Originally posted by Bardock42
I think the US should use the tool of the UN to filter their policing and make it more just. But in essence, I think the US using it's military power to fight injustice is not a bad thing, however in practice it has often been somewhat corrupted, so that while the talk was about freedom and justice, the actual reasons were more to further US interests often even considerably to the detriment of the people that were allegedly being helped.
On the 20th anniversary of the Srebrinica massacre when Dutch UN troops pulled out and stood by while tens of thousands of people were slaughtered it's probably not a good idea to suggest the UN police anything. They're generally ineffectual at it due to lack of resource commitment and idiotic rules of engagement.
Somalia, Sierra Leone and South Sudan are other examples of how utterly useless UN remits are.
Originally posted by Bardock42
Well, to be fair to me, and I love being fair to me, I said the US should use or work with the UN. Not that the UN should do the policing.At any rate, what is your opinion on the topic then? Are you against policing of any kind?
The US should take responsibility for the effects of its economic exploitation it's wrought on smaller countries for decades. If it wants to not have to police the world then it should stop propping up corrupt governments that live the high life while the rest of their countries live in abject poverty. It should stop demonising any country that refuses to tow the line such as Cuba and Venezuela. It should stop being petty in regards to that by saying to allied countries that it won't trade with them if they trade with countries the US doesn't like. It's astonishing how petty their economic policy got. Refusing to allow bands to play the US if they'd played Cuba. It even tried to bully its allies directly. They lobbied the Scottish government to enact legislation that meant Scottish retailers could only import bananas from US owned plantations. It refused and so the US banned imports of Scottish cashmere wool.
I'm not saying the US is alone in doing this. European powers have been doing it for decades as well usually with former colonies. If France and Britain hadn't made a total f**k up of Niger, Zimbabwe, Uganda, Algeria, Congo etc they wouldn't be reaping so much problems from them now. France in particular.
Enact a more equitable foreign economic policy and it won't have to spend as much time policing the world.
Originally posted by psmith81992
You're talking about two very different resources where the financial allocation to one isn't going to disrupt the other.
But the point is to properly poilice the entire world..we'd have to sink a lot more money into that then we currently do. Where are they going to get the money for that? Surely not by raising taxes.
Originally posted by psmith81992
I don't think you need a historical crash course as to why the US did what it did with Cuba and Venezuela, do you?
Yeah. The US plundered Venezuelan oil reserves for over 80 years and the Venezuelan people had the audacity to elect someone who wouldn't take their shit any more. How dare they think the oil wasn't US property.
Cuba admittedly didn't do themselves any favours nationalising US companies properties but the US got far more out of the protectorate than Cuba ever did and as soon as both countries decided they'd had enough of the US economic exploitation it was toys out the pram for the US.
Originally posted by psmith81992
I don't think xenophobia had anything to do with it and Cuba didn't help itself aligning with the Soviet Union and parking missiles 90 miles from Florida.
Cuba would never have needed to turn to the Soviet Union if the US didn't think it had a divine right to continue to dominate the Cuban economy after the overthrow of the Batista regime. It even brought that coup on itself by stopping arms sales to Batista. Yet even before that if it actually enacted an equitable economic policy with regards to Cuba's resources and let Cubans benefit instead of allowing what little profit they did leave Cuba to go to the few then there wouldn't have been a Cuban revolution in the first place. So like I said, the US pushes countries to civil war by propping up dictators who serve their interests and then throws the toys out the pram when the people of those countries finally say enough is enough.
Originally posted by psmith81992
Granted. How'd that last 50 years of Communism under the Castro regime play out? The country looks like it never got out of 1959.
Yeah. That's my point regarding petty US economic policy towards countries that won't bend over and take it up the arse from them. They use their bully boy economic power to tell the world 'if you trade with Cuba we won't trade with you'. If the US stopped raping countries and plunging them into poverty and treated countries equitably in trade relations there wouldn't be half the problems across the world that there are and far fewer places would need to be 'policed' in the first place.
Originally posted by jaden101
Yeah. That's my point regarding petty US economic policy towards countries that won't bend over and take it up the arse from them. They use their bully boy economic power to tell the world 'if you trade with Cuba we won't trade with you'. If the US stopped raping countries and plunging them into poverty and treated countries equitably in trade relations there wouldn't be half the problems across the world that there are and far fewer places would need to be 'policed' in the first place.
While I agree with you there, look at the alternative. Cuba ended up fairing much worse. At least it was bringing a shitload of money in with the Mafia owned casinos. The disparity in wealth only got worse when Castro took over.
Originally posted by psmith81992
While I agree with you there, look at the alternative. Cuba ended up fairing much worse. At least it was bringing a shitload of money in with the Mafia owned casinos. The disparity in wealth only got worse when Castro took over.
If they'd just put their hands up and just say 'you know what...we made a **** ton of money off your country's resources...We'll let you finally make some from it now' that would be forgivable but instead they pretty much say 'well if we're not making any money off your resources then neither are you...have some sanctions'.