Since Professor Cole himself seems attached to this standard, perhaps attributing its usage to the imperialist dreams of the neoconservatives misses the mark.
With this standard we can always say “What about China and India?” when the carbon finger is pointed at us. This argument won’t bare the light of day when per capita numbers are used.
For the time being. Both China and India are seeing huge increases in their per-capita carbon emissions, while ours keep falling at the fastest rate of any country in the world.
While we're talking about investment: China and India need to stop investing in coal. They are both ramping up coal-fired energy production at a prodigious rate, and will swamp even the most optimistic reductions in American emissions if they don't start bending the curve, like, yesterday.
So long as the Syrian deep state still exists as an organized arm, the rebels will be out-organized and out-armed
Certainly, but the Syrian rebels have been out-organized and out-armed throughout the entire war. Those shortcomings haven't prevented them from steadily improving their position and growing over the past almost-two-years. Take a look at the defections, and how unidirectional they are.
You mention "consent of the public." I don't think that particular vector moves in the direction you assume.
By the end of the 21st century, there will be an alliance with the United States, India, and a democratic Iran at its center that will be as important as the NATO alliance was in the 20th.
The Sudanese government seems eager to downplay the claim that their friendliness towards Iran represents a turn away from the Saudis, while ongoing Saudi investments in agriculture, mining, and infrastructure in Sudan indicates that the two countries still have strong ties.
It looks more like Sudan has gone from being part of the Sunni bloc to being neutral, more than joining the Shiite bloc.
I know Sudan has good relations with Iran, but are they really so much better than Sudan's relations with, say, Saudi Arabia as to justify coloring Sudan blue, as if it was part of a pro-Shiite bloc?
I'm surprised that nobody has mentioned it, but the term "Arab Spring" was first invented by the neocons to refer to 2005, when the Iraqi elections were totally setting of an era of democratic reform throughout the region, as the people of the MENA region looked at newly democratic Iraq and said, "Oh, yeah, I wanna get me some of that." I swear to God I'm not making this up:
Because the President used the threat of a veto to compel Congress to change that section of the defense spending bill - to change it from a bill that would have required the government to put terrorism suspect into indefinite military detention, to one that gave him the authority to continue his policy of not putting a single terrorism suspect into military detention.
If Barack Obama, who has not put a single terrorism suspect into military detention, has an "agenda" of doing so, then why hasn't he, and why did he pick a fight with Congress so that he could continue not to do so?
The attacks on Damascus have been repelled but with difficulties at present along the airport road. This from the Guardian seems to indicate the rebel push in Aleppo has petered out in an orgy of looting and self agrandisement.
"Heroic Baathist troops advanced backwards to Damascus, scoring a decisive victory thirty miles behind what were the front lines last week! More such victories are expected soon!"
You write like a WW2-era Soviet hack, and you don't fool anyone by doing so. Translating your comment from hack to English: The rebels have taken a city you told us they were being repelled from, and now fighting in the capital itself.
Haaretz reports that Benjamin Netanyahu looks poised to appoint, Ron Dermer, the architect of his campaign season alliance with Mitt Romney, as Israel’s new Ambassador to the United States.
What the hell does Netanyahu think he's doing? More irrational, erratic belligerence.
As you did in your statement a few months ago that the Syrian opposition was being crushed, I think you're jumping the gun in declaring the Palestinians defeated.
If I was working for the Israeli opposition, I'd run an ad showing video of Nethanyahu speaking, then a shot of Barack Obama, then a shot of the PM of Turkey, while a voiceover intoned "Israel has never been so isolated."
Christ Stevens
I admire and appreciate Ambassador Stevens' work and sacrifice as much anyone, but this is getting ridiculous.
Certainly, Britain was the big dog on the block before the crisis, but there is a very good argument to be made that the Suez Crisis marked the end of that era, and the ascension of the US.
I remember reading in National Review magazine, prior to the Iraq War, about the benefit of being able to end the "provocative" American military bases in "the land of the two holy places."
I found it very odd that such a hawkish, Islamophobic source as post-9/11 National Review would worry about that.
From the linked article (that nobody seems to have read):
The FBI was concerned that the Occupy venues could provide "an outlet for a lone offender exploiting the movement for reasons associated with general government dissatisfaction," according to the documents
So, no, the FBI did not "brand Occupy Wall Street a terrorist movement." They watched OWS protests because they thought non-OWS people might use the protests as an opportunity to start violence - which, in fact, happened. The Black Bloc showed up, smashed storefronts, and did everything they could to try to provoke a riot. In some cities, the actual OWS protesters were so incensed that they began pointing out the non-OWS, Black Bloc provocateurs to the police.
The write-up this story is getting in the liberal press reminds me of the right wing's freakout over the right-wing domestic terrorism memo the DHS put out at the beginning of Obama's term. Remember that? "Oh my God, the Obama administration said that American veterans are likely domestic terrorists!" Uh, no, they said that domestic terrorists might attempt to exploit that group.
But the false story fits in so well with a pre-existing, beloved narrative that it never gets challenged.
The Taliban actually were a creation of Pakistani intelligence(ISI)
You see this conflation between the ISI and the United States very frequently. Given the existence of the bin Laden compound in Abbottobad, these theory seems a bit shaky.
As a Muslim, I have to say it is deplorable that the Soviet-puppet regime of the 1980′s is being paraded as one of the high points for anything in Afghanistan.
As a human being, I have to say it is deplorable that the Soviet-puppet regime of the 1980s actually was one of the high points for certain things in Afghanistan.
I can think of another country that adopted a constitution that sharply divided the public, and was criticized for not including sufficient protections for individual and minority rights.
Morsi got his constitution. If he wants to be a real legitimate president, governing a unified and peaceful country, he need to work with the opposition on a bill of rights.
There are certainly some scary elements in the Syrian opposition, but the claim "at least as much a violent sectarian opposition" cannot stand. When did the Syrian opposition kill 200 civilians in a single strike? The Assad regime is carrying out these massacres on a regular basis.
Perhaps before you accuse others of being "totally dumb," you could good "Syria jet fighters," at which point you will discover that, no, the United States has not sold weapons to Syria, and that their air force consists of Russian planes.
Perhaps you were too brainwashed, uniformed, or busy to look this up.
I remember, back in 2005, when the Iraq hawks were waving around their purple fingers, pointing out that the country's Sunnis had largely boycotted the election, and that this meant the vote lacked legitimacy and raised the possibility of an even larger violent sectarian opposition.
Government derives it just power from the consent of the governed. If the MB doesn't find a way to compromise and make the governing system legitimate in the eyes of the whole country, I fear we may see something similar in Egypt.
The Obama administration also seems to have taken a tough line with Israel over attacking Iran, including the assassination of scientists - while publicly insisting, in the most stilted and boilerplate language, that there was "no daylight" between them.
It's interesting to see Chernus put this together. Good piece.
One more point: the good Perfesser describes a drop in carbon emissions of greater than 15% as "falling slightly," but he used the phrase "read and weep" to introduce a report showing a 3.2% increase.
This is not an honest way to engage with the evidence.
But you can also see that that 2009 level was dramatically below the 2008 level; that the little wobble between 2009 and 2010 was tiny compared to the drop that preceded it; that even that small increase was immediately reversed; and that the 2012 level is, indeed, back down to the 1990.
I would expect to see that chart a lot, Perfesser, if you won't keep the discussion here honest.
A two-year old report that doesn't include the latest data, but happened to be published during the period of a spike that was immediately reversed. That nice. Are you taking lessons from the global warming deniers, because that is one of their favorite tactics.
Once again, in 2012, the United States' greenhouse gas emissions were back to 1990 levels, making the United States the world leader in GHG reductions.
The United States has had the largest reduction in greenhouse gas emissions of any country on earth.
The XL Pipeline - you mean the one that wasn't approved?
The West Virginia mountains - you mean the ones that are watching the coal industry die out because we're shutting all the coal plants?
As for fracking, the natural gas boom is the biggest reason why the United States is THE WORLD LEADER IN GREENHOUSE GAS REDUCTIONS. And you want to give that up, because you care far more about being an awesome leftist protest person than about actually bringing down carbon emissions.
How do I know this? Because, faced with the REALITY that THE UNITED STATES LEADS THE WORLD IN GREENHOUSE GAS REDUCTIONS, your reaction was to make up reasons why greenhouse gas reductions don't matter.
And why is America leading the world in greenhouse gas reduction?
Because we are shutting down coal-fired power plants and replacing them with gas-fired power plants.
Not CAFE standards. Not green buildings. Not wind farms or solar collectors. Not electric cars, mass transit, or fluorescent lights bulbs. Those are all wonderful things, and will produce great advances over the next few decades, but they have played almost no role in achieving America's world-leading reductions in greenhouse gas emissions.
The expansion of natural gas-fired power plants is the single greatest factor in making that happen. If the world manages over the next few years to stop and reverse the frightening rates of increase depicted in the top of this thread, it will be through the replacement of existing coal-fired energy with natural gas.
If you are an environmentalist, and if you take climate change seriously, you will not advocate for throwing out the only tool that has ever accomplished your stated goal of reducing carbon emissions.
They are now at a 20-year low. The United States leads the world in the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions?
The figures showing increases at the top of the piece show the global increase. Why, then, is this piece written as a criticism of the United States?
The relevant "American exceptionalism" here is the exceptional leadership the United States has shown in how to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. It's too bad the rest of the world isn't following that lead.
It's also too bad that the author's commitment to America-bashing override his commitment to environmentalism. Or truth.
When was the last time you heard of a single terrorist attack carried out by the heads of five different groups? As opposed to different groups carrying out attacks on their own.
Say, the groups named by the informant wouldn't happen to be the same ones the police are already at war with, would they?
The point isn't that the claim about there being a protest was true; the point is that there was every reason for Susan Rice, and the administration as a whole, to believe it was true when they said so. Al Jazeera was reporting it as a protest gone bad, there had been protests gone bad in several different countries at the time, and there were people on the ground reporting it as a protest. Were they right? It doesn't seem so knowing what we know now, but in the days after the attack, when the administration was reporting it that way, they had every reason to believe it was true.
I read Cole's statement to mean that Rice had nothing to do with the management of facilities in Libya, nor oversight of the consulate where Stevens was killed. The charge against her was negligence in providing security there, but she had nothing to do with that.
It's a good point you raise about the legitimacy of the Afghan government among Afghans. Might a comparison with Iraq be useful here? The same Malaki government that was a "colonial puppet," lacking legitimacy and sinking under the attacks of the "resistance," became a legitimate government, and the Sadrists and large parts of the Sunni "resistance" made peace with it, once we announced and demonstrated our intention to stop occupying the country. The lesson I learn from this is that the legitimacy of such a government is not eternal and unchanging, and neither are its relations with the people in the "resistance."
We've announced a timeline to end the occupation of Afghanistan, and we've been drawing down forces for months. Will something similar happen in Afghan politics that happened in Iraqi politics in 2008-2010? Here's hoping.
So, American has been involved covertly in Afghanistan for 32 straight years, except for that decade when we weren't.
Also, while it would, no doubt, take "a champion propagandist to make people believe that Afghans constitute a serious military threat to the United States," we can't say for sure, because neither the Bush nor Obama administrations have ever made any attempt to claim that our actions there are based on a military threat posed to us by Afghans.
Finally, I would be very interested to hear how "our intelligence and police" would have dealt with the 9/11 hijackers and their backers in Afghanistan while it was being run by an al Qaeda-allied government led by Osama bin Laden's father-in-law...while also not involving any of that nasty CIA activity in Afghanistan.
Is this just one more bloody step in Israel and the Deadly Clean Break, Securing the realm planned by Perle, Feith, Wurmsers?
What is "this" in your question?
Arab Spring?
Arab Spring in Syria?
The close coordination between relatively liberal and Islamist forces?
Step 1, let ally in Tunisia be overthrown. Step 2, let most important ally in the entire Greater Middle East be overthrown. Step 3, two years of revolution in Syria allowing the emergence of an organized al Qaeda-allied force. Step 4, Richard Perle Happyland.
There is no indication that the US itself is supplying anyone with arms. Quite the opposite, there US seems to be working to control the flow of arms which are coming from the Gulf states, in an effort to keep them out of the hands of the very people you are talking about.
I’m puzzled by these reflexive comments about “meddling”.
Are you? Really?
Anti-Americanism is the anti-imperialism of fools. In a difficult, complicated situation, it takes a certain level of intellectual firepower to find one's way through a thicket. Some grow frustrated at the effort, and fall back on Old Reliable.
By definition, "a very good constitutional draft" does not put so many people in the streets that its sponsor has to run for his life from angry mobs while the military tries to restore order.
When you are protesting a war, you generally do not come out in favor of torturing and murdering completely innocent people
Generally, no, but this was done in the genre of screaming heavy metal, where themes of torture and murder are pretty common. It wasn't like he wrote those lyrics on a sign at an anti-war rally.
But even assuming all of the bad faith and dictatorial fanaticism you claim, he still shot himself in the foot.
It's not the desire to consolidate power that I'm having trouble wrapping my head around; it's the total miscalculation of how this gambit would work out. Why would he think the Egyptian public, including the opposition, would take this lying down? Why would he think the army would have his back?
How could the man who got to the top of Muslim Brotherhood politics, helped to lead the peaceful overthrow of a powerful, entrenched dictator, and got himself elected President screw up this badly?
The general unwillingness of many of the police and army to intervene actively in favor of President Morsi appears to have put a fright into him and his administration.
Why would Morsi think the Army would back him up any more than it backed up Mubarak last year?
I continue to be flabbergasted by the scope of Morsi's unforced error. He chooses to use the moment of his negotiation of a case-fire in Gaza to do...this?
Bush, Vice-President Dick Cheney and others have repeatedly said that such tactics produced important information.
They were right! Those interrogation tactics produced all sorts of important information: the relationship between Saddam and bin Laden, the ongoing Iraqi WMD programs, and the unimportance of the courier who ultimately led us to bin Laden. That was all very important information.
Sure, it was bogus, but you can't say it wasn't important.
Joking aside, there's a lesson here: torture is not just useless as an intelligence-gathering technique. It is worse than useless.
I don't understand why anyone would take a Kremlin source seriously when it comes to a rebellion against a Russian client state. Gee, how about the Syrian News Agency? What do they say?
This wouldn't be the first time Africa has leapfrogged the West in the deployment of new technologies. Large parts of the continent skipped over telephone landlines entirely and deployed cell towers as the first telecommunications infrastructure.
I almost wrote the same thing to "Defending Islam." I'd put the % of Americans who could identify Hosni Mubarak at about 4% in 2009.
It wasn't until the Arab Spring that he became the subject of any real attention here. I recall that the MSM coverage during the Tahrir Square protests was quite favorable towards the protesters.
I appreciate the desire to equate everything with the Iraq War, but that comparison is really bogus. Are we supposed to imagine that there is some secret plan to invade Syria, comparable to the WMD story in Iraq?
The uprising against Assad is almost two years old. If the U.S. was looking to get into a war there, don't you think we would have done so by now? Look at Libya - there were bombing runs being flown within a month of the beginning of the uprising.
Why is the United States always presumed to be driving events, instead of reacting to them? This administration has very plainly been scrambling and improvising its policy since the beginning of Arab Spring.
Sure, but that's a long way from assigning us responsibility for what they do.
The last time you wrote about Bahrain, you brought up the idea of relocating the base from Bahrain to a port in a more democratic, liberal Gulf nation. Once again, I'll ask: any suggestions? Are you talking about Iraq?
USG condemnations of Israeli squatting on Palestinian land are merely pro forma. They are *never* accompanied by *any* practical consequences for Israel.
Does this mean that, say, the US condemnation of the Palestinian recognition vote is also "pro-forma," and therefore should be poo-poo'ed, because it also is not accompanied by any practical consequences?
I would actually like to see this "It was pro-forma" observation applied more broadly, because almost everything this administration says about Israel and Palestine consists of such "pro-forma" statements, with no real consequences for anybody. They mouth the empty words that are expected - but when those words are critical of Israel, they are dismissed as "pro-forma" and not really worthy of notice, but when they are critical of the Palestinians, it turns into World War Three around here.
The comment I referred to reads, "Not quite, he spokeswoman said Palestine was responsible for failing to follow US orders to withdraw their request for state observer status (NYT) carried the quote."
Mike made a false assertion about the State Department's statement regarding the settlement expansion, and I presented the truth. There was nothing - not a thing - anywhere in any State Department statement about the settlement expansion that bears even the slightest resemblance to his depiction. Pointing out that the anti-settlement statement was, allegedly, "pro-forma" does not transmute it into a statement that the Palestinians were responsible for failing to follow US orders to blah blah.
"We reiterate our longstanding opposition to settlements and East Jerusalem construction and announcements," White House spokesman Tommy Vietor said.
"We believe these actions are counterproductive and make it harder to resume direct negotiations or achieve of a two state solution," Vietor said. "Direct negotiations remain our goal and we encourage all parties to take steps to make that easier to achieve."
I invite you to provide any sort of evidence to back up your claim.
That's a very different point. The section I quoted was about whether the al Qaeda organization in Yemen is an al Qaeda organization. The statement you quote is about the difficulty in determining who is a member of that al Qaeda organization and who is not.
The executive order of President Ford barring assassinations of foreign leaders, issued on the heels of lurid testimony of ex-Director Richard Helms and others before the Church Committee, has been mitigated in recent years so that extrajudicial assassination can occur.
Neither that executive order, not the statutory ban on assassinations, encompasses shooting at military leaders in a war setting, such as shooting at al Qaeda commanders in the Congressionally-declared war against that organization.
What surprises me by all this is Obama actually “signs off” on all killings. No prior U.S. president has ever previously admitted ordering the killing of any foreign citizen.
Huh? Richard Nixon signed off on Operation Linebacker, which killed thousands of foreign citizens. FDR signed off on the Sicily and Normandy landings. Why does the selection of a much smaller target, resulting in many fewer casualties, represent something novel in your eyes?
Also, Congress authorized the use of force against al Qaeda on in September 2001. This is a legal reality under both American and international law, and will continue to be a legal reality, whether acknowledging it is convenient for a particular political agenda or not.
You misrepresent Johnson's conclusion about the growth of al Qaeda in Yemen.
Also, you bury the lede:
"One of the things that we've seen is that Osama bin Laden, contrary to much of what we were being told by security officials, ... was actually in pretty close contact with a lot of different organizations, whether it was the branch in Yemen or other branches ... whether or not he actually had control, I think, is a bit debatable, but he was certainly writing letters and certainly acting as though he was still the head. The difference, I think, in Yemen is that the individual who's the head of this organization, he's a really short, short guy, very low spoken, very soft voice, he has sort of facial hair that juts out from his face, almost like a billy goat, that this guy who spent so much time with bin Laden these four years as sort of his secretary, his aide-de-camp, he really knew what it was that bin Laden wanted or what he would want and, I think, he's been able to implement that blueprint."
Can we now drop the pretense that the al Qaeda branch in Yemen is not a branch of al Qaeda?
Something happened. Therefore, it's been a secret CIA plot all along to make that thing happen. If Morsi's pharonic status is reversed, then that will become the secret CIA plot that the "secret people in dark basements" wanted all along.
A month ago, these threads were full of conspiracy theorizing about how the Secret Men in Secret Basements were stifling the Muslim Brotherhood. It just never ends.
There's a problem with this theory: none of the Middle Eastern wars that the Pentagon has fought had anything to do with Israel and its "tensions," while the many wars resulting from Israel and its "tensions" never have anything to do with the Pentagon.
Look at the wars the U.S. has fought in the region: the overthrow of Saddam, kicking Saddam out of Kuwait, al Qaeda in Yemen, the Afghan War, the occasional tangle with Iran in the Gulf, the Somalia mission, the UN Protective Mission in Libya - none of these have had the first thing to do with Israel.
If anything, Israel is a pain in the Pengagon's butt, frequently complicating American wars, such as when Saddam lobbed Scuds at Israel in 1991 and we had to talk them out of retaliating because it would have broken up the alliance.
Have you ever read about the United States in the years following our revolution?
It took a decade to get a durable Constitution in place, the national government was a mess for years before that, there were open, armed rebellions in Massachusetts and Pennsylvania that had to be put down by force by the federal army, and the Vice President shot and killed the Secretary of the Treasury. A little over a decade after the Bill of Rights was adopted, the governing political party passed a law allowing it to arrest people for making partisan political speeches.
We were spoiled by the relative peace with which the Eastern Bloc countries overthrew their dictatorships. New democracy usually looks a lot more like Tahrir Square or Sirte.
Yes, she is an American working as the presenter for the Russian-sponsored "Russia Today." It's the Kremlin's overseas operation, similar to Voice of America or Radio Free Europe. The use of local talent is common.
From the opening sequence production to her haircut to the way her producers make sure to open up with some crowd pleasers ("Hello, Cleveland, are you ready to rock?!?" = "You're too smart to believe what the American media tells you, right?"), it is quite clear that the purpose of this program is to appeal to the American and Western European progressive community by coming across as one of their own.
In this particular instance, James, the facts are so unequivocally stacked in favor of RT and against the Israeli government that there really is no plausible "other side of the story" to obscure.
You have to admit Perfesser, for an RT presenter to open up her segment with a complaint about some other network being a tool of a government is a little rich.
I hope you haven't forgotten their rather disgraceful campaign of misinformation about the Libya mission.
Assume that Putin did direct Abby Martin to air this story, the truth is still the truth
People get confused about the nature of propaganda - they think it consists entirely of lies. There are three kinds of propaganda: white, grey, and black. Black propaganda is the deliberate spreading of lies. White propaganda is the reporting of truthful stories that advance one's end. Grey is a combination of the two, also known as "misinformation" or simply "spin.
It's not as though propagandists flee from the truth when it helps them. They have no philosophical aversion to the truth. The flip side of that is that telling the truth - or, more commonly, some narrowly-defined aspect of the truth - can still be propagandistic.
It is also important for the U.S. government to make an unambiguous condemnation of Morsy. If Obama won’t do it, I approve of Congress playing the bad cop and cutting off some aid.
Not yet. Now is the time for stern by quiet diplomacy. He's not going to rescind the orders under any circumstances. The goal should be to lock him into his promise to give up those powers when the constitution is written.
I can understand why people would be more afraid of a President seizing power for himself than of a judiciary that rebalances power between the other two branches.
After all, how many countries have suffered under judicial dictatorships?
Indeed. The current Israeli government is not only belligerent, but quite irrational in its behavior, in terms of the rational pursuit of the country's self-interest.
The expansion of natural gas power plants, allowing the shuttering of coal-fired power plants, is the only development that has actually reduced American greenhouse gas emissions. Not just a little, a lot - America has had the largest drop in C02 output of any nation in the world.
It is difficult to take seriously the claim that that one thing that has worked to reduce greenhouse gas emissions should be brought to a halt, for the sake of preventing climate change.
Notice, Rosemerry, that Obama's carefully-worded diplomatic statement did not actually say that the means Israel was using were appropriate, merely that they were going to choose their own. The implication there is "whether we like it or not."
Diplomat-speak is a very finely-crafted, delicate affair. What is not said is just as important as what is said.
American support for Israel has never been about national interest. Israel doesn't provide us with anything we need. Their soldiers have never fought side by side with our own, like the British or Turks or Canadians. All they ever do is get us into trouble.
American support for Israel is purely sentimental. We felt bad for the European Jews after the Holocaust. Our habit of rooting for underdogs made us sympathize with poor little Israel when it was threatened by hostile, more-powerful enemies in 1946, and 1967, and 1972. Israel was (allegedly) the only democracy in the Middle East for decades. All of these factors combined to lead Harry Truman, and most of the rest of the American political leadership and populace, to have a great sympathy for Israel.
But look where we are now. "Poor, besieged little Israel" is an expansionist, occupying regional power. "The only democracy in the Middle East" has now been surpassed by Tunisia, Libya, Turkey, Egypt - hell, arguably even Iraq! And the blowback we endure because of this relationship is only becoming greater over time, and now it's coming from democratic governments with whom we actually do have important national interest reasons for cultivating.
I'm not sure sentimentality is going to be enough to maintain American support over the long haul, in the face of those considerations. Israel needs us a lot more than we need them, and they'd better clean up their act or risk losing us.
Why bother with ineffectual rockets that give Israel cover for attacks?
A good question. The best answer I've been able to suss out is that the rockets are being launched by dissident groups that take a harsher line on negotiations with the Israelis than does the Hamas government, and which therefore benefit from escalating the violence.
IOW, the rockets are being launched for the purpose of giving the Israelis cover for their attacks, by people who want those attacks. Note that this is not "the Palestinians" in the aggregate doing this. Most Palestinians are just keeping their heads down and trying to put food on the table.
Indeed. The 500 missiles Israel had fired into Gaza in those three days are more than all of the American drone strikes in every country in the world since the first drone launched the first rocket over a decade ago.
Then again, "swatting flies" is not what the Israelis are trying to do.
In fact, Jabo, it's the same dodge that Darmendar uses in his comment.
Pointing out the righteous awesomeness of you cassus belli does not give you the right to violate international law in the prosecution of a war, and that is exactly what both of you argue.
This is a dodge. Are any of those points supposed to make the use of human shields in violation of Geneva legal or moral? Or are you changing the subject entirely?
"But they're the good guys/victims," even if true, is not an answer to the question.
India and Pakistan were not "allowed" to get nuclear weapons by the United States. They took the CIA by surprise and presented us with a fait accompli.
Another important intermediate step to get off oil and make an electric automobile fleet possible is the proliferation of natural gas power plants.
Instead, we are now apparently committed to another Middle East march of folly for which there will be no winners. Again.
People have been telling me that we're six months away from a war with Iran since Bush's first term. Were you one of the people predicting that Obama would give Israel overflight permission over Iraq before the 2011 withdrawal?
And yet, the confidence with which these predictions are made doesn't seem to ever recede. Why is that?
Hold on. The US has rebuffed several attempts by Iran to negotiate a resolution to the nuclear issue by brining in other issues the Iranians want to link to these issues.
It does not follow that "No diplomatic solutions are acceptable to the US." The US wants to negotiate a deal on Iran's nuclear program, in and of itself. The Iranians want to negotiate a deal that brings in other, unrelated issues.
The real goal of the sanctions is exactly as announced: to coerce Iran into cutting a deal on its nuclear program.
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Since Professor Cole himself seems attached to this standard, perhaps attributing its usage to the imperialist dreams of the neoconservatives misses the mark.
With this standard we can always say “What about China and India?” when the carbon finger is pointed at us. This argument won’t bare the light of day when per capita numbers are used.
For the time being. Both China and India are seeing huge increases in their per-capita carbon emissions, while ours keep falling at the fastest rate of any country in the world.
While we're talking about investment: China and India need to stop investing in coal. They are both ramping up coal-fired energy production at a prodigious rate, and will swamp even the most optimistic reductions in American emissions if they don't start bending the curve, like, yesterday.
And what are the Indians doing in this story you've made up? Carrying the bags?
So long as the Syrian deep state still exists as an organized arm, the rebels will be out-organized and out-armed
Certainly, but the Syrian rebels have been out-organized and out-armed throughout the entire war. Those shortcomings haven't prevented them from steadily improving their position and growing over the past almost-two-years. Take a look at the defections, and how unidirectional they are.
You mention "consent of the public." I don't think that particular vector moves in the direction you assume.
You might want to ask Mao how urban-rural conflicts work out.
I agree.
By the end of the 21st century, there will be an alliance with the United States, India, and a democratic Iran at its center that will be as important as the NATO alliance was in the 20th.
The Sudanese government seems eager to downplay the claim that their friendliness towards Iran represents a turn away from the Saudis, while ongoing Saudi investments in agriculture, mining, and infrastructure in Sudan indicates that the two countries still have strong ties.
It looks more like Sudan has gone from being part of the Sunni bloc to being neutral, more than joining the Shiite bloc.
I know Sudan has good relations with Iran, but are they really so much better than Sudan's relations with, say, Saudi Arabia as to justify coloring Sudan blue, as if it was part of a pro-Shiite bloc?
OK, then, re-invented. It fell out of usage for decades, then re-emerged in 2005.
I'm surprised that nobody has mentioned it, but the term "Arab Spring" was first invented by the neocons to refer to 2005, when the Iraqi elections were totally setting of an era of democratic reform throughout the region, as the people of the MENA region looked at newly democratic Iraq and said, "Oh, yeah, I wanna get me some of that." I swear to God I'm not making this up:
http://seattletimes.com/html/opinion/2002214060_krauthammer21.html
It would be funny, if it weren't for all the dead people.
Because the President used the threat of a veto to compel Congress to change that section of the defense spending bill - to change it from a bill that would have required the government to put terrorism suspect into indefinite military detention, to one that gave him the authority to continue his policy of not putting a single terrorism suspect into military detention.
If Barack Obama, who has not put a single terrorism suspect into military detention, has an "agenda" of doing so, then why hasn't he, and why did he pick a fight with Congress so that he could continue not to do so?
The attacks on Damascus have been repelled but with difficulties at present along the airport road. This from the Guardian seems to indicate the rebel push in Aleppo has petered out in an orgy of looting and self agrandisement.
"Heroic Baathist troops advanced backwards to Damascus, scoring a decisive victory thirty miles behind what were the front lines last week! More such victories are expected soon!"
You write like a WW2-era Soviet hack, and you don't fool anyone by doing so. Translating your comment from hack to English: The rebels have taken a city you told us they were being repelled from, and now fighting in the capital itself.
Look at this now: http://talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/2012/12/more_trouble_ahead.php?ref=fpblg
Haaretz reports that Benjamin Netanyahu looks poised to appoint, Ron Dermer, the architect of his campaign season alliance with Mitt Romney, as Israel’s new Ambassador to the United States.
What the hell does Netanyahu think he's doing? More irrational, erratic belligerence.
As you did in your statement a few months ago that the Syrian opposition was being crushed, I think you're jumping the gun in declaring the Palestinians defeated.
There is a great deal more to politics and international affairs than empty public statements.
In fact, empty public statements of sympathy are the most meaningless actions a state or political actor can take.
I don't understand why anyone would set that as their bar.
If I was working for the Israeli opposition, I'd run an ad showing video of Nethanyahu speaking, then a shot of Barack Obama, then a shot of the PM of Turkey, while a voiceover intoned "Israel has never been so isolated."
Christ Stevens
I admire and appreciate Ambassador Stevens' work and sacrifice as much anyone, but this is getting ridiculous.
But Britain folded under our pressure.
Certainly, Britain was the big dog on the block before the crisis, but there is a very good argument to be made that the Suez Crisis marked the end of that era, and the ascension of the US.
I remember reading in National Review magazine, prior to the Iraq War, about the benefit of being able to end the "provocative" American military bases in "the land of the two holy places."
I found it very odd that such a hawkish, Islamophobic source as post-9/11 National Review would worry about that.
What a great comment! I'd never heard any of that about Schwarzkopf's father.
From the linked article (that nobody seems to have read):
So, no, the FBI did not "brand Occupy Wall Street a terrorist movement." They watched OWS protests because they thought non-OWS people might use the protests as an opportunity to start violence - which, in fact, happened. The Black Bloc showed up, smashed storefronts, and did everything they could to try to provoke a riot. In some cities, the actual OWS protesters were so incensed that they began pointing out the non-OWS, Black Bloc provocateurs to the police.
The write-up this story is getting in the liberal press reminds me of the right wing's freakout over the right-wing domestic terrorism memo the DHS put out at the beginning of Obama's term. Remember that? "Oh my God, the Obama administration said that American veterans are likely domestic terrorists!" Uh, no, they said that domestic terrorists might attempt to exploit that group.
But the false story fits in so well with a pre-existing, beloved narrative that it never gets challenged.
Sad. I thought our side was better than them.
Good comment, Mark.
The Taliban actually were a creation of Pakistani intelligence(ISI)
You see this conflation between the ISI and the United States very frequently. Given the existence of the bin Laden compound in Abbottobad, these theory seems a bit shaky.
I'm seeing the Saudi part. The US part, not so much.
As a Muslim, I have to say it is deplorable that the Soviet-puppet regime of the 1980′s is being paraded as one of the high points for anything in Afghanistan.
As a human being, I have to say it is deplorable that the Soviet-puppet regime of the 1980s actually was one of the high points for certain things in Afghanistan.
If he'd done this in March or June or even December 2011, that would be one thing, but this is a rat fleeing a sinking ship.
I can think of another country that adopted a constitution that sharply divided the public, and was criticized for not including sufficient protections for individual and minority rights.
Morsi got his constitution. If he wants to be a real legitimate president, governing a unified and peaceful country, he need to work with the opposition on a bill of rights.
There are certainly some scary elements in the Syrian opposition, but the claim "at least as much a violent sectarian opposition" cannot stand. When did the Syrian opposition kill 200 civilians in a single strike? The Assad regime is carrying out these massacres on a regular basis.
Perhaps before you accuse others of being "totally dumb," you could good "Syria jet fighters," at which point you will discover that, no, the United States has not sold weapons to Syria, and that their air force consists of Russian planes.
Perhaps you were too brainwashed, uniformed, or busy to look this up.
I remember, back in 2005, when the Iraq hawks were waving around their purple fingers, pointing out that the country's Sunnis had largely boycotted the election, and that this meant the vote lacked legitimacy and raised the possibility of an even larger violent sectarian opposition.
Government derives it just power from the consent of the governed. If the MB doesn't find a way to compromise and make the governing system legitimate in the eyes of the whole country, I fear we may see something similar in Egypt.
The Obama administration also seems to have taken a tough line with Israel over attacking Iran, including the assassination of scientists - while publicly insisting, in the most stilted and boilerplate language, that there was "no daylight" between them.
It's interesting to see Chernus put this together. Good piece.
One more point: the good Perfesser describes a drop in carbon emissions of greater than 15% as "falling slightly," but he used the phrase "read and weep" to introduce a report showing a 3.2% increase.
This is not an honest way to engage with the evidence.
Of course, you can see the small increase from Juan's "read it and weep" (lol) link from 2009-2010 in the graph I linked to: http://green.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/08/17/a-20-year-low-in-u-s-carbon-emissions/
But you can also see that that 2009 level was dramatically below the 2008 level; that the little wobble between 2009 and 2010 was tiny compared to the drop that preceded it; that even that small increase was immediately reversed; and that the 2012 level is, indeed, back down to the 1990.
I would expect to see that chart a lot, Perfesser, if you won't keep the discussion here honest.
read and weep, Joe
A two-year old report that doesn't include the latest data, but happened to be published during the period of a spike that was immediately reversed. That nice. Are you taking lessons from the global warming deniers, because that is one of their favorite tactics.
Once again, in 2012, the United States' greenhouse gas emissions were back to 1990 levels, making the United States the world leader in GHG reductions.
http://green.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/08/17/a-20-year-low-in-u-s-carbon-emissions/
The numbers don't lie.
The United States has had the largest reduction in greenhouse gas emissions of any country on earth.
The XL Pipeline - you mean the one that wasn't approved?
The West Virginia mountains - you mean the ones that are watching the coal industry die out because we're shutting all the coal plants?
As for fracking, the natural gas boom is the biggest reason why the United States is THE WORLD LEADER IN GREENHOUSE GAS REDUCTIONS. And you want to give that up, because you care far more about being an awesome leftist protest person than about actually bringing down carbon emissions.
How do I know this? Because, faced with the REALITY that THE UNITED STATES LEADS THE WORLD IN GREENHOUSE GAS REDUCTIONS, your reaction was to make up reasons why greenhouse gas reductions don't matter.
And why is America leading the world in greenhouse gas reduction?
Because we are shutting down coal-fired power plants and replacing them with gas-fired power plants.
Not CAFE standards. Not green buildings. Not wind farms or solar collectors. Not electric cars, mass transit, or fluorescent lights bulbs. Those are all wonderful things, and will produce great advances over the next few decades, but they have played almost no role in achieving America's world-leading reductions in greenhouse gas emissions.
The expansion of natural gas-fired power plants is the single greatest factor in making that happen. If the world manages over the next few years to stop and reverse the frightening rates of increase depicted in the top of this thread, it will be through the replacement of existing coal-fired energy with natural gas.
If you are an environmentalist, and if you take climate change seriously, you will not advocate for throwing out the only tool that has ever accomplished your stated goal of reducing carbon emissions.
American greenhouse gas emissions have been falling - not increasing, falling - for years.
http://green.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/08/17/a-20-year-low-in-u-s-carbon-emissions/
They are now at a 20-year low. The United States leads the world in the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions?
The figures showing increases at the top of the piece show the global increase. Why, then, is this piece written as a criticism of the United States?
The relevant "American exceptionalism" here is the exceptional leadership the United States has shown in how to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. It's too bad the rest of the world isn't following that lead.
It's also too bad that the author's commitment to America-bashing override his commitment to environmentalism. Or truth.
We're waging a perpetual war in Libya?
That's odd, since the UN military mission to LIbya ended over a year ago.
This report stinks to high heaven.
When was the last time you heard of a single terrorist attack carried out by the heads of five different groups? As opposed to different groups carrying out attacks on their own.
Say, the groups named by the informant wouldn't happen to be the same ones the police are already at war with, would they?
There is not the slightest evidence tying either Holder or Obama to the rogue gun-walking program. The report you cite explicitly exonerates them.
Spare us your phony concern about gun deaths.
That's a really bad headline, because the graphics right below it show the United States to be "medium."
Have you asked that question of any of the people offering the wholly-unsupported accusation?
Or only those noting that it is wholly unsupported?
There is nothing in that link that corroborates the claim that the annex was the cause of the attack.
The point isn't that the claim about there being a protest was true; the point is that there was every reason for Susan Rice, and the administration as a whole, to believe it was true when they said so. Al Jazeera was reporting it as a protest gone bad, there had been protests gone bad in several different countries at the time, and there were people on the ground reporting it as a protest. Were they right? It doesn't seem so knowing what we know now, but in the days after the attack, when the administration was reporting it that way, they had every reason to believe it was true.
I read Cole's statement to mean that Rice had nothing to do with the management of facilities in Libya, nor oversight of the consulate where Stevens was killed. The charge against her was negligence in providing security there, but she had nothing to do with that.
It's a good point you raise about the legitimacy of the Afghan government among Afghans. Might a comparison with Iraq be useful here? The same Malaki government that was a "colonial puppet," lacking legitimacy and sinking under the attacks of the "resistance," became a legitimate government, and the Sadrists and large parts of the Sunni "resistance" made peace with it, once we announced and demonstrated our intention to stop occupying the country. The lesson I learn from this is that the legitimacy of such a government is not eternal and unchanging, and neither are its relations with the people in the "resistance."
We've announced a timeline to end the occupation of Afghanistan, and we've been drawing down forces for months. Will something similar happen in Afghan politics that happened in Iraqi politics in 2008-2010? Here's hoping.
So, American has been involved covertly in Afghanistan for 32 straight years, except for that decade when we weren't.
Also, while it would, no doubt, take "a champion propagandist to make people believe that Afghans constitute a serious military threat to the United States," we can't say for sure, because neither the Bush nor Obama administrations have ever made any attempt to claim that our actions there are based on a military threat posed to us by Afghans.
Finally, I would be very interested to hear how "our intelligence and police" would have dealt with the 9/11 hijackers and their backers in Afghanistan while it was being run by an al Qaeda-allied government led by Osama bin Laden's father-in-law...while also not involving any of that nasty CIA activity in Afghanistan.
Mark,
to aid the Free Syrian Army in its attempts to overthrow the Assad regime.
Right, and they seem to be engaged in providing intelligence, training, and political organizing.
The arms supplies, however, seem to be coming from Gulf states, acting on their own, and not following an American line.
At least, according to the reporting I've seen.
Is this just one more bloody step in Israel and the Deadly Clean Break, Securing the realm planned by Perle, Feith, Wurmsers?
What is "this" in your question?
Arab Spring?
Arab Spring in Syria?
The close coordination between relatively liberal and Islamist forces?
Step 1, let ally in Tunisia be overthrown. Step 2, let most important ally in the entire Greater Middle East be overthrown. Step 3, two years of revolution in Syria allowing the emergence of an organized al Qaeda-allied force. Step 4, Richard Perle Happyland.
I'm not seeing it.
There is no indication that the US itself is supplying anyone with arms. Quite the opposite, there US seems to be working to control the flow of arms which are coming from the Gulf states, in an effort to keep them out of the hands of the very people you are talking about.
I’m puzzled by these reflexive comments about “meddling”.
Are you? Really?
Anti-Americanism is the anti-imperialism of fools. In a difficult, complicated situation, it takes a certain level of intellectual firepower to find one's way through a thicket. Some grow frustrated at the effort, and fall back on Old Reliable.
By definition, "a very good constitutional draft" does not put so many people in the streets that its sponsor has to run for his life from angry mobs while the military tries to restore order.
the last thing Egypt needs is more US meddling
Our last "meddling" consisted to working to convince mid-level military officers to disobey orders to shoot at the protesters.
I guess opinions vary on that.
When you are protesting a war, you generally do not come out in favor of torturing and murdering completely innocent people
Generally, no, but this was done in the genre of screaming heavy metal, where themes of torture and murder are pretty common. It wasn't like he wrote those lyrics on a sign at an anti-war rally.
As it turns out, the lyrics to many hard rock songs are in poor taste.
As an American music fan, this story makes me more interested in PSY.
But even assuming all of the bad faith and dictatorial fanaticism you claim, he still shot himself in the foot.
It's not the desire to consolidate power that I'm having trouble wrapping my head around; it's the total miscalculation of how this gambit would work out. Why would he think the Egyptian public, including the opposition, would take this lying down? Why would he think the army would have his back?
How could the man who got to the top of Muslim Brotherhood politics, helped to lead the peaceful overthrow of a powerful, entrenched dictator, and got himself elected President screw up this badly?
The general unwillingness of many of the police and army to intervene actively in favor of President Morsi appears to have put a fright into him and his administration.
Why would Morsi think the Army would back him up any more than it backed up Mubarak last year?
I continue to be flabbergasted by the scope of Morsi's unforced error. He chooses to use the moment of his negotiation of a case-fire in Gaza to do...this?
Bush, Vice-President Dick Cheney and others have repeatedly said that such tactics produced important information.
They were right! Those interrogation tactics produced all sorts of important information: the relationship between Saddam and bin Laden, the ongoing Iraqi WMD programs, and the unimportance of the courier who ultimately led us to bin Laden. That was all very important information.
Sure, it was bogus, but you can't say it wasn't important.
Joking aside, there's a lesson here: torture is not just useless as an intelligence-gathering technique. It is worse than useless.
Russia Today was running cover stories for potential Assad chemical weapons attacks last year?
http://rt.com/news/syria-chemical-weapons-plot-532/
I don't understand why anyone would take a Kremlin source seriously when it comes to a rebellion against a Russian client state. Gee, how about the Syrian News Agency? What do they say?
Sticking with coal and oil would be safer?
There is not "do nothing" scenario, JT. We either find alternatives to get off fossil fuels, or we don't.
Oh, and while "Energy Hunger" is all scary and stuff, I suspect the Kenyans use different terms, like "having lights in my house."
This wouldn't be the first time Africa has leapfrogged the West in the deployment of new technologies. Large parts of the continent skipped over telephone landlines entirely and deployed cell towers as the first telecommunications infrastructure.
How bad do thing have to get before the military old guard steps in, to restore order on a strictly emergency basis?
I almost wrote the same thing to "Defending Islam." I'd put the % of Americans who could identify Hosni Mubarak at about 4% in 2009.
It wasn't until the Arab Spring that he became the subject of any real attention here. I recall that the MSM coverage during the Tahrir Square protests was quite favorable towards the protesters.
I appreciate the desire to equate everything with the Iraq War, but that comparison is really bogus. Are we supposed to imagine that there is some secret plan to invade Syria, comparable to the WMD story in Iraq?
The uprising against Assad is almost two years old. If the U.S. was looking to get into a war there, don't you think we would have done so by now? Look at Libya - there were bombing runs being flown within a month of the beginning of the uprising.
Why is the United States always presumed to be driving events, instead of reacting to them? This administration has very plainly been scrambling and improvising its policy since the beginning of Arab Spring.
From JT's link: Of course Paris isn’t without her knockers...
God bless the Daily Mail.
Sure, but that's a long way from assigning us responsibility for what they do.
The last time you wrote about Bahrain, you brought up the idea of relocating the base from Bahrain to a port in a more democratic, liberal Gulf nation. Once again, I'll ask: any suggestions? Are you talking about Iraq?
The United States bears responsibility for this situation because of its base there
Umwut?
Apparently, I've been using the term "bears responsibility" wrong my whole life.
USG condemnations of Israeli squatting on Palestinian land are merely pro forma. They are *never* accompanied by *any* practical consequences for Israel.
Does this mean that, say, the US condemnation of the Palestinian recognition vote is also "pro-forma," and therefore should be poo-poo'ed, because it also is not accompanied by any practical consequences?
I would actually like to see this "It was pro-forma" observation applied more broadly, because almost everything this administration says about Israel and Palestine consists of such "pro-forma" statements, with no real consequences for anybody. They mouth the empty words that are expected - but when those words are critical of Israel, they are dismissed as "pro-forma" and not really worthy of notice, but when they are critical of the Palestinians, it turns into World War Three around here.
The comment I referred to reads, "Not quite, he spokeswoman said Palestine was responsible for failing to follow US orders to withdraw their request for state observer status (NYT) carried the quote."
Mike made a false assertion about the State Department's statement regarding the settlement expansion, and I presented the truth. There was nothing - not a thing - anywhere in any State Department statement about the settlement expansion that bears even the slightest resemblance to his depiction. Pointing out that the anti-settlement statement was, allegedly, "pro-forma" does not transmute it into a statement that the Palestinians were responsible for failing to follow US orders to blah blah.
Why are you changing the subject?
That is a gross misrepresentation of reality.
Reality: http://worldnews.nbcnews.com/_news/2012/11/30/15573067-us-slams-israels-decision-to-expand-settlements?lite
US slams Israel's decision to expand settlements
"We reiterate our longstanding opposition to settlements and East Jerusalem construction and announcements," White House spokesman Tommy Vietor said.
"We believe these actions are counterproductive and make it harder to resume direct negotiations or achieve of a two state solution," Vietor said. "Direct negotiations remain our goal and we encourage all parties to take steps to make that easier to achieve."
I invite you to provide any sort of evidence to back up your claim.
Obama hasn't exactly made Netanyahu happy regarding Iran.
His happy talk in public seems transparently, deliberately phony.
He seems to be doing the minimum necessary to observe the forms.
That's a very different point. The section I quoted was about whether the al Qaeda organization in Yemen is an al Qaeda organization. The statement you quote is about the difficulty in determining who is a member of that al Qaeda organization and who is not.
The executive order of President Ford barring assassinations of foreign leaders, issued on the heels of lurid testimony of ex-Director Richard Helms and others before the Church Committee, has been mitigated in recent years so that extrajudicial assassination can occur.
Neither that executive order, not the statutory ban on assassinations, encompasses shooting at military leaders in a war setting, such as shooting at al Qaeda commanders in the Congressionally-declared war against that organization.
What surprises me by all this is Obama actually “signs off” on all killings. No prior U.S. president has ever previously admitted ordering the killing of any foreign citizen.
Huh? Richard Nixon signed off on Operation Linebacker, which killed thousands of foreign citizens. FDR signed off on the Sicily and Normandy landings. Why does the selection of a much smaller target, resulting in many fewer casualties, represent something novel in your eyes?
Also, Congress authorized the use of force against al Qaeda on in September 2001. This is a legal reality under both American and international law, and will continue to be a legal reality, whether acknowledging it is convenient for a particular political agenda or not.
You misrepresent Johnson's conclusion about the growth of al Qaeda in Yemen.
Also, you bury the lede:
"One of the things that we've seen is that Osama bin Laden, contrary to much of what we were being told by security officials, ... was actually in pretty close contact with a lot of different organizations, whether it was the branch in Yemen or other branches ... whether or not he actually had control, I think, is a bit debatable, but he was certainly writing letters and certainly acting as though he was still the head. The difference, I think, in Yemen is that the individual who's the head of this organization, he's a really short, short guy, very low spoken, very soft voice, he has sort of facial hair that juts out from his face, almost like a billy goat, that this guy who spent so much time with bin Laden these four years as sort of his secretary, his aide-de-camp, he really knew what it was that bin Laden wanted or what he would want and, I think, he's been able to implement that blueprint."
Can we now drop the pretense that the al Qaeda branch in Yemen is not a branch of al Qaeda?
Bill,
Something happened. Therefore, it's been a secret CIA plot all along to make that thing happen. If Morsi's pharonic status is reversed, then that will become the secret CIA plot that the "secret people in dark basements" wanted all along.
A month ago, these threads were full of conspiracy theorizing about how the Secret Men in Secret Basements were stifling the Muslim Brotherhood. It just never ends.
There's a problem with this theory: none of the Middle Eastern wars that the Pentagon has fought had anything to do with Israel and its "tensions," while the many wars resulting from Israel and its "tensions" never have anything to do with the Pentagon.
Look at the wars the U.S. has fought in the region: the overthrow of Saddam, kicking Saddam out of Kuwait, al Qaeda in Yemen, the Afghan War, the occasional tangle with Iran in the Gulf, the Somalia mission, the UN Protective Mission in Libya - none of these have had the first thing to do with Israel.
If anything, Israel is a pain in the Pengagon's butt, frequently complicating American wars, such as when Saddam lobbed Scuds at Israel in 1991 and we had to talk them out of retaliating because it would have broken up the alliance.
Note to self: just nod and agree with Tom Ricks. Do not attempt to argue.
I don't write that note very often, but...whoa.
Have you ever read about the United States in the years following our revolution?
It took a decade to get a durable Constitution in place, the national government was a mess for years before that, there were open, armed rebellions in Massachusetts and Pennsylvania that had to be put down by force by the federal army, and the Vice President shot and killed the Secretary of the Treasury. A little over a decade after the Bill of Rights was adopted, the governing political party passed a law allowing it to arrest people for making partisan political speeches.
We were spoiled by the relative peace with which the Eastern Bloc countries overthrew their dictatorships. New democracy usually looks a lot more like Tahrir Square or Sirte.
Yes, she is an American working as the presenter for the Russian-sponsored "Russia Today." It's the Kremlin's overseas operation, similar to Voice of America or Radio Free Europe. The use of local talent is common.
She'd be pleased to hear that, I'm sure.
From the opening sequence production to her haircut to the way her producers make sure to open up with some crowd pleasers ("Hello, Cleveland, are you ready to rock?!?" = "You're too smart to believe what the American media tells you, right?"), it is quite clear that the purpose of this program is to appeal to the American and Western European progressive community by coming across as one of their own.
Right you are.
In this particular instance, James, the facts are so unequivocally stacked in favor of RT and against the Israeli government that there really is no plausible "other side of the story" to obscure.
I understand the cognitive dissonance any journalist must live with to keep working for RT.
I'd love to find out the real reason why Alyona quit.
You have to admit Perfesser, for an RT presenter to open up her segment with a complaint about some other network being a tool of a government is a little rich.
I hope you haven't forgotten their rather disgraceful campaign of misinformation about the Libya mission.
Assume that Putin did direct Abby Martin to air this story, the truth is still the truth
People get confused about the nature of propaganda - they think it consists entirely of lies. There are three kinds of propaganda: white, grey, and black. Black propaganda is the deliberate spreading of lies. White propaganda is the reporting of truthful stories that advance one's end. Grey is a combination of the two, also known as "misinformation" or simply "spin.
It's not as though propagandists flee from the truth when it helps them. They have no philosophical aversion to the truth. The flip side of that is that telling the truth - or, more commonly, some narrowly-defined aspect of the truth - can still be propagandistic.
It is also important for the U.S. government to make an unambiguous condemnation of Morsy. If Obama won’t do it, I approve of Congress playing the bad cop and cutting off some aid.
Not yet. Now is the time for stern by quiet diplomacy. He's not going to rescind the orders under any circumstances. The goal should be to lock him into his promise to give up those powers when the constitution is written.
I can understand why people would be more afraid of a President seizing power for himself than of a judiciary that rebalances power between the other two branches.
After all, how many countries have suffered under judicial dictatorships?
This would be a good subject for a long post. Perfesser?
Wow. Egyptians firebaggers.
Indeed. The current Israeli government is not only belligerent, but quite irrational in its behavior, in terms of the rational pursuit of the country's self-interest.
Complaining that an air strike is too targeted is truly bizarre.
The expansion of natural gas power plants, allowing the shuttering of coal-fired power plants, is the only development that has actually reduced American greenhouse gas emissions. Not just a little, a lot - America has had the largest drop in C02 output of any nation in the world.
It is difficult to take seriously the claim that that one thing that has worked to reduce greenhouse gas emissions should be brought to a halt, for the sake of preventing climate change.
Notice, Rosemerry, that Obama's carefully-worded diplomatic statement did not actually say that the means Israel was using were appropriate, merely that they were going to choose their own. The implication there is "whether we like it or not."
Diplomat-speak is a very finely-crafted, delicate affair. What is not said is just as important as what is said.
Maybe sooner than we think.
American support for Israel has never been about national interest. Israel doesn't provide us with anything we need. Their soldiers have never fought side by side with our own, like the British or Turks or Canadians. All they ever do is get us into trouble.
American support for Israel is purely sentimental. We felt bad for the European Jews after the Holocaust. Our habit of rooting for underdogs made us sympathize with poor little Israel when it was threatened by hostile, more-powerful enemies in 1946, and 1967, and 1972. Israel was (allegedly) the only democracy in the Middle East for decades. All of these factors combined to lead Harry Truman, and most of the rest of the American political leadership and populace, to have a great sympathy for Israel.
But look where we are now. "Poor, besieged little Israel" is an expansionist, occupying regional power. "The only democracy in the Middle East" has now been surpassed by Tunisia, Libya, Turkey, Egypt - hell, arguably even Iraq! And the blowback we endure because of this relationship is only becoming greater over time, and now it's coming from democratic governments with whom we actually do have important national interest reasons for cultivating.
I'm not sure sentimentality is going to be enough to maintain American support over the long haul, in the face of those considerations. Israel needs us a lot more than we need them, and they'd better clean up their act or risk losing us.
Why bother with ineffectual rockets that give Israel cover for attacks?
A good question. The best answer I've been able to suss out is that the rockets are being launched by dissident groups that take a harsher line on negotiations with the Israelis than does the Hamas government, and which therefore benefit from escalating the violence.
IOW, the rockets are being launched for the purpose of giving the Israelis cover for their attacks, by people who want those attacks. Note that this is not "the Palestinians" in the aggregate doing this. Most Palestinians are just keeping their heads down and trying to put food on the table.
Indeed. The 500 missiles Israel had fired into Gaza in those three days are more than all of the American drone strikes in every country in the world since the first drone launched the first rocket over a decade ago.
Then again, "swatting flies" is not what the Israelis are trying to do.
In fact, Jabo, it's the same dodge that Darmendar uses in his comment.
Pointing out the righteous awesomeness of you cassus belli does not give you the right to violate international law in the prosecution of a war, and that is exactly what both of you argue.
This is a dodge. Are any of those points supposed to make the use of human shields in violation of Geneva legal or moral? Or are you changing the subject entirely?
"But they're the good guys/victims," even if true, is not an answer to the question.
You were where? Where, exactly, were you that you would know about such a deal? Do tell, Professor.
Where, exactly, in what position, were when Pakistan was "allowed," in the late 1990s, to develop nuclear weapons as part of a Cold War deal?
India and Pakistan were not "allowed" to get nuclear weapons by the United States. They took the CIA by surprise and presented us with a fait accompli.
Another important intermediate step to get off oil and make an electric automobile fleet possible is the proliferation of natural gas power plants.
Instead, we are now apparently committed to another Middle East march of folly for which there will be no winners. Again.
People have been telling me that we're six months away from a war with Iran since Bush's first term. Were you one of the people predicting that Obama would give Israel overflight permission over Iraq before the 2011 withdrawal?
And yet, the confidence with which these predictions are made doesn't seem to ever recede. Why is that?
Hold on. The US has rebuffed several attempts by Iran to negotiate a resolution to the nuclear issue by brining in other issues the Iranians want to link to these issues.
It does not follow that "No diplomatic solutions are acceptable to the US." The US wants to negotiate a deal on Iran's nuclear program, in and of itself. The Iranians want to negotiate a deal that brings in other, unrelated issues.
The real goal of the sanctions is exactly as announced: to coerce Iran into cutting a deal on its nuclear program.
The US hasn't claimed the right to kill people wherever, whenever.
If the facts of American actions were so awful, there would be no need to make anymore up.