WI Crippler

At what point do you believe military intervention, into the affairs of another country, is justified? Poll to follow shortly.....

Also, if you do support some manner of intervention, I would also like to know your opinions on what levels of intervention are appropriate with the different given scenarios...

__________________
"We have people like that in our world too. People who say that freedom is no longer practical, that we must surrender it for a greater common good."

"Fear them....They tolerate tyranny, excuse it, compromise with it. In doing so they always bring savagery and death upon the rest of us".
-Terry Goodkind Law of Nines

OxymoronP

This is my criteria:

1. If there is an attack on us.
2.If there is an imminent attack on us.
3. To defend our interests and long term security
4. Defend Allies.

__________________


THE GREATEST FREEDOM IS THE FREEDOM TO OPPRESS OTHERS

Redress

I cannot answer this poll. I think we have to analyze each situation individually. A broad blanket statement like the poll options would not be in our best interest.

Apocalypse

I don't think there are any guidelines about how and when to send the military in.
However, when a nation is in the wrong on a high level (e.g. unreasonable war aggression), then there's a need to send in the army and protect the side who got hurt from that wrongdoing.
Of course, I wouldn't say there's a need to protect everyone who gets hurt.

__________________
"If you don't know where you are going, any road will take you there."

Lewis Carroll

hiswoman

I agree with these two, with emphasis on judging each scenario on a case by case basis, with the obvious exception of self-defense in the event of a direct attack on our country. We should always be very judicious in choosing which battles are worth the blood of those who serve in our armed forces.

WI Crippler

Jesus Christ. Its not like this poll will influence the actions of the Executive Branch. Its a simple question, trying to determine some base principles we might have as individuals, regarding our opinions on military interventionsim. You don't necessarily have to choose one of the options I have laid out, you may choose to answer with a few different ideas of when you think military intervention is justified, as OxymoronP did. Its a discussion of opinions, not policy making. Of course the cricumstances will always vary. What I am trying to get at, are some base underlying principles that would justify intervention.

__________________
"We have people like that in our world too. People who say that freedom is no longer practical, that we must surrender it for a greater common good."

"Fear them....They tolerate tyranny, excuse it, compromise with it. In doing so they always bring savagery and death upon the rest of us".
-Terry Goodkind Law of Nines

Tucker Case

I voted but I have to qualify the votes:

The "only" part of option two kind of means I contradicted myself by answering with another option as well. I don't really mean "only". Just have to give Cripp a little dig there.


Option two is also qualified on the fact that if a country violates the sovereignty of another for one of the valid reasons to engage in military intervention, they are excused from the list.

Example: If France invaded Luxembourg unprovoked, and Germany retaliated by invading France. Germany would not be considered a target for Military intervention, but France would.


And the qualification for the genocide issue is that the genocide is currently taking place. It cannot be used as an excuse years and years later to justify an invasion. See: Iraq gassing Kurds in the late 80's being used as an argument for invading Iraq in 2003. The genocide must be actively occurring in order to warrant a military intervention.

Also, the genocide need not be limited to it's own population.

__________________
- Ænema by Maynard James Keenan

rathi

In general I would classify 4 basic scenarios in which military in which military intervention is appropriate.

1) Our country actually faces invasion or destruction by a powerful foe. Nuclear weapons are the primary concern in the modern world. Obviously, we do whatever to takes to survive.

2) We face serious attacks on our allies/interests. Examples would be trying to embargo our trade or invade Britain. Probably not worth using nuclear weapons, but might require full wartime economy and draft.

3) Preventing countries from annexing other countries by force. A stable world favors America, and making it clear that you can't go around invading your neighbors promotes stability. Furthermore, such wars will highlight our conventional superiority and it will easy to get international support.

4) Finally we get to political conflicts, which are by far the least appealing. These wars are fought for "democracy" "freedom" "stopping communism" and other fluffy ideas. The sole reason for fighting such wars needs to be cost benefit analysis. If we can quickly win, without spending a lot of money, loosing a lot of lives, and look good internationally, it might be worth it. However, Vietnam and Iraq and the epitome of being on the wrong side of the equation. Fighting a lengthy drawn out counterinsurgency in some foreign country where the people want to kill you is NOT worth the cost. Even if we had won in Vietnam in 72 or Iraq turned into a democracy tomorrow, the price is far beyond any benefit.

In general, the policy should be something like this: 1) Get international and UN support by spouting some ethical reasoning for the war 2) Destroy the conventional army of our enemy. 3) Pull out as fast as humanly possible and let the peacekeepers/someone else deal with the rest.

__________________
He'd be right at home on some ancient battlefield, swinging an axe into somebody's face.

Redress

Calm down now. Even with the clarification, you are not going to like my answer. Each of those can be, sometimes, a reason to intervene. Sometimes not. Protecting access to resources can be necessary, but should be rare. Protecting Sovereignty of other countries is important for our close allies, not so much for others. Stopping genocide is a worthy cause, but I don't want to lose many US lives to do it. If it is going to get bloody, it's not worth the cost. Protecting the citizens of another country is important, but again, I would not spend many US lives to do it. I value the lives of US soldiers a lot more than I foreign people who should be doing for themselves.

Jerry

Well fortunately for Crippler, he can edit his own poll, so if you offer up a suggestion....

__________________
"Question with boldness even the existence of a God; because, if there be one, he must more approve of the homage of reason, than that of blind-folded fear."
~~Thomas Jefferson