Capitol Hill Blue Forums Political Issues Foreign Policy & News "Unintended Consequences of Military Intervention"

'
[b] Mali war not “linked to Al Queda.” Western Press lying[/b]

did you bother to read your own citation????

The press lying. I suspect it is hard to prove that the "press" intentionally lies about anything. The "press" is normally engaged in finding a story. In their pursuit they may throw spaghetti on the wall to be the first with the story.

The CIA invented AQ. Clearly this character has problems understanding the real world. He also cherry picked his point of attack disregarding every other possibility. Here is an example: the Mali government had been under attack, by however you want to describe them as insurgents, islamists, thugs, and those folks were approaching the capitol. So the question is, did the French intervene without a request from the Mali government?

Of course these are minor problems which can be addressed by a competent journalist but the major point is valid, that many wars/interventions are economic in nature and even the converse is also true that the refutation of those wars and interventions may be economic. Thus in this case, the Mali government has a vested interest whether it is economic or strictly political.

The real purpose of the article was a vehicle for bashing and not exposing the obvious.

Note when it is founded.

Now let's see who funded that war:

Emphases added.

So, if what the author meant was "creation" instead of "invention", which would be a minor error in usage, then, in point of fact, the CIA and U.S. government had a strong hand in spawning al-Qaeda.

Other than that, the main point IS that the cause of the intervention IS ECONOMIC in nature. Which should come as no surprise.
Whether the French government was "invited" to defend its own economic interests (and that of other Western nations) or not is very much beside the point.

please don't embarrass yourself by pleading the authors ignorance. It is the language of delusional folks. He meant invention because in his delusional world that is how the conspiracy works i.e. government = evil, CIA = evil, MSM = evil etc.


I think the author took a different approach. The author suggests from his delusional perch, that it was a unilateral intervention from the French aspect, thus abrogating the legitimate Mali government to make a point that the intervention is economic in nature and nothing more.

I suggested that the author because of his delusion neglected the real possibility that it was in fact the Mali government which requested the intervention even if based solely on political principles which may have economic overtones. I don;t know the answer to that as I suspect that if the intervention had been unilateral from the Mali viewpoint, there would have been a loud condemnation from not only the Mali government but from the UN.

the problem with that is the obvious i.e. economic interest was not the point. It was the vehicle to bash every icon of government i.e. CIA, MSM, Big Business, etc.

The events on Mali are a little more complex than characterized by the citation. If we take the events out of historical context, on the one hand we have the legitimate government which has been unable to contain an insurgency. I know of no government which self abdicated r dissolved itself, therefore it stands to reason that the de facto government would at least pretend to have the self interest to survive. Those reasons may range from personal self interest such as not having one's head on a platter literally to maintaining ones economic lifestyle. The insurgents on the other hand have publicly displayed motivations ranging from islamism to pure thuggery.

It is at this point which exposes the author to his true motivation. He bypasses all the possibilities in order to do what he intended i.e. bash those in his gunsights.

T Jefferson made it a part of American foreign policy to protect economic interests of business in foreign lands by making those interests the interest of the United States. Every country in the world has the same viewpoint. In some cases the reasons reveal themselves as the most reasonable interpretation of events and in other cases it becomes more complex. It is easy to say bananas in central america or oil in iraq, but is it so easy when one says vietnam or WWI? I much rather suspect Mali is an example of of the latter. It is the nexus of all manner of competing reasons, one of which is economic.

It is apparent that your interpretation, and that is exactly what it is, differs from mine.
You say delusional, and you are embarrassing yourself by reading into an author's intention your own bias.
From what I understood, most of his attacks go to the economic benefit reaped by the intervention.
You can certainly disagree with what he says, but your interpretation is not the final word. It is good that you understand that. I'm not saying that mine is either, BTW, but it is how I read it.

If you do not see that WWI and WWII and Vietnam and Iraq and Afghanistan, etc. all had economic motives then you need to brush up on your history.

Invading other countries or disrupting their governments because of economic interest is just plain WRONG, I don't care who does it or what ridiculous reason they use to justify it.
If the shoe were on the other foot and someone were doing it here I think one's interpretation might be very different.

Your attempt to justify intervention is one sided and very unconvincing.

This argument needs some fleshing out. It is suggesting that rporter has no historical education, and that if he does a bunch of unspecified homework he will see that you are right and he is wrong.

Please, give us a few examples to support your position, not this vague, broad-brush implication that rporter is unintelligent. It does not make for an interesting or enlightening exchange.

You may be right, Ezekial, but you have not given me any evidence to support your position on this claim. (For instance, I happen to know that WWII was almost completely a Milo Minderbinder Enterprises entrepreneurial adventure, having read the book and seen the movie.)

My takeaway on rporter's post is that there are many factors influencing the causes for military intervention, one of which is commonly economic interests. My takeaway on your last post is that economic interest is the motivating bug. That is my comprehension of what I read.

No, you are suggesting that. I am not. I merely stated that these wars were fought for economic reasons. And that it would be wise to look into them. I made no appraisal of the poster's ability to do so nor of his willingness to do so. You did. You have a habit of putting words in other people's mouths. You must dissuade yourself of this habit.

Economic Causes of WWI

Economic Causes of the Vietnam War

Economic Causes of the Iraq War

Economic Causes of the Afghan War

Another view on American Economic Hegemony

So, as I have already stated on this thread, IMO economic reasons are the motivating factors. The stories that are told to the public to justify wars and interventions are just that, fairy tales.

Not "words in your mouth", just expressing how your statements came across to me. Please reconsider your slur about my "habit" - I think it was unnecessary and inflammatory. Re-phrasing what another person wrote is a common technique in coming to understand what another person is trying to communicate.

Frankly, I don't know why you appear to be arguing with rporter, who said that the causes for war are multiple and complex, with economic drivers being one of the elements. rporter never said that economic factors were not causes, only that they aren't the only causes. Your statements seem to want to focus only on the economic causes, even though you acknowledged at least once that there are many causes.

Your first link supports rporter's position: Please clarify your position, particularly in how it conflicts with rporter's position.

When you inaccurately represent what I said I will not leave it: you distorted my words, as you often do, and that was my point.


Not arguing... just saying that his read on the article in question differs from mine. The question, in case you hadn't noticed, is the role of economic motives. I have already made my opinion clear.


Imperialism is an economic motive. Balance of power is an economic motive.

At the risk of repeating myself: I know that there are many stories, the causes I believe are mainly economic.

Let me put a few words in your mouth, as you see it, or rephrase what you said as it came across to me, as I see it... both imperialism and balance of power are economic motives. Period. I guess I didn't actually distort or rephrase what you said, but I think that imperialism and balance of power are also products of other influences, as stated in your linked article about WWI.

It would appear that your position is that all of the influences listed are merely other names for economic motivations? Perhaps the author of the article was just being wordy, maybe because of the economic motivation of being paid by the word?