If not us, who?

Centuries of terrible living conditions for the people left behind? LOL.

Try the end of slavery for the people left alone.

You seem to think people in repressed countries are stupid and incapable of advancing their society without a "Big Brother" from the west.

Here at home you promote the opposite political desires.

 

Interesting article that puts the draw down in Afghanistan, current foreign policy, and the Mali situation in context: http://www.stratfor.com/weekly/avoiding-wars-never-end

 

Blaming Bush out dates the Obama administration. And what if Biden (or Obama) isn't "their guy?" Really, I think you've got it opposite. I don't think the Obama administration would publicly blame Bush unless their base didn't already do so.

France isn't intervening because the they're afraid of Algeria "falling." Algeria has been brimming with extremists and fighting since the late eighties. If anything, the conflict in Mali is going to help their situation. Most of these fighters are most likely coming to Mali from Algeria.

Good thing we're not.

Nobody really knows right now. The first step should be to stop being colonialists. This is difficult with the globalized trade and banking systems the way they are. The way we conduct business is inherently colonial. "Development" and "modernization" are the calling cards of neocolonialism.

They did indeed. However, those persons were not arbitrary. The colonial powers had more foresight than that. Especially France. Sure, they don't own Morocco, Algeria or Tunisia anymore, but the people who were left in power have made sure that the #1 business partner are the French.

 

Khadaffi and Saddam succeeded at reversing colonialism, which is why the West hated them. The current turmoil across the Arab world is 20 times what it was before Bush turned the place upside-down. It's the fault of not only him, but all you warmonger Bush fanboys.

 

Qaddafi and Hussein did not "reverse" colonialism, if that's something you can even do. They, along with many other Arab despots, made it a constant and salient factor in the minds of their constituents. Anything that went wrong in the county was due to foreign intervention. Qaddafi in particular set up virtual shrines to American meddling and blamed France and Italy over and over again for his own failings. When Libyan Berbers demanded to be recognized (Qaddafi's own mother was a Berber), he said in a speech that there were no such things as Berbers, that they are a fictitious culture hatched by "the colonizers" to divide and conquer the Arabs in North Africa. This kind of attitude saturates the Arab world today, and even very well-read and forward thinking people fear being colonized by the west.

 

Well, there's no way of getting things back the way they were now that almost the entire world is playing along with "free" trade. Colonialism is about money, and the money has changed hands. No one is giving it back.

But, if you're talking about the people and their culture, well, good luck with that too. You mentioned some kind of reparations, but really, what could soothe years and years of subjugation? Many colonialists (maybe some on this very forum) might suggest that by "developing" these nations and letting them participate in free trade, the colonizers are somehow paying their dues. However, the former colonies somehow always end up getting the shit end of the deal. When the people notice that and say something, what happens? Secret police, repressive actions, censored media, etc. All done by a government to its people, with the financial support of the former colonizers. So, yeah, resentment is going to be a difficult thing to curtail.

 

Hard to do when profits are the sole motivation for every action. It's much easier and profitable to do business with a repressive government.

 

Honest answers:

Kosovo, I don't know too much about. My guess is that there was something for us to lose if we didn't intervene. There have been plenty of examples of us ignoring ongoing genocides in other countries.

I would say the government that replaced Saddam is going to be less repressive, since it's hard to be more repressive than him. However, censored media and secret police are a fact of every Arab country and Iraq is no exception.

 

Yawn. Wake me when the thread stops pretending that America is the shining light, and every other country is the bad guy.

 

Are you even reading the posts? Where do you see that?

Kosovo is Europe technically, but we all know that the definition of "Europe" is fuzzy. It's Eastern Europe, which by the very fact that it is labeled as such shows that it's different than Western Europe in some essential way. Plus, it's full of Muslims, brown(er) people and languages/cultures we are not familiar with. I think the West needs a reason to intervene, however, sheer proximity might be enough. Admittedly, I don't know much about Eastern Europe, but I can't imagine there isn't an ulterior motive to intervening, simply given the presence of other unchecked massacres in parts of the world with nothing to gain by getting involved.

I can't see how you can say that the our involvement in the Korean war didn't have at its roots any colonial aspirations. The entire cold war was, and still is, a neocolonial game to acquire client states in which to do business. Korea was no different.

Yes, there is censored media and secret police in every country, but to differing extents. There's a difference between self-censorship like we have in the West and direct censorship like in the Middle East. We also have the courtesy to give our secret police names (FBI, CIA, NSA, etc). In Arab countries, this isn't the case. In every Arab country there is what people call the mukhabaraat, and they are shrouded in mystery. The common narrative I've heard is that they pay poor and homeless people to listen to everyone's conversations and then report them. I don't know if this is true, but it's to the government's advantage that people think it is.

 

I am fairly certain that every Arab country does have the mukhabaraat. I don't know too much about Turkey.

And stopping the communist domino principle was and is all about neocolonialism. If a government falls to communists, then... then... well, they won't do business with us.