the US was in existence, or at best a "force". Later US foreign policy has just exacerbated the situation, rather than caused it.
Careful, everyone. Because whilst it's true, it's also pretty useless to say 'everything was caused by something else.' it makes it very easy for us to abdicate responsibility. Like it or not, even if there have been very long chains of events which have led to the current situation, US foreign policy DID have a massive impact which changed the situation beyond all recognition.
It's slightly akin to a drunk driver who takes out another car saying 'well if I'd left the party a little later and hadn't been drowning my sorrows because my wife left me and if that car hadn't changed lane and if they had stayed at home tonight and if I hadn't been distracted by the billboard at the side of the road it wouldn't have happened, so it's not my fault.'
I don't really agree with this....I had all these ideas about people in school and yet some of the people I met up with in University (Who I'd disliked in school) turned out to be great people..I'd just misjudged them. You really can't hate all the people from a country based on your own small minded view of that country can you?...
It would be like me saying all americans are under-educated wankers just because thats what their president is!!!