Mongrel assumes she/he knows me well enough not to want to waste time on trying to understand me. Or, read charitably, knows himself well enough to know it won't amount to anything. — Benkei
That's correct about what it doesn't consist of. — Thorongil
But they haven't. — Thorongil
Humanitarianism is a moral of kindness, benevolence, and sympathy extended to all human beings. Humanitarianism has been an evolving concept historically but universality is a common theme in its evolution.
Reading the posts, what does it say that people are more intent on arguing their worldview and what's wrong with the media, instead of thinking about ways to help? — Benkei
Perhaps there is humanitarian intent, but this is coupled with recklessness, incompetence, and a lack of foresight. Is that included in your notion of humanitarian military intervention? Based on your examples, I think it must be. — Sapientia
When you asked why it would seem odd that a person is concerned about the health and welfare of people elsewhere, when that person is not contributing to his own defense... honestly my first response was: "How could you not know the answer to that?" — Mongrel
Eh... why so preachy, Sapientia? — Mongrel
You are indirectly the recipient of humanitarian military intervention. Yep... about a year prior to entry into WW2, the US was smuggling food and supplies to your little ancestors. That ended the American pretense of neutrality and precipitated American entry into the war. Believe it or don't. Idiot Americans were trying to help somebody.
Was there collateral damage? Oh yeah. — Mongrel
Does so-called collateral damage sit well with this? — Sapientia
These are fellow human beings, after all. — Sapientia
Are the bombs and bullets which do such damage and cause such harm representative of acts of kindness, benevolence and sympathy? — Sapientia
Are these human beings taken into full consideration when attempting to enact humanitarian principles, or are they just written off as collateral damage? — Sapientia
Perhaps there is humanitarian intent, but this is coupled with recklessness, incompetence, and a lack of foresight. — Sapientia
Is that included in your notion of humanitarian military intervention? — Sapientia
Who is firing them, and at whom, and for what purpose? These are questions you have naively neglected, or perhaps cynically neglected, to ask. — Thorongil
The concept is indeed foreign to them, since they seek to cause damage an sich. Military intervention, chiefly by the West, would seek to destroy these forces, in order to end their reign of terror and violence. By all means, let the Red Cross bring aid. Their work is impossibly brave and moral, but they are merely putting a band-aid over a cancerous wound. It is the tumor of these barbarians that needs to be extricated from the body of this region, post haste. — Thorongil
They most certainly are taken into consideration. — Thorongil
Why would it be? No, of course not. I condemn the mismanagement and incompetence of military humanitarian intervention to the utmost, but this does not besmirch the ideals and intentions behind such enterprises, which, after all, are not all failures. — Thorongil
That would seem to misdirect responsibility. If I do the right thing by helping someone in need and someone attacks me for it, who is to blame? — Sapientia
which flies in the face of humanitarianism — Sapientia
Drop the humanitarian tag. — Sapientia
But then written off as collateral damage nonetheless. — Sapientia
yet you count the invasion of Iraq as an example, despite the known cost to innocent human lives it would and did entail. I wouldn't include it at all, although I accept that there were good intentions involved. Unfortunately, at the end of the day, it's actions that count, and they can't be reversed. — Sapientia
It is an even greater affront to human dignity and rights not to intervene with the appropriate measures to end injustice and barbarity. — Thorongil
What IS the appropriate measure that will end injustice and barbarism at minimal cost (cash, lost lives)? — Bitter Crank
We thought that the death of Muammar Gaddafi would improve the situation in Libya. Apparently it didn't. — Bitter Crank
Maybe killing Assad would lead to a beneficial shift in power in favor of a more civil government. And maybe not. — Bitter Crank
We can be fairly certain that American troops would have difficulty identifying who was who in the urban guerrilla fighting in Aleppo and other Syrian cities. Would the multi-lateral European Union Force do better? Nato? I don't know who would best save the day here. Dutch troops led by the Israeli Defense Force, maybe? — Bitter Crank
Maybe killing Assad would lead to a beneficial shift in power in favor of a more civil government. And maybe not. — Bitter Crank
It would undoubtedly lead to this if we but wanted it to. — Thorongil
There's the possibility of peace talks (traditional politicking) but I think a show of force is still needed before any such event. — OglopTo
Blame? There's no big Mommy and Daddy in the sky to do anything with blame. — Mongrel
By the time you need valor, you've already seriously screwed up. — Mongrel
Are you a pacifist? — Thorongil
What would you prefer to call it? — Thorongil
If you conceive of the accidents in war to be on a par with deliberate murder, then you possess no moral sense at all. — Thorongil
The intentions of actions determine the degree of their justice and morality. You may disagree, but this is the principle on which the law is founded. — Thorongil
Actions do matter, yes, but that's all the more reason not to abandon our fellow human beings in Iraq and Syria to the scourge of militant jihadists. They cannot defeat the latter on their own, at least not quickly. Or do you object to their military actions too, on account of the collateral damage involved in protecting themselves through the use of force? — Thorongil
It's not about valour. It's about doing the right thing, and it's about understanding context and extenuating circumstances, and it's about understanding the slippery slope fallacy, and it's about rightly attributing or apportioning blame - which clearly plays a key role in ethics, and has nothing to do with big nonexistent Mommy and Daddy in the sky. — Sapientia
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