Validity of Humanitarian intervention? - Page 3

Originally posted by: krystal_watz

Hades: What you wrote about "war being a means to peace" applies only to "battles" in a secluded ground or a no-man's-land along the border(Indo-Pak wars for e.g.). Not WAR in the all-enveloping-destruction sense it is used in and seen today.

Why does war in the all-enveloping sense exist today? Because we have decried war as a means to resolve conflict.

A few centuries ago if X and Y had a conflict they would battle it out. Allies would pick sides and join in. But ultimately one side would emerge decisively victorious and establish stability until the next conflict. 

Today X and Y have a conflict and skirmish, but then the UN comes and establishes cease fire. Dissidents in X and/or Y set up fringe organizations to continue the conflict. Z thinks they need to setup camp in the conflict zone because X and Y cannot be trusted to be big kids. Meanwhile A and B sympathize with X leading to tensions with C and D who sympathize with Y. E tries to play peacemaker and settle things but miscommunications put E in deeper than they expected. Somehow by this time F and G are also involved and before we know it we have this clusterfcuk of destruction around us - terrorist groups, military occupations, deposed dictators, installed dictators and the whole nine yards.

Why did the UN feel the need for ceasefire? Because apparently the "skirmish" isn't such. It went beyond that and had civilian casualties, especially where the contest was an uneven one. (Israel-Palestine)

And uninterrupted wars with no intervention and a "decisive" end also failed to provide any long-standing solution to the main boil. (Indo-Pak wars)

And you've totally ignored the pre-emptive or "invasive" warfare motivated by finance capitalistic intetests.

Originally posted by: krystal_watz

Why did the UN feel the need for ceasefire? Because apparently the "skirmish" isn't such. It went beyond that and had civilian casualties, especially where the contest was an uneven one. (Israel-Palestine)

Back in the day when war and casualties of war were acceptable - the question of Israel existing would not have even been there.

Originally posted by: krystal_watz

And uninterrupted wars with no intervention and a "decisive" end also failed to provide any long-standing solution to the main boil. (Indo-Pak wars)

No. India-Pakistan did not ever wage war to the decisive end. There was always premature ceasefire after cajoling from a third party. 

Originally posted by: krystal_watz

And you've totally ignored the pre-emptive or "invasive" warfare motivated by finance capitalistic intetests.

Such warfare is also the side effect of denouncing old fashioned conflict.

Of course wars were waged for resources such as water, food or purely plundering wealth. However, such decisions were always public interest decisions made by the ruling entity.

Masking true motives behind humanitarian interests, waging war under the influence of narrow capitalist interests is a modern phenomenon. If war as a means to settle conflicts was not denounced it would not have evolved such a state of war today.

 When I refer to "war" I don't refer to modern day conflict. I speak of the direct head on conflict that was the way of the world a few centuries ago. Current state of affairs exists because we denounced that kind of war as barbaric on humanitarian grounds and made the situation worse.

Perhaps I am not explaining well enough. If you care read "The Verdict of Battle" that I cited in my first post. It cites how effective waging war was in history and the decline of old methods in favor of politics.

I do get what you mean. Did you mean the "Army-to-army" battle?

Originally posted by: return_to_hades

When I refer to "war" I don't refer to modern
day conflict. I speak of the direct head on
conflict that was the way of the world a few
centuries ago. Current state of affairs exists
because we denounced that kind of war as
barbaric on humanitarian grounds and made
the situation worse.

I'm not sure what you meant here. Invasion with the intention of plundering is completely different from a battleground contest to solve a dispute. The former and latter co-existed back in the olden times. Back in the days, Emperors used to plunder and often destroy the smaller lands (kingdoms) they invaded, accompanied by massacre and rape. Capitalism is the modern-day phenomenon, not the pre-emptive invasion.Edited by krystal_watz - 9 years ago

Originally posted by: krystal_watz

I do get what you mean. Did you mean the "Army-to-army" battle?

Kind of.

 

X and Y conflict on something. X and Y decide to settle the issue by waging a war. There were rules to the war.

 

Today if X and Y conflict, global society does not let them wage war to settle disputes. So instead of war you have just pre-emptive strikes, retaliation strikes, underground warfare, terrorist cells and all sorts of measures that don't conform to any rules.

@The reason why head to head war is not possible and has lost it's relevance because, even in the past it never solved disputes. It led to multiple wars and an arms race . Now since several countries have WMDs it is impossible they or even the neutral nations would allow the use.  Edited by charminggenie - 9 years ago

Originally posted by: krystal_watz

But still it has been comparatively smoother compared to these other institutions. Ever since 1993, the overall living standard has got much better across Europe.

I agree, I was not doing a blind comparison among the regions overlooking their regional peculiarity. What you said takes us back to Square 1--- resolving of disputes. In the case of India and Pakistan, Pakistan's demand for a plesbiscite is ill-gotten since there was no mention of the Kashmiri peoples' opinion as a pre-requisite clause in the Instrument of Accession. Also, post the 1999 War, Pak lost any right it had to take the moral ground about Kashmir since it so blatantly violated Point VI of the Simla Agreement. It keeps on violating ceasefires to this day, accompanied by the worst human rights violations of Indian soldiers.

About China, it is a Revisionist nation that has slowly and steadily worked to make the World Economy dependant on itself. Bettering itself in Army organisation and military equipment much more than India, it carries on incursions and builds bunkers within Indian territory in Ladakh and ARP. Not to mention increasing hold over Nepal, Bhutan and Sri Lanka. Especially since India has stopped supplying subsidized kerosene, cooking oil and hydel power to Bhutan. In Sri Lanka, India is in a twist since it abstained from voting in the US's UN resolution against the Rajapakse government for HR violations of Tamils, while China voted against it.

So all around, its a gross power imbalance in the region with the military and diplomatic threats undermining India's influence in the region. So you are correct, no question of "smoothness" in such a situation.

Dostoyevsky says( in Notes from Underground), man, basically does things without purpose innately, and he sometimes suffers an outburst against the conditioning that everything should be done with a purpose. The conditioning that has increased as civilisation grew. Therefore, man being a purposeless fellow, suffers an unknown desire to revolt - but justifies it all the way... just to rebel.