can we go home now?

[IndieC]

Nono, go to any, i challenge you, any international relations theorist, and ask them whether Chilie used to be a Liberal Democracy, and whether the US actually went to war with them, and they will either say "the first is debatable" and no to the second question, or no to both. Every single international relations theorist in the world, be he/she a realist or an idealist has accepted that Liberal Democracies do not fight, never have and probably never will, be it John Mearsheimer, a devout realist, or Ken Booth, a devout idealist. Going back even furthur, be it E.H. Carr, or Woodrow Wilson. It is simply a known fact, and anyone who disputes it simply has not done their research.

[IndieC]

Quote by: Gorgo Purportedly to stop ethnic cleansing, which did not exist. Just like a dictatorship did not exist.

Gorgo, obviously you havent done your research either. There was ethnic cleasning, my mum saw it. She went to work over there for the OSCE.

However, i will say that the ethnic cleansing wasn't as bad as it was made out. It was enchanced because the Albanians decided they needed more dead for the international community to come in, and so went to slaughter entire Albanian villages on their own, without the help of the Serbs.

Therein lies the problem, the stupid NATO forces didn't realise this, and didn't disarm the Albanians. That is the problem i have with it. It was 'justified', as some say, but just badly carried out, and it is still being badly carried out.

[Nono]

Indie, naturally it's unlikely that liberal democracies will actually mobilize their armed forces against one another -- though I wouldn't rule it out, and I especially wouldn't rule it out in the kind of hysterical climate we've seen in the US in the past three-plus years.

In my view, dotcoma's (rudimentary) definition of a liberal democracy would fit pre-73 Chile. I challenge you to show how it doesn't (and to learn to spell the country's name).

As for going to war with Chile, Kissinger and Nixon didn't need to -- they got the Chilean military to do it for them. (There's more than one way to skin a cat.) Read up on it sometime, before you pontificate on other people's research.

[Gorgo]

Quote by: IndieC Gorgo, obviously you havent done your research either. There was ethnic cleasning, my mum saw it. She went to work over there for the OSCE. However, i will say that the ethnic cleansing wasn't as bad as it was made out. It was enchanced because the Albanians decided they needed more dead for the international community to come in, and so went to slaughter entire Albanian villages on their own, without the help of the Serbs. Therein lies the problem, the stupid NATO forces didn't realise this, and didn't disarm the Albanians. That is the problem i have with it. It was 'justified', as some say, but just badly carried out, and it is still being badly carried out.

Ethnic cleansing meaning that the West stirred up a war between factions and they ended up killing each other? Meaning that some crimes were committed by all sides? Meaning that there was no policy of ethnic cleansing emanating from the Yugoslaviann government and most of the reports of mass murder were false?

NATO knew exactly the crimes that they were committing by bombing innocent people and destroying their homes.

[IndieC]

Gorgo, have you seen the pictures of the mass graves? Hell, did you even look into this, or are you just trying to look intelligent? The evidence is there, and there is no denying it. It happened, but, okay, it wasn't as bad as they said. Oh, and by the way, the West didn't exist when this conflict started. This thing goes back to the invasion of Serbia by the Ottoman Empire, and to the Battle of Kossovo (yes, i did spell it correctly, it has since changed).

As for bombing innocent people, i disagree completely with that, NATO should have been more careful, but then again, if they hadn't done anything, the Serbs would have finished the job. Which is the worse of the two evils? I will admit, my mum, who has seen it, believes that they should just be left to kill each other, simply because it is going to be almost impossible to bring the Serbs and the Albanians back together, if not impossible, but the international community believed that it couldn't stand by, and watch Rwanda happen again so close to Europe.

So yeah, crimes were committed on all sides, sure, I'll agree, i did before, but the crimes the Serbs were committing were called ethnic cleansing, the crimes the Albanians were committing were called mass murder. In the end, it had to be stopped, and it was. The problem is, some Albanians want revenge.

[Nono]

Well, folks, we're really off-topic now.

Gorgo -- just out of curiosity -- you have Serb (or Montenegrin) roots, don't you? I'd bet anything.

[Gorgo]

Quote by: Nono Gorgo -- just out of curiosity -- you have Serb (or Montenegrin) roots, don't you? I'd bet anything.

Irish. Does that say it all?

[Nono]

Not really. Why such frequent posts about Serbs-as-victims, then? It's a real theme with you. This question is far off-topic, and none of my damn business, but I'm curious.

[Gorgo]

Quote by: IndieC Hell, did you even look into this, or are you just trying to look intelligent?

IndieC you may wish to learn something about what you're talking about before you get quite so arrogant. Check out one of the threads about Yugoslavia and do some reading.

The Truth is not Politically Correct (Yugoslavia spinoff)

[Gorgo]

Quote by: Nono Not really. Why such frequent posts about Serbs-as-victims, then? It's a real theme with you. This question is far off-topic, and none of my damn business, but I'm curious.

I write about the U.S. war on the people of Iraq too, does that make you think I'm from Southwest Asia for some reason?

[IndieC]

Quote by: Nono Indie, naturally it's unlikely that liberal democracies will actually mobilize their armed forces against one another -- though I wouldn't rule it out, and I especially wouldn't rule it out in the kind of hysterical climate we've seen in the US in the past three-plus years. In my view, dotcoma's (rudimentary) definition of a liberal democracy would fit pre-73 Chile. I challenge you to show how it doesn't (and to learn to spell the country's name). As for going to war with Chile, Kissinger and Nixon didn't need to -- they got the Chilean military to do it for them. (There's more than one way to skin a cat.) Read up on it sometime, before you pontificate on other people's research.

Of course they didn't need to, the point is, they didn't did they? It does not matter whether Chile was a Liberal Democracy or not. There was no war, therefore the argument stands, Liberal Democracies do not fight.

As for a definition of Liberal Democracy, here is one. It comes from Andrew Heywood's Key Concepts in Politics (Palgrave Macmillan, 2000):

"Liberal Democracy is a form of democratic rule that balances the principle of limited government against the ideal of popular consent. Its 'liberal' features are reflected in a network of internal and external checks upon government that are designed to guarantee liberty and afford citizens protection against the state. Its 'democratic' character is based upon a system of regular and competitive elections, conducted on the basis of universal suffrage and political equality. Although it may be used to describe a political principle, the term liberal democracy more commonly describes a particular type of regime.
The core features of a liberal-democratic regime are the following:

-constitutional government based upon formal, usually legal, rules;
-guaranteed civil liberties and individual rights;
-institutional fragmentation and a system of checks and balances;
-regular elections respecting the principles of universal suffrage and 'one person, one vote';
-political pluralism in the form of electoral choice and party competition;
-a healthy civil society in which organised groups and interests enjoy independence from government;
-a capitalist or private enterprise economy organised along market lines."

It continues, but that is only to explain the significance of the concept.

[IndieC]

Yeah, ok Gorgo, i got a bit carried away, but i do get my sources from people who have been there and seen it, and from Dr Alistair Finlan, of the lecturers here at Aberystwyth, so i have learnt something about what i am talking about, in fact, i am studying it at the moment. I will take the hint though, and try out the forum. Oh, and sorry for the last post, i started writing it ages ago, and didn't see that you guys had decided it was off-topic...

[Nono]

Quote by: Indie There was no war, therefore the argument stands, Liberal Democracies do not fight.

As far as it goes, yes. The problem is that in practice there is a sub-text to this argument that goes "liberal democracies treat each other in a civilized manner". And when it comes to the US -- which certainly was a liberal democracy back in the early 70s (whatever it may be today) -- it depends what you mean by "fight". If you enable militarist thugs to shed blood on your behalf, blood is still being shed. To me, the difference is academic.

[IndieC]

Yeah, there i will agree completely Nono, i think the US was acting in a way it shouldn't have been, and it should have known better. However, as far as the arguement goes, it is correct, war did not break out between Chile and the US, even if, behind the scenes, the US was funding a coup to put Pinochet in power.

[IndieC]

Oh, and one last post for Gorgo. I am right:
http://users.erols.com/mwhite28/warstat6.htm#Kosovo

[Gorgo]

never mind