Would you support US military action to save the Amazon?

[zaj]

Last edited Sun Aug 25, 2019, 10:19 AM - Edit history (2)

Sounds like Brazil has their own mini-Trump. Given this framing of the problem with the fires in the Amazon, and a sort of crazy man running things there, it's not hard to imagine a crisis.

Pretend your favorite Dem was President and felt compelled to send in American troops to pull a coup in Brazil and seize control of the problem.

[Edit #1 for clarification: Because Brazil isn't accepting help because they elected a President who is a climate change denying, science ignoring, burn-it down crazy man.

So military intervention would be required first in order to protect any international response. And replacing the crazy man would be required to keep him from trying it again.

Edit #2: By asking that you assume it's your favored candidate taking this step, you can choose to imagine they have tried everything they thought feasible before taking this step.

I'll leave those details to you and your faith in that person.]

How would you react?

https://www.democraticunderground.com/100212406218

The Amazon Fires Are More Dangerous Than WMDs
One person shouldn’t have the power to set policies that doom the rest of humanity’s shot at mitigating rising temperatures.
10:35 AM ET
Franklin Foer


When Jair Bolosonaro won Brazil’s presidential election last year, having run on a platform of deforestation, David Wallace-Wells asked, “How much damage can one person do to the planet?” Bolsonaro didn’t pour lighter fluid to ignite the flames now ravishing the Amazon, but with his policies and rhetoric, he might as well have. The destruction he inspired—and allowed to rage with his days of stubborn unwillingness to douse the flames— has placed the planet at a hinge moment in its ecological history. Unfortunately, the planet doesn’t have a clue about how it should respond.

19 votes, 1 pass | Time left: Unlimited
	I could support pre-emptive military attack
	5 (26%)
	I would oppose pre-emptive military attack
	14 (74%)
	1 DU member did not wish to select any of the options provided.
Show usernames Disclaimer: This is an Internet poll

[Hoyt]

1. Apparently, Brazil has decided to send their troop. Here's link.

https://www.democraticunderground.com/110868448


Definitely would oppose sending our troops unless requested. Think if other countries had invaded us when we were polluting the earth, with absolutely no regard to it's impact.

[NightWatcher]

2. Would we support a foreign country's intervention here in the US to stop cattle farming?

Cattle farming is a huge expensive waste of resources that puts a strain on the environment.

Then who gets to decide who gets to invade who for which projects and who seems things important for war.

It sucks that it's burning, but we can't do anything

[zaj]

7. We absolutely can do something...

... this question is provocative on purpose.

Global warming makes us all global actors. And Brazil being lead by a science denying pyromaniac would be akin to Osama Bin Laden having a nuclear weapons.

My theory is that even Dems world reluctantly embrace using military action to solve certain problems, particularly environmental ones.

[wasupaloopa]

30. There is no lawful authority we could site to intervene.

It is not our taxpayers duty to spend money policing the world.

To save the planet all earthlings need to be involved.

[MontanaMama]

3. What about

a multi-national effort utilizing people with firefighting skills? Up here in MT we have USFS smokejumpers and Hot Shots. They are fire fighting gods and goddesses and second to none when it comes to wild land fire suppression. This ought to be a global priority and isn’t our military’s wheelhouse of expertise.

[Control-Z]

6. This.

I believe international involvement is necessary.

[zaj]

8. The imagined scenario is that...

... Brazil isn't accepting help because they elected a President who is a climate change denying, science ignoring, burn-it down crazy man.

So military intervention would be required first in order to protect any international response. And replacing the crazy man would be required to keep him from trying it again.

[Doodley]

4. The answer we give now may not be the one we we wished for when the Amazon is gone and we all feel

its impact.

[zaj]

9. Yep

[sandensea]

5. Pre-emptive military attacks should be out of the question - though Bolsonazi should still be ousted

How? The same way many center-left administrations in South America were ousted: Have the local judiciary and media work in tandem to undermine his regime, eventually forcing Brazil's congress to impeach the cretin.

This is exactly how we got Dilma Rousseff removed - and she had done nothing wrong, except be an ideological "annoyance" to the Cuban exiles running the Western Hemisphere office at the State Department (and much of the CIA's Latin America section),

The U.S. Embassy also worked very closely with far-right judge Sérgio Moro (now Bolso's Justice Minister) and Moro's poodle, prosecutor Deltan Dallagnol, to railroad Lula da Silva.

The progressive da Silva would, of course, have beaten Bolso at the polls in a landslide had he been allowed to run. And the Amazon wouldn't be going through this right now.

There are a couple of other similar examples in the region (one of them, Argentina's Macri, now a major financial and int'l standing liability for the U.S.) - but none nearly so consequential as the installation of Bolsonazi in Brazil.

Home to 20%+ of the oxygen we breathe.

[Falcata]

10. No

why wouldn't a coalition be formed to send a multi-national firefighting force to help Brazil to put it out. Seems Brazil can't afford to do a proper job of it due to financial strains.

[zaj]

12. Again, this assumes a Brazil unwilling to stop it.

Hypothetical scenario.

[Sgent]

25. Because Brazil is setting the fires in the first place

they don't want the help.

A bunch of trees don't provide jobs or food or anything of value to them immediately and they can burn them down and plant crops or graze cattle.

[Iggo]

11. Fuck preemptive war. (n/t)

[zaj]

13. Would killing off 20% of the world's oxygen be...

... a preemptive act serious enough to go to war?

[Iggo]

14. Fuck. Preemptive. War.

I've danced this dance with the pro-death people before.

You won't change my mind.

[zaj]

20. Not even trying...

... this is an attemoted thoughtful discussion. I don't have an opinion to change you to.

[Iggo]

21. Also, I owe you an apology.

I meant to type "pro-death-penalty people," and I meant that to refer to people other than you.

I did NOT mean to insinuate that you are pro-death, which is how it reads now that I'm looking at it again hours later.

I'm really very sorry.

[Hekate]

15. What on Earth do you think a foreign military (that is, us) can do against wildfire?

Do you by any chance actually live on the dry side of the US? Have you ever experienced wildfire in California?

Firefighters need to be specially trained, and there are not enough of them as it is for our expanded fire season. They are exhausted long before the wnd of the fire season. At some point prison volunteers are trained and deployed, and at other times the National Guard comes in. But you don't just send in the Army -- jeez.

The Amazon is an ertswhile rainforest, with wildlife that is alien to us. Poisonous snakes, poisonous insects, all that good stuff. Swampy ground? The Western US is dry by nature.

[spanone]

16. I would support the US discussing the reality of Climate Change with Brazil.

[Hekate]

17. With Trump as potus?

We have no credibility left as a nation.

[spanone]

18. it's as hypothetical as the original question

[Recursion]

19. Hellfire missiles and WP aren't exactly nice to forests

Neither is depleted uranium nor molybdenum. Hard pass for me.

[Crunchy Frog]

22. Because the Amazon acts as the planet's "lungs"

It's destruction could have such far reaching effects that it could reasonably be regarded as an act of war against the rest of the world.

If viewed in that way, a military response might be seen as reasonable.

[Polybius]

23. Hell no!

The Right would instantly call us hypocrites for never taking out Fidel Castro or Hugo Chavez.

[HAB911]

24. We could just BUY IT

agree with Bill Maher

[mainer]

27. Agreed. Is this out of the question?

Couldn't we (or some pro- environmental entity) offer Brazil millions of dollars to buy up millions of acres of rainforest and preserve it as a moneymaking tourist destination?

[HAB911]

29. I think it would be quite the investment for a "corporation"

sell shares not for exploitation of resources but eco-tourism and other uses on top of saving the planet

[greymattermom]

26. So, maybe we need to allow forests to grow back in the east,

and plant oxygen rich crops like hemp in the prairie. Hemp could replace many plastics, and if we're exporting the crops that normally grow there, we don't need the food anyway. Another benefit might be to reduce toxic agricultural run off into the Gulf.

[True Dough]

28. Why are we jumping to military intervention?

Has an economic package been offered? The Brazilian people have elected a pro-development president. That is the will of the majority of voters. It seems to me that if the rest of the world values the Brazilian rain forest then we better be prepared to ante up financially to keep it. If Brazil gets more money to preserve it than to destroy it, that incentive would likely do the trick, don't you think?

[zaj]

32. This is a thought experiment...

By asking that you assume it's your favored candidate taking this step, you can choose to imagine they have tried everything they thought feasible before taking this step.

I'll leave those details to you and your faith in that person

[democratisphere]

31. This isn't just about global warming and climate change.

This is seriously about the accelerated mass extinction of this entire planet and every living thing on it. We can no longer do nothing! NOTHING!
Perhaps our military guarding the precious Amazon Rainforest would be the very best use of our military.