What Kind of Military Intervention Into Other Countries Is Acceptable?

@gotlucky

Yes, it's bad that NATO accidently killed civilians in Albania. But then again, I don't expect war to be clean. If my neighborhood is being invaded by a military group trying to take as many lives as possible then sure we'll take the help from outside forces even if a couple innocents are killed in the process just so long as it means that they stop the opposing force from carrying out their full extant.

 

 

So even the question of whether they directly had to do with the war vs the Axis or not is actually irrelevant to the fact that this side (the Soviet side) concentrated a considerable proportion of its effort to combating civilians inside (and outside!) of its borders during a war (WWII) in which the USSR fought.

I meant specifically a proportion of their war effort.

There was no ethnic cleansing until after the bombs started falling? Really? So you're denying that ethnic cleansing was one of the formal justifications used for intervention and you're claiming that there would have been NO ethnic cleansing had NATO not intervened (per your argument that intervention made ethnic cleansing possible).

Yes, I claim that. There was no ethnic cleansing before the bombing campaign. Stopping ethnic cleansing was not the stated reason for bombing at the start of NATO intervention. The stated reasons were alleged Serb refusal to compromise, the fabricated "Racak Massacre" and preventing a larger refugee crisis. And yes, there would have been no ethnic cleansing without further NATO escalation the bombing represented.

Clearly then there was no ethnic cleansing in Yugoslavia (1991-99) prior to NATO intervention (in 1999) too because apparently foreign bombs are the magic trigger.

Snark in a strawman looks really dumb.

Yes yes of course, because if the Chinese threatened to bomb US cities on behalf of Muslims and Muslim-Americans, the American military/government would first round up Muslim-Americans and, when the bombs started to fall, would then immediately rush out and massacre that ethnic group. Makes perfect sense to you at least.

Strawman much? I think if the Chinese bombed Americans explicitly for the sake of Muslim Americans there would be private American hotheads who would make it their purpose to make life worse for the said Muslim Americans. In fact I'm sure there have been hate crimes against Muslims in America even without the Chinese bombing on the account of imagined sympathy for terrorist actions in the US by Al Quada.

I never conceeded Yugoslav government ever rounded up Albanians then tried to massacre them. In fact even ethnic cleansing as there was did not occur as part of any offical policy of ethnic-based expulsions.

Yes of course, you know better because you were Milosevic's confidant.

I know better because I know a lot more about Serbia than Wesley Clark does, who is a joke.


Anyway you are heavy on the acusations, but light on evidence. I'd like to see you try to back up your claims of ethnic cleansing before the bombing, of ongoing ethnic cleansing as justification for the bombing and so on rather than just write posts that convey your shock and disbelief at me presenting a view of the war different from your general impression of it largely based on official American propaganda. If you are so dismayed then your claims shouldn't be hard to establish as true.

• | Post Points: 20

Yes, it's bad that NATO accidently killed civilians in Albania. But then again, I don't expect war to be clean. If my neighborhood is being invaded by a military group trying to take as many lives as possible then sure we'll take the help from outside forces even if a couple innocents are killed in the process just so long as it means that they stop the opposing force from carrying out their full extant.

The civilians in question were killed in Kosovo, not Albania. Don't be so egocentric. Gotlucky tried to answer your question, the least you can do is examine his post properly before replying to it — rather than jump to conclusions.

That you are down with wars that are not clean is great, but then you have no business being a libertarian. This isn't the "NAP — sometimes" club.

If, if, if. Are you talking about a hypothetical or a scenario that actually took place?

I don't know how you can speak for the whole group, or how can the whole group speak with the same voice, but even if it were true all Albanians were willing to suffer under NATO bombs if that was the price of intervention that stil leaves the Serbian civilians. Was it OK to kill them? Ooh, but wait, you "don't expect war to be clean" so that's another matter.

That you do not is fortunate because you are speaking of a war of choice launched on false pretenses in response to crimes that never took place and waged against the civilian population of the targeted country on behalf of terrorists on the ground that NATO had helped encourage, train and equip and who proceeded to in the full view of the NATO occupiers ethnically cleanse two hundred thousand non-Albanians from Kosovo for good once the war was over. I mean if you didn't find some dirt in wars acceptable, you would have a real problem with that. But luckily you do.

For the most part, this is true.  My point about "true" moral indignation (get ready for the no true scotsman fallacy!) was that I don't believe that most white westerners really have moral indignation about many of the atrocities that occur throughout the world.  As I said earlier in my conversation with Anenome:

You were seemingly talking about a libertarian style foreign intervention in general, but before long it turned out that by this you were naturally assuming it would be Westerners intervening in the rest of the world and in order to fix the messes of other people, made by these other people. I am afraid that shows your cultural biases. When I try to think of a possible worthwile foreign intervention I think of non-Westerners intervening in the West in order to stop Westerners from creating messes in the non-West. That shows my biases, see? 

And liberated whom?  Are they voluntary sex workers?  Then they don't need liberating.  If they are there because they are being forced to be there by gangs, then I don't care who liberates them.  The liberators could be from Ghana for all I care.

The point was to try to convey the comedy of the situation. Surely people coming over all the way from SE Asia to liberate sex workers in the US would be highly amusing? What would you think of such people? Of all the problems in the world, in their own region and in their own lives, the one that could not let them rest was the situation of sex workers in the US? It is not less ridicilous when it is American 'liberators' and SE Asian sex workers.

• | Post Points: 5

 

 

And you'd still be wrong. The deportations required a massive amount of critical military resources that were held back from conventional military employments (aka: a portion of their war effort).

No, you are wrong. They required a portion of their military resources be redirected away from their war effort and to their effort at internal security. 

The US believed that by bombing civilian targets in Serbia it would compell Milošević to capitulate and bombed them for this reason. The USSR did not believe that deporting Kurds and Bulgarians would help force Hitler to surrender to the USSR.

Yes apparently, you keep implying things like this even though you keep making untenable claims, and then make concessions when pressed. And this in spite of the fact that you have claimed to speak for the Germans and have miraculously been able to scan, correlate and analyze the complete contents of the Supreme Allied Commander Europe's mind and judged your mind to be superior.

You are uninteligeble. If I am able of making concessions wouldn't that mean that I am open to counter-argument and posess a level of intelectual honesty? Wouldn't that in fact be a good thing? Though for your information I have so far only conceeded on one point where I said I should have originally wrote "war effort" as I meant, and not simply "effort". You on the other hand simply quietly dropped the issue when I showed you were wrong in stating (3 times) that Yugoslavia capitulated to NATO in 1999. It would have been more appropriate of you to acknowledge your previous ignorance that you had coupled with pretention at knowledge.

I did not claim the ability to speak for Germans. You introduced into the discussion the information that Germany was averse to taking part in a land invasion. This is my opinion as well, so I did not dispute this. Instead I introduced into the discussion my estimation of the reason why this was so. I did not assume this estimation would provide controversial and that you would disagree with it. This is why I introduced this estimate in the way I did, without any special introduction or elaboration. If you disagree with it and wish to contest it you are free to do so. You are also free and welcome to ask for me to elaborate on this statement of mine and defend it and I will be happy to explain why I think so. Instead you are apparently opting to challenge the legitimacy of my having an estimate as to what was behind apparent German aversion to taking part in a land invasion at all. What kind of anti-knowledge position is this? Do you want to claim that these type of questions have no answers and that it is outrageous have a position on them at all and a claim to magical powers? You do not think the motivation of the German political class may be rationally examined?

Also you feint at being outraged but I do not see you mount an attempt to show that Wesley Clark is in fact not a complete and utter moron. A Romney-like empty suit and ignoramus, a perfumed prince skilled at political battles within the military buerocracy, but despised by most everyone under him and with the reputation of kissing up the chain and kicking down the chain of command. (Except to continue to parrot that he was at the time the "Supreme Allied Commander Europe" as if that is going to impress anyone on an anarchist forum.)

Operation Horseshoe was formally invoked as one of the impetus' for NATO intervention when, after a meeting with Milosevic in Feb or March 1999, the German FM Fischer revealed that Milosevic made him aware that the Serbs were engaging in the systematic expulsion of ethnic Albanians from Kosovo and that they would have the issue dealt with within a week.

Please provide a link or state another resource that would back up your claims. You claim the existence of something called the “Operation Horseshoe” was revealed to the public by the German FM Fischer in February or March 1999 in the context of justifying Operation Allied Force before or at the time it was launched.  

Information you present is false.

The alleged existence of “Operation Horseshoe” was first claimed by Doug Waller, a Time Magazine correspondent on CNN on April 4th after the NATO bombing had already started and was going badly for the intervening powers. The claim was first alleged by a state official (rather than a reporter) on 7^th and 8^th April when German FM Fischer and DM Scharping repeated the claim and provided much alleged detail. I referr you for this information to one Mark Wolfgram and his Democracy and Propaganda:  NATO’s War in Kosovo that may be found here. 

Also I would point out the existence of “Operation Horseshoe” was subsequently revealed as a hoax and a fabrication of the German military intelligence by one Heinz Loquai in his work The Kosovo Conflict: Ways Into an Avoidable War.

 I love how quick you are to exculpate the Serbs for being the driving force behind any ethnic cleansing and to indict NATO for everything instead. 

Shall you merely put a spin on what I say, or shall you actually contest it?

You really don't see how ridiculous this is? You are now comparing spontaneous individual hate crimes with mass, state-orchestrated ethnic cleansing and now it appears that bombs only magically make Serbs resort to state-orchestrated ethnic cleansing, whereas Americans would just continue to resort to sporadic, individual, spontaneous hate crimes with or without bombs/intervention. So, maybe bombs/intervention aren't the cause in either case after all?

I wonder why I write things when you refuse to read and acknowledge them? I have already stated I nowhere concede the existence of ethnic cleansing orchestrated by the Yugoslav government. I have not seen credible evidence that would suggest something like that took place and failing that I do not have a reason to believe that it did. You are welcome to try to change my mind by presenting whichever was the evidence that convinced you, but for the moment do read when I say:

I never conceeded Yugoslav government ever rounded up Albanians then tried to massacre them. In fact even ethnic cleansing as there was did not occur as part of any offical policy of ethnic-based expulsions.

No, I'm light on evidence that you magnanimously judge to be relevant or not based on your propensity to equivocate on your use of terms (such as ethnic cleansing/hate crimes, dirty/clean war etc) and on your tendency to whitewash what is obviously a case of overwhelming Serb culpability in carrying out ethnic cleansing in former Yugoslavia. So long as you continue to pretend that you can arrogate these kinds of powers, I'm out.

I try to make myself understood as best as I can and I resent the accusation of dishonesty and cowardice. I stand ready to explain precisely what I mean by any terms I introduce and where and why I stand on any given position. In this conversation however rather than being asked and/or challenged to explain myself, to back up my statements and to elaborate as would befit someone who would truly doubt my honesty and want for clearness I find that you are instead more interested in putting a spin on what I say and erronously re-constructing my positions for me, as would be expected of someone who is determined not to hear his counter-part but to argue strawmen.   

 The First and Second Balkan Wars were one of the more cleanish wars mainly fought between conventional armies out in the field.

I love this, thank you. 

I accuse you of dishonesty as well. You pretend that what I said was silly, but you failed completely to show why. If it is indeed so silly it should be exceedingly easy to show I am wrong, but you did not even attempt to do so. Please offer a counter-argument or else admit to not having one and only playing at theatre.

As the result of the Turkish military losses in the Balkan Wars 31 divisions were struck down from the Ottoman Army’s order of battle. I offer this information as illustration of the extent the Balkan Wars were fought against the belligerent’s militaries. What information do you provide to show the extent of the war effort that went into fighting their civilians? 

Is there something like Souvereignity? 

Let's assume there is. Then in my mind military intervention into another country is only justified:
a) If there is a prior claim onto or obligation towards something in this country (territory, people).
b) If there is an eminent direct threat coming from this country.
c) If one is actually attacked by this country. 

Torsten:

Is there something like Souvereignity? 

Let's assume there is. Then in my mind military intervention into another country is only justified:
a) If there is a prior claim onto or obligation towards something in this country (territory, people).
b) If there is an eminent direct threat coming from this country.
c) If one is actually attacked by this country.

States give sovereignty because they want sovereignty themselves, a bit of ethical reciprocity.

However, ethically a state does not have absolute sovereignty anymore than a person has absolute sovereignty on their property.

If, for instance, evidence of aggression within a state's borders, say by the government against their own people, were evident, any nation or group of people generally would be within their rights to cross that imaginary border and help the people being aggressed against by opposing the aggressor, with as much force as it would take to stop the aggression.

So, there is, on that basis, using the NAP, ethical grounds for invasion and crossing lines of state sovereignty. Just the same as if you were to stop a rapist from attacking a victim in his own house, or stop a murderer from killing a victim on his own property.

It's based on the idea of property. You may own property, but you do not own the people on your property, and no aggression can be moral, on your property or not, in any circumstances.

To bow to absolute sovereignty is to implictly agree that states not only own the land on which they maintain unchallenged jurisdiction, but that they would have to own the people within their borders too, meaning the people there are naught but slaves. That cannot be true.

Marko:

You are terrible at reading my responses. Go back and re-read my response so that you can go back to your most recent response and eliminate your huge number of non sequiturs and glaring strawmen (it would take up too much of my time to do it before actually getting to the meat of your post--and they're your errors). I'd also appreciate it if you clearly defined and stuck to your terms and cleaned up your grammar/syntax because I'm not all that clear on precisely what you are getting at at several points in that last post, which may be a partial cause of your frequent equivocation. Finally: you're accusing me of calling you a coward and of being intellectually dishonest? Interesting case of mirror-imaging. Quote please.

If you'd rather not do these things, fine, but don't expect a response until then.

 

For instances in the cases of Libya, Kosovo, Bosnia, etc. was it necessarily a bad thing to take the side of the people against the oppressive governments?

States give sovereignty because they want sovereignty themselves, a bit of ethical reciprocity.

You mean one state recognizes the other in order to be recognized themselves?

However, ethically a state does not have absolute sovereignty anymore than a person has absolute sovereignty on their property.

 

 

Torsten:

States give sovereignty because they want sovereignty themselves, a bit of ethical reciprocity.

You mean one state recognizes the other in order to be recognized themselves?

More like states recognize each other's sovereignty because they wouldn't want outsiders interfering inside their own borders either. That doesn't trump ethical considerations. For a similar reason, most states don't support the idea of assassinating state leaders :P Pretty obvious.

Torsten:

However, ethically a state does not have absolute sovereignty anymore than a person has absolute sovereignty on their property.

That sounds like a dogmatic statement.

Sure, it's "dogmatic." Is that supposed to be a slur, as if some things cannot be declared in black and white terms, true or false?

 

Torsten:

I also think one needs to distinguish between the concept of souvereignity and government or rulership. But what you say needs to be investigated more thoroughly from it's premises and also towards its implications.

All I'm saying is, a state does not have an absolute ethical right to aggress against people inside its borders. That's a fairly precise statement. The corollary of that is, any state wishing to invade to stop aggression can do so ethically.

 

Certainly there'd be far-ranging implications. Doesn't change the ethical factors.