The U.S. and Syria - by Dia
demagogue on 14/9/2013 at 00:01
Well it's turning into even more of a clusterfuck now than before. I could practically see it coming that the disarmament "deal" would only get Assad on some high horse making demands for disarming & then playing the indefinite run-around game like Hussain did, or the Serbs ... both of which, lest we forget, only further shoved the US/West into military action to save face & hold the line in the end.
If you know the whole charade is a joke from the start, why would you knowingly go for it? Unless Obama is banking on the run-around game helping a case for intervention since then it's about Assad obligating himself & then backing down on his own obligations...
People seem to like when countries put themselves under an obligation & then break it -- o the betrayal! how could you?! -- then what they see as other countries coming in to impose obligations on them, as if "don't gas your own citizens" were really something states have flexibility to decide if it really applies to them & their cultural particularities...
faetal on 14/9/2013 at 19:29
Quote Posted by demagogue
Well it's turning into even more of a clusterfuck now than before. I could practically see it coming that the disarmament "deal" would only get Assad on some high horse making demands for disarming & then playing the indefinite run-around game like Hussain did, or the Serbs ... both of which, lest we forget, only further shoved the US/West into military action to save face & hold the line in the end.
Weapons inspectors were in Iraq and were told to leave by the US so they could invade. After all, leaving them there to finish the job would have removed the pretext for invasion, since we know Iraq didn't have WMDs. I wonder if the US suspected that.
SubJeff on 14/9/2013 at 19:33
A friend of mine on facebook corrected my ranting against Arab nations saying nada with this piece that I missed:
(
http://www.aljazeera.com/news/middleeast/2013/09/20139118235327617.html)
I watch/read Al Jazeera on occasion but I missed this. Why on Earth was this not all over the news here? It's a preeeeeeetty big deal if you ask me.
faetal on 14/9/2013 at 19:36
Because it doesn't do to imbue Arabs with personality of humanity. This is why it is easy for a lot of people to just assume that all Arabs are essentially the kind who cheered when the twin towers fell. I get the feeling there is going to be a lot more conflict in the middle east at the behest of the US and Israel, so media institutions within allied nations will likely keep ignoring any notion that Arabs are people lest the phrase "collateral damage" starts to upset people.
demagogue on 15/9/2013 at 00:41
Sure there would be a lot more people on board for some kind of multilateral action, other Arab countries included, if there was a UN Security Council resolution authorizing it. It's a conflict nobody wants to see regionally spreading, and the 100K's of refugees flooding into the border countries is destabilizing too. It's when Russia & China dug their heels in & block any UNSC resolution that it's a lot more touchy, since one doesn't have any clear mandate anymore & it comes across as neo-imperialist, and it gets worse from there...
Quote:
Weapons inspectors were in Iraq and were told to leave by the US so they could invade. After all, leaving them there to finish the job would have removed the pretext for invasion, since we know Iraq didn't have WMDs. I wonder if the US suspected that.
Yes, they could have stayed indefinitely and been kept away from important sites and given the run around by the Hussain gov't indefinitely, and we'd still be talking about begging for access to sites today 10 years later... Hussain never missed a chance to flaunt international restrictions. Edit: And don't forget he started run-around game from 1991... The disarmament requirements & inspections were under the 1991 treaty mandate! So waiting until 2003 was already 12 years of putting up with that shit.
The US knew that much, and it makes the whole thing look like a mockery -- which of course it was. That was the whole point. The int'l system doesn't know how to handle well having its rules being made into a mockery. North Korea does the same thing; start up its reactor when it wants free oil & money. That's what's dangerous about the "bureacratic" end of int'l law, the endless often pointless (or at any rate usually wishy-washy) inspections and reports, because they can often end up pushing the buttons for a pretext for war more than remove them, when they give away how impotent they often are to do anything, or even be able to say what's actually happening on the ground because they can't get access to good data and they'll be perpetually contested.
Edit2: I think you realize I'm not justifying war when reports & inspections come up short. I was a critic of the Iraq II war from the start, and I'm not liking Syria intervention as it's on the table now either. I was more diagnosing what I see as a problem with the int'l system sometimes making things worse than better... It's another question how to deal with it.
faetal on 15/9/2013 at 03:58
Actually, near the end, Saddam was complying with weapons inspectors. It was right after they started being effective that they were pulled out. What's also suspicious in the same context, is the way Jose Bustani (
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/1944879.stm) was ousted from the OPCW right after he started making headway towards getting Iraq signed up for independent weapons inspection.
icemann on 15/9/2013 at 04:35
Soon as Obama announced he was going to go to congress to get permission to strike it was all over. Same as in the UK. He should have just made a decision and then stuck to it
Any attempt to go to congress no matter who it's against to start a war with will almost always fail due to both the $$$ aspect and the "I'll lose votes if I go for this, and might lose my job in a few years at the next election" factor.
Right and wrong goes out the window with these sorts of things. There's a reason why there is the saying "Nice guys finish last".
faetal on 15/9/2013 at 10:39
So you're not a big fan of democracy then? Or is democracy just where you elect a dictator?
SubJeff on 15/9/2013 at 11:14
Tangent; I don't think everybody is ready for, indeed will ever be ready for, democracy.
Culturally there are some people who it doesn't suit, yet at least. When I lived in Malawi the country was run by a dictator and it ran pretty well. The people there are, in general, not educated enough and do not have enough information access to make meaningful decisions about who should rule them, imho, which is partly why straight after the Life President was ousted they got a series of smooth talking crooks in power.
The country was better under a dictator.
faetal on 15/9/2013 at 12:36
I can't disagree there, but it's US sells democracy as the greatest of all systems (usually down the barrel of a gun).
