I couldn’t understand some parts of this article, but it sounds interesting…

I couldn’t understand some parts of this article, but it sounds interesting…

I couldn’t understand some parts of this article, but it sounds interesting…

I couldn’t understand some parts of this article, but it sounds interesting…

I couldn’t understand some parts of this article, but it sounds interesting…

http://users.erols.com/mwhite28/warstat2.htm

North Korea (1948 et seq.)
Communist regime:
Rummel estimates that the Communist regime of North Korea committed 1,663,000 democides between 1948 and 1987
North Korean victims: 1,293,000
South Korean victims: 363,000
Courtois, Stephane, Le Livre Noir du Communism: 2,000,000
In Party purges: 100,000
In concentration camps: 1.5M
23 June 2003 US News & WR: 400,000 died in gulags in past 3 decades.
The Center for the Advancement of North Korean Human Rights estimates that some 400,000 prisoners have died in labor camps since 1972. [http://www.nkhumanrights.or.kr/oldnkhuman/eng/nk/nknews12_01.html]
Famine, 1995-98
13 March 1999, Agence France Presse: (citing N. Korean defector) 3,500,000 deaths as of 12/98
19 Oct. 2000 Guardian: 3M
MSF: 3.5M [http://www.doctorswithoutborders.org/publications/other/deadly_2001.shtml]
19 Oct. 2003 NY Times: 2M died in preventable famine.
10 May 1999, AP:
The North Korean govt. estimates 220,000 famine-related deaths, 1995-98
US Congressional delegation: 2M
South Korean intelligence estimates that the population of North Korea fell from 25M to 22M.

That makes the number of deaths comparable to the vietnam war, and way bigger than Iraq, even using the Lancet figures.

Some people do seem to be under the impression that if it doesn’t show up on their TV screen, it doesn’t exist. Which is rather convenient for those countries that are in a position to disallow TV crews.

http://commentisfree.guardian.co.uk/brian_whitaker/2007/08/cheney_prophet_of_doom.html

Things seem to have changed I thought people mellowed with age.

That was a heartfelt post, and I agree with much of the sentiment. I do however think that simply ignoring what happens inside a states borders, no matter how bad it is, is not a tenable position either. I am not of the mentality to think that as long as Saddam Hussein only gassed or shredded his own then we should avert our eyes and continue shopping, or whatever. In all honesty I would doubt very much that you could either.

That we couldn’t react in a meaningful way to his failed state, and simply used the tools out of the 20th century’s blitzkrieg handbook suggests we have much to learn. In an increasingly joined up world folk who have loved ones or just intimate knowledge of a particular conflict zone are now able to prick the conciences of folk world wide.

Perhaps trying to build solutions to conflict that do not involve warfare is at least worth exploring on forums like this?

I have a less pessimistic stance than yours. As you pointed out, it is inevitable that all of us have a different points of view because of different life experiences, and hence different belief systems. We all try to make sense of this world, and it can’t be a bad thing for people to state their point of view, even if it is based on incomplete knowledge. Only a fundamentalist would claim to have all knowledge.

We are not going to solve the world’s problems by making everyone agree with each other, but from my experience here in PP, people always seem to reach middle-ground, except of course when it comes to Israel/Palestine threads, but we will get there someday.

Perhaps people just like to fight with each other.

Of course they do. That single sentence sums up one of the biggest tragedies of the human condition, now and throughout history. It’s one of the root causes of many, many problems.

Perhaps people just like to fight with each other.

It’s often the easiest option. Much harder to work out a peace then it is to pick up a gun and keep shooting…

On a thread, of course people are able to take positions about their respective stances, which are in-turn often based on a lack of factual knowledge and/or real-life experience in the first place.

Empathy has become a cheap word, bandied about my large corporations and advertising agencies, but what does it mean? I have to continually force myself to re-understand in this word-drenched pseudo-environment, that discussion about what needs to be done cannot merely be an intellectual ego-boosting excercise to kill time whilst waiting for the train.

People like Bleh talk about interventionist actions as if he is discussing an episode of an Eastenders plot line over a cup of tea, but how much of his blood would he be willing to spill for what he supposedly believes in? It is easier to discuss and theorize, when we are not in the thick of these situations, in the heart of darkness ourselves. I really feel we must collectively become more humble about our lack of real knowledge, and start to get away from this non-stop position-in-the-ground attitude we take, applying systems and sound-bite formulas to an endlessly organic process, that is variable every day, in every way.

This post began with suggestions about our foreign policy, but in some ways, it almost feels like I am struggling to give answers because of the incongruous nature of the very question. From the outside looking in, a planet of people who simultaneously dump Meat and Butter into the Sea whilst 800 million human beings on the other side of the world starve to death, look illogical and brain-dead.

How many of the disputes and arguments people have on these threads are actually real? and how many are time-killing ‘look at me’ excercises? I feel like we probably agree a lot more than we think, but everyone feels a strong impulse to mark out their view in the sand, or define their argument differently. If we could just take some time to gain a greater grasp of the definitions of words that we use, perhaps there would be less squabbling.

Perhaps people just like to fight with each other.

Seriously,

**Whilst the Mugabes, the Kim-il-Jongs, the Khomeneis, the Castros and the Assads of this world continue to get a free pass

None of whom have committed a Vietnam or an Iraq**

Like that makes those regime ok then……..

Whilst am no fan of either of the two latter conflicts a statement like that is horrifying in its implications – it’s a murderers charter

Although, as you are probably well aware, I am indeed a bleeding heart western liberal, so what the hell do I know?

as i said, most people in Southwark would not think it was a very good intervention to go and bomb Lambeth because there was very bad man who was the head of Southwark Council who was keeping everyone oppressed.

we could hear arguments that the people of Lambeth having the moral responsibility to the people of Southwark, and that may well be true, and we may well need to do something, but sending a gang of fighters in who we don’t know aren’t going to kill anyone else – is probably not the best intervention. and if there is a massacre going on, we’d call the police, but if the police were in the process going to bomb everyone else, you know what – we probably wouldn’t call them, especially if we KNEW they were going to bomb our own house too!

in any case – regardless of what we think OUR moral position would be – we have the luxury of pondering upon that, if we make a mistake, well that’s not a big problem for us – we only lose the moral highground. We are not the Direct Stakeholders who are losing their lives thanks to our mistakes. So – again- my perspective is that it is not easy or straightforward to determine what is a good intervention or not – and also – that for me – that analysis will never be #complete# as it will be from MY point of view -and not necessarily the actual Stakeholders on the ground.

and people on the ground will have different views – again, when it involves actual life and death situations – one needs to tread very carefully. there is no ‘right’ or ‘wrong’ – it might seem like that on a discussion thread, when you’re comfortably enconsced in a pub, or on a debating society plaform, but real life is quite different.

moral highground is one thing to try and aim for – when it is a life or death situation, its different – that is my main point. i don’t think we can say oh this was good, and this was bad in such facile terms. I really don’t. and what i don’t trust is that governments don’t tell you what their intervention will really be – so i can’t judge unless i actually know whats happening, and again, each situation will be different.

I think we would all hope anyone out there wanting to bomb our own neighbourhoods – for the sake of some intervention which in theory is a good moral position – would consider the same things.

in any case, i should probably point out that this is all in the context of the nation-state, which as far as i am concerned, the problem in the first place as it is the vehicle that legitimises violence as an ‘intervention’.