Nothing wrong with it. In fact I should be able to see the papers of the ICE agent, to unlock his phone, to strip search him and detain him if necessary until I find he isn't a terrorist; and if found to be a threat, neutralize him by whatever means necessary. Why not, whats good for the goose is good for the gander. I don't believe in special rights for certain groups. If he can search me, I can search him too.
And that's how we see the USA devolve into a third world shithole. In a proper system the cops should serve and fear the populace. In third world shiteholes, people fear the cops. I should be asking the government why you need any data at all from me? They need to give me a good reason to invade my privacy and I should be able to say fuck off if the reason is not sufficient. In fact I should be able to ask the cop for his id, for him to unlock his phone for him to give away his passwords, for me to strip search him.
It might be an unpopular viewpoint....but neocolonialism is necessary.
Perhaps not the right choice of word but I mean the term 'neocolonialism' here in the sense of introducing peoples to our ways of life: democracy, capitalism, human rights.
The long and short of it is that, you can only get with the web of conflicting interests, pure monetary dealings, etc so far. You don't make any lasting alliance with a peoples and a system fundamentally opposed to you. If you isolate away, they will continue falling into the trap of systems like China and Russia who are quite happy to take your place and have completely opposite ideals to you. Eventually you will be left more and more alone on the world stage with no true allies if you let them keep doing it, and one day you will be finished off by soft or hard means when those entities, who kept expanding their outreach, became powerful enough.
Tldr; Defensive fire. Its not that you want to engage in neocolonialism, but you will have to do so as long as your enemies engage in neocolonialism. The logic is no different than that behind maintaining a traditional military power really.
Some cultures are constitutionally unable to be good. I have no hope Afghans or Iranians will ever become civilized of their own accord. I strongly believe a strong program of colonialism (unlike the ultra soft approach used in Afghanistan previously) is needed for these peoples.
And yes, it might be an unpopular viewpoint....but neocolonialism is necessary.
Perhaps not the right choice of word but I mean the term 'neocolonialism' here in the sense of introducing peoples to our ways of life: democracy, capitalism, human rights.
The long and short of it is that, you can only get with the web of conflicting interests, pure monetary dealings, etc so far. You don't make any lasting alliance with a peoples and a system fundamentally opposed to you. If you isolate away, they will continue falling into the trap of systems like China and Russia who are quite happy to take your place and have completely opposite ideals to you. Eventually you will be left more and more alone on the world stage with no true allies if you let them keep doing it, and one day you will be finished off by soft or hard means when those entities, who kept expanding their outreach, became powerful enough.
Tldr; Defensive fire. Its not that you want to engage in neocolonialism, but you will have to do so as long as your enemies engage in neocolonialism. The logic is no different than that behind maintaining a traditional military power really.
The problem is that neocolonialism, just like colonialism, works best if master culture is tame and at least somewhat compatible with slave cultures. Current US/west culture is quite contraversial to say the least in many parts of the world. At the same time, this culture does not seem to tolerate allies who don't sign off on the full package. This „take it or fuck off“ attitude is not helpful IMO.
I'm not surprised that China is doing so well in „global south“. US/west needs not only to return to colonialism game, but update their offer as well.
My opinion regarding this is very simple. I like honesty. If a person or culture does not believe in human rights, then it has to right to complain if we decide to kill, oppress and torture them and raze them to create civilization there. Because what argument do they have for not being tortured if they don't believe in human rights?
And Afghanistan is prime pickings right now because they have little allies currently. A motivated and well planned operation can eliminate them right now. I see the Taliban as an issue much longer term than merely using them as temporary pawns. I believe in the complete elimination of Taliban, the Iranian regime and similar groups.
The current problem with human rights is it was turned into ever-moving target. It’s a pretty shitty situation to be forced to believe in something people on another continent keep coming up with. With old school religions, at least they move slowly and there are literally centuries to adapt. Now what was obscure crazy stuff in some far away corner of the world a decade ago is claimed to be must-have human rights.
Good luck trying to civilize Afghanistan again. Chinese would looooove West trying again. Nothing better than yet another proxy war.
I don't have massive goals, if we can even get them to the point of equality of man under the law we would have civilized them to the point of being much better than most non-Western countries.
> Because what argument do they have against being tortured if they don't believe in human rights?
Obviously, it's against the most basic principles that the humanist worldview of human rights is based on. I mean, you clearly don't believe in them sincerely, maybe you lie to yourself but you don't. You are the type of self-righteous goon that would happily disappear people in the Stasi or Pinochet's DINA.
> Afghanistan is prime pickings.
That's delusional. You cannot forcibly "reform" a culture in the short term (i.e., decades) that is not simply just near-total genocide. The Taliban cannot be weakened by overwhelming force. When invaders with absurd justifications (first Soviet, later American) commit "collateral damage," they create a sprawling network of causality that strengthens them. Kill the mother, justify the Taliban in the eyes of the son, and so on until the 7th generation.
The US never understood Afghanistan; they didn't want to either. You cannot outplan something that you don't inherently wish to understand, and Bin Laden knew that. Unlike the US, he comprehended both Afghanistan and America. It would have been so simple to send some spooks to snatch him after a couple of months, but that was never going to happen. Osama Bin Laden baited the United States of America, and it fell for it line, hook, and sinker. You lost trillions, thousands of lives, and more importantly, the last sliver of soul your country had.
As I have said previously, we need a two pronged approach. Keep killing off the hardliners, while flying those with seeds of civilization to western countries for training and acculturation and fly them back in when their relative count compared to the extremists is high enough they can completely and permanently change the culture of the place.
I truly believe in human rights. Therefore I believe that someone who believes in human rights should be treated like one. And someone who doesn't believe in human rights, should be treated likewise. Again tell me, if X is someone that does not believe human rights exist what argument do they have to tell you to stop torturing them? If they say their humanity, you can clearly answer they don't believe in it.
And regarding "genocide" argument. To take a really extreme example. Look at how many nazis we killed in WW2 to civilize them. If needed I feel even a 95% figure is probably worth it if we can make men out of Afghanistan.
The golden rule, or rather the modification if you believe in human rights I will treat you as such, if you don't believe in human rights...I will also treat you as such. Its only fair to give people what they want.
Afghanistan (as an example) should have been civilized, whatever effort necessary for it. If a peoples or country doesn't support human rights, capitalism, etc then what justification does it have to tell you to stop if you oppress and torture them? Human rights? Pish they don't believe that crap.
Is the disagreement because you somehow believe the Taliban are "civilized" or does one have disagreement about the fact that a person claiming not to believe in human rights is in no position to argue against being tortured?
The USA wasn't trying to fight a war there. As I note in my argument of non-believers in human rights having no right to oppose their own oppression....I don't really have any issues eliminating 90% or even higher of these elements until sanity emerges. If I were in charge I'd be flying in those with seeds of civilized thought into Western countries for training and acculturation, and destroy the hardliners meanwhile. And when the hardliners are sufficiently decimated, fly back them in as consultants or if they prefer as citizens back in Afg and so on.
USSR tried that for a decade. Then US. But reality is such conversion would take few generations at least. Good luck convincing tax payers that 50 years occupational forces are worth it.
I am saying that the previous approaches were too soft and light handed. The Taliban hasn't ever faced an opponent that wants their annihilation at an existential level.
These countries were simply fighting a war of economic or other interests. I hate Taliban at a very core level itself and want their complete annihilation. A war conducted by those with a strong intrinsic motivation like this would be much different from those previous engagements.
I think you underestimate how complex society is. And how that complexity connects the hardliners, the moderates and the collaborators.
Take a look at Nazis approach in eastern europe in 1941. USSR was not exactly beloved in western territories. Be it Baltic states, modern western Belarus or modern western Ukraine. Even deeper in pre-1939-USSR many people weren't exactly happy with the leadership. Nazis had a perfect situation to make use of this sentiment to push forwards towards main goal of annihilating Stalin regime. Yet they decided that'd be too soft and light handed on the locals. That was not exactly great to turn locals against you.
And the local sentiments was in big part due to Soviet not-light-handed approach in 1939-41. When even many proponents changed their minds after seeing too many trains leaving for Siberia. All they had left were full-on collaborators who managed top switch back-and-forth between Soviets and Nazis several times :) I doubt such sleazy partners is what you want to build the new better superafghan...
The difference is that Europeans there were at least partially civilized so there was some raw material to work with.
The Taliban have nothing of civilization in them. They actively resist and hate civilization. There is no reforming them.
You also underestimate the amount of hatred a local person of sane mind would have against the Taliban. The most rabid haters of any shitty system are often those who escaped it personally. If you can supply and support such people they would be much more violent and extreme in suppressing the Taliban than any external Western person could be. If we are taking the example of Nazis, just look at the attitude of Jews who survived and began assassinating Nazis after the war vs American etc liberators who just chose to "forget" everything after the war.
Cheap meat sources are either banned by law (beef in some areas) or quite thoroughly socially banned due to the two major religions being Hinduism and Islam ie beef and pork. Hinduism technically does not forbid beef but the current strain of Ram-ization does vehemently so.
