Hunger and Famine in Somalia :(

[deathclaw]

UN has tried to impose democracy in Somalia since Siad Barre fell from power in 1991. The result has been bloodshed.

There's no point in keeping a unified Somali state, since the people obviously don't think of themselves as a united country. Somaliland, Puntland, and Mogadishu itself are very different worlds, and trying to submit them to the authority of the provisional government (which is located in Kenya, by the way) will only end up in civil war.

The UN can cry all they want about not being able to reach the refugees to give them food. They should try, incidentaly, to stop fucking bombing the people. It might help. Same goes for the US, that has been dropping bombs there for quite a while, and even actually invaded Somalia in 2009 (and continued to back the Kenyan troops that invaded since).

EXACTLY. In the beginning of the 20th century there was 100 million people in Africa. In 1950, there was 224 milion of them. In 2010, there was a billion people, that's almost 4,5 fold increase in just 60 years. This is just ridiculous. The people there starve and yet thanks to, or better because of organizations like the UN and many others, there's a population explosion. Can you imagine, how well of would they be, if the money they get would be divided just for those 224 million? I am not even talking about those 100 million, the Africans would be better of than most of the world.

If this trend continues, it will be worse and worse. It's draining us on one hand and hurting them more and more on the other hand.
"Foreign aid might be defined as a transfer from poor people in rich countries to rich people in poor countries."-- Douglas Casey, 1992

If somebody just addressed the real problem, why are they really poor... http://washingtonexaminer.com/opinion/c ... emain-poor

[Ack]

Same goes for the US, that has been dropping bombs there for quite a while, and even actually invaded Somalia in 2009 (and continued to back the Kenyan troops that invaded since).

We were also there for a botched and short lived peacekeeping operation in the mid-1990s, the contents of which ended up in the book and film Black Hawk Down. That said, the reason we went back in 2009 involves the Islamic factions' connections to al-Qaeda. The region has also become known for its piracy on the high seas, and ships from a variety of countries have been attack off the Somali coast while using the major shipping lanes there, so Somalia is somewhat of an international problem.

^ yea maybe the US should stay out of this, like they did with Cambodia, Vietnam, and Laos after the Vietnam war.

All those countries now are stablize and moving towards properous years.
Ever since the creation of ASEAN the whole region have seen improvements in all fields except Human Rights

You're right, it only took genocide, one of the largest mass departures of refugees in the history of the world, a decade of people disappearing to communist reeducation camps, war between Cambodia and Vietnam, as well as war between Vietnam and China, and concern over human rights abuses in Laos to get them there.

As for why we ended up in those nations in the first place, it was to combat communism and the expansion of what we saw as the Soviet empire. And when we left, all three of those nations became communist nations, which in turn ruled by force, by silencing free speech, and by stifling alternate political beliefs which didn't adhere to the state-controlled ideal. Many of the refugees from all three nations have made it into the United States.

Communism also spread through the area to the Philippines, where the New People's Army has been fighting a protracted guerrilla war for the last 40 years, as well as Indonesia, where it was stamped out by a military government after launching a failed coup to assassinate high ranking military and government officials.

As for why we generally reacted forcefully to communist expansion, we learned a hard lesson in the wake of the Yalta Conference between Franklin Roosevelt, Winston Churchill, and Joseph Stalin. Stalin offered to administer Poland and other nations after World War II, with the understanding that he would launch free elections for the self-determination of each nation within several years. Instead Stalin took over, installed communist governments, and founded the Warsaw Pact. In a very short period, the US, UK, and their allies watched in horror as eastern Europe was stripped of its right to choose its fate and instead forcibly integrated into the Soviet Union.

As for why we didn't allow those nations formerly under French colonial rule to determine their own futures at the end of WWII despite Franklin Roosevelt's anti-colonial stance, France demanded their Southeast Asian colonies back. The United Kingdom backed this request, knowing full well that if France lost its empire, the British Empire would follow. I've also been told France threatened to join the Soviet Union if it didn't get its way, but I don't know if that is entirely true. Plus, Roosevelt was dead by that point, and it came down to Truman's decision.

[Erik_Twice]

If somebody just addressed the real problem, why are they really poor...

No shit Sherlock! Really, it's impossible to bring law to those countries because they aren't prepared for it and they can't get prepared for it because they don't have law.

Tell me how you would adress the problem. Pretty sure it falls into one of the following: 1) It has been tried 2) It didn't work 3) It's a drop of water in the sea

You can't even make them stop killing each other so what are you going to do?

[BoringSupreez]

^ yea maybe the US should stay out of this, like they did with Cambodia, Vietnam, and Laos after the Vietnam war.

All those countries now are stablize and moving towards properous years.
Ever since the creation of ASEAN the whole region have seen improvements in all fields except Human Rights

You're right, it only took genocide, one of the largest mass departures of refugees in the history of the world, a decade of people disappearing to communist reeducation camps, war between Cambodia and Vietnam, as well as war between Vietnam and China, and concern over human rights abuses in Laos to get them there.

As for why we ended up in those nations in the first place, it was to combat communism and the expansion of what we saw as the Soviet empire. And when we left, all three of those nations became communist nations, which in turn ruled by force, by silencing free speech, and by stifling alternate political beliefs which didn't adhere to the state-controlled ideal. Many of the refugees from all three nations have made it into the United States.

Communism also spread through the area to the Philippines, where the New People's Army has been fighting a protracted guerrilla war for the last 40 years, as well as Indonesia, where it was stamped out by a military government after launching a failed coup to assassinate high ranking military and government officials.

As for why we generally reacted forcefully to communist expansion, we learned a hard lesson in the wake of the Yalta Conference between Franklin Roosevelt, Winston Churchill, and Joseph Stalin. Stalin offered to administer Poland and other nations after World War II, with the understanding that he would launch free elections for the self-determination of each nation within several years. Instead Stalin took over, installed communist governments, and founded the Warsaw Pact. In a very short period, the US, UK, and their allies watched in horror as eastern Europe was stripped of its right to choose its fate and instead forcibly integrated into the Soviet Union.

As for why we didn't allow those nations formerly under French colonial rule to determine their own futures at the end of WWII despite Franklin Roosevelt's anti-colonial stance, France demanded their Southeast Asian colonies back. The United Kingdom backed this request, knowing full well that if France lost its empire, the British Empire would follow. I've also been told France threatened to join the Soviet Union if it didn't get its way, but I don't know if that is entirely true. Plus, Roosevelt was dead by that point, and it came down to Truman's decision.

This. Too many people criticize US foreign policy from 1945 through 1975 without fully understanding the circumstances and context.

[deathclaw]

If somebody just addressed the real problem, why are they really poor...

No shit Sherlock! Really, it's impossible to bring law to those countries because they aren't prepared for it and they can't get prepared for it because they don't have law.

Tell me how you would adress the problem. Pretty sure it falls into one of the following: 1) It has been tried 2) It didn't work 3) It's a drop of water in the sea

You can't even make them stop killing each other so what are you going to do?

I like the idea of charter cities http://econlog.econlib.org/archives/201 ... se_fo.html

Then, I would give money to establish some law enforcement instead of plain feeding of people that cannot live on their own, it cures the symptoms, not the cause. And by doing this, the cause is getting worse and worse. It's just ridiculous that in just 60 years the population went up 4,5 fold. For whom was this helpful? It costs the western world a lot of money and yet it is net damage for Africa.

When the law is enforced there, there could be set up factories - since the price of the labor in China goes up, the labor in Africa will be more and more attractive for foreign investors. Altough many people would complain about them being exploited...they would rather see them starving than earning what little they could. And of course, these are the people that keep pouring money to Africa...from pockets of other people.

[Erik_Twice]

I like the idea of charter cities http://econlog.econlib.org/archives/201 ... se_fo.html

I see absolutedly nothing new here.

"Each charter city requires one or more nations to play three logically distinct roles:

The host country provides uninhabited land.
The source country or countries provide residents.
The guarantor country or countries ensure that the city’s charter is respected."

Providing unsitable uninhabited land is already a nightmare and the cities laws can't be hold or we wouldn't be having this situation.

Then, I would give money to establish some law enforcement

Easier said than done, it has been tried in the past and failed. No Goverment likes international powers funding their own police, specially corrupt ones.

And the problem isn't "no goverment would allow it", it's which one of the twelve local goverments in constant warfare against each other you are going to give money to.