Whenever anyone accuses the United States of having a foreign policy driven entirely by the pursuit of national interest, I ask "Then why are we allies with Israel?"
The problem, Bill, is the larger question of all the weaponry we pimp overseas to favor our armed thugs when there is no longer a Soviet Union to justify it.
I'm going to go out on a limb here and say that, right now, the ongoing slaughter being carried out by the Syrian regime with Russian backing is, actually, a larger question than the existence of an American armaments industry.
Meanwhile, the Whole Earth Consumptive Repressive Military Monster continues to turn a quarter and more of our real wealth into weapons for sale and for use, and generate more deaths that will turn into “reasons” for still more killing. And We The People of USA can cheer ourselves that our post-national war machine is the largest maker and seller and distributor (though by no means the only one) of all the stuff being shot off in Damascus and so many other places.
I think you misspelled "Russia." Surely, you have enough of a grasp of what is going on in Syria to realize that "the stuff being fired off" is Russian.
It's their country, it's their dictator, so our job is to back them, and their plan, up.
I think if you're talking about using force to "resist tyranny" in the United States, you're a kook. If you think an American living in the United States has even the vaguest experience with tyranny, like that endured by the Syrians under Assad, the Libyans under Gadaffi, or the Egyptians under Mubarak, you're living in a fantasy world.
How many of those has the “government” you are going to “resist” supported, for “reasons of state” that I bet you agree with? Jonas Savimbi? Battista? The Shah? And not so long ago, even Our Friend Against The Iranians, Saddam Hussein?
As I've said, I think the notion of Americans "resisting tyranny" by opposing our own government is foolish. As for what you "bet" I agree with, I don't support that sort of "our bastard" statecraft, and that is one of the biggest reasons why I am so pleased by the change the Obama administration had demonstrated in its response to Arab Spring.
I'm sure the U.S. would be quite happy to see the Syrian revolution weaken Iran and Hizbullah, but so far, our "purpose" there seems to be limited to steering weapons away from al Qaeda and towards the Syrian rebels themselves.
After Tunisia and Egypt, looking at American actions in response to Arab Spring purely through the perspective of national power competition just isn't viable.
But of you're going to add in the CO2 cost of natural gas production, you need to work in the same production cost of coal generation. You mention diesel trucks running in sand. What do you think involves more trucks running around: moving coal and rock, or drilling? How about transporting the goods to the power plant: coal on trucks/rail cars vs. natural gas through a pipeline?
Any way you look at it, natural gas is much less carbon-intensive than coal.
If true, what a purely fortuitous effect of the “economics” of a dump in methane prices.
What, you think the drop in natural gas prices is unique to the United States? Keep looking...
Coal gets cheep again...
...and the industry, which has exactly zero new coal-fired power plants scheduled to be built, and which has been closing down its old ones, still won't be able economically ramp back up the coal-fired power plants, because the Clean Air Act rules promulgated by the Obama/Jackson EPA have written that industry's death warrant.
The wingnuts got something right: Barack Obama came into office and started using environmental regulations to wage war on the coal industry. "You can still build a coal-fired power plant; you'll just go bankrupt" indeed.
No doubt, there will have to be "peakers" - plants whose output can be ramped up in short order during demand peaks - and those will probably have to be gas or nuclear.
But there is absolutely no technological reason why renewables can't take up a big chunk of the base load.
Ever read about solar towers? They use the sun's energy to melt sodium, and then that hot mass gives off heat energy to turn turbines around the clock.
I've often argued that the ongoing replacement of the American coal-fired energy fleet with new gaso-powered plants is a major step forward. Natural gas-fired power plants release half - literally, half - the greenhouse gases per unit of energy that coal-fired plants release. The ongoing turnover is a big reason why the United States had the biggest reduction in CO2 releases of any country in the world last year.
However, it is just a transitional step. It's probably going to take a generation to roll out alternatives (and ramp up conservation) - not because of cost, but just because of the scale of the project. During that transitional period, natural gas is going to be a major part of the energy mix.
"In this particular case," Daryoush? The Assad regime is brutal "in this particular case?" Come on, man!
"how do you think any country/regime would react to a Saudi/Qatar backed armed uprising on its soil?"
Let's get our facts straight here: the regime "reacted" with torture, disappearances, and mass-murder to peaceful protesters. That's why this is a violent situation, and that's why concerned neighbors are even in a position to back and "forces" in the first place.
And to put it bluntly, because the things I’ve seen over the course of my life convince me that non-militarized uprisings by the poor probably won’t succeed enough to stop the truly monstrous crimes that the global corporate oligarchy is cooking up this very minute.
And from this, you conclude that the drying up of Hezbollah's main source of weapons and other military support - that is, the Assad regime - will not deal them a setback?
really, one can hardly seriously consider this a civil war
Oddly enough, the International Committee of the Red Cross, which actually has monitors on the ground, disagrees with you. No doubt, your monitors on the ground have better access than theirs.
with the likes of the US, UK, other nato players and the reactionary gulf states/absolutist monarchists of saudi arabia and oman all sending in hundreds of millions in arms, equipment, fighters, supplying intelliegence, and training the so-called rebels of the not so ‘free syrian army
If foreign powers back one side, it's not a civil war? Someone tell Abraham Lincoln and Jefferson Davis. Oh, btw, you totally accidently forgot to include Russia in your list.
I somehow manage to believe that Hizbollah's rise to power involves resentment over the history of sectarian conflict andthat there should be a new census and that the drying-up of support from Syria will deal them a setback, all at the same time.
Why do you assume that the first two beliefs refute the third?
The most likely explanation for why "suicide bombing" was not used is that this was not a suicide bombing. The estimates are that 1000 pounds of explosives were hidden in the building. That's a hell of a bomb vest! And the bomber, a security guard, is quite alive, according to reports from the opposition.
Also, combatants in an internationally-recognized war (the ICHR declared it a civil war two days ago) killing the other side's military commanders are acting well within the laws and customs of war. You are, in fact, allowed to be sneaky when prosecuting a war, without your actions qualifying as terrorism.
I wonder about #3. Isn't it more likely that the bombers, whoever they are, were merely targeting the top of the military command, and that the sectarian/ethnic identities of those killed is a byproduct of the make-up of the regime?
I was responding to Eurofrank's line: I wonder if this is in fact a sign of deperation on the part of the rebels.
You seem to be arguing the opposite - that expanding the uprising into the capital itself is a sign not of desperation, but of overconfidence. That actually makes a great deal more sense, as far as pessimistic cases go, given the growing success that the Syrian rebels have been experiencing.
That success would seem to be a much more-plausible motive for the rebels moving into Damascus than Eurofrank's theorized horror at being told they won't be getting American arms any time soon. After all, they haven't received American arms to date, yet they've managed to seize the momentum regardless.
Actually if I were a Syrian General I would be pleased that the rebels have gone off at half cock and engaged in Damascus where they can be destroyed piecemeal.
This brings me back to the days of George Bush explaining that growing violence in more and more parts of Iraq, including Baghdad, shows that the the insurgency is losing.
Ironically, some Egyptians, and perhaps including the officer corps, have a strange conspiracy theory that the US wanted to install the Muslim Brotherhood in power in Egypt.
The tendency in the region to believe that anything one does not want in the political realm is a conspiracy by the United States is bizarre to an American observer.
The US secretly supports Israel’s most outrageous stances
I don't agree with everything you wrote, but I give you a great deal of credit for noticing that the United States has other interests influencing its foreign policy besides oil.
Your insight here is depressingly rare among critical voices on the left.
Actually, the right to self-defense against threats is the legitimate standard under international law for when military force can be used, in the absence of a UN resolution.
Yes, Maz, the United States uses force against threats. Once again I'm forced to ask: what kind of monsters are we?
You say this, but the rest of your comment refutes it.
You spend not a single moment considering the actual activities the United States is carrying out in African in 2012. You don't even demonstrate that you have any knowledge about what they might be. Rather, you lean on some all-purpose boilerplate about what happened a century ago, and simply assume that any "activity" that the United States is carrying out today "just gotta" be exactly the same as what we were doing in the 1920s or 1960s.
The only fact you seem to find relevant in your blanket opinion about American policy towards various African nations is that it is American policy. Yours is precisely the opposite of an activity-based morality. Rather, you take a personality-based morality - with the United States as your subject - and base all of your opinions about its actions based on who is carrying them out.
The common elements of every TomDispatch piece about military affairs are an embarrassing lack of knowledge about military affairs, and the assumption that whatever is done by the United States must be terrible.
Oh no, special forces going after the LRA! What kind of monsters are we?!?
What part of developing alliances with local governments is supposed to be immoral? You kind of zipped over that trifling detail in your eagerness to gall Hulk Smash on David.
We are there at the behest of the host governments and in some cases with formal UN approval.
There are those who would consider these to be morally significant facts. Are you among them?
Is there a factual basis for the implied “reality” that there is, outside of the “conservative talking point universe,” a substantial thingie labeled “birth control abortion”?
Are you actually asking if women have abortions to avoid having children when they don't want them? Is this a question you are asking, and even more dramatically, strongly implying that the answer must be "No?"
I hope I'm misunderstanding you, and that you're actually asking a different question.
The supporters of the old regime didn't boycott the elections, as the Sunni Iraqis did in 2005. That's going to make it awfully difficult for those seeking to discredit the new government - both inside Libya, and among the NTC's western critics.
The Central Intelligence Agency did not need a Phoenix program as in Vietnam, formation of death squads as in El Salvador, or employment of systematic torture to ensure the compliance of the Libyan citizenry with its goals.
This is mainly the result of the "goals" being different, and actually in line with those of the Libyan people.
But the CIA isn't the one with the goals. The CIA is, and has always been, the creature of the White House. Pin Mossedegh on Eisenhower, Operation Phoenix on Johnson and Nixon, the torture manual on Reagan, and the Libya policy on Obama. The CIA wasn't deciding on those things by itself.
Libyan federalism has never been a cause with any support among western "anti-imperialist" leftists, and Gadaffi's government did everything it could to suppress separatism and federalism.
However, now that there are Libyan federalists working to undermine the success of the elections and transition to a democratic system, I predict that numerous opponents of the UN mission will suddenly discover the merits of a federated Libya.
Correction: "wasn't involved with" overstates the point. The initial three-week period of the operation was routed through Africom, before it was handed off to a European NATO command.
Did Obama say NO REGIME change prior to the invasion?
What invasion? Do you mean the air campaign? As you may recall, there was quite a bit of dispute about whether or not there would eventually be an invasion - a question which has been answered pretty definitively in the negative. There was no invasion. Given the recent history of Iraq, and what that country looked like for years post-invasion, and the difference in Libya, the invasion/non-invasion (also an occupation/non-occupation) distinction is probably worth keeping in mind.
As for Obama's position before the "invasion," here's a contemporary piece, the headline of which reads Obama Says Gadaffi Must Leave Libya "Now'
Should oppressed peoples not overthrow their oppressors, for fear of what the oppressors' hired goons might do after being turned out of power? Are to blame the Libyan people for Gadaffi's decades-long history of cultivating terrorists and mercenaries?
Also, Africom wasn't involved in the U.N. Protective Mission. It was a NATO-led effort, with headquarters in Italy, under French and British command.
You seem to be reading the United States into events too much, and reading the Libyan people out of those events.
An appropriately measured and thoughtful piece, one that recognizes that both the short-term security interest and the broader, long-term interest need to be taken into account, and that this will involve some balancing between the two.
We accept that the US will take action against those who plot attacks against Americans when there is actionable intelligence.
Remember when, for about five or six years, American conservatives pretended to support the spread of democracy in the Muslim world? Heck, there was even a minor resurgence, in the form of giving George Bush the credit, last spring.
Frankly, I like it better when they're honest like this.
Situation´s still got a faint taste of Agadir to me.
That's always a reasonable concern, certainly something to watch out for.
If Turkey were to try to bootstrap this incident into, say, NATO backing for a major ground incursion that, hey look at that, just happens to involve a parcel of land that Turkey has been eying enviously for decades, I doubt the leadership of NATO would go along with it.
However, I haven't seen any evidence that they are doing so.
Syria's air defenses are quite a bit better than either Iraq's circa 2002 or Libya's. Iraq had been under severe military sanctions, and had had its air defense system degraded by bombing, for a decade when the war broke out. Libya was isolated and unloved, and didn't have a particularly impressive arsenal.
Whereas Syria is a Russian client state, with reasonably-effective air defenses.
In addition, the US in 2003 and NATO in 2011 weren't using F-4s.
Syria ain't the Triple Entente, and for the North Atlantic countries to tell their ally that they suddenly "learned" that there's no need to take alliances seriously, but only after the operation in which Turkey held up its end of the alliance, does not strike me as a particularly "good thing."
That was my reaction, too: some 21-year-old Syrian private asked his 24-year-old shift supervisor what he's supposed to do when some 25-year-old Turkish pilot strayed off course.
Turkey ponied up war ships to help with the Libya operation, despite not being terribly enthusiastic about it, in response to the calls of its NATO allies.
They've definitely got a favor to call in. I don't see how the U.K., France, U.S. and the rest of NATO can, in good conscience, ignore Turkey's call for help here.
I know this is supposed to be a good thing, but the "oil curse" of Saudi Arabia, and other crude-exporting countries, could become a "solar curse" in Morocco. Exporting raw energy to the developed world brings in large amounts of foreign dollars, which is a certainly a good thing, but it does so in a way that produces relatively few jobs for the money, concentrates wealth at the top, and results in a larger number of well-educated people with a high standard of living but very limited job prospects.
With the great energy resources available to it, and the foreign funding being used to develop those resources, Morocco should also be looking at developing a manufacturing sector that takes advantage of that energy, so they can also export something to Europe that actually involves employing large numbers of Moroccans.
It's also worth mentioning that the situation in Yemen is not dualistic. There is the incumbent government, the al Qaeda linked militants, and the popular uprising. The US is at war with the latter. Both the "loyalist" and "dissident" forces have fought with the militants, sometimes actually working together. The American response to the actual popular uprising can best be described as trying to steer a reformist middle course between supporting the incumbent government and endorsing its removal.
Actually, the U.S. played an essential role in getting President Saleh of Yemen removed. The Syrian government is using tactics quite a bit worse than anything we're seeing in Yemen. And there is, indeed, a huge uproar about Syria.
On the larger point, it's certainly true that the difference between Obama's foreign policy and that of his predecessors is quantitative, not qualitative. He's showing more support for democratic reform, and his withdrawal of support for longtime American allies hasn't been across the board.
But it would be foolish to look at the actions, and more significantly the non-actions, of the administration in places like Tunisia, Egypt, Libya, and Yemen and not recognize a rather striking difference from how, say, George Bush or Bill Clinton or the elder George Bush would have handled those situations. Movement in the right direction is still significant, even if it's incomplete.
Before there was Arab Spring, there was the lawyers' uprising in Pakistan. The response of the Bush administration was to fearmonger about al Qaeda taking over the country, and back the Musharrif administration to the hilt. Suffice it to say, this is not the same stance that the Obama administration has taken towards the uprisings in the three North African countries.
Hosni Mubarak was quite happy to "kowtow to American hegemony." So did Saleh in Yemen and Ben Ali in Tunisia. Even Gadhaffi had transformed himself into a good little pliable despot, abandoning his nascent nuclear program and cutting deals with western oil companies. Where are they now?
Talking about "US foreign policy" without taking into account the differences between different administrations misses quite a bit. Obama's stance towards Assad is, indeed, quite different from Clinton's stance towards Algeria, but it is quite consistent with Obama's own record.
Gee, I remember Obama the candidate being very critical of these “murder from the sky” drone attacks.
You do? That's odd, because what actually happened during the 2008 campaign was that Obama endorsed strikes in Pakistan if there was a credible lead about a high-level terrorist target, and his opponents savaged him for that position. He reiterated that he meant what he said, and then a few days later the Bush administration launched an air strike against such a target in Pakistan.
There were all trained in Afghanistan after having joined al Qaeda, because that was al Qaeda's base of operations in the years before 9/11, but none of them were Afghans.
"So," thinks the well-wisher, "This in-fighting between the different factions of the Egyptian protests movement is very unfortunate. I wonder if there could be some way to recapture the unity of last spring."
I guess we have our answer!
As it turns out, the Muslim Brotherhood making a back-room arrangement with the generals wasn't the most brilliant move in the history of Egyptian politics. Let the record show.
Do you think the Turkish and Tunisian govenrnments, both of which are Middle Eastern democracies that are supported by the United States, are more anti-American or anti-Imperialist?
How about this: which of those America-supported Middle Eastern democracies is more anti-American, and which one is more anti-imperialist?
Perhaps you should follow events more closely. The arrest of IRI employees for engaging in pro-democracy training and poll-watching was very widely reported:
You're talking about the "American" that paid to train the people who led the Tahrir Square protests in organizing and politics, using USAID funds provided to the International Republican Institute, right?
Man, that must have been the worst strategy for supporting the power of a military dictatorship EVER!
The Muslim Brootherhood has spent the last decade as the pre-eminent voice in Egypt for free elections, free political speech, and political liberalism in general.
Now, I'm under no illusions about how deep these commitments go - they were arguing for those freedoms because they wanted them, and because they understood that they would be the ones to benefit the most from them.
An alliance with genuine liberals, genuine supporters of electoral democracy, seem like the best way to hold the MB to those principles.
The net outcome of the fight in Wisconsin - all the outside money, all the organizing, all of the recall votes - is a 3 seat swing to the pro-labor Democrats, giving them control of the state senate.
The Koch money was fighting a defensive battle in Wisconsin - try not to lose seats. They lost, and the only question is how much they lost. Scott Walker won his recall election. Hey, look, there's a seat the Republicans didn't lose. That's nice.
Afghanistan went bad because pressure by the US and other for force early elections effectively handed the institutions of government over to a corrupt clan with a pre-existing power base and the ability to effectively buy the election (seem familiar?).
Let's not forget another very important factor - the presence of a foreign military, allied with the government, fostering an anti-government/anti-occupation insurgency.
Let's also not forget what the end - the announced end, the process of ending, and the actual end - of the foreign occupation of Iraq meant for that country's internal security and politics.
There is no foreign occupation in Libya, thank God. Even if that means a lower level of security in the short term, it is still an important factor in allowing post-war reconciliation and a "return to normalcy."
Mark Koroi 05/29/2012 at 9:27 pm
Did the U.S. Congress declare a state of war against Al-Qaeda? I think not.
On September 20, 2001 Congress passed an Authorization for the Use of Military Force - a variety of war declaration - against the persons and organizations that carried out the 9/11 attacks. That is, al Qaeda. Under both American law (War Powers Act) and longstanding practice (going back to the Barbary Pirates), AUMFs have been used by Congress to invoke their war powers.
First of all, the US has been bombing whole ‘terrorist’ training facilities for years, beginning with Al Queda under Clinton and that became the very reason for the Afghan war.
Indeed. In fact, the use of drones for these missions represents a significant reduction in the amount of firepower, and a significant increase in the precision of the strikes, compared to the cruise missiles Clinton used, or even the munitions that were being used when Obama came into office.
A war crime involving civilian casualties would have to involve deliberate targeting of known non-combatants, or the type of gross disregard for civilian protection that the NYT story, with its discussion of all of the strikes "waived off" because of the possibility of civilian casualties, shows us is not happening in this program.
That's not what the story indicates. As Prof. Cole writes, "Obama is generally described as attempting to rein back both the CIA and the Pentagon."
We've seen this not only in this field, but in the cancellation of the F-22, the cancellation of the missile defense bases in Eastern Europe, the abandonment of the Iraqi bases, and numerous other actions.
Obama is probably the least "captive" President since Carter.
Only if you define the war to be won or lost in terms of a Risk board. This transition does, certainly, reflect that we have given up on trying to fight the civilizational war George Bush's crowd imagined. That doesn't actually upset me all that much.
Can a strategy of assassination defeat a movement that has some popular support?
Al Qaeda has very little popular support.
Are the people that we label “terrorists” viewed the same over there?
One of the most interesting finds from the bin Laden compound were his messages decrying how unpopular al Qaeda had become because of their atrocities against Muslims, such as the bombings of Shiite mosques.
The transition from large-scale, main-force war fighting - like the Iraq War - to special forces operations and drone strikes is a consequence of the transition this administration has made from the "War on Terror" (a civilizational conflict between "the West" and "the Islamic world") to a war against al Qaeda.
Surely though minimizing casualties and ultimately the stability this would bring is very much in Russia’s geopolitical interest.
Not if it means the ouster of their client/ally, Assad. If such a peace could be reached while he remains in power, that would obviously be ideal from their perspective, but that's a pretty big IF.
It has become cast adrift from any real geo-strategic mooring.
Another way of saying this would be: it is being discussed using viewpoints other than a strict definition of national interest. I've never liked foreign policy that was strictly realist. Values have to come in at some point.
wait to see if the Russians can calm things down.
Rest assured, Russian policy won't be "adrift from and real geo-strategic mooring."
Arguably the most irresponsible of all is the United States, with the second largest amount of CO2 emissions but doing very little about it
Actually, the United States is the world's largest investor in solar technology, investing $55.9 billion in clean power in 2011, compared to $10.3 billion from India. The American contribution represents 21.5% of total global investment, or, in a certain parlance, "very little."
Drone attacks are a method of extrajudicial assassination.
If this is true, then so are artillery barrages, rifle fire, hand grenades, spear thrusts, chariot charges, musket volleys, and bombings from piloted aircraft.
What is the legal line here? Where is to be drawn?
Between "against the enemy during wartime" and "not against the enemy during wartime." I don't understand why so many people skip right over the legal, constitutional, and substantive importance of a state of war.
Who has the authority to call a drone strike? According to a new article in the NYT, it depends on the drone strike and the type of target - which is the same answer you would get if you substituted "spear thrust" or any of the other examples of other military force I listed above.
Is it OK if some bystanders have their lives or safety at risk due to another being targeted by a drone strike. Exactly the same rules for protecting civilians apply to military strikes carried out using pilotless aircraft as apply to any other type of military strike.
Have their been any court actions to test the legality of drone strike assassinations?
I don't believe that there has ever been a court case to test the doctrine that the military can shoot at the enemy during a war, regardless of the platform used.
What is this 9000th repetition of your trite daily tap dance supposed to have to do with what I wrote about Code Pink's protest tactics and their efficacy?
Code Pink's activism during the Bush years was an embarrassing, counterproductive demonstration of self-indulgence, and a drag on the anti-Iraq War movement. Their only influence on American political discourse was to create an easy, high-profile target for the pro-war side to point to when they wanted to discredit their opponents.
We’ve got to use the Code Pink tactics of interrupting these people, of direct action, of civil disobedience, of being out there with our pink handcuffs to try and arrest them and hold them accountable for war crimes.
Because that works so well.
As someone who thinks that shooting at al Qaeda commanders is the right thing to do, thank you very much, I would be happy to see Code Pink get out there are discredit the other side of the argument. I find Medea's habit of insisting that the large majority of Democrats who don't agree with her on the use of force against al Qaeda are demonstrating a blind obedience to Obama, as opposed to actually disagreeing with her on principle, to be a very effective way of making sure that her message will not get through to her intended audience.
The doctrine of Responsibility to Protect, and of enforcing human rights norms in general, raises some very difficult questions for liberals and leftists. It pits some of our most treasured values against each other, and requires us to do the difficult work of figuring out, and under what circumstances, different values outweigh each other.
So difficult, in fact, that large numbers of liberals and leftists have decided to respond to the conundrum by defining it out of existence, imposing more familiar, easier narratives onto the question instead of dealing with it as it actually exists.
I'm stunned that nobody has googled Syrian's largest export, and written a "No War for ______________!" comment yet. That's usually what happens.
syria is no libya it is a multi religious country and a sizeable majority will not accept a salafite takeover
Indeed. So why should I be worried about a "salafite regime?" As you say, there is no chance of it happening.
Anyway if the NATO powers were convinced that there were no flow on effects from a bombing campaign, no wider regional implications, no counter strikes on Israel and no possibility of a regional war they would have bombed syria yesterday and before day before that.
Yes, and? Was it supposed to make NATO look worse to note that they are hesitant to intervene because the consequences might be dire?
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I don't have any great insights, like the first two commenters.
I'm just struck by the image itself. All of the figures in the same white outfit against the black and red background.
Quite a find, perfesser.
Whenever anyone accuses the United States of having a foreign policy driven entirely by the pursuit of national interest, I ask "Then why are we allies with Israel?"
Sure, but look at all of the benefits the United States enjoys from our alliance with Israel.
Like...um...
Ukraine is joke to you!?!
Ukraine is not weak! Ukraine is strong!
The problem, Bill, is the larger question of all the weaponry we pimp overseas to favor our armed thugs when there is no longer a Soviet Union to justify it.
I'm going to go out on a limb here and say that, right now, the ongoing slaughter being carried out by the Syrian regime with Russian backing is, actually, a larger question than the existence of an American armaments industry.
Meanwhile, the Whole Earth Consumptive Repressive Military Monster continues to turn a quarter and more of our real wealth into weapons for sale and for use, and generate more deaths that will turn into “reasons” for still more killing. And We The People of USA can cheer ourselves that our post-national war machine is the largest maker and seller and distributor (though by no means the only one) of all the stuff being shot off in Damascus and so many other places.
I think you misspelled "Russia." Surely, you have enough of a grasp of what is going on in Syria to realize that "the stuff being fired off" is Russian.
Especially if it was the ambassador to a country as important to the US as Iraq is to Syria.
I don't have a plan for resisting tyranny.
It's their country, it's their dictator, so our job is to back them, and their plan, up.
I think if you're talking about using force to "resist tyranny" in the United States, you're a kook. If you think an American living in the United States has even the vaguest experience with tyranny, like that endured by the Syrians under Assad, the Libyans under Gadaffi, or the Egyptians under Mubarak, you're living in a fantasy world.
How many of those has the “government” you are going to “resist” supported, for “reasons of state” that I bet you agree with? Jonas Savimbi? Battista? The Shah? And not so long ago, even Our Friend Against The Iranians, Saddam Hussein?
As I've said, I think the notion of Americans "resisting tyranny" by opposing our own government is foolish. As for what you "bet" I agree with, I don't support that sort of "our bastard" statecraft, and that is one of the biggest reasons why I am so pleased by the change the Obama administration had demonstrated in its response to Arab Spring.
Shame on those Syrians who fantasize about resisting tyranny!
And shame on those Americans who sympathize with them!
I'm sure the U.S. would be quite happy to see the Syrian revolution weaken Iran and Hizbullah, but so far, our "purpose" there seems to be limited to steering weapons away from al Qaeda and towards the Syrian rebels themselves.
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/06/21/world/middleeast/cia-said-to-aid-in-steering-arms-to-syrian-rebels.html?pagewanted=all
After Tunisia and Egypt, looking at American actions in response to Arab Spring purely through the perspective of national power competition just isn't viable.
Wow, what a hell hole. I'm pretty sure that guy in the plaid shirt is torturing someone right now.
Those two women look awfully close. Are they a militia?
Hydropumps probably aren't the ideal solution for Desertec, though.
The Department of Defense is actually a leader in alternative energy research. If nothing else, they know how much a big fuel supply costs.
But of you're going to add in the CO2 cost of natural gas production, you need to work in the same production cost of coal generation. You mention diesel trucks running in sand. What do you think involves more trucks running around: moving coal and rock, or drilling? How about transporting the goods to the power plant: coal on trucks/rail cars vs. natural gas through a pipeline?
Any way you look at it, natural gas is much less carbon-intensive than coal.
Germany would be better off moving all its solar panels to North Africa where they would generate a better return.
I wonder about this: what about the transmission loss?
If true, what a purely fortuitous effect of the “economics” of a dump in methane prices.
What, you think the drop in natural gas prices is unique to the United States? Keep looking...
Coal gets cheep again...
...and the industry, which has exactly zero new coal-fired power plants scheduled to be built, and which has been closing down its old ones, still won't be able economically ramp back up the coal-fired power plants, because the Clean Air Act rules promulgated by the Obama/Jackson EPA have written that industry's death warrant.
The wingnuts got something right: Barack Obama came into office and started using environmental regulations to wage war on the coal industry. "You can still build a coal-fired power plant; you'll just go bankrupt" indeed.
No doubt, there will have to be "peakers" - plants whose output can be ramped up in short order during demand peaks - and those will probably have to be gas or nuclear.
But there is absolutely no technological reason why renewables can't take up a big chunk of the base load.
That's what solar thermal is all about.
Ever read about solar towers? They use the sun's energy to melt sodium, and then that hot mass gives off heat energy to turn turbines around the clock.
I've often argued that the ongoing replacement of the American coal-fired energy fleet with new gaso-powered plants is a major step forward. Natural gas-fired power plants release half - literally, half - the greenhouse gases per unit of energy that coal-fired plants release. The ongoing turnover is a big reason why the United States had the biggest reduction in CO2 releases of any country in the world last year.
However, it is just a transitional step. It's probably going to take a generation to roll out alternatives (and ramp up conservation) - not because of cost, but just because of the scale of the project. During that transitional period, natural gas is going to be a major part of the energy mix.
"In this particular case," Daryoush? The Assad regime is brutal "in this particular case?" Come on, man!
"how do you think any country/regime would react to a Saudi/Qatar backed armed uprising on its soil?"
Let's get our facts straight here: the regime "reacted" with torture, disappearances, and mass-murder to peaceful protesters. That's why this is a violent situation, and that's why concerned neighbors are even in a position to back and "forces" in the first place.
Remeber, kids: it's not a lie if Israel does it.
It occurs to me that your contingency "at time" would best be used to exclude the presidency of Barack Hussein Obama.
All of those are likely sources, in addition to weapons brought over from defecting soldiers.
I don't understand why it should be "narrowed down."
There are several paragraphs in this very post discussing the source of the rebels' arms.
The government acting like guerillas, and the rebels taking and holding strategic territory.
Stranger and stranger.
And to put it bluntly, because the things I’ve seen over the course of my life convince me that non-militarized uprisings by the poor probably won’t succeed enough to stop the truly monstrous crimes that the global corporate oligarchy is cooking up this very minute.
And from this, you conclude that the drying up of Hezbollah's main source of weapons and other military support - that is, the Assad regime - will not deal them a setback?
That's a very interesting thought process.
really, one can hardly seriously consider this a civil war
Oddly enough, the International Committee of the Red Cross, which actually has monitors on the ground, disagrees with you. No doubt, your monitors on the ground have better access than theirs.
with the likes of the US, UK, other nato players and the reactionary gulf states/absolutist monarchists of saudi arabia and oman all sending in hundreds of millions in arms, equipment, fighters, supplying intelliegence, and training the so-called rebels of the not so ‘free syrian army
If foreign powers back one side, it's not a civil war? Someone tell Abraham Lincoln and Jefferson Davis. Oh, btw, you totally accidently forgot to include Russia in your list.
Never mind, that report appears to be wrong. Fog of war + internet.
Later reports say that the bombs were placed in a flower pot and a box of chocolates.
My momma told me life is like a box of chocolates...
I somehow manage to believe that Hizbollah's rise to power involves resentment over the history of sectarian conflict andthat there should be a new census and that the drying-up of support from Syria will deal them a setback, all at the same time.
Why do you assume that the first two beliefs refute the third?
Estimates are that there were 1000 pounds of explosives used. Predators cannot carry 1000 pound payloads, or anything close to it.
The most likely explanation for why "suicide bombing" was not used is that this was not a suicide bombing. The estimates are that 1000 pounds of explosives were hidden in the building. That's a hell of a bomb vest! And the bomber, a security guard, is quite alive, according to reports from the opposition.
Also, combatants in an internationally-recognized war (the ICHR declared it a civil war two days ago) killing the other side's military commanders are acting well within the laws and customs of war. You are, in fact, allowed to be sneaky when prosecuting a war, without your actions qualifying as terrorism.
I wonder about #3. Isn't it more likely that the bombers, whoever they are, were merely targeting the top of the military command, and that the sectarian/ethnic identities of those killed is a byproduct of the make-up of the regime?
She's married to fierce Israel supporter Anthony Weiner?
Srsly? This is the Islamist horror? Anthony Weiner's wife?
COME ON, MAN!
Iraq Warns Al Qaeda Is Flowing Into Syria: http://www.google.com/url?q=http://www.boston.com/news/world/middleeast/articles/2012/07/06/iraq_warns_al_qaeda_is_flowing_into_syria/&sa=U&ei=3cEGUO-ICYLX6wG42PC7CA&ved=0CBEQFjAA&usg=AFQjCNE5_Bbw-s1ase1O68OLXv54glFwwQ
In Syria's Conflict, Extremists Add Element of Unpredictability: http://www.bostonglobe.com/news/world/2012/05/11/syria-conflict-extremists-add-element-unpredictability/Q3ak10W5HoqlGB73fWo3UI/story.html
US Officials Suggest Al Qaeda Militants May Be Joining the Fray: http://www.bostonglobe.com/news/world/2012/05/03/syrian-forces-raid-university-least-students-killed/Q8LzkSLIJFvTbhiUnoESoI/story.html
Al Qaeda Influence Suspected in Bombings in Syria: http://www.nytimes.com/2012/02/16/world/middleeast/al-qaeda-influence-suspected-in-bombings-in-syria.html?pagewanted=all
Can we stop pretending that the American media haven't been writing about this?
Al-Qaeda are confirmed as operating with the Rebels, yet it is never mentioned by the West Press
Actually, that is frequently mentioned in the western press.
Super390,
I was responding to Eurofrank's line: I wonder if this is in fact a sign of deperation on the part of the rebels.
You seem to be arguing the opposite - that expanding the uprising into the capital itself is a sign not of desperation, but of overconfidence. That actually makes a great deal more sense, as far as pessimistic cases go, given the growing success that the Syrian rebels have been experiencing.
That success would seem to be a much more-plausible motive for the rebels moving into Damascus than Eurofrank's theorized horror at being told they won't be getting American arms any time soon. After all, they haven't received American arms to date, yet they've managed to seize the momentum regardless.
Actually if I were a Syrian General I would be pleased that the rebels have gone off at half cock and engaged in Damascus where they can be destroyed piecemeal.
This brings me back to the days of George Bush explaining that growing violence in more and more parts of Iraq, including Baghdad, shows that the the insurgency is losing.
http://thinkprogress.org/politics/2008/03/27/20906/bush-iraq-positive/
Ironically, some Egyptians, and perhaps including the officer corps, have a strange conspiracy theory that the US wanted to install the Muslim Brotherhood in power in Egypt.
The tendency in the region to believe that anything one does not want in the political realm is a conspiracy by the United States is bizarre to an American observer.
The US secretly supports Israel’s most outrageous stances
Well, most American observers.
I never thought I'd see someone using the phrase "Volk" seriously.
I don't agree with everything you wrote, but I give you a great deal of credit for noticing that the United States has other interests influencing its foreign policy besides oil.
Your insight here is depressingly rare among critical voices on the left.
Actually, the right to self-defense against threats is the legitimate standard under international law for when military force can be used, in the absence of a UN resolution.
Yes, Maz, the United States uses force against threats. Once again I'm forced to ask: what kind of monsters are we?
My definition of morality is activity dependent
You say this, but the rest of your comment refutes it.
You spend not a single moment considering the actual activities the United States is carrying out in African in 2012. You don't even demonstrate that you have any knowledge about what they might be. Rather, you lean on some all-purpose boilerplate about what happened a century ago, and simply assume that any "activity" that the United States is carrying out today "just gotta" be exactly the same as what we were doing in the 1920s or 1960s.
The only fact you seem to find relevant in your blanket opinion about American policy towards various African nations is that it is American policy. Yours is precisely the opposite of an activity-based morality. Rather, you take a personality-based morality - with the United States as your subject - and base all of your opinions about its actions based on who is carrying them out.
The common elements of every TomDispatch piece about military affairs are an embarrassing lack of knowledge about military affairs, and the assumption that whatever is done by the United States must be terrible.
Oh no, special forces going after the LRA! What kind of monsters are we?!?
What part of developing alliances with local governments is supposed to be immoral? You kind of zipped over that trifling detail in your eagerness to gall Hulk Smash on David.
We are there at the behest of the host governments and in some cases with formal UN approval.
There are those who would consider these to be morally significant facts. Are you among them?
Is there a factual basis for the implied “reality” that there is, outside of the “conservative talking point universe,” a substantial thingie labeled “birth control abortion”?
Are you actually asking if women have abortions to avoid having children when they don't want them? Is this a question you are asking, and even more dramatically, strongly implying that the answer must be "No?"
I hope I'm misunderstanding you, and that you're actually asking a different question.
The supporters of the old regime didn't boycott the elections, as the Sunni Iraqis did in 2005. That's going to make it awfully difficult for those seeking to discredit the new government - both inside Libya, and among the NTC's western critics.
Massachusetts had a 4.9 per 100k infant mortality rate in 2001, the lowest in the nation, in 2001.
I would attribute it more to another long-standing first in Massachusetts: the lowest teen birth rate among the states.
This is mainly the result of the "goals" being different, and actually in line with those of the Libyan people.
But the CIA isn't the one with the goals. The CIA is, and has always been, the creature of the White House. Pin Mossedegh on Eisenhower, Operation Phoenix on Johnson and Nixon, the torture manual on Reagan, and the Libya policy on Obama. The CIA wasn't deciding on those things by itself.
Libyan federalism has never been a cause with any support among western "anti-imperialist" leftists, and Gadaffi's government did everything it could to suppress separatism and federalism.
However, now that there are Libyan federalists working to undermine the success of the elections and transition to a democratic system, I predict that numerous opponents of the UN mission will suddenly discover the merits of a federated Libya.
Correction: "wasn't involved with" overstates the point. The initial three-week period of the operation was routed through Africom, before it was handed off to a European NATO command.
Did Obama say NO REGIME change prior to the invasion?
What invasion? Do you mean the air campaign? As you may recall, there was quite a bit of dispute about whether or not there would eventually be an invasion - a question which has been answered pretty definitively in the negative. There was no invasion. Given the recent history of Iraq, and what that country looked like for years post-invasion, and the difference in Libya, the invasion/non-invasion (also an occupation/non-occupation) distinction is probably worth keeping in mind.
As for Obama's position before the "invasion," here's a contemporary piece, the headline of which reads Obama Says Gadaffi Must Leave Libya "Now'
http://www.politicsdaily.com/2011/02/26/obama-says-gadhafi-must-leave-libya-now/
Should oppressed peoples not overthrow their oppressors, for fear of what the oppressors' hired goons might do after being turned out of power? Are to blame the Libyan people for Gadaffi's decades-long history of cultivating terrorists and mercenaries?
Also, Africom wasn't involved in the U.N. Protective Mission. It was a NATO-led effort, with headquarters in Italy, under French and British command.
You seem to be reading the United States into events too much, and reading the Libyan people out of those events.
Shouldn't it at least be yellow now?
We're trying! We're trying really hard.
Come on, Professor, do it: put up that map with an orange USA!
Don't forget Alaska.
What could account for that decline
Success. Fewer al Qaeda targets left.
Solar-powered desalination plants: that would be a great place to put some foreign-aid money.
How often have we called the Muslim Brotherhood extremist?
Who is "we" in this sentence?
I don't believe I have seen this President, SoS, or any member of this administration call the MB "extremist."
My point is, there are some American political figures who behave as you describe, but just as many who do not.
It seems mean anyone who disagrees with us. We label someone an extremist, and then we can discount his point of view and put him on the kill list.
Is that how the Obama administration has responded to the leadership of the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood?
An appropriately measured and thoughtful piece, one that recognizes that both the short-term security interest and the broader, long-term interest need to be taken into account, and that this will involve some balancing between the two.
We accept that the US will take action against those who plot attacks against Americans when there is actionable intelligence.
As any reasonable person would.
Remember when, for about five or six years, American conservatives pretended to support the spread of democracy in the Muslim world? Heck, there was even a minor resurgence, in the form of giving George Bush the credit, last spring.
Frankly, I like it better when they're honest like this.
Situation´s still got a faint taste of Agadir to me.
That's always a reasonable concern, certainly something to watch out for.
If Turkey were to try to bootstrap this incident into, say, NATO backing for a major ground incursion that, hey look at that, just happens to involve a parcel of land that Turkey has been eying enviously for decades, I doubt the leadership of NATO would go along with it.
However, I haven't seen any evidence that they are doing so.
Syria's air defenses are quite a bit better than either Iraq's circa 2002 or Libya's. Iraq had been under severe military sanctions, and had had its air defense system degraded by bombing, for a decade when the war broke out. Libya was isolated and unloved, and didn't have a particularly impressive arsenal.
Whereas Syria is a Russian client state, with reasonably-effective air defenses.
In addition, the US in 2003 and NATO in 2011 weren't using F-4s.
Syria ain't the Triple Entente, and for the North Atlantic countries to tell their ally that they suddenly "learned" that there's no need to take alliances seriously, but only after the operation in which Turkey held up its end of the alliance, does not strike me as a particularly "good thing."
That was my reaction, too: some 21-year-old Syrian private asked his 24-year-old shift supervisor what he's supposed to do when some 25-year-old Turkish pilot strayed off course.
Turkey ponied up war ships to help with the Libya operation, despite not being terribly enthusiastic about it, in response to the calls of its NATO allies.
They've definitely got a favor to call in. I don't see how the U.K., France, U.S. and the rest of NATO can, in good conscience, ignore Turkey's call for help here.
"...the Saudi Arabia of renewable energy."
I know this is supposed to be a good thing, but the "oil curse" of Saudi Arabia, and other crude-exporting countries, could become a "solar curse" in Morocco. Exporting raw energy to the developed world brings in large amounts of foreign dollars, which is a certainly a good thing, but it does so in a way that produces relatively few jobs for the money, concentrates wealth at the top, and results in a larger number of well-educated people with a high standard of living but very limited job prospects.
With the great energy resources available to it, and the foreign funding being used to develop those resources, Morocco should also be looking at developing a manufacturing sector that takes advantage of that energy, so they can also export something to Europe that actually involves employing large numbers of Moroccans.
Still, this is great news.
The idea of a hybrid aircraft power plant makes a whole lot of sense.
That's great, just as long as they don't try to fly it to Syria.
This would be a great technology for UAVs, since they need to be able to loiter over the target area for extended periods.
Sorry, "the latter" was supposed to refer to the al Qaeda-linked militants, not the popular uprising.
It's also worth mentioning that the situation in Yemen is not dualistic. There is the incumbent government, the al Qaeda linked militants, and the popular uprising. The US is at war with the latter. Both the "loyalist" and "dissident" forces have fought with the militants, sometimes actually working together. The American response to the actual popular uprising can best be described as trying to steer a reformist middle course between supporting the incumbent government and endorsing its removal.
Actually, the U.S. played an essential role in getting President Saleh of Yemen removed. The Syrian government is using tactics quite a bit worse than anything we're seeing in Yemen. And there is, indeed, a huge uproar about Syria.
On the larger point, it's certainly true that the difference between Obama's foreign policy and that of his predecessors is quantitative, not qualitative. He's showing more support for democratic reform, and his withdrawal of support for longtime American allies hasn't been across the board.
But it would be foolish to look at the actions, and more significantly the non-actions, of the administration in places like Tunisia, Egypt, Libya, and Yemen and not recognize a rather striking difference from how, say, George Bush or Bill Clinton or the elder George Bush would have handled those situations. Movement in the right direction is still significant, even if it's incomplete.
Before there was Arab Spring, there was the lawyers' uprising in Pakistan. The response of the Bush administration was to fearmonger about al Qaeda taking over the country, and back the Musharrif administration to the hilt. Suffice it to say, this is not the same stance that the Obama administration has taken towards the uprisings in the three North African countries.
Hosni Mubarak was quite happy to "kowtow to American hegemony." So did Saleh in Yemen and Ben Ali in Tunisia. Even Gadhaffi had transformed himself into a good little pliable despot, abandoning his nascent nuclear program and cutting deals with western oil companies. Where are they now?
Talking about "US foreign policy" without taking into account the differences between different administrations misses quite a bit. Obama's stance towards Assad is, indeed, quite different from Clinton's stance towards Algeria, but it is quite consistent with Obama's own record.
Gee, I remember Obama the candidate being very critical of these “murder from the sky” drone attacks.
You do? That's odd, because what actually happened during the 2008 campaign was that Obama endorsed strikes in Pakistan if there was a credible lead about a high-level terrorist target, and his opponents savaged him for that position. He reiterated that he meant what he said, and then a few days later the Bush administration launched an air strike against such a target in Pakistan.
It was pretty widely reported: http://tpmdc.talkingpointsmemo.com/2011/05/flashback-2008-mccain-clinton-slam-obama-for-saying-hed-go-get-bin-laden-in-pakistan-video.php
Iraq. Not Iran. This is a post about Sharon threatening to nuke Iraq.
Correct.
There were all trained in Afghanistan after having joined al Qaeda, because that was al Qaeda's base of operations in the years before 9/11, but none of them were Afghans.
"So," thinks the well-wisher, "This in-fighting between the different factions of the Egyptian protests movement is very unfortunate. I wonder if there could be some way to recapture the unity of last spring."
I guess we have our answer!
As it turns out, the Muslim Brotherhood making a back-room arrangement with the generals wasn't the most brilliant move in the history of Egyptian politics. Let the record show.
Ron,
Do you think the Turkish and Tunisian govenrnments, both of which are Middle Eastern democracies that are supported by the United States, are more anti-American or anti-Imperialist?
How about this: which of those America-supported Middle Eastern democracies is more anti-American, and which one is more anti-imperialist?
America supported the revolution? You must be kidding.
http://www.iri.org/countries-and-programs/middle-east-and-north-africa/egypt&sa=U&ei=dNHhT4jiGIfX0QHnuPWhAw&ved=0CBEQFjAA&usg=AFQjCNFV1pYczFVHFWV64nJME02soTBGag
Perhaps you should follow events more closely. The arrest of IRI employees for engaging in pro-democracy training and poll-watching was very widely reported:
http://articles.latimes.com/2012/feb/06/world/la-fg-egypt-american-arrests-20120206&sa=U&ei=y9HhT6bEEcHk0QGKr5n-Aw&ved=0CBEQFjAA&usg=AFQjCNFfrQYba-M_tWpqPgiMwPejGHGarA
If these unassailable facts don't fit your pre-packaged narrative, perhaps it's time to expand your understanding.
You're talking about the "American" that paid to train the people who led the Tahrir Square protests in organizing and politics, using USAID funds provided to the International Republican Institute, right?
Man, that must have been the worst strategy for supporting the power of a military dictatorship EVER!
The Muslim Brootherhood has spent the last decade as the pre-eminent voice in Egypt for free elections, free political speech, and political liberalism in general.
Now, I'm under no illusions about how deep these commitments go - they were arguing for those freedoms because they wanted them, and because they understood that they would be the ones to benefit the most from them.
An alliance with genuine liberals, genuine supporters of electoral democracy, seem like the best way to hold the MB to those principles.
I can't believe all the pessimism here.
The net outcome of the fight in Wisconsin - all the outside money, all the organizing, all of the recall votes - is a 3 seat swing to the pro-labor Democrats, giving them control of the state senate.
The Koch money was fighting a defensive battle in Wisconsin - try not to lose seats. They lost, and the only question is how much they lost. Scott Walker won his recall election. Hey, look, there's a seat the Republicans didn't lose. That's nice.
Afghanistan went bad because pressure by the US and other for force early elections effectively handed the institutions of government over to a corrupt clan with a pre-existing power base and the ability to effectively buy the election (seem familiar?).
Let's not forget another very important factor - the presence of a foreign military, allied with the government, fostering an anti-government/anti-occupation insurgency.
Let's also not forget what the end - the announced end, the process of ending, and the actual end - of the foreign occupation of Iraq meant for that country's internal security and politics.
There is no foreign occupation in Libya, thank God. Even if that means a lower level of security in the short term, it is still an important factor in allowing post-war reconciliation and a "return to normalcy."
I understand your thinking, Super390, but look at how banning the Baath Party in Iraq worked out.
Take heart: Romney will almost certainly abandon this position in a week or two.
From a previous thread:
Mark Koroi 05/29/2012 at 9:27 pm
Did the U.S. Congress declare a state of war against Al-Qaeda? I think not.
On September 20, 2001 Congress passed an Authorization for the Use of Military Force - a variety of war declaration - against the persons and organizations that carried out the 9/11 attacks. That is, al Qaeda. Under both American law (War Powers Act) and longstanding practice (going back to the Barbary Pirates), AUMFs have been used by Congress to invoke their war powers.
First of all, the US has been bombing whole ‘terrorist’ training facilities for years, beginning with Al Queda under Clinton and that became the very reason for the Afghan war.
Indeed. In fact, the use of drones for these missions represents a significant reduction in the amount of firepower, and a significant increase in the precision of the strikes, compared to the cruise missiles Clinton used, or even the munitions that were being used when Obama came into office.
A war crime involving civilian casualties would have to involve deliberate targeting of known non-combatants, or the type of gross disregard for civilian protection that the NYT story, with its discussion of all of the strikes "waived off" because of the possibility of civilian casualties, shows us is not happening in this program.
That's not what the story indicates. As Prof. Cole writes, "Obama is generally described as attempting to rein back both the CIA and the Pentagon."
We've seen this not only in this field, but in the cancellation of the F-22, the cancellation of the missile defense bases in Eastern Europe, the abandonment of the Iraqi bases, and numerous other actions.
Obama is probably the least "captive" President since Carter.
Are we admitting that we have lost?
Only if you define the war to be won or lost in terms of a Risk board. This transition does, certainly, reflect that we have given up on trying to fight the civilizational war George Bush's crowd imagined. That doesn't actually upset me all that much.
Can a strategy of assassination defeat a movement that has some popular support?
Al Qaeda has very little popular support.
Are the people that we label “terrorists” viewed the same over there?
One of the most interesting finds from the bin Laden compound were his messages decrying how unpopular al Qaeda had become because of their atrocities against Muslims, such as the bombings of Shiite mosques.
The transition from large-scale, main-force war fighting - like the Iraq War - to special forces operations and drone strikes is a consequence of the transition this administration has made from the "War on Terror" (a civilizational conflict between "the West" and "the Islamic world") to a war against al Qaeda.
Surely though minimizing casualties and ultimately the stability this would bring is very much in Russia’s geopolitical interest.
Not if it means the ouster of their client/ally, Assad. If such a peace could be reached while he remains in power, that would obviously be ideal from their perspective, but that's a pretty big IF.
It has become cast adrift from any real geo-strategic mooring.
Another way of saying this would be: it is being discussed using viewpoints other than a strict definition of national interest. I've never liked foreign policy that was strictly realist. Values have to come in at some point.
wait to see if the Russians can calm things down.
Rest assured, Russian policy won't be "adrift from and real geo-strategic mooring."
Love the chest thumping. We’re Number One!
Aw, did I present you with some facts that you found inconvenient?
Too bad. I do that a lot.
Going into you canned tapdance and changing the subject are not the responses of an honest person to information he didn't know.
Arguably the most irresponsible of all is the United States, with the second largest amount of CO2 emissions but doing very little about it
Actually, the United States is the world's largest investor in solar technology, investing $55.9 billion in clean power in 2011, compared to $10.3 billion from India. The American contribution represents 21.5% of total global investment, or, in a certain parlance, "very little."
http://cleantechnica.com/2012/01/13/clean-energy-investment-record-2011-us-china/
Drone attacks are a method of extrajudicial assassination.
If this is true, then so are artillery barrages, rifle fire, hand grenades, spear thrusts, chariot charges, musket volleys, and bombings from piloted aircraft.
What is the legal line here? Where is to be drawn?
Between "against the enemy during wartime" and "not against the enemy during wartime." I don't understand why so many people skip right over the legal, constitutional, and substantive importance of a state of war.
Who has the authority to call a drone strike? According to a new article in the NYT, it depends on the drone strike and the type of target - which is the same answer you would get if you substituted "spear thrust" or any of the other examples of other military force I listed above.
Is it OK if some bystanders have their lives or safety at risk due to another being targeted by a drone strike. Exactly the same rules for protecting civilians apply to military strikes carried out using pilotless aircraft as apply to any other type of military strike.
Have their been any court actions to test the legality of drone strike assassinations?
I don't believe that there has ever been a court case to test the doctrine that the military can shoot at the enemy during a war, regardless of the platform used.
What is this 9000th repetition of your trite daily tap dance supposed to have to do with what I wrote about Code Pink's protest tactics and their efficacy?
Code Pink's activism during the Bush years was an embarrassing, counterproductive demonstration of self-indulgence, and a drag on the anti-Iraq War movement. Their only influence on American political discourse was to create an easy, high-profile target for the pro-war side to point to when they wanted to discredit their opponents.
We’ve got to use the Code Pink tactics of interrupting these people, of direct action, of civil disobedience, of being out there with our pink handcuffs to try and arrest them and hold them accountable for war crimes.
Because that works so well.
As someone who thinks that shooting at al Qaeda commanders is the right thing to do, thank you very much, I would be happy to see Code Pink get out there are discredit the other side of the argument. I find Medea's habit of insisting that the large majority of Democrats who don't agree with her on the use of force against al Qaeda are demonstrating a blind obedience to Obama, as opposed to actually disagreeing with her on principle, to be a very effective way of making sure that her message will not get through to her intended audience.
The doctrine of Responsibility to Protect, and of enforcing human rights norms in general, raises some very difficult questions for liberals and leftists. It pits some of our most treasured values against each other, and requires us to do the difficult work of figuring out, and under what circumstances, different values outweigh each other.
So difficult, in fact, that large numbers of liberals and leftists have decided to respond to the conundrum by defining it out of existence, imposing more familiar, easier narratives onto the question instead of dealing with it as it actually exists.
I'm stunned that nobody has googled Syrian's largest export, and written a "No War for ______________!" comment yet. That's usually what happens.
syria is no libya it is a multi religious country and a sizeable majority will not accept a salafite takeover
Indeed. So why should I be worried about a "salafite regime?" As you say, there is no chance of it happening.
Anyway if the NATO powers were convinced that there were no flow on effects from a bombing campaign, no wider regional implications, no counter strikes on Israel and no possibility of a regional war they would have bombed syria yesterday and before day before that.
Yes, and? Was it supposed to make NATO look worse to note that they are hesitant to intervene because the consequences might be dire?
Not too ironic.
If you think that more than 1 American in 100 could tell you what happened at Sabra and Shatila, you are wildly optimistic.