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Comment by mschuster91 | Hacker News Reader

Yeah if keeping a dictator in power is what you desire, then by all means let dictators have nuclear weapons. If not, it should be of global interest to crush the dictators.

The problem with Libya and Iraq (as well as Afghanistan!) is that there never has been a coherent post-war plan. Which means: what is to be done after the troops are finished?

There has been no plan about

- how to disarm the various militias enlisted to fight

- how to transition countries to democracy without kleptocrats and other opportunists abusing and hijacking the system

- how to actually rebuild all the destroyed infrastructure (roads, bridges, water, electricity, communication)

- how to actually unite and pacify the various ethnic/religious communities and prevent them from fighting each other: this is what fucked up former Yugoslavia, and now Libya, Iraq and Afghanistan, and will likely drag out the Syria conflict.

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>how to actually unite and pacify the various ethnic/religious communities and prevent them from fighting each other

That is exactly what dictators do! Not perfectly, but a lot better than what has happened in the countries you've noted where the dictators were ousted or attempted to be ousted. So, I'd disagree that it should be a global interest to crush dictators. So far, this has caused much greater harm than good.

> So, I'd disagree that it should be a global interest to crush dictators.

Dictators usually enrich themselves and defraud incoming money (and food aid) by pocketing it in their personal or their families' coffers, also most dictators resort to brutal violence to maintain their rule; as a result people will attempt to flee these countries. And this causes harm - first of all for the fleeing people who are often enough abused as slaves or prostitutes, but also by funding criminal networks (e.g. the Mafia, which has discovered that people-smuggling and involvement in refugee operations is way more profitable and riskless than drug trading).

Also, when we as the Western world fail to provide basic human rights to any person on this planet, when we fail to even TRY and instead make "deals" with those violating human rights, what are the human rights then worth?

I agree that the last few ousted dictators went badly, but more because the Western countries failed to provide an exit strategy, not because they attempted to oust the dictators.

Perhaps the best refutation of your argument is none other than South Korea, once a pathetic half-country saved by America, at the cost of many American lives.

The first South Korean leader, propped up by America, wasn't your average local warlord: Rhee Syngman was a prominent figure in the independence movement, and had a PhD in International Politics from Princeton.

He went on to kill some 200 thousand Koreans for being communist, terrorized the country for twelve years, and finally ousted by Koreans and fled to Hawaii, where he died later. His reign is remembered by corruption, blanket pardon to national traitors, and mass execution of people accused of being communists.

If you think you "only" need an exit strategy to liberate a country from bad dictators, you don't understand how much luck you need.

> If you think you "only" need an exit strategy to liberate a country from bad dictators, you don't understand how much luck you need.

I'm German. Germany is only at it's current position as European power house and "leader of the free world" (at least many people name Angela Merkel als such, since Trump became president) due to the incredible efforts of the US, UK and France (and to a lesser extent the Soviets) after WW2. And Germany was bombed to shreds basically.

You don't need "luck" to succeed. You need political will, power and the ability to look further in the future than $time_until_next_election. Not very many politicians (no matter if in the US or in the EU) seem to possess these traits any more.

> He went on to kill some 200 thousand Koreans for being communist

Then, he IS a typical result of US intervention: everyone who is against "communists" is good.

Crushing dictators has wrecked unspeakable havoc in the middle east. No dictator and no government has proven to be the seedbed for countless civil and religious wars- genocide and failing societys perpetual in war.

Please stop with this nonsense, we in europe get to see the mess piling up in waves of refugees and terrorism. Your freedom is chaos, your peace is war, your truths are lies. Enough, i rather equip every dictator myself with nukes, if it makes this delusional madness end.

>>If not, it should be of global interest to crush the dictators

As a species, we have evolved institutions such as the UN to effectively convey and act upon those global interests in a civilised manner. This happened after humanity suffered the horrors of two world wars. If anyone, anywhere decides to wage a war supposedly to guard global interests, they should at least get a global consensus, no? That democracy that you speak of.

Because other wise self defence would be justified, honourable even. The problem with Iraq and Libya isn't what you described post-war, it is that they got invaded in the first place. A perfectly good country would turn into Iraq and Libya if you invaded and dismantled its government.

The UN is an empty paper tiger, I am afraid. As long as the veto power of China and Russia in the security council stands, there will be no ousting of any dictator, no matter how brutal he acts.

The Russians will continue to veto anything that might endanger their claim to Crimea or their naval base in Syria. The Chinese will continue to veto against anything that might impact North Korea (due to their land border), and also likely against anything that might disrupt their infrastructure and other investments in Africa. The US will veto anything that endangers whatever business interests Trump has or what could endanger Israel (and, IMHO, rightly so).

Also, there are no consequences for failing to adhere with UN resolutions, as the UN does not have an independent standing military force, so as long as you as violating country have one supporter in the SC (it usually is either US, China or Russia), you don't have to fear anything.

What's worse is that the UN is not at all democratic. The representatives are not elected democratically, they are not bound to the will of the people, and there is no proportional voting according to population size.

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