So the Northern Alliance were criminals until the US declared war on the Taliban, at which point they became lawful in the eyes of the US?Originally Posted by slapout9
When did the US declare War on the Sandinistas? - and when did the Contras become legal and illegal?
Point being, none of this helps characterise the issue in a way that instructs guidance. It's a "so what?" categorisation.
Infinity Journal "I don't care if this works in practice. I want to see it work in theory!"
- The job of the British Army out here is to kill or capture Communist Terrorists in Malaya.
- If we can double the ratio of kills per contact, we will soon put an end to the shooting in Malaya.
Sir Gerald Templer, foreword to the "Conduct of Anti-Terrorist Operations in Malaya," 1958 Edition
Wilf,
To see just how important the "so what?" factor is read the link below, the Contras became illegal from a US point of view in 1984 with the Boland amendment, after this it nearly cost Reagan his Presidency with the Iran Contra scandal.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Contras
Well aware. So the "so what" is that giving "legal" status creates the condition where your own branches and representatives in government can effectively work against each other. - thus an example of how not to do it!
So assigning legal status is not actually good a policy as it makes the implementation of strategy far more difficult. Assuming most folks know this, how much further along are we?
Infinity Journal "I don't care if this works in practice. I want to see it work in theory!"
- The job of the British Army out here is to kill or capture Communist Terrorists in Malaya.
- If we can double the ratio of kills per contact, we will soon put an end to the shooting in Malaya.
Sir Gerald Templer, foreword to the "Conduct of Anti-Terrorist Operations in Malaya," 1958 Edition
It depends. In a democracy the assumption is that once the vote of yea or nay happens everyone will support the side that wins. The way it actually works, as you point out, is one side will try to exploit political advantage with the intent to create a policy failure which will allow a political advantage during the next election for their own party. So the nation suffers as a whole.
Which leads me to point two, if the violent act is committed by a non state actor(s) it may be best to treat it as a Law Enforcement problem as opposed to a lets invade every country and turn them into a democracy problem.
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