big_dave wrote:

Earwicker wrote:Good for you. That answers the question then - you don't think there have been any justifiable armed revolts in any country - ever.

I never said that.

You never said that in those exact words no.

So I'll ask you to name one you think was justified then.

Has there ever been an armed revolt in any country ever that you considered justified (in the sense of warranted in your view due to oppressive circumstances)?

big_dave wrote:Conflict should not be judged on the ideology, but the casualities and the gains of the conflict. World War II is not "justified" merely because the democracies were fighting fascist corporation.

It's not justified 'merely' because of that no.
But it is justified partly because of it.

big_dave wrote:

No - combat is not something you can split into justified and unjustified.
I can do it just fine.

Congratulations on rendering the murders and sacrifices of hundreds of thousands of your fellow human beings into something with all the depth and bredth of a light-switch.

How's that then?

Why do you consider i might conclude something justifiable flippantly?

big_dave wrote:

You're a pacifist - fine but I think most (?) would see fighting against a violent dictator as entirely justifiable.

I don't see anything wrong with enabling someone to fight against a dictator.

I also don't see what is wrong with Flash Gordon blasting Ming the Merciless with a raygun, or Frodo Baggins slaughtering dozens of Orcs. Fantasy situations do not have any relevance to the real world warfare.

Why should I be pro/anti magically giving people magical guns to fight a hypothetical dictator?

So step out of fantasy land and give us a real world example of a fight you thought justified.

If there aren't any then my suggestion that there wasn't was correct wasn't it?

What you are basically asking is for me to fictionalise a historical event of my choosing and then tell you who were the good guys and who were bad guys.

I am telling you that history does not work like that. There is no room for "us against them" in history.

Are you "done talking to me" yet?

Earwicker wrote:
Question: do you think that (violently) oppressed people should be armed?

Take Zimbabwe as an interesting current case in point.

The people don't want Mugabe.
The international community does fuck all.
Should 'the people' be given guns?


Note: I am only using Zimbabwe as an example because it is a current pertinent example in the press a lot at the moment.

Interesting that you should pick Zimbabwe as a hypothetical. What about decades ago when Mugabe and his faction were 'the people' (the freedom fighters?) and they were the ones fighting the oppressors. If we had flooded the country with arms to support THEIR struggle, surely we would be looking at mass executions on the news now instead of punishment beatings?

Most of us that post here come from countries that have participated in arming anti government militias in what we choose to call oppressive regimes. The US and UK governments helped to arm the Afghan people to fight the oppressive Russian controlled regime, and look at how badly that has backfired on them. I would say be careful who you arm today, as todays Rebel Leader may become tomorrows Warlord. One man's freedom fighter is another's terrorist.

big_dave wrote:What you are basically asking is for me to fictionalise a historical event of my choosing and then tell you who were the good guys and who were bad guys.

No I'm not.

I'm asking for a clarification.
You seemed to suggest I was incorrect for assuming you did not see any armed conflict ever ( in history) as justified.
I would be fine with you having that view but you said that wasn't what you said. I presume - given your correction - that what you meant was that you did think some were justified.
So I am asking which?

If you don't think any were then fine. We can disagree again and both be on our way.
But what was the point in your correction?

big_dave wrote:I am telling you that history does not work like that. There is no room for "us against them" in history.

There is plenty of room - if you choose - to make moral judgements regarding particular circumstances. You seemed to insinuate that because I suggest a popularly elected group might be armed to fight against their violent oppressors that I was somehow akin to fascists.

I take umbrage at this insinuation.

Before you carry on I suggest you go back and read my early post about this - in which I stated that - regarding Zimbabwe - I am aware there might be a lot of complexities I am unaware of.

big_dave wrote:Are you "done talking to me" yet?

No.
You're being a bit of a tit but not a totally obtuse arsehole - just yet.

JohnnyDoglands wrote:Interesting that you should pick Zimbabwe as a hypothetical. What about decades ago when Mugabe and his faction were 'the people' (the freedom fighters?) and they were the ones fighting the oppressors. If we had flooded the country with arms to support THEIR struggle, surely we would be looking at mass executions on the news now instead of punishment beatings?

Are you suggesting that the Zimbabwe army have only sticks cause we didn't give them guns decades ago?

I certainly hope not.

A. There have, seemingly, been more than 'punishment beatings' recently.

B. Matabeleland

JohnnyDoglands wrote:Most of us that post here come from countries that have participated in arming anti government militias in what we choose to call oppressive regimes. The US and UK governments helped to arm the Afghan people to fight the oppressive Russian controlled regime, and look at how badly that has backfired on them. I would say be careful who you arm today, as todays Rebel Leader may become tomorrows Warlord. One man's freedom fighter is another's terrorist.

So I ask you - has any armed uprising ever been justified?


I feel I should make clear - I don't expect you to provide me with something 'objectively' justified but in your view have there been any you see as justified?

I am simply asking for an opinion.

Earwicker wrote:So I am asking which?

I don't think any conflict can be neatly polarised in justifiable or unjustifiable. That doesn't mean that I think that no good has come from revolution or that all combat is wholly unjustified.

There is plenty of room - if you choose - to make moral judgements regarding particular circumstances. You seemed to insinuate that because I suggest a popularly elected group might be armed to fight against their violent oppressors that I was somehow akin to fascists.

I take umbrage at this insinuation.

I must have missed this.

You're being a bit of a tit but not a totally obtuse arsehole - just yet.

If I called any particular conflict justified or unjustified I would be reducing history to the level of semantics, which seems to be the modus operandi for EA political discussion. No wonder then that by refusing this, I have offended our two resident lecturers.

big_dave wrote:

Earwicker wrote:So I am asking which?

I don't think any conflict can be neatly polarised in justifiable or unjustifiable. That doesn't mean that I think that no good has come from revolution or that all combat is wholly unjustified.

But you do seem incapable of giving an example of a justified combative situation.

Fair enough.

big_dave wrote:

You're being a bit of a tit but not a totally obtuse arsehole - just yet.

If I called any particular conflict justified or unjustified I would be reducing history to the level of semantics, which seems to be the modus operandi for EA political discussion. No wonder then that by refusing this, I have offended our two resident lecturers.

Not sure why that particular quote preceded this.
You're being a tit has nothing to do with your refusal to take sides in any situation which I have stated more than once that I am fine with and can in fact respect as a position.

You offended me because of what I saw as your insinuations.
You can claim - if you like - that you did not intend to insinuate and I couldn't argue, but I know how it might seem to others and that was enough for me to flag it up.

I have continuously stated in his thread that all my statements are my opinions and that I'm not judging anyone else's. I suggest you go back and read your own posts before naming anyone else a lecturer.

Nigh Night

Earwicker wrote:

JohnnyDoglands wrote:Interesting that you should pick Zimbabwe as a hypothetical. What about decades ago when Mugabe and his faction were 'the people' (the freedom fighters?) and they were the ones fighting the oppressors. If we had flooded the country with arms to support THEIR struggle, surely we would be looking at mass executions on the news now instead of punishment beatings?

Are you suggesting that the Zimbabwe army have only sticks cause we didn't give them guns decades ago?

I certainly hope not.

A. There have, seemingly, been more than 'punishment beatings' recently.

B. Matabeleland

JohnnyDoglands wrote:Most of us that post here come from countries that have participated in arming anti government militias in what we choose to call oppressive regimes. The US and UK governments helped to arm the Afghan people to fight the oppressive Russian controlled regime, and look at how badly that has backfired on them. I would say be careful who you arm today, as todays Rebel Leader may become tomorrows Warlord. One man's freedom fighter is another's terrorist.

So I ask you - has any armed uprising ever been justified?


I feel I should make clear - I don't expect you to provide me with something 'objectively' justified but in your view have there been any you see as justified?

I am simply asking for an opinion.

If you think I'm saying that Zimbabwe is lucky we didn't help arm Robert Mugabe decades ago then that is not what i am getting at. Most of the international community were in support of his aims to take power from the white farmers and give it back to the other 99 percent of the people. So there were plenty of people at the time who would have seen those aims as 'justified'. He was seen as a freedom fighter back then, and now he has himself become the Tyrannical ruler.
Flooding a country with arms as a charitable act is only going to be a short sighted solution. Not taking account what has happened in the past, not thinking about what the consequences might be in the future. I thought it was clear that the opinion i gave was that giving arms instead of aid was a bad idea.

You ask me if i can call any armed uprising justified, I'm saying justified is the wrong word. If you want an example, I call the armed uprising in Ireland UNDERSTANDABLE. I cannot possibly justify the killing of my own countrymen, but i understood that they had a reason to be fighting, and they thought that their actions WERE justified. Some americans agreed with them, but I'm sure the victims of IRA bombings didn't think the actions were justified. So who gets to decide what is justified and what isn't.

I'm not saying we should ignore the plight of those in Zimbabwe. I see the pictures and news items every day so I am well aware that they are being treated abominably. In this case someone has to act as a mediator and referee. In this case it is the rest of the african union that can help, so they should, and I am aware they are trying, though I'm not sure if they are trying hard enough.

Most of the pressure to sort out the mess in Zimbabwe is coming from the UK and USA, and Robert Mugabe is busy warning his people that 'they want to colonize us again'. This is why we are trying to get South Africa and the African Union to put as much pressure as possible on ZANU PF to at least hold talks with the opposition to resolve this terrible situation. The Zimbabweans themselves want South Africa to help too, they don't want us to interfere and end up owning their country again.

I have white Zimbabwean friends who fled to England during Robert Mugabe's 'land reforms'. At first i thought 'You're from the 1% of the country that owns all the viable farmland, and therefore 75% of the wealth. Of course you're not happy that they want to make things fair by giving land to the blacks.'
They then went on to describe the terrible violence they faced, and some of them left with only the clothes on their backs, in order to save their lives. There are plenty of us who could say that the old distribution of land was unfair, and that the cause for land reform justifiable. The means that were used to reach that end however were not justified.

Rick Reuben wrote:

JohnnyDoglands wrote: I would say be careful who you arm today, as todays Rebel Leader may become tomorrows Warlord.

In the case of Africa, that's often the case, because the west wants bullies to control the populations and allow the resource robbing to proceed smoothly, and so these warlords seem to evolve out of western 'aid' ( surprise, surprise ).

Cecil Rhodes and the British government used reducing tribal conflict in what is now Zimbabwe as an excuse to set up a 'Protectorate'. And thats what led to the unfair land distribution described above, after independence. i'm sure you know this and our behaviour in colonial times is the template you use to predict future action. I hope you are wrong but i think you may have a point. We probably just wont be so overt about it this time. I'm preaching to the already converted here aren't I?

Often when i see the way our two countries have intervened in the Middle East for supposedly moral reasons, I ask myself why we have done so little to prevent the genocides and atrocities on the African Continent. Maybe it is because the Middle East has the oil, maybe it is because we don't want another third world region competing with us the way China and India are starting to do now, and maybe, just maybe, we are waiting til the situation gets EVEN WORSE so we can step in and make profit from all the resources again..... Most probably all of the above.

I'm not a conspiracy theorist, but anyone who watches moral reasons for intervention in a country being built up in the media and doesn't try to read between the lines is being a little naive. Our politicians aren't all Gandhis trying to make the world a better place, the truth is we have economic problems ourselves that can be reduced by making more of our international interests. There are some atrocious things going on in Africa, some worse even than the violence and lack of real democracy in Zimbabwe. Why aren't they receiving media coverage? I'm not saying ignore Zimbabwe, but what about Somalia and Congo and many others?

I'm starting to think that this thread has been derailed and I wish to apologize to Rotten Tanx that we have strayed so far from the original topic. Sorry Rotten Tanx.