Syria has started to descend into murder as predicted by everyone who isn’t an idiot. Remember: those of us who were wary of ending the Assad regime were called Putin stooges. To be sure, the Assad regime was horrible and aligned with both Russia and Iran…but everyone with a bit of knowledge of Syria knew that a post-Assad Syria wasn’t going to be pretty (and this is why our real policy vis Syria was to wean them away from their Iranian/Russian connection). In this particular case, it looks like some Alawites (Assad’s clan) attacked some ISIS types and in response the ISIS types are killing every Alawite, Druze and Christian they can get their hands on…because that’s what ISIS types do.
And, of course, nobody cares. It isn’t Jews killing Muslims or Russians killing Ukrainians so the world is barely taking notice and if the world does, they’ll blame Israel and the United States for it (somehow). Meanwhile, over in the Democratic Republic of Congo a few weeks back 70 Christians were beheaded by ISIS types and there’s been hardly a ripple about it…or about all the other Christians routinely massacred in Africa and elsewhere around the world. It’s funny, isn’t it, that certain things are front and center and others aren’t.
I bring this up because we are told – endlessly – that we have a moral obligation to assist Ukraine. That if we sit this one out we’re being horribly bad people who are letting the bad guys win. Ok. But which bad guys? Is Putin the only bad guy in the world? And if we have an obligation to rescue Ukraine, don’t we have an obligation to rescue the Druze of Syria? Probably not. Because, you see, the Druze don’t have any money. Christians in Congo have even less. Nobody in those places is going to be passing out 50 grand a month no-show jobs…nor would there be juicy contracts for anti-air systems or other high tech war material. Sure, Congo has a lot of resources but the people you need to bribe to extract them are already bribed and the stuff is flowing…who cares if 70 Christians are beheaded in their Church on a Sunday? It seems our moral obligations are a bit selective and mostly driven by money.
Guys, I’m good with either model for America in the world: Isolationist or Interventionist. Personally I prefer Isolationist but I can see the argument for Interventionist. But if we’re going to be Interventionist then it can’t be selective except in the sense of practicality. That is, if we’re going to be Interventionist then the reason why we don’t intervene in A is because at the moment we’re intervening in B and C and so just have to let A slide for a while…but A is on the menu once B and C are dealt with. And if we are Interventionist it can’t be driven by money – because that is totally immoral. It must only be driven by a desire to set things right.
But here’s the real kicker that will show that Interventionism isn’t really the way to go: once you go in, you can’t just back out. The European scramble for colonies wasn’t exactly that. Oh, sure, there was a scramble to get some choice spots but most of the territory which came under European rule did so because of the force of events…you’ve conquered your valuable trading port! Woohoo! But to operate this port you need peace around it but barbarian tribes are raiding the people living right next to your port…killing people and carrying off slaves and so forth. So, you move out and take a bit more territory under control…not out of a desire for more land, but just because you have to. But the further you move out the more you find that causes you trouble and so, eventually, you just take the entire territory under your rule to make sure that basic human decency rules the roost. Once in, you’re in. And I doubt that Americans are really willing (or suited) to be colonial overlords.
This interventionism where we arm various factions, provide food and medical aid for all factions and then watch as the savages murder each other by turns is not really all that good a thing. Syria isn’t the first nation to fall into chaos and murder after we intervened to “help”. The other interventionism where we arm one side in a proxy war also isn’t all that great…the bottom line as we see in Ukraine is that the Ukrainians aren’t very good at it. Russians aren’t, either. But this just means we have a stalemate and lots of death and a risk of a wider war getting out of hand. The Brits tried arming friendly forces to protect their interests in India but it fell apart because the friendly forces were just as bad as the forces causing trouble…and so the British Indian Army was created…with British officers commanding Native troops…who, under British command, performed well. To get Urkaine’s military up to snuff would require American officers in command from battalion on up and fully in charge of training. Why? I don’t know why after 3 years of hard fighting Ukraine’s military isn’t any good. It should be. That amount of battle testing should mean those on the line are Blood and Guts Pattons to a man…they ain’t. It is what it is. The Czarist army made up of Russians and Ukrainians simply melted away in 1917 when they had already won the war against Germany…all they had to do was stay in line for another year and it was all over. They didn’t. True grit isn’t as common as some might think.
So, what I’m saying here is that if we intervene it has to be total intervention. Nations like Ukraine and Congo who are failing the basic tests of being functioning States have to be left entirely alone or taken over entirely. Pick one. No halfsies. This is why I prefer to stay out – the amount of effort required to be successfully interventionist is more than I want America to expend…and the only way to possibly make it work it total takeover and to start taxing the foreigners for the costs of our intervention. And this is what needs to be presented to the interventionists when they get excited about their next killing field: what are you actually trying to accomplish? Another Afghanistan? Another Haiti? Or should we, instead, shoot for the Crown Colony of Malacca…which was peaceful and prosperous under British rule? If I’m to intervene – if I’m to save a people from disaster – then I want it coming with an American Governor-General. Rather not! But if I must, then that is the deal I demand.
Blogs For Victory 
No halfsies. This is why I prefer to stay out – the amount of effort required to be successfully interventionist is more than I want America to expend
I agree, but there’s an additional factor that you don’t mention: it is a stark reality that there are people and organizations that get rich off of continuous war. IMHO, we don’t need to be a participant in the fomenting of continuous war around the globe. It’s tragic that Christians are being beheaded in Africa. I would hope that those who haven’t been affected yet will consider leaving before it’s too late. If they don’t, then God bless them, but that’s their choice. If they want to die for their faith, that’s their choice. They aren’t the first, and they won’t be the last.
It is sad and I don’t want to take over Congo…I’d be ok with shipping some weapons to them if they want to fight.
And there is a racket involved here – and its different, and far more insidious, than the racket which had the US Marines running protection for United Fruit in the 1920’s…at least there was a rational goal there. An end to it – defeat the rebel/bandits and then we’re out. And there wasn’t any pretense that we were choosing the best possible outcome…just the most convenient, knowing that if the rebel/bandits won, they’d probably be even worse than the forces we were backing (this was also still the time when we really did believe – because it was and is true – that there were good and bad elements in each country and it was the duty of the good elements to support their like any way they could). These days, there is no goal other than that it goes on and on and if some particular thing does come to a ramshackle end, the grift just moves to the next spot where money can be made.
And these people are all “citizens of the world”…they don’t care about their own country or any other. They move from one carefully guarded enclave to another, carefully protected from the results of their actions…and the food is the same, the servants are properly servile, for those into that sort of thing young girls and boys to abuse are easily obtained…its all shiny and clean and air conditioned and the money just rolls in. Meanwhile, death.
I’m getting more and more disgusted with them…to the point where I fully understand why the Russian masses – with only moderate encouragement from the Bolsheviks – went to town on Russia’s upper and middle classes in 1918-1919.
I am ardently anti-war, but also believe in a strong defense and a well-trained and prepared military force. And I believe that with great power comes great responsibility. That combination kind of puts me on a fence.
This leads me to believe that we should be willing to use our fighting forces for good, when there is a clear situation of abuse of unarmed innocent civilians. I’m thinking of the Janjaweed, or now these militants in Africa killing hundreds of Christians. I think that this philosophy of using our armed forces for good has a couple of reasonable foundations.
One is the simple matter of training. Peacetime training can only go so far and can’t truly prepare people for the realities of actual combat. There is a mental and emotional aspect to combat that simply does not exist when the person is aware of the fact that these are not real bullets, or real people being shot. I’d rather get past that in situations where we are not at great risk than send in armed forces to learn this on the ground where they could die while learning. Going up against gangs of armed bullies would not have the same danger level as battle with a trained military but would still provide an element of reality that could harden our fighting forces more than exercises and training efforts. Our equipment and technology need to be tested as well as our fighting forces. If we can accomplish this while at the same time providing humanitarian aid to oppressed victims, I don’t see a downside.
You touch on this when you conclude: “(this was also still the time when we really did believe – because it was and is true – that there were good and bad elements in each country and it was the duty of the good elements to support their like any way they could)”
And there is the cultural aspect. I think it is only beneficial for our young people to see the world as it is, outside the artificial boundaries of an affluent and safe country. I think we would have a better military, and a better population in general, if thousands of our young people can experience for themselves the conditions in which so much of the world lives. And I’m not just talking about conditions of misery and abject poverty. I think it would help us as a nation to be populated with people who have seen, for example, the way people can be happy and productive while living in mud huts and having to carry water, without televisions or video games or cars. Seeing the world, and people in general, though a tiny lens of personal experience in an affluent and safe environment can create a population of smug, arrogant and ignorant people.
As for the dangers of going into armed conflict with groups like the Janjaweed, or the Muslim militants killing Christians, or even drug cartels, the fact is that even domestic military training is dangerous. If you live in a city near an army base, for example, you will often see small notices in the local papers about deaths in training accidents. People in the military deal with dangerous things and events on a daily basis. I find myself thinking of the benefits of using this exposure to benefit others.
Then there is the national identity of the United States. Is this a benign country or one indifferent to the suffering around it? What do we represent as a country?
I think this is a dialogue worth having.
We don’t want to be indifferent to suffering…but we also know that suppose we did intervene in Congo to save the Christians…within days there would be accusations of war crimes…and Americans would be making them.
One of the rather unreported things about WWII is that the national unity which pervaded was because the Communists had given us permission to fight. In WWI lots of people were hauled off to jail for anti-war activities (some of them quite unconstitutionally) whereas in WWII hardly any of that. The reason was that the American Left opposed our entry into WWI but was desperate for us to get into WWII to save Communist Russia. All military actions since WWII have drawn Left opposition until the shift occurred in the Clinton Administration where Democrat War = Good, Republican War = Bad. The most recent shift on this is Democrat War in Ukraine = Good, Republican Peace in Ukraine = Bad. The main thing in all of this that on the Left American war is never judged on the merits but on the Left-Right power competition. The Left isn’t going to want us to fight to help Christians in Africa (wrecks too many Left Narratives) and so any military action there is going to be a minefield of political accusations designed to ensure American defeat.
The thing to do here is to ignore the Left. To understand that whatever it is they’re saying, even in the rare instances it is relevant or true, the purpose is to retain or obtain Leftwing power. It is quite pointless to engage with them on any level. Out problem is that on our side there are bought and/or cowardly people who knife us in the back on the regular. We’re seeing today on social media as the markets bleed out the fake growth of the Biden years…”oh, no! Its all going wrong! Pretty soon Trump’s poll numbers will drop! Doom! Death! Despair! Click my link!!!”.
If, however, we can ignore the Left and articulate a comprehensible reason for intervening maybe it can work. It would have to be along the lines of saying why we’re going to intervene and what form it’ll take. It might just be stamping on one particular bad actor. It might be such a failed State that we’re going to be there a while as we try to find the group of people we can rely on to not be unhinged savages.
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/GlncZobWEAAXZgB?format=jpg&name=small
Heh, I had the same thought when I first saw that photo. It’s always been fun to parody the Left, but they’re making it way too easy.
ROFL!