You argued the point about its origins, and I presented the obvious counter-argument you ignored. The first major democratic movement happened in the west, and all other movements in part are either similar in concept, or inspired by those movements.
Western democracy is not the same as democracy from other cultures.
They had similar concepts, but they were developed independently. The Native Americans and Asians were not inspired by the Greeks or Romans to develop their own political concepts. Why is it so difficult to look past your own one-sided view of history and understand that?
I think you misunderstood my response, yet again. Note the sarcasm.
It's better to assume people didn't understand what you are saying, then to assume they did and were being sarcastic.
Such an assumption is exceptionally useful in the case of this discussion.
I think I've already made the point clear on this one, but out of all the powers of the world at present; the US has on average brought about more democracies in the world than any other power both past and present, and I am grateful for the fact they have done that, rather than act like a bunch of isolationists and stick their heads in the sand.
For the sake of ease of discussion, I'll move the discussion on America and its interventionist policies to the "CIA Secret War" thread, as the exact same topic also appeared there.
Unsurprisingly you missed the point in all of these responses, I am saying that if you buy into such defeatist nonsense; then India should also not intervene or have a say in any other cultures either because the same rhetoric you used can be applied to them on the points of racism, corruption, religious sectarianism, etc... I don't buy that kind of logic in any case.
I don't support an interventionist foreign policy for India, if that's what you mean.
India should definitely not intervene to spread "democracy" and "superior culture", but only in drastic times to protect its interests.
You are arguing that all cultures are equal, and that no culture has hateful aspects to it. This is not true for plenty of reasons, and if the worlds cultures were truly equal and non-violent; then there would be no war today, no communism, no fascism, no Islamism, no religious extremism, and probably no religion in general either.
As Clausewitz said, "War is a continuation of politics by other means". Wars are fought for agendas, whatever those agendas may be. They are not fought because some cultures are inferior and inherently more violent than others. Moralistic nonsense about wars being fought by the West to "save humanity", "spread democracy", and "promote peace and stability" are food for the ignorant, like scraps of bread thrown at starving crows.
What's even more interesting is that you attribute
internationalist movements like communism to "culture"
Which "culture" does communism belong to? How about fascism?
Islamism is also an internationalist movement. It can be attributed to any one "culture". And even if it could, it would not be representative of that entire culture.
For the second time, read the quran; then come back and tell me if you call a spade a spade. That book explicitly tells you that polytheism/paganism is evil, that it should be erradicated, which would include that of Hinduism. Not very hateful at all I see.
This is before we get to the hellfire passages, justifications/conditions of slavery, killing of infidels/apostates, etc...
I am not surprised that Islam is opposed to those religious concepts that are diametrically opposite to its core beliefs. It's like Jews being opposed to the concept of Christ being the Messiah. Should I be? Again, not sure why you're telling me this.
Not insecure at all, but if your claim that 60-80 million died would mean it would be the largest famine, in reality these numbers seem exaggerated or inflated. The problem with these numbers is that when I go through each individual famine over Indias history, there were already at least 3-4 that happened prior to British rule, and one that happened after in the 1960s and 70s in Bihar; so the argument that all of the famines happened under colonialism is incorrect. Also some of the famines that are attributive to colonial rule such as the Chalissa, Skull, and Agra famines (which combined claimed the lives of tens of millions of Indians) all happened prior to the British assuming complete control of India in 1857, and were largely due to El-Nino/Nina environmental and weather effects that played a part in the famines occurring. Unless you're going to argue that the British had full knowledge of climate change/global warming prior to the 20th century, and could control the weather somehow; the logic behind these arguments already seem flawed. This isn't to say the British didn't cause famine through their policies, but the numbers are inflated, and the rationalization itself is suspect.
I know your knowledge of Indian history is very limited, so I'll forgive the numerous factual and logical errors you make. British political control in India was firmly established following the battles of Plassey and Buxar, in 1757 and 1764 respectively. These battles gave the British East India Company complete and direct control over Bengal, from which the British would expand their power into other parts of India. The first great famine of the 18th century happened in Bengal in 1770, in which 10 million Indians died. This was shortly after the British gained control of Bengal. Interesting coincidence, eh? Nearly all other major famines following this date can be attributed to British influence in some form or another.
I don't know why you mentioned 1857 as the "start" of British rule. 1857 saw the Sepoy Rebellion, which was a rebellion
against the British. How could there be a rebellion against British rule, if the British were not rule?
The Bihar famine of 1966-67 resulted in only 2,000 deaths, and was a very minor famine. The fact that you even compare it to the famines of British era is laughable.
No famines, minor or otherwise, occurred after 1967. There were major droughts after this, but they did not result in any deaths due to effective action by the government and especially by the people themselves. If those same droughts had occurred under British rule, they would have undoubtedly killed millions.
As you always like to say, apples and oranges; you are comparing unlike things. Rudolph Rummel argues that 40-45 million people died under Stalin between the early 1920s, and the early 1950s, approximately 30 years; not 85 million. Here is a graph from his website of what percentage the state killed:
Does that include the deaths during WWII as well? Some 25 million Soviets died during WWII due to war-related causes that cannot be attributed to the Soviet government. Either way, the figures seem exaggerated, because such heavy losses in population would not allow the USSR to assume superpower status so soon after WWII.
As for your argument that the population of the Soviet Union increased, well no shit Sherlock, that's because by the end of the 1940s; the Soviets had annexed nearly all of Eastern Europe which generally increased their total population. It doesn't take a genius to figure that one out, and in no way does this mean that the numbers cited for Soviet mass murder are false.
The Soviets annexed nearly all of Eastern Europe?
Your knowledge of history is even worse than I thought.
The only regions that the Soviets gained after WWII in East Europe were Moldavia and East Prussia, both very small regions. The latter saw its entire German population deported and replaced with ethnic Russians from the USSR, so that would not support your argument. Belarus SSR and Ukraine SSR also gained part of Poland, but most Poles living there fled to Poland proper, so that would not help your case either. The Soviets installed puppet governments in the East European countries they liberated, and did not annex them outright. Poles, Hungarians, Czechs, Bulgarians, etc. were obviously not included in the Soviet censuses, because Poland, Hungary, Czechoslovakia, Bulgaria, etc. all had their own governments.
The conclusion you draw is speculative and argument ad populum, hardly a convincing one.
It is a logical conclusion that is obvious to anyone who looks at the facts. It is "speculative" only to people who willingly ignore the facts, and continue to ramble about their own agenda.
LOL. North Africa originally had no democracy, and
Hosni Mubarak was asked to step down. I am glad that the Arabs there want change, but you ignore evidence that is contrarian to your view on this subject. If the west was so determined for resources and dictators, it would not let two of these regimes to collapse; they would have intervened militarily to stop it. Instead they have established a no-fly zone over Libya, a regime that is preventing change and democracy to occur, and yet again the argument here for doing so is a moral one.
So when the native people obtain democracy themselves, the West still deserves credit?
If the West did not ask Mubarak to step down, what would happen? The Egyptians would simply continue to fight for their freedom, and Mubarak would be overthrown in any case, as was Ben Ali in Tunisia (as far as I'm aware, no one "forced" Ben Ali to step down, besides the Tunisian people themselves). The West does not want a civil war to break out in their own puppet state, so their actions in Egypt's regard are understandable.
The same applies to Tunisia, though Tunisia is a far less important puppet than Egypt.
How compassionate. You would rather an organization that sits on its hands instead of stopping genocide when it actually happens. If it were up to the UN, Saddam Hussein would still be in control of a tyrannized Iraq that would continue to kill its own citizens, and Bosnia and Kosovo would be the cleansed and annexed new additions of a Greater Serbian state, and it would still be showing respect and defferance to genocidal/theocratic states that are anti-Israeli. Bravo, such an upstanding international political body.
Indeed. At least the UN doesn't have ulterior motives like the US and other states. By that logic alone, I would support the U.N. more than the U.S. and its puppets, even if the U.N. is not always effective in its missions. It is just unfortunate that the U.N. doesn't have enough power to do what has to be done, due to the predominance of American power and influence.
Currently that includes autocratic Russia, and communist China in the UNSC, and dozens of other member states in the organization that oppress, kill, and cleanse their own people even today who veto anything that western democratic powers try to do to stop them, and who blame everything on the Jews or the Americans for the state of the world. Clearly these are individuals with a firm grasp on reality, but of course you trust this blundering organization far more.
Neither China nor Russia vetoed the UN-mandated no-fly zone over Libya. Nor did they veto other interventions in the past, such as the Gulf War.
Either way, I am glad that there are nations in the U.N. who prevent the West from going on a blind rampage. Unfortunately, that did not work in Iraq, when America invaded the country despite the U.N. resolution insisting otherwise.
I would especially agree with the last statement, because as one of the defectors from the North Vietnamese communist regime said himself; their policy was to cause the Americans to lose the war politically, at home and around the world, at any cost; even disinformation and propaganda. 1.7 million people were murdered by the North Vietnamese between 1945-1987, not including 1 million from the Vietnam War, and killings that have happened since. It is a poor country lacking in human rights, no democracy, no prosperity, indeed had the Americans stayed one could contrast that there would be a state in Vietnam (South Vietnam) today similar to South Korea in prosperty and freedom.
Your rant aside, the Vietnam War was a victory for the USSR-backed factions, no matter how you want to look at it. The end result was similar to the Soviet War in Afghanistan.
Vietnam today has a rapidly-growing economy, and is pursuing increased cooperation with America as well as India. Neither India nor America care if Vietnam is an "evil commie dictatorship" or not. Another case to show that moralistic views of politics and foreign affairs are naive and flawed.
lol. You already do, and also in a black and white manner, whether you like to admit it or not.
Yeah, I'm the one claiming that Westerners are superior, highly-civilized angels and that Muslims are inferior and uncivilized
If you want to make long term friends with fascists, communists, Islamists, and theocrats; then good luck with that.
We already have, and so has America and numerous other countries.
One of our most important partners is Burma, which is a brutal, military dictatorship. The case of America and Vietnam has already been pointed out. Even your own country has very good relations with China.
Iraqs chemical and biological capabilities came from France and the Soviet Union, indeed 82% of the armaments given to Saddam over a 30 year period came from the Soviet Union, China, and France; only 1% came from the United States.
SIPRI research could have shown you this.
I'm not going to waste my time debating basic facts with you. It doesn't matter if the US supplied 1% of Iraq's weapons or 100%. All that matters, is that American weapons were supplied, and those same weapons were used by Saddam Hussein against civilian targets. There has been plenty of research done in this regard.
http://www.counterpunch.org/boles1010.html
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2002/12/31/world/main534798.shtml
http://www.commondreams.org/headlines02/0908-08.htm
I just found these after a 30-second google search. The information is all out there, but I can't force blind people to see.
The Serbian military was trashing the Bosnian, and Albanian forces regardless of their secession attempt, and many in Croatia, Bosnia, and Albania are very grateful for NATO intervention in this conflict.
The NATO intervention obviously had ulterior motives. After the war, NATO expanded its membership into the non-Serbian former Yugoslav replublics.
They didn't intervene to stop the genocide, but the genocide did serve as a useful moral justification for the intervention.
At whos expense is this at? The average Afghan of course! 8 million refugees and dead agree.
That is true, and Afghanistan would still be the killing grounds of the PDPA and the Soviet military.
With a pro-India, pro-Soviet regime in Afghanistan, it would only be a matter of time before Pakistan collapsed. Pakistan, and the fundamentalism emanating from it, is ultimately the cause for the suffering of the Afghan people. The Baluchi rebel groups in Pakistan were most active in the 80s, do you know why?
I expect a similar course of action to happen this decade. Just replace the Soviets with NATO and the PDPA with the Karzai regime. The Mujahideen, funnily enough, are still the Mujahideen, though they are now called the "Taliban".
And, just as you attribute the hundreds of thousands of civilian casualties in Iraq and Afghanistan to the Taliban and insurgents rather than the US Army, I attribute the hundreds of thousands of civilian deaths during the Soviet War in Afghanistan to the Mujahideen, rather than the Red Army itself.
There were members within British politics who also promised indepedence to happen, and they allowed the political institutions and means for this to take place. Had they not, a violent civil war might have occured. Even if you do not concede the point, this is still incredibly rare compared to most other parts of history where other revolutions and major government changes/independence movements had to come with the support of another state (good or bad).
Rare, maybe. Impossible? Certainly not.
Foreign support is seldom necessary to spark a revolution. What it does is help facilitate the revolution in such a way that is beneficial to the sponsors.
For the dozenth or so time you misunderstand what I have said. You attribute arguments of pro-colonialism to me yet my ancestors themselves were victims of British colonialism in Ireland and Scottland, and later in Australia itself. I am not going to repeat myself as you will misinterpret what I meant and put words in my mouth, and the argument that Australians are all descendants of criminals is an argument relegated to the minds of British colonialists, and I am very amused at the fact you side with their way of thinking about people, most of which, had to steal food to survive in Ireland, Scottland, and England at the risk of being thrown in an English prison for 65 years, or being deported to here.
In my mind, Australians are the same as Britishers, except with a different accent. You can argue the point if you which, but everything I see points to this. You speak the same language, look the same, have the more or less the same customs, and the British Queen is still your monarch. Even your flag has a picture of the British flag on it, lol.
By the way, have you heard of the founder effect, a special case of genetic drift?
Lol, or you could stop derailing the topic with more arguments that have nothing to do with Alexanders conquests of Persia and his legacy, but hey up to you whether or not you take the advice.
I would much rather discuss ancient Indian history than this, as it is what I enjoy and know the most about. Unfortunately, the discussion on this thread, although originally quite good and very informative, suddenly saw a decline in quality after the appearance of a Westerner.
