Ivory Coast

[JMA]

Superman was fiction, even in the 50s. The US wasn't exactly a champion of freedom in those days either. We were more likely to be found knocking down elected governments and democracies and installing dictators than the other way around... a truly lamentable state of affairs. Getting elected didn't help Mossadegh much, or Allende, or Arias, or Bosch, or Goulart, etc. Hard to see how America has "degenerated" from those days... when was the last time the US overthrew a democracy and installed a dictatorship? Stopping that nonsense is an improvement, it seems to me.

So I suppose then you accept that the current culture is one where everything is negotiable.

The Cold War and the actions that took place during that time were only necessary because Roosevelt gave Stalin half of Europe. The world (and not only the US) paid a high price for that incompetence.

Again you miss the central point... whose aim is this supposed to be? Whose objective?

No, you miss the point. It is surely simple to expect the will of the people to be honoured, yes? Given unfortunate precedent in Kenya and Zimbabwe it became more important for the will of the people to be honoured with regard to election results than to open the door more of the same across the continent and maybe the world.

Now if you don't care at all about the will of the people being subverted or that thousands, hundreds of thousands maybe millions will be brutalised in the process then I question your basic humanity.

Officer cadets don't make policy. Neither do officers, or military forces. They execute policies made by governments, and I don't think any government anywhere ever adopted a policy of preventing civil war in the Ivory Coast. Even if they had, that policy goal would have to be balanced against other policy goals, such as, in the US case, the goal of scaling back military intervention and refraining from unilateral intervention.

What I am suggesting is that the process is so simple that even 18/19 year old officer cadets can and do understand the process. It is the politicians who seem to find the basic logical approach taught/developed/honed at most (certainly western) officer schools almost entirely impossible to understand.

I am not talking about the US here. I accept that the US is bankrupt financially and has lost the will for almost anything other than destructive inter political party fights in Congress. If the US has run out of steam there are other who have not quite reached that state yet (France, Britain) even if they lack the means to effectively exert themselves internationally.

This is why I have suggested that given the limitation of resources and the means for a protracted intervention such interventions should be well timed (early) and short, sharp and extremely violent.

Had this approach been adopted in Ivory Coast some time ago (certainly before the violence started) then a lot of grief would have been avoided. But once again dithering by the diplomatic community let the whole issue slide back into civil war for the attendant horrendous consequences. Unless you can list a few local, regional etc countries who actually wanted a return to civil war after a collapse in the diplomatic process.

Is there a culture on the planet where everything is fixed and non-negotiable? I doubt it. If the US ever tried to play Surperman and commit itself to non-negotiably protecting everyone, everywhere, all the time, the US would quickly crumble. The US hasn't the resources or the ability to do that. Nobody does.

The US had its chance to play this role in world affairs and sadly did not do a good job of it mainly because of the apparent inability to elect competent presidents (as opposed to charismatic, well packaged products). It has been discussed elsewhere here that the US has often attempted well intentioned interventions which have not worked out for a number of reasons mainly because the politicians has tried to micro-manage the process.

The lamentable situation has a lot to do with that fool Clemenceau who came up with the cute "War is too important a matter to be left to the military." This has been turned on its head where the converse is now true where it is true that not only war but governing a country is too serious a business to leave in the hands of kids with a college education and access to Google.

One look at the US spending and one will quickly realise that there are other reasons for the US's current financial crisis other than merely through military over reach. But then you knew that.

(had to run will deal with the rest later)