Displaying comments 1 to 50 of 83
MeFi post:
A people too scared to vote.
We already understand the local political situation.
We do? Will the soldiers who go in to keep the peace? Will the aid workers? Some of them might, but they'll soon rotate out - after all, they're all only in it for the development tourism.
The "International Community" needs to grow some balls.
I think the international community needs to grow some humility as to the... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by YouRebelScum
at 6:22 AM on June 23, 2008
Normally I wouldn't approve of such a tactic, but if you lose an election and decide not to transfer power peacefully, or if you intimidate the opposition into forgoing runoff elections, you should be assassinated.
Nothing like the assassination of a leader to make a country with political divisions peaceably lay down their arms and stop the bloodshed. Just ask the Rwandans.
posted to MetaFilter by YouRebelScum
at 7:06 AM on June 23, 2008
MeFi post:
Pakistan’s Phantom Border
"the Soviets brought war to Afghanistan while we Americans brought Stinger missiles"
The Afghans brought war on themselves. The Saur Revolution was a purely Afghan revolution, sparked by the People's Democratic Party of Afghanistan and deposing Daoud Khan. The Soviets only came in a year after, in 1979, having seen their communist brethren getting a spontaneous and entirely predictable kicking as they attempted to destroy the tribal elites, get rid of Islam and... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by YouRebelScum
at 1:27 AM on June 23, 2008
MeFi post:
Noublions Jamais L'Australie
"The Turks simply floated mines down the Bosphorus and the mighty British Navy, whose guns were to provide the artillery support for the land invasion, could do nothing but withdraw leaving the ANZAC forces to their fate. Without the support of naval guns, the rest was farce."
Far as I knew, the ANZAC forces landed on the other side of the Gallipoli peninsula to the Dardanelles and the Bosphorus: the Navy got bounced on a previous effort to force the... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by YouRebelScum
at 7:02 AM on April 25, 2008
Mattoxic: I seem to remember reading somewhere that the Turkish command told Ataturk not to engage, and he disobeyed a direct order to turf the ANZACs back. Tactically, the Allies messed it all up, but the strategy wasn't stupid.
posted to MetaFilter by YouRebelScum
at 7:25 AM on April 25, 2008
MeFi post:
Sitting Out Earth Day
Nationalising agriculture is not the answer. It just doesn't work: socialism showed us that. Even with the best will in the world - take Tanzania and Nyerere's grand experiment with African socialism - land reform like that crashes and burns every time.
posted to MetaFilter by YouRebelScum
at 2:30 AM on April 23, 2008
MeFi post:
Global food studies
aramaic: a lot of the places where the food prices are rising get little or no food aid directly. As far as I know, food aid tends to be reserved for post-conflict emergency situations, where agricultural production has been wrecked. The aid community tends to avoid dumping free food on farming communities, because it pisses the farmers off.
I was wondering if one of the problems isn't simply that the world demand for cash crops has meant a lot of land in developing... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by YouRebelScum
at 1:18 PM on April 22, 2008
Yeah, it seem to matter more who has the patents on the GM crops and what the traits are that are being investigated. With the green revolution in the hands of folk like MS Swaminathan and the international public institutes, it was driven by a public agenda, for all that the agenda may be questioned now. With the GM agenda is being driven at the moment by Monsanto et al's desires to tie in farmers to purchasing inputs the useful stuff - like drought or saline resistant strains - is marginalised,... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by YouRebelScum
at 2:28 PM on April 22, 2008
MeFi post:
Fancy a fry-up?
"But you don't burn 3,000 calories driving a forklift truck, or answering the phone at Argos, or fiddling your disability benefit."
This sentence made me choke on my bacon in incandescent rage.
posted to MetaFilter by YouRebelScum
at 3:50 AM on April 18, 2008
MeFi post:
The Next Big Threat?
in the Philippines there is no problem with rice production only prices
The Filipino government right now cannot afford to acknowledge that there is not enough rice to go around, given the absolutely fundamental social importance that rice has to the Filipino population, so their statements should be taken with a pinch of salt - particularly given their rather shaky political situation. The measures mentioned in the article suggest the problem runs... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by YouRebelScum
at 2:02 AM on April 10, 2008
MeFi post:
More morass
THe best of all possible outcomes
For whom? Certainly not for the Kurds - and the Turks have an approach to dealing with that particular 'problem'. Probably not for the rest of Iraq:
There would be a short, intense struggle for power and a strong man - probably one of Saddam's disappeared generals - would reappear and take control.
Sure, one of Saddam's generals might rise to... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by YouRebelScum
at 5:33 AM on April 9, 2008
meme?
Who said anything about the Middle East being special? As you point out, Europe had countless wars, etc. It's taken us centuries to pull out of it. But how is that a meme? Or is it just a trope?
Certain background factors, of which ethnic diversity and point extract resources are significant, tend to result in civil war where there is a lack of strong institutions - and more importantly, the lack of a political... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by YouRebelScum
at 6:24 AM on April 9, 2008
Sort out their own mess.
A mess of whose creation? I'm not arguing for a solution. Thankfully I don't have to. However, one example of a country that had relative success does not convince me that Iraq will go the same way - particularly because (I understand) Vietnam is relatively homogenous in its population and doesn't have the oil resources Iraq does, and even more particularly given countervailing examples like the post-colonial African states... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by YouRebelScum
at 6:45 AM on April 9, 2008
MeFi post:
it is important that you wear underpants
I think I cycled past them on Embankment this morning. They looked badass, a little cold, and completely unconcerned in the face of all us muppets gawping at them ("ooo, look - cool cloaks! cool jewelry! spears!").
posted to MetaFilter by YouRebelScum
at 6:27 AM on April 8, 2008
MeFi post:
A Hungry Man is an Angry Man
Adipocere: I don't like the whole starving kids thing any more than anybody else does, but have our efforts really done anything besides enable them to get older and produce even more starving kids?
The thing is that rate of reproduction is linked to reliability of food sources. It's just not clear how much education will help - poor folk are pretty switched on to their environment, and the reason they do things is frequently not attributable to a... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by YouRebelScum
at 5:41 AM on April 6, 2008
MeFi post:
Rethinking aid donations
Hum - difficult one to call, Student of Man, and maybe best if you go out there and have a look yourself. It's very difficult to know what to say about this - I tend to get defensive. I worked in Afghanistan for two and a half years in the aid industry, and left completely confounded. I went there with a brain and no experience as an unpaid intern, and came out with a great deal more experience, having worked pretty hard, and an advanced case of development existentialism. Many of the people... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by YouRebelScum
at 8:59 AM on March 25, 2008
MeFi post:
"Camels are just like humans."
On the subject of inaccessibility. A friend of mine got his hand bitten off while wanking a camel in Jordan.
He worked in the Wadi Rum with a bunch of bedouin. You can imagine the scene: there you are, one sunny day in the desert, watching a Strange Practice. Apparently, when a female camel is in what is described as "good condition" the male camel has difficulty, ah, mounting her. Seems counter-intuitive, but there it is. The herders have to give some... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by YouRebelScum
at 4:24 AM on March 18, 2008
MeFi post:
my grandma married an engineer, so did my mom, oh and I'm one too
Why? Because today, in Afghanistan, an engineer has the prestige that a doctor or a lawyer has here in the States. It's the best thing you can be. In part, presumably, bc Afghanistan has been so bombed to fuck by the coming and goings of foreign powers over the last few centuries that engineers are still very much in need.
Nah, it's because the Soviets were the only ones handing out decent education in the recent past, and they rated engineers and... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by YouRebelScum
at 4:28 PM on March 10, 2008
MeFi post:
Swimming upstream.
religion causes a lot of pain and suffering right here and now.
I think the thing that causes trouble here and now is mostly "Me and my mates want your stuff" - sometimes the "me and my mates" part is defined by religion, sometimes by political ideology, sometimes by class, ethnicity, nationalism, whatever. I think most of it's about 'us' and 'them', and religion's just a convenient coat for one bunch of venal arseholes to have a... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by YouRebelScum
at 6:14 AM on March 5, 2008
certainly you can point to the professed religious arguments of the partisans as some evidence that religion makes the world a worse place.
I guess that depends on your counterfactual. What arguments would they be making if Islam, or Christianity, or whatever wasn't there? Are the arguments tempered by Islam/Christianity or made worse? (Sorry if this a bit of a derail - interesting post).
posted to MetaFilter by YouRebelScum
at 6:38 AM on March 5, 2008
MeFi post:
Now that Kosovo has declared independence, will Abkhazia follow?
Although I don't know much about Kosovo, I don't see what's necessarily undemocratic or illiberal about secession, particularly if it's what the majority of the country want (unless there's a danger that there'll be rights abuses of the minority when separate government is obtained). I must say I see this as part-Scot part-Irish resident in the UK, who is considering strongly voting for the SNP.
posted to MetaFilter by YouRebelScum
at 5:24 AM on February 22, 2008
MeFi post:
How to grow a glacier
That's so incredibly cool! What a great post. Weird that up in the higher valleys lack of rainwater rather than lack of land is the problem.
posted to MetaFilter by YouRebelScum
at 2:40 AM on February 8, 2008
"Ladakh & Zanskar, up on the Tibetan plateau in the north of India, are incredibly barren." Fair enough. I worked at altitudes between 800m-3000m in the Hindu Kush, where lower down there was not enough water. As you got higher lack of water became less of a problem because upstream villages have dibs on the meltwater. The restrictions on agriculture were more the technical difficulty in terracing, increase in labour costs in prepping the land etc. Never really thought water would... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by YouRebelScum
at 5:13 AM on February 8, 2008
MeFi post:
Sentenced to Death
As usual with Afghanistan, there's a whole load here going on that doesn't come out. The guy's brother has been writing about some of the big bad Balkhis for some time with the Institute of War and Peace Reporting. Balkh and Mazar have an exceptionally complicated political background determined by all four of the major ethnicities, interlocking and mutually dependent. I worked up there for two years, and never really got how the alliances formed and shifted. The Western media doesn't really... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by YouRebelScum
at 4:06 AM on February 4, 2008
MeFi post:
Bloody Omaha
There are Bedouin in the Wadi Rum who participated in the filming of Lawrence of Arabia and who to this day believe that they met Lawrence and fought in his battles. Or so the story goes.
posted to MetaFilter by YouRebelScum
at 7:58 AM on January 15, 2008
zueod - it is a cute story. My old boss worked there for eight years and swears its the case. But yeah, hearsay, hence "so the story goes".
posted to MetaFilter by YouRebelScum
at 4:45 AM on January 16, 2008
MeFi post:
Kenya in Turmoil
The very idea that "stable goverments" can democratically be formed within deeply divided and tribal African societies seems absurd. How many times does the world have to witness this same experiment before we can conclude that it doesn't work?
I agree, but is there an argument for saying that you will almost certainly not get a stable government, but even an unstable government that exists peacefully for a while is better than [insert... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by YouRebelScum
at 8:19 AM on January 2, 2008
Aye, and there's a difference in what the participants themselves claim, not just the onlookers. In Ireland, the claim from those participating in the conflict is that their identity is keyed to religion (plus national issues). In Kenya, as far as I have read, claims of identity go chiefly to ethnicity rather than tribe (among a number of other claims, which depends on who the Kenyan is speaking to and the circumstances surrounding the discussion) - Kikuyu, Masai, whatever. So if it's the claim... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by YouRebelScum
at 10:24 AM on January 2, 2008
MeFi post:
Benazir Bhutto Assasinated
"And why aren't we demanding nuclear disarmament from both India and Pakistan? We should embargo both countries until they disarm, and pressure all our trading partners to do the same. India wouldn't be as keen on keeping their nukes if it meant losing their economy. Pakistan wouldn't be as happy with the nukes if it cost them $10 billion in aid. Nuclear weapons in that region are no better than nukes in Iran, perhaps worse."
Just how much power do you think... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by YouRebelScum
at 12:10 PM on December 27, 2007
MeFi post:
The Politics of Posters
"Well, if you ignore Bin Laden's escape and the ensuing cock-up over the past several years, Afghanistan was handled fairly well. But your final grade =! your mid-term exam." I'd agree. For the Afghans and particularly the minority ethnicities and the city dwellers the situation is much better than it was in August 01. For the Uzbeks, Tajiks and Hazaras there's an end to the bloody civil war. That's a great thing. OK, so the drugs have increased and the international community isn't... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by YouRebelScum
at 7:25 AM on December 10, 2007
"Six years ago coalition forces headed into Afghanistan to eradicate the Taliban. Now an international think tank says more than half of the country is under the Taliban's thumb." The Taliban had absolute control of all but a very small proportion of Afghanistan in August 01, not 54%. The remaining part was experiencing full scale ethnically oriented civil war. Second, the Senlis Council cannot claim 'under the thumb' according to their data. They can claim the ability to mount a... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by YouRebelScum
at 3:14 PM on December 10, 2007
MeFi post:
Blackwater: Our Stories
"...build a case for loving people whose job it is to murder other people". Does the same apply for soldiers on tour in Afghanistan or in Iraq? I certainly wouldn't look at the squaddies in that light, and yet a frequent profile for the mercenary companies' employees are soldiers who have been discharged at the age of thirty-something and who have no transferable skills. Sure, there are some pretty awful people in the mercernary companies, but there are some decent folk as well (at... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by YouRebelScum
at 7:00 AM on December 4, 2007
