How do you counter these arguments?

[HarbingerOfTruth]

I always get into arguments about foreign policy and when that happens I always side with Ron Paul's non-interventionist policies. But sometimes people raise fair arguments and frankly my responses are poor. When writing this thread I also thought of some potential arguments.

It would be great if I could get good answers in defense of non-interventionism.

I think this would also be a good thread for anyone who is looking for an argument to be countered to be posted here. If you want to have an argument countered, bold the statement.

- Having bases work, look at how we helped fix Germany and Japan after World War II. When we go to wars and topple a government, it is immoral to

- Non-Intervention is what made Hitler become so powerful. We could of stopped him earlier on, but we waited until e invaded countries and got much stronger. In order to prevent such threats, we must attack early.

- In the Persian Gulf War, we intervened because an evil dictator tried to invade a peaceful nation and steal their oil, thus getting a monopoly in oil.

- Having bases across the world gives America a stronger defense, gives our military opportunity to exercise in different terrain, try new weapons, test weapons/armor, and more.

- Yes we did beat the Soviets without using violence when they had 40,000 nuclear weapons. But now we live in an age where nations can hand the nuclear weapons to surrogates who will do the work for them.

- If we attack a country, topple their government, how can we assure someone with their views aren't put into power, or worse?

 

[brandon]

- Non-Intervention is what made Hitler become so powerful. We could of stopped him earlier on, but we waited until e invaded countries and got much stronger. In order to prevent such threats, we must attack early.

Any person anywhere has the potential to one day commit attrocious crimes. First, it is immoral to punish someone for something they havn't done.. Example: I heard Frank down the street was looking at children the wrong way, we better to send him to jail before he rapes one of them.

Second, it is not our responsibility to police the world. If we were to tackle every injustice in the world we would be broke and have no military left.

- In the Persian Gulf War, we intervened because an evil dictator tried to invade a peaceful nation and steal their oil, thus getting a monopoly in oil.

Im really not sure what argument they are trying to make here. Simply tell them it is none of our business, we cant afford to police the world, etc

- Having bases across the world gives America a stronger defense, gives our military opportunity to exercise in different terrain, try new weapons, test weapons/armor, and more.

It gives us a much weaker defense because our troops are not here to protect us if we are attacked. If china invaded America tomorrow, having our troops spread throughout 170 countries will not help defend us at home. In addition, they can train in America just as effectively as anywhere else.

- Yes we did beat the Soviets without using violence when they had 40,000 nuclear weapons. But now we live in an age where nations can hand the nuclear weapons to surrogates who will do the work for them.

This has never happenned and is pure speculation. We lived in the same age during the cold war, what was stopping them from handing out WMD's back then? In addition, WMD's are largely traceable. If a country like Russia hands these off and they are used against the US, we will know where they originated from. Thus, Russia will not be handing them out.

- If we attack a country, topple their government, how can we assure someone with their views aren't put into power, or worse?[/B]

I dont understand what the argument is. This sounds like an argument in favor of anti-interventionism

 

[HarbingerOfTruth]

First, thanks for the quick response. But I think you mis-interpreted some of my questions, which is my fault. But you answered most of them (though I am accepting people to respond with their opinion and to expand on it).

1. Should we continue to have a non-interventionist policy if someone such as Hitler started invading nations? Theoretically we would be involved anyway later such as we were in World War II. Wouldn't it be easier to stop them early on?

2. If someone such as Saddam did, which is try and invade another nation and steal their oil resulting in him getting a monopoly, should we do nothing? Oil affects us.

3. In World War II, America toppled Germany and Japan and helped defeat those governments. If we didn't help make bases there, how could we have known they wouldn't have tried to do what they did before? Because we helped them re-start, they are successful democracies.

 

[hawks4ronpaul]

First, thanks for the quick response. But I think you mis-interpreted some of my questions, which is my fault. But you answered most of them (though I am accepting people to respond with their opinion and to expand on it).

1. Should we continue to have a non-interventionist policy if someone such as Hitler started invading nations? Theoretically we would be involved anyway later such as we were in World War II. Wouldn't it be easier to stop them early on?

2. If someone such as Saddam did, which is try and invade another nation and steal their oil resulting in him getting a monopoly, should we do nothing? Oil affects us.

3. In World War II, America toppled Germany and Japan and helped defeat those governments. If we didn't help make bases there, how could we have known they wouldn't have tried to do what they did before? Because we helped them re-start, they are successful democracies.

1. We have NOT been involved in most wars "anyway" (Crimean War, Franco-Prussian War, Russo-Turkish Wars, First and Second Balkan Wars, etc.) and trying to stop those "early on" would have destroyed/bankrupted America BEFORE WWI and there would have been no strong USA to stop Hitler (who gained popularity by opposing the post-WWI Allied BASES/OCCUPATION of Germany (Rhineland, Saar, etc.)).

2. Same answer, plus maybe OUR ALLY Saddam would have sold MORE oil and lowered our price. Ultimately, only Congress can declare war if our security is truly threatened.

3. The numbers of nation-building FAILURES far outnumber Germany/Japan, and Germany/Japan might have resulted from fear of the Soviets or dumb luck. However, when you call Germany/Japan "successful democracies," are you referring to the facts that they have constitutionally LIMITED militaries (maximum 1% of GDP for Japan) and that they REFUSED to invade Iraq in 2003 and REFUSE to fight in Afghanistan?

Does that mean that Japanese troops need to occupy the USA to convert the USA into a "successful democracy"?

Many articles here: http://hawks4ronpaul.blogspot.com/

 

[HarbingerOfTruth]

1. We have NOT been involved in most wars "anyway" (Crimean War, Franco-Prussian War, Russo-Turkish Wars, First and Second Balkan Wars, etc.) and trying to stop those "early on" would have destroyed/bankrupted America BEFORE WWI and there would have been no strong USA to stop Hitler (who gained popularity by opposing the post-WWI Allied BASES/OCCUPATION of Germany (Rhineland, Saar, etc.)).

2. Same answer, plus maybe OUR ALLY Saddam would have sold MORE oil and lowered our price. Ultimately, only Congress can declare war if our security is truly threatened.

3. The numbers of nation-building FAILURES far outnumber Germany/Japan, and Germany/Japan might have resulted from fear of the Soviets or dumb luck. However, when you call Germany/Japan "successful democracies," are you referring to the facts that they have constitutionally LIMITED militaries (maximum 1% of GDP for Japan) and that they REFUSED to invade Iraq in 2003 and REFUSE to fight in Afghanistan?

Does that mean that Japanese troops need to occupy the USA to convert the USA into a "successful democracy"?

Many articles here: http://hawks4ronpaul.blogspot.com/

Thanks for the quick response. But just a question regarding your answer to the first. The wars you listed weren't threats to America, but Hitler was. So if someone such as Hitler was gaining power, should we intervene?

 

[AutoDas]

First, thanks for the quick response. But I think you mis-interpreted some of my questions, which is my fault. But you answered most of them (though I am accepting people to respond with their opinion and to expand on it).

1. Should we continue to have a non-interventionist policy if someone such as Hitler started invading nations? Theoretically we would be involved anyway later such as we were in World War II. Wouldn't it be easier to stop them early on?

2. If someone such as Saddam did, which is try and invade another nation and steal their oil resulting in him getting a monopoly, should we do nothing? Oil affects us.

3. In World War II, America toppled Germany and Japan and helped defeat those governments. If we didn't help make bases there, how could we have known they wouldn't have tried to do what they did before? Because we helped them re-start, they are successful democracies.

You can't look at Hitler's invasions without seeing first how he came to power. World War Ⅱ is just a continuation of an armistice that had not resolved the causes of the war which were secret alliances and no free-trade for each countries' colonies. The Treaty of Versailles did more harm to Germany and was flouted by the Nazi (National Socialist German Workers' Party) party leader, Adolf Hitler, to take over Germany. In the treaty, the Entente powers wanted France to patrol the Rhineland so that there may be no military buildup and have Germany admit to starting the war so that they would have to pay the reparations that destroyed Germany's economy while the rest of the world was enjoying the roaring twenties that capitalism brought and that Hitler made a platform against.

Do you want to remain dependent on foreign oil?

Russia helped defeat Hitler so was it okay for them to rebuild eastern Europe into the U.S.S.R.? Germany and Japan aren't 'successful democracies' because of bases. We have a base in Cuba (Guantanamo Bay) so is Cuba a success?

 

[Zolah]

- Non-Intervention is what made Hitler become so powerful. We could of stopped him earlier on, but we waited until e invaded countries and got much stronger. In order to prevent such threats, we must attack early.

Hitler manipulated a people who were ravaged by economic intervention following WW1, the nations of Europe needlessly punished the German economy after that war and it led to a huge depression, during which the Nazi party suckered people into support them with huge promises of prosperity. This could have been avoided if other nations hadn't intervened with Germany at the end of the war.

- In the Persian Gulf War, we intervened because an evil dictator tried to invade a peaceful nation and steal their oil, thus getting a monopoly in oil.

The excuse for seeking out that oil was that it belonged to the true borders of Iraq I believe, countries and borders created by English intervention, etc.

- Having bases across the world gives America a stronger defense, gives our military opportunity to exercise in different terrain, try new weapons, test weapons/armor, and more.

The United States has a huge territory of different terrains including as far as the South Pacific seas which is the optimum testing area for weapons. Which terrain does USA not have access to in North America? And how would you justify having military bases in more than 150 other countries.

- Yes we did beat the Soviets without using violence when they had 40,000 nuclear weapons. But now we live in an age where nations can hand the nuclear weapons to surrogates who will do the work for them.

That's just hypothetical speculation. How many countries have actually launched a nuclear attack on a sovereign nation?

- If we attack a country, topple their government, how can we assure someone with their views aren't put into power, or worse?

Saying more intervention is needed when you intervene with a sovereign nation isn't a great advertisement for intervention.

1. Should we continue to have a non-interventionist policy if someone such as Hitler started invading nations? Theoretically we would be involved anyway later such as we were in World War II. Wouldn't it be easier to stop them early on?

Would be highly speculative as non-interventionist policy hasn't been pracited by America in a couple hundred years, but as with what I said above about WW2, intervention is what caused the rise of Hitler. Prevention is better than cure, we have a wealth of history to understand how dictators take power, and should learn how to stop the cycle.

2. If someone such as Saddam did, which is try and invade another nation and steal their oil resulting in him getting a monopoly, should we do nothing? Oil affects us.

I'm lead to believe what happened in the past won't happen again if we stop intervening. And I don't know how much it would even affect us oil-wise, we've won a handful of wars in the middle east in the past couple of decades and I pay the equivalent of nearly 8 US dollars per gallon of petrol here in the UK, about 85% of that is taxes (damn socialist state). While checking this figure I found out that there are a few countries that pay $0.45 per gallon, made me

3. In World War II, America toppled Germany and Japan and helped defeat those governments. If we didn't help make bases there, how could we have known they wouldn't have tried to do what they did before? Because we helped them re-start, they are successful democracies.

USA is barely democratic as it is, the idea of spreading democracy like some sort of sandwich topping is repulsive, but to the point, Germany, Japan, Vietnam, all obliterated in years of wars and suffered for many more years following that, until their economies got snowballing after various kickstarts, I think offering incentives to benefit countries is more influencial than threatening them with military action.

But I do think having military bases in Japan was successful after WW2, I think it could have been done without military bases though. 1 question though, why are there still bases in Japan 55 years later?

 

[Mr. Goldbug]

- Non-Intervention is what made Hitler become so powerful. We could of stopped him earlier on, but we waited until e invaded countries and got much stronger. In order to prevent such threats, we must attack early.

I love this one. This is what John McCain argued. Of course Hitler believed something similar. That through eugenics we could determine who was going to be a criminal, who was going to end up suffering from downsyndrome, etc, etc.

 

[hawks4ronpaul]

Thanks for the quick response. But just a question regarding your answer to the first. The wars you listed weren't threats to America, but Hitler was. So if someone such as Hitler was gaining power, should we intervene?

Arguably, Hitler was a moderate threat to the USA only after he declared war on the USA after Pearl Harbor but he was not more of a threat than Stalin (whom we never went to war against) and the 1912-13 Balkan Wars were more of a threat to the USA than the 1990s Balkan wars (when we did intervene). What is and is not a threat are speculations (Iraq's WMDs) so a neocon could call the Franco-Prussian War a Saddam-Kuwait-type threat. After all, if WWII flowed from WWI and the Franco-Prussian War, then the Franco-Prussian War would be the "early on" time to preempt Hitler. Likewise, the Russo-Turkish wars would be the "early on" times to preempt the Cold War (according to interventionist thinking--but would it?).

The problem is interventions that cause exactly what you are trying to prevent, like "the war to end all wars" (WWI) that caused the biggest war of all (WWII).

Heckuva job, Woodie.

Interventions create dictators.

Interventions created Hitler.

If you want fewer Hitlers, intervene less.


http://hawks4ronpaul.blogspot.com/

 

[bucfish]

Have them read this and they will understand why Bush went into Iraq and why he wants to attack Iran so bad
\
http://www.ronpaullibrary.org/document.php?id=543

Oil is but Blood Money

 

[sratiug]

- Non-Intervention is what made Hitler become so powerful. We could of stopped him earlier on, but we waited until e invaded countries and got much stronger. In order to prevent such threats, we must attack early.

Here is a timeline of events in Europe between WWI and WWII. It would be hard to figure out when or where to intervene in all these disputes.

http://worldatwar.net/article/autocracy/index.html

And this is Wikipedia for the German occupation of Czechoslovakia.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/German_occupation_of_Czechoslovakia


There is a difference between non-intervention and selling out your friends. The British and French sided with Hitler against Czeckoslovakia, when Russia was prepared to fight with the Czechs against the Nazis. The Czechs were mobilizing to fight with a modern army, but gave it up with the British and French allied against them. This gift had benefits for Hitler.

According to Wikipeadia:

The German economy, burdened by heavy militarisation, urgently needed foreign currency. Setting up an artificially high exchange rate between the Czechoslovak Koruna and the Reichsmark brought consumer goods to Germans (and soon created shortages in Czech lands).

Czechoslovakia was a major manufacturer of machine guns, tanks, and artillery, most of which were assembled in the Škoda factory and had a modern army of 35 divisions. Many of these factories continued to produce Czech designs until factories were converted for German designs. Czechoslovakia also had other major manufacturing companies. Entire steel and chemical factories were moved from Czechoslovakia and reassembled in Linz, Austria which incidentally remains a heavily industrialized sector of the country.

They don't mention the hundreds of well built modern tanks. After this gift we could not have stopped Hitler if we wanted to until after the Russians were attacked by the Nazis.

 

[sratiug]

- In the Persian Gulf War, we intervened because an evil dictator tried to invade a peaceful nation and steal their oil, thus getting a monopoly in oil.
/B]

We intervened when we were offered bases and billions of dollars. And probably more.

Kuwait was separated from Iraq by the British when they set Iraq lose after WWI because they thought Kuwait had all the oil. Saddam attacked after US assurances we would not intervene, after we had backed him attacking Iran without intervening, and after we had sold him chemical weapons. Kuwait had replaced thousands of Iraqi workers with other nationalities and sent those workers home to Iraq, so Saddam needed a place to put them back to work.

The British set up a monarchy in Iraq the first time they occupied it, not a democracy.


Also, the 911 attacks could be justified by saying they were a preemptive attack by Al-Queda on the US to prevent us from invading a currently peaceful nation (Iraq) to steal their oil. Would it be true?

 

[Mr. Goldbug]

Thanks for the quick response. But just a question regarding your answer to the first. The wars you listed weren't threats to America, but Hitler was. So if someone such as Hitler was gaining power, should we intervene?

Hitler came to power because Wall Street was financing his campaign! LOL!

Of course you can't tell them that. They'll think you're nuts!

 

[pdavis]

- Non-Intervention is what made Hitler become so powerful. We could of stopped him earlier on, but we waited until e invaded countries and got much stronger. In order to prevent such threats, we must attack early.

Wrong! It was intervention that made Hitler become so powerful (as well the Soviets, but I wont get into that). Had the United States not intervened during WW1, the war between the Europeans would have ended in a stalemate, leaving all state borders and territories intact and all debts incurred to each respective European states. Instead the United States intervened, Germany was crushed, and the Treaty of Versailles was created and signed giving Germany large amounts of debts and obligations to be paid to the allies and for boundaries to be redrawn. Germany's currency and economy collapsed due to hyperinflation (German officials inflated the money and credit supply to pay their obligations). The German nationalists and Hitler accused and blamed the Communists and Jews of being treasonous and bringing forth the Treaty of Versailles.

- In the Persian Gulf War, we intervened because an evil dictator tried to invade a peaceful nation and steal their oil, thus getting a monopoly in oil.

Saddam would not have been in power if not for the United States' intervention. Back in the late '50s and early '60s, Saddam was part of a coup and was assisted by the CIA. Saddam had strong support from the United States government during the coup until the late '80s.

- Having bases across the world gives America a stronger defense, gives our military opportunity to exercise in different terrain, try new weapons, test weapons/armor, and more.

So if the United States is ever invaded our best defense is to have troops stationed in one of the 700+ military bases located in over 130 countries? Right!

- Yes we did beat the Soviets without using violence when they had 40,000 nuclear weapons. But now we live in an age where nations can hand the nuclear weapons to surrogates who will do the work for them.

One word: Cuba!

- If we attack a country, topple their government, how can we assure someone with their views aren't put into power, or worse?

Why invade a country if your worried the next government will be just as if not more powerful?