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Comment on How come nobody does anything about North Korea?

thebestaquaman@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago

It’s not that people “don’t care”. We’ve tried intervening with force in e.g. Afghanistan, where the oppressive regime was forcibly removed, and military power was used to ensure that elections were held and the results were respected.

We have observed, several times, that everything goes to shit when we leave. Not only that, but people generally don’t seem like it when outsiders take over and tell them how to run their country, who should be allowed an education, and that <insert group> cannot be oppressed. So a side effect of the armed intervention is that a lot more people hate you now.

Western countries “aren’t doing anything” because we’ve both learned from experience that military intervention doesn’t really work, and been repeatedly told by the rest of the world to mind our own business.

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rumimevlevi@lemmings.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago

Western countries “aren’t doing anything” because we’ve both learned from experience that military intervention doesn’t really work, and been repeatedly told by the rest of the world to mind our own business

The west and israel literally wanted to overthrow the regime in iran few weeks ago

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- thebestaquaman@lemmy.world ⁨22⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
  “The west” isn’t really a cohesive unit regarding Israel/Iran. You have some western countries supporting a genocide and committing blatant violations of international law, while others condemn them for it and try to pressure them to stop.
  
  Sadly, one rogue state can cause a lot of damage, and countries typically have a very high bar for using military force against their closest allies in defence of a third party.
  
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  - rumimevlevi@lemmings.world ⁨15⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
    
    “The west” isn’t really a cohesive unit regarding Israel/Iran. I would say the major one france, uk, canada, the usa, germany
    
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Krono@lemmy.today ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago
Kinda shocking to me how anyone can present such a whitewashed take on the Afghanistan War in 2025. It didn’t go to shit when we left, it was shit from the beginning.

We shortsightedly allied with brutal local warlords, and the failure at local politics blew up in our faces. We bombed 100s of villages, losing the hearts and minds of the people. We sent innocent people to be tortured in Pakistani black sites, creating a fanatical resistance willing to martyr themselves. We forcefully changed the main agricultural output from wheat to opium poppy, leading to widespread drug abuse and addiction. I could go on and on…

I’m not sure if there is a military intervention model that works, but American-style military intervention with mass civilian deaths and warcrimes from beginning to end is a proven failure.

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- thebestaquaman@lemmy.world ⁨20⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
  
  It didn’t go to shit when we left, it was shit from the beginning.
  
  It seems like you didn’t observe the thousands of people swarming the airport in Kabul trying to get out with the last planes. It also seems like you haven’t picked up on the people crying about how people are being brutally punished for getting an education or listening to music now.
  
  I’m not denying that shit was really bad while coalition forces were there, but acting like it didn’t get worse for a lot of people when the left is just closing your eyes.
  
  Regardless, it’s ludicrous to claim that western countries “aren’t doing anything because they don’t care”. It’s not like we’ve spent truckloads of money and thousands of lives over 20 years of trying to get a functioning system in place while preventing a humanitarian crisis because we “didn’t care”. People saw it as immoral to just turn our backs on Afghanistan and let them solve their own problems. The result was largely that we learned that you can’t force democracy and human rights onto someone else, as proven by the almost complete absence of people willing to fight for just that once the coalition left.
  
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  - Krono@lemmy.today ⁨18⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
    I did not close my eyes when America turned it’s back on the thousands of Afghans who helped the American regime during the war. The people who helped America were left resourceless and with giant targets on their back. We betrayed them.
    
    I did not close my eyes when the flimsy and deeply flawed education system America propped up instantly failed the moment we left.
    
    The abandonment of Afghan allies and the destruction of girl’s education in Afghanistan are just two more data points showing the deep failures of the American model of foreign intervention.
    
    We did not spend truckloads of money trying to get a functioning system in place. A lasting functioning system was never the goal. I urge you to read into our military’s functions and objectives in Afghanistan, because you are deeply misinformed. Anyone who suggests our goals were “democracy and human rights” is obviously infected with US propaganda.
    
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    thebestaquaman@lemmy.world ⁨15⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
    I don’t really understand what you’re trying to say here?
    
    My point is that, while flimsy and flawed, there was in fact an education system and a humanitarian system in place that was propped up by coalition forces. This system did fall apart, leaving no system at all when the forces left. And yes, a bunch of Afghanis have every right to feel betrayed. I never said otherwise.
    
    It’s not like Afghanistan is the only place where schools, hospitals and infrastructure has been financed by western countries. By and large, we spend a lot of money on these things because a significant portion of the population sees it as the right thing to do. Because we care, and want to help people.
    
    What became very clear in Afghanistan was that you can’t force a population to be a liberal democracy. They have to be willing to fight for it themselves. The Afghan army (on paper) had several hundred thousand men, loads of heavy equipment, and several years to train and prepare for coalition forces leaving. There was a government structure in place. These things instantly folded when the coalition left because, clearly, enough people preferred Taliban to what the outsiders had forced upon them.
    
    I guess I’m saying it’s a “damned if you do, damned if you don’t” situation. If you stay, you’re an oppressive occupier. If you leave, you’re a traitor that permits a humanitarian crisis to occur.
    
    The OP here asked “why doesn’t anybody do anything about NK”, and my answer is that we (seem to) have learned that you can’t force democracy and human rights on a country. Chalking it up to “we don’t care” is reductionist.
    
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