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

I wonder, Mr. Ted, what you're talking about?

I seriously doubt, Ezekiel, that you have any doubt whatsoever about what Ted was referring to; indeed, I'd even lay a bet on it.

Would you now? Okay - I'll make you the same bet... $1000 says I didn't know and if you can prove that I did you win.

Sorry, Ezekiel, but I wouldn't want to take your money. It would cost more for the adjudication than the wager.

You cannot prove it. That is the point.

Oh, I could prove it, and easily (after all, Ted quoted his reference), that is not my point. My point is that the juice is not worth the squeeze. Can we, perhaps, get back to the subject, rather than adjudicating the dancing of angels?

I would be glad to.

I think one of thhe central difficulties of the premises in this threada is that of causation. While there is an inherent sensibility that makes some conclusions "seem" logical, there is not suficient evidence to draw a firm conclusion. For example, there is oil in Libya, yes, but that doesn't explain the Lockerbie bombing. Both of those circumstances are clearly relevant to the discussion, but neither adequately explains the complicated chain of events that led to the revolt and intervention. The more complicated the system, the less likely that a simple causality explanation is viable. War is always complicated, so almost always immune to simplistic explanation, and its consequences are almost incalculable. We are still debating the causation and consequences of the civil war more than 150 years hence, and that seems relatively simple on its face. Ditto WWII.

As far as consequences go, I agree.
Causation, as I have said many times on this very thread, is not easily provable. However, it is not far fetched to think that those that would benefit most from a war or intervention would be the first place to look for either of their causes.

Zeke
There is a fundamental problem with what you are saying.

This thread exhaustively considered whether the outcome of a war can be well predicted. And we all decided that the vagaries of war make it impossible to predict the outcome and consequences.

If you cannot predict the outcome, then you also cannot predict who will ulitmately benefit.

And if no special interest really knows whether they will benefit from the outcome of a war, then it is hard to link up a causual connection that these special interests manipulated politians to start the war. The pattern of "causuality" which you assert is really only clear in restrospect when the outcome and who actually did benifit is known.

And, since the american economy has greatly expanded in that last 60+ years, then the pattern is clear: American commercial enterprise must be at the root of alll of the wars of the last 60 years since it is they who have benefitted.