Lord of war

There is no answer, because the 'solution' is going to make it worse; attempting to select and restrict.

<<I still don't think it washes away the immorality of selling weapons to b@stards like the Janjaweed Militia, or either side in the Sierra Leone civil war, etc. Nobody was in any doubt about how the new weapons purchased by these pieces of scum would be used.>> Tom Fetter

If both sides are scum I don't know there's anything to do. We aren't Gods. But if one side is demonstrably decent under the circumstances, I would see that as a proper place for our CIA and help. I would say some arms sales are under the blessing of the CIA in different conflicts, probably most of which we will never know about.

On the other hand, our CIA has supported in my opinion the 'wrong' side several times, often over a debate about the drug trade.

munk
 
I think the answer, to the extent that there is one, was demonstrated by the refugees whose kids played soccer with my son.

The Bosnian couple was welcome with nobody back home - one's a Serb, the other a Croat. Their marriage is a testament to a desire for peace - as it turned out, the team coach is another Bosnian refugee ... a Muslim. They eat supper at each other's houses, and laugh, and weep. In Bosnia, they all had relatives serving in this militia or that faction - but they made it clear in their own actions that people have a choice about how to react to the violence.

If there's ever to be peace, it won't come because our adversaries have all been killed. It will come because, as these parents from my son's soccer team did, enough people actively choose to stop fighting, put aside their legitimate grievances, recognize each other's humanity, and try and find another way.

People do need to be protected, and I've no question that there's a real and honourable role for the military. But ultimately, killing doesn't bring peace. It can't.
 
some old latin saying said:
If you want peace, prepare for war.
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I am sorry, I forgot the latin words.

No, selling those guns wasn't right. Yuri (N. Cage) actually didn't care to whom he sold the guns - in his own words he as an "internationalist", he sold them to everyone. It is not right. It wouldn't change a thing if he didn't sell them. That's the sad part about it.

Keno
 
Si vis pacem, para bellum.

If there's ever to be peace, it won't come because our adversaries have all been killed. It will come because, as these parents from my son's soccer team did, enough people actively choose to stop fighting, put aside their legitimate grievances, recognize each other's humanity, and try and find another way.
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True in a way, but .. those parents from your son's soccer team chose to leave the field of battle when they found that humanity was more easily recognized in a country like America.

It isn't just Africa. I was trying to imagine what the Arab Muslim world would look like once oil was no longer propping up their moribund economies. I felt it would look very much like Africa does today.

Then I realized that it looks very much like Africa right now, with third-world living conditions for the overwhelming majority of their people, and governments more like criminal gangs, providing little or no human services.

It has nothing to do with arms. The entire problem is the dysfunctional culture.
 
Artfully Martial said:
I don't know....I suspect if we kill the entire planet, it will be a very peaceful place indeed.
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Here's another Latin phrase for you all: Solitudinem faciunt, pacem appellant. They make a desert and call it peace.
 
I like the part where Western governments sell arms to corrupt leaders in Country A for X amount and then give Y amount in foreign aid. X is always more than Y and the corrupt leader and the Western dealers split the difference.

That's genius and probably tax deductable too.
 
Spectre said:
It's already a desert...and no peace (ME).
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Hm. It was only a desert until we got there. If we leave, it will be a desert again.

The only places we're turning into deserts are the places where the people won't leave us in peace. Their choice.
 
Lord of War definitely raised the profile of (illegal) arms trade issues, for me and many cinema-goers. I was a bit disappointed when I went to see it however, partly because of my expectations of a Cage film, but also because the portrayal of Cage as a dodgy arms dealer isn't convincing. I think the most poignant part of the documentary for me was the ending: despite being caught red-handed (on numerous occasions), Cage eventually gets set free because of corruption within (even!) the government of the 'good guys'. That makes the excellent point that whether arms dealing is legit or not, the lines get blurred at many points, and that's where things get messy. A similar issue to corrupt govt is what to make of the 'good guys', e.g. the CIA, deliberately backing one side over another to achieve the USA's immediate aims - a policy that can have very negative, long term effects. Look at the case in the DR Congo now, which is still dealing with the aftermath of decades of Mobutu tyranny - a guy, who, incidently, was saved from assassination by the local CIA station chief (in the '60s I think). However, because of the film's fatalist (realistic?) outlook, I don't think it goes very far in suggesting resolutions to the wider issue, which I thought would have been interesting.
 
E-B,

I'm on your side. I keep encouraging Jordy to take one of the sponsored trips for Jewish young people to Israel...
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Archie, there are few foreseeable true solutions. A significant portion of the world seems determined to kill his neighbor.
 
Esav Benyamin said:
It isn't just Africa. I was trying to imagine what the Arab Muslim world would look like once oil was no longer propping up their moribund economies. I felt it would look very much like Africa does today.

Then I realized that it looks very much like Africa right now, with third-world living conditions for the overwhelming majority of their people, and governments more like criminal gangs, providing little or no human services.

It has nothing to do with arms. The entire problem is the dysfunctional culture.
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Once again, Esav is on target. There was conflict in the Middle East before the internal combustion engine was conceived of, let alone invented. I will not go so far as to say that there was conflict in Africa before the diamonds surfaced, but I will opine that it was not originally about that. My own theory on that particular subject is based around tribal culture and arbitrary borders, but that's not entirely topical. (And it may not be correct.)

If I make and sell baseball bats and it's brought to my attention that people are beating and killing one another with them, am I legally obligated to stop? Ethically?

How about bows? Or sporting rifles? Or assault rifles? Machine guns? Cruise missiles? Guided bombs? Nuclear weapons? What if they're killing people that the world at large considers to be "bad"? What if they're simply killing people that I just don't like for some reason? What if they're killing "good" people but by doing so, they're preventing the "bad" people from doing something much worse? What if I'm basing my choice on what's politically (hell, morally) expedient, rather than what I truly believe is right? What if the buyer lies to me about what he's going to do with them and I believe him? What if I don't? Where exactly do we draw the line?

We're discussing this under the assumption that there's an easily identifiable line between right or wrong in all things. In the world that I live in, the line is not identifiable; in fact, there is no line. There's sort of a zone and it changes position when I'm not looking. What I think to be correct today, may not be correct tomorrow. What I think to be correct, may not be right. You'll find a lot of different opinions about the international arms trade and the only one that you'll think to be right is the one that you agree with.

And we haven't even dealt with some of the grayer areas yet -- I'm still assuming that everything is legal.

It's a tricky subject.
 
Spectre said:
Archie, there are few foreseeable true solutions. A significant portion of the world seems determined to kill his neighbor.
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There's the problem.

Long-term solutions are like long-term weather forecasts. We don't know how. In the interim, we fight fires.

You know what fighting forest fires does? It preserves dry tinder build-up until the day it all ignites and the mountains burn.

I do not think it cynical to suggest that sympathy is wasted on cultures that don't want to prosper. We teach ourselves to wait until we are sure, before we fight back. What more do need to be sure about what's happening today?

All these small wars, and the degradation and inhumanity within failed states, are the work of arsonists, who want the world to burn. And we keep putting out fires, instead of stopping them.
 
Shades of gray
Are all that I find
When I look to the enemy lines
Black and white
Was so easy for me
But shades of gray
Are all that I see...

I'm old and tired of war
I can't be "righteous" again
I'm not that sure anymore

-Billy Joel
 
Shades of gray
at the end of the day
are all that's left of colors bright.
If you want to do what's right,
remember what you saw when light
there was to show the way.
 
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