Has AmeriKa ever got involved in...

[zoltan]

Lend Lease

"here, you can have a load of rotten first world war era ships that we were going to scrap and we'll have the Bahamas and some gold.

cheers"

 

[Andy the Don]

Interestingly two possible answers on this thread are cuba and vietnam who help selflessly other nations. What is their connection??

Rubbish Cuba sends medics to Venezuela in return for oil. In the 70's & 80's Cuba sent military personnel to Angola to participate in proxy cold war battles. Vietnam invaded Cambodia not primarily to bring down Pol Pot, but to prevent Chinese control over Cambodia. Vietnam was a client state of the Soviet's at the time. You will be very hard pushed to find a nation state that goes to war for altruistic reasons.

 

[nino_savatte]

Tsunami relief.

Right, so why did they hotfoot it to Indonesia rather than Sri Lanka or any of the other places affected by the Tsunami? I don't suppose you've heard about what's been happening in Aceh province and why the Indonesian state has worked so hard and so tirelessly to oppress the people of Aceh. Could it have anything to do with oil?

 

[nino_savatte]

Cuba's all about altruism.

http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/library/report/1984/STP.htm

Like the US? Cuba's international programs have been far more humanistic than the US's could ever be. I'll bet you think USAID is a purely benevolent agency that operates independently of the security apparatus.

 

[nick1181]

Has any country got involved in a conflict that was not in its self interest or had not become involved due to that country not being invaded. I am struggling to think of one. Britain in WWII maybe, coming to the aid of Poland..??

New Zealand declared war on Hitler's Germany before the British did.

NZ/Aus were constantly getting involved in wars for "King/Queen and Country" and treaties etc. NZ was involved in Vietnam. Christ knows why.

From time to time NZ sends troops as peacekeepers to tiny pacific/indonesian nations.

Does that count?

 

[Andy the Don]

New Zealand declared war on Hitler's Germany before the British did.

Actually you have go me thinking & I have thought of a country that has gone to war without having a direct cause.

South Africa, who was not a Dominion country of the British Empire, declared war against Germany immediately following Britain's declaration of war.

 

[poster342002]

Has any country got involved in an intervention incident for reasons that are not in their self interest?

Vietnam kicking out that fucker Pol Pot next door probably comes the closest - and even then it wasn't totally motivated by altruism.

 

[Johnny Canuck3]

Right, so why did they hotfoot it to Indonesia rather than Sri Lanka or any of the other places affected by the Tsunami? I don't suppose you've heard about what's been happening in Aceh province and why the Indonesian state has worked so hard and so tirelessly to oppress the people of Aceh. Could it have anything to do with oil?

When the earthquake hit, USAID immediately worked to mobilize staff to respond to the humanitarian needs in the affected countries. At the height of the relief effort, more than 150 USAID personnel, including Disaster Assistance experts, were on the ground in Indonesia, India, Sri Lanka, Thailand, the Maldives, and the Seychelles conducting assessments of affected areas, managing U.S. civilian response, participating in the overall coordination of relief and reconstruction activities, apprising funding requests, and recommending appropriate U.S.

http://www.whitehouse.gov/infocus/tsunami/

 

[likesfish]

the orginal mission to somalia was fairly selfless unfortunatly the UN and the US balked at doing nation building and tried to do a quick dirty deal not understanding somlai and it all went tits up

 

[Lock&Light]

"here, you can have a load of rotten first world war era ships that we were going to scrap and we'll have the Bahamas and some gold.

cheers"

Lend Lease involved a very great deal more than that.

In fact those fifty destroyers, which proved vital as escorts for the British convoys, were not even part of Lend Lease.

 

[krtek a houby]

The US, esp around Bill Clinton's stint, got more involved in the peace process in my country; Ireland. I am thankful for that because it gave people hope.

Besides that; I grew up in the Reagan years where Central American policy was shameful, where they armed Iraq, Israel etc... now we have the present incompetent, what more is there to say?

The US have squandered good will around the globe, thanks to the PNAC agenda. A bloody shame.

I blame that country the way it is now for the rise of fundamentalism; be it the Christian Rapturists or the Islamic Radicals. Now I am deemed to be an anti-American pink-wristed bearded liberal for my views. Well, certainly - if you can identify America as being just its rubbish Government and ignore all the good that has come out of that country, if you can ignore millions of Americans who want change - I have to be anti-American!

Pissed off with it all.

 

[nino_savatte]

When the earthquake hit, USAID immediately worked to mobilize staff to respond to the humanitarian needs in the affected countries. At the height of the relief effort, more than 150 USAID personnel, including Disaster Assistance experts, were on the ground in Indonesia, India, Sri Lanka, Thailand, the Maldives, and the Seychelles conducting assessments of affected areas, managing U.S. civilian response, participating in the overall coordination of relief and reconstruction activities, apprising funding requests, and recommending appropriate U.S.

http://www.whitehouse.gov/infocus/tsunami/

So, in an attempt to prove me wrong you drag something from the White House website. Not exactly an impartial source of information - is it? Clinton and Bush the Elder went straight to Indonesia; they didn't go to Thailand and they didn't visit Sri Lanka, they went to Indonesia. Furthermore USAID is closely linked to the security apparatus, you haven't got a reply to that.

It would appear that you've never heard of Aceh or its separatist movement...or the oil that happens to lie underground.

USAID's aid is not given unconditionally.

Something from William Bowles here. I anticipate a dismissal.
http://www.williambowles.info/ini/2006/1106/ini-0462.html

 

[zoltan]

so...........it looks like we have yet to identify any impartial intervention / aid etc that the 'MeiKans have sorted out ?

 

[Fruitloop]

Nope.

 

[N_igma]

so...........it looks like we have yet to identify any impartial intervention / aid etc that the 'MeiKans have sorted out ?

Are you surprised?

I've spent a bit studying humanitarian intervention and no one does it out of the goodness of their heart. That's the first thing you learn.

 

[MikeMcc]

Are you surprised?

I've spent a bit studying humanitarian intervention and no one does it out of the goodness of their heart. That's the first thing you learn.

So what do we ask for when we divert warships and RAF aircraft to doing just that?

 

[Fruitloop]

Well, I think the question concerns military action, the 'just war', rather than using the army to evacuate flood victims or whatever.

 

[MikeMcc]

then probably our actions in Sierra Leone and the AUs actions in places like the Congo or Darfur are probably the sort of thing to look at.

 

[Andy the Don]

then probably our actions in Sierra Leone and the AUs actions in places like the Congo or Darfur are probably the sort of thing to look at.

Darfur, the Balkans etc were/are under the auspices of international organisations. I think the OP means has a nation state ever gone to war for purely altruistic reasons. The UK's action in Sierra Leone was different it appears to have been for purely humanitarian reasons & was not a war as in there was no declaration of war between nation states. It was also a very bloody (for the SL militas) intervention. Untrained militas versus professional soldiers.

 

[Johnny Canuck3]

So, in an attempt to prove me wrong you drag something from the White House website. Not exactly an impartial source of information - is it? Clinton and Bush the Elder went straight to Indonesia; they didn't go to Thailand and they didn't visit Sri Lanka, they went to Indonesia. Furthermore USAID is closely linked to the security apparatus, you haven't got a reply to that.

It would appear that you've never heard of Aceh or its separatist movement...or the oil that happens to lie underground.

USAID's aid is not given unconditionally.

Something from William Bowles here. I anticipate a dismissal.
http://www.williambowles.info/ini/2006/1106/ini-0462.html

You'll recall that Banda Aceh was near the epicenter, and thus was one of the hardest-hit areas.

Two American aid organizations are joining forces to deliver emergency health services to tsunami survivors in Sri Lanka’s Eastern Province.

http://www.imcworldwide.org/pr_PR010705-SriLanka.shtml

Earlier the two former leaders had joined President Bush and first lady Laura Bush on a visit to the embassies of the four hardest-hit countries -- Indonesia, Sri Lanka, India and Thailand. President Clinton was exceptionally kind and generous to the affected people, and had cuddled and hugged many of the survivors.

http://library.thinkquest.org/04oct/01724/relief_us.html

 

[nino_savatte]

You'll recall that Banda Aceh was near the epicenter, and thus was one of the hardest-hit areas.

Two American aid organizations are joining forces to deliver emergency health services to tsunami survivors in Sri Lanka’s Eastern Province.

http://www.imcworldwide.org/pr_PR010705-SriLanka.shtml

Earlier the two former leaders had joined President Bush and first lady Laura Bush on a visit to the embassies of the four hardest-hit countries -- Indonesia, Sri Lanka, India and Thailand. President Clinton was exceptionally kind and generous to the affected people, and had cuddled and hugged many of the survivors.

http://library.thinkquest.org/04oct/01724/relief_us.html

And the Aceh separatists?

President Clinton was exceptionally kind and generous to the affected people, and had cuddled and hugged many of the survivors.

Nice bit of copy there.

 

[Rainingstairs]

....an internation incident / whatever for reasons that are NOT self intyerest?

we can quote the various examples of US intervention etc with self interest as the root cause, but have they ever done anything globally for "objective" good ?

countries don't have friends they have interests. that's pretty much how it is across the board. UK included

 

[nick1181]

New Zealand is kindof friends with Australia - although there's a fair bit of good - natured piss-taking.