dagblog - Comments for "How Foreign Policy People Think, Part II"

You can never know all the

Lurker — Mon, 23 Jun 2014 21:31:01 +0000

You can never know all the consequences of your actions. But that doesn't absolve you from the duty to act. The child whose life you save may grow up to be a serial rapist or a cannibal or even a Republican. But you are still obliged to save his life, if you can.

I made that point as a

Elusive Trope — Mon, 23 Jun 2014 15:28:46 +0000

In reply to Did anybody deny that the

I made that point as a clarification, not because someone was saying that hadn't begun. But I do think it is important to acknowledge the passions of hate that would compel genocide had been already instilled in people. I think it is not to far fetched to say that the way that US troops could have stopped the genocide already underway would have meant the US would have to kill some of the attackers. Our mere presence, like the presence of the UN forces, would have not been enough. No one knows what kind of ripple effect the Hutu blood on the hands of US troops would have not only within Rwanda, but beyond its borders.

I am not arguing that the US (and other countries) should not have stepped in to stop the mass slaughter. The point was such an intervention, while a solution to that particular horror, would not in and of itself have consequences that would lead to other (maybe lesser) horrors and suffering.

Did anybody deny that the

Aaron Carine — Mon, 23 Jun 2014 01:27:35 +0000

In reply to The point is that at the same

Did anybody deny that the slaughter had begun? Nobody was advocating an invasion of Rwanda before the genocide.

Of course one can speculate

ocean-kat — Sun, 22 Jun 2014 16:59:39 +0000

In reply to Whatever the reasons why

Of course one can speculate that it might have started up again after we left. Its possible to stir things up and destabilize a country so badly with a botched intervention that it might have been even worse after we left.

The point is that at the same

Elusive Trope — Sun, 22 Jun 2014 16:45:23 +0000

In reply to Whatever the reasons why

The point is that at the same time one can't argue for intervention so that a genocide would be avoided, only that it would have lessened the carnage (by the time we got troops there on the ground, it would have been already well under way) at that particular point in time.

And maybe that would be enough justification, even if one included that a result would have been some increased anti-Americanism in the region because of the American troop involvement, seen by some as an occupying force or an attempt to re-colonize the country or region.

Whatever the reasons why

Aaron Carine — Sun, 22 Jun 2014 14:55:48 +0000

In reply to Maybe, just maybe, the reason

Whatever the reasons why there hasn't been a second genocide, there hasn't been one, so we can't argue against intervention on the grounds that "it would have started up again" once the Americans left.

Maybe, just maybe, the reason

Elusive Trope — Sun, 22 Jun 2014 14:15:45 +0000

In reply to We can say that one would not

Maybe, just maybe, the reason that it has been twenty years is because the people who remained there witnessed the horrors of a genocide, regardless of where they stood on the issue at the time it happened. Even those who participated in the genocide, once it was over, must have gone through some serious alteration in how they viewed the "others."

If you were to say that non-Jewish Germans felt the same way about Jews and how they should be treated after learning the truth about that genocide that occurred in their country is beyond ridiculous.

We can say that one would not

Aaron Carine — Sat, 21 Jun 2014 22:10:29 +0000

In reply to I'm not saying another

We can say that one would not have happened up for at least twenty years, because that it is how long it has been since the genocide.

But 'we' were involved in

EmmaZahn — Sat, 21 Jun 2014 18:32:51 +0000

In reply to It also bugs me that they

But 'we' were involved in Rwanda, on the losing side. Supposedly because 'we' were not forceful enough.

Susan Rice has been quite angsty about it in interviews which is primarily why I am glad she passed on the State Department after the Benghazi blowup and why I was and still am quite angsty myself that she is National Security Advisor. Overcompensation in foreign policy is extremely dangerous.

I'm not saying another

Elusive Trope — Sat, 21 Jun 2014 17:14:35 +0000

In reply to There hasn't been another

I'm not saying another genocide would have happened, only that one cannot say had we stopped the first one we can conclude that one would not have happened later.