[lit-ideas] Re: The Peace of Westphalia
- From: "Lawrence Helm" <lawrencehelm@xxxxxxxxxxxx>
- To: <lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Wed, 27 Sep 2006 21:07:56 -0700
That's nonsense Irene. The Peace of Westphalia was not a pattern for
anything except not fighting wars for religious reasons. You're making the
rest of that up. But why? Did you think I wouldn't know? Why do you say
stuff like this? You corkscrew yourself into admitting it in your own
perverse way by saying, "whether they fought them over religion or something
else is irrelevant." I have identified what the Peace of Westphalia did.
It primarily ended wars for religious reasons in the West. The
solidification of the nations after 1648 was a problem only for the German
States, that is those who wanted Germany to become a great empire. It was a
hypothetical problem if Marx and Sayyid Qutb turned out to be right. Don't
just keep repeating your assertions Irene. Show me some evidence that
contradicts what I've written.
As to Europeans being warlike, I have argued that for years -- as has Victor
Davis Hanson. No one in the world can reasonably expect to defeat a Western
army -- although the Europeans have been trying to give up their warlike
ways -- fairly wishy-washy about even NATO. As it is now, the
English-Speaking West is the most proficient at war. But being proficient
and being aggressive are two different things. We are very very slow to go
to war. We in the US are still inclined, many of us, toward isolationism.
It takes a lot to get us into a war and then, you probably haven't noticed,
we want to end it as quickly as possible. The dumbest among us and those
who masochistically hate themselves in the US want us to retreat from
victory. That always seems to be going on at some level. We are the best
fighters, but back at home are whiners who want us to lose. Can we win
despite them? That has been an iffy matter for many years now.
As to offensive wars against Militant Islam, you're making that up as well.
And of course you have to because you hate America, but the facts are that
America was attacked and the US has responded with considerable force. You
don't like the response, but then neither does Al Quaeda, Osama bin Laden,
Ahmadinejad, Noam Chomsky, and Ward Churchill. But that's tough. If we
have the guts, and if we have the sense not to listen to anti-American
Leftists, we will succeed.
As to the break-up of Yugoslavia after the fall of the Socialist paradise,
that is referred to primarily as ethnic war. In any case neither Yugoslavia
nor its component parts comprise Liberal Democracy in the European sense.
Yugoslavia didn't automatically become the West with the fall of the USSR:
The war in Bosnia and Herzegovina
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bosnia_and_Herzegovina> (also referred to as:
Bosnian Conflict <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conflict> , Aggression
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Invasion> on Bosnia and Herzegovina and
Bosnian Civil War <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Civil_war> ) was an armed
conflict that took place between March 1992 and November 1995. The war
involved several ethnically defined factions within Bosnia and
Herzegovina;Bosniaks <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bosniaks> , Serbs
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Serbs> and Croats
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Croats> as well as the lesser faction in
Western Bosnia <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Western_Bosnia> (Fikret
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fikret_Abdic> Abdic). These factions changed
their objectives and allegiances several times at various stages of the war.
(See: Parties <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bosnian_War#The_War> Involved)
Since the war in Bosnia was a consequence of events in the wider region of
former Yugoslavia, and due to the involvement of neighboring countries
Croatia <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Croatia> and Yugoslavia
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yugoslavia> , there is an ongoing debate about
whether the conflict was a civil war
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Civil_war> or an war of aggression
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/War_of_aggression> . Bosniaks
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bosniaks> and many Croats
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Croats> typically claim that the war was an
aggression from Serbia <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Serbia> , while Serbs
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Serbs> hold the view that it was a civil war
involving only Bosnia's constituent nations. The involvement of NATO
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NATO> , during the 1995 Operation Deliberate
Force <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Deliberate_Force> against the
positions of the Army of Republika Srpska
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Army_of_Republika_Srpska> made the war an
international conflict.
A trial is ongoing before the International Court of Justice
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Court_of_Justice> , following a
suit by Bosnia and Herzegovina
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bosnia_and_Herzegovina> against Serbia
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Serbia> for genocide (see Bosnian
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bosnian_genocide_case_at_the_International_Cou
rt_of_Justice> genocide case at the International Court of Justice)
intended to shed more light on the character of the war.
The war was brought to an end after the signing of the General Framework
Agreement for Peace in Bosnia and
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dayton_Agreement> Herzegovina in Paris
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paris> on 14
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/December_14> December 1995
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1995> [1]
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bosnian_War#_note-0> . The peace negotiations
were held in Dayton, <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dayton%2C_Ohio> Ohio,
and were finalized on 21 December <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/December_21>
1995 <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1995> . The accords are known as the
Dayton Agreement <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dayton_Agreement> .
The most recent research places the number of victims at around
100,000-110,000 killed (civilians and military)[2]
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bosnian_War#_note-hundred_thousand> [3]
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bosnian_War#_note-hundredthousand> [4]
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bosnian_War#_note-hundredthousandplus> , and
1.8 million displaced. (see Casualties
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bosnian_War#Casualties> )
And in another place: The Yugoslav wars were a series of violent conflicts
in the territory of the former Socialist Federal Republic of
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Socialist_Federal_Republic_of_Yugoslavia>
Yugoslavia that took place between 1991 and 2001. They comprised two sets of
successive wars affecting all of the six former Yugoslav republics.
Alternative terms in use include the "War in the Balkans", or "War in (the
former) Yugoslavia", "Wars of Yugoslav Secession", and the "Third Balkan
War" (a short-lived term coined by British journalist Misha Glenny
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Misha_Glenny> , alluding to the Balkan Wars
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Balkan_Wars> of 1912-1913).
They were characterised by bitter ethnic
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ethnic_conflict> conflicts between the
peoples of the former Yugoslavia, mostly between the Serbs
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Serbs> on the one side and Croats
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Croats> , Bosniaks
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bosniaks> or Albanians
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Albanians> on the other; but also between
Bosniaks and Croats in Bosnia <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bosnia> and
Macedonians <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Macedonians_%28ethnic_group%29>
and Albanians in Republic of Macedonia
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Republic_of_Macedonia> . The conflict had its
roots in various underlying political, economic and cultural problems, as
well as long-standing ethnic <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ethnic> and
religious <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Religion> tensions.
The wars ended with much of the former Yugoslavia reduced to poverty,
massive economic disruption and persistent instability across the
territories where the worst fighting occurred. The wars were the bloodiest
conflicts on European soil since the end of World War II. They were also the
first conflicts since World War II to have been formally judged genocidal
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Genocide> in character and many key
individual participants were subsequently charged with war crimes
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/War_crimes> . The International
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Criminal_Tribunal_for_the_former
_Yugoslavia> Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) was
established by United <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Nations> Nations
to prosecute these crimes.
Lawrence
_____
From: Andy Amago
Sent: Wednesday, September 27, 2006 7:01 PM
To: lit-ideas
Subject: [lit-ideas] Re: The Peace of Westphalia
The original point was that nation states were invented, so to speak, with
the Treaty of Westphalia. In addition to carving out Europe, it set the
precedent for dividing up the M.E. and Africa into new, artificial entities.
It was the nation states that later fought horrific wars. Whether they
fought them over religion or something else is irrelevant. The Peace of
Westphalia may have proved that the Europeans are simply warlike people who
need to fight war no matter the cost. Take away the religion and they'll
fight over something else. It's still unclear what WWI was fought about.
Before WWI and WWII there was Napoleon, quite the hero, the military genius,
hardly reviled, in European history. If the Europeans aren't fighting now
might be because the cost finally got too high, especially given that the
next war may involve nuclear weapons.
The U.S. has (more accurately had) proudly taken on the mantle of
warlikeness, with our nearly half trillion dollar military budget, our
military Keynesianism, and our offensive wars. For better or for worse,
that mantle has gotten quite a few tatters and holes in it of late, and the
hem's hanging. One wonders who will pick it up next. It would be ironic if
Iran (quite the formidable foe they are), picked it up next and proceeded to
parade around peacefully in it, but that has yet to be seen. The nation
state in the North American hemisphere is on the retreat, with the newly
emerging confederation of the U.S. and Mexico, with Canada most likely
coming into the picture at some point. It's wait and see if uncreating a
nation state will be more peaceful than creating it. As far as religious
wars per se in Europe, if the Balkans are in Europe, then that was
religiously motivated genocide of Christians against Mu slims.
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