The DnD Sanctuary

The events of 9/11 were tragic for those involved, but the ongoing sense of dread that exists in the media is absurd. Now it's ISIS.
Consider this from Nationalinterest.org (http://Nationalinterest.org)

While some in Congress and elsewhere still believe ISIS is a localized problem of little concern to the United States, the inconvenient truth is that ISIS actually represents a dangerous new chapter in the global war being waged by Al Qaeda and its affiliated and inspired groups, and a clear and present threat to the U.S. homeland.

Amil Khan, writing for Huffington Post put it well.

As a journalist who covered extremism across the world since the 9/11 attacks, and then worked with governments to counter it, I fear the reaction to al Qaeda attacks more than the attacks themselves. The attacks are aimed at making young impressionable Muslims believe that al Qaeada's words are true. In reality, the attacks themselves don't accomplish that, but the reactions do. The images of occupation, arbitrary arrests, racial profiling, reports of torture, vigilante attacks etc. demonstrate the veracity of al Qaeda's claims much better than the group could ever do itself."

And in France the French police response to the Charlie Hebdo attack was the mobilization of 88,150 personnel. I'm sure that's a response popular with the French public, but how effective will it be.

What think you? Better yet, what tactics might be effective in dealing with terrorist groups?

Terrorist groups morph over time. AQ in the shape of bin Laden and pals didn't really have the US as their principal enemy, merely instrumental in toppling the Saudis. The notoriety they got as the US Public Enemy #1 helped their branding and marketing. Oddly, given all that the US has given Muslims, Anti-Americanism is a valuable commodity in most Muslim countries (as it is, evidently, in select parts of Glasgow).

Terrorist groups also outstay their welcome. Brand AQ has had its failures, but has proven quite flexible and nimble, if not that effective. ISIL, a product of the Iraqi civil war breaking out into the Syrian civil war, is primarily a threat to Muslims.

Better yet, what tactics might be effective in dealing with terrorist groups?

Simple.....Someone suggested......

For every one of "OURS" they murder, we kill 500,000 of them.

No one is spared. Every Man, Woman, & Child.

Total Eradication of those feral Islamic infestations wherever they exist on this planet, no matter what they profess or pretend to be.

There will be no safe-havens, or exceptions.

Personally, I think this might be a tad extreme, 500,000 seems like a silly number, but hey, who am I to judge.

At that rate it would take over 200 years to clean out those terrorists.

Let me get out of here!
Oh, wait! I'm already out of there.
So far.

For every one of "OURS" they murder, we kill 500,000 of them.

129,000 or so in Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Hmmm. Innocent people included.
Perhaps you need a profile pic.
(https://dndsanctuary.eu/imagecache.php?image=http%3A%2F%2Fi.telegraph.co.uk%2Fmultimedia%2Farchive%2F01881%2Fhitler_1881083c.jpg&hash=12a42bb900333b1a7c28cff810ac0709" rel="cached" data-hash="12a42bb900333b1a7c28cff810ac0709" data-warn="External image, click here to view original" data-url="http://i.telegraph.co.uk/multimedia/archive/01881/hitler_1881083c.jpg)

"OURS"

Are you sure you have "ours"?

Better yet, what tactics might be effective in dealing with terrorist groups?

I wasn't asked what tactics I would think appropriate myself. The OP clearly defined he just wanted tactics, & the source was, by definition, immaterial.

Someone suggested......

I've come across mountains of suggestions in my travels, so I merely used a solution that another author suggested a long while back, on another forum, the location of which ATM I can't quite put my trigger finger on.  (https://www.smileyfaze.tk/slides/imthinkin6.gif)



It might, or it might not be effective.

Who knows, but I'll leave that to your fertile imaginations.

If someone would like to give it a go though, I'd be more than curious to see if the outcome was or wasn't. ;)

Remember that in the Middle East, they're used to dealing with war in a way that our Western minds can barely grasp. Total annihilation of a city--even the animals being killed--- is what war has been through the ages in that part of the world. When they didn't do it to that level, they enslaved the survivors of the town they sacked, carrying off their choice young men and women and forcing them to march to their new homes where they would serve their masters.

They still want to fight that way today. If ISIS wins, they will kill off most and enslave the rest. It's the way war is done over that way-- so if we were to turn the place into a glass coffee-table with our WMDs, it would only be what is expected over there.

Remember that in the Middle East, they're used to dealing with war in a way that our Western minds can barely grasp. Total annihilation of a city--even the animals being killed--- is what war has been through the ages in that part of the world. When they didn't do it to that level, they enslaved the survivors of the town they sacked, carrying off their choice young men and women and forcing them to march to their new homes where they would serve their masters.

They still want to fight that way today. If ISIS wins, they will kill off most and enslave the rest. It's the way war is done over that way-- so if we were to turn the place into a glass coffee-table with our WMDs, it would only be what is expected over there.

Sam Harris tried politology (http://www.samharris.org/blog/item/the-limits-of-discourse). He approached Chomsky by email to set up a debate or discussion, but Chomsky declined. The email exchange itself became the discussion and Harris published it.

The main focus became Chomsky's comparison of 9/11 bombings with the bombings of Al-Shifa pharmaceutical plant in Sudan by Clinton. The assessment of the morality of the respective acts - and how to assess morality - of course is the fundamental point of disagreement between Chomsky and Harris.

Some excerpts, from which you can hopefully form an opinion.

Beyond correcting our misreadings, I think we could have a very interesting conversation about the ethical issues surrounding war, terrorism, the surveillance state, and so forth.

[Harris first quotes a passage from Chomsky's 9/11 and then comments on it:] For [Chomsky], intentions do not seem to matter. Body count is all.

The example that you cite illustrates very well why I do not see any point in a public discussion. [...]

You also ignored the fact that I had already responded to your claim about lack of intention—which, frankly, I find quite shocking on elementary moral grounds, [Chomsky quoting his own Radical Priorities:] "Most commentary on the Sudan bombing keeps to the question of whether the plant was believed to produce chemical weapons; true or false, that has no bearing on “the magnitude with which the aggression interfered with key values in the society attacked,” such as survival. Others point out that the killings were unintended, as are many of the atrocities we rightly denounce."

What would I say about al-Qaeda (or any other group) if it destroyed half the pharmaceutical supplies in the U.S.? It would depend on what they intended to do. Consider the following possibilities: Imagine that al-Qaeda is filled, not with God-intoxicated sociopaths intent upon creating a global caliphate, but genuine humanitarians. Based on their research, they believe that a deadly batch of vaccine has made it into the U.S. pharmaceutical supply.

The scenario you describe here is, I’m afraid, so ludicrous as to be embarrassing.  It hasn’t even the remotest relation to Clinton’s decision to bomb al-Shifa – not because they had suddenly discovered anything remotely like what you fantasize here, or for that matter any credible evidence at all, and by sheer coincidence, immediately after the Embassy bombings for which it was retaliation, as widely acknowledged.

[...]

I’ve seen apologetics for atrocities before, but rarely at this level – not to speak of the refusal to withdraw false charges, a minor fault in comparison.

Since you profess to be concerned about “God-intoxicated sociopaths,” perhaps you can refer me to your condemnation of the perpetrator of by far the worst crime of this millennium because God had instructed him that he must smite the enemy.

[...]

As for intentions, there is nothing at all to say in general.  There is a lot to say about specific cases, like the al-Shifa bombing, or Japanese fascists in China (who you should absolve, on your grounds, since there’s every reason to suppose that their intention to bring an “earthly paradise” was quite real), and other cases I’ve discussed, including Hitler and high Stalinist officials.  So your puzzlement about my attitude towards intentions generally is quite understandable.  There can be no general answer.  Accordingly, you give none.  Nor do I.

I’m glad that you are interested in looking at the other cases I’ve discussed for 50 years, addressing exactly the question you claim I ignored.  These cases shed great light on the ethical question of how to evaluate “benign intentions”.  As I’ve discussed for many years, in fact decades, benign intentions are virtually always professed, even by the worst monsters, and hence carry no information, even in the technical sense of that term.  That’s quite independent of their “sincerity,” however we determine that (pretty easy in the Japanese case, and the question doesn’t even arise in the al-Shifa case).

Well, let’s chalk some of this up to the well-understood problem of email. I doubt that we would have achieved this level of cantankerousness in a face-to-face exchange.

[...]

Here is my assumption about the al-Shifa case. I assume that Clinton believed that it was, in fact, a chemical weapons factory—because I see no rational reason for him to have intentionally destroyed a pharmaceutical plant in retaliation for the embassy bombings. I take it that you consider this assumption terribly naive. Why so?

[...]

With respect to al-Shifa, for instance, you draw some very confident (and, I suspect, unwarranted) inferences from the timing of events. (Is it really “inconceivable” that the government already believed it to be a chemical weapons factory?) Do I have to accept to all your assumptions in order to discuss the underlying ethics?

And your ethical position is still unclear (to me). You say that you are NOT claiming that “Clinton intentionally wanted to kill thousands of victims.” Okay. But you seem to be suggesting that he had every reason to expect that he would be killing them by his actions (and just didn’t care). And you seem disinclined to distinguish the ethics of these cases.

...you may, if you like, believe that when Clinton bombed Afghanistan and Sudan in immediate reaction to the Embassy bombings (and in retaliation, it is naturally assumed), he had credible information that he was bombing a chemical factory – which also was, as publicly known, the major pharmaceutical factory in Sudan (which, of course, could not replenish supplies), and he judged that the evidence was strong enough to overlook the human consequences.  But, oddly, he was never able to produce a particle of credible evidence, as was widely reported.  And when informed immediately (by HRW) that a humanitarian catastrophe was already beginning he ignored it, as he ignored the subsequent evidence about the scale of the casualties (as you incidentally did too).

[...]

I’ll put aside your apologetics for the crimes for which you and I share responsibility, which, frankly, I find quite shocking, particularly on the part of someone who feels entitled to deliver moral lectures.

And I’ll also put aside your interesting feeling that you see no challenge when your accusations are refuted point by point, along with a demonstration that you are the one who refuses to address the “basic questions” that you charge me with ignoring, even after you have learned that I had dealt with them quite specifically before you wrote, and in fact for decades.

It would also be interesting if, someday, you decide actually to become concerned with “God-intoxicated sociopaths,” most notably, the perpetrator of by far the worst crime of this millennium who did so, he explained, because God had instructed him that he must smite the enemy.

I’m afraid I won’t take the bait, apart from asking the obvious question: If you’re so sure you’ve acquitted yourself well in this conversation, exposing both my intellectual misconduct with respect your own work and my moral blindness regarding the actions of our government, why not let me publish it in full so that our readers can draw their own conclusions?

The idea of publishing personal correspondence is pretty weird, a strange form of exhibitionism – whatever the content.  Personally, I can’t imagine doing it.  However, if you want to do it, I won’t object.

[Sam Harris' monologue post-exchange]

What would the reaction have been if al-Qaeda had blown up half the pharmaceuticals in the U.S.? I’m sure it would have been considered a terrorist atrocity, and rightly so. Where is my published attack on the religious motivations of George Bush? It’s in my book The End of Faith and in many subsequent articles. I wasn’t dodging these questions. I just viewed them as distractions from the necessary work of our first agreeing about basic ethical principles.  Nothing I said or didn’t say should have been construed as an unwillingness to criticize the U.S. government or to discuss any of its specific actions that may, in fact, constitute atrocities. As to whether we can trust Chomsky’s account of the al-Shifa bombing, I have my doubts.

While Choamsky is known in Europe as an American libertarian leftist the other is totally unknown.
What's the point? if (good) intentions constitute a moral justification for (censurable) acts?

Remember that in the Middle East, they're used to dealing with war in a way that our Western minds can barely grasp.

Revisiting Hiroshima.
(https://dndsanctuary.eu/imagecache.php?image=http%3A%2F%2Fiyftc1oqf704bytwz45ub151.wpengine.netdna-cdn.com%2Fwp-content%2Fuploads%2F2013%2F08%2FHiroshima-Atomic-Bomb-After-1945-Harbert-F-Austin-Hiroshima-Peace-Museum.jpg&hash=b29cfde950b819faf531f80e8cb9a04f" rel="cached" data-hash="b29cfde950b819faf531f80e8cb9a04f" data-warn="External image, click here to view original" data-url="http://iyftc1oqf704bytwz45ub151.wpengine.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/08/Hiroshima-Atomic-Bomb-After-1945-Harbert-F-Austin-Hiroshima-Peace-Museum.jpg)

Every time I see such pictures from those two Japanese cities it fills me with sadness, dread and other emotions. It did not just effect people of the time but the generations who cam after who suffered via their family line. Head shaking.

While Choamsky is known in Europe as an American libertarian leftist the other is totally unknown.

Both have earned their respective reputations well. Particularly the other one has worked hard for it.

What's the point? if (good) intentions constitute a moral justification for (censurable) acts?

Harris questions everybody else's premises, but takes his own for granted. It never occurs to him to argue for it nor to question it. He's an example of what I said in the other thread. This is the reputation he has earned.

In Europe, people like this are ignored. In America, he is a celebrated public speaker. He's got a fan base in Australia too though, so I have heard.

Quote from: mjmsprt40 on 2015-05-14, 19:36:25

Remember that in the Middle East, they're used to dealing with war in a way that our Western minds can barely grasp.

Revisiting Hiroshima.

You can add Conventry and Dresden to the list. Also, the cleansing of Eastern Europe populations by the Nazi war machine. And the napalming of villages.

When I heard the news of Hiroshima's obliteration one Saturday morning, my little heart leapt with delight. I had five relatives fighting in the Pacific theatre, all of whom were now likely to make it home.

Imagine! We're still debating the necessity of America's nuclear-bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki…

The war in the Pacific had to be ended. It would, anyway. (The previous bombings of the home-islands had killed more than those two A-bombed cities' casualties…) The main purpose of those A-bombs was to preclude an invasion of the main islands, by offering the Emperor a way out of ignoble defeat.
Score one, for technology!
There was the probably utmost importantly the dire "message" to the Soviet Union: Back off! Which -for a while- worked. (But they -likely- already expected to "steal" our nuclear "secrets"… :) ) Who knew how long Stalin would last?

As in our current conflict, we dealt with an "alien" culture. What will it take, to bring them to heel?
History is sometimes shrouded in mists…

I'd like to agree with Howie, that most adherents of Islam are keen on our extinction. That would surely make things simpler… But public opinion polls, the mainstay of sociology, don't convince me of much; their methodologies and -what would you call it?- "proclivities" lead me to think that they have nothing to say, beyond supporting and supplanting their preconceived notions.
Journalism is -I fear, and for good reason- in disrepute.

I maintain my original stance: Keep our distance! Let the Umma deal with it's own problems; let's keep away.
I don't wish them ill. I just don't wish to be responsible for them…

Imagine! We're still debating the necessity of America's nuclear-bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki…

The war in the Pacific had to be ended. It would, anyway. (The previous bombings of the home-islands had killed more than those two A-bombed cities' casualties…)

I see. In your world it's okay to instantly double civilian casualties in order to arguably avoid quadrupling them. I'm sure this point sounds reasonable to many who are not the civilian casualties themselves.

Score one, for technology!
There was the probably utmost importantly the dire "message" to the Soviet Union: Back off! Which -for a while- worked. (But they -likely- already expected to "steal" our nuclear "secrets"… :) ) Who knew how long Stalin would last?

Soviets stole the nuclear secrets not just from the Americans, but first and foremost from Germans, the same way as Americans did. Score one for technology, indeed, while ethical considerations were brushed aside and the diplomatic atmosphere got infected with the war mentality for the rest of the century and beyond.

while ethical considerations were brushed aside and the diplomatic atmosphere got infected with the war mentality for the rest of the century and beyond

Quite right! Europe, the Balkins, Asia and the Middle East had been oases of Peace and Calm for centuries before the big, bad Americans brought warfare to the world!

The actual taking of the main islands would have cost many more lives. Had Stalin been able to invade, would the world have been better off?
Stick to medieval philosophy and opinion manipulation, ersi. You've no head for history or politics.

We're still debating the necessity of America's nuclear-bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki…

You're wrong Oakdale, no one in the world discusses the need for such war crimes, everybody regrets, condemns and will never pardon what your Country did. Welcome to reality.

How old were you when it happened?
Had you watched in fear as they headed South towards you?
Had you seen the barbarity with which they enslaved their conquered states?

How old were you when it happened?

I was old enough when in Australia, Darwin, in transit for Timor, back in 63, to know your practices. Don't even dream in discuss with me TT92.
Thank you.

no one in the world discusses the need for such war crimes, everybody regrets, condemns and will never pardon what your Country did

Another Boy Scout comments! :)
Of course, the Portuguese were "bringers of light"… (Wasn't Timor a Portuguese colony more than a decade past '63?)
War crimes? Count your merit badges…

Not everyone "regrets, condemns and will never pardon": Some expect and encourage Iran to get a nuclear arsenal. (Although I'll admit most are too narcissistic to notice…)

Your "no one in the world" remark reminds me of the New York journalist's plaintive "But how could he have won? No one I know voted for him…"

I was old enough when in Australia, Darwin, in transit for Timor, back in 63, to know your practices.

Did they catch you with something in your luggage you weren't supposed to have? :) Seriously, if you have something to say say it…

Don't even dream in discuss with him.

Another Boy Scout comments!

Travel and learn the world. You're the only one fascinated with your belly button.
I told you that before, do it before you die in total stupidity. See reality, at least once in your life, you're one of the few ones there that deserves the opportunity.

Did they catch you with something in your luggage you weren't supposed to have?  :)  Seriously, if you have something to say say it…

I reserve further opinions about Australians at some Australian thread, for now it's enough to treat those behaving as American's dog guards as just that.

You committed genocide with your atomic attacks over Japanese cities, there's no excuse for it. Period.

The day you want to discuss about how a new generation can redeem from what the precedent did, I will be listening. Until then, I'll keep on saying what the entire world thinks about it, either you like it or not.

You committed genocide with your atomic attacks over Japanese cities, there's no excuse for it. Period.

Seems to me that there are still quite a lot of Japanese extant… So the crime -if crime it was- was ineptly done.
There's certainly no excuse for that! (Ineptly doing crime, I mean.) Perhaps you'd have preferred Stalin taking a shot at doing it "eptly"? :) He was, I recall, quite talented in that way.
Perhaps so. (You seem very much off your feed lately.) It's the Howie Factor, I suspect: It's infectious!

The day you want to discuss about how a new generation can redeem from what the precedent did, I will be listening. Until then, I'll keep on saying what the entire world thinks about it, either you like it or not.

You might consider words from your Good Book… Or are you not a fan of Ezekiel 18:19?

Don't even dream in discuss with him.

:) I suppose you're right… 'Tis a pity, though! People's prejudices fascinate me.

A further thought:

The day you want to discuss about how a new generation can redeem from what the precedent did, I will be listening. Until then, I'll keep on saying what the entire world thinks about it, either you like it or not.

Shouldn't I wait till the sins of your fathers are expiated?
(Or perhaps until the sons of Cain have paid in full?)

No, sir! There's no point in discussing any such poppycock! Each generation either behaves honorably or not. If my father was a nave, I don't need to be a saint to be considered only slightly better. And if he were a saint, do I need to sink to the depths of depravity to be thought bad?
It's you logic that is off… I wonder what dyspeptic brings about this deficiency?

[Forgive my change in tone, all: I've recently re-read most of Mortimer's Rumpole stories… The mood lingers!]

Not surprised that you are interested in prejudices Oakdale the US has been full of that ilk since founded. So in essence youare more closer to the matter.

We learned from the "Old World" — and then we learned more. Did they? Hard to say, isn't it?

You'all messed with Africa and the Middle East and Asia for a hundred years or more… And, yet, you feel no responsibility? That tells me a lot about you. Too much, actually.
Sink into the quiescence you've earned!

This will finish with Oakdale keeping on changing matters and diverging until concluding that their atomic attacks were basically European's fault... Maybe it even deserves a well inspired poem. :)

This will finish with Oakdale keeping on changing matters […]

No, sir. It will finish with the note of your peculiar squeamishness regarding warfare: Are you ignorant by choice or circumstance?
(I.e., are you a Quaker or otherwise committed pacifist? Or are you unaware of most of recorded history?)

Belfrager here is atypical example of an ex-colonist in his nonsenses. When you consider how long he and you have been on Opera and then here and everyone knows you are a Roman Catholic he comes out with this stupidity of "are you a Quaker."  One does try to make allowances for the average US Joe as they tend to be inward looking and no little of the actual world outside of their wonky run place.

Pay no attention to the Howie in the pulpit, Belfrager. He's so literal-minded that he's still learning his ABCs.

I asked you (…an intelligent European?) why you think the bombing -the nuclear bombing- of Hiroshima and Nagasaki were War Crimes?

Can you explain your judgement? Or will you just pontificate?

I asked you (…an intelligent European?) why you think the bombing -the nuclear bombing- of Hiroshima and Nagasaki were War Crimes?

Can you explain your judgement? Or will you just pontificate? (https://dndsanctuary.eu/index.php?action=reporttm;topic=1096.33;msg=40249)

When you (...an intelligent American) keeps on asking me such question (besides previously accusing me of being an ignorant in -just imagine- History and Warfare), you only reassure my suspicions about the American total unawareness of everything that happens, including their own actions.

Funny you hadn't such doubts about war crimes when hanging German officers at the Nuremberg Court.

War crimes are in the eye of the beholder. Had the Germans won WWII Hitler would have joined hands with Salazar and danced in the streets of Lisbon.
(https://dndsanctuary.eu/imagecache.php?image=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.lisbonstag.com%2Fimg%2Fpartying-streets-in-lisbon.jpg&hash=b9d3c755b5b025448fd025f3099f277b" rel="cached" data-hash="b9d3c755b5b025448fd025f3099f277b" data-warn="External image, click here to view original" data-url="http://www.lisbonstag.com/img/partying-streets-in-lisbon.jpg)

And if you take note Belfrager they had some interest in the experience of ex-Gestapo officers and America also took all those Nazi rocket scientists over to the land of make believe. It is amusing to see Dr Salazar being brought up  by a country that has more government agencies spying on it's own people, phones, computers, etc and outnumber the dictatorships they often hit at. The ex-colonies are not a full democracy it is only a veneer given by the corporate dictators who run it. The voting system is like giving sweets to children to keep them happy and distracted.  :D

Funny you hadn't such doubts about war crimes when hanging German officers at the Nuremberg Court.

How cute — the way Europeans bounce back and forth between contemporary disputants and historical regimes and populations…
Methinks there's a profound psychological cause. Perhaps it's explained here (http://www.nationalreview.com/article/418274/mrs-obama-i-feel-alienated-and-thats-proof-americas-racism-ian-tuttle?utm_source=Sailthru&utm_medium=email&utm_term=Jolt&utm_campaign=Best%20Of%205-23-15)… The Continental confusion of personal experience and communally verified truth. Have any of your so-called intellectuals noticed this? Have they said anything worth relating?

I'm pretty sure I had nothing to do with any hangings in Nuremberg… Just as I'm quite sure the goings-on in Rotherham, England, are contemporary with Howie's jeremiads against American police.
(Are you one of those educated by the Frankfurt School (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frankfurt_School)…? Or just influenced, unawares? :) )

You cannot answer the charges so you resort to the childish actions of a redneck child. And inbetween executing those at Nuremberg you stole ex-Gestapo men and Nazi scientists. May I remind yet again that during the Russian Civil War when you had troops in Russia on the side of the White anti-Communist side you were having secret talks with the same damn Boshsies behind the scenes on corporate and financial trade.  If you reduced that ridiculous bill for your military the tens of millions of poor in America could be automatically helped in the good ole US of A. Morality? you lot don't know the meaning of the word!

You cannot answer the charges so you resort to the childish actions of a redneck child.

One, you don't make "charges," Howie: You hurl calumny. Two, being a Cantabrigian I'm quite amused at being called a "redneck child"! :)

About American "involvement" in the Russian Civil War, you should perhaps consult Britannica:

The Allied governments now had to decide on their policy in the confused Russian situation. The original purpose of intervention, to revive an eastern front against Germany, was now meaningless. Russian exiles argued that, since the pre-Bolshevik governments of Russia had remained loyal to the Allies, the Allies were bound to help them. To this moral argument was added the political argument that the Communist regime in Moscow was a menace to the whole of Europe, with its subversive propaganda and its determination to spread revolution.

At the beginning of 1919 the French and Italian governments favoured strong support (in the form of munitions and supplies rather than in men) to the Whites (as the anti-Communist forces now came to be called), while the British and U.S. governments were more cautious and even hoped to reconcile the warring Russian parties. In January the Allies, on U.S. initiative, proposed to all Russian belligerents to hold armistice talks on the island of Prinkipo in the Sea of Marmara. The Communists accepted, but the Whites refused. In March the U.S. diplomat William C. Bullitt went to Moscow and returned with peace proposals from the Communists, which were not accepted by the Allies. After this the Allies ceased trying to come to terms with the Communists and gave increased assistance to Kolchak and Denikin.

Direct intervention by Allied military forces was, however, on a very small scale, involving a total of perhaps 200,000 soldiers. The French in Ukraine were bewildered by the confused struggle between Russian Communists, Russian Whites, and Ukrainian nationalists, and they withdrew their forces during March and April 1919, having hardly fired a shot. The British in the Arkhangelsk and Murmansk areas did some fighting, but the northern front was of only minor importance to the civil war as a whole. The last British forces were withdrawn from Arkhangelsk and from Murmansk in the early fall of 1919. The only “interventionists” who represented a real danger were the Japanese, who established themselves systematically in the Far Eastern provinces.
(source (http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/513737/Russian-Civil-War/283721/Foreign-intervention))

Wikipedia seems to be your preferred source… So: Here's a little list from their main article on the Russian Civil War…

United Kingdom/British Empire
     United Kingdom
     Canada
     Australia
     India
Japan
Czechoslovakia
Greece
Poland
United States
France
France
Romania
Serbia
Italy
Republic of China (1912–49)
China

Notice anything off about that list, RJ? :) (In case you're about to do your usual -what do you call it?- body-swerve, please note that these are the "Powers" supporting the "Whites"… An unfortunate name, considering the current Idiocracies, no? :) )

More important for this topic is Jerry Pournelle's recent post:

I am re-reading Van Crevold and preparing a “Postword” or final Chapter to show that the principles of the strategy of technology apply in this new kind of war – and that I am aware of the need for a book on the subject, and provide some thwarting materials for it. The subject is important. The subtitle of SOT was “Winning the Decisive War”, and that title is still relevant. At the same time, the age old principles of war as understood by both Sun Tzu and Machiavelli remain relevant.

It remains true that There Will Be War.

I wish he was wrong (can I have my pony, now? :) ); I'm quite sure he does too. But nobody has given me any reason to think that he is…

No I am not wrong about the Russian Civil War and my direct charge of what you did behind the scenes at the time. Money men as usual. Because of your timid knowledge of the outside world (general thing over the pond) and not in your face it is a negative.

Going back to the main thread your country would very much survive if it rolled the corporates from their over the top control of the capitalist system there. There are too many decent people suffering because you want to have troops marching everywhere and keep the armaments money barons happy. That is shameful.