The world is being radicalized

[newthinking]

We need a "Department of Peace" more than ever.

We need to move away from the "stick" and start using the "carrot" more. Just like with parenting, surely you can beat a child into submission but you will create an unhealthy adult. And they will grow resistant to force each year. We need to start recognizing it is the same with foreign policy!

Peace works if done with respect and wisdom. Over time, we would need to use a "stick" less and less.

[blkmusclmachine]

1. ,

,

[Skip Intro]

2. There is a time for war.

Surely you don't think "peace" initiatives and (additional) capitulations would have worked with Hilter.

WW2 shows there is a time for war.

There is evil in this world.

And there is a time to fight it.

[Scootaloo]

4. Wouldn't have been a Hitler except for WWI

No Austrian painter-turned-soldier thrust into a pointless grinding war of machismo. No Treaty of Versailles to crush Germany and make it ripe for naziism. No entire generation of Europeans wiped out, leaving France and Great britain weakened to the point where appeasement WAS their only option. No Russian revolution to stoke those anti-communist night terrors that really thrust the nazis forward.

And World War One was an eminently pointless and completely avoidable conflict - one that continues to this day, in fact; conflicts in Africa and the middle East stem directly from the results of that thing.

it's funny too that after the Nazis were defeated... there was still lots of evil in the world. Some of it was even recruited by "the good guys." Evil didn't go away. It didn't creep back into shadows. We just found something else, decided that was evil, and kept on keeping on. Then we found something after that, and frankly we'll keep on killing whoever we feel is "evil."

[Android3.14]

14. So we should have allowed the Holocaust in order to bring that cycle to an end?

I find your analysis short-sighted. Finding a cause-and-effect for conflict is easy enough for those looking backwards in time, but when the soldiers are dropping bombs on you and rounding up your friends and family for prison camps, I suspect the let's-all-just-get-along thoughts will be far from your mind.

[raccoon]

16. I hope you don't believe the USA fought in WWII because of the Holocaust.

For that matter, USA didn't intervene in Rwanda when genocide was going on. Whether the USA should have or not is debatable.

[Android3.14]

20. Uh...no

I believe that the previous poster's comment was naive.

[Scootaloo]

21. Judging from the 12 million dead people, we "allowed" the Holocaust to happen anyway

But you miss my point. WW2 was the product of other wars. And let's be honest, every war has a big pile of atrocities behind it that you can use to justify that war as a "good war," if you really want to do so. Because that's what happens in war. It may even be the central feature.

You wouldn't have gotten your "good war" if it hadn't been for a lot of extremely dumb and pointless wars.

Also can't help but notice that whenever the "good war" is invoked, Holocaust and all... it's never the congolese war. One would think, 12 million people exterminated is 12 million people exterminated, and if we ought to intervene in that we ought to intervene in that. But... We didn't throw our military might at Congo. And no advocate of "Good War" has ever argued that we should have. Why is that?

[Android3.14]

22. It's not my "good war" by any sense

Your point had two premises. Evil Hitler was a result of a cause-effect chain originating directly from World War I. And two, evil continues to exist after the wars end. Therefore we should not fight wars.
My point is that Captain Hindsight superpowers are useless when it comes to defending your country, your community and your family.

[Scootaloo]

24. it is, in fact

Which is why pro-war people always rely on WW2 to justify being pro-war. Well, that and you can't really use that many wars in the annals of human history to justify being pro-war...

[Android3.14]

25. See, you cannot even respond to an argument

First it was that whole childish and saccharine post about WWI creating Hitler and if we would just stop fighting, the chain would be broken and we would all live in peace (or internment camps). Then you pivot to the I'm-right-because-WWII-wasn't-the-good-war-and-you-should-stop-saying-that-it-is which had nothing to do with anything. Now you leap up with the pro-war-people-can't-justify-being-pro-war, which had nothing to do with my criticism of your post.
My position is that your initial response that wars only originate from previous wars is lazy naivete and that a practical application of your viewpoint would result in more atrocities.
You may think I am pro war or that I believe WWII was a good war, but you would be wrong, and it has nothing to do with your original post.
If you actually want to discuss this, I'm willing, but otherwise I'm just walking away.

[Scootaloo]

28. You're really not presenting an argument

You start off with an ignorant and nasal appeal to emotion, claiming that WW2 was not only fought over, but somehow prevented the holocaust, and accuse me of actually thinking the Holocaust wasn't so bad or something, that "we should just have let it happen."

You then bitch when I point out to you that your narrative of WW2 as a good war because it stopped the holocaust is nonsense.

Now if you want to actually try to present an argument we can do this, but really, let's not pretend you've presented anything of worth here.

[newthinking]

5. Well now, it seems that time is most every day, most every year. I think that is a little out of

balance don't you think? It hasn't just been since 9/11 that the approach has been with a "stick". And I am not just talking about war. Destablizing regimes that end up with thousands dead or people hating each other is also a "stick".

[JDPriestly]

7. Yes. But the strong choose their battles carefully.

We haven't been choosing carefully.

Everyone criticizes Chamberlain for being weak when Hitler began invading small countries to the East of Germany. But no one ever asks whether the Western allies realistically could have supplied troops and won had they fought Hitler over Czechoslovakia or Poland at the time of the Munich agreements.

Personally, I doubt it. France and England were not prepared for war. Nor was the US. We were all trying to recover from the Great Depression. And we did not yet have an alliance with Russia which was pretty important when it came to dealing with the Eastern front (Poland, Czechoslovakia, etc.)

Remember. Our troops landed on European soil starting in the South and the West.

So today we have to think realistically about our resources, our ability to supply our military and focus only on the most important battles. It takes a lot of understanding of strategy and a lot of self control to win. The problem with Republicans is that they are all excited about fighting willy nilly everywhere. But they are not good at winning anything. They get us involved like school boy brats in skirmishes all over the world with no thought as to what resources and strategies are needed to win. A bunch of rowdies with no self control. What idiots.

If you are not going to win a fight, just be quiet and watch for an opportunity, for a weakness on the other side where you can wedge in and win.

I was the smallest and weakest in a good-sized family. Trust me. I know how to lay low, wait for the advantage and then . . . . And the best way to win is not to fight at all but to demonstrate to or persuade a possible opponent that they really don't want the embarrassment or trouble of losing to you.

Keep your powder dry. Don't be a hot-head. That's the best rule when it comes to deciding whether to get into physical altercations be it personally or as a nation.

[Android3.14]

23. Right out of The Art of War

Good points.

[OKNancy]

3. How does this jive with your support of the Russian position in Ukraine?

...with their position on gay rights, the rights of the Tartars in Crimea, their lock down of the internet etc?
Seems to me that the US in this situation is trying extremely hard to use the carrot. Russia on the other hand, the stick.

[newthinking]

6. Both Russia and the US are using the stick.

Nato's threats are just as serious even though we have not yet moved all of our forces. There are many ships off the coast of Ukraine now. But of course that is not mentioned in the media.

[maddezmom]

8. How many ships?

[newthinking]

10. I will have to answer that in the morning. There are at least

2 destroyers and a carrier if I remember correctly. I don't keep tabs, I just noticed the info while researching other things.

I have to get some sleep.

[OKNancy]

13. OK, what about Boko Haram?

You think they would be swayed by carrots?

Everyone would like peace. However sometimes the US is not the bad guy. At times we as a people are moved by humanitarian interests.

[newthinking]

9. Oh, and I don't "support the Russian" position

I am anti maidan because they do not represent the people of Ukraine, and I am "pro" what the people want, regardless of we think their interests should be, and I am anti ratcheting up tension until all the people in the country line up and end up in civil war, with both sides selling them weapons to kill their own people while our countries sit at home watching TV!

[OKNancy]

12. maiden are a tiny minority

[newthinking]

27. They seem to represent about 25-30%. But I think you meant Right Sector

which was not even around last year and formed during Euromaidan (the protests). It formed inside it as they met each other there. They were up to 10,000 adherents by the time that the overthrow occurs. They have been recruiting and along with the radicalization they have grown significantly. They are funded and they travel from hotspot to hotspot "enforcing order through terror.

Svoboda, the other neo-nazi group, was a good third of maidan and represented just under 10% of the votes several years ago. They have grown since then and the heavy extreme nationalism and the crisis is growing their numbers dramatically.

[newthinking]

26. I have said over and over. Not pro putin. You won't find any RT sourcing in my posts

I am concerned about Ukrainians and the neo-con / neo-nazi Kyiv administration that has been persecuting those they don't like and encouraging roving bands of psychopathic thugs to terrorize the countryside. That is a FACT.

Most of my posts are about the what is not being covered by mass media. There is no reason to post the Kyiv narrative, it is already well covered.

I am really surprised at the cognitive dissonence here. This is a very right government. People here understand what that means here in the US but they have blinders on and will defend even neo nazi groups there.

Can you imagine what would happen if an outspoken (current) KKK leader were given authority over the military and homeland security here???? THINK!

[jtuck004]

11. Not a problem. Just figure out how Goldman $achs can screw people over while

making a profit from it and the shit will break out all over.

[pangaia]

15. War is caused by human beings who are unconscious...

who live in a waking sleep, if you will.
So the answer is..or rather the question is.. how can human beings wake up and become conscious?

[G_j]

17. a Department Of Peace would be dedicated to finding nonviolent solutions to conflicts in the world

of course, the very idea always brings ridicule, and that is a very sad statement.

[muriel_volestrangler]

19. Carrot: offer of closer ties with the EU. Stick: Russian troops take control of Crimea (nt)

[Supersedeas]

29. Get yourself ready to confront the radicals

Before long we are all likely to confront them