The World Order in Flames
For the past several weeks, the supposed struggle for human rights and liberation in Libya has been so wrecked by an obviously corrupt European-led military intervention that one might well just stand back and watch it—like a house so engulfed in flames that one can only watch it burn. But with the killing of Muammar Qaddafy’s grandchildren by a NATO-organised air strike, those flames are rising so high that they are threatening Mount Olympus – the rarefied realm of the UN world system. The rumbling protests by an informed world public about all this, like those regarding illegalities in Iraq, do not suffice in this case. The lethal strike on Qaddafy’s family’s home emblematically contravenes the UN system of international law and world order so baldly that concerted international action must now be organised. For the fact is that the present situation of an organised European-led military attack on a sovereign state, with the open goal of regime change, is shaking the foundations of the world order that protects us all.
Calling for urgent action in Libya does not rest on any illusion that the UN legal order isn’t already a seriously cracked vessel. The illegal invasion of Iraq, on bogus pretexts of transparently cooked evidence, is an obvious recent predecessor, but those of us with longer memories will remember the bogus pretext in Vietnam (the phony Gulf of Tonkin incident) and the myriad of fake excuses for military interventions, proxy takeovers and subversions of the less powerful by the more powerful throughout the Cold War. All these played out in the post-World War II system of rules and norms created by the UN Charter and UN institutions. Hence, on one level, what we are witnessing in Libya rings of the same old ugly behaviour, which was also often defended on grounds of protecting people from the ravages of a bad (socialist or capitalist) government. In this reading, the only difference now is that the architects of this farce, being cold-warrior generation folks, haven’t quite caught up with the implications created for their countries’ foreign policies by the Internet and cell phone networks like Twitter. The world public has become a watchdog force in the twenty-first century and state leaders have yet to catch up with what this means for scandal, delegitimacy and the progressive erosion of hitherto incontestable Western hegemony.
But in at least two ways, the NATO action in Libya differs profoundly and even paradigmatically from those older interventions. First, the great majority of those earlier interventions were organised by one great power or the other. This one has been organised clearly and overtly through the UN system itself. We are not speaking here of proxy agendas, such as UNSC Resolution 1701, which was obviously designed to assist Israel in suppressing Hizbullah. Here, a Security Council resolution authorising force on the only legal basis that could be found—protection of civilians—has been used as a platform for a Western-dominated military aggression with the open goal of regime change. Second, here the Western goal of assassinating a head of state is not being organised through the old cloak-and-dagger methods of suborned lieutenants, exploding cigars, poisons dropped into ears and the like. It is being conducted openly over the skies of Libya by Western battleships and jets. In other words, the military iron fist embedded in Section 7 of the UN’s rules regarding collective security, hitherto carefully confined by prohibitions on aggression of any kind, has been abruptly converted to the overthrow of a member state government. (It should be especially alarming to human rights NGOs and activists that the historic advancement of human rights, the great achievement since World War II, is being formally co-opted and distorted to advance naked military aggression.) Both aspects strike at the whole UN system. They even signal the advent of a new system that, under the mantle of the former system, actually shatters it.
Comparing the slippery terms of Resolution 1973 and the uses to which it has been put allows us to spot this manoeuvre. First, NATO action has stretched ‘the protection of civilians’ to the deliberate murder of civilians. Nothing in 1973 can be construed to authorise this behaviour. Second, these murders have further clarified beyond any facile argument—i.e., beyond all claims about strategic command sites, as regarding the earlier strike on Qaddafy’s house—that the entire NATO military operation in Libya is designed to achieve regime change. Of course, this has been clear in the rhetoric of Hillary Clinton, Cameron, and Sarkozy for some time, but at least they had the grace to flip-flop around the rhetorical plain regarding the ostensibly humanitarian goals of the UN/NATO mission. These diplomats did this for one obvious reason: the deliberate military overthrow through UN-sponsored action of a state government that has not breached the Charter’s prohibition on aggression is wildly illegal in the UN system. (As Mark Twain once observed, it’s good when governments lie about what they are doing because at least it shows they know they are doing something wrong.) Yet with this strike, even this floppy footwork has become unworkable.
Third, although it’s outside the UN rules, Western claims that intervention enjoyed unified Arab and African pre-approval makes mockery of these blocs’ putative regional (racial/ethnic) authority. No one in the servile Arab League anticipated such an action, nor did anyone in the waffling African Union. Dithering and confused about this rampant aggression by the Global North, member states in those regional blocs may now struggle to formulate lip-service protests that do not imperil their all-important trade and aid agreements with the West. But they must be gleaning that the world system itself is now smoking and the entire framework of assumptions in which they have so painfully negotiated their multiple alliances and agreements is wobbling on damaged stilts. And they must now be hunkered down in backrooms planning their accelerated rush to China.
It’s not irrelevant to world order, either, that this strike killed children. This outrage, too, is of course far from new. At the level of Western state security planning, a few extra deaths of darker-skinned people in desert or jungle capitals, particularly of anonymous children, is an ordinary price to pay for achieving strategic security goals. Public shock at the unnecessary deaths of innocents is recognised by war-room strategists to risk political problems, but ultimately such protests are derided as the naïve stuff of gooey-hearted liberals who don’t understand how the world works. Hence using an unmanned drone to bomb a car that is (maybe, hopefully) carrying a terrorist as well as the ten folks carrying groceries who just happen to be passing by—an action appalling, unimaginable and politically impossible in Omaha or Brighton or Tuscany or Strasbourg—is simply realist pragmatic exigency in Afghanistan or Gaza and not a depraved indifference to human life. But of course, the natives don’t see it that way, and neither do those of us whose world view is not entirely bottled into war-on-terror vintages. Symbolically, therefore, these deaths crystallise both the racism and the rogue behaviour of the Western alliance.
Moral opprobrium is here not the only problem, however. Rampant violations of the UN Charter may be piffle to Republicans and tea-party types and neo-colonial French strategists who imagine a stable Francophile North Africa dawning from all this mess. But it rattles the system for all the rest of us. Although obviously weak and sometimes marginalised by real politik, at least international law provides protection, tools and vision for people for long-haul struggles toward a better world. Like domestic laws prohibiting racial discrimination, international human rights law allows us to struggle for ideals that propose our collective capacity to create a less unequal and more just world order. International law about relations among states, which prohibits aggression and spells out careful rules for collective security, is the essential framework which prevents regional conflagrations and therefore on which those struggles necessarily depends. Where that same framework is being openly twisted to wreck the very order it was designed to preserve and protect, we are greatly threatened.
The question is what to do about it. We often feel overwhelmed when Titans clash on this scale and it is difficult to find a voice that will make a difference. Yet this time may be one of the few when international lawyers can truly make a difference. If the General Assembly stands up and challenges those powers who are savaging the world’s rules, on the basis of those rules and in the very forums established to protect those rules, then the rogue elements must either admit the system’s obsolescence and cast it into the void or back down. I strongly suspect, knowing the consequences, they will back down, because they know the consequences of the void. But that case must be made, and quickly.
Well, I still can’t, for all that you say, deny that I would have felt awful if Qaddafy had regained Benghazi and conducted terrible reprisals and that I felt relieved when the Euro intervention occurred. I still can’t think that these sentiments were simply neo-imperialist or corrupt. I couldn’t and still can’t see that there was an alternative to hand. There’s a limit to what international lawyers can achieve.
That said, I accept that we underestimated Q’s support and overestimated our own strength. We have let him wrap himself in anti-imperialist drapery and it’s hard to see how we pull the fat out of the fire, for ourselves or for ordinary Libyans.
In Abidjan we had a violent, election-stealing ruler but his own people couldn’t get rid of him even when we furnished them with money and guns. They were obviously getting more and more doubtful about installing a candidate who was an election winner but also rather obviously a friend of the imperialist powers, so that in the end the imperialist (French) forces had to finish the job themselves.
However, things are going to be transformed to an extent we can’t yet foresee – though surely in a Western triumphalist way – by the death of bin Laden.
A couple of points missed by Virginia in her excellent exposé; the Arab League was not only servile in this European gang bang, it actually asked for the intervention supposedly for the protection of civilians being slaughtered by the madman but when the actual bombing started, the League quickly backtracked and complained that bombing was not supposed to be part of the deal. Maybe it expected the UN to simply spook Gaddafi. That complaint came on as very faint-hearted and appeared to have been made simply for the record. Prominent League member and usually super pacifist, Qatar, joined the bombing fest with 5 or 6 of its F16s while its Jazeera for the first time in its history of unbiased journalism, undertook a month-long almost 24-hour campaign of demonizing Gaddafi and glorifying the insurgents. As I remarked before, Gaddafi is evil enough without having to demonize him and I for one, won’t be sorry to see him go, but the campaign conducted by Jazeera had an unnatural air about it. With Gaddafi now practically out of the way, Jazeera has turned its attention on Syria, which appears to be slated next in line for a regime change.
Thanks to Virginia Tilley for this insightful commentary. Let’s not beat around the bush: NATO has become a rogue organization.
NATO’s charter describes a defensive alliance: ‘an attack on one is an attack on all.’ But under Bill Clinton, NATO burst its borders to engage in the aggressive bombing of Serbia, a non-member state. Such so-called ‘out of area’ deployment of NATO military resources is not authorized by the NATO treaty. But since the US finds it convenient to form ‘coalitions’ to disguise its lead role in global aggression, this alarming precedent promptly became the norm.
When the Soviet Union folded in 1991, NATO should have declared victory and gone home. Now, illegal ‘out of area’ operations — in Afghanistan, Libya, and other far-flung non-member states — are virtually ALL that it does.
The menacing anachronism of NATO needs to be disbanded. There’s a Yahoo group called stopnato which is on its case like white on rice — invaluable for keeping up with NATO’s daily train of violent abuses.
JIM- NATO has been a fraud from the start. Ostensibly a defense against Soviet expansionism, the alliance was created at a time when the Soviet Union was recovering from the massive destruction of World War II, and was in no position to launch offensive operations for at least 10 years. Basically, NATO provided the organizational framework for US involvement in European affairs, the militarization of their economies, and the de facto control of their militaries. US geo-strategic need for the NATO alliance didn’t change with the disappearance of the Soviet pretext, although the lack of a pretext did create problems. Problems which were solved with the NATO intervention in Yugoslavia during which NATO morphed into a US controlled out of area mercenary strike force. Part of the Libyan intervention is to establish the Maghreb as a NATO area of responsibility. This in coordination with AFRICOM, which commanded the first phase of the NATO assault, and which is currently headquartered in Stuttgart, Germany because no African nation would accept the headquarters on their soil. Interestingly, NATO’s use preempts French attempts to form an alliance of Mediterranean countries, just as the NATO intervention in Yugoslavia preempted German attempts at independent German meddling in Yugoslav affairs. What Uncle Sam says goes.
Part of the Libyan intervention is to establish the Maghreb as a NATO area of responsibility. This in coordination with AFRICOM, which commanded the first phase of the NATO assault, and which is currently headquartered in Stuttgart, Germany because no African nation would accept the headquarters on their soil.
i’ve mentioned this a few times, about africom wrt this assault on libya. we used to have an airforce base there, Wheelus Air Base. when the attack began i wondered if the goal was to find a home for africom on the continent. the base was closed in june ’70 after gaddafi over thru the king in ’69.
wiki: This page was last modified on 18 April 2011 at 15:39. i’m not the only one thinking about that base. i’ve visited it numerous times since the invasion and it keeps changing, expanding.
i’m thinking home for africom.
i radically recommend reading Understanding Africom. both parts one and two.
this essential article acquired 3rd place on project censored’s top censored stories of ’08.
although it was largely ignored in the msm, acquiring a home for africom on the continent of afica was a major goal of the cheney administration and country after country denying a home for africon was an embarrassment and a failure of cheney’s administration. no african country wanted the headquarters of US domination of the continent on their soil.
if obama accomplishs this in his tenure it would have a huge impact. huge. imho this is the prize and it makes me sick.
that’s from the intro of the project censored link above . i recommend the whole article in the original @ MOA.
ANNIE- Thanks for all of the additional detail. A significant factor in both the formation of AFRICOM and the Libyan intervention is to check China’s influence in Africa. China had invested heavily in Libya and has lost it all. Further, the lack of reliable energy sources means China is tethered to the global energy market run by the West, its options limited. All of these underreported facts are important in understanding the big picture.
keith, thanks for reminding me. i thought about posting one of the old comments (scroll, comment #116) on that moon of alabama thread last night and then got lost reading other comments over there and following links and forgot all about it. on the second page of comments b real (the same poster who wrote the original, understanding africom) posted this on May 19, 2007 :
(my bold)
May 18, 2007 (LONDON) — Libyan leader Muammar Gadhafi has said that the people of Darfur should be left alone to resolve the conflict in their region. He further accused the international community of aggravating the conflict.
“In Darfur, and problems similar to Darfur, we leave the problem for the people of Darfur,” Gadhafi reportedly told students at Oxford University, central England, according to a transcript of an address released by the BBC Friday.
“They will solve the problems by themselves,” he was quoted as saying of the people in the war-torn western Sudanese region.
“We do not need to aggravate the situation. Intervention is aggravating the situation — to the extent that there is a conflict between America and China because of the oil in Darfur.
“So the problem is not only the Darfur people — it belongs to the international community as well, because the Darfur conflict is aggravating, it is escalating, because some countries are willing to obtain that oil in Darfur.”
and, in another article reporting on his talk,
very much agreed
yes, i am well aware our competition is china, in afpak too.
China is tethered to the global energy market run by the West, its options limited.
hmm, not so sure i would agree it is ‘run by the west’ or the ‘limited options’ part. i think there are other players. china is playing a smarter game imho. we just do not hear about it because americans are not supposed to notice we are fighting china in the wot. india is competing w/china too, and our ally in afpak which isn’t mentioned in the press here either. everybody is funding their own talibans and ‘freedom fighters’ over there. baloch, Jundallah, etc.
China had invested heavily in Libya and has lost it all.
are you sure about that?
there’s more at the link: link to atimes.com
this was last month. right now they are taking more of a stand and voa is spinning this as them loosing face but china plays a different kind of game w/their ‘influence’. not quite as in your face as US interventions.
“… Libya is not a core interest in their relations. On the contrary, they have common interests – preventing Islamic extremists from coming into power in Libya, which has always had links with al-Qaeda and terrorism.” (Asia Times)
The people at the State Dept pulling the strings in Libya, sure don’t appear to know that these valiant freedom-seeking rebels they are sponsoring are mostly Islamic extremists. The US is now breeding a new batch of mujahideens in Libya like it did in Afghansitan.
The people at the State Dept pulling the strings in Libya, sure don’t appear to know that these valiant freedom-seeking rebels they are sponsoring are mostly Islamic extremists.
well they didn’t appear to know it in iraq either as they empowered hakim and others. i don’t agree w/everything stated there. good catch btw
ANNIE- New York is the home of the New York Mercantile Exchange (Nymex) where oil futures and spot sales are transacted. New York is also arguably the epicenter of global finance, with London right behind. Unless one has a firm contract with an oil producing country such as Libya, one is forced onto the Western controlled global market for supplies. Notice how easy it was for the west to freeze Libya’s assets. China is an export oriented country overly dependent upon international trade and the global market. It would be in China’s best interest to develop their domestic market and decrease their export orientation, however, to do that they need access to secure sources of raw materials and energy. Right now they don’t have that. Empire is perfectly capable of interdicting China’s access to essential raw materials, and China knows it.
“…oil as a fuel would certainly remain a vital commodity in the economies of both the industrialized and developing nations of the world. As a bargaining chip among the producers and consumers of oil, it would also remain of paramount importance in the politics of world power.” (“The Prize: The Epic Quest for Oil, Money & Power”, Daniel Yergin)
ANNIE- “Of significance, China plays a central role in the Libyan oil industry. The China National Petroleum Corp (CNPC) had a workforce of some 400 employees. The total Chinese workforce in Libya was of the order of 30,000. Eleven percent (11%) of Libyan oil exports are channelled to China. While there are no figures on the size and importance of CNPC’s production and exploration activities, there are indications that they are sizeable. More generally, China’s presence in North Africa is considered by Washington to constitute an intrusion. From a geopolitical standpoint, China is an encroachment. The military campaign directed against Libya is intent upon excluding China from North Africa. “ (Michel Chossudovsky) Link below.
link to globalresearch.ca
Annie, I am unable to quickly locate a source, however, I seem to recall that China’s investments in Libya were substantial ($300 billion?). A Chinese workforce of 30,000 seems substantial to me, regardless of other investments in Africa. Can you imagine Uncle Sam’s reaction if 30,000 Americans had to be evacuated because of Chinese military aggression? That alone gives a pretty good indication of the power differential.
keith, i’m not an expert on either china or libya but it’s my understanding the schism we’re having right now in af/pak is for the geopolitical goal of controlling gwadar port the pipeline and, the one china recently was successful in negotiating via pakistan and iran as opposed to US/IS/india who were hoping for the other route which has not panned out. then there’s russia, i think china and russia do a lot of business. so i am not certain all of the oil china gets requires western transaction.
yeah, as my earlier blockquote pointed out china has evacuated 30,000 workers tho i am not sure all of them worked for chinese interests. there are chinese workers in israel too, doesn’t mean they are working for china. i’m not asserting china doesn’t have an interest in libya, i just think it isn’t as much other countries in africa.
Friday, March 4, 2011
source china in africa the real story blog by Deborah Brautigam
professor in American University’s International Development Program in the School of International Service. I’ve lived in Asia and Africa, studied Chinese for years, and done research in more than a dozen countries in Africa. In January 2010 I published The Dragon’s Gift, a book on Chinese aid and economic engagement in Africa (Oxford University Press).
i tend to view the power balance between china and the US as impacted by our huge debt to china and what would happen if they pulled the plug on all that lending? perhaps i just don’t see them as beholden to western power as you do.
keith, i promise to eat all my words if you have evidence china has invested 300 billion in libya. for chinese investment in africa check out this bbc map (scroll) it is a couple years old (’07) but simple.
the only country w/over $300 million invested by china is sudan. libya is over 30 million whereas algeria, SA, zambia, are all over $100 million and there are 6 other countries listed w/over $50 million invested. so you may want to rethink your assessment og how important libya is to china on the african continent.
Thank you, Virginia, for defending International Law and the human rights of a “more just world order.” As Robert Bolt’s Sir Thomas More reminds us in “A Man for All Seasons,”
“And when the last law was down, and the Devil turned ’round on you, where would you hide, Roper, the laws all being flat? This country is planted thick with laws, from coast to coast, Man’s laws, not God’s! And if you cut them down, and you’re just the man to do it, do you really think you could stand upright in the winds that would blow then?
A really good piece Ms. Tilley, too bad there will probably not be much response to it – you see, mentioning hegemony and its alliances, especially those of the Western dominant nations is somewhat frowned on here (unless you happen to be in the “in” group). So, there might not be many responses here, even though your article should bring a verbal avalanche of agreement (for the most part). Maybe I will develop it later
Thank you, Virginia, finally at least one argument against this predatory war of aggression gets into the discussion insie the western left. While the African and South American left goes mad with the war, for me it was shocking to see the inaction of the left in G-7 countries, as if nobody learnt from the war against Iraq.
Hans Koechler has already a month ago written a letter to the UN regarding this perversion of international law, but so far to no avail. I think he makes a very sensible proposition in his letter:
In all their actions, Sarkozy, Cameron and Obama have never shown that they care for human rights or the life of civilians. Who can believe them, this time it is anyhow different. Have a look what Jean-Paul Pougala from Cameroon writes, what he thinks what’s the motivation of the action against Libya:
To understand this civil war against “the guy with the bad hair” and his supporters, it may help to see the confict through a prisma of muslims fighting against Africans. Of course, most of Libyans are both, muslims and African, but the insurgents with their stringhold in Derna are more leaning toward islam and free markets and the government supporters with their stronghold in Sabha lean more toward Africa and socialism, and now imperialist and colonialist NATO countries take advantage of that internal Libyan dispute.
What’s needed, and was needed from the first day of armed conflict, is an immediate and unconditional ceasefire. A ceasefire is not “betrayal” as Sarkozy, Cameron and Obama said. Hugo Chavez was and is completely right that he demanded a ceasefire from the beginning of the armed conflict. He does so not to betray people but to prevent loss of life and to prevent giving imperialists and colonialists a chance to exploit the situation. Calls for a continued war of islam against Africa are betrayal, immoral and illegal. There needs to be a political settlement, which takes into account the legitimate wishes, both of muslims and of Africans.
As I said earlier I think Ms. Tilley did an outstanding job in exposing the UN enclave and its twisting of charter, or proclaimed purposes. My appreciation for the contributions of other posts which help clarify motivations and origins.
My question is simple, don’t you find this activity in regard to the UN and contributing bodies to be somewhat repetitive? I am with Ms. Tilly almost up to the point of the remedy, where she sees the “order” standing at a precipice and then –
“Yet this time may be one of the few when international lawyers can truly make a difference. If the General Assembly stands up and challenges those powers who are savaging the world’s rules, on the basis of those rules and in the very forums established to protect those rules, then the rogue elements must either admit the system’s obsolescence and cast it into the void or back down.”
In short form throw yourself to the General Assembly or on the “mercy” of the court. It should be familiar, because it is the same dance, as one would find in the USA for example – does anything change? Oh – the houses will get them – the executive will be controlled by the judicial branch – and the party goes on. Does anything change? No, and than everyone puts their hands to their mouths and says – “well who could have predicted this, they all wen along with one another!” Don’t you ever get tired of this bullshit?
So, in the light of the repetitive nature of the world bodies (which are merely a reflection of their several parts), should we pronounce them, as Ms. Tilley says – “…admit the system’s obsolescence and cast it into the void or back down.” ? Well of course not, they are resounding success for which they were created – what? You don’t agree with what I am saying? They are the thin paint, the veneer over the dominants will which serves an entrenched elite, this is what the global system is whether you like it or not, and it will never cast itself into “the void.” Only the people can cast it into the void, but until the people realize what this “system” is they will only fret and foment, and hope against all hope till there is no escape. Time to wake up. Perhaps the best people to recognize what is transpiring are its victims –
NOW YOU WANT US…
THERE IS NO RULE OF LAW, JUST THE LAW OF RULE – AND THE LAW IS THE LIE.
VR, I agree that its regrettable that there isn’t much interest in this essay, especially with everyone caught up in the Bin Ladin story. The UN is as you said is a legal body used by the strong to legitimize illegitimate actions. With the US picking up a quarter of the tab and 9 other countries picking up most of the rest of it, you and Virginia shouldn’t expect any of the hardly contributing anything members to challenge the big guns.
More about what’s been happening in Libya and the lies around it. Super Zionist Bernard-Henri Lévy, whose claim to political fame had been centered around defending Israeli actions, somehow got himself into Libya in March during the thick of it and managed to meet the leaders of the insurgency,(can’t let the Israel connection go unnoticed). Lévy succeeded in getting them an audience with Sarkozy and Clinton. After Sarkozy recognized the legitimacy of the rebels, Lévy went back to Libya and started shouting for all to hear that Gaddafi was about to bomb Benghazi and this jump started the NATO bombings. Theatrics and lies from the start.
Unarmed revolutions in Tunisia and Egypt didn’t need outside armed intervention and Libya was on its way to having a similar overthrow of its dictator when suddenly, Libyans that had never held a weapon became armed and fighting in a full scale military battle that created the need of a foreign intervention. Obama okayed a secret order allowing the CIA to direct $25 millions in aid to the rebels that are mostly from a religious background. The rebels already had with many pickups mounted with anti-aircraft and other heavy guns. Maybe the Obama $25 million order was an after-the-fact thing to pay for what was already delivered. Had the Libyans not been armed, the conflict probably wouldn’t have been any worse than Egypt’s or Tunisia’s. Jazeera did its part on the airwaves and the change from its usually unbiased reporting made its reporting suspicious and look as if part the Libyan choreographed “spring”.
When the dust settles in Libya, we’ll see that it was a repeat of the Iraq gimmick to overthrow Saddam. Now the same type of demonizing campaign is being conducted on Syria. There are countless stories of shelling by tanks and of civilians killed but with so many freedom demonstrator in Syria carrying cell phone cameras recording nothing but people running and tanks rumbling by, we still have yet to see a video of a civilian’s funeral or of a building wall destroyed by a tank shell or some interviews as we saw in Tahrir. Jazeera is playing videos recorded by cameras of activists and accepts comments from anyone phoning in with fresh information on killings of civilians; some Syrian officials are being interviewed but the emphasis is always on information contributed by unnowwn activists. In spite of Assad’s acceptance to make the overdue reforms, which is a complete switch from the obstinancy of Mubarak, Ben Ali and Gaddafi, the pressure is being kept on him until he lets go of his current Hizbullah, Hamas and Iran allies and this is really what Syria’s bogus spring is all about.
some Syrian officials are being interviewed but the emphasis is always on information contributed by unnowwn activists
i wonder how long it will go on like that.
Annie, irony of ironies, forces are working around the clock in Syria to coerce it into forsaking Hamas to make Israel comfy but meanwhile Egypt has picked up the role of the Palestinians’ champion and Hamas and Fateh pulled a fast one by uniting politically inspite of Israel’s threats to not do so. Israel is fast sinking into a giant nightmare. It couldn’t happen to a nicer people.
yeah, my perception..my hunch, was that as soon as egypt started their revolution and the arab spring began nefarious well funded foreign agents immediate began a campaign of destabalizing syria hoping to use the cover of analysis of the rubric of arab spring to hide under. when in fact their wasn’t much of an arab spring there, really. but it’s amazing how a few well placed gang members hiding inside a crowd killing people can get the masses riled up and give the western press the boost they need.
they could have done this at anytime but there would have been much more speculation about cia etc involvement. they were ready, already embedded and in place. all it took was the distraction of other countries revolutions to give this a genuine air.
but i’m not buying it. i’m no fan of assad either. i just don’t buy it.
Israel is fast sinking into a giant nightmare. It couldn’t happen to a nicer people.
not counting chickens before they hatch. it’s a nightmare alright but it’s still afloat, definitely not sunk. i realize that’s a twist on your words and not what you meant but i just had to say it. they are so militarized … argh.
The Arab League pleaded for the UN to act and NATO took the lead following the UN vote. But now that you guys don’t like it you consider it some nefarious action by NATO to do whatever you think they are trying to do there.
If anything MW gives me a good laugh when I sink low enough to read it.
it may shock you to know it isn’t all group think here. i don’t think all of us were unified on nato’s actions. so i don’t know who ‘you guys’ is or how many of us have ‘flipped’. it very well could be the same people criticizing nato’s policy now are the same ones who criticized it in the past. like me for example.
Yes, Ani, the Arab League did push for action on Libya, but this was from all the brouhaha about Gaddafi slaughtering his own people which is slowly proving to be somewhat of an exaggeration. When the NATO bombing started, the first to say this was not in the plan was the Arab League and this must have come about when its secretary-general realized that he’d be running for President in this coming November’s Egyptian elections. And that was the last we heard of the Arab League. As to nefarious actions, are saying that NATO did not commit any in Yugoslavia or in Afghanistan?