Mujahideen during Soviet invasion

[heavenlyboy34]

And the US had the USSR surrounded with nuclear weapons well before the Cuban Missile Crisis. The US had nuclear weapons in Germany, UK, France, Italy, Turkey and Spain.

Afghanistan is not the reason the USSR collapsed. It would have collapsed anyway, central planning simply does not work. (but don't the Fed that)

qft

 

[talkingpointes]

Lol wow.

If the picture is worth a thousand words, the quote is worth a thousand facepalms.

 

[furface]

It was stupid to support them. They would have won anyway, just like Islamists are winning all over that region. Intervention never changes regional policy long term. It just delays the inevitable, and makes people angry at us.

I could make a better argument for invading Iraq. Saddam Hussein was a very bad person and it was good to get rid of him. All said and done, however, it was a stupid thing to do.

 

[heavenlyboy34]

It was stupid to support them. They would have won anyway, just like Islamists are winning all over that region. Intervention never changes regional policy long term. It just delays the inevitable, and makes people angry at us.

I could make a better argument for invading Iraq. Saddam Hussein was a very bad person and it was good to get rid of him. All said and done, however, it was a stupid thing to do.

That's not a very good argument. If that's the only requisite for invading someplace and overthrowing the regime, THIS country's regime should have been overthrown long ago.

 

[Toureg89]

I'm non-interventionist, but the collapse of the Soviet Union, our rival Communist superpower, was good was it not? I think is safe to say that this was basically a success.

If anything, it was that we had no good exit plan that was problematic.

Reason said that the fall of the USSR had more to do with the voluntary acceptance of youth of rebellious popular culture that was voluntarily disseminated by artists, and less to do with the bankrupting of the country through proxiwars fueled by involuntary american taxes.

if that is true, then not only was the subsidizing a waste of our money, and immoral because it involved violent theft of that money in order for it to be spent, but it was a disaster, because it helped to fuel the radical islamic militancy that now haunts us today.

and even if that subsidization DID help us to destroy the ussr, the ussr wasnt an almighty omnipotent enemy to begin with. they did not pose as much of a threat as everyone liked to believe, and precisely because it was so statist in its economy, odds are it was gonna fall of its own bureaucratic weight anyways.

 

[furface]

That's not a very good argument. If that's the only requisite for invading someplace and overthrowing the regime, THIS country's regime should have been overthrown long ago.

I think you're right. I wish someone would invade Washington and overthrow it. Americans don't seem to have the stomach for it. It's funny what people are willing to die for. They seem to be willing to die to expel foreign invaders before they will die to expel their own local tyrants.

Ironically American interventionists haven't realized this yet. The fact that Washington DC isn't a blood bath yet should wake them up to the fact that people are usually willing to live indefinitely with their own local dictators. They'll rise up to expel foreign "liberators" before they'll worry about their own tyrants.

 

[Harald]

Thanks for helping me out guys. I am kind of playing devil's advocate here, but I do feel that intervention can be good in specific occasions (and I think this specific case did have a net positive).

Governmnet is pretty inept. It cannot reliably deliver good and services. What is so special about foreign intervention when government suddenly becomes smart and can reliably predict outcomes of intervention abroad?

Counting blowback, direct cost in life & limb, money, wasted resource, I think it is impossible to predict that an intervention is net positive.

Well, the Soviets did place nuclear weapons in Cuba, so they had seriously threatened our national security and directly violated our policies (Monroe Doctrine).

Well, we placed missiles in Turkey. Soviets showed how unpleasant it could be to have nukes right on our border. We realized and took missiles out of Turkey in exchange for removing nukes from Cuba. Seems like a normal, geopolitical tit for tat.

our interventions in Afghanistan may very have been a ploy to draw the Soviets in, but it succeeded and brought about an end to the USSR.

Central planning can't work. Soviet Union was going down even before 1979. Also, unlike US, Russia's millitary is much much cheaper. It does not cost $1,000,000 per year per soldier. Soldiers were conscripts. No airconditioned tents and fancy MREs. It might have speeded up bankrupcy of USSR by 6 month.

Could someone also explain what was meant by "criminal" when referring to the invasion of Afghanistan? Thanks!

I am trying hard to better understand these issues and to form better, more informed opinions.

Doing known bad in an attempt to achieve potential good. Government is very bad predictor. In hindsight you can see that we directly funded and enabled to grow to the same people who killed 3000 americans on 9/11.

 

[No Free Beer]

There were many cases of American interventionism that benefited America and the world. Even today, our presence in South Korea and Taiwan are essential in preventing a Communist take over and a Chinese Empire. You don't have to be a dogmatic non-interventionist to be a Ron Paul supporter. In fact Ron's son, Rand Paul, agrees with intervention to a certain extent. So do Justin Amash and Jeff Flake.

I suggest you read Blowback before making such claims.

 

[No Free Beer]

Reason said that the fall of the USSR had more to do with the voluntary acceptance of youth of rebellious popular culture that was voluntarily disseminated by artists, and less to do with the bankrupting of the country through proxiwars fueled by involuntary american taxes.

if that is true, then not only was the subsidizing a waste of our money, and immoral because it involved violent theft of that money in order for it to be spent, but it was a disaster, because it helped to fuel the radical islamic militancy that now haunts us today.

and even if that subsidization DID help us to destroy the ussr, the ussr wasnt an almighty omnipotent enemy to begin with. they did not pose as much of a threat as everyone liked to believe, and precisely because it was so statist in its economy, odds are it was gonna fall of its own bureaucratic weight anyways.

Also, our soft power had a lot to do with the collapse, which you alluded to a little bit. Believe it or not, our rock n roll had a lot to do with the fall of Communist Russia (USSR)

 

[No Free Beer]

It's funny how we were the antitheses of what we are doing now, back in the early 1700's.

That's what government and politicians do. They f*ck shit up and make us forget our history.

Everything we as a country stand for is being thrown out the window because of fear.

 

[DP714]

It's sad really. We're so busy pointing fingers at who we're told is the bad guy and rallying behind the latest popular warmonger, that we never get a minute to take a second to look at ourselves and what we have become. Its so easy for us to realise that there are tyrants in charge of other countries, but the idea of them being in our own is laughable. We, as a country, need a Reality Check.

 

[heavenlyboy34]

I see a lot of misuse of the word "we" in this thread. Fail.

 

[Acala]

Ron, as far as I know and can understand, no. As for The Big Flipper...

I just sent this to my Father, who routinely forwards to me all the Muslim hate email he gets. Hehehehehe.

 

[XNavyNuke]

S Korea and the ROC are willing to defend themselves, and selling the weapons that make it more able for them to do so is consistent with a non intervention strategy.

Supplying trainers and advisers is acceptable, as long as the allies are defensively oriented.

Sending in the US Army to defend people who will not defend themselves is a waste of the lives of our citizens.

American Volunteer Group operations should be the way to go for those who feel strongly about helping other vountries.

+1