Text 19982, 111 rader
Skriven 2011-06-17 22:50:49 av Stewart Arnett (3:772/100)
  Kommentar till text 19971 av Robert Bashe (2:2448/44)
Ärende: What are we talking about now?
======================================
Hello Robert.

17 Jun 11 07:47, you wrote to Michiel van der Vlist:

 RB> Michiel van der Vlist wrote to Robert Bashe on Wednesday June 15 2011
 RB> at 11:39:
 RB>>> The Europeans are good on diplomacy and weak on action. The
 RB>>> Americans are the reverse.

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

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

Robert, what Michael is saying is when was the last time the Americans won a
conflict?  That they decided to get involved in? As far as I can recall,
without assistance, it was the American War of Independance, every thing after
that they have walked out on. Korea is still at war, they f'ed up in Vietnam
the Europeans had to put the Balkans to bed and Bosnia, your current
extravagansa will bankrupt your empire if you don't get out or frigin do
something. Will you again leave the Euro's and Australasions to finish it? WWI
&II you left us to sort out and finish without us they would have been a wind
in the wilderness waffeling around without any gumption. Your lot are good at
getting involved then loose the plot and leave the finishing up to others, you
are too PC to fight a war properly. Not like the English in the Faulklands,
they stuck the knife in and twisted it properly.


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

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

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

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

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

 MV>> The many interventions in Haiti have led nowhere.

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

 MV>> Somalia was a disaster.

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

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

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

It started out with the Americans not putting an end to a previous conflict so
the bugger thought he could get away with it, Bush senior effed up and didn't
finish off what he started from that end the next one thought, "they're pussy's
and started another one, confident in the inability of the US to finish any
thing, so far even though he is dead it looks like he is right in his
assumption.

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

 RB> 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.

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

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

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

You are incorrect The Usasians are nothing but a bunch of Whofters starting
stuff they can't finish all over the place, and in the mean time effing up
everybodies lives while doing so.

Stewart

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