Nato faces 'dim future', warns Pentagon chief

[K. A. Pital]

No, no crushing the sovereignty of others or imperialism here... Humanity as a whole has never existed without trying to bash in the heads of others. By your very own definition, Nepal and Bhutan's sovereignty is also "worth shit".

Heh, okay, poor example. Still, comparing Bhutan or Chile's imperialistic forays and incidents where they violated sovereignity of others to the British is simply ridiculous. Besides, yes, if they violated sovereignity of other nations after the concept of sovereignity was created - clearly they are in the wrong. You may not like opening the "can of worms", but you can't deny it happened. Resorting to the "humans are apes!" argument is nice, but I thought the idea is to be less apelike, not just admit it and go with it.

If that is the criteria, then they also took over the British Isles themselves by conquest. This is utterly simplistic

Sovereignity itself is simplistic. It just takes the legal borders of a nation which are recognized by other nations and establishes them as fact. Sovereignity does not deal with conquests, especially past ones, and does not concern itself with that. Sovereignity accepts that all nations may take any measures to protect their citizens, as their subjects. But that causes a problem (see below). Sovereignity is a simplistic concept - no wonder that scratching the paint of "sovereignity" reveals that the whole concept looks like bullcrap.

Or are you just hellbent on ignoring my part about the right to self-determination? If an ethnic group wants a nation state and has lived on the land for generations, why shouldn't they? That however in no way impacts the right of sovereign nations to arm themselves and to take actions to protect their citizens.

Like bombing other sovereign nations? Do you, in principle, support the idea of equal rights for nations, nationalities as well as nation-states (since I believe you, like Kane, lambasted me when I said the very concept of nation-state is primitive, tribalistic, nationalistic and stupid)? If you do, do you support Afghanistan's right to put a missile into the Congress to stop the torture of Afghani citizens?

Why the heck are you flying off the handle about my statement when you very well know that I have argued for several people to get a state in the past who were to weak to get it? Palestinians, Bosnians, Albanians - ring a bell?

Because it seemed for a moment that your statement is a "Gods favor the strong" type of proclamation. *shrugs* If in reality you mean that a weak nation which suffers opression at the hands of a strong one deserves self-determination because of that fact - then I don't have a grudge. But not the "if they're strong enough".

No, you said that Britain had lost its right to interfere. You then qualified that to a point I was content with and said so in the post.

I think I also said that there never was a "right to interfere" at all. There's no "right" which allows nations to bomb or attack other nations. The right to interfere is based on a simplistic principle of sovereignity which says that a nation can do anything justified to protect their citizens. Nothing more simple one could devise; one could invade any nation under the pretext of protecting his citizens (and 90%, if not 99% of wars were justified that way, I think). Nations, like people, don't have "rights" by fiat. People have a right to inhabit their territory and govern it as they see fit. However, that's probably up to where I can stop. Everything else is a double-edge sword which can be used for good or evil, regardless of if its legal or not.

[Thanas]

No, no crushing the sovereignty of others or imperialism here... Humanity as a whole has never existed without trying to bash in the heads of others. By your very own definition, Nepal and Bhutan's sovereignty is also "worth shit".

Heh, okay, poor example. Still, comparing Bhutan or Chile's imperialistic forays and incidents where they violated sovereignity of others to the British is simply ridiculous. Besides, yes, if they violated sovereignity of other nations after the concept of sovereignity was created - clearly they are in the wrong. You may not like opening the "can of worms", but you can't deny it happened. Resorting to the "humans are apes!" argument is nice, but I thought the idea is to be less apelike, not just admit it and go with it.

Which is a nice idea in theory, but helps us not an iota with the current situation where you pretty much just declared every state to be illegitimate. Which is idealistic, but somewhere, something has got to give and idealism has to give rise to pragmatism.

Like bombing other sovereign nations? Do you, in principle, support the idea of equal rights for nations, nationalities as well as nation-states (since I believe you, like Kane, lambasted me when I said the very concept of nation-state is primitive, tribalistic, nationalistic and stupid)? If you do, do you support Afghanistan's right to put a missile into the Congress to stop the torture of Afghani citizens?

Yes, I do. I also acknowledge the right of the USA to retaliate to a disproportionate attack like that by putting a missile into Karsai. The concept of the nation state was a very high advancement from the previous statehoods. Do you deny that?

Because it seemed for a moment that your statement is a "Gods favor the strong" type of proclamation. *shrugs* If in reality you mean that a weak nation which suffers opression at the hands of a strong one deserves self-determination because of that fact - then I don't have a grudge. But not the "if they're strong enough".

The strong enough thing was more related to the viability. If, for example, the consequences of independence would be that the entire new nation would starve, cannot protect its citizens to a reasonable degree or uphold order, then the creation of such a nation is not something I support. Of course this is only in the most extreme of such cases, like in Somalia where the nation would probably be better off if Somaliland would split of and the rest would be divided among the various tribes.

I think I also said that there never was a "right to interfere" at all. There's no "right" which allows nations to bomb or attack other nations. The right to interfere is based on a simplistic principle of sovereignity which says that a nation can do anything justified to protect their citizens. Nothing more simple one could devise; one could invade any nation under the pretext of protecting his citizens (and 90%, if not 99% of wars were justified that way, I think). Nations, like people, don't have "rights" by fiat. People have a right to inhabit their territory and govern it as they see fit. However, that's probably up to where I can stop. Everything else is a double-edge sword which can be used for good or evil, regardless of if its legal or not.

I do think that nations have inherent rights, the most important one being its sovereignty and those that are a consequence of that - the integrity of its borders, freeedom of association etc.

[K. A. Pital]

Which is a nice idea in theory, but helps us not an iota with the current situation where you pretty much just declared every state to be illegitimate. Which is idealistic, but somewhere, something has got to give and idealism has to give rise to pragmatism.

I already said this is idealistic. As a communist, I must combine materialism and pragmatism with idealism. Otherwise I just get crushed by my own cynism.

The concept of the nation state was a very high advancement from the previous statehoods. Do you deny that?

Internally, yes - only in terms of civil rights and other stuff. Externally - no. The creation of the state only allowed violence to manifest at an enormously greater level. The scale of war increased incredibly (even without technical progress - the armies of Rome and other contemporary stately entities were massive).

The strong enough thing was more related to the viability. If, for example, the consequences of independence would be that the entire new nation would starve

Oh, I see. In many cases the relation was exactly opposite. For example, India never had a famine (by famine I mean starvation with a sizeable deathtoll) upon breaking off from the British Empire, even though it had a huge famine in 1943.

I do think that nations have inherent rights, the most important one being its sovereignty and those that are a consequence of that - the integrity of its borders, freeedom of association etc.

Hmm. It is hard for me to get behind this. Rights are only good insofar as utilitarian constructs they produce benefit - reduce suffering or increase the well-being of people. If rights of a nation-state actively increase suffering, perhaps these rights have no moral reason to exist or to remain inviolable. Inherency for me is a non-entity. Maybe - maybe! - humans have inherent rights, but certainly not organizations.

[Thanas]

As a communist, I must combine materialism and pragmatism with idealism. Otherwise I just get crushed by my own cynism.

That thing is quotable.

Internally, yes - only in terms of civil rights and other stuff. Externally - no. The creation of the state only allowed violence to manifest at an enormously greater level. The scale of war increased incredibly (even without technical progress - the armies of Rome and other contemporary stately entities were massive).

I don't know about that. The Mongols certainly were more tribesmen than states and yet managed to wreck more carnage than anybody else (proportionally at least). I am also not sure how correct it is to refer to Rome as a nation state, considering the concept of nations as we understand it was certainly not the same as the Roman one.

Oh, I see. In many cases the relation was exactly opposite. For example, India never had a famine (by famine I mean starvation with a sizeable deathtoll) upon breaking off from the British Empire, even though it had a huge famine in 1943.

And in many cases the relation is opposite as well, just look at how order has broken down in many of the former colonies. In any case, this was just a theoretical argument, so

Hmm. It is hard for me to get behind this. Rights are only good insofar as utilitarian constructs they produce benefit - reduce suffering or increase the well-being of people. If rights of a nation-state actively increase suffering, perhaps these rights have no moral reason to exist or to remain inviolable. Inherency for me is a non-entity. Maybe - maybe! - humans have inherent rights, but certainly not organizations.

But these rights do reduce both suffering and increase the well-being of people. Even further, we once more have a pragmatic argument - if you argue that rights only exist for nations if they provide a benefit at all times, then good luck with all the arguments that will follow like "your government is not benefiting the people" "No, YOUR government is not benefitiing the people and therefore is illegitimate and your nation loses its rights".

[Simon_Jester]

...However, there is a colossal amount of room between "good" and "less bad than the Khmer Rouge." So much room that it should be enough to satisfy even the most hard-core of anti-imperialists. While the Khmer Rouge may not set the record for the worst, most senselessly destructive, most murderous government in the history of human civilization, they're certainly a high profile candidate.

...You can only justify imperialism if you say that it killed a lesser percent of the population of occupied territories than the Khmer Rouge. But even that is not true. Two famous cases of imperialism - Irish famine and the Congo Free State eliminated 20-30% of the respective nation's population, which is well on par with the Khmer Rouge.

So yes, imperialism is murderous, and the fact that it is not uniformly as murderous as the Khmer Rouge is not even slightly helping. It can be as murderous in some places like the CFS and Ireland and less murderous elsewhere, but still with an enormous deathtoll.

Do you not see the compatibility between those quotations?



Speaking for myself, I most certainly do not regard global empires as a necessary good, or as a necessary evil. They are, in point of fact, not necessary, and hell yes they do a lot of harm.

What worries me about your position- well, one of the things that worries me- is that you seem very willing to replace one big atrocious government with a dozen smaller ones that work out to be just as bad on a percentage basis. In and of itself, a state's weakness cannot make it worthy of veneration any more than its strength can. Because there is always the potential for a state with a large backyard to emerge, or for a thousand tiny backyards to add up to something as bad as one big one.

Now, if you take "the power to do so much harm as empire-builders have done is something that ought to be abolished" and turn it into a cry for disarmament, I can see the logical flow. But decolonialization and the breakup of the large 20th century quasi-imperial states, while gloriously successful in some times and places, has not turned out to be a uniform blessing. Some places got inept or insane leadership; others collapsed into ongoing ethnic wars. This is particularly a problem in Africa.

I get the argument as it applies to disarmament, which is what you were originally talking about anyway. But I think you're letting your rhetoric rants get overblown.

[stormthebeaches]

Even further, we once more have a pragmatic argument - if you argue that rights only exist for nations if they provide a benefit at all times, then good luck with all the arguments that will follow like "your government is not benefiting the people" "No, YOUR government is not benefitiing the people and therefore is illegitimate and your nation loses its rights".

Another problem is that it can easily become a justification for Imperialism. "That nation's government is incompetent and not benefiting the people. The people would be much better off if WE were running things.

If you do, do you support Afghanistan's right to put a missile into the Congress to stop the torture of Afghani citizens?

The problem here is that Afghan war is more complex than "USA vs Afghanistan". Afghanistan is currently in a state of civil war (and has been for decades) and the USA and its allies are supporting one side in this civil war. Not to mention that according to the BBC most of the Afghan people still support the NATO mission despite its fuck ups.

On the flip side, do you support the antics of Checnyans (sp?) terrorists in Moscow? After all, there country is being occupied by Russia.

Besides, citizens of Britain do a lot to deserve this. They have never publicly rejected their imperialistic government like Turkey or Germany. They support the continuancy of the British government for several centuries. That's enough. You support continuancy from imperialist government and with that, responsibility for its prior actions? You deserve all the scorn and contempt you can get. You can't support continuancy but say "Uh-huh, I don't want to be responsible for this nations' historical shitty-poo, I only want to continue this government which is the same government and has same legitimacy and lineage as the prior government". It doesn't work that way.

So basically, a nation that has maintained a stable government for centuries has to take more moral blame than a nation that is politically unstable and is constantly having coups and civil wars. In the case of Britain, the government has gone through several reforms. Not to mention the British Empire ceased to existed several decades ago and I'm not sure how you can justify holding British citizens in contempt for something that happened before they are even born. The British people are not a collective hive mind that has existed through the centuries.

Also, what does this mean for Britain's claims on the Falklands. Does Britain have to have a violent revolution to makes its claim to territory legitimate in your view?

[Simon_Jester]

Storm, as a personal favor, could you try not to cross-contaminate this thread with the Falklands discussion? He's talked about his view on the Falklands specifically quite a bit on that thread, and bringing it up again over here won't help matters.

[stormthebeaches]

Storm, as a personal favor, could you try not to cross-contaminate this thread with the Falklands discussion? He's talked about his view on the Falklands specifically quite a bit on that thread, and bringing it up again over here won't help matters.

My bad. I was thinking about the Falklands because I had just been reading that thread. Since its too late to edit now I will ask future readers to replace Falklands with "British overseas territory".

[Simon_Jester]

In which case it depends so much on details- which territory, who lives there, what's its history, how strong are other people's claims to the territory relative to the British claim?

At this point, I'd think pretty much every patch of British-owned land acquired during their imperial period that has a significant native population which wants them to leave has already ejected them.

[K. A. Pital]

I don't know about that. The Mongols certainly were more tribesmen than states and yet managed to wreck more carnage than anybody else (proportionally at least). I am also not sure how correct it is to refer to Rome as a nation state, considering the concept of nations as we understand it was certainly not the same as the Roman one.

I think that from ancient nation-states, the Golden Horde and Rome had many more attributes of a state and government than other, smaller entities. The Mongol horde had an elaborate system of government - or so I was told in school.

And in many cases the relation is opposite as well, just look at how order has broken down in many of the former colonies. In any case, this was just a theoretical argument, so

Yeah, I understand. On the subject of disorder in former colonies - often it is a direct consequence of the empire, which draws borders ignoring ethnic, cultural and other distinctions. Look at the debacle in Africa. You draw borders like straight lines because you think your Empire is going to perservere and exist forever, ignoring the fact that you can essentially divide ethnic groups or press them together in one nation-state regardless if they have animosities or live peacefully with each other.

But these rights do reduce both suffering and increase the well-being of people. Even further, we once more have a pragmatic argument - if you argue that rights only exist for nations if they provide a benefit at all times, then good luck with all the arguments that will follow like "your government is not benefiting the people" "No, YOUR government is not benefitiing the people and therefore is illegitimate and your nation loses its rights".

But isn't this exactly what is happening now? A lot of people here justify the invasion of Iraq in moral terms - because Saddam's government was not benefitting the people. Even though it was a clear and blatant violation of sovereignity. These arguments will happen even if you try to forbid them and say "sovereignity should not be violated once and for all!"

Another problem is that it can easily become a justification for Imperialism. "That nation's government is incompetent and not benefiting the people. The people would be much better off if WE were running things.

This happens anyway. See above. If you simply say that morality is inferior to sovereignity, clearly Vietnam would be in the wrong for invading Cambodia and deposing the Khmer Rouge.

The problem here is that Afghan war is more complex than "USA vs Afghanistan". Afghanistan is currently in a state of civil war (and has been for decades) and the USA and its allies are supporting one side in this civil war. Not to mention that according to the BBC most of the Afghan people still support the NATO mission despite its fuck ups. On the flip side, do you support the antics of Checnyans (sp?) terrorists in Moscow? After all, there country is being occupied by Russia.

Currently yes, but Afghanistan had a national government before the US invasion. The Taliban, you know. Now you may not like it, and neither do I, but according to the "it's good citizens of X can know their government will put a missile in another state's government and keep them safe from abuse", it is good the Taliban can bomb the US government . As for the Chechens, if they conducted a surgical strike and killed off the Russian government, that would've been a fully legitimate action. I already reiterated my position several times - terrorism should pick legit targets, like it did in the XIX-early XX century. The culprits. Kill intelligence operatives guilty of torture, kill government leaders, etc.

So basically, a nation that has maintained a stable government for centuries has to take more moral blame

Maintaining a stable government for centuries is not a virtue in and of itself. Imperial Japan only proves the point. Sometimes having coups and civil wars is good. It gives the government an opportuinty to reject the acts of the precursor. The British government never did.

[KhorneFlakes]

As a communist, I must combine materialism and pragmatism with idealism. Otherwise I just get crushed by my own cynism.

Sigged.

[Thanas]

I think that from ancient nation-states, the Golden Horde and Rome had many more attributes of a state and government than other, smaller entities. The Mongol horde had an elaborate system of government - or so I was told in school.

They were definitely not a nation state. Rome moreso because it had continuity, bureaucracy and empire-wide institutions that remained essentially unchanged. The Mongols meanwhile fractured into several kingdoms, each of which resemble more a sort of tribal monarchy than any real state.

Yeah, I understand. On the subject of disorder in former colonies - often it is a direct consequence of the empire, which draws borders ignoring ethnic, cultural and other distinctions. Look at the debacle in Africa. You draw borders like straight lines because you think your Empire is going to perservere and exist forever, ignoring the fact that you can essentially divide ethnic groups or press them together in one nation-state regardless if they have animosities or live peacefully with each other.

Yes.

But isn't this exactly what is happening now? A lot of people here justify the invasion of Iraq in moral terms - because Saddam's government was not benefitting the people. Even though it was a clear and blatant violation of sovereignity. These arguments will happen even if you try to forbid them and say "sovereignity should not be violated once and for all!"

That does not mean it is beneficial for nation states to adopt that line of reasoning, nor that the reasoning itself is in any way a good one.

This happens anyway. See above. If you simply say that morality is inferior to sovereignity, clearly Vietnam would be in the wrong for invading Cambodia and deposing the Khmer Rouge.

Morality =/= legality.

Maintaining a stable government for centuries is not a virtue in and of itself. Imperial Japan only proves the point. Sometimes having coups and civil wars is good. It gives the government an opportuinty to reject the acts of the precursor. The British government never did.

I'd never have thought I'd see the day when you'd seriously argue that a civil war is a net benefit or "good" for a nation. That is a seriously callous argument for somebody who proclaims to be the champion of the weak.

[K. A. Pital]

They were definitely not a nation state. Rome moreso because it had continuity, bureaucracy and empire-wide institutions that remained essentially unchanged. The Mongols meanwhile fractured into several kingdoms, each of which resemble more a sort of tribal monarchy than any real state.

You mean the post-conquest fracturing of the Golden Horde or their perpetual existence as a fractured state? As far as I know, the feudal nature of the ulus does not make the Horde "not a nation state". Feodalism can exist both as fractured kingdoms and inside a greater empire; with the Horde, fiefs were part of the Mongol Empire, at least from Gengis Khan onwards.

That does not mean it is beneficial for nation states to adopt that line of reasoning, nor that the reasoning itself is in any way a good one.

The opposite reasoning (sovereignity can't be violated for moral reasons) is clearly wrong. So it is, to an extent, beneficial to consider violating sovereignity for a moral cause. Yeah, I understand that this has been used as an imperialist excuse. However, sovereignity or lack thereof was used as an imperialist conquest excuse as well. For example, regardless of morality, Britain adopted a "Doctrine of the Lapse" to take over India - if there was a perceived loss of sovereignity (no direct heir to the throne), Britain could fill that void. No explanation is needed to understand how this led to one of the most massive tramplings on people's rights in history of mankind.

Morality =/= legality.

Indeed. Legalism is a piss poor philosophy anyway. I prefer supporting a moral system. Sometimes it is harder than just sticking up for "what's legal", but so what? Law evolves according to morality, not the other way around. It was legal to racially sterilize dozens of thousands of people in Sweden. Surely it was immoral. Just as a myriad of other immoral acts were fully legal. Legalism is useless when it comes to complex questions.

I'd never have thought I'd see the day when you'd seriously argue that a civil war is a net benefit or "good" for a nation. That is a seriously callous argument for somebody who proclaims to be the champion of the weak.

Wow, really? Sea Skimmer just gave me a good example in the other thread. If your prior government mass murdered 50% of Cyrenaica's population, would it be good to overthrow it in a coup or civil war? I don't believe that you seriously don't see my argument as "a coup or a civil war gives a former imperialist or opressive government the opportunity to reject past crimes and apologize", but instead as "civil war is beneficial, uh-huh!"

Civil war is not an economic benefit and it causes lots of suffering. I would argue that bloodless coups are much, much better than this. But sometimes a government needs to be deposed by the people.

Otherwise you could argue that Indian resistance to British rule was a moral wrong. It was effectively something like a civil war before the non-violent movements picked up steam. Was it wrong? People died, property was destroyed. However, it was obviously a net benefit for India, because this struggle eventually led to independence.

Was the coup which deposed Salazar dictatorship beneficial for Portugal? Was the coup of 1911 in China beneficial for China?

My opinion is - they were. Civil wars are bad, but sometimes the government which clings to power is clearly worse than the alternative - I'm sure you'll be up in arms now defending the civil wars in Libya, Yemen, etc. because the prior government discredited itself. Despite the fact that you fully know - the Libyan and Yemeni civil wars will leave the nations impoverished, infrastructure destroyed and many people suffering, and yet a great many dead.

So is the Libyan civil war beneficial for Libya, Thanas? And since my example above was the Japanese Empire, I'd ask you - what would you prefer: a coup or civil war in Japan in the 1920s which would depose the Emperor and the military (possibly bloody and destructive) or the maintainance of Japanese Empire in 1920-1930s which would lead to them mass murdering dozens of millions of Chinese, Koreans, Indonesians, Philipinos? Americans excluded, since the Japanese never killed their civilians, but they killed lots of British, US POWs. Which is beneficial and which is not?

If you would support a coup or civil war in Japan in the timeframe specified or earlier, let's put it further. Would you support a coup d'etat or revolution and possibly civil war in the British Isles in the 1600s, if these events would lead to the British Empire's failure to invade and conquer Ireland, India and a great multitude of other places? Or imagine if Black Friday in 1919 Britain played out a bit different and the nation fell to a revolution with a possible civil war, but lost all its colonies as a result. Would you support the possible success of Rosa Luxembourg's revolution in Germany, with the possibility of civil war, if said events would lead to the non-occurence of Nazism and the rise of the Third Reich, as well as its domination of Europe? What would be better?

I want to know - would you support a strong nation falling into chaos and disarray for the sake of saving other, weaker nations from horrible opression, murder and conquest at the hands of the stronger nation, had its government not been deposed by civil war or coup? Is that position of mine somehow inconsistent with the desire to protect the weak?

[Thanas]

They were definitely not a nation state. Rome moreso because it had continuity, bureaucracy and empire-wide institutions that remained essentially unchanged. The Mongols meanwhile fractured into several kingdoms, each of which resemble more a sort of tribal monarchy than any real state.

You mean the post-conquest fracturing of the Golden Horde or their perpetual existence as a fractured state? As far as I know, the feudal nature of the ulus does not make the Horde "not a nation state". Feodalism can exist both as fractured kingdoms and inside a greater empire; with the Horde, fiefs were part of the Mongol Empire, at least from Gengis Khan onwards.

Define nation state then and show me how it does apply to the Golden Horde then. A state is something more than personal allegiances.

The opposite reasoning (sovereignity can't be violated for moral reasons) is clearly wrong. So it is, to an extent, beneficial to consider violating sovereignity for a moral cause. Yeah, I understand that this has been used as an imperialist excuse. However, sovereignity or lack thereof was used as an imperialist conquest excuse as well. For example, regardless of morality, Britain adopted a "Doctrine of the Lapse" to take over India - if there was a perceived loss of sovereignity (no direct heir to the throne), Britain could fill that void. No explanation is needed to understand how this led to one of the most massive tramplings on people's rights in history of mankind.

Sure, but it does not make your reasoning any more valid in itself.

Indeed. Legalism is a piss poor philosophy anyway. I prefer supporting a moral system. Sometimes it is harder than just sticking up for "what's legal", but so what? Law evolves according to morality, not the other way around. It was legal to racially sterilize dozens of thousands of people in Sweden. Surely it was immoral. Just as a myriad of other immoral acts were fully legal. Legalism is useless when it comes to complex questions.

It is however also integral if there is to be respect for other nations.

Wow, really? Sea Skimmer just gave me a good example in the other thread. If your prior government mass murdered 50% of Cyrenaica's population, would it be good to overthrow it in a coup or civil war? I don't believe that you seriously don't see my argument as "a coup or a civil war gives a former imperialist or opressive government the opportunity to reject past crimes and apologize", but instead as "civil war is beneficial, uh-huh!"

Rejecting past crimes and apologizing is a net negative if it is bought for with the blood of innocents and the destruction of a country.

Otherwise you could argue that Indian resistance to British rule was a moral wrong. It was effectively something like a civil war before the non-violent movements picked up steam. Was it wrong? People died, property was destroyed. However, it was obviously a net benefit for India, because this struggle eventually led to independence.

Now you are moving the goalposts, trying to define an uprising to colonial rule as a civil war. By that standard, any uprising is a civil war because there are always collaborators and opportunists who will fight for the invaders.

My opinion is - they were. Civil wars are bad, but sometimes the government which clings to power is clearly worse than the alternative - I'm sure you'll be up in arms now defending the civil wars in Libya, Yemen, etc. because the prior government discredited itself.

I have not defended the civil wars in Libya and Yemen. I am ambivalent about both of them, though I freely admit that Ghaddafi (as a person) does deserve bad things happening to him for things like this.

And since my example above was the Japanese Empire, I'd ask you - what would you prefer: a coup or civil war in Japan in the 1920s which would depose the Emperor and the military (possibly bloody and destructive) or the maintainance of Japanese Empire in 1920-1930s which would lead to them mass murdering dozens of millions of Chinese, Koreans, Indonesians, Philipinos? Americans excluded, since the Japanese never killed their civilians, but they killed lots of British, US POWs. Which is beneficial and which is not?

That depends on the consequences of the civil war, doesn't it? It is useless to speculate about such things since they are too far off alternate history anyway.

Would you support a coup d'etat or revolution and possibly civil war in the British Isles in the 1600s, if these events would lead to the British Empire's failure to invade and conquer Ireland, India and a great multitude of other places?

Again, that depends on the consequences. If the alternative is - hypothetically - having decades of destructive war because nobody keeps the balance in power in Europe and consequent suppression of minorities, religion and learning as well as hundreds of millions dead (look up the thirty-years war, for a change - something that caused more death and destruction than any of the British famines in India).

So great was the devastation brought about by the war that estimates put the reduction of population in the German states at about 15% to 30%. Some regions were affected much more than others. For example, Württemberg lost three-quarters of its population during the war. In the territory of Brandenburg, the losses had amounted to half, while in some areas an estimated two-thirds of the population died. The male population of the German states was reduced by almost half. The population of the Czech lands declined by a third due to war, disease, famine and the expulsion of Protestant Czechs. Much of the destruction of civilian lives and property was caused by the cruelty and greed of mercenary soldiers, many of whom were rich commanders and poor soldiers. Villages were especially easy prey to the marauding armies. Those that survived, like the small village of Drais near Mainz, would take almost a hundred years to recover. The Swedish armies alone may have destroyed up to 2,000 castles, 18,000 villages and 1,500 towns in Germany, one-third of all German towns.

BTW, a recurrence of this was also prevented by - among other things, the concept of sovereignty and nation-state.

Or imagine if Black Friday in 1919 Britain played out a bit different and the nation fell to a revolution with a possible civil war, but lost all its colonies as a result.

I fail to see how that would be more beneficial to the world overall.

Would you support the possible success of Rosa Luxembourg's revolution in Germany, with the possibility of civil war, if said events would lead to the non-occurence of Nazism and the rise of the Third Reich, as well as its domination of Europe? What would be better?

This scenario would never have come to pass. If you want a realistic scenario, ask rather if I would have supported a right-wing military coup which would have restored the monarchy and might or might not have lead to the destruction of Poland and war with France/England? Maybe, as the casualties there would have been lower in all respects and Nazism would not be as strong.

I want to know - would you support a strong nation falling into chaos and disarray for the sake of saving other, weaker nations from horrible opression, murder and conquest at the hands of the stronger nation, had its government not been deposed by civil war or coup? Is that position of mine somehow inconsistent with the desire to protect the weak?

My position is different, in that I take into account all the consequences. Civil wars are never as clean as you seem to indicate they are. The Chinese civil war for example caused a lot of death and also invited foreign aggression in itself etc.

Same with civil war in the Habsburg Empire, see the aforementioned Thirty Years' war. It also saved several smaller nations from continued Habsburg Imperialism. Was that worth it?

[K. A. Pital]

Define nation state then and show me how it does apply to the Golden Horde then. A state is something more than personal allegiances.

How about, uh... common law? The Golden Horde had the (Great) Yassa. That's a bit more than just "personal allegiances" indeed. Common currency as well - the balysh. To say that something as complex and clearly unified as the Golden Horde was not a nation-state is to claim that all ancient nation-states weren't really "states". I think the pre-Ghengiside Mongols aren't a nation-state, but post-Gengish Khan? Clearly they were.

Sure, but it does not make your reasoning any more valid in itself.

Morality should consistently ensure the protection of the weak, whereas legalism failed to consistently ensure the same. Once again, I try to follow a system that would consistently be in favor of the weak. If you don't like it, fine.

It is however also integral if there is to be respect for other nations.

What, legalism? How is it "integral" if you could legally run racial forced sterilization? The law is not the primary source of respect. That source is morality and moral norms (new moral norms, especially) which then get codified in the law. The law itself is just a formalization of existing relations in society, of existing social and moral norms. It is not "integral" for respect. A lawless zone may not have racist violence if the two ethnicities in said zone already get along good with each other.

Rejecting past crimes and apologizing is a net negative if it is bought for with the blood of innocents and the destruction of a country.

Whoa. So I guess the defeat of the Reich was a "net negative"? Or you don't consider German civilians "innocents" and Germany's utter demise "the destruction of a country"? Clarify this. And thanks for admitting that Russia's apology to Poland for Katyn is a "net negative", because it is bought with the destruction of a country - the USSR - and blood of innocents - hundreds of thousands of 'em.

Now you are moving the goalposts, trying to define an uprising to colonial rule as a civil war. By that standard, any uprising is a civil war because there are always collaborators and opportunists who will fight for the invaders.

Yes, many uprisings turn into civil wars because there are lots of collaborators and opportunists which fight for the invaders or prior government. The "invaders" may occupy a place for a long time and set up their own government, which would have law enforcement and military units ready to defend it against rebellion. Civil war is a war between citizens of one nation over the subject of government, more often than not.

I have not defended the civil wars in Libya and Yemen. I am ambivalent about both of them, though I freely admit that Ghaddafi (as a person) does deserve bad things happening to him for things like this.

So you think that bad things happening to Muammar Qaddafi justify the civil war, suffering and destruction in the entire nation? *eyes suspiciously* At which point will you admit that civil war can be a net benefit if the prior government discredited itself or is willing to continue horrendous acts? Besides, aren't honour killings a big problem in Turkey - a NATO member and a EU candidate? Does their huge rate in Turkey justify a civil war in Turkey and bad things to happen to Erdogan? Don't weasel out. You have defended the civil war in Libya in the "Libya uprising thread", at least by claiming it is justified, have you not. Something cannot be justified unless it produces a benefit in the end.

That depends on the consequences of the civil war, doesn't it? It is useless to speculate about such things since they are too far off alternate history anyway.

No, Thanas, they aren't "too far off" - a civil war would leave the nation in a crippled state and make it lose its colonies. Usually restoring economy and military after a civil war takes decades, in case of less industrialized nations like the USSR and Japan especially. So the likelihood of a civil war contributing to decolonization and collapse of foreign imperialism is quite great. It is not absolute, but it is clearly more than 50% probable. Even the mere overthrow of Salazar in a bloodless coup ended Portugal's colonial wars. Surely a ravaging civil war would make the imperialist power absolutely unable to hold on colonial posessions. Admit it, or you're just being dishonest.

Again, that depends on the consequences. If the alternative is - hypothetically - having decades of destructive war because nobody keeps the balance in power in Europe and consequent suppression of minorities, religion and learning as well as hundreds of millions dead (look up the thirty-years war, for a change - something that caused more death and destruction than any of the British famines in India).

You seriously think the Thirty Years War - a "most destructive conflict in Europe" caused more deaths than "any of the British famines in India"? The death toll of the war was 3,5 to 11 million at the very high end. That's comparable to just one British India famine in 1876–78, where the death toll ranged from 6 to 10 million. If we go a bit further to the Bengal famine of 1770, in which the British played no small role by plundering Indian lands via the East India Company and raising land taxes fivefold - getting double the revenue from poor Indian farmers and then taking it all out of the country - we'll see ten million deaths, a death rate of 1/3rd of Bengal population. Besides, why the fuck are European lives worth more than Indian lives? Who are you to judge? If it was me, I would without any doubt mete out death and destruction upon the opressor, so that he shall know the "gifts" he had been poisoning other nations with. No European life is more valuable than the lifes of those Third Worlders the Europeans opressed and murdered. No Japanese life is worth more than the lives of dozens of millions of Chinese they murdered. No German life is worth more than the life of the Poles, Yugoslavs, Russians, Belorussians, Ukrainians they murdered. Only if the death toll would be greater than the death toll otherwise resulting from imperialism would I ever wish for an imperialist nation to remain intact.

BTW, a recurrence of this was also prevented by - among other things, the concept of sovereignty and nation-state

Maybe this should have recurred and saved countless millions from European opression.

I fail to see how that would be more beneficial to the world overall.

You seriously fail to see how this would be beneficial for the world? Like, India and Punjab never experiencing what Britain unleashed on them in 1920-1940s?

This scenario would never have come to pass. If you want a realistic scenario, ask rather if I would have supported a right-wing military coup which would have restored the monarchy and might or might not have lead to the destruction of Poland and war with France/England? Maybe, as the casualties there would have been lower in all respects and Nazism would not be as strong.

I never said that this scenario needs to be entirely realistic. I am asking if you admit that the destruction of opressive governments through civil war or coups - preferrably coups, of course - may be justified and beneficial. But your Eurocentrism once again betrays you - you have no interest in what happens outside of Europe. The fate of Germany, Poland, France and Britain concerns you. The fate of Cyrenaicans murdered by Italy - not so much. The fate of Chinese murdered by the Japanese Empire - a very "stable" government, you know, for centuries - not so much, as it seems. The fate of Indians and Irish murdered by the British - not so much. But the British? The Germans? What if they die in the millions? Oh noes! Oh sorry, Thanas, but I'm honestly sick of this.

My position is different, in that I take into account all the consequences. Civil wars are never as clean as you seem to indicate they are. The Chinese civil war for example caused a lot of death and also invited foreign aggression in itself etc. Same with civil war in the Habsburg Empire, see the aforementioned Thirty Years' war. It also saved several smaller nations from continued Habsburg Imperialism. Was that worth it?

In my view - perhaps it was, because the lives of Habsburg Empire citizens are not worth any more than the lives of possible conquered citizens. You take into account "all the consequences"? Surely you are joking. Consequences of the Japanese invasion in China could never match up to possible casualties of a Japanese civil war in Japan's own islands. And consequences of British imperialism were enormously huge - the deaths of several million Britons in civil war or even a complete destruction of Britain in the 1600s would not even come barely close to the dozens of millions who died under their rule and with their direct assistance.

You claim to take into account "all the consequences" - so far the only "consequences" you're taking into account are the possible deaths of Europeans. No worries that a civil war in any imperialist European power - from Portugal to Italy to Britain to France - would automatically cause a collapse of their empires, liberate millions of people and prevent millions of deaths at the hands of the colonizers.

I said bloodless coups are preferrable, but I could easily understand how a civil war in Japan might be beneficial even if five million Japanese perish there. Because then like, 20-30 million people would still be alive. The math is clearly not in favor of the Japanese.

And clearly if there'd be an event which would cause a few million Europeans to kick the bucket, but by that event the Third Reich's formation would be prevented, I would gladly support this event, because otherwise dozens of millions perish. So what if alternatively those who die are more likely to be West Europeans? What if there's a destructive war between Britain, France and Germany in the 1930s which bankrupts them all, causes millions of deaths and the collapse of all their colonial empires? That's still way better than the alternative, unless of course, the Africans, Slavs and Jews aren't worth much more than 2/3rds of the life of the European.

And before you accuse me of playing the racist card - consider your own statements here. Despite my scenarios clearly preventing colonial conquests and deaths of Latinos, Indians, Irish, etc. - the opressed groups, you chose to center on possible European deaths as a result. Why is that?

[Simon_Jester]

My position is different, in that I take into account all the consequences. Civil wars are never as clean as you seem to indicate they are. The Chinese civil war for example caused a lot of death and also invited foreign aggression in itself etc. Same with civil war in the Habsburg Empire, see the aforementioned Thirty Years' war. It also saved several smaller nations from continued Habsburg Imperialism. Was that worth it?

In my view - perhaps it was, because the lives of Habsburg Empire citizens are not worth any more than the lives of possible conquered citizens.

One thing, while on the subject of this example.

The Thirty Years' War spilled over into very large territories, and the ongoing chaos drew in more and more combatants from outside the regions immediately contested in the first years of the war. Protestants allied against Catholics and vice versa, opportunistic powers like Gustavus Adolphus's Sweden made plays for a bigger share of the pie in Germany at immense cost in suffering and death to the inhabitants, and so on. Many people not involved in the original territorial disputes that triggered the war were killed as a result of this, because chaos in one part of Europe spread to other parts of Europe.

A period of extreme civil disorder is not necessarily better overall than the consequences of the imperialists it destroys would be. To take an example, the Russian Civil War- and this is not an attack on you or on communism, it's just an example that comes very quickly to my mind as one of the larger civil wars fought in modern times.

The Russian Civil War brought an end to czarist imperialism over the subject-nations of the czars' empire, yes? But the war itself killed millions and set back Russia's economy (already badly damaged by the war). And come the 1930s, not twenty years later, significant chunks of what had been the Russian Empire (the Ukraine comes to mind) were now being oppressed once again by Stalin, with terrible famines and such. And then in the 1940s, the matter got even worse; the USSR annexed much of the former Russian Empire in Europe, along with other nations the czars had never ruled, enacted intense purges of anti-communist elements within the society, and locked those nations into a new empire for decades.

Now, this is not an attack on communism, please do not take it as such. My point is simply that it is hard to look back on the Russian Civil War and say "this war, which overthrew an imperialist regime, and its consequences in later years, were less destructive than the alternatives." What if the war had never been fought? What if the Czars had somehow held onto power in Russia, or what if Russia had somehow managed to become a democracy, if the transitional government had known what the hell they were doing and avoided a violent revolution that spiraled into civil war? Would these options have resulted in more death and more suffering?

Hard to say, if you ask me.

Civil war can be a very ugly thing, and it often grows badly out of control without bringing about the rise of a new government worthy to replace the old.

[K. A. Pital]

A period of extreme civil disorder is not necessarily better overall than the consequences of the imperialists it destroys would be. To take an example, the Russian Civil War- and this is not an attack on you or on communism, it's just an example that comes very quickly to my mind as one of the larger civil wars fought in modern times.

I never said it would be necessarily better. And yet, more often than not the result was better than the alternatives. I specifically ignored the Russian Civil War, because if I were to claim it was justified and the net result beneficial, people would be up in arms that my pro-communist bias is massively affecting my logic. Therefore, I ignored it for that reason.

The Russian Civil War brought an end to czarist imperialism over the subject-nations of the czars' empire, yes?

Indeed. And needless to say, Czarist imperialist behaviour was not much more benigh than the British Empire. In 1917 still fresh was the repeatedly crushed Polish Uprisings, with a good hundred thousand dead, the colony in Finland just suffered a famine (and later Russia itself suffered a famine in 1891-92 due to the same damned food overexporting mechanism which caused Irish and Indian famines). Russia invaded Manchuria and her forces were killing Chinese there, putting down uprisings and the like. In 1905, imperialist rivalry culminated in the Russo-Japanese war, which caused another half a hundred thousand casualties, and finally, in 1914 imperialist allegiances (no doubt the Entente was an imperialist union) caused Russia to enter a bloody war with millions of dead as a result. If this imperialist entity, the Russian Empire, would be allowed to continue existing, the movements in Poland would be crushed again brutally (and possibly with a much, much greater death toll, unavoidable as it was the conflict between Poles and Russians). Chinese Manchuria undeniably would see a more opressive form of imperialism; and Russia would be taking over the East China railway and entire Manchuria as it desired. East and West Russia's imperialist warmaking would widen in both scale and deadliness, due to the creation of modern weaponry. Undeniably this is not the future one could call beneficial, even if it would be beneficial for Russia itself, imagining for a moment that Russia, like a vulture, never picks an opponent strong enough to deal it lots of damage.

But the war itself killed millions and set back Russia's economy (already badly damaged by the war). And come the 1930s, not twenty years later, significant chunks of what had been the Russian Empire (the Ukraine comes to mind) were now being oppressed once again by Stalin, with terrible famines and such. And then in the 1940s, the matter got even worse; the USSR annexed much of the former Russian Empire in Europe, along with other nations the czars had never ruled, enacted intense purges of anti-communist elements within the society, and locked those nations into a new empire for decades.

I think the USSR could not feasibly annex nations which the Tsars never ruled. But so what? The creation of a new empire never excuses the old empire. The new empire at least granted these territories formal independence. Without that fall, Poland would've never been a nation-state of its own. Most Whites considered the crushing of Polish independence instrumental to the maintenance of the Russian Empire (considering that Poland was more industrialized than heartland Russia, producing more electricity than all the rest of the Russian Empire!). The civil war killed millions - as if millions weren't already dying in World War I battlefields thanks to Russia's imperial ambitions which only grew. In 1930s, twenty years later, the Russian state barely recovered for another round of conquests. The conquest of tiny Finland failed miserably. The success of East European conquests was more a function of Germany's imperialist success than that of Russia; Germany effectively destroyed Polish government and armed forces, making Poland absolutely incapable of resisting partition and territorial reconquista from Russia. So perhaps instead we should be arguing that both Russia and Germany should have collapsed and utterly failed, never to rise again as empires.

My point is simply that it is hard to look back on the Russian Civil War and say "this war, which overthrew an imperialist regime, and its consequences in later years, were less destructive than the alternatives." What if the war had never been fought? What if the Czars had somehow held onto power in Russia, or what if Russia had somehow managed to become a democracy, if the transitional government had known what the hell they were doing and avoided a violent revolution that spiraled into civil war? Would these options have resulted in more death and more suffering? Hard to say, if you ask me.

What if the Czars held onto power in Russia? Undoubtedly this would conclude in imperialist wars all over Europe and Asia. However, the failure of the Russian Empire could have still occured even if you keep the Tsar - what if Russia would be incapable of paying her gigantic debts and had to undergo sovereign default? Her economy and tax revenue in 1910-1920 were clearly not adequate to the level of borrowing. What if Russia became a democracy? Now that is probably a good idea - except it wouldn't do much to avert the civil war. The monarchist and dictatorial militarist elements in Russia will still instigate it to bring about the fall of the Russian democratic government, just as they did in reality. They continously attempted it, and it is not a great stretch to say that if the feeble democratic parliament could hold for much longer, these attempts would grow into a fullscale confrontation between parliamentarists and monarchists-militarists.

None of this also adresses the issue of structural reforms in Russia. What if the prior government persevered? Rampant illiteracy, high mortality and clericalization plagued it from a very early age. It would be quite likely that a vast majority of Russia's population itself, and especially that of Central Asia and other conquered territories would remain in an extremely bad position, without either education or healthcare. Women would be treated like tools, honor killings would remain common and in general Russia's Asia would look like modern Afghanistan. There were millions of people there. Do you really claim that such an alternative would be better somehow than the Civil War?

This is the problem. When benefits for Europeans (Russians, East Europeans) are standing on a higher pedestal than those for Asians, the Chinese, the Uzbeks and Turkmens, Tajiks, etc. When benefits for one set of Europeans (Russians) becomes greater than that for Poles, for example.

I already said this - yes, it is not a given civil war that destroys an empire would necessarily be less deadly than the empire itself (however, I provided cases where it clearly would be so). However, my original point was that sometimes civil wars and coups are beneficial because they allow to reject prior crimes and let free those opressed. It was a crazy leap of logic to make me suddenly supporting all and any civil wars in the world.

But sure, I'd love you and Thanas to argue that the Civil War in, say, the United States was not justified because millions of people died. Civil War in the USA would've saved millions of lives if it never happened. The slaves weren't dying at such a huge rate as soldiers and civilians were during the war itself. Slavery would persevere - so what? The slaves' improved condition was not worth the lives lost. That is essentially the argument Thanas has produced w/ the British and Japanese Empires - the opression of their subjects is not enough of a justification.

Sometimes having coups and civil wars is good. It gives the government an opportuinty to reject the acts of the precursor.

I stand by my words. Neither you nor Thanas have adequately explained why I can't support coups and civil wars in some cases or why that's "inconsistent" with my position.

[Simon_Jester]

A period of extreme civil disorder is not necessarily better overall than the consequences of the imperialists it destroys would be. To take an example, the Russian Civil War- and this is not an attack on you or on communism, it's just an example that comes very quickly to my mind as one of the larger civil wars fought in modern times.

I never said it would be necessarily better. And yet, more often than not the result was better than the alternatives. I specifically ignored the Russian Civil War, because if I were to claim it was justified and the net result beneficial, people would be up in arms that my pro-communist bias is massively affecting my logic. Therefore, I ignored it for that reason.

My apologies.

I am well aware of the tyranny of the Czars, and that this was in no way a desirable state of affairs. What concerns me most seriously is that while winning a civil war against the ancién regime may give the new government freedom to repudiate the crimes of the old one, it does not guarantee that the new government will not turn round and merrily commit more crimes. Moreover, in a case as complex as the Russian Revolution and Civil War (which occured at the same time that massive waves of nationalism and chaos were sweeping Europe in the aftermath of World War One anyway), it is difficult to disentangle changes caused by the revolution from changes that would have happened whether the revolution occured or not.

For example, the independence of Poland was largely guaranteed by the collapse of all three of the powers that had once partitioned it. One might argue that any plausible Russia that could have come out of the events of 1917 would have wound up dealing with an independent Poland on its eastern frontier, which would have put an end to their ongoing oppression of Poland whether they liked it or not.

I think the USSR could not feasibly annex nations which the Tsars never ruled. But so what? The creation of a new empire never excuses the old empire.

Excuse me, "annex" was the wrong word. "Weld into a network of vassal states" would perhaps be more accurate when talking about, say, the Russian relationship with Czechoslovakia or East Germany. And my point is not that the old empire is excused, or that the czars were not tyrants, or that Russia was not well rid of them.

My point is that removing them by massive, violent convulsion, only to replace them with an autocratic government which ultimately evolved into another bunch of imperialists, is... let me simply say, not a decision which was unquestionably better for the Russians, or for the Russian satellites, dependencies, and imperial provinces of the Czarist and Soviet eras.

Better, perhaps, but unquestionably better? I would say not.

This is always a danger with revolution, an occupational hazard that wise revolutionaries guard against as best they can, if you ask me. Even then, they often fail, and the revolution is often betrayed in this way. Which is why I'm not a big fan of the transformative power of civil war.

None of this also adresses the issue of structural reforms in Russia. What if the prior government persevered? Rampant illiteracy, high mortality and clericalization plagued it from a very early age. It would be quite likely that a vast majority of Russia's population itself, and especially that of Central Asia and other conquered territories would remain in an extremely bad position, without either education or healthcare. Women would be treated like tools, honor killings would remain common and in general Russia's Asia would look like modern Afghanistan. There were millions of people there. Do you really claim that such an alternative would be better somehow than the Civil War?

No. Then again, we must now turn around and look at what happened with the breakup of the USSR- an end to bluntly imperialist policy in the Eastern European satellite states, and to a variety of oppressive state policies within Russia... but Central Asia has collapsed towards the very barbarism you describe as a result, because outside rule by people who were in a real sense foreigners was the largest thing keeping their society functional.

What I find myself asking is not so much "did this specific revolution and civil war help" as "is it consistently true that breaking an empire replaces it with something better, regardless of how one went about doing it?"

That is an argument that merits very close and careful analysis, and even then the second-order effects are very difficult to address. I don't see how we go about figuring out what Central Asia would look like for different versions of 20th century Russia, or how Czarist Russia would have evolved over time, whether there was indeed little or no possible middle ground between the Leninists (who became imperialists in their turn) and the reactionary monarchists (who already were). We can infer, deduce, argue, but we cannot know, and the uncertainty is so large it makes me nervous.

Which, fine, you do not dispute. It just... it bothers me, and I think you understand why. And why it makes me skeptical of the idea that imperialism might be destroyed if only the nations involved had waged a few more civil wars- civil wars did not prevent Russia or France from becoming powerful imperialist states, at various points in their history, after all. France had repeated political upheavals throughout the industrial era, which never stopped it from dominating large parts of the world and abusing the people who lived there. Russia had one of the most drastic changes of government in history (from the most reactionary monarchy in Europe to communism in five to ten years), and once the smoke cleared it promptly began trying to reassert imperial dominance over the territories which had slipped out of its control in the confusion, as if Stalin had simply shot Nicholas II only to plunk down on the throne and crown himself Joseph I Grozny, both reforming and terrorizing his people and the neighbors of his people.

I'm not so much trying to refute you here, as to express what I consider a massive, mitigating concern that affects my view of your arguments.

[K. A. Pital]

And why it makes me skeptical of the idea that imperialism might be destroyed if only the nations involved had waged a few more civil wars- civil wars did not prevent Russia or France from becoming powerful imperialist states, at various points in their history, after all.

Heh. Yes, in a sense, that's true. Now, if I said "all civil wars are good" or "all infringements on sovereignity are justified/injustified", that sort of absolutist position - I'd be clearly wrong. However, I already spoke before - I let morality guide my actions, even if it is sometimes hard. Is it a net benefit that Vietnam destroyed sovereign Cambodia? Even ignoring for a moment that Cambodia attacked Vietnam, even if Vietnam was the agressor, the end of the Polpotian slaughter clearly justified this invasion. Is it a net benefit that Russian Empire fell in civil war? That's a much less obvious question. Would it be a benefit if Japan collapsed on the verge of their imperialist landgrab in China which culminated in enormous slaughter? I think yes. Would it be beneficial if Britain collapsed in 1919 under revolution and decolonized? Perhaps - one cannot know for sure. Perhaps there'd be a massive war of independence in the colonies, where as many people would die as they historically did. Perhaps all the 1919 chaos inside Britain would do is simply make things like the Quit India Movement and the Mau Mau Uprising in Kenya occur faster; their deaths more swift, if not more numerous. However, perhaps - like the anti-Salazar coup - it would bring a decisive end and collapse to a colonial empire.

So my position seems "inconsistent" because I don't pick a side and or a principle (like "soveregnity" or "self-determination") and go with it. What if sovereignity causes suffering? It can. What if "self-determination" of, say, Chechnya would prevail, and the place be transformed into a Sharia state - there were signs of that and ethnic cleansing already running there? Is it enough to just say that there are respectable legal principles like "sovereignity" and "self-determination" which apply equally to all?

In my view, no. Why should I respect the sovereignity that arose as a result of terrible injustice and crime? And on the other hand, why should I not respect a breach of sovereignity if it is done to stop these from occuring? I prefer to stay clear of vulgar legalism whenever possible.

[Kane Starkiller]

Why and how is it convenient? I've always said that I only support imperialist entities as counterbalance to other imperialist entities. Never just because they are a certain imperialist entity. But if we get down to the roots, I reject any and all imperialist nation-states. That obviously includes Russia. SCO is turning into an imperialist entity in Central Asia, quite possibly in the future it will be used to assert control over Central Asian natural resources if their impoverished populations will start rioting; I don't think I can support it any longer in good faith, by the way.

Then why do you support SCO to begin with if you believe they are all imperialists and all the same? All that would happen is that each imperialist entity would control each own sphere of influence while there would be friction and conflict at borderlands. Clearly, if you believe all are the same, it's then better just to have one entity so that there is at least peace if not freedom from a big power. Unless there is some discernible difference between the two. I make no excuses nor do I try to cover my belief that NATO and Western alliance represent a superior group due to their democratic values and more open societies.

I thought mob violence was pretty common in the USA in the XX century. Mobs killed blacks. Hell, the KKK, if that rings any bells. Besides, "hundreds of dead" - are you sure? Even the "Tibetan government in exile" only claimed 80 casualties. The government reported 13 civilian dead. As usual, you're peddling bullshit here. As to your question, when did a race riot like that happen in the USA - I could easily answer your question. 1992 Los Angeles. 53 dead, soldiers sent to quell riots. I know that in your blind love for the US of A you tend to be oblivious to any knowledge that shakes your little cozy world, but them's the cards.

You forgot the Uyghurs riots which had 197 dead even according to official Chinese reports. So that is 200-300, as in "hundreds". I wasn't unaware of any of those incidents that happened in the US including the latest in 1992. But that was 1992 not 2008-2009. Not to mention the fact that blacks represent a far greater percentage of US population and are far more dispersed throughout the country so there are statistically more friction points.
This entire line of argument was started by your ridiculous claim that China and Russia have a more of a right to exist, to counter it I needed to show that US built a better nation state than either Russia or China. Not perfect just better. I have shown that and no amount of your digging into the past will change the situation in the present.
I do love how you equate my claiming that US is better than China or Russia by some margin with "blind love" for US as if I was paying it some extraordinary compliment when I said that. I hate to break this to you but neither Russia nor China are exactly shining beacons of free society and democratic values.

Uh... Okay. Caucasians were part of Russia for 200 years. However, the Russian Empire didn't put them into reservations. Caucasians practiced radical islam and eventually turned to Wahhabism. Russians feel uneasy about radical islamists. But if you're willing to press the issue, let's pick Wounded Knee. As far as I know, Caucasians in Russia were never bold enough to take over a town because of Russians massacring Caucasians there. So when you boldly trump your ignorant card about how there are no issues with Native Americans in the USA, you're looking like a fool. Suprisingly enough, even a cursory investigation in the history of Native Americans in the USA yields unwelcome facts. Native Americans did not obtain U.S. citizenship until 1924, they were considered wards of the state and were denied various basic rights, including the right to travel. And of course, in 1958 Native Americans still faced threats like the Ku Klux Klan. Not to mention that there are still Neo-Nazi and KKK marches every year here and there in the USA. How are they different from neo-nazi marches in Moscow? America has a different, more benigh neo-nazism?

Oh, and let's not forget the United States even forcibly sterilized black people and Native Americans until the 1970s.

Tell me how exactly do you translate "US did a better job in integrating Native Americans than Russians in integrating Caucasians" into "Never at any point in US history were there incidents between Natives and Americans, Natives were ALWAYS treated fairly, situation between Natives and the rest of Americans are perfect today, US is awesome"?
When you figure that out maybe you won't have to counter my remarks about CURRENT Neo-Nazi marches in Moscow with 1950s threats by Ku-Klux klan. By the way where were those threats? Did the Ku Klux klan march through New York? Because New York is the equivalent of Moscow not bumfuck Alabama.

How many women from ethnic minorities of the USSR were sterilized? Ever? Or maybe the USSR forcibly castrated men?

USSR would never bother with such peacemeal attempts. When they didn't like a minority they would just round them up and transport them into bumfuck Central Asia or Siberia and let the harsh climate and distance take care of them as a problem. But this is all a red herring. The issue is the state of affairs NOW. We can keep listing incidents from the past until the cows come home.

You are saying they cannot build up a military to be imperialist simply because they are small. However, I simply said that the military is a means to an end. There are large and densely populated nations with pathetically small militaries, e.g. Bangladesh. There are small nations with extremely large militaries - like DPRK. Hell, Britain itself was very small, and yet it took over the world. I would love your funny attempt to explain in 1500 how Britain could never take over India or even have a war with it because it was (1) small (2) their small economy means they have no possibility of constructing a large navy. Do I really have to explain this to you? I merely explained that the military is a means to an end. Bangladesh is large, but it does not field a large military. Germany is advanced, but it also does not field a large military. Neither riches nor population adequately explain militarism.

Britain was small in relative terms but it was a lowland Island. Meaning it had an abundance of arable land and was completely secure from an invasion. Therefore it was free to develop a maritime trade and develop a navy to defend that trade. And later to start conquering colonies to have protected markets. They didn't just wake up one day and said gee let's have an empire. One thing led to another but it all comes from their power and expanding economic influence. Britain was unified and more technologically advanced than the disunited India and was gradually absorbed. If Britain didn't have an economic interest which came from its economic power then it wouldn't even try to conquer India.

Amartya Sen disagrees. Famines were not inevitable. By the way, Russia had a huge population and low technology. Does this mean famines were inevitable? Let's remember that the railways which the British built actually exacerbated famines often, because they allowed hoarders to move grains and foodstuff quickly to secure guarded depots in other parts of the nation, where the starving poor peasants would not be able to get them. Let's not forget about British support of food export from India and food export from Ireland during famines. Did Ireland also have "huge population and low technology"? Will you excuse every British-caused famine in such a fashion? You're... filthy, you know.

Did I bring up famines in Ukraine during USSR as an argument? You can pretend that someone not caring for you starving and exporting food instead of feeding you is the same as him picking up a machette and killing you because he doesn't like the way you look all you want. It still doesn't make it so. Britain ruled India for a century and the country continued to experience a population explosion and development.
Irish famine was in 1845. What was the state of the agricultural technology then? Was England well fed as it is today? I am filthy and excusing "every British-caused" famine because I don't allow you to bring centuries old events into discussion about CURRENT development and freedoms in Britain, US, China or Russia? Weren't you defending the famines in Ukraine as also being not as much a result of malice but of lack of technology and mistakes in planning?

Torture and mass detentions in Mandatory Palestine happened in the 1930s, the Bengal famine - several million dead - happened in 1943, torture and mass murder in Kenya happened in the 1940s-1950s, hundreds of thousands of political prisoners were thrown in the Raj prisons in 1900 to 1930s, not just early in the century, torture in Northern Ireland happened in the 1920s and easily reoccured in the 1970s, torture, mass murder and castrations in Punjab happened in the 1930s, invasion of Egypt happened in 1956, torture in Cyprus - in the 1950s. No need to dig "100 years in the past". This is just a fraction of the history of one First World nation, the British Empire in the XX century. I did not say the current First World nations have no "right to exist" - show me where, then? I said they have no right to opress others and engage in imperialism and imperialistic conquest. That's all. By the way - French war and torture in Algeria, 1960s. US invasion of Iraq and torture in Iraq, Afghanistan and all over the world - 2003-present. Just... tidbits

I just love it how you mix all these disparate events some of which come from older time periods, others have more complex causes than British were evil and others don't come nowhere near to scale of mass murder in Rwanda or Sudan or Somalia.
Bengal famine during WW2? You can't figure out other causes than British are evil?
Torture in Palestine was in 1930. Oh but that's right I said 100 years and this is 80 years so you can actually bring it up. Please. How many people were tortured and killed in the more recent examples like 1956 Cyprus? Invasion of Egypt was done in an effort to secure the Suez a major waterway that drastically decreased the time and cost of transport. It wasn't mindless slaughter whether you choose to support it or not (which I don't). And was still over 50 years ago.
US invasion of Iraq also toppled Saddam Hussein so it is not a clear cut EVIL you wish to portray it as. Torture? How many?

Rwanda and the Khmer Rouge killed lots of people, sure. However, you're wrong again. The USA's involvement in South Asia wars (Vietnam, Lao, Cambodia) killed a similar number of people. That's just one war involving a First World nation. If we sum up all the wars involving First World nations, the figure would be much higher. The British invasions, crushing uprisings and wars of agression after 1950s till now would weigh up to a 100 000 dead, America's wars in South Asia and Iraq easily come to over a million dead, France's war in Algeria is at least several hundred thousand dead, and a whole million dead at most. At the very low end, First World powers participated in the murder of one million people through wars of agression and crushing of rebellions and uprisings and independence movements in colonies. At the high end, the number would be closer to 2,5 million people (1 million in Vietnam, 600 000 in Iraq, 900 000 in Algeria, 50 000 - British colonialism). So no, First World nations killed and tortured lots of people. You may find it hard to grasp or counter-intuitive, because they're so rich and cozy on the inside, but that's only your problem.

Yes compare things like 600,000 excess deaths in Iraq to an outright slaughter of 800,000 people in Rwanda not to mention it was a WAR and not SLAUGHTER. They are not one and the same no matter how much you wish to portray them as such.
Then there are 1.39 million bodies discovered in mass graves all over Cambodia, again direct slaughter. Plus million more died of starvation and forced labor. And this was a country that had something like 7-8 million people at the time similar as Rwanda. I don't think you get the scales involved. First World operated on global scale and you can't come up with direct deaths that match these two examples of poor countries. Not to mention that first world countries do not always see eye to eye. After all US opposed British invasion of Egypt, US fought Germany. How many millions of Soviet lives do you figure US saved by bombing Germany and shipping help to Soviet Union?

Did they not? I thought Russia and the Allies fed the Germans they "raped", because otherwise there'd be a hunger of epic proportions and tens of millions of Germans would have died. You know, kinda like Germany and Japan did in Eastern Europe and China, where 25 million civilians and 10-20 million civilians perished respectively. Oh wait, I forgot, First World nations like Germany and Japan killed 35-45 million civilians just in the last century! I must be kidding! Surely this could not have happened.

Do you think I don't agree with you that Germans were the bad guys in ww2? Why do you think I compared them with pirates? But you didn't "feed" the germans in the sense that you alleviated their cause for war: their sense that they have too little land. They took even more of their land and expelled them west. In the same way it is not the duty of the nations to take care of finding pirates a job or something. Of course in WW2 UK, France and US were against Germany and Japan were they? Japan was pretty much defeated single handed by US even while they were throwing you a bone with shipping strategic material and bombing the industrial heartland of Germany. But yeah USSR vs First World sounds better.

If you're too dumb to understand the term "resource curse" (hint - google it) - you're an idiot not worth talking to. Oil exports keep an economy afloat, but in the long term they hurt it, because the resource curse makes it profitable to export raw resources and not invest in complex industries like machine building, etc. Mexico, Venezuela, Turkmenistan have lots of oil. It does not make them rich.

But not having oil would make them rich? I know about the dutch disease and that it can hurt other sectors of economy but that doesn't mean it's a rule. Or that it is the fault of the resource importing country when it happens.

In this particular case, you are willing to argue that Georgia did not instigate the conflict by shelling a separatist province' capital? Maybe you'd be willing to argue that Russia did not start the war in Chechnya, but instead Chechnya started the war in Russia?

Ah so there are particular cases right? But only when it comes to Russia. When it comes to NATO then all cases are evil interventionism and there is no need to look at the particulars only to make a sweeping declaration about how interventionalism is bad.

Actually, it does make sense, but you probably don't know that in the 1960s the USSR initiated the virgin lands campaign, which was centered around sending lots of people to "virgin lands" in Central Asia. Economic migration. Kinda like... Texas

Oh I know about the virgin lands and no that's not the explanation. Russian population grew by 2.4 between 1926 and 1939 in Central Asia, from 1.7 million people to 3.8 million people. Then it grew to 6.2 million people by 1959 and to 8.5 million by 1970. Massive immigration of ethnic Russians was a policy from at least 1926. If anything it slowed down in the 60s.
As for Texas 1.49 million people moved from Texas between 1985-1990. But 1.1 million moved in from other parts of US and 368,000 moved in from outside of US. So, yeah, outmigration dwarfs anything seen in Central Asia and was not was certainly not ethnic streaming. Oh and regarding your example of people moving from Texas to New York in 1980 there were 121,000 people born in Texas living in New York state and 176,00 people from New York living in Texas. There were 2.5 million Texan born living outside of Texas in 1980 which represented 17.5% of Texan population then. There were even 2.6 million people born in California which were living in another state. And California was a "golden state", a poster boy of immigration.

You're judging the now-Azerbajan, whereas in Soviet times there could be economic incentive to move to an undeveloped region... because the wages were higher, because you could get a flat, etc.

And economic incentive to move to an undeveloped region? Which could only be provided by government? What was I talking about this whole time: country encouraging ethnic Russians to move into non-ethnic parts but not the other way around.

Um... attempts to "dilute"? You're talking about the same communists who introduced birth control and allowed abortions in the 1950s, which drastically lowered Russian birthrates? Undeniably Stalin, who banned abortion, was willing to increase the Russian birthrate. However, his successors presided over the most massive downfall in Russian birth rates and gave all instruments for that - condoms, abortions and chemical contraception, as well as sex education, which was nigh absent under the Stalin rule. I'm not sure how this is a reasonable depiction of the policy. But feel free to argue this point until you reach absurdity.

I never accused the communist government of being omniscient. No one could've figured that number of abortions would be 13 million per year in 1967 and remain over 7 million until 1989.
Between 1960-1989 total number of abortions was 238 million. Did the communist government have this in mind?

Like, Tatars were always in Russia but their share of population in Moscow was barely 0,4% before the communists. You would have to admit that there were no legal barriers in Soviet times, especially after the 1950s.

So it increased from 0.4% to 1.4% in 1939. Even though their percentage of the total population of RSFSR in 1939 was over 3.5%. Their total numbers in Moscow increased from 111,156 in 1939 to 166,177 in 2002. Whoop-de-do. No wait I know, all those Uzbeks, Tatars, Turkmens, Kazakhs just don't like to leave home.

What? In America there was a clear law that prohibited Native Americans from freely travelling until 1924. In the RSFSR in the 1920s-1930s there were also travel-prohibiting documents - something tangible, you know. But in the 1950s and later? No legal barriers whatsoever. You failed to prove your point - concede it. If the Kazakhs did not move to Moscow, maybe they did not want to? And why would they want to move there, if wages in the USSR were more or less uniform - unlike now, when Moscow wages are 4-5 times higher than Russian provincial wages? The numbers only show that it was beneficial to emigrate to Central Asia because the Soviet government provided incentives for RSFSR citizens to do so. Economic incentives. You're trying to create some sort of "evil dilution" picture, but the lack of any legal barriers and no real "evil" in intermixing of races (except from the viewpoint of a racist) kinda underscore the fact that your point is bullshit from beginning to end.

However, if you're so well-versed in history, maybe you can prove your point... with riots! Show me a race riot in the 1950-1985 USSR that would end up with 50 killed. Show me a Ku Klux Klan attack on Tatars (a native RSFSR minority) or on Jews, or Georgians. Why not? If the USSR was so bad in its internationalist policies, clearly race riots and race murders should've been ubiqutous and many.

You keep pretending I need to produce some kind of explicit legal document when we can look directly at the numbers and draw our own conclusions. You yourself admit so by pointing out there were incentives for ethnic Russians to move into central asia. Why weren't there any incentives for Central Asians to move into Russia? Even in 1973 per capita GDP of Russia was 176% that of Kyrgyzstan, 160% of Tajikistan, 136% of Turkmenistan, 129% of Uzbekistan. The only republic better off was Kazakhstan which had 116% of Russian per capita GDP. Not coincidentally this was a republic which, by 1973, had 42% of ethnic Russian composition compared to 32% of ethnic Kazakh because of massive inmigration.
But wait all these numbers don't say anything because there were no race riots. Could that be because the communist government clamped down on all freedom of expression including dicussion of ethnic relations? Could that be the reason why the region and most of southern USSR exploded in ethnic conflict in late 80s and early 90s even before USSR officially ended? Oh no wait you arbitrarily limited the timeframe to 1985 so that doesn't count.

[Simon_Jester]

And why it makes me skeptical of the idea that imperialism might be destroyed if only the nations involved had waged a few more civil wars- civil wars did not prevent Russia or France from becoming powerful imperialist states, at various points in their history, after all.

Heh. Yes, in a sense, that's true. Now, if I said "all civil wars are good" or "all infringements on sovereignity are justified/injustified", that sort of absolutist position - I'd be clearly wrong. However, I already spoke before - I let morality guide my actions, even if it is sometimes hard. Is it a net benefit that Vietnam destroyed sovereign Cambodia? Even ignoring for a moment that Cambodia attacked Vietnam, even if Vietnam was the agressor, the end of the Polpotian slaughter clearly justified this invasion. Is it a net benefit that Russian Empire fell in civil war? That's a much less obvious question...

And part of the difficulty is that often, we can only tell who benefited from such a war at all, let alone how the death tolls will stack up. It's a massive rolling of the dice, which further creates discontent in my mind with the concept and causes me to have strong moral reservations.

Who would have predicted that the October Revolution and ensuing civil war would be good for region A, bad for region B, and so on? Many of these consequences take decades to manifest, and it's hard to predict the outcome of a civil war or revolution well in advance.

I'm sure many people expected many things from the French Revolution; I doubt many expected that within twenty years Napoleon would have made the place into a continent-dominating empire organized on monarchical-imperial lines.

This makes declarations of moral support for a civil war more difficult, because while we may be able to put a utilitarian stamp of approval on the consequences of the war, it's very hard to put it on the war itself- because so many consequences of the war, good and bad alike, were not foreseeable at the time by the people responsible for making them happen.

[K. A. Pital]

Then why do you support SCO to begin with if you believe they are all imperialists and all the same? All that would happen is that each imperialist entity would control each own sphere of influence while there would be friction and conflict at borderlands. Clearly, if you believe all are the same, it's then better just to have one entity so that there is at least peace if not freedom from a big power.

Surprisingly enough, imperialist rivalry carries the seed of destruction of empires. It might be paradoxical, but there are many examples. The rivalry between the Japanese and British Empires in Asia was not a small factor in the collapse of both empires. Whereas one imperialist entity which triumphs - that's just a boot trampling the human face forever. Maybe in the future, when there is a non-imperialistic possibility to unify the world, I could support that. But as of now, I can't. Honestly, I wish I could.

I wasn't unaware of any of those incidents that happened in the US including the latest in 1992. But that was 1992 not 2008-2009. Not to mention the fact that blacks represent a far greater percentage of US population and are far more dispersed throughout the country so there are statistically more friction points. This entire line of argument was started by your ridiculous claim that China and Russia have a more of a right to exist, to counter it I needed to show that US built a better nation state than either Russia or China.

I thought this was related to your claim that multiethnic nations are "better" with nationalism. You were posting a defence of nationalism where you claimed it matters how a nation integrates its own citizens. Whereas I, from the very start, acknowledged that the US integrated their own citizens and yet this does not at all remedy nationalism - now there is "American" nationalism directed at Mexicans, Arabs and outsiders. And it clearly is not benevolent.

Tell me how exactly do you translate "US did a better job in integrating Native Americans than Russians in integrating Caucasians" into "Never at any point in US history were there incidents between Natives and Americans, Natives were ALWAYS treated fairly, situation between Natives and the rest of Americans are perfect today, US is awesome"? When you figure that out maybe you won't have to counter my remarks about CURRENT Neo-Nazi marches in Moscow with 1950s threats by Ku-Klux klan. By the way where were those threats? Did the Ku Klux klan march through New York? Because New York is the equivalent of Moscow not bumfuck Alabama.

http://www.examiner.com/border-and-immi ... -rally-l-a
The US did a "better job" in "integrating" Native Americans? By murdering enormous numbers of them, putting others into human zoos from which they were allowed to exit only with a "special permit" until 1924, denying them freedom of travel? That's a "better job"? Now I know you are not a stupid person. How does Wahhabi islam mean Russia did a "bad job"? The Indians hever had something as rigid and capable of jihad instigation as Wahhabi islam. Their resistance was crushed brutally, they were literally put into guarded zones for centuries, lost the right of travel until they were considered "harmless" enough to let them out. Do you wish Russia did that with the Caucasians? Maybe if Russia put them into reservations ("special settlements", say) for 100 or 200 years, Russia would do a "better job" at integrating them. However, that didn't happen. Sorry. I admit, my nation failed here.

USSR would never bother with such peacemeal attempts. When they didn't like a minority they would just round them up and transport them into bumfuck Central Asia or Siberia and let the harsh climate and distance take care of them as a problem. But this is all a red herring. The issue is the state of affairs NOW. We can keep listing incidents from the past until the cows come home.

Why, why call them peacemeal? If the minority was small enough, dozens of thousands of sterilized would do the job forever. Like in democratic Sweden, they sterilized dozens of thousands of people. Clearly a superior way to just resettling minorities to a place in Central Asia or Siberia, where a percentage of them dies, but the rest live on and multiply and eventually return. Which minority died out in the USSR? Which minority was forbidden to procreate alongside the Russians? Which minority was forbidden to mix with Russians? But if it is the state of affairs now, what bothers you? Neo-nazis in Russia? As far as I know, those weren't here when I was born. But the government, for all its failings, is not neo-nazi.

Britain was small in relative terms but it was a lowland Island. Meaning it had an abundance of arable land and was completely secure from an invasion. Therefore it was free to develop a maritime trade and develop a navy to defend that trade. And later to start conquering colonies to have protected markets. They didn't just wake up one day and said gee let's have an empire. One thing led to another but it all comes from their power and expanding economic influence. Britain was unified and more technologically advanced than the disunited India and was gradually absorbed. If Britain didn't have an economic interest which came from its economic power then it wouldn't even try to conquer India.

Of course, when have I ever argued otherwise, Kane? Economic interests always push imperialism forth. So even a small nation might get imperialist ambitions.

Did I bring up famines in Ukraine during USSR as an argument? You can pretend that someone not caring for you starving and exporting food instead of feeding you is the same as him picking up a machette and killing you because he doesn't like the way you look is the same all you want. It still doesn't make it so. Britain ruled India for a century and the country continued to experience a population explosion and development.

So the Soviet government's decision to export over a million tons of grain from the USSR at the height of famine was not the same as picking up a machete and killing these people? Obviously not. The consequences, alas, were still death. I'm sorry Kane, but you can try this on someone else.

Irish famine was in 1845. What was the state of the agricultural technology then? Was England well fed as it is today? I am filthy and excusing "every British-caused" famine because I don't allow you to bring centuries old events into discussion about CURRENT development and freedoms in Britain, US, China or Russia? Weren't you defending the famines in Ukraine as also being not as much a result of malice but of lack of technology and mistakes in planning?

Heh. I said that the Stalinist government takes the blame for exacerbating the famine by allowing export to run smoothly from the nation at the same time as there was a food deficiency inside. Clearly this is an act with dreadful consequences, even if the consequences were unintended. I wasn't "defending" the famine - as far as I know, there was one famine - in Ukraine, I was explaining that the government's decision to allow exports in famine always leads to deaths.

I just love it how you mix all these disparate events some of which come from older time periods, others have more complex causes than British were evil and others don't come nowhere near to scale of mass murder in Rwanda or Sudan or Somalia. Bengal famine during WW2? You can't figure out other causes than British are evil?

Hmm... British grain requisitions were a cause. Export was a cause. Hoarding was a cause. Nothing else was a cause. Oh, and "Britain winning the war by starving millions of Indians" doesn't make it better, even if this would be true. All these "disparate" events bear the same staple characteristic - IMPERIALISM. You want to weasel out? Fine. Just don't bother me anymore.

Torture in Palestine was in 1930. Oh but that's right I said 100 years and this is 80 years so you can actually bring it up. Please.

Please what? You put the cutoff line for crimes of imperialism at 100 years. In my view they go much, much deeper. Ireland's population never recovered from the famine (unlike that of Ukraine, for example), it was fucking halved by it. Okay, let's shift the date - when will the crimes no longer matter? 50 years afterwards? 40-30-20-10?

How many people were tortured and killed in the more recent examples like 1956 Cyprus?

14 were tortured to death and I believe around 300 died overall. However, Cyprus was a small nation of only 500000 and the struggle wasn't too hot for the British (they still used torture, but they used it often, so that's not an indicator their power was seriously challenged). Why not take Kenya instead, where 12000 were killed?

Invasion of Egypt was done in an effort to secure the Suez a major waterway that drastically decreased the time and cost of transport. It wasn't mindless slaughter whether you choose to support it or not (which I don't). And was still over 50 years ago.

Um... So decreased costs of transporting oil and stuff via the Suez justifies murder? Because the invasion was not done to "secure" the Suez but to retain domination over the Suez Canal which was to be nationalized. The waterway would not be closed, it would merely cost more (possibly - the British didn't even know that!). And that was enough to murder people. How far are you willing to go to excuse imperialism, Kane? Do cheap jeans or cheap oil for someone justify slaughter?

US invasion of Iraq also toppled Saddam Hussein so it is not a clear cut EVIL you wish to portray it as. Torture? How many?

French in Algeria during the war (they also tortured before the war and during the Indochina War): "Since its constitution, it has "controlled" (less than 8 days of prison) 108,175 persons; filed 11,518 Algerians as nationalist activists...; kept for duration of more than 8 days 7,363 persons; interned to Hamma [an internment camp] 789 suspects." These numbers exclude those tortured in the field by the gegerones. British in Punjab - massacred 400, arrested several thousand (in addition to the hundreds of thousands of political prisoners elsewhere in India and Bengal), an unidentified number of which underwent various forms of torture, including forced castration. Torture in Kenya in 1950-1960 -

Kenya Human Rights Commission says about 160,000 black people were held in dire conditions in camps run by the British colonial authorities and tens of thousands were tortured to get them to renounce their oath to the Mau Mau rebellion against British rule in the 1950s. The Foreign Office doesn't deny there was torture and killings in the camps. How could it? Many of the abuses are documented in files discovered in its own archives. They including a telegram from the British governor of Kenya, Sir Evelyn Baring, documenting torture allegations against colonial district officers including "the burning alive of detainees"

12000 died as a result of the conflict. If 160 000 were in the camps, I could easily understand how they tortured tens of thousands. So just half a century ago Britain and France were torturing thousands, if not tens of thousands, in Algeria and Kenya.

US invasion of Iraq toppled Saddam Hussein, that fact is not disputed, but clearly over half a million dead wouldn't be dead if the invasion would not have happened.

Yes compare things like 600,000 excess deaths in Iraq to an outright slaughter of 800,000 people in Rwanda not to mention it was a WAR and not SLAUGHTER. They are not one and the same no matter how much you wish to portray them as such.

Um... but war is slaughter. War is legalized slaughter. Those who slaughtered the genocide victims in Rwanda operated under the premise of racial war, that they needed to slaughter the enemy tribe.

Then there are 1.39 million bodies discovered in mass graves all over Cambodia, again direct slaughter

A lot of them died during prior US bombings of Cambodia.

Plus million more died of starvation and forced labor.

Maybe they did. Or maybe the whole deaths are pegged at around 1 million - how can "a million more die of starvation and forced labour" and not be in mass graves? If you were right, there'd be around 2 million bodies in mass graves. Don't get too excited in your claims - a million bodies couldn't go missing without graves unless they were slaughtered in a war or bombing. You said yourself the Khmer Rouge wasn't running a war with some other nation, it was killing people.

And this was a country that had something like 7-8 million people at the time similar as Rwanda. I don't think you get the scales involved.

I do. I know the Khmer Rouge destroyed up to a third of Cambodia's population and was only stopped by Vietnamese intervention.

First World operated on global scale and you can't come up with direct deaths that match these two examples of poor countries.

What are "direct deaths"? How are deaths from starvation in a war different than from starvation in Cambodia? How are deaths because of falling bombs different from deaths because of machinegunning and knifing? Sure, you might argue the First World was killing in a more civilized and legalized fashion and with "sensible" economic objectives (just like Hitler). But sensible slaughter is still slaughter.

Not to mention that first world countries do not always see eye to eye. After all US opposed British invasion of Egypt, US fought Germany. How many millions of Soviet lives do you figure US saved by bombing Germany and shipping help to Soviet Union?

Lots. No one disputes this. Depersonalized killing is still killing. How many millions of Soviet lives Germany would save if it never invaded at all? I personally centered on the British and French empires. I know the US opposed them on occasion and when it did so, it was right. Since when I denied a First World nation the right to behave properly and do justice? Never.

Do you think I don't agree with you that Germans were the bad guys in ww2? Why do you think I compared them with pirates? But you didn't "feed" the germans in the sense that you alleviated their cause for war: their sense that they have too little land. They took even more of their land and expelled them west. In the same way it is not the duty of the nations to take care of finding pirates a job or something. Of course in WW2 UK, France and US were against Germany and Japan were they? Japan was pretty much defeated single handed by US even while they were throwing you a bone with shipping strategic material and bombing the industrial heartland of Germany. But yeah USSR vs First World sounds better.

*shrugs* Sure, if you wish. A small reminder - Japan was defeated on sea and the Home Islands by the USA, but the USSR defeated the Kwantung Army, Japan's main imperialist asset in China which it used to murder Chinese. As for "alleviating their cause for war" - their cause for war was bullshit. Germany wasn't staving. Physical starvation is a worthy moral cause for war and piracy. Germany was not starving and IMPERIALISM IS NEVER A VALID CAUSE FOR WAR. How many times must I repeat this until it becomes clear that I do not support landgrabs, opression and conquest (yes, that includes Soviet actions in the WARPAC in Eastern Europe, I repeatedly referred to this as the dumbest and worst thing done by the Soviet government) in ANY FORM WHATSOEVER.

But not having oil would make them rich? I know about the dutch disease and that it can hurt other sectors of economy but that doesn't mean it's a rule. Or that it is the fault of the resource importing country when it happens.

Depends. Sometimes not having oil produced a beneficial effect; look at Eastern Europe. They don't have oil, but they are doing better than Central Asia. As for "fault of the importer" - a drug dealer and a drug buyer all bear responsibility.

Ah so there are particular cases right? But only when it comes to Russia. When it comes to NATO then all cases are evil interventionism and there is no need to look at the particulars only to make a sweeping declaration about how interventionalism is bad.

No. I said that no case is right or wrong apriori. My question is how the statement that Georgia started the war meant that I support Russian imperialism. That's like if I admit Saddam started the war in 1991 with Kuwait, I become a supporter of US invasion of Iraq. Why?

Oh I know about the virgin lands and no that's not the explanation. Russian population grew by 2.4 between 1926 and 1939 in Central Asia, from 1.7 million people to 3.8 million people. Then it grew to 6.2 million people by 1959 and to 8.5 million by 1970. Massive immigration of ethnic Russians was a policy from at least 1926. If anything it slowed down in the 60s.
As for Texas 1.49 million people moved from Texas between 1985-1990. But 1.1 million moved in from other parts of US and 368,000 moved in from outside of US. So, yeah, outmigration dwarfs anything seen in Central Asia and was not was certainly not ethnic streaming.

"Ethnic streaming"? What's that? Also, I thought that the population in Central Asia increased to 1989.

And economic incentive to move to an undeveloped region? Which could only be provided by government? What was I talking about this whole time: country encouraging ethnic Russians to move into non-ethnic parts but not the other way around.

Yeah. But neither setting barriers. That's not ethnic cleansing or racism. Racism is when a nationality is deprived of rights.

I never accused the communist government of being omniscient. No one could've figured that number of abortions would be 13 million per year in 1967 and remain over 7 million until 1989. Between 1960-1989 total number of abortions was 238 million. Did the communist government have this in mind?

I think they didn't think abortion rate would be low. Why would they legalize abortion if no one wanted and if the Great Stalin banned it? In any case, the Soviet authorities from 1950 onwards didn't strike ethnic minorities in their rights and the right to travel.

So it increased from 0.4% to 1.4% in 1939. Even though their percentage of the total population of RSFSR in 1939 was over 3.5%. Their total numbers in Moscow increased from 111,156 in 1939 to 166,177 in 2002. Whoop-de-do. No wait I know, all those Uzbeks, Tatars, Turkmens, Kazakhs just don't like to leave home.

So they weren't really immigrating a lot into Moscow after the USSR collapsed? Because it seems so. I only said there were no barriers for them to leave.

You yourself admit so by pointing out there were incentives for ethnic Russians to move into central asia. Why weren't there any incentives for Central Asians to move into Russia? Even in 1973 per capita GDP of Russia was 176% that of Kyrgyzstan, 160% of Tajikistan, 136% of Turkmenistan, 129% of Uzbekistan. The only republic better off was Kazakhstan which had 116% of Russian per capita GDP. Not coincidentally this was a republic which, by 1973, had 42% of ethnic Russian composition compared to 32% of ethnic Kazakh because of massive inmigration.

However, were the average wages different? And wouldn't the wages be higher in the Extreme North - a place where Central Asians wouldn't love to spend time? So there were economic incentives for Russians to move here and there. How does this constitute opression? In my view, legal barriers such as the lack of freedom to travel do constitute opression, but not setting economic incentives for migrants - sorry.

But wait all these numbers don't say anything because there were no race riots. Could that be because the communist government clamped down on all freedom of expression including dicussion of ethnic relations?

Yeah. The communist government clamped down on nazi freedom of expression that included pogroms, mass murder and ethnic cleansing. When it ended, nazi freedom of expression prevailed.

Seriously, Kane, remember your Yugoslavia days. Were people of communist Yugoslavia so hateful that they wanted to KILL each other in dozens of thousands, Croats and Serbs wanted to mass murder each other and cleanse each other before Yugoslavia collapsed? And only the communist government held them from mass murdering each other?

Do you really believe in this picture where people are essentially small Nazis held from mass murder only by the Big Bad Government, and once it's gone, without the help of nationalists they mass murder and ethnically cleanse each other?

[Kane Starkiller]

Surprisingly enough, imperialist rivalry carries the seed of destruction of empires. It might be paradoxical, but there are many examples. The rivalry between the Japanese and British Empires in Asia was not a small factor in the collapse of both empires. Whereas one imperialist entity which triumphs - that's just a boot trampling the human face forever. Maybe in the future, when there is a non-imperialistic possibility to unify the world, I could support that. But as of now, I can't. Honestly, I wish I could.

So maybe sometimes both Empires might cause the collapse of each other. So what? That is an exception not a rule. Not to mention that, again, not all Empires are the same. What possible reason would people have to wish for USSR or CSTO or whatever to return to Eastern Europe or turn it into a battleground? US won the cold war but is not exactly running amok over the previous holdings of USSR. So CSTO or USSR should be revived so it can push back US on the next 50 years so then maybe they can both destroy each other? No thanks. I mean if you have concrete reasons present them sure but I don't see why we should prolong conflict and insecurity because of some kind of abstract concept.

I thought this was related to your claim that multiethnic nations are "better" with nationalism. You were posting a defence of nationalism where you claimed it matters how a nation integrates its own citizens. Whereas I, from the very start, acknowledged that the US integrated their own citizens and yet this does not at all remedy nationalism - now there is "American" nationalism directed at Mexicans, Arabs and outsiders. And it clearly is not benevolent.

I never claimed it remedies all nationalism especially in the sense of foreign intervention. And I already explained that such interventions are more a function of a nations power and economic strength hence economic interests all around the world. Since US has a multiethnic character its interventions were actually relatively benign once you account for its power which is global.

http://www.examiner.com/border-and-immi ... -rally-l-a
The US did a "better job" in "integrating" Native Americans? By murdering enormous numbers of them, putting others into human zoos from which they were allowed to exit only with a "special permit" until 1924, denying them freedom of travel? That's a "better job"? Now I know you are not a stupid person. How does Wahhabi islam mean Russia did a "bad job"? The Indians hever had something as rigid and capable of jihad instigation as Wahhabi islam. Their resistance was crushed brutally, they were literally put into guarded zones for centuries, lost the right of travel until they were considered "harmless" enough to let them out. Do you wish Russia did that with the Caucasians? Maybe if Russia put them into reservations ("special settlements", say) for 100 or 200 years, Russia would do a "better job" at integrating them. However, that didn't happen. Sorry. I admit, my nation failed here.

Wait so your point is that Russia was too kind to the people it conquered? That's the reason for the current explosion of ethnic violence and why Chechens are increasingly turning to radical Islam? Russia should have been harsher? Sorry don't buy that. Russians had plenty of time to give economic opportunities and ability to migrate to Chechens so that they can become as integrated as Native Americans and US brutality doesn't explain the current state of integration.

Why, why call them peacemeal? If the minority was small enough, dozens of thousands of sterilized would do the job forever. Like in democratic Sweden, they sterilized dozens of thousands of people. Clearly a superior way to just resettling minorities to a place in Central Asia or Siberia, where a percentage of them dies, but the rest live on and multiply and eventually return. Which minority died out in the USSR? Which minority was forbidden to procreate alongside the Russians? Which minority was forbidden to mix with Russians? But if it is the state of affairs now, what bothers you? Neo-nazis in Russia? As far as I know, those weren't here when I was born. But the government, for all its failings, is not neo-nazi.

A "clearly superior" way to treat a minority is to resettle them so that a portion of them die rather than sterilize some of them so that no human being actually dies?
Which minority was sterilized into extinction? No one said that Russians were as bad as Nazi Germany but it is possible for a country to mistreat its minorities and no actively trying to exterminate them right?

So the Soviet government's decision to export over a million tons of grain from the USSR at the height of famine was not the same as picking up a machete and killing these people? Obviously not. The consequences, alas, were still death. I'm sorry Kane, but you can try this on someone else.

Russians picking up a machete and slaughtering Ukrainians with as much gusto as Hutus slaughtering Tutsis would result in the same consequence as the famine? English picking up a machete and marching into Ireland to slaughter all Irish would have the same results as Irish famine? Maybe you should ease down on rhetoric and actually think things through.

Heh. I said that the Stalinist government takes the blame for exacerbating the famine by allowing export to run smoothly from the nation at the same time as there was a food deficiency inside. Clearly this is an act with dreadful consequences, even if the consequences were unintended. I wasn't "defending" the famine - as far as I know, there was one famine - in Ukraine, I was explaining that the government's decision to allow exports in famine always leads to deaths.

Ah "exacerbating" famine. As in not all deaths are a direct result of the government but many or most would die in any case because of drought, low technology etc.? So don't use total numbers of famine deaths and compare them to people that cot literally cut down by "poor" regimes OK?

Hmm... British grain requisitions were a cause. Export was a cause. Hoarding was a cause. Nothing else was a cause. Oh, and "Britain winning the war by starving millions of Indians" doesn't make it better, even if this would be true. All these "disparate" events bear the same staple characteristic - IMPERIALISM. You want to weasel out? Fine. Just don't bother me anymore.

Drought wasn't a cause? Japanese invading Burma which held major supplies of rice for India wasn't a cause? I want to weasel out? Your original claim was that poor countries had less victims than rich countries because they can't be imperialists. Can you actually back that up with NUMBERS for say the last 50 years rather than throwing examples like torturing 10 people somewhere as if that can be comparable to examples I have given.
Don't pretend this discussion was about something that wasn't namely me claiming that First World is awesome and without flaw. Try to prove your original point: that poor countries had less victims or concede the point.
That said I feel no need to further grapple with your Cyprus example, Egypt example, Kenya example and so on. You derailed the discussion long enough. Show me the numbers that prove your ORIGINAL POINT or concede.

Maybe they did. Or maybe the whole deaths are pegged at around 1 million - how can "a million more die of starvation and forced labour" and not be in mass graves? If you were right, there'd be around 2 million bodies in mass graves. Don't get too excited in your claims - a million bodies couldn't go missing without graves unless they were slaughtered in a war or bombing. You said yourself the Khmer Rouge wasn't running a war with some other nation, it was killing people.

It's simple. When people are slaughtered they are then unceremoniously dumped into a large pit that is then called a mass grave. If they die of starvation caused by the regime they're likely to be burried by their faimily in a family grave or something which then won't be a mass grave.

What are "direct deaths"? How are deaths from starvation in a war different than from starvation in Cambodia? How are deaths because of falling bombs different from deaths because of machinegunning and knifing? Sure, you might argue the First World was killing in a more civilized and legalized fashion and with "sensible" economic objectives (just like Hitler). But sensible slaughter is still slaughter.

Do you honestly expect be to believe that you don't understand that direct deaths will always lead to more indirect deaths and that you comparing my direct deaths numbers with your indirect deaths numbers wasn't a conscious attempt by you to inflate your numbers and make "imperialists" look worse? Please don't waste both of our times with these transparent attempts.

Lots. No one disputes this. Depersonalized killing is still killing. How many millions of Soviet lives Germany would save if it never invaded at all? I personally centered on the British and French empires. I know the US opposed them on occasion and when it did so, it was right. Since when I denied a First World nation the right to behave properly and do justice? Never.

"As for "justified intervention" - the First World commited so much genocide and mass murder on its own historically that it lost any right to anything. At all."
You know this is not going to work if you can't stay consistent across 3 pages.

Depends. Sometimes not having oil produced a beneficial effect; look at Eastern Europe. They don't have oil, but they are doing better than Central Asia. As for "fault of the importer" - a drug dealer and a drug buyer all bear responsibility.

Do you have any evidence that it is lack of oil that made Eastern Europe more developed than Central Asia? Oil is not a drug. It maintains our civilization. Drug doesn't. A more apt comparison would be bread.

No. I said that no case is right or wrong apriori. My question is how the statement that Georgia started the war meant that I support Russian imperialism. That's like if I admit Saddam started the war in 1991 with Kuwait, I become a supporter of US invasion of Iraq. Why?

You said so. You said that "in this case I would take arms and do my duty" in the thread "South Ossetia situation escalates" a few years back. What is that if not support for Russia?

"Ethnic streaming"? What's that? Also, I thought that the population in Central Asia increased to 1989.

Ethnic streaming is immigration that is characterized by only one particular ethnic group. In this case Russians. What does population increase of Central Asia have to do with anything? Yes it increased, that's my point Russians were immigrating but no ethnic Central Asians were emigrating. Unlike US states where there was plenty of immigration and emigration.

Yeah. But neither setting barriers. That's not ethnic cleansing or racism. Racism is when a nationality is deprived of rights.

I never said it was ethnic cleansing. I called it dillution. And how on God's green Earth is it not racism when a state is using state money to give incentives to only one ethnicity to immigrate to other parts? It's affirmative action in reverse.

I think they didn't think abortion rate would be low. Why would they legalize abortion if no one wanted and if the Great Stalin banned it? In any case, the Soviet authorities from 1950 onwards didn't strike ethnic minorities in their rights and the right to travel.

It wasn't only "not low" it was enormous. 124 million abortions in 1973-1989 period compared to 20 million abortions in US for the same period. It is perfectly possible for communist government to legalize abortion without realizing just how much of an impact this would have on demographics and health of women in the future.

So they weren't really immigrating a lot into Moscow after the USSR collapsed? Because it seems so. I only said there were no barriers for them to leave.

70 years of discouragement won't evaporate overnight.

However, were the average wages different? And wouldn't the wages be higher in the Extreme North - a place where Central Asians wouldn't love to spend time? So there were economic incentives for Russians to move here and there. How does this constitute opression? In my view, legal barriers such as the lack of freedom to travel do constitute opression, but not setting economic incentives for migrants - sorry.

If the per capita GDP is different that means either the wages or prices or both to some degree are different. In either case there should've been a noted emigration from Central Asia. There isn't one. The conclusion is obvious and it's not "Central Asians don't like cold weather" or whatever racist excuse. I also find it fascinating that such a staunch anti-imperialist-sensitive-to-non-white-needs person wouldn't understand how a state picking out one ethnic group and giving it incentives to move to other areas wouldn't be oppressive and racist towards others.

Yeah. The communist government clamped down on nazi freedom of expression that included pogroms, mass murder and ethnic cleansing. When it ended, nazi freedom of expression prevailed.

Seriously, Kane, remember your Yugoslavia days. Were people of communist Yugoslavia so hateful that they wanted to KILL each other in dozens of thousands, Croats and Serbs wanted to mass murder each other and cleanse each other before Yugoslavia collapsed? And only the communist government held them from mass murdering each other?

Do you really believe in this picture where people are essentially small Nazis held from mass murder only by the Big Bad Government, and once it's gone, without the help of nationalists they mass murder and ethnically cleanse each other?

You really need to stop strawmaning people's arguments. It will make things a lot easier. I said PUBLIC DISCOURSE not killing each other. Communist government clamped down on any expression but the underlying hatreds existed. Not with everyone and not to kill everyone but the tensions were there. Or do you think they just popped into existence all over Yugoslavia and USSR in the late 80s? While US had its civil right movements and riots everything was "perfect" in USSR as far as ethnic relations went. Except they weren't and the true extent of the problem was only revealed when it all boiled over in the late 80s.

[K. A. Pital]

US won the cold war but is not exactly running amok over the previous holdings of USSR. ... I don't see why we should prolong conflict and insecurity because of some kind of abstract concept.

You're crazy if you're saying that with a straight face after the carnage in Georgia and US military bases popping in Central Asia. The end of the USSR didn't stop imperialism or war from occuring. In any case, where did I say the WARPAC or even the USSR itself must be restored? You must be inventhing things. But once again - the collapse of one imperialist does not excuse the other imperialist. *sighs and puts hands up* Am I clear?

I never claimed it remedies all nationalism especially in the sense of foreign intervention. And I already explained that such interventions are more a function of a nations power and economic strength hence economic interests all around the world. Since US has a multiethnic character its interventions were actually relatively benign once you account for its power which is global.

Global power is a codeword for imperialism. Economic desire to make other nations to conform to your wishes (enable stable supplies of oil, food, or cheap jeapns) is the economic foundation of imperialism. Through political will it manifests then in political action - either diplomatic or, if circumstances demand it - military. Germany had economic interests - it had to take over France for economic reasons in WWII and it needed Russian grain and oil for it's economy. Economic interests do not excuse imperialism. How many times should this be repeated?

Wait so your point is that Russia was too kind to the people it conquered? That's the reason for the current explosion of ethnic violence and why Chechens are increasingly turning to radical Islam? Russia should have been harsher? Sorry don't buy that. Russians had plenty of time to give economic opportunities and ability to migrate to Chechens so that they can become as integrated as Native Americans and US brutality doesn't explain the current state of integration.

Why? Brutality can explain the state of integration. If you utterly destroy and disperse the ethnicity and prevent them from travelling and organizing, living compactly for a large nationalist movement to be born, you can succeed. If all American Indians were living in one place as opposed to dispersed reservations, an ethnic enclave like Chechnya, their resistance would be harder to crush. And things like that city capture thing would be far more common. Would the religion and philosophy of the Natives allow a jihad-like movement to incite an ethnic civil war inside the US? I'm not knowledgeable enough to say. Are you?

A "clearly superior" way to treat a minority is to resettle them so that a portion of them die rather than sterilize some of them so that no human being actually dies? Which minority was sterilized into extinction? No one said that Russians were as bad as Nazi Germany but it is possible for a country to mistreat its minorities and no actively trying to exterminate them right?

Yes, it is possible. I merely said that relocation of minorities does not betray a desire for extermination (I doubt the US wanted to exterminate Japanese Americans, for once). Whereas measures such as forced sterilization clearly do betray a desire to exterminate - they aim to destroy the ethnicity. Hence why forced sterilizations or baby-theft are included in the convention on genocide as descriptors.

Russians picking up a machete and slaughtering Ukrainians with as much gusto as Hutus slaughtering Tutsis would result in the same consequence as the famine? English picking up a machete and marching into Ireland to slaughter all Irish would have the same results as Irish famine? Maybe you should ease down on rhetoric and actually think things through.

Seriously, Kane, you're getting boring and repetitive. Yes, the slaughter would be much more direct and brutal (although I honestly don't know if I'd prefer to be hacked down by a machete or to die of starvation, the former is at least a fast death). I never disputed that. However, how are 800 000 hacked down by a machete different from 800 000 who starve to death? The number of deaths is the same. Sure, you might argue that a greater percentage of Rwanda's population perished, but that would sadly meet up with the unfortunate fact that about the same number of Irish perished in the famine as the number of Tutsis relative to Rwanda's total population perished in the genocide. *rolls eyes* It might be a bit hard to grasp this concept for you Kane, but a human life lost is always a human life lost. But in case of Rwanda, the damage was limited to Rwanda. In case of Britain, the damage spread to Ireland, India and elsewhere.

Ah "exacerbating" famine. As in not all deaths are a direct result of the government but many or most would die in any case because of drought, low technology etc.? So don't use total numbers of famine deaths and compare them to people that cot literally cut down by "poor" regimes OK?

No, Kane, not okay. Most deaths if not all are the result of the government's policies and, sometimes, direct action.Not engaging in exports and hoarding would alleviate famine and perhaps create a state of mass malnourishment but not that of mass starvation. Hence why the responsibility lies with the government. That is especially clear in, say, the case of the Bengal famine of 1943 - the harvest was as large as in 1941, only hoarding and exports were the cause of death, not a crop failure.

Oh, and as to your claim that famines in India are not relevant because India "continued development and experienced population growth", how would you explain this:

The dominant fact of Indian demographics in the post-independence era has been rapid population growth. However, this was not the case in the 1871-1911 period—on the contrary, many areas experience significant population decreases during this era. Of the districts surveyed in 1881, 25% had decreased in population since the previous census6. While only 5% lost population in 1891, 41% decreased in population in 1901, and 24% decreased from 1901 to 1911. Most strikingly, the total population of India in areas for which Census data exists from both 1901 and 1891 actually decreased from 199,724,321 in 1891 to 198,248,257 in 1901. These decreases can be directly attributed to the series of droughts that affected large regions of the country in the years from 1896-1900. Thus the demographic effects of famines, especially those in the late 1890’s, is large enough to be visible even in district-level census data.

And the fact that since 1872 to 1921 the annual growth rate was merely 0,37 percent for India, whereas it became 1% in 1921-1951, thanks to the absence of major famines (excluding Bengal) and a further 2% after India freed itself from the British yoke? The true "population explosion" happened after the British left India.

Finally, if you look here, you will see that the absence of any population explosion in British India was tightly connected with colonial exploitation. The labourers' wages did not keep up with the prices - Britain was pauperizing them.
http://www.celdf.org/downloads/NATURE%2 ... RTICLE.pdf
I think no one could disagree that British policy was the cause of mass deaths through famine and starvation in India in the latter part of the XIX century, British policy maintained the poverty of India and used it as a resource extraction point savagely, whilst precluding Indians getting richer or more industrialized through the policy of supplying them with ready products of British manufacturing.

If you seriously want to argue this point, feel free to do so. Point me to the data that would show the British policies were not destructive, the cause of famine was an absence of food or crop failure (not the inability of labourers to purchase said food thanks to British policies)?

Drought wasn't a cause? Japanese invading Burma which held major supplies of rice for India wasn't a cause? I want to weasel out? Your original claim was that poor countries had less victims than rich countries because they can't be imperialists. Can you actually back that up with NUMBERS for say the last 50 years rather than throwing examples like torturing 10 people somewhere as if that can be comparable to examples I have given.

No, I didn't claim that poor countries had "less victims", Kane, what I said was that the damage a poor nation can do is usually limited by the size of its population. The damage a global empire can do is not limited by the size of population. There was no crop failure in 1943 in India and the rice harvest was larger than in 1941. Japan's invasion of Burma could cut off no more than 15% of India's rice supply - that's the number Burma supplied in 1940, or 1.234 million tons of rice. In 1941, the production of rice in India fell from 8.223 million tons of prior year to 6.768 million tons. In 1943, the harvest was 7.628 tons. Which means that India's harvest was a million ton greater than that of 1941, exceeding the size of Burmese imports. I am sorry, but the math simply does not support claims of Burma being critical to prevent mass starvation in India, nor the claims of a crop failure.

That said I feel no need to further grapple with your Cyprus example, Egypt example, Kenya example and so on. You derailed the discussion long enough. Show me the numbers that prove your ORIGINAL POINT or concede.

What? My original point is well proven. The number of excess deaths in Iraq - 600 000 - is well on par with the 800 000 Tutsis who died during the Rwanda genocide. The Bengal famine claimed about the same number of lives as the Khmer Rouge slaughter of Pnom Penh and other cities. The number of Algerians who died in the Algeria war is around 900 000. You may not like that fact, sure. You may say "but these people died in a less gruesome manner, and they died serving the well-being of the First World, so that doesn't count, because they died as a collateral damage". They're still dead. Death is the ultimate negative utility. If not for war or famine, these people would still be alive, just as you consider that all Tutsis and Cambodians would be alive if not for the actions of the Hutus or the Khmer Rouge. You may take a particular distaste in the method of slaughter (famine vs. machete), but since the end result is the same and it is reasonable to conclude that without a war or a famine, these excess deaths would not have occured, I don't see how I could "concede" the point I singlehandedly won. Once again - your distaste for the machete or your idea that slaughter should be sensible as opposed to senseless is absolutely irrelevant for those who died. The Iraqis, Indians, Egyptians, Algerians, etc. were sure delighted to know that they died due to a sensible reason as opposed to without any sense whatsoever. Whoop de fuck.

It's simple. When people are slaughtered they are then unceremoniously dumped into a large pit that is then called a mass grave. If they die of starvation caused by the regime they're likely to be burried by their faimily in a family grave or something which then won't be a mass grave.

Ah, so starvation is caused "by the regime" now? I see. In any case, if people are dying of starvation at such an enormously fast rate, I doubt their relatives (who as we know were slaving in the fields, to improve crop harvests in the name of Cambodia's Agricultural Future) had any chance to bury them not in mass graves. Especially a whole million of them. When the siege of Leningrad was broken, lots of people were found in mass graves, you know. Their starving relatives could not bury a significant fraction of them in ordinary graves.

Do you honestly expect be to believe that you don't understand that direct deaths will always lead to more indirect deaths and that you comparing my direct deaths numbers with your indirect deaths numbers wasn't a conscious attempt by you to inflate your numbers and make "imperialists" look worse? Please don't waste both of our times with these transparent attempts

So how many more indirect deaths than the 800 000 direct deaths has the Hutu genocide in Rwanda caused? You have a number? Besides, how is it even important, Kane? You see, if there is a singular event which can be thought of as the primary reason for X and Y excess deaths, regardless of whether they were "direct", "indirect" or both direct and indirect, then those events would be compared by the total number of victims, both direct and indirect. Now why is that? Quite simple. If the US never invaded Iraq, how many excess deaths of those 600 000 deaths would have occured? Zero. Perhaps some other excess deaths would have occured, but not those ones. If Rwandan genocide order was never given, how many excess deaths of the 800 000 genocide deaths would have occured? Zero. Perhaps other excess deaths (from war, disease, etc.) could have occured, but not these ones. If the British did not export and requisited grain out of India in 1943, how many excess deaths out of several million would have occured? Zero. So direct and indirect deaths only differ by the method of killing.

"As for "justified intervention" - the First World commited so much genocide and mass murder on its own historically that it lost any right to anything. At all." You know this is not going to work if you can't stay consistent across 3 pages.

I never limited that genocide and mass murder to the last 50 years of history, Kane (specifically to exclude World Wars, imperialist conquests, most of the First World caused famines and genocides). You did that after my post. Now you're trying to shift goalposts. That is not going to work. If we take the last 150-200 years of history, the Rwanda Genocide and the Khmer Rouge would have to stand against dozens of millions of deaths caused by the First World.

Do you have any evidence that it is lack of oil that made Eastern Europe more developed than Central Asia? Oil is not a drug. It maintains our civilization. Drug doesn't. A more apt comparison would be bread.

Or bananas. Banana republics have only themselves to blame, and not the buyer who forces them to take that particular place in the world division of labour. Is that what you're trying to say? Remember the "US forced Haiti to keep minimum wage low" thread? The buyer is not a fault for maintaining this situation because he is merely catering to the needs of his own populace? Why, sure.

You said so. You said that "in this case I would take arms and do my duty" in the thread "South Ossetia situation escalates" a few years back. What is that if not support for Russia?

So if I support Russia's right to protect South Ossetia, I automatically approve of any Russian imperialism? You realize how crazy this sounds?

Ethnic streaming is immigration that is characterized by only one particular ethnic group. In this case Russians. What does population increase of Central Asia have to do with anything? Yes it increased, that's my point Russians were immigrating but no ethnic Central Asians were emigrating. Unlike US states where there was plenty of immigration and emigration

That should have read "the Russian population increased till 1989". Russians immigrated in greater numbers than Central Asians emigrated. How does this constitute racism or ethnic cleansing? You obviously understood that there were no legal barriers to Central Asians leaving their republics. The fact that the RSFSR government created incentives for Russians to move to Central Asia doesn't constitute anything of the sort. Unlike a law or a decree which bans travel by an ethnic group.

I never said it was ethnic cleansing. I called it dillution. And how on God's green Earth is it not racism when a state is using state money to give incentives to only one ethnicity to immigrate to other parts? It's affirmative action in reverse.

Whoa. I thought affirmative action is about giving people equal rights to education and the like. Not giving economic incentives to move here or there. How is that "racist"? How does this injure or violate the rights, and not just legal rights but also human rights, of any nationality? Apartheid, separate schooling and travel bans clearly injure and violate the rights of races and ethnicities. School segregation persisted in the USA until the 1950s. That is real racism as it injures the rights of blacks. Migration with economic incentives does not injure anyone's rights.

It wasn't only "not low" it was enormous. 124 million abortions in 1973-1989 period compared to 20 million abortions in US for the same period. It is perfectly possible for communist government to legalize abortion without realizing just how much of an impact this would have on demographics and health of women in the future.

Um... are you a supporter of abortion rights? If so, why does it matter how many million abortions the women carry out? Bad sex education might also be an issue, you know. And surely abortion was legalized in 1950s, how could the "communist government" not see the results by 1970s? They had access to the statistics. They had no desire to force people to bear children or procreate, like Stalinist or theocratic governments did and do.

70 years of discouragement won't evaporate overnight.

You haven't proven there was any discouragement at all. A lack of encouragement is not discouragement. A lack of good is not evil. Oh, and "70 years"? So prior to 1917 the Russian government encouraged Central Asians to immigrate? Or should that read "200 years of non-encouragement"?

If the per capita GDP is different that means either the wages or prices or both to some degree are different. In either case there should've been a noted emigration from Central Asia. There isn't one. The conclusion is obvious and it's not "Central Asians don't like cold weather" or whatever racist excuse. I also find it fascinating that such a staunch anti-imperialist-sensitive-to-non-white-needs person wouldn't understand how a state picking out one ethnic group and giving it incentives to move to other areas wouldn't be oppressive and racist towards others.

Because a lack of incentives for migration does not constitute racism. Educational segregation? Yes, that is racism, a clear violation of rights. Now, I could understand that giving one ethnic group migration incentives is racist. Sure, you got me here. However, racial and eugenics policies usually pursue racial purity. The idea of Russians migrating and intermixing with Central Asians does not strike me as racist for that precise reason. If the US sent white men into Indian reservations to live together in the same conditions, have sex and intermix, would that be racist? I want to understand just what is racism for you - a violation of rights, including human rights, or something else? Besides, GDP per capita can be unrelated to wages, it includes investment. Wages can be low with a high GDP/capita. I think you were talking about income per capita, not product per capita.

You really need to stop strawmaning people's arguments. It will make things a lot easier. I said PUBLIC DISCOURSE not killing each other. Communist government clamped down on any expression but the underlying hatreds existed. Not with everyone and not to kill everyone but the tensions were there. Or do you think they just popped into existence all over Yugoslavia and USSR in the late 80s? While US had its civil right movements and riots everything was "perfect" in USSR as far as ethnic relations went. Except they weren't and the true extent of the problem was only revealed when it all boiled over in the late 80s.

So racial segregation is a more benigh racism than sending people to immigrate into Central Asia and mix with Asians. Tensions exist now in many parts of the world, and I bet Algerians were never communist to begin with, but it does not seem as if they terribly loved the French. My position is that by drawing a simplistic picture of "people hated each other, so nationalists cannot take the blame" is stupid and dangerous. You are excusing and whitewashing post-Soviet nationalists, crazy fascist tinpot dictators, mass murderers and fans of ethnic cleansing, simply because the "Soviet government did not give them freedom of expression". That elaborate defense of racism and nationalism is almost mind-boggling in doublespeak. By that logic, the Weimar Republic was guilty because the NSDAP came to power. And the NSDAP is not guilty at all - it just exploited "existing tensions" between Germans and Jews - after all, who are we to deny tensions existed, right? So Gotovina, Milosevic etc. aren't really guilty and nationalism is not really to blame. It's Tito and the SFRY who take all the blame. Yeah, sure. You might even like this cozy little picture of yours.

Tell me, are communists also to blame for Hungary's anti-abortion, homophobic constitution 20 years later? It was a clear displacement of more liberal laws of the 1991-2011 period - why did that happen? Were 20 years not enough for "free discussion" on the matter?

Or perhaps the problem is that "free discussion" was hijacked by crazy nationalists and religious fanatics? And a maturity of democracy does not actually prevent this, because in the USA "free discussion" also is often hijacked by religious fanatics and crazy nationalists? And they can even become presidents - like George Walker Bush?

I rest my case.

[Simon_Jester]

It wasn't only "not low" it was enormous. 124 million abortions in 1973-1989 period compared to 20 million abortions in US for the same period. It is perfectly possible for communist government to legalize abortion without realizing just how much of an impact this would have on demographics and health of women in the future.

Um... are you a supporter of abortion rights? If so, why does it matter how many million abortions the women carry out? Bad sex education might also be an issue, you know. And surely abortion was legalized in 1950s, how could the "communist government" not see the results by 1970s? They had access to the statistics. They had no desire to force people to bear children or procreate, like Stalinist or theocratic governments did and do.

I must say, that if abortion rates are so high that the birth rate collapses and leads to a demographic collapse in subsequent decades, then yes it matters and you might want to create some state incentives to discourage this from happening.

But that's the extreme limiting case; I'm not enough of an expert on Russian demographics to know if something should have been done.