...aome people are troubled by the fact that others suffer through oppression (think Syrian gassing or Serbian ethnic cleansing).

As someone who lived in a dictatorship for five years, I surely do.

we had been awake re: Germany

Every year during Holocaust Remembrance, we say, "Never again." Those are imperialist words. We didn't bring an end to the holocaust by diplomacy; it was done by regime change.

Russia is meddling with US-elections, Russia is flooding Scandinavia and the Baltic States with fake news, Russia has conquered Crimea...

China has conquered Tibet and is slowly destroying their culture. China has even kidnapped the prospective successor of the Dalai Lama to install their own puppet once he finally dies.
And let's not forget Taiwan.

Saudi-Arabia is bribing officials and stealing land in an east-african country whose name I forgot. On this stolen land, Saudi-Arabia is building massive fields and farms to grow food for itself.

The Hezbollah is basically a puppet of Iran. Assad was a puppet of Iran until he found a more powerful master in Russia.





And it's not just "the West" who likes regime-change: At the beginning of the syrian civil-war, many, many years back, it was the Arabic League who asked the US to militarily intervene in Syria to end that war.

[hr][font color="blue"][center]You have to play the game to find out why you're playing the game. -Existenz[/center][/font][hr]

With no good result. All the countries in the immediate Middle East are post WW I creations of mainly France and Britain. Lines were drawn without any regard to ethnic or tribal concerns. And then the countries were held together by dictators who ruled with money and guns supplied by Western powers.

The situation in the Mideast is ugly and will probably get worse but the U.S. can't do anything about it. I say this as someone who has been in Syria three times and most of the other countries in the region at least once. Beautiful countries (at least they were) and beautiful people. I hope we can find a reasonable way to aid them but our military will do just the opposite.

Loot and plunder and call it freedom and democracy.

Then when government merges with religion, divine rights of King and colonialism, more conquests to impose religion on heathens and enslave them.

Basically, a long tradition of exploitation by the privileged few to sustain their lifeway of economic dominance.

that this is how it should be. Religion and monarchies are among the worst of the myriad evils on this planet.
Man to man is so unjust
You don't know who to trust -Bob Marley

Now, there's so many of them, you can't even sell one.

all play nicely with everyone all the time.

The urge to conquer other countries is quite powerful, and has been happening for as long as we know about.

Sometimes I have no faith at all in humans.

but then someone does something decent and I smile

rule by repression and terror. We should support the right of people everywhere (including right here at home) to freely choose those who will govern them rather than have those governing chosen by money, military or heredity ("my dad was dictator; now I am&quot .

Not supporting dictators and supporting democracies is not a very radical concept. The trouble comes when people in a country take to the streets and rebel against a local dictator. Do we help the dictator restore "law and order" through any means necessary under the idea that in some parts of the world government repression is 'natural' and 'acceptable' even if we don't accept it for ourselves?

Do we support the people rhetorically but not materially if their government turns its army's guns on them? Is the UN's 'Responsibility to Protect' just pretty words on paper but impossible to implement in reality?

So when the Con celebrates the Egyptian President or we believe intelligence from Turkey, what exactly are the signals?

I'm so fed up of this fugging planet.

We cannot solve the problems of democracy until we resolve the foreign policy contradictions. The problem today is that there are so many mercenaries by a variety of names.

That part is easy. They object when we do it to them. The west objects when they try to do it to us. That is static. The question can be worded in the exact opposite format as well and would hold just as true.

"why do Western powers feel they have the right to change regimes across the globe?"

Too many reasons to list. There simply isn't one reason. Moral superiority. Resources. Power. Religion. Again, that isn't just for the west.

but since I actually believe in rule of law, I'd love some consistency from those who claim to do the same

And you know why.


There is a delicate balance, however, between sustainable and unsustainable ideals that allow people to actually grow and survive.
There is no growth or real survival under certain systems, regardless of similarities between some goods and some evils.


That said, chickens still come home to roost.

People can either thank the stars and grab the eggs - until the next time..... or they can fix the coop and always have eggs.

People tend to be grab the eggs and forget about the coop.

Unfortunately.