Text 19971, 113 rader
Skriven 2011-06-17 07:47:36 av Robert Bashe (2:2448/44)
  Kommentar till text 19946 av Michiel van der Vlist (2:280/5555)
Ärende: What are we talking about now?
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Michiel van der Vlist wrote to Robert Bashe on Wednesday June 15 2011 at 11:39:

RB>> I mentioned the differences in mentality in one of my messages. That
RB>> was something that was apparent to me many years ago, and
RB>> unfortunately continues.

MV> Don't expect anything to change in the foreseeable future. It is not
MV> that the Europeans won't fight at all, they do when they must, but
MV> only if all other means have been exhausted.

In the case of the Balkans, my impression was that the Europeans wuld continue
to "negotiate" right down to the last drop of blood of the victims. It sickened
me to see Milosevic and Karadzic invited for "negotiations" to various European
capitals, while at the same time you could see the carnage their people were
causing every night on TV.

MV> The many wars in the past have learned them to be extremely reluctant.

That I believe sight unseen. The only problem is that the reluctance is now so
extreme that it takes a regular invasion - or a kick in the pants from an
outsider, in the case of the Balkans the Americans - to stiffen their backbones
and remind them that not everyone is convinced by sweet talk.

MV> And rightly so.

To an extent, yes. But take that too far, and I thought it was taken way too
far in the case of the Balkans, and you have a society that preaches
non-violence to the point of self destruction.

RB>> The Europeans are good on diplomacy and weak on action. The Americans
RB>> are the reverse.

MV> The Americans are good at getting themselves involved in action. When
MV> it comes to getting themselves out of it, the track record does not
MV> look so good.

You don't "get out" of action. You either win or lose. And in many cases it's
not certain which happened until years afterwwards.

And of course, if you merely talk while people are being murdered elsewhere,
the problem solves itself in the course of time. The only question is how much
bloodshed you can stomach before you decide to do something to stop it. In the
olden days, with no TV and slow communications, that was no big problem, but
nowadays you get your nose rubbed in a one-sided conflict every evening in the
TV news, in full color.

MV> How many of those actions in the last 50 years have been a success?
MV> Success in the sense that it provided a stable long term solution to a
MV> problem without causing a new problem elsewhere.

You expect action to result in heaven on earth, Michiel. That doesn't exist and
you know it. All you can do it what you consider right and do the best you can.
The rest is up to fate and the local population.

Sometimes diplomacy is the best answer, sometimes action is. But it's wrong to
be dogmatic in such things - no _one_ course is ever right _all_ the time,
under _all_ conditions.

MV> How many? Vietnam obviously was not a success.

The Vietnamese think so. They have a good economy and are prospering, even if
they only have a one-party system.

MV> The many interventions in Haiti have led nowhere.

Unfortunately. But if you look at the history of the country, it was a "failed
state" from the moment Toussaint Louverture was kidnapped and brought to France
to die.

MV> Somalia was a disaster.

Yes, the Germans found that, too. The big mistake there was the resistance to
disarming the clans _before_ doing anything else. Like opening a soup kitchen
in a heavily armed camp of hungry drifters. Everybody tries to get everything
for himself and to hell with the rest. Nasty if everyone is also armed.

MV> Afghanistan and Iraq? It started out as revenge for 9/11.

No, it started out to get al Quaida and Osama bin Laden. The pity was that al
Quaida began the affair in Afghanistan by doing their Taliban buddies a big
favor - getting rid of _the_ potential leader who might have had a good chance
of uniting the country, Ahmad Shah Massoud. He was doing pretty well against
the Taliban when he was murdered, and would surely have been a driving force in
eliminating them altogether, with the help of the coalition led by the USA, had
he lived.

As for Iraq, who knows? You assume intentional deceit on the part of the USA,
which may be true, at least in part - but there are other interpretations, not
all as favorable to Saddam Hussein and the Ba'ath party. Saddam liked to play
with fire, and may have bragged once too often. The times were nervous, 9/11
wasn't that long ago and nobody wanted to take a chance that al Quaida might
simply migrate from Afghanistan through "friendly" Iran to Iraq, with all it's
oil and money to buy the most exciting weapons to wipe out the infidels (you
and me, not merely the American infidels).

Like I say, it's possible to see things in various lights.

MV> Face it Bob, the Americans are not good at all in action, when you
MV> look at the success rate of those actions.

Face it, Michiel, Europeans are lousy diplomats if you judge their success by
the number of conflicts they've solved bloodlessly by mere talking.

See, I can do that too. But both statements are wrong when taken in absolute
terms and the prevailing circumstances taken into account.

The fact is that we're _all_ fallible, and _all_ of us make mistakes. Nobody
has a monopoly on virtue.

Cheers, Bob

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