If RPT was established prior to 1989

Red Moon said:

@airsuperiority, Britain, China, France, the US, and Russia, can do anything they want, without incurring any sanction at all from the Security Council. The inequality inherent in this setup was denounced a couple of years ago by guess who: Ghaddafi!

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Ghaddafi actually called out the powers that be a lot over the years, often making valid points that were just as often too ambitious for his abilities. It will probably be remembered as one of the dumbest moves of all time when he gave up his NBC weapons programs for promised increases in trade and investment from Western powers after both sides have drawn blood over the years. The first chance they had they immediately screwed him over, sucker!

---------- Post added at 03:12 AM ---------- Previous post was at 02:06 AM ----------

airsuperiority said:

Why I also brought this up is because RTP in Libya last year, which was taken up by NATO, acted on the concerns of Gaddafi troops surrounding a city and they deemed mass killings as imminent. Also coupled with Gaddafi's overt verbal announcements of killing all rebels, all 6 criteria were thus defined as evident, met, and warranted a response. Once again, it is a very Constructivist definition, which we also argued as a weakness of RTP, as what can be considered as "signs" and meeting criteria of RTP are very subjective.

Nonetheless, what Libya was, almost stark a striking resemblance with 1989, and definitely the footage of tanks rolling into the Square would've massively led to emergency UNSC meeting warning Beijing, although whether UNSC that time will declare a humanitarian crisis, need for "humanitarian intervention", and then calling RTP is what I'm asking now.

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Yeah RTP is subjective all right, anyone can use half-truths of any situation to justify intervention by whoever is capable of it against one side or another.

For example, the US invasion of Afghanistan meets all the requirements for RTP intervention against the US invasion. There is no way the US action caused less overall harm than inaction and clearly the US had intent to cause massive loss of life.

China in 1989 is nothing like Libya in 2011, for one the Chinese government didn't threaten to kill all who didn't disperse and most people did disperse. Chinese forces also didn't kill the majority of people who didn't disperse. More importantly nobody was going to militarily intervene in a country the size of China in terms of landmass and population, with significant military power including nuclear weapons.

It's drastic oversimplification to say there is video of tanks rolling in on both occasions so the situations are the same, it's also a perfect example of how sloppily a case can be made for RTP or intervention for one side or another.

If we're going to use examples from China, then RTP should have been used to protect Han Chinese from the Tibetans in the 2008 Tibet riots. Western coverage of those riots were mostly complete BS accusing Chinese of attacking Tibetans when it was actually the reverse.

RTP is likely to cost more lives and do more damage than a return to the Westphalian model of international relations.

solarz said:

I guess these things are made up then?

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I have personally witnessed many non-aboriginal people living in worse conditions, they just don't get the attention because they are not aboriginals.

solarz said:

I guess these things are made up then?

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LOL, why should we care? They're known for not working. Why should we pay tax to support them, when they're not working and just stay at home? Why should I pay tax so that their kids can go to university for free, even though my ancestors haven't killed any of them?

It's simple, they can get a job and get a better place. It's not our responsibility to feed them.

Plus, this would be a very rare case for reserves. I have been to a lot of reserves when I was doing door to door sales during the summer. I have not yet seen a house that wasn't as extravagant as a million dollar mansion.

CottageLV said:

LOL, why should we care? They're known for not working. Why should we pay tax to support them, when they're not working and just stay at home? Why should I pay tax so that their kids can go to university for free, even though my ancestors haven't killed any of them?

It's simple, they can get a job and get a better place. It's not our responsibility to feed them.

Plus, this would be a very rare case for reserves. I have been to a lot of reserves when I was doing door to door sales during the summer. I have not yet seen a house that wasn't as extravagant as a million dollar mansion.

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There's a common misconception that reserves are autonomous. That's not true.

The Indian Act gives the Minister of Indian Affairs the right to "determine whether any purpose for which lands in a reserve are used is for the use and benefit of the band." Title to land within the reserve may only be transferred to the band or to individual band members. Reserve lands may not be seized legally, nor is the personal property of a band or a band member living on a reserve subject to "charge, pledge, mortgage, attachment, levy, seizure distress or execution in favour or at the instance of any person other than an Indian or a band" (section 89 (1) of the Indian Act). While the act was intended to protect the Indian holdings, the limitations make it difficult for the reserves and their residents to obtain financing for development and construction, or renovation. To answer this need, Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation (CMHC) has created an on-reserve housing loan program. Members of bands may enter into a trust agreement with CMHC, and lenders can receive loans to build or repair houses. In other programs, loans to residents of reserves are guaranteed by the federal government.

Provinces and municipalities may expropriate reserve land only if specifically authorized by a provincial or federal law. Few reserves have any economic advantages, such as resource revenues. The revenues of those reserves which do, are held in trust by the Minister of Indian Affairs. Reserve lands and the personal property of bands and resident band members are exempt from all forms of taxation except local taxation.

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The Indian Act also creates a situation where the average aboriginal lives in a dictatorial community comparable to North Korea:

Think about it this way: What if you, your neighbours and everyone else in your community had to rely on your municipal council for your income, your kids' education, your family's health care and housing? You had no independent income. What pay you received came through the local mayor and aldermen. You didn't own your own home. Where you lived and whether it was repaired or not was decided by council. You held your job at the pleasure of council, too, the same council that chose whether your children's university tuition and residence fees were paid for another year.

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And because of the nature of Canada's political process, nobody is willing to change the status quo. All that happens is responsibility gets shuffled around while the troubled communities slip further under the cracks.

It's a difficult world we live in. RPT does offer some protection against what would be pure wars of aggression. Venezuela for example profits from RPT. If you accept minimal conditions for good governance defined by the US-led camp, you are on the safe side. Many countries got that wrong because they're not able to adapt to these conditions. Their ruling elite is too much dependent on sucking the wealth out of a country and distributing it to their followers. Now wait a moment, if it is about the ability of earning money in a country being limited to a specific group, we get to the core of the problem. The country has abundant less fortunate wealthy people who feel mistreated by the ruling group and for this reason establish connections to wealthy people in influential and powerful countries in order to ameliorate their earning abilities. Such a deal definitely means mutual profits and it's a very old game. The greater availability of making a profit is the core element of the ideal Western world and the Westernized world that is being exported. Democracy is the official legal framework to run this business because it offers outlets for grievances and is thus quite stable, but as someone phrased it "one dollar, one vote" doesn't only apply to consumption, but also to the ability to twist power in useful ways.
After understanding that, it's quite easy to understand where the West needs to intervene according to RPT, split societies without enough local business partners for the West. Intervention in China for example would have been prohibitively expensive and of little value because it couldn't have been conducted as a quick campaign and would thus create a national backlash against humiliation and betrayal. It was the wiser choice not to intervene, but keep the remembrance alive in order to have the internal wounds caused by this event wide open as a way to gain access.
Understanding the West is perhaps a bit difficult. Like on many other places on earth there live many people who want to do good things and consider it bad if someone commits atrocities to other people (or animals or the ecosystem). If possible they want to support doing something against that. The other pillar are vested financial interests that finance the media outlets by advertising for consumerism. Thus there are limits of reports because you need someone buying your advertising space (one dollar one vote), but no censorship like in China, rather there are fringe market niches for conspiracy narratives with corresponding social repercussions if you voice such claims in mainstream environment. So there is a connection of financial interest between local suppressed business partners in failed states that are able to organize protests and influential Western figures that support them. This has been pretty normal in most of the world for millenias, although China, because of their previously isolated position from peer competitors, might consider this something new.