The "Aircraft Carrier Theory" or how reforms can really happen - with practical applications for Iraq, Afghanistan, Syria, etc

[Condottiere 40K]

Fellow travellers and useful idiots have always been relied upon by the communists to act as propagandists, apologists, distractions, agents, informants or subvert Western institutions.

[Bethrezen]

The EU is one entity.
The United States is another.

What happens if one of these becomes "corrupted" and instead of helping, it only gets things worse than before. Examples coming into my mind: Iraq, Libya and Syria. Also, ISIS as a deformed child of US.
Besides, it's clear to me that EU is currently militarily subdued by US. Are you sure EU is actually an independent entity and not a tool of the other entity: US?
How do you imagine the world if one single entity (even if "democratically elected") would be allowed to intervene and change any government and policies they want, anywhere on the planet?

If they intervene like they did in Eastern Europe, the leaders in the target countries might hate it, but the populations would love it.

How would you know this? Would you hold a referendum? Or would you rather have the entities invade those countries, dispose of their leaders and impose their reforms and laws. Do you think people in Iraq approved or approve with foreign presence and involvement, for example?
What do you think about the US methods of overthrowing governments: paying factions to rebel, financing terrorist groups etc.?

For instance in Romania the law requires that somebody can become an official presidential candidate if he gets 250,000 people to support him in writing (a signature with identification data on a list is enough). Apparently that is a good thing, preventing random lunatics from running. In practice however it means a candidate needs a whole structure behind him in order to first become known as a candidate and then to collect those signatures. Unless the person is immensely rich to afford to pay to be on TV and to hire enough people to go door-to-door to collect signatures, there's no way to get those 250,000 signatures.

Therefore the voters end up "democratically electing" among several thieves.


The only thing which can be done is to rely on justice to keep sending such thieves behind bars till they are all removed from politics. But that is only possible after the judicial branch is removed from under the control of the politicians. In Romania it took 21 years to obtain an independent judiciary.

Being a Romanian myself, I completely agree with this. However, I think exactly the same thing happens in those two entities you nominated as world leaders: US and EU.

Luckily the Good Guys have now the upper hand. They should use the opportunity before the World becomes bi-polar or multi-polar again.

Are you actually advocating for globalism? In my opinion, globalism, under any entity, means slavery, in time. Even if it starts with good intentions, in time, it will become nothing more than slavery and dictatorship. It's human nature. I think your whole "world leaders fighting against corruption" idea only works in a multi-polar world.

So just like not all the "democratically elected leaders" deserve to be free or even left alive, not all the foreign agendas are damaging for the country reformed "at gunpoint".

A single country reformed "at gunpoint" gone bad, would be enough for the idea to be dismissed or at least revised. Should we approve people dying continuously for "the greater good"?

[Dromikaites]

What happens if one of these becomes "corrupted" and instead of helping, it only gets things worse than before. Examples coming into my mind: Iraq, Libya and Syria. Also, ISIS as a deformed child of US.

You could add Afghanistan to that list

My assertion is that in the absence of an "all encompassing" master plan (covering in the same time industry, agriculture, services, security, State reforms) we get situations like those above.

If the all encompassing master plan exists, we still can get another Iraq or Afghanistan out of lack of proper funding or proper monitoring of the use of funds. And of course, there should be a single authority at the top, even though parts of the master plan are implemented by different institutions/organizations/donor countries.

The third major source of problems in my opinion is the attempt to rush things. That could kill even the best thought out, best funded and best monitored plan. And as it was repeatedly pointed out, the fact politicians need to show results during their tenure is a strong incentive to rush things.

This is why I believe the only "success stories" so far were those where the political pressure to "deliver results" was reduced.

One example is the industrialization of some of the ex-Communist countries. Those communist countries which built "self-sufficient" (a better term would be "diversified") economies fared better than those who built theirs too closely integrated with the Soviet Union. In the first category we have the European communist countries, China, Vietnam, North Korea. In the second we have countries like Cuba, Afghanistan, Mongolia.

The economies of the communist countries eventually went belly up because they didn't stop planning their economies once attaining a decent level of development. Once the economy is sophisticated enough, the market is a better allocator of resources than the centralized planning. The Chinese communists understood that so they abandoned central planning after 1989.

But just because it worked (up to a point) for communists it doesn't mean one needs a dictatorship to pull a country out of the Middle Ages.

What matters is the ability of the planners to stick to their plan more than the normal duration of a political cycle. This is why the EU is a success story since its founding as the European Coal and Steel Community back in 1951. The EU bureaucracy didn't have to worry about the elections in the member countries. As such it could afford to plan for more than 4-5 years ahead.

It also helped that the idea of a common market and then the idea of a harmonization of the legal systems was beneficial for business. Heads of major corporations don't change every 4-5 years either, and they have a lot of influence over the politicians, irrespective of what party those politicians belong to. That ensured that the politicians won't overrule too often the EU bureaucrats working on long-term plans for common market integration and legislative harmonization, even though the national politicians have the legal right to do so.

Besides, it's clear to me that EU is currently militarily subdued by US. Are you sure EU is actually an independent entity and not a tool of the other entity: US?

It is more like a "division of labor" between teh EU and the US. The US is a big security provider, a big technology provider and a key economic partner. The EU is the main implementer of the political reforms in the target countries and the other major technology provider and economic partner. TTIP/TAFTA would integrate the EU and the US even closer. That in turn might reduce the rate of failures like in Iraq, Libya and Afghanistan because the security, economic rebuilding and political reforms might finally get integrated.

How do you imagine the world if one single entity (even if "democratically elected") would be allowed to intervene and change any government and policies they want, anywhere on the planet?

You are missing the core issue of "being allowed". "Being allowed" would imply there is somebody able to disallow and oppose the interventions.

For a very short period of time the West is pretty much unopposed. So the West better take advantage of this.

You also need to look at what is really happening when the West doesn't botch it: people get to live a much better life.

How would you know this? Would you hold a referendum? Or would you rather have the entities invade those countries, dispose of their leaders and impose their reforms and laws. Do you think people in Iraq approved or approve with foreign presence and involvement, for example?

The people of Iraq initially approved the US intervention. But the US lacks the expertise the EU has when it comes to reforming a country. So the Americans screwed up big time and their popularity took a dive.

If TTIP/TAFTA happens, the next logical step would be a Trans-Atlantic Union, a merger of the best of what the American and EU political systems have to offer. Roughly speaking I expect the resulting entity to be more nimble when action is needed (American style) and more long-term oriented (EU style).

What do you think about the US methods of overthrowing governments: paying factions to rebel, financing terrorist groups etc.?

The main shortcomings of the US interventions is what happens after the governments are removed one way or the other. The Americans don't know what to do next.

The Europeans have learned it through trial and error over 60 years of building their Union out of nations which had killed each other for ~2,500 years practically without interruption.

Let's discuss specifics:

1) The Americans come to Iraq, dismantle the Iraqi Baathist structures ("because those are the bad guys") and end up with a massive vacuum of power they have to fill themselves amid terrorist attacks, inter-ethnic and religious strife;

2) The EU comes to Eastern Europe, pretends not to notice that the ex-communists are still in power, starts working with whoever is in charge there, no matter how rotten, and that way avoids a vacuum of power. Time works in the EU's favor. Every penny which goes into the pockets of the ex-commies and ex-commie secret police people turned East European entrepreneurs goes only when those guys deliver exactly as per the EU requests. When they don't, they don't get anything. And boy they're hungry, so they would do their best to comply with the EU requests, so they can buy another villa on the French riviera and stuff their Swiss bank accounts.

Their greed ends up working against them, because each reform they implement under EU close supervision, in order to fill their pockets with the EU money, brings them closer to prison. But the road to the jail is very long (~20 years), so they don't notice they are digging their own graves until it is too late.

For the Americans 20 years means 5 presidential terms, which makes it almost impossible for them to use the EU approach in Iraq.

Had the EU been invading Iraq, I bet the "reformed Baathist" would still be in charge of that country, one way or the other. And Iraq would be more like "Poland with oil". Even "Bulgaria with oil" or "Romania-with-much-more-oil" (for foreign readers: Romania still has large reserves of oil) would be better than Iraq today.

The problem is EU as an entity can't invade even Vatican yet because it has no common defense policy and no mechanisms to launch a military intervention.

Being a Romanian myself, I completely agree with this. However, I think exactly the same thing happens in those two entities you nominated as world leaders: US and EU.

Yes, but that doesn't happen in places like Russia. This is why there is a big difference between being annexed by the EU or being annexed by Russia.

Are you actually advocating for globalism?

It might be news to you but we are a single species, Homo Sapiens Sapiens. A Chinese born and educated in the USA would have much more in common with a black American than with a Chinese born and educated in China.

That means the cultural differences are just "software" running on top of our "meatware". Everybody can be "reprogrammed" to be tolerant to diversity, democratic, etc.

In my opinion, globalism, under any entity, means slavery, in time

As in "Every State is slavery, long live Anarchy"?!

'Cause a State means "globalizing" the villages, towns and cities within its borders.

Even if it starts with good intentions, in time, it will become nothing more than slavery and dictatorship. It's human nature.

The Americans, the British, the French, the Swiss and everybody else living in a true democracy would beg to differ. Well, the anarchists might agree with you, but nobody else.

I think your whole "world leaders fighting against corruption" idea only works in a multi-polar world.

A multi-polar world is a world in which countries like Russia would be as influential as the West is. We know what happened when the world was multi-polar: we had that from the fall of the Roman Empire till the end of WW2.

If a corrupt and dictatorial country believes it has enough power to challenge the spread of democracy, then it would attempt to do so. Look no further than Eastern Ukraine today. All it takes to have serious trouble is to believe it can oppose the West, even if in practice that would ruin the corrupt and dictatorial country.

A single country reformed "at gunpoint" gone bad, would be enough for the idea to be dismissed or at least revised. Should we approve people dying continuously for "the greater good"?

People die "for the greater good" and "people die for the greater bad" since Homo Sapiens first walked the planet.

What we should worry about is them not dying in vain.

[Bethrezen]

But just because it worked (up to a point) for communists it doesn't mean one needs a dictatorship to pull a country out of the Middle Ages.

But it begins with a dictatorship, in the case of a foreign intervention. Your idea seems to imply one.

The economies of the communist countries eventually went belly up because they didn't stop planning their economies once attaining a decent level of development. Once the economy is sophisticated enough, the market is a better allocator of resources than the centralized planning. The Chinese communists understood that so they abandoned central planning after 1989.

So, wouldn't you say that the idea would best work with a starting dictatorship (and communism), followed by a decentralization of planning? Since most of the countries we talked about (Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria, Lybia etc.) already have/had a dictator, wouldn't be easier to just try to "convince" over time those countries to open their economies and change their way of planning, rather that deleting everything and starting from scratch? But ways take a long time anyway.

1) The Americans come to Iraq, dismantle the Iraqi Baathist structures ("because those are the bad guys") and end up with a massive vacuum of power they have to fill themselves amid terrorist attacks, inter-ethnic and religious strife;

The problem is the US never wanted to lift up the economies of invaded (rebelled) countries. The US are specialized in creating factions, arming them, and keeping a country weak enough to be sucked dry by their companies/organizations, while the anti-Islamic and anti-Russian phobia is continuously fed to their citizens to facilitate future invasions and aggressions. Compared with current EU policies, US policies are barbaric.

2) The EU comes to Eastern Europe, pretends not to notice that the ex-communists are still in power, starts working with whoever is in charge there, no matter how rotten, and that way avoids a vacuum of power. Time works in the EU's favor. Every penny which goes into the pockets of the ex-commies and ex-commie secret police people turned East European entrepreneurs goes only when those guys deliver exactly as per the EU requests. When they don't, they don't get anything. And boy they're hungry, so they would do their best to comply with the EU requests, so they can buy another villa on the French riviera and stuff their Swiss bank accounts.

Their greed ends up working against them, because each reform they implement under EU close supervision, in order to fill their pockets with the EU money, brings them closer to prison. But the road to the jail is very long (~20 years), so they don't notice they are digging their own graves until it is too late.

All nice, if it would happen this way...

For the Americans 20 years means 5 presidential terms, which makes it almost impossible for them to use the EU approach in Iraq.

I really, really, really don't think American policies have anything to do with presidential terms, the president or any of the parties, for that matter. It's all about what companies and organizations want and control. I wouldn't even call a democracy what's happening there.

The Americans, the British, the French, the Swiss and everybody else living in a true democracy would beg to differ. Well, the anarchists might agree with you, but nobody else.

Economic globalization, yes. Globalization in the sense of a single power controlling everything on the planet is slavery.
A council like we see in science-fiction movies (maybe UN) formed of representatives of all the countries of the world and deciding of intervening in different areas of the planet seems the best idea. However, it is still to be monopolized by one or more entities, and we're back to bi-polarism/multi-polarism.

A multi-polar world is a world in which countries like Russia would be as influential as the West is. We know what happened when the world was multi-polar: we had that from the fall of the Roman Empire till the end of WW2.

If a corrupt and dictatorial country believes it has enough power to challenge the spread of democracy, then it would attempt to do so. Look no further than Eastern Ukraine today. All it takes to have serious trouble is to believe it can oppose the West, even if in practice that would ruin the corrupt and dictatorial country.

As you already said before, democracy is really flawed:

"Democratically elected" simply means "out of all the bad guys offered to the voters, they get to choose one".

If a country has a corrupt political system it is simply impossible for a good person to get elected. No party would support him/her, no oligarch-controlled media would broadcast his/her message and the laws would be in such ways as to make it impossible for the person to run even as an independent.

So, do you think there are actually countries where good people get elected anywhere in the world? And, even if good people DO get elected in the government, how would they actually implement good changes if oligarchs monopolize most vital areas (infrastructure, industry, transports, mass-media etc.)? How do you change oligarchs' mentalities and why would they be any different from those in Russia, for example?

People die "for the greater good" and "people die for the greater bad" since Homo Sapiens first walked the planet.

What we should worry about is them not dying in vain.

I agree people have died, people die and people will die, but I question the need for them to die for a change (I wouldn't call it "evolution") to happen, in any way. As long as people die, it means the idea which lead to this, no matter how "better" it was compared with other ideas, is still a bad idea.

[Dromikaites]

But it begins with a dictatorship, in the case of a foreign intervention. Your idea seems to imply one.

Not necessarily. The EU accepted Spain 8 years after the country had become democratic again. NATO accepted Spain even earlier, 4 years after the democratic constitution was approved.

Ukraine is a democracy, even though not a functional one. Even with Yanukovich in charge, Ukraine was much closer to a democracy than Russia is.

And "intervention" can mean many things. In the case of Spain, Greece, Eastern Europe the intervention was done by means of negotiating reforms.

Until now the EU didn't attempt to expand into a country right after toppling its unsavory leader. The closest to such a case would be Serbia, but even Serbia started to negotiate with the EU 9 years after the removal of Milosevic.

So, wouldn't you say that the idea would best work with a starting dictatorship (and communism), followed by a decentralization of planning? Since most of the countries we talked about (Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria, Lybia etc.) already have/had a dictator, wouldn't be easier to just try to "convince" over time those countries to open their economies and change their way of planning, rather that deleting everything and starting from scratch? But ways take a long time anyway.

Sometimes a dictator begs the West to come and hang him (Saddam, Milosevic, Assad, Qaddafi, the Talibans, Putin, Kim Jong-un).

In some cases the West obliges (Saddam, Milosevic, Qaddafi, the Talibans). In some cases it is not that easy to hang him, because the dictator has nukes (Putin, Kim Jon-un). In some other cases it is very unclear with whom to replace the soon-to-be-hanged leader (Assad) so until a suitable replacement is found, he'll be left to his genocidal ways.

But in many cases we're not talking about dictatorships (Spain, Greece, Portugal were all ex-dictatorships by the time the EU started to talk to them).

If one day the TransAtlantic Union would want to extend to Nigeria, quite likely Nigeria would be the same dysfunctional democracy like today, but a democracy nevertheless.

The problem is the US never wanted to lift up the economies of invaded (rebelled) countries. The US are specialized in creating factions, arming them, and keeping a country weak enough to be sucked dry by their companies/organizations, while the anti-Islamic and anti-Russian phobia is continuously fed to their citizens to facilitate future invasions and aggressions.

Reading too much anti-American propaganda by any chance?

The Americans do not intend to screw up like they do most of the times. Otherwise they would have kept Japan and South Korea in a perpetual "banana country" stage. I think the Americans truly hoped every country they've intervened into would evolve the way Japan and South Korea did.

But wishes and good intentions aren't enough, even if one puts a lot of one's money where one's mouth is. Skill is also important. And so far the Americans have failed to acquire the necessary skills.

Those skills take a long time to acquire. Turning the French and the Germans into best buddies required a lot of hard work and the Americans' part in all that was to provide the money through the Marshal plan and the security through NATO. The actual reconciliation was the work of thousands of German and French bureaucrats working behind the scenes, and of some smart French and German politicians who represented the visible part of the process.

The Americans have now realized that if they stick to the role of providing security and financing while the Europeans are doing the democracy-implementation, they would be actually paying to be cut off from the lucrative business of rebuilding the new EU members.

So now we're seeing the Americans addressing that issue through TTIP/TAFTA. Once that deal is done I think the Americans would be more than happy to let the Europeans fix the countries the American bombers and marines "open for democracy". We're witnessing "the beginning of a beautiful friendship". Nuland's "Screw the EU might soon be a thing of the past, while EU would get more "American-fast" at slapping with sanctions anybody who would dare to interfere with the expansion plans.

Compared with current EU policies, US policies are barbaric.

Crude, not barbaric.

I really, really, really don't think American policies have anything to do with presidential terms, the president or any of the parties, for that matter. It's all about what companies and organizations want and control. I wouldn't even call a democracy what's happening there.

Reading too much anti-American garbage is bad for one's ability to reason.

Economic globalization, yes. Globalization in the sense of a single power controlling everything on the planet is slavery.

Then you are at least triple-enslaved already: by the boss you work for, by the government and by the EU.

A council like we see in science-fiction movies (maybe UN) formed of representatives of all the countries of the world and deciding of intervening in different areas of the planet seems the best idea.

A council of the democratic countries which form a common market and which are bound to each other in ways which make it impossible for any of them to defect, yes.

A council including countries like Russia or China or North Korea would work just like the UN. Meaning it won't, most of the time.

However, it is still to be monopolized by one or more entities, and we're back to bi-polarism/multi-polarism.

I think you are talking about the current UN. UN can't work precisely because the A-orifices can occasionally veto.

As you already said before, democracy is really flawed:

Nope.

A democracy where the judicial branch is truly separated from the politicians can cleanse itself. The USA in the late 19th century was not much different than Ukraine today.

As soon as the judicial branch realizes it has the power to cleanse the political class, it will exercise that power. It is in our human nature to use the tools at our disposal.

So, do you think there are actually countries where good people get elected anywhere in the world?

From time to time, some truly good people get elected.

Most of the time in the functional democracies who get elected are good enough people. Good enough people who would bend the laws without breaking them. That is OK because even though we can't change the human nature (it takes a "special" kind of person to be politician), we can improve the laws.

And, even if good people DO get elected in the government, how would they actually implement good changes if oligarchs monopolize most vital areas (infrastructure, industry, transports, mass-media etc.)?

You won't see too may oligarchs breaking the laws in countries where by doing so they will end behind the bars.

You will see them bending the laws, just like the politicians do.

How do you change oligarchs' mentalities and why would they be any different from those in Russia, for example?

Because in countries like the USA Russian-oligarch-style behavior lands somebody in jail pretty fast.

Oligarchs will exist as long as the human nature doesn't change. So we need systems which can function even if the human nature is what it is.

I agree people have died, people die and people will die, but I question the need for them to die for a change (I wouldn't call it "evolution") to happen, in any way. As long as people die, it means the idea which lead to this, no matter how "better" it was compared with other ideas, is still a bad idea.

Yeah, and it rains when we would like it to be sunny.

[Condottiere 40K]

I'm not sure with Korea, but democratization of occupied territories included placating internal vested interests, which in the case of Romania, as pointed out, meant paying off the secret police, senior bureaucrats, and politicians.

It's easy enough to identify Afghan warlords and give them suitcases full of cash, but it's the patriarchal tribal structure that's holding Afghan back, and that can't be fixed by giving cash to tribal elders.

[Bethrezen]

Sometimes a dictator begs the West to come and hang him (Saddam, Milosevic, Assad, Qaddafi, the Talibans, Putin, Kim Jong-un).

You lost me in Assad's and Gaddafi's cases.

Reading too much anti-American propaganda by any chance?

It's not fair. The same I could ask you about reading American propaganda, yet, I didn't.

But wishes and good intentions aren't enough, even if one puts a lot of one's money where one's mouth is.

We're really living in parallel universes if you're talking about good intentions when referring to invasions of any kind.

A democracy where the judicial branch is truly separated from the politicians can cleanse itself.

How exactly do you do that? It's an Utopia.


My conclusion is that the idea expressed by you pictures a world like in a Command and Conquer game: blue and red. Blue is good (EU and US), Red is bad (Russia, China). Blue tries to bring goodness and democracy to the world while Red tries the opposite. Well, the world is not that simple. I'm really scared of a world where a certain force could intervene, unrestricted, to kill anyone or to impose certain things, be it considered good or bad, especially because "good" and "bad" do not exist.

[Dromikaites]

You lost me in Assad's and Gaddafi's cases.

How so?

Gaddafi was sitting on a lot of oil (which means removing him pays off quickly), has been a supporter of anti-Western terrorism and was a certified murderer. It was expected he'll be targeted by a Western intervention at the first opportunity.

Assad's Syria has a moderate amount of oil and gas and a long tradition of supporting Anti-Western terrorism and fomenting instability in the Middle East. And Assad is another certified murderer. Since Syria has much less oil, the incentive to go in and do the right thing is lower. And the incentive to intervene lowers even more given Assad's main opponents are worse than he is.

It's not fair. The same I could ask you about reading American propaganda, yet, I didn't.

It is fair because that image of yours about how the US functions ("I wouldn't even call a democracy what's happening there") mirrors the Soviet propaganda during Stalin's time.

According to Stalin, the only democracy is the "popular democracy" (=communist rule). Because allegedly the working class wants to own the companies where they work and wants to divide among the whole population the riches accumulated by the rich.

Since that doesn't happen in countries like the US, Stalin concluded (rightfully so judging by your own post ) that US is not a real democracy but a system where the working class is manipulated by the rich to believe it is a democracy.

We're really living in parallel universes if you're talking about good intentions when referring to invasions of any kind.

Good intentions do not exclude other intentions supporting the same invasion.

For instance the West undermined communism for a wide number of reasons, some which can be classified as good (bringing freedom to some 200 million people) and some as self-interested (eliminating a security threat and expanding the business opportunities on a 200 million people market).

Likewise getting rid of a demented killer and bringing democracy to Iraq were generous ideas, helping all those corporations involved in the military operations and in rebuilding Iraq to make money out of it was of course self-interested.

Generous goals and self-interested goals go often hand in had when the West intervenes. The difference between the West and the rogue states' interventions is the rogue states are pursuing only self-interested goals. For instance there were no oppressed minorities in Crimea, Eastern Ukraine, Transnistria, Abkhazia, South Osetia so Russia had to create those conflicts by sending in Russian agents in order to justify sending "peace keepers". The good old "Gleiwitz incident" recipe over and over agian.

How exactly do you do that? It's an Utopia.

You said you live in Romania. If that's true, you can see it happening right now. The Ministry of Justice cannot control the careers of the judges and prosecutors anymore. Nor can it decide who gets prosecuted and who doesn't. Its role is now to make sure the courts have electricity, heating and office supplies.

Therefore when a prosecutor decides to investigate a politician, he can't be transferred to a remote little dusty town at the other end of the country anymore.

A judge who convicts that politician cannot be forced into early retirement anymore, cannot be sent to join the prosecutor in that remote dusty town nor can be passed for promotions.

The judges and the prosecutors are assigned the cases based on a randomized computer algorithm, meaning even though some of them might be corrupt, the likelihood of those getting assigned to the case of that politician or oligarch are slim. They might get to work on pickpockets and pub fights all their professional lives.

My conclusion is that the idea expressed by you pictures a world like in a Command and Conquer game: blue and red. Blue is good (EU and US), Red is bad (Russia, China). Blue tries to bring goodness and democracy to the world while Red tries the opposite.

Blue tries to bring goodness and democracy and make money and increase the security of its citizens in the same time. In some cases Blue fails to bring goodness and democracy because of lack of skills not because of the absence of those good intentions.

Red tries to perpetuate dictatorship and corruption.

Well, the world is not that simple.

Actually in therms of how Blue and Red operate, it is.

I'm really scared of a world where a certain force could intervene, unrestricted, to kill anyone or to impose certain things,

That is happening anyway, whether you like it or not. Not only between countries, but even inside countries.

Picture this: a strong guy is poor and has no girlfriend. A weakling is filthy rich and has a gorgeous wife/girlfriend. He is so weak he can't protect either his wealth or his woman. So, according to the thinking of the strong guy, he doesn't deserve them. Therefore the strong guy comes and takes the weak guy's money and woman away.

Instead of letting things stay that way, a third party (the police) intervenes. The strong guy has not robbed the policeman, nor did he rape the policeman's wife, yet the policeman interferes into what should have been strictly a private affair between the strong guy and the weak guy.

A third party therefore intervenes and imposes an unjust rule, which deprives those who deserve things and have the skills and abilities to get them from actually getting them. if the strong guy resists the police he might even get killed for what basically is defending his God given right to rob an rape. If God wouldn't have wanted him to rob the rich guy, God would have made the rich guy strong and him weak.

Therefore if you are scared a certain force might intervene, kill and impose certain things, be advised that is happening already in your very hometown.

be it considered good or bad, especially because "good" and "bad" do not exist.

Indeed. The strong guy deserves the money and the woman of the weak guy, so who is to say he did a bad thing when he took them away?

[Dromikaites]

It's easy enough to identify Afghan warlords and give them suitcases full of cash, but it's the patriarchal tribal structure that's holding Afghan back, and that can't be fixed by giving cash to tribal elders.

Tribal elders serve a purpose with whom we Westerners can agree wholeheartedly: to make the life of their tribes better.

They of course pursue their own private goals while attempting to better the lives of their tribes, but they have to cater to the needs of their tribe as well in order to be seen as legitimate leaders.

Tribal leaders would resist only those measures which make the tribe's life better but diminishes their influence over the tribe's members. They are very skilled at understanding the implications of some Western policies for their own power and influence. Unfortunately many Westerners who deal with them mistake the lack of electricity and running water for stupidity. So they treat the tribal leaders like they would be children easy to fool.

Fortunately no matter how astute the tribal eleders are, they can't foresee the very distant impact of some measures. For instance they understand that better sanitation and better access to medical care will make their tribe more numerous and therefore more powerful. What they don't realize that if the population of their tribe passes a certain threshold, they lose control over it because their "administrative structures" are inadequate for larger populations.

Likewise, they would generally welcome measures which increase the wealth of their tribes (and their own), like better agricultural techniques and better and more secure roads, without realizing that once the individual wealth of their members goes above a certain threshold the tribe would become less dependent of their services.

Therefore when working with the tribal leaders the Westerners should avoid bringing up issues like "democracy", "transparency", "women emancipation", etc and let those emerge by themselves as the result of the improved standard of living of the tribe.

The tribal leaders can easily understand the Westerner's motivation to increase the wealth of the tribe ("so the Westerners can sell us more of their merchandise") and they are OK with that because they like the Western merchandise and would love to have more of it.

If the Western personnel is selected from among people who understand those things (or who can be trained to understand and accept those things in spite of their ardent desire to see Afghanistan turned into Switzerland in 4 years time) then the only serious danger comes from other idiotic Westerners who may campaign against such approach.

I can easily imagine an "investigative reporter" coming to a tribe which was working well with the Western aid workers and who discovers to his/her horror that the whole tribe votes as instructed by the tribal elders or that the women are not treated as equals "in spite of all those millions of taxpayers' money we've poured into that village for 10 years now".

Yes, you imbecile, 10 years have indeed passed, but what you want to see requires 20. A woman can't be motivated to give birth to a child 1 month after the intercourse. No matter how much money you'd spend on her, she'll have to be pregnant for 9 month before a healthy baby is born.

[mrmouth]

2) 9 years (Iraq) or 13 years (Afghanistan) are not enough. If the West really wants to make a difference, the West needs to be committed for at least 20 years (a whole generation);

The 20-25 year number is just about the golden rule in most any counterinsurgency manual. This was openly talked about in the military - Or at least the officers I knew. And even some politicians.

Nobody created the proper context to discuss this issue with the American people. They just left the issue in the wind, even when it became the driving issue in political debates for candidacy. By that point nobody wanted to hear anything about staying another decade.

These campaigns are won through communication - both at home and on the battlefield. We still haven't mastered that.



It took me exactly one week flying around an incredibly fragmented battlefield in Northern Afghanistan in 2001/2002 to come to the conclusion that it was a country that could swallow a million man army, and then ask for more.

It is no different with money, time and goodwill, etc, etc.

All we could ever do is plant some seeds and hope they take hold. We achieved some staggering positives. We had some frustratingly obvious mistakes, in retrospect. The majority of the money pledged by the rest of the world has not shown up and Afghanistan's neighbors want it as a regional puppet instead of something stable that they can exploit to their actual gain.

And then you have to factor in the religious and tribal/warlord aspects.

[Costin_Razvan]

Dromikaites: Such idealism, truly impressive.

With regards to Romania until Kovesi is rotting away in prison along with her two masters, you know who they are, then we won't get true justice here.

[Condottiere 40K]

Switzerland lies in the heart of Europe and the crossroads of important trade routes.

Might have worked as a comparison if the Silk Road still wended it's way through there. The Swiss electorate also has a healthy skepticism of authority.

[Dromikaites]

Dromikaites: Such idealism, truly impressive.

With regards to Romania until Kovesi is rotting away in prison along with her two masters, you know who they are, then we won't get true justice here.

They will quite likely enjoy each other's company behind bars sometime next year.

Switzerland lies in the heart of Europe and the crossroads of important trade routes.

Might have worked as a comparison if the Silk Road still wended it's way through there. The Swiss electorate also has a healthy skepticism of authority.

I meant that more in terms of a stable and prosperous democracy.

But a modern "Silk Road" might come into being if Afghanistan becomes stable. It would be consistent with the Chinese government's desire to develop Western China and with its strategic interest to expand its influence into Central Asia. There's a huge amount of people who could be served with goods delivered along that new Silk Road. If Afghanistan is pacified, building railways and highways in order to improve the logistics of that part of the World might make a lot of business sense.

[Costin_Razvan]

They will quite likely enjoy each other's company behind bars sometime next year.

I'll be buying some champagne then to celebrate the ocasion when our dear, dear leaders get thrown in jail.

Basescu, Udrea, Kovesi, God willing maybe we would see Iliescu get his well deserved treatment along with Iohannis and Ponta.

Come to think if they all get thrown in jail who is going to be left to lead our country?

[Dromikaites]

I'll be buying some champagne then to celebrate the ocasion when our dear, dear leaders get thrown in jail.

Basescu, Udrea, Kovesi, God willing maybe we would see Iliescu get his well deserved treatment along with Iohannis and Ponta.

Come to think if they all get thrown in jail who is going to be left to lead our country?

I think by the next parliamentary elections (2016) many of the politicians at national level and at country level would be in jail. They will be replaced most likely by businessmen who made [most of] their money by doing business with other private companies and individual customers, not with the government and/or the local administrations.

Those new guys would have wanted to do business with the government or the local administrations, but were cut off until now by the current oligarchs and their buddies the current politicians (both categories on their way to prison).

The motivation to get into politics would still be to gain access to the taxpayers' money. The motivation to get rich by overcharging the State can't disappear, like it didn't disappear in the West.

But after seeing how the other oligarchs have ended, I assume most of them would be willing to steal less.

For instance I think the defense contractors would still overcharge, because there's no way to compare the prices at which they sell to the government with the prices they sell to private persons (since there would be no private buyers of APCs, MLRS and tanks).

But I expect things like the computers, the software licenses, the office supplies, the office furniture, the cleaning services, etc bought by the government to cost the same as if bought by a large private corporation.

[ShockBlast]

I'll be buying some champagne then to celebrate the ocasion when our dear, dear leaders get thrown in jail.

Basescu, Udrea, Kovesi, God willing maybe we would see Iliescu get his well deserved treatment along with Iohannis and Ponta.

Come to think if they all get thrown in jail who is going to be left to lead our country?

Hey, let`s not get carried away here.

Get all the politicians in prison, and I mean literally, and them we will talk about putting that guy also.

He`ll be immune for 10 years anyway.

[Costin_Razvan]

Dromikaites: Of course I do expect corruption to still exist, but not so brazenly as we saw with Basescu and his cronies. Basescu was openly stealing while mocking us peasants.

What does surprise me in this whole affair is that SRI revealed anything, would be glorious if they said everything they know about our leaders, if not openly then to the prosecution the end results would be superb.

ShockBlast: We'll see about that, I've heard he's up to his neck in shady contracts in Sibiu.

[Dromikaites]

Dromikaites: Of course I do expect corruption to still exist, but not so brazenly as we saw with Basescu and his cronies. Basescu was openly stealing while mocking us peasants.

You must have a very short memory if you don't remember the corruption before 2004. All the oligarchs we have today made their fortune prior to 2004 and all of them were robbing the country blind while "mocking us peasants".

What does surprise me in this whole affair is that SRI revealed anything, would be glorious if they said everything they know about our leaders, if not openly then to the prosecution the end results would be superb.

You must have been born yesterday, otherwise you would have known the SRI (Romanian Intelligence Service) has been reporting the misdeeds of the politicians...to the same politicians who were doing them for the last 25 years.

Here's a crash course on how SRI operates. They keep an eye on everything the politicians do, because it is always handy to be able to blackmail a politician. The SRI also needs to communicate to the politicians that it knows what the politicians are doing. Otherwise the politicians might entertain the illusion the SRI has no power over them. So every month for the last 25 years the SRI has been briefing the successive governments and the successive presidents, telling them to their faces "gentlemen, you're thieves and we have records of all you have done".

What was missing until recently was the judicial system's ability to act on those reports. That was because while the politicians didn't control the SRI, they did control most of the judiciary. If a prosecutor or a judge was too eager to enforce the law, he or she could be sacked or removed from the case by the politicians.

That isn't the case anymore, thanks to the EU reforms.

How will the SRI play its cards from now on? They will release enough information on some politicians to send them behind bars. That would to keep the others scared of the SRI and would thus achieve the dream of any secret service in the world, that of acting without supervision.

The neat thing is the judiciary doesn't need the information SRI has in order to prosecute the politicians and the oligarchs. That information only makes the cases easier to prosecute. There is enough evidence available to the prosecutors through their normal investigations.

That in turns means that in about 10 years, after the political class is cleansed by sending enough politicians and oligarchs bars till the rest of them gets the message, there will be only a few politicians left who would be able to be blackmailed by the SRI. Then, since most of the politicians won't have reasons to be afraid of the SRI, that service will finally start operating under the parliament's supervision, as per the Constitution.

ShockBlast: We'll see about that, I've heard he's up to his neck in shady contracts in Sibiu.

Among other things he might have to explain how he become the owner of some impressive pieces of real estate there, which seems to be well above his means.

Either we'll discover that he and his wife have managed to earn a lot through tutoring (physics for him, English language for his wife) or he will end up behind bars, like everybody else.

There is an interesting hypothesis put forward by some journalists, that all the current presidential candidates will be indicted before the elections. Thus the West together with the SRI will be making way for their hand-picked man (or woman) who would guarantee the security and stability of the "Aircraft Carrier".

Those journalists put forward two names, that of the director of the SRI or of the director of the SIE (the Romanian Foreign Intelligence Service) as possible future "captains" of the "Aircraft Carrier". Both are best buddies with the CIA and the FBI, both used to be second-echelon politicians and both have managed to remain untainted by the corruption scandals during the last 25 years.

I personally doubt either of those guys would run for president, since they are more powerful in their current offices. Or at least their jobs have the best power/risk ratio and there's no limit for their terms in office.

What I think it would be more likely is to discover that one can buy/amass a large amount of real estate just by tutoring on physics and English. That would make both the Americans and the Germans happy (explanation for the foreign readers: that presidential candidate, the current mayor of the city of Sibiu, is a member of the German minority of Romania).

[Costin_Razvan]

You must have a very short memory if you don't remember the corruption before 2004. All the oligarchs we have today made their fortune prior to 2004 and all of them were robbing the country blind while "mocking us peasants".

I mentioned Basescu since he was the most recent example, but I remember dear Nastase, and the ones before him. Basescu to me though took it to the next level, mind you that's just personal hatred for that vermin, but while I would be content with Basescu in prison Iliescu and Nastate deserve a firing squad.

You must have been born yesterday, otherwise you would have known the SRI (Romanian Intelligence Service) has been reporting the misdeeds of the politicians...to the same politicians who were doing them for the last 25 years.

Here's a crash course on how SRI operates. They keep an eye on everything the politicians do, because it is always handy to be able to blackmail a politician. The SRI also needs to communicate to the politicians that it knows what the politicians are doing. Otherwise the politicians might entertain the illusion the SRI has no power over them. So every month for the last 25 years the SRI has been briefing the successive governments and the successive presidents, telling them to their faces "gentlemen, you're thieves and we have records of all you have done".

Oh I was aware SRI was reporting to the political class on what they know, but they've only rarely talked publicly about it and rarely took action.

Now they have.

How will the SRI play its cards from now on? They will release enough information on some politicians to send them behind bars. That would to keep the others scared of the SRI and would thus achieve the dream of any secret service in the world, that of acting without supervision.

That's rather concerning since SRI is corrupt as all hell, I won't get into details but it's not pretty.

There is an interesting hypothesis put forward by some journalists, that all the current presidential candidates will be indicted before the elections. Thus the West together with the SRI will be making way for their hand-picked man (or woman) who would guarantee the security and stability of the "Aircraft Carrier".

Which news outlets do you use? I've tried searching for what you've posted here on this thread but I haven't found much.

But as you mention no one in our intelligence agencies would want to get into spotlight. Not only would the things they've done personally be put into the spotlight but also what the agencies themselves have gotten away with.

[Dromikaites]

The main proponents of the "Aircraft Carrier" theory and of Maior (SRI) or Melescanu (SIE) as future presidents are mostly the journalists affiliated with "Realitatea TV" and "Adevarul" Media Group. In other words, those employed by the media groups most friendly to the Romanian intelligence community.

Sift carefully through what those journalists write or say on various talk-shows and you'll find all sorts of juicy stuff they couldn't have known without the intelligence community leaking that info. Like how Voiculescu (an oligarch recently incarcerated, owner of the largest media group of Romania) financed his media empire.

As for the SRI being corrupt, that might well be the case, but in the grand scheme of things, it matters much less than the political system being corrupt. And I would expect it to be less corrupt than the political system, for several reasons:

1) The inter-services rivalry. SRI has a very powerful domestic rival, the DGIPI (the intelligence arm of the Ministry of Internal affairs). DGIPI has much more manpower, controls the prisons and has by far the largest network of informants. As such they know better than SRI what happens in the criminal underworld, including information about corruption cases. Thus DGIPI puts a lot of pressure on the SRI officers to stay clean. And the other way round. Then, when it comes to owning property abroad or transferring money out of the country, the SRI bumps into their rivals from SIE. That inter-services rivalry results in most of the bad apples being wed out rather fast;

2) The cooperation/interference with/of the other NATO intelligence agencies, and most notably the American and British ones. Corrupt intelligence officers are a serious security threat, therefore the Americans and the British would keep a very close eye on who owns offshore bank accounts and is tied to SRI and SIE. Case in point, the latest corruption scandal, where the bulk of the information about the bribes paid into offshore accounts owned by Romanian politicians came straight from the FBI.

The main issue with the Romanian intelligence services is the same issue as the rest of the Western world has. The people working there are less motivated by money and much more motivated by power and influence. They aren't using power and influence to get rich (most of them, at least), but simply to test their own theories about how society should function. For them the country is some sort of chess board, and they get their kicks from moving the pieces around. Or some giant lab where they get to experiment "what happens if.."

That is why all the well functioning democracies try to rein in their intelligence services, so there is some degree of accountability in all that "chess playing" and "lab experimentation". And the reining in possible only in those countries were most of the politicians are law-abiding, and thus impossible to blackmail by the intelligence services. Those politicians aren't angels and they would still put their personal interests first, high above their voters' interests. But they will stay within the laws while doing that.