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Still cannot get the images of the Ethiopian famine out of my head - truly horrific stuff. I’ll let people smarter and more powerful than me debate what could/s
by JohnMakin 2y ago
Still cannot get the images of the Ethiopian famine out of my head - truly horrific stuff. I’ll let people smarter and more powerful than me debate what could/should be done - I’d personally hazard a guess nothing short of military intervention can stop something like this but that has its whole slew of unintended side effects. It seems like there are enough resources in the world to prevent things like this, at least for now - and if not, a conversation needs to be had very soon how this should be handled because I don’t think this will become a situation that becomes less common.
- logicchains 2y ago[flagged]
- discreteevent 2y agoAccording to the Wikipedia link you sent the marxist Leninist state was set up in 1987 and inherited the problems caused by the previous military junta including the aftermath of the 1983-1985 famine.
- aaron695 2y ago[dead]
- bawolff 2y agoI guess the problem is nobody wants to "own" countries anymore. Probably for good reason, colonization caused a lot of evil. However if you want to make a country do what you want, you can't just blow it up and then expect them to listen to you. Controlling people requires actually controlling them, and that is icky.
- throwaway48476 2y agoDebt bondage is much cleaner.
- nirav72 2y agoYeah. The PRC has this process down. None of the long term side effects of colonialism, but the benefits of immediate access to resources.
- ethbr1 2y agoThat's historically been phase I. Phase II is when debt-burdened countries stop paying their debts, and the creditor sends in their military. Phase III is when other countries support the debtor, for a variety of reasons, and start a proxy war.
- tim333 2y agoWhile the old prememant ownership thing has gone out of fashion, maybe we could have something like a 20 year lease where the Brits go in again and bring law and order? This kind of thing https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anglo-Egyptian_Sudan https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anglo-Egyptian_Sudan
- dilawar 2y agoMeh. We had the great Bengal famine under British rule. And none of it was due to lack of this and that. Amrtya Sen "Nobel" in economics was related to this.
- manishsharan 2y agoSeveral famines. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_major_famines_in_India_during_British_rule#:~:text=The%20mortality%20in%20these%20famines,of%201837%E2%80%931838%2C%20800%2C000 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_major_famines_in_I....
- bojan 2y agoThe first step would have been leaving the African Union.
- bawolff 2y agoI feel like the mandate system of the interwar period is kind of what you are thinking of.
- tim333 2y agoYeah maybe something like that. You'd want some international body to give it legitimacy, maybe have it run by the scandinavians as the British track record and some have mentioned has its blemishes, and you'd need some amount of western military so if local warlords started killing people they could retaliate with himars or fighter jets or some such. And an understanding that they'd support local democracy and be prepared to go home when no longer wanted. Perhaps by referendum - if 50% of the locals wanted the foreigners gone it would be done. Rather than say the Afghan situation where they just disappear at some random point leaving a mess.
- csomar 2y ago> I’d personally hazard a guess nothing short of military intervention can stop something like this Please don't guess, then? The famine started because of a military intervention gone south. The reality is that the Sudanese are a victim of circumstance. A war between some Arab rulers over who controls the Sudan.
- JohnMakin 2y agoLuckily my thoughts on this site don’t dictate what international governments do, but thanks for your input?
- istinetz 2y agoIf you don't want your opinion to be critiqued, you can simply not post.
- JohnMakin 2y agoThere’s no critique though - simply tone policing while trying to push another argument entirely. I’m not even making whatever argument is being “critiqued” here. It’s simply bad posting.
- wolfram74 2y agobut there was a critique, your proposal was "something something let an army fix it" and they provided context "something something various armies caused it."
- stale2002 2y agoThen that would be an unrelated critique/strawman that doesn't accurately respond to what they said. They did not propose to fix it via an army. Instead they said "nothing short of military intervention can stop something like this" That is not a recommendation. Instead it is describing how difficult the problem is to solve. They then followed it up by saying "but that has its whole slew of unintended side effects". This is significantly hedging the claim, saying that the military could actually make things worse! Maybe one of the side effects that he is saying could happen is exactly the issue brought up, meaning that the famine would get worse. Therefore bringing this up as a possibility is not a critique, and actually agrees with the original statement. And they also previously had said "I’ll let people smarter and more powerful than me debate what could/should be done". That statement explicitly saying that they aren't proposing things. They even finished up the statement by saying "a conversation needs to be had very soon how this should be handled ", which only suggesting that this should be talked about, because he quite clearly thinks that this is a complicated and difficult problem to solve, for which a military intervention could very well not be a good idea! If you actually read the original statement it is extremely conservative in its statements, and you have to almost intentionally be obtuse to attack such a hedging non recommendation that merely describes how bad and hard it is to solve!
- piva00 2y ago> I’d personally hazard a guess nothing short of military intervention can stop something like this but that has its whole slew of unintended side effects Military interventions most often fail to secure a country than the opposite. Haiti had a long peacekeeping mission from the UN and fell back into anarchy, Sudan has also had a military intervention. Iraq, Afghanistan, Syria, etc. are other examples of interventions gone south. Probably one of the few more successful interventions was the Yugoslavian Civil War, nowadays the appetite of the world for NATO bombing a country isn't really there. No one has figured out how to do nation building from the outside, that often has come from the people in those nations themselves.
- hanniabu 2y ago> It seems like there are enough resources in the world to prevent things like this There will always be more greed than resources
- pvaldes 2y agoEthiopian famine was linked with previous massive deforestation projects. No trees = no water and no water = no food. War was a logical consequence of that. After several decades they finally grasp the idea, and are trying to bring the trees again with the "green legacy" project.
- mikrotikker 2y agoThat project is really amazing I have seen it in a documentary I just can't remember the name of it.