Roads to war in Europe | 272 comments (272 topical, editorial, 0 hidden)

The deaths from the current depression already number in the thousands.

You will need at least one more digit to count the fatalities of even an unsuccessful attempt to start a civil war.

- Jake

Friends come and go. Enemies accumulate.

by JakeS (JangoSierra 'at' gmail 'dot' com) on Wed Mar 6th, 2013 at 07:35:37 AM EST
[ Parent ]

If you are going to argue that war is no worse than peace, I'll leave the discussion to others. Ciao.

_{It is rightly acknowledged that people of faith have no monopoly of virtue
- Queen Elizabeth II}

by eurogreen on Wed Mar 6th, 2013 at 07:54:55 AM EST
[ Parent ]

Re: To clarify (4.00 / 2)

Looks to me like he just said that war will be at least an order of magnitude worse than peace, he's just pointing out the death-toll of war-by-other-means.

by Colman (colman at eurotrib.com) on Wed Mar 6th, 2013 at 08:12:33 AM EST
[ Parent ]

Re: To clarify (4.00 / 6)

I suggest you keep an open mind. In my country there were, in the 20th century 4 regime changes (monarchy -> republic -> fascism -> democracy). At least 4 coup attempts (surely more). A king shot (counts only as 1).

And I am quite sure that much more people died because of austerity in the 2007-2013 cycle, then in the cases above.

In the coups/revolutions there were barely no direct deaths, probably little indirect deaths. The indirect death tool of austerity is surely greater already.

Sure, not civil war above. But serious events.

The name "war" might be ugly, but at the end of day what should count is human suffering. This "peace" has had many casualties already.

by cagatacos on Wed Mar 6th, 2013 at 08:27:27 AM EST
[ Parent ]

Re: To clarify (4.00 / 3)

Yeah...I suggest when ever you think "intervention" (some kind of occupation, even if it's not boots on the ground but just bombardment of some targets, or support of one group against another in weapon and logistics) try to imagine YOUR country, your people, in this situation. If it's for example France in civil war , try to imagine German's and Brit's "intervention" in France. Or if it's UK then imagine Germans and French intervening in your country's affairs...and all this after so much of the history that Europe has had...
Try to imagine the end of that intervention/peace with who ever "wins" this war and how your country is going to look like when winner takes power...Try to be honest to your self...Then decide if you are pro or anti intervention...

Science without religion is lame, religion without science is blind...Albert Einstein

by vbo on Wed Mar 6th, 2013 at 08:02:38 PM EST
[ Parent ]

How about historical examples. (none / 0)

I don't think anyone will disagree if I say that France should have intervened in Spain in 1936. Note he date: 1936, to help the Spanish government put down a military mutiny. Couple of hundred thousand lives saved.

What about Yugoslavia, 1991? Note, 1991. i.e. when militias are terrorizing villages, the Yugoslav army is coming apart/turning into a Serbian army, and the Croatian army hardly even exists. As I have suggested, a joint Franco-German intervention would not have been easy, and there probably would have been months of mayhem before they got things locked down, but... tens of thousands of lives saved. It doesn't solve the problems that precipitated the war, but those problems were never serious enough to justify war. Instead of a decade of wars, a decade of establishing a political process for partition of territory.

Perhaps my scenarios are not realistic, but they are a lot more objective than conjectures about future civil wars.

_{It is rightly acknowledged that people of faith have no monopoly of virtue
- Queen Elizabeth II}

by eurogreen on Thu Mar 7th, 2013 at 04:10:38 AM EST
[ Parent ]

Roads to war in Europe | 272 comments (272 topical, 0 editorial, 0 hidden)

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