Responsibility to Protect
The Arab League has asked the UN to impose a “no fly zone” over Gaza. The League said “it would ask the United Nation Security Council to convene an emergency meeting to discuss the Israeli aggression over Gaza to lift the siege and impose a no-fly zone against the Israeli military to protect civilians.” The Tatler at PJ Media featured this story earlier.
embedded by Embedded VideoThrough the Security Council, the Palestinians want “international sanctions on Israel to force it to stop escalation in Gaza and the campaign of terror in the West Bank,” said Saleh Ra’fat, a member of the Executive Committee of the Palestine Liberation Organization on Sunday.
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The Los Angeles Times argues that no matter who is right or wrong, it’s time to stop the violence. And that means stopping the “counterproductive Israeli response”.
You can argue forever about who is right and who is wrong. Or how far back to go to determine who started the hostilities. Or how much worse it is or isn’t to kill civilians on purpose than it is to kill them as collateral damage. Those are questions for philosophers to wrestle with. But to deny that there’s a cycle of violence seems pointless.
Of course there’s only country in the world whose Air Force and Naval Aviation have any chance of remotely imposing a “No Fly Zone” on the Israeli Air Force. It isn’t Britain, France, Italy or Spain. It isn’t even Syria, Russia, Egypt, or Iran. Most certainly it isn’t Saudi Arabia or Turkey. But there is one country that might be able to do it. So why doesn’t it “do the right thing”? You know, like use the UN mandate to disarm the Hezbollah in Lebanon of its 36,000 missiles. Oops. Wrong subject.
Let us get back on track. Why doesn’t the UN save Israel from itself? Break the cycle of violence with F-22s flying the UN flag. There is a some support for the idea.
Come on, Security Council – the children of Gaza deserve better. Declare a No-Fly Zone for Palestinian Territories immediately.
(1) The killer/s of five members of the Fogel family earlier this month has yet to be positively identified, let alone as Palestinian – several sources suggest a disgruntled unpaid migrant labourer from Thailand who had made previous death threats as the prime suspect. Nevertheless, Netanyahu, and the Israeli (and world) media immediately trumpeted accusations of “Palestinian terrorists”, without presenting one shred of evidence, let alone an actual suspect.
The Democratic Underground, which can be a leading indicator of opinion on the Left in fact anticipated the Arab League. As early as late March, its posters were writing:
The few surface to surface missiles Palestinians fire have no chance of doing real military damage to Israel. And every casualty those missiles inflict on Israelis is repaid about a hundredfold on Palestinians. Wouldn’t a no-fly zone over the occupied territories expedite a real peace process?
Once an idea starts within the Left, no matter what its content, a political process begins whereby it may attract support. Once such support is attracted then the idea, whatever its practical or even factual merits, becomes a rallying cry and eventually a call to arms. While the declaration of an “no fly zone” is improbable in the near future, it is by no means improbable over the long term. The campaign to regulate light bulbs, declare blasphemy a crime, and to impose an “international veto” on the sovereign affairs of nations would have once been unthinkable but are now either actual or imminent.
The root of the problem lies in the fact that it is far easier for special interests and well-connected incumbents in the United Nations system to manipulate the political process than it is for the Global Citizenry to pass judgment on it. For example, we do not even know whether the voters of world, assuming they existed in the member countries of the UN, would polled as a whole be willing to endorse the principle that the Security Council has a right to impose a No Fly Zone over another country. We are always told that Israel is a “pariah state” yet the issue has never been put to the global vote.
There are probably very few “democratic” countries in the Arab League; indeed many of them are busy putting down dissenters in their respective streets, so how is it possible for such a body to speak of using the air forces of a certain democratic country to put down the air forces of about the only democratic country in the Middle East? They can do this because unelected advisers can advance this agenda. They can do this because some political leaders can claim they do not need the approval of their voters because they already have international ‘legitimacy’. It is a self-licking ice cream cone.
This is a fundamentally undemocratic process. A network of NGOs, special interest groups, influential activists and ideologues, in alliance with actual tyrants, are able to advance a proposal with greater facility that the voters in their respective countries oppose it. They can just invent the authority and if they are not stopped, eventually it becomes “legal” and “consensus”. Just as at some point the UN realized it could “tax” the citizens of the United States, for example, there is now the possibility it can have free use of their armed forces, if not now then eventually.
Interestingly, the UN system of insider politics is precisely what is being undermined by the Arab revolt. The despots are clinging to the rungs above them as the ground crumbles beneath. The idea that transnational institutions should have the power to impose things from the top down may already be doomed by the the global economic crisis and grassroots rebellions all over the world. It is an idea whose time has passed even before it came.
It is hardly possible to understand the full irony of the Arab League’s proposal without realizing it comes at a time when the Sunni world is at its lowest point. Not only has it proved impotent against Israel, but its historical rivals the Persians and their allies the Arab Shias are in ascendancy. The shock in Riyadh of Washington abandoning Mubarak must have been enormous. The attempt of Obama to be on “both sides of history” is interpreted with justifiable concern as being neutral in the contest between the Sunnis and Iran.
It cannot be helped by the fact that the “Resistance” — i.e. Hezbollah — is largely supported by Iran, unctuously assisted by its Alawite minion, Syria. And thus, the League’s pitiful call for a “no fly zone”, rooted as it is in the idea of a woman, Samantha Power, represents several courses of crow. The Arab League is down to gimmicks. It cannot get to Washington, not really, not to this self-absorbed bunch of know it alls. And so it plays the clown.
But it also highlights the bankruptcy of the R2P concept itself. Samantha Power’s notion is rooted in a world that is rapidly passing away; destroying itself in fact. Her End of History ethos is under attack from a region seeking to regain its role in history; one faction through freedom and the other faction through a return to the eighth century and there is no room in it for impositions from the top. For who shall determine what shall be protected against whom? Those ready to supply the answer have never even heard the question. If there is a responsibility to protect, who protects the world from Samantha Power?
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OMG! She quotes Tom Friedman!
I think that what she is trying to prove is that if you can sound intelligent you don’t have to be intelligent. And that sticking up for terrorists from the Palestinian Terror-tories is a good way to help boost your self esteem.
By the way, who is the Domestic Constituency of tremendous Financial and Political Import? And why are we importing them?
Those are questions for philosophers to wrestle with.
That means “Don’t worry your pretty little head. Experts will decide what is Truth.” This is the perspective that was destroyed by Gutenberg and Luther in the West. The Marxists like Powers are truly medieval.
She is almost salivating over the prospect of getting American troops killed by Israelis. The biggest club the anti-Semites were ever given against Israel was the attack on the USS Liberty. RADM Morrison, the father of Jim Morrison of The Doors was obsessed by it. The Powers crew will do everything they can to arrange a repeat performance. Given that I wonder if any active measures came into play to arrange the original incident.
…how is it possible for such a body to propose using the air forces of a certain democratic country to put down the air forces of about the only democratic country in the Middle East?
How? Through the operation of a fundamentally undemocratic process. A network of NGOs, special interest groups….
There are several questions here, all of which are important.
1. First of all, Israel is already a pariah nation. That she is a democracy or a relative democracy or maybe or certainly a democracy is no longer the issue. That she has an active, voluble and rancorous free press (in all sectors of her society) is not the issue. That she gives her Arab minority real rights that they have in no other country in the region is not the issue. That her Arab minority has an average standard of living higher than their brother Arabs in neighboring countries is not an issue. That Arab members of the Israeli legislature can get up say what they want about Israel (and they do, oh they do)—and say things for which they (and their families) would be drawn and quartered in neighboring countries—is not the issue. That Arab newspapers have a freedom of expression in Israel that they do not have in most if not all neighboring countries is not the issue.
The issue is to roll back the “injustice” of 1947-48-49. The issue is to give those who failed in 1947-48-49 to nip the nascent State of Israel in the bud, and who failed again in 1967 to destroy her, another chance. The issue is to eliminate the State of Israel.
How best to achieve this has become the question? Military force couldn’t do it. Diplomacy was also a doubtful possibility for as long as the PLO, insisted publicly, on destroying Israel. And so a measured combination of diplomatic and military initiative was called for.
The answero: diplomatic feints and military attrition.
Water on rock.
And so with this end in mind—and precisely what Arafat foresaw in his foresighted strategy of signing the Oslo accord—Israel has now lost legitimacy. And this, very simply, because she has refused to allow herself to be destroyed by those who would destroy her.
Very simply. Because Israel has not been able (astonishingly!) to come to an agreement with those whose goal is to eradicate her.
Israel did not believe that the Oslo agreement meant that Israel would have to commit national suicide. Compromise yes—and it has done so—but not suicide. Concessions yes—and it has made them—but not suicide.
The Palestinians, of course, believed otherwise. Believe otherwise. Know otherwise.
And the nations of the world, in their collective wisdom, having eviscerated one country already in the interest of “peace” (if beyond the horizon of hazy memory)—i.e., Czecho-Slovakia in 1938—and in the interest, most interestingly, of protecting the Sudeten Germans from the “oppressive and oppressing”—didn’t Hitler himself say it?—Czech government, yes, the nations of the world are now prepared to do the same to the State of Israel.
Munich was, in fact, an R2P operation. The Sudeten Germans were “oppressed” and had to be protected. And to their credit(!)—in the interest of world peace and of humanity (as conceived by Chamberlain, Daladier and Schicklgruber), the Czech government of the time agreed to their own evisceration(!).
(For which nobility of spirit, the world has granted them its everlasting gratitude….)
There have been those who have warned Israel of becoming a second Czecho-Slovakia; but the of architects of peace overcame all objections. Scoffed at the objectors. Ridiculed them. Ostracized them. Until, finally, finally, after years and years of battering, the Israel voter finally woke up and realized just what Oslo represents.
The only question now remaining is whether Israel will choose to be as noble (in spirit) as Czecho-Slovakia.
While the world waits with increasing impatience….
2. Second, the “such a body” indicated above is, in fact, a gang of rogues, thugs and crimials, joined by a complacent Western democracies because, because, well, um, gee, gosh, “Who are we to go up against the voices of the people”, etc., etc.
Such relenquishing of responsibility is not new. It was last seen on this scale in the 30s (for anyone bothering to look) and now that American “exceptionalism” has been consigned to the “dustbin of history”—at least for now—such appeasement (in the name of higher morality) is merely the latest example of “deja vu all over again.”
3. Third, the Power interview is most revealing of the delusional mindset that has assumed the mantle of power around the world. (That should be, actually, “abondoned the mantle of responsibility and jettisoned all rationality”)
Power implies clearly that the Palestinians are in danger of genocide by the Zionist state; that the Palestinians need protection from the Zionist state; that the US, instead of providing Israel with billions of dollars of assistance to potentially commit this genocide, must reassess its interests and moral responsibilities and policies and, instead, spend those billions of dollars to prevent the genocide from occurring.
To prevent Israel’s committing genocide on the miserable, helpless, oppressed, occupied Palestinians.
This in spite of the danger of alienating a very powerful “domestic constituency”. (As though this very powerful domestic consituency did not support the Oslo accords. Did not, ultimately, throw its weight behind Israel-Palestinian peace, insofar as such “peace” did not mean the destruction of Israel.)
Nor is Power alone. This abominable perversion of truth (there is no other expression for it) is the current zeitgeist. Hordes of progressive, humanist, seekers after hard “Truths”, egged on by a most pernicious and dishonest media would agree with her.
Ushering in a new perhaps more fearful incarnation of Auden’s “low dishonest decade.”
4. Fourth, at about 1:55-2:05 of the interview (above), Power says something to the effect that “…the US is not a democracy; it is a liberal democracy…”, which is the key to the entire Orwellian mindset, the key that unlocks the encrypted message, such as it is encrypted. For it means that for Power (as for so many)—in the finest tradition of Lewis Carroll—”a word means what I say it means”.
It is all a matter of definition, of perception, of narrative; where false dichotomies and specious comparisons reign, where dishonesty is given full scope, where lies and misinformation dominate.
Certainly, as Power says at about 1:00 into the interview, “A shortage of information is not the problem.” There is, in fact, too much information, etc., etc.
But the problem for Power and people like her is how best to filter, misinterpret and squash and mangle the information at hand so as achieve one’s goals.
How most effectively to twist the information to fit one’s world view.
In her case, it’s a world view that insists that the Palestinians deserve a state because such a state would end the entire raison d’etre of their conflict with Israel. The result, once this most major of stumbling blocks is out of the way, can only be peace in the region.
And the only reason for the stumbling block is the State of Israel’s refusal to agree.
That Israel is ready—and plans to—decimate the Palestinians.
And wants to.
She has it all backward, inside out and wrong. Hers is an extreme perversion of reality. A gross distortion.
For who exactly is threatening whom with destruction? In words, in deeds, in ideology?
Why has Israel already made offers to its “partners in peace”—even if one believes such offers were insufficient? (And the fact is that there is nothing that Israel can offer that the Palestinians will accept—which may, which must actually, result in all out war, when the Palestinians believe they’re ready; but why, then is Israel blamed as the instigator, as the culprit? Why? indeed…..)
A gross and utter perversion. For this world view to hold sway, Power must ignore—or refuse to see—an awful lot. She must ignore that:
- It is in Israel’s interest for their to be an agreement, and to this end, Israel has made several offers, all of which have been rejected by the Arab leader of the time.
- Because it is in Israel’s for there to be an agreement, there will NOT be an agreement.
- The Palestinians have broken practically every major and minor agreement they’ve signed with Israel, whether it be not to engage in hostilities—”No more bloodshed” (while all the time preparing for the second intifada)—or not to sanction incitement against Israel in the media (while all the time showing maps of “Palestine” covering the entire region and referring to Haifa and Tel Aviv and Beersheva and Jerusalem (etc.) as “occupied cities”, etc.), etc….
- The Palestinians continue to voice support for a Palestinians state “from the River to the Sea.”
- The Palestinians have thus far refused accepting a Palestinian state.
- The Palestinians do not want a state of it means having to accept living side by side with a Jewish state of Israel.
- The Palestinians will continue to refuse a state.
- The Palestinians have not given up their demand for the “right of return” of Palestinians to within pre-1967 Israel.
- The Palestinians have no intention of agreeing to UN Resolution 242.
- The Palestinians have no intention of demilitarizing any future Palestinians State (to which, as mentioned above, they do not want as long as Israel exists).
- The Palestinians have been waging an ongoing war against Israel’s legitimacy, stooping at no effort, telling any possible untruth, to erode Israel’s position, diplomatically.
- The Palestinians are locked in a civil war with each other.
- One of the Palestinians groups, Hamas, is pledged to destroy Israel; while the other, the Palestinian Authority has no intention of coming to an agreement with Israel.
- That both the PA and Hamas are despotic groups that trample their people’s human rights and freedoms.
- That the entire strategy of both groups, together, is either to wear Israel down military and/or diplomatically and in terms of Israel’s morale.
Now that’s quite a lot to overlook.
But to everything there is a purpose. And a time.
And in the interests of “peace” and of “humanity”….
One of the reasons the Constitution gave Congress the authority to declare war was to protect people from the likes of Samantha Power. There had to be some means of determining when to cross the awful line of using force, and it fell to the largest representative body to decide whether a given act was in the national interest. As the pace of warfare increased the executive was given the ability to act when danger impended.
But nowhere can you find a basis for using force in order to enforce “liberal values” as interpreted by a small group of people. That would be tantamount to turning the armed forces into a private army. It is not a private army. Nor is it a mercenary force to be employed at the behest of other nations.
Ironically the war of independence was in part about the issue of whether a small group of unelected men, or potentates living across the Atlantic, had the authority to take property and life without their consent. Substitute the names “Samantha Power” and “Security Council” and what is the difference?
To the extent that a given humanitarian act is justifiable, the proper course might be to convince the country, and hence Congress, to declare war. If Israel is in fact a menace to peace and a danger to the security of the United States, or even an affront to it, then what is to prevent Samantha Power or anyone else from getting Congress to authorize force against it?
Nothing prevents, except the possible fact that the case can’t be made. Now even if Samantha Power dislikes a certain “domestic constituency”, the rules say she can’t disregard them any more than you can disregard any other “domestic constituency” i.e. voters. That’s the way democracy works, whether she likes it or not.
If the case can’t be made, the force can’t be used. That’s how the system is actually designed. And she should be glad of it. Because one day she will no longer be an adviser to the President; and then some other person may take it into her head to “protect” a group of people she loathes. And then the disadvantages of her own idea will be all too obvious. But by then the damage will have been done.
Israel should stop it’s use of aircraft on the defenseless Gazans.
Of course, the moment that happens? Israel should:
Cut off all water, food, medicine, power, fuel and all other materials to the Gaza strip.
Give 7.62 sniper rifles to all Israelis that choose to improve their shooting abilities and give them free fire instructions on anything that moves inside of Gaza
Return rocket fire with inaccurate 10x rocket fire. No more expensive munitions, just use ww2 style artillery.
Of course Israel now needs to start using “pork” coated bullets and needs to tell the islamic world of how every NATO round is injected with pig fat.
Israel needs to also have a wilkileaks style leak that lists several thousand names through out the the islamic world of “collaborators and spies” (of course not the real collaborators and spies)
It’s time for israel to get tough and start destroying Hamas, Fatah, Islamic Jihad & others… The world will do worse than nothing, they will do everything to tie Israel’s hands…
Ironically, and in this case fortunately, the ongoing failure of the “no-fly” zone in Libya is actively destroying the willingness of most anyone (especially those in Congress) to try a re-run anywhere else.
Of course getting the US to attack Israel has long been the Arab’s wet dream. But look at how pathetic they are in Libya – all they have done is cheerlead for daddy to save them, and then they ran away and hid under a rock.
or has anybody heard stories about the Arab League intervening in Libya that I have missed?
Meanwhile, the French and the UN attacked the ex-presidents compound in the Ivory Coast today. Sarkozy really wants to push it. But I think soon he is going to find that trying to support 2 wars in 2 regions simultaneously is going to push his limited military to the breaking point.
Another Irony – this blog and others have long wondered whether or not Obama’s true goal was to neutralize American power in the international arena. Well, intentional or not, he’s just about achieved it – and by achieving it, he’s neutralized himself. Ooops. Somehow, the smartest guys (and gals) in the room didn’t see that one coming.
Events in the Ivory Coast, for example, create an interesting case study in what could go wrong with R2P. The Herald Scotland reports that up to 1,000 people may have been killed by forces loyal to UN-backed Allasane Ouattara.
UN ground and air assets are now supporting Ouattara’s final push, but there is fear that massacres may follow in Abidjan. The reality is that “war is hell” and there may be ambiguous situations in which to speak of intervening for humanitarian reasons borders on the lunatic. In the Ivory Coast the UN is in caught up in an absurd conflict of interest. It is “protecting” the people against Gbagbo but it is supporting the questionable Ouattara. Now that Ouattara’s masked and amulet wearing men are on the warpath should it bomb them too?
This has in fact been the case in Libya, where NATO has expressed a willingness to bomb the rebels if they transgress the moral boundaries set on them. This will lead to nearly insane situation where you are bombing both sides in order to prevent them from hurting each other.
And afterward, assuming the war ever ends, which when the UN is involved rarely happens; then who do you haul before the War Crimes Court? Does command responsibility mean the UN itself should be put on trial for backing genocidaires?
Playing God is a tough game. That’s why war is usually waged for very serious reasons. It is not a species of humanitarianism.
Samantha Power,
What a shifty horror!
Principle
Noun. All too often confused with principal. ~ possibly Devil’s Dictionary
Principles
Those are my principles, and if you don’t like them… well, I have others. ~ Groucho Marx
Principle
You can’t learn too soon that the most useful thing about a principle is that it can always be sacrificed to expediency. ~Somerset Maugham
R2P?
And so we move from being children to being adults and recognise the cost-benefit equation and the end of leftist fairytales. In response to W‘s question of who is protected, it should be the taxpayer, but they do not have yet have the vocabulary or the champions (vid the clown interviewer) to defend themselves when faced with slimy Samanthas of this world.
And yet she has only two tactics: halo polishing and faux concern.
ADE
“Now that Ouattara’s masked and amulet wearing men are on the warpath should it bomb them too?”
And in the end, when the “peacekeepers” realize that ALL are evil and deserving of death, how can they fail to reach the same rational conclusions as Col. Kurtz? (especially Marlon Brando’s version) How can one trapped in the maelstrom keep from reaching this judgment on every man, women, and child in that country?
“We must kill them. We must incinerate them. Pig after pig. Cow after cow. Village after village. Army after army. And they call me an assassin. What do you call it when the assassins accuse the assassin? They lie. They lie, and we have to be merciful, for those who lie. Those nabobs. I hate them. I do hate them.”
“1,000 people may have been killed by forces loyal to UN-backed Allasane Ouattara.”
yeah, they all are suppsitions , because Ouattara is born muslim !
The Black Ivoirians refugiees that can speak out of a safe place rather say that that are Gbagbo militias that rape kill, loot !
The thing is that none exactly know who did itas the pro and anti will accuse the other camp
Hmm, BTW Outtara is the american corporations’s president in Ivry Coast !
What the likes of Powers et al misses is that Israel, like any industrious and prosperous person, just wants to be left alone. If the Hezzies and Hamas would stop lobbing missiles at the Jews there would be no retaliation, no airstrikes, no land forces crossing lines in the sand. Of course then Hamas and Hezzbollah would have to face the empty, pointless, aimless wasteland that they have created in their zones of control. They would have to look themselves in the mirror every morning and ask, “Why is it REALLY that we can never get ahead?”. It is just so much easier to hate the dreaded Joooooos.
The insanity of the “global elites” has nearly run it’s course. They have been busy hating every product of Western cilivization for the last one hundred years, all of their actions have been bent on curbing the power of the West and, to a huge extent, they have succeeded. One of the things that they had hoped for was a “rise of the others”.
Little did they know that the “others” had no interest in their utopian dreams, that the others would be cruel men with hate-filled hearts. This has been going on since the Russian Revolution, idealistic idiots filled with twisted dreams open the door to madmen and the result is death, destruction and misery. The Red-Green Alliance is just the next stage in this infection. Lefty liberals seemingly are incapable of learning from history.
Just remember, it’s for the children.
R2P equals colonialism.
Why isn’t S. Powers on trial for war crimes? Isn’t advocating aggressive war an international crime? At least if she was in Jail awaiting her moment in international court, she wouldn’t be in a position to arrange the murder of more 3rd world goat herders.
“In response to W‘s question of who is protected, it should be the taxpayer, but they have lost their belief in themselves when faced with slimy Samanthas.”
Fortunately, the loss of belief in ourselves is not as complete as appears on the surface. Here in Maine, the liberals are pulling their hair out and fleeing to California, having failed to jam gay marriage through and precipitated by their efforts the revenge of the common man.
The new governor is driving them mad by telling the NAACP to kiss his butt, swearing at reporters on occasion, and, most recently, pulling down a leftist mural at the state house. John Stewart sneers, the effete, NPR trained idiots who came here from NJ and MA can’t believe the rube who’s running the joint. Why pick those tangential fights? Such uncouth behavior!
But this is exactly what must happen. Liberals need to be laughed out of town as too stupid to be tolerated. Every product of their world view has been an abject disaster, from the UN to sex education to the green movement.
And the reason for this failure of ideas is clear: look at Powers’ fixed, malevolent smile. She is as sadistic as the day is long. That’s the same aggression on display in Obama when he feels like he’s in the driver’s seat. You can just feel the father of lies emanating from within these miserable, lost excuses for humanity. Their goal is really very simple: to destroy.
We, all of us, including Israel, need to convey to them that they are too stupid for words. Tell them to shut up and sit down, because they won’t be permitted to destroy any more of a good thing than they have already. Laugh at them knowingly, as you do at a foolish child. But it’s not going to be easy to get through to them. They’re very thick and will need to hear it day in and day out for a long time.
13. stoicheion
I agree, why is it that we blow up hundreds/thousands of McQuackdaffy’s supporters but it is not “good form” to just drop a bomb on his melon. He is a Colonel isn’t he? And thus a valid military target.
If some supply clerk (whose only crime was joining the Libyan Army so he could get regular meals) is a valid target why not the nutter that is the source of the problem? Or is it that Powers (as a member of the “elites”) cannot face the idea that people with Famous Names should be included in the slaughter? She is willing to use force to gain her objectives but doesn’t want to know the names of the dead.
Was it Stalin that said, “The death of one man is a tragedy, the death of millions is a statistic”? How apropos of the Leftist mindset.
I sense Israel is on its own. 0bama will just be a hindrance and cause more Israeli casualties.
The Iron Dome anti-missile system is all well and good but a little too late. I think Israel knows who and where to hit (including shutting off the water and electricity).
If Israel is not certain what to hit then they should land mine the areas where these rocket attacks are coming from. This could be done by air. Those rocket launching areas will be come empty. The launch areas will move back and become more concentrated – and easier to hit (modern land mines can be disarmed or exploded when these rocket attacks stop). Once the launching areas become smaller and concentrated they can be eliminated.
I am sure Israel will be condemned by the UN. What is new? Most Americans don’t really like the UN and could careless about their loud mouth resolutions. Israel is fighting for its survival. Exceptional tactics must be used.
I share what seems to be the consensus belief that R2P is Epic Fail. Just to rehearse how and why:
(1) As Stoicheion @13 says, this is colonialism. But even less “justified” because Old Colonialism was an exploitation of “uncivilized regions” (outside the international club of nation-states, requiring “improvement” and “protection” in order to become entrants). Whereas now these ARE nation-states (weak and nominal as they may be), and yet here comes the UN or France or other core and founding members of that whole Peace of Westphalia thing where international law prohibits interference with the internal affairs of another state; and what they doing? Exactly that.
(2) Just to expand on the contradiction in (1) it reminds of the insight by Philip Bobbitt in “The Shield of Achilles” that each concept of the State contains a contradiction, and the nation-state’s contradiction was exposed when Yugoslavia broke down. I think that nobody has been able to figure out a solution since then, and whenever things break loose with the old genocide/tribal slaughter, the (Samantha) Powers-that-be do stuff that exposes their intellectual (and moral) bankruptcy. (Hard to have a morality when you haven’t figured out an intellectually coherent model for how things “should” be).
(3) So R2P has no foundation and is really just a kind of self-pleasing gesture. Those don’t produce much and they don’t last long. No wonder Obama was out of Libya almost before he was into it, although he may find it is harder to leave than he thought, and certainly than he promised.
(4) Because R2P doesn’t generate clear, lasting and worthwhile gains in exchange for the binge of blood and treasure that it costs, it will be harder and harder to justify such adventures. The case is not helped by the strategic and tactical contradictions which accompany the inherent intellectual and moral contradiction of R2P, namely “Whose side are we on, again? And how can we tell them apart? And what are we trying to help them achieve? What if they start to behave like the ‘bad’ guys?” None of these questions has been answered, or can be (particularly when things are thrown into a committee). Again: none of these questions can be answered. Yet they must be, or the whole adventure implodes pretty quickly. Not only is it not producing exogenous gains that the electorate can appraise, not only does its practice remind us of how morally baseless it really is (and how, by calling itself a moral mission, it degrades the language of morality); but it also quickly produces these self-discrediting results where the “good guys” act just as badly as the “bad guys.”
(5) Main consolation for me, regarding R2P and Israel, is that these factors weaken the chance that R2P will be tried in an effort to “protect” Hamas and Hezbollah from the evil oppressive killer Israelis. If it couldn’t work in Libya –a perfect sand-table of a theatre for demonstrating air superiority and E-Z tank-plinking– it sure won’t work in the slums of Gaza and South Lebanon. Nor will Israeli forces be quite so vulnerable to these moral warriors on high. So the cost-benefit equation yields a prohibitive answer from the git-go. Obama is already imagining the headlines: “Another US Pilot Dies Defending Hamas Rocket Team As It Bombards Israeli School.”
Question for the class: does this kind of intellectual and moral incoherence typify every age, or are we really on the greasy chute toward some nonlinearity here?
Gbagbo arrested, not by the french forces but the “republican” forces of Ivory Coast according to Ouattara spokeman, he is actually at Ouattara the Residence Hostel
If the Republicans were on their game, they would attach a rider on to the upcoming resolution to the extend the debt ceiling to prohibit the use of American forces to enforce a no fly zone over Israel.
Anton @ 12
The destruction of flourishing greenhouses by the Palis is a prime example of the culturally rancid. Along with the folly of the left in purchasing said greenhouses.
http://www.omdurman.org/tpb.html
#17
Main consolation for me,…
I don’t see that at all.
All Obama has to do is declare R2P with regard to protecting Hamas (and/or Hezbullah and/or the West Bank) and the fiction assumes an identity and a momentum of its own.
No one has to believe in it. Obama (ultra-cynic that he is) likely won’t believe in it.
But the point is that RP2 is also a policy tool. In this case, it’s a tool intended to shoe-horn Israel into the shape that Obama/Power believe/s it should be shoe-horned into.
(“Bibi, I really, really don’t want to do this, but you’ve given me no choice”…(?))
So it’s no longer a question of US planes or EU planes or Turkish planes or Egyptian planes fighting Israeli planes, though all of the above might occur, even if Israel (or anyone in their right mind) would prefer it didn’t—and even if the first two possibilities are less likely than the second two.
It is a question of once R2P over Gaza is established, Israel either “plays” or it receives no support—no military support, no logistical support, no spare parts support, no additional parts support, no replacement parts support, no DIPLOMATIC support—in fact, the opposite.
Nada.
Because R2P is meant to “protect” non-combattants; and it matters not a whit—under strict interpretation of “protect”—whether an asymmetric warrior force (or country) is firing thousands of rockets and missiles from within the civilian population or establishing batteries in schools, kindergartens and old age homes, or placing its military command centers in hospitals, etc.
Those civilians do not deserve to be targeted, to be killed, as we saw in Lebanon in 2006 and in Gaza, in 2008….
(Especially not by genocidal, racist Zionists.)
In a word, R2P has trumped Geneva.
(Just as “asymmetrical” has trumped Westphalia.)
(And if some are fond of “poetic justice,” as are I’m sure some of Israel’s critics from the intellegentsia, or perhaps from the ranks of the clergy, the whole exercise could be icily phrased as, “You Jews like to stick to the letter of the law? OK, we’ll give you the letter of the law.”)
All of this taking into account that the animus between Obama and Netanyahu is personal and monumental.
In short, this is potentially (verging on the actually) a huge, huge problem for Israel, which not only has limited strategic depth but also, if one recalls the first 10 days (plus) of the 1973 October (Ramadan) War was desperate for immediate resupply of the significant quantities of materiel it lost and used up in that first devastating week.
Which Richard Nixon did not hesitate to airlift over. Richard Nixon.
But that’s not going to happen this time around. At least not until 2013.
And so Israel has a huge, huge problem, which will likely not be lost on its neighbors or Partners in Peace (Inc.) in the region—even those who have already signed “peace treaties” with Israel.
Attrition is the name of the game. Or at least the major arrow in the quiver.
Diplomatic attrition. Attrition in terms of military materiel. And attrition morale-wise.
To be sure, Hamas’s and Hezbullah’s supply (and resupply) lines remain intact and flowing (no matter how much Israel would like to intedict them, and does, at times, interdict).
But Israel’s are at risk, rather, non-existent if the worst-case scenario kicks in (unless maybe someone comes through like the Czechs did in 1948).
All of which points, ultimately, to an Israel with her back against the proverbial wall and an escalation that no one wants to see but which more than a few have predicted.
R2P.
File under: Best Intentions?
Qualification: Spengler see things quite a lot differently than the above:
http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Middle_East/MD12Ak01.html
(I wish I were as confident…)
Does that include flying rockets and mortars?
20. JD
If I recall it was a billion-dollar-plus a year industry, left intact as a sign of goodwill, Hamas and Co. destroyed it saying it was a Sign of the Oppressors. These folks are just nuts. What they will never be able to explain (honestly to each other) is why life is good on the Israeli side of the border and why it is so utterly bad on their side. They both exist side by side with the same physical resources. How utterly foul does a culture have to be to dress babies up as suicide bombers?
18. Marie Claude, That is good news (I think) it is difficult to tell the good guys from the bad guys over there. Hopefully things will now settle down a bit.
“Question for the class: does this kind of intellectual and moral incoherence typify every age, or are we really on the greasy chute toward some nonlinearity here?”
Let me try: No and no, unless by nonlinearity you mean the end of space-time, which then would have to be a yes, eventually.
The intellectual and moral incoherence is a direct product of the postmodernist parasite that developed out of the modernist prioritization of reason. It derives from a flawed first principle: that there is no such thing as Truth and Morality in the absolute sense, which is to say this is morality as legislated by those who do not believe in morality.
As Chesterton put it, more or less, “A madman has not lost all reason but has instead lost everything but reason.”
Not to worry, though. Reality actually does exist, as many here have said, and it will necessarily reassert itself, which is otherwise known as having your butt kicked by God.
I guess that the declaration of a no-fly zone over Gaza would produce a result, albeit not one that was expected.
The Israelis would then have a short window in which to implement a solution to their Gaza problem. Then the no-fly zone would not be a problem.
Let’s blame Canada:
The International Commission on Intervention and State Sovereignty (ICISS) was formed in September 2000 under the sponsorship of the Government of Canada with the goal of developing global political consensus about how and when the international community should respond to emerging crises involving the potential for large-scale loss of life and other widespread crimes against humanity.
And Australia, where it all began under Gareth Evans, President and Chief Executive Officer of the International Crisis Group and former Foreign Minister of Australia (Ms Power being a mere disciple to use the polite word.) From “The Limits of State Sovereignty” (2007):
I was more than a little taken back when the head of the Crisis Group office in New York reported to me a conversation two weeks ago, in which the head of mission of a major country in the Arab-Islamic world said to him: [t]he concept of the responsibility to protect does not exist except in the minds of Western imperialists.
What has gone wrong here? Why is there so much continuing resistance to a principle which has seemed to so many others to be an important breakthrough, capable of resolving an age old debate in a practical and principled way? Is there anything that we of a cosmopolitan mindset … can possibly do to get this debate back on the rails and generate the kind of response that this haunting issue of preventing genocide and mass atrocity crimes demands?
…….
I hope it will be apparent from what I have said about the R2P principle … that this is a complex, multi-dimensional concept, which is genuinely aimed at helping countries find their way, with international support, through apparently intractable internal situation and that it is simply grotesque to describe it as a tool of Western imperialists.
Unfortunately titled speech.
“that this is a complex, multi-dimensional concept, which is genuinely aimed at helping countries find their way, with international support, through apparently intractable internal situation and that it is simply grotesque to describe it as a tool of Western imperialists.”
Colonialism. The 3rd world knows well what it looks like and a name change and a fresh paint job isn’t fooling them.
Those countries have already found their way. It is just not the way thw West wants them to find. Colonialism. The fact that the countries getting R2p’d happen to have OIL is just a co-ink-see-dink.
BTW anybody else notice the Israeli claims of massive amounts of OIL and gas being discovered a couple of weeks ago? Co-ink-see-dink that now the West thinks R2P is the tool for Israel. Only Israel isn’t a 3rd world nation. Europe cannot build an anti-missile defence. Even if they had the will, they don’t have the technology. Or the funds to spend reseerching that technology.
“that this is a complex, multi-dimensional concept, which is genuinely aimed at helping countries find their way, with international support, through apparently intractable internal situation and that it is simply grotesque to describe it as a tool of Western imperialists.”
Colonialism. The 3rd world knows well what it looks like and a name change and a fresh paint job isn’t fooling them.
Those countries have already found their way. It is just not the way the West wants them to find. Colonialism. The fact that the countries getting R2p’d happen to have OIL is just a co-ink-see-dink.
BTW anybody else notice the Israeli claims of massive amounts of OIL and gas being discovered a couple of weeks ago? Co-ink-see-dink that now the West thinks R2P is the tool for Israel. Only Israel isn’t a 3rd world nation. Europe cannot build an anti-missile defence. Even if they had the will, they don’t have the technology. Or the funds to spend researching that technology.
Not only do some oppressions go totally unnoticed by the powers that be, while others become the cause du jour, but the targets of street mobs are also as seemingly arbitrary.
For instance, Terry Jones incited at least two deadly rampages by burning a Koran, and this was big news everywhere. But France has banned the veil, and this was quite clearly targeted at Muslim women. How does France get off compared to Terry Jones? One guy pulls a Shavian stunt, while a nation institutes a crackdown.
Not only the beneficiaries of the responsibility to protect, but also the proper objects of outrage, are determined for all, and seemingly by the left’s narratives and not by reason or any other basis.
RE: this is a complex, multi-dimensional concept
Exactly. The vocabulary is revealing. I would almost add – dated – at least to my cynical ears.
I do not believe that the USA is paying anything but token UN dues anymore.
stoi: It is just not the way the [West] Russell Trust Association wants them to find.
Sometimes a conspiracy is just a conspiracy.
It’s chaotic and cloaked but there seems to be a deeper game in play, as noted many times by others. Opening up new markets to support capitalist enterprise along the western model is one. Not sure how well that will ultimately play out in Arabia, let alone Africa.
Point being, we’re in no position to be establishing ourselves as the defining moral authority. I do not believe that kind of authority can be exported. It’s either ground up or nothing but broad smiles and diligent face-work as money changes hands.
On the other hand, maybe we’ve got it all wrong…
…and R2P will be established to protect citizens of Gaza (and S. Lebanon) from the thuggish, predatory, murderous and corrupt regimes that currently “govern” them….
P.S. And Iran?…
Colonialism: – two guys in a rowboat flying the Union Jack come ashore in front of a howling, spear-brandishing mob of savages. The two Colonialists saunter up the beach and address the chief of said howling mob. “Do you guys have a flag?” Chief’s brow furrows. He replies “Dunno – deputy chief – do we have a flag?” Then every mobster starts asking “do we have a flag?” Eventually the consensus reply comes back – “no we don’t have a flag”.
“Well that’s all right then” say the Colonialists. Then they plant their flag firmly in the sand and declare “Welcome to the Empire!”
R2P is the modern equivalent of these two guys in the rowboat, except that Empire has been replaced by Utopia and the flag has been replaced by the badge of Political Correctness. When the question comes “do you guys have Political Correctness?” Israel will blow a big raspberry, blast a big hole in the rowboat and throw the two guys back into the ocean.
I guess the Israeli’s just don’t get It.
We’ve long ago lost the narrative battle, because we never really fought it effectively. Republicans in particular seem to think it’s enough to gain control of Congress and the WH, and completely ignore the entire network of public and private institutions that the left has subjugated and/or infiltrated.
The MSM that is supposedly dying is doing so at the same glacial pace as “failed states” like Zimbabwe and N. Korea. Even solidly conservative newspapers are infested with AP dispatches, and ABC TV news correspondents openly refer to conservative GOP congressmen as “right wing extremists.”
Like it or not, the conservative/libertarian movement is likely going to have to do a long march through the institutions of its own. The problem with that is twofold: 1) our differernt notions of the uses and abuses of power as compared to the left, and 2) we have a more difficult task than the left did, because the left made its long march through largely unresistant systems; the right will not have that luxury.
As to our NATO ally Turkey – maybe they need R2P
Turkey leads world in jailing journalists, OSCE study finds
http://www.jpost.com/International/Article.aspx?id=215997
The International Press Institute stated that Turkey is now the country with the most imprisoned journalists, surpassing Iran and China. As of December, 34 journalists in both of those nations are in prisons.
DR/35—your last paragraph says it all with the addition that the Right for some reason isn’t willing to fight rough for what it believes in (I don’t mean ‘illegal’) as the late Lee Atwater would, then laugh and spit in their eye when they’re accused of starving orphans, being extreme and so forth because they know it’s BS.
Somehow, down inside, the Right always seems to accept the Left’s definition of the issue at hand.
“in this case fortunately, the ongoing failure of the “no-fly” zone in Libya”
Failure? The Duck of death is negotiating the surrender of NATO. How is that failure? The Duck sells OIL in the west. The New Duck sells OIL in the east. Looks like a win win from where I sit. The goatherders caught in the middle now only have to dodge bullets from the East and West. They don’t have to dodge bombs from NATO now. THAT is a big win. So it’s win, win, WIN.
It is only a failure for the Long legged mack daddy from Kenya. One of many, so who will notice?
Don;
“completely ignore the entire network of public and private institutions that the left has subjugated and/or infiltrated.”
Think about that. While it’s a fact the the left has dominated centers of learning and the Media, What good has that done them? The domination means nothing if it doesn’t produce votes. The stupid go to their Ivy League schools and learn nothing because they already know everything. After all, if you are smart enough to have a rich daddy, you must be a freakin genius. So no amount of facts will penetrate their smug armour of self indulgence. Socialist spend time and money brain washing morons. Road kill on the highway of life.
Propaganda doesn’t work, it never has. Increasing the sophistication of the Propaganda doesn’t seem to matter. Churchill and FDR made the decision to avoid propaganda in WW2 because they knew that eventually reality would win out. Of course, they then went on and applied propaganda where they felt it was needed but because their touch was lighter, it was more effective. It took 50 years to open the secret vaults and show how the propaganda war was won.
the Right for some reason isn’t willing to fight rough for what it believes in (I don’t mean ‘illegal’) as the late Lee Atwater would
And I miss Lee Atwater. Our side needs a bunch of them. Instead we get . . . Karl Rove.
“Gaddafi prepared to step down…in favour of son”
http://www.aawsat.com/english/news.asp?section=1&id=24830
cowboy
“But France has banned the veil, and this was quite clearly targeted at Muslim women. How does France get off compared to Terry Jones? One guy pulls a Shavian stunt, while a nation institutes a crackdown”
Banning the veil isn’t comparable to burning a Koran, which is a symbolic and a provocative action, while banning a full veil is conforming to our republican laws, where one has to show his/her face for being identified. Too bad these that are targeted are muslim, though this law is also for anyone who wants to hid his/her face from public.
f47
yes, and Turkey wanted to give us moral lessons !
Meanwhile back at Demonstration Ranch, a masked Afghan and a Masked Iranian have released a video of them burning a Qur’an and stating that it was imposed on their countries by Arabs, has set them back, and that they hate it.
http://www.washingtontimes.com/blog/watercooler/2011/apr/11/koran-burned-iran-video/
What Barry Meislin @21 said, “In short, this is potentially (verging on the actually) a huge, huge problem for Israel, which not only has limited strategic depth but also, if one recalls the first 10 days (plus) of the 1973 October (Ramadan) War was desperate for immediate resupply of the significant quantities of materiel it lost and used up in that first devastating week.
Which Richard Nixon did not hesitate to airlift over. Richard Nixon.
But that’s not going to happen this time around. At least not until 2013.”
What JD @20 said, “The destruction of flourishing greenhouses by the Palis is a prime example of the culturally rancid. Along with the folly of the left in purchasing said greenhouses.”
What Spengler at Asia Times said: “Nothing about this will be pleasant for Israel, which may suffer considerable damage from Hezbollah rockets in the event of another northern war. In that event, Israel will have the opportunity to fight, and win decisively. I do not wish war on anyone, but it is worth bearing in mind that nothing wins like winning. An Israeli military victory would do more to discredit the Islamists in the Arab world than all the elections in the world.”
My comments:
During the campaign I tried to tell my Jewish colleagues that in contrast to 1973 when Nixon immediately resupplied Israel, when the next war comes, as it surely will, Obama will instead wait three days and then call for a meeting of the Security Council to condemn Israel. They voted for him anyway and most of them still say they would do it again. Indirect suicide, I think.
When a culture of life goes against a culture of death, then death will win many battles. Life will eventually prevail if it is not rendered extinct. But as with the pre-Greek Dark Ages and the post-Rome Dark Ages, it may take hundreds of years and a lot of luck plus some remnants who keep the flickering flame going.
And as to Spengler’s optimistic comment, “In that event, Israel will have the opportunity to fight, and win decisively.” I lament that Israel has had that opportunity in 1955 at Suez, in 1967, in 1973, and again in Lebanon I and Lebanon 2 but never did win decisively. I wish he were correct but I strongly fear he isn’t. Israel may win another indecisive victory that will merely pave the way for the next and the one after that until one time will be the last time — for Israel.
I hope God is still in the Divine Intervention business and will step in to save Israel. But as Churchill wisely said, hope is not a strategy even though it is the Israel National Anthem (Ha-tikva).
Marie, to observers outside of France this veil ban has consistently been portrayed as a purposefully anti-Muslim action by both its supporters and its detractors. I’ve seen the justification about necessity for identification noted before, always to be dismissed as a thin cover. Frankly, if France wants to ban the veil I have no problem with that. If France wanted to ban minnarets, to ban mosques, even to ban the Koran, I really don’t care. If we can have a Moslem-only country, as shariah desires and the Kingdom of Saudia Arabia for one, is, then I don’t see why we can’t have a Moslem-less country. So I am not meaning to slight France, just wondering how the Afghan mob can choose to go nuts over an obviously cheap provocation, then choose not to over a far more systematic and institutional measures hitting at Muslim practices.
I think the answer is that the Afghan mob can clearly see what profits it. They do follow the West’s internal narratives, and they do act to influence them. This was obvious the minute the “Great Satan” banners appeared everywhere in the anti-US rallies back in the 1970s, in Tehran, in English. The crowd’s audience was not anyone or anything nearby, but the cameras taking imagery for us.
The savy ones knew instantly great, cheap advantage – in the West – could be made from Terry Jones. Too easy. Attacking the French for protecting things French? That goes nowhere, fast. As it ought not.
As MC could tell you, one of the groups agitating for the ban on the veil is French law enforcement.
There have been a rash of armed robberies and other crimes facilitated by men wearing the veil/ burkas.
If the weather is cool they make carrying an AK47 into a bank very pleasant.
And of course, they entirely defeat video records of crime scenes.
Eventually, every Western country is going to have to ban the veil.
R2P = White Man’s Burden.
Brought to you by the White Women of this Administration and its Black President.
Or is it rather too impolitic of one to notice?
If Tennyson could never know a flower
And if he did what could he then expect
What make we then of one Samantha Power
Who claims United Nations can protect
Civilians who are seen to be in danger
From warring tribes or despots and the like
What matter we don’t know who’s friend or stranger
What matters is the USA must strike
At Israel the source of world wide trouble
And once the Jews are gone the troubles wane
One little prick will soon explode their bubble
World peace at hand thanks to Barack Hussein
#46. sirius
R2P = White Man’s Burden.
Perhaps, but I doubt it. I tend to think of it more as a Corrupt Tranzi in Search of Loot kind of thing. The Tranzi humanitarians seem to make more money for the investment than any Capitalist ever has.
And forgive me for using the term “Corrupt Tranzi.” I was indeed being redundant.
It may be just my perception, I am only in my 60′s and so do not have the memories of some here.
Israel seems to have lost the propaganda war for withdrawing from it.
Sometime in the seventies or eighties we all got tired of hearing about the Jews as victims and as, for each reprisal and each hollering of collateral damage presented as “Jewish persecution of innocent Arabs,” we heard more and more from the Palestinian propaganda machine, the Israelis withdrew into dignified silence. Finally Israelis declined to be seen as eternal victims and so now the only victims we hear about are the Palestinians.
The Israelis failed to transition to being, if not permanent victims, at least the regular victims of significant muggings in the eyes of the N. American public. They may pay a huge price for their failure to maintain the propaganda war.
A few years back in Texas a woman wearing a burka tried to cash a check at a convenience store and the clerk wouldn’t do it unless she unveiled.
So she cried religious discrimination, and the case hit local TV. Unfortunately for her the store was manned and owned by “African-Americans” and were well thought of in the neighborhood. They pretty well made the case that they didn’t discriminate, regardless of race,gender, sexual orientation, or religious orientation they required every body they cashed checks for to have photo ID and to expose their face for the camera.
I see women wearing head scarves of Asian extraction around but have yet to see one in a burkha. I do believe it is de facto banning as opposed to de jure banning.
#46 sirius
the White Women of this Administration
You left out FLOTUS and Valerie, the other Powers that be.
48. Tcobb
Maybe you’re more perceptive than me.
Or maybe I should have said the New White Man’s Burden.
49. chrisvj
You don’t have to look any further than your gas pump.
Both Britain and France have state supported and controlled media which have been entirely pimped over in favor of the anti-Jewish narrative.
The mid-seventies oil embargo was the trigger.
It’s that simple.
Should Israel become a massive exporter of petroleum you will witness an astounding turn of media events.
Such an event may be less than ten years away. At current prices tar-sand extraction is wildly profitable. Canada is scaling up like mad.
Israel has different strata — meaning that there is hope that she can extract petroleum in situ.
cowboy
“Marie, to observers outside of France this veil ban has consistently been portrayed as a purposefully anti-Muslim action by both its supporters and its detractors. I’ve seen the justification about necessity for identification noted before, always to be dismissed as a thin cover.”
you forget our 1905 laic law, and that more than 80% of the French support it. In 2004 veils were forbidden in schools, yet we didn’t see much of burqas, that were the next step from integrist muslims requests. These outfits are new for us, and are almost provocation from new converted muslims, that want to get medias spot lights. They aren’t witnesses of a religious belief, but provocations, but also manipulations from insidious integrists that want to remove our 1905 law, so that they get a regard on our state investments and rules. The argument of “no hidden face allowed” is the best laic argument. I don’t care if such muslims feel targeted, these aren’t the normal muslims, at least not those that we used to know from our colonies. You wouldn’t believe it, but the first muslims that immigrated wanted to look like us. These new revendications were/are the result of the last decades brotherhood brainswashing. So if a law can cut down them, it’s so far the best way for us to manage it. since 2004, no muslim girl would go to school with a veil, so I expect that this will be the same for the burqa girls ! I’m sure that the Integrists will find another trick though !
Sure, some Maghrebin jihaders ask for punishing France for such laws, so far they can do nothing on our territory, since our intelligence service is so good (yes, as good as the mossad
)
and blert is right, some gangs wore burqas while attacking banks ! also in Afghanistan, Talibani flee away wit such a outfit too !
So the burqa isn’t a religious symbol, but just a traditional outfit from certain regions, and certainly not a tradition in Maghreb. Until now, traditions aren’t written in Koran, but in local shariah !
En resumé, still the ban of the burqa isn’t like burning a Koran, whereas the message is completly different, because it attacks islam religion substance, it’s like some would burn a gospels book. Though in our countries we would think that the person who is doing that is a fool, like I think that Terry Jones is a fool. But you don’t have the habit to live with muslims in America like we do, since a long time, and we can bear each others if one respects the others, especially their beliefs, that ren’t are a matter of large public concern, it’s private ! and we intend to keep like that.
Which gives certain states in the ME incentive to act before Israel becomes self-sufficient in oil or even a net exporter of oil. Just think of the weapons Israel could buy and operate competently.
and for the fun
a techno video on burqa
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N9M_TGSt3m0&feature=player_embedded#
Burqas and shale oil.
Somehow there is a connection. Canada was the sole member who would not sign off on Goldstone report. No, too out there. Maybe they had a tighter grip on reality.
In the aftermath Hamas pleaded directly to Israelis in fluent Hebrew to quit. Why now? You have hardly been hit in numbers.
I do not like conspiracy or speculating but gut tells me something happened. Break from the usual pattern. Somehow something changed.
Maybe just timing and Haniya or someone up in Hamas got a message changing the situation. I noticed a much tighter targeting this time by IDF. Coupled with Iron Dome which, cmon, no matter where you are is very impressive. The bigger stuff and the usual supporters do not need this now.
mc@54:
I’m with France on this one. In the Western Anglo-sphere culture, hiding one’s face usually means that one is up to no good. Bank robbers and Klansmen are examples. There is also our ancient tradition of being able to see the face of one’s accuser – and burqua wearers and their team mates do an awful lot of accusing.
If it’s different in other cultures – who cares – they are living in our culture.
mc@54: No, I’m not suggesting that France is part of the Anglo-sphere….. and yet and yet ….. England and France once shared the same Kings.
#59, Anti-spin Chanuk, I would have said suffered, but that is but a minor quibble to a brief but accurate post.
MC, I liked your video and I hope the reverka catches on. I doubt that the Rag_eads will get it but I would like to see it be required that ALL females wear the reverka one day a year. Exemptions granted for age and body fat, of course.
I haven’t been to Europe since the late 70′s early 80′s. Do Hummers sell there? How about Pick-up trucks? Pick-up trucks outnumber automobiles in America. Especially out here in the Red States. Mostly because because clueless bureaucrats see them as farm tools and they are exempted from most EPA regulations.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/us_oil_sands
The above article captures the state of play in the unconventional oil market: it’s boom times.
Current Canadian numbers indicate that wringing oil out of tar sands is now wildly profitable; beyond all initial expectations.
Further, that the cost of extraction has really dropped with scale and experience.
Alberta is in a full throated energy boom.
IMHO this is the most significant insight of Richard’s post:
“Interestingly, the UN system of insider politics is precisely what is being undermined by the Arab revolt. The despots are clinging to the rungs above them as the ground crumbles beneath. The idea that transnational institutions should have the power to impose things from the top down may already be doomed by the the global economic crisis and grassroots rebellions all over the world. It is an idea whose time has passed even before it came.”
52. sirius
Once again I will disagree with you, and with no offense intended, it is not the White Man’s Burden, New or Old, it is now the Progressives Burden. But then again, I have the feeling that any overt disagreement between us at all is merely over semantics. In abstract thought that cuts to the core I doubt there is much of any disagreement between us at all.
Stoicheion
We don’t see much Hummers, more pick-up trucks, though only those that want to show off would get such oil greedy cars. Here they don’t are free of taxes even for farmers !
Though people here prefer berlines and camping-cars, did you know that we are the country that have the most camping-cars pro inhabitant? probably that we have a nomad soul.
National Geographic explores the cost of the Canadian oil Sands Boom, which includes strip mining and toxic tailings ponds. Lots of information available to make up one’s own mind.
44) Cowboy,
It’s not the “Afghan mob” whose motivation should be questioned, it is their religious leadership (who incited them), and “national” political leadership, whose motivation is the key.
Declare a no-fly zone on the UN building in NYC.
63. Tcobb
No offense taken–atall. Yes, I think it’s a matter of semantics, and POV. I’m coming at it from the direction of this new set of do-gooders–who would impose this ostensible new responsibility (burden) to intervene in others’ affairs “for their own good”–which I would suggest was the excuse given originally to impose the “white man’s way” on those insufficiently advanced or civilized.
But of course, I’m being slightly facetious about all this. Especially so, recognizing the aforementioned white women and their President really do not want the responsibility of protecting anyone; what they really want, as you suggest, is the power to decide–who, what, and for how long–and probably not limited even to that extent. When Barack said “days and not weeks” I had a moment of clarity that told me, “Yes, that’s real commitment for you.” Given that mindset, I would rather we had just gone in and offed Qadaffi and called it a day– or even a matter of hours. Instead, we end up with the kind of mission creep that now has us discussing the potential of going to war against the Israelis in service to Arabs who would like nothing more than to (at the least) wipe that particular subset of Jewry from the face of the earth.
67, Josh
I had the same thought. Past time to keep the crazy ideas that originate there from getting off the ground.
The gnomic Wretchard @7: “Playing God is a tough game.”
That game has a way of outsmarting those whose hubris deludes them into playing it.
But it does look like we are sliding toward another major war in the Middle East, a bloody one like nothing before. Israel won’t have any second chances.
if some are interested how Gbagbo was outed by our soldiers, some may know “poliorcetique” or “siege” (article in french)
http://www.lepoint.fr/chroniqueurs-du-point/jean-guisnel/contre-gbagbo-une-seule-solution-la-poliorcetique-08-04-2011-1317211_53.php
#65 YBR,
You’d do better to read Ezra Levant’s “Ethical Oil”, to understand how good Alberta is at reclaiming land, and how much better Alberta is at respecting the human rights of its peoples. National Geographic is lying to you- it’s just another group of the easily brainwashed spouting politically correct sentiment.
Literally hundreds of millions of dollars have been spent by various US environmental organizations (like the Tides Foundation), coming from dubious sources in order to try to discredit the Oil Sands. I wouldn’t be surprised if the Saudis have a hand in it.
Here’s a good article from the Financial Post asking some important questions about those “environmentalists”:
http://opinion.financialpost.com/2010/10/14/u-s-foundations-against-the-oil-sands/
At the end of the day, who can say how clean Saudi oil, or Iranian oil is?
NatGeo is still pimping AGW as if the CRU was never busted and NASA and NOAA were still credible.
Playing God is a tough game.
No. Not at all unless there are consequences attached to it that affect those playing God that can get them crucified. That is the essential problem of the social engineers; they want to play the role of the Messiah without having to do anything and taking responsibility when their schemes are shown by reality to be the work of idiots rather than of gods or geniuses.
A real Messiah can be crucified, and so can the false ones. When their schemes backfire the social engineers creep off into the gutters like rats waiting until they think the time has come that people have forgotten they are rats rather than the Messiah.
But that is the essential difference between a rat and a social engineer. A rat knows what it is. The social engineer hasn’t a clue and is afflicted by delusions of grandeur.
mc@71
If I read it correctly he was holed up in his bunker. They cut off the electricity – which turned out the lights and stopped the air conditioning. At the same time they cut off the water – no drinks, no showers, no flush toilets. Apparently it worked.
a nobody@72
Thank you for saying that. Smoke comes out my ears at all that US-financed greenery attacking the oil sands and Alberta. The National Geographic has been doing it for years. Development of land reclamation techniques in the oil sands operations started in the early 70′s. I know that because I helped on one of the early research projects. Since then the reclamation has steadily improved and, as far as I know, has been continuously applied.
A@72:
I confess to looking for a reaction.
On the surface, strip mining and massive tailings ponds – neither of which come with direct drilling – look like nasty subjects for remediation.
I am still working through the literature to get at the technicals behind the propaganda of money and say-so. I do know that strip mines can be restored, but tailings ponds are another matter. In fact I am still unclear about the disposal/remediation methods used on the toxic sludge, which concerns me substantially more than the various ecosystem restoration schemes and regulatory issues (ecosystems being more robust than typically allowed by practitioners.)
(The one safety issue I did note – and question – was sizing the ponds so large. If the biggest environmental threat is dam failure of a pond embankment, I would have thought that a minimum safety design feature would include a series of smaller facilities. Instead the Alberta site seems to be one huge storage pond. Not smart. Also wonder why the ponds aren’t covered with synthetic foam or one of the other products on the market as a protective barrier for wildlife.)
(Some of the cancer surveys would suggest the need for better management of waste streams. I don’t object to the oil sands extraction process but I will criticize a cowboy attitude towards cleanup and restoration.)
I think it would be naive to assume lack of tension between the two groups.
#76 YBR
Well, you got a reaction. I look around me and see the families who put food on the table thanks to the oil sands. Canada is a fragile nation, and Alberta is the best friend that the USA could hope to have. Please keep that in mind- especially if you speak to a rig worker face to face!
I have to take exception to the “Cowboy” comment. Alberta has done its level best, and far better than most oil producers in cleanup. It’s an insult to suggest anything otherwise.
There are plenty of ways to get oil out of the ground in a shockingly dirty way. If you ever get a chance, have a look at the poisoned lands in Siberia, or the Persian Gulf. Is the Alberta system perfect? No. Is it improving? Yes- but it must improve at the rate of technological improvement, not strangled by regulations. Perfect is the enemy of good enough. We do a great job, not just a good one, so you can see why Albertans get mad when hectored.
The tailing ponds are getting smaller as technology improves. The first generation ponds have long been superseded. Waste processing is something that the producers would be happy to inform you about if you’d like to ask them. As for the ponds themselves and wildlife, there have only been a few incidents of fowl getting into them- and far fewer deaths than the average wind farm.
The problem with the cancer surveys is that up in Northern Alberta and Saskatchewan there are lots of toxic minerals- uranium is pretty common, for example.
And finally, the funny thing about oilsands is that the land is left cleaner after they are extracted then before.
A@77: My concern is with the balance of power between – and among – groups with competing, if not overtly antithetical, interests and goals. The field environment is not reminiscent of crumpets and tea with grandma.
I see the FP article you linked above was dated Oct 2010, not too long ago. Seems like the temperature is being cranked up as the technology reaches commercial scale. From what I’ve read, the leased sites under development are substantial and can’t be stopped by regulatory fiat so I’m not sure what the strategy is.
I also understand that the waste processing (of the toxic sludge) is time-intensive, which means inspection should be prioritized. Short-cuts happen when the spotlight goes away.
Anyway, that’s all for now. I was surprised at the extent of the environmental impact. More substantial than I had thought. Industrial sludge in an open pond ain’t beanbag.
Blogger Whiskey has a post up on this topic. He thinks 0bama will establish a no fly zone over Gaza.
http://whiskeys-place.blogspot.com/2011/04/will-obama-destroy-israel.html
Actually there is a perfect way to remediate the tailing ponds: fungi.
Yes, they eat the filthy stuff like it’s tenderloin!
There are millions of species to pick from. Once you find your favorite fungus the yield will be humongous.
Has it been tried? Yes.
http://www.ted.com/index.php/talks/paul_stamets_on_6_ways_mushrooms_can_save_the_world.html
Paul Stamets has plenty to say on such — with pictures to prove it.
Wretchard’s conjectures loom closer on the horizon.
Soon even the blind will be able to grasp the truth.
Perhaps it’s unnecessary to point out, but the BC identified the Israeli link to R2P precedent instantaneously.
In fact, embroiling the US and NATO in a hapless affair in Libya to waste valuable US resources while putting pieces in place for attacks on Israel has got to be one of the greatest bits of genius to come out of the internationalist’s poisoned minds in a looooong time.
Israel should be stockpiling right now, as fast as possible, for a extremely energetic series of kinetic activities spread out more or less continuously over 6 months to a year. Why so long? Because with Israel, if you want to break their military the best way is to play them for time and attrition their logistics into the ground. No depth, in other words. The best way to do so, then, would be to arrange a string of escalating conflicts, preferably with Israel forced to engage them all with maximum effort for one reason or another. IE. Hamas, then Hez., then Egypt+Sudan+Libya+Yemen (assumptions of Islamization made), then Syria+Iran, then Turkey(+Russia?), then NATO+Jordan+Saudi+Irag. You get the picture.
As a side note, the USAF would be 110% against trying to enforce a no-fly zone versus the IAF. Why? Their best, most expensive toys like the F22 are transparent to highly technologically capable countries like Israel where cellular network coverage is dense. Again why? After Serbia, some genius noticed that the key to breaking modern stealth is to not look for the plane, but for the hole the plane makes in an EM-saturated environment. This, plus the IAF is still pound-for-pound better than the USAF (except perhaps now at ground-attack… we’re really practiced at that).
–JC
WesternCanadian,
Thank you for substantially elevating the intellectual level of the exchange here with your #33.
Only at Belmont can an Eddie Izzard reference be deftly employed to shed light on complex international knots.
Hmmmm. Are many of us blogging in drag?
#11 “Hmm, BTW Outtara is the american corporations’s president in Ivry Coast!”
Odd statement, considering that French corporations own 27% of shares Ivory Coast companies, and that more than 500 companies in the country belong to French business executives. In fact French businesses account for 68% of all foreign direct investments in Ivory Coast.
But of course the Americans must be at fault here! Must!
#82 JC in NZ said, “As a side note, the USAF would be 110% against trying to enforce a no-fly zone versus the IAF.”
I have been to Israel ten times since 9-11 and on four of those trips I saw USAF pilots training on Israeli bases. I know too that IAF pilots train in the US with American pilots. There is great affection and respect in both directions between these two superb Air Forces, from the pilot level to the top command.
I would hope that the USAF would be at least 110% against trying to enforce a no-fly zone versus the IAF. The IAF has F-15′s and F-16-I’s while the USAF has F-22′s. But Israel’s electronics are first rate and their pilots are at least equal to the best in the world.
It would rank as a profoundly tragic moment in Western Civilization were these two Air Forces to be made to fight each other.
If the pResident does try to implement a No Fly Zone over Gaza it will be interesting to see Israel’s reaction.
A No Fly Zone does not prevent massive retaliation in the event of rockets and mortar fire coming out of Gaza … and it might not be wise on the part of a certain party to risk high value assets.
R2P (along with the relentless search for peace) has some interesting ramifications, offshoots and possibilities.
Here, for example, is an educated, intelligent, concerned Egyptian (a soul mate of Samantha Power, perhaps) thinking outside the box:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nDqWGtykYNE&feature=player_embedded#at=37
File under: “Peace dividend”….
“It would rank as a profoundly tragic moment in Western Civilization were these two Air Forces to be made to fight each other.”
But advantageous for some.
Misrata is the Stalingrad of Libya: http://disq.us/1njr9b One believes that boots will be used there, for saving NATO’s reputation
#82 JC in NZ
“The best way to do so, then, would be to arrange a string of escalating conflicts, preferably with Israel forced to engage them all with maximum effort for one reason or another. IE. Hamas, then Hez., then Egypt+Sudan+Libya+Yemen (assumptions of Islamization made), then Syria+Iran, then Turkey(+Russia?), then NATO+Jordan+Saudi+Irag. You get the picture.”
have you read Psalm 83?
Isreal has hundreds of nukes. They ain’t going down alone.
There is never going to be an effective mideast or any other foreign policy with the progressives in charge.
Their thinking is flawed, thay cant help it. For example I skimmed over a puffington post article yesterday puportedly chastizing the PA for its incitement and teaching of hatred of Israel in their schools. Fine but I stopped reading when one of the opening lines stated that this policy is the most “counterproductive to Palestinian goals”
No it isnt, I wanted to tell the author, it is counterproductive to your goals which is to paint a pretty picture of peace-seeking Palestinians crushed by evil Likud. It is perfectly in line with Palestinian goals. But why bother arguing.
For these folks the starting point for anything is not assembling a clear picture of things as they are and them going from there. The starting point is the world as I think it ought to be, then fill in any observations to support those premises. The Arab Leaugue propsal is not intended to produce an actual no fly zone. Of course it wont. The audience is the idiot western left.
Speaking of which kinda strange that the new flotilla circus has been delayed pending the results of Turkish elections in June. Reported in J Post today. That does not add up. Something else going on maybe.
related:
http://www.centerforsecuritypolicy.org/p18676.xml
In this scenario the UN would set up “Palestine” in 2012 and UN and NATO would go for a no-fly over west bank and Israel, not just Gaza.
No wonder the terrorists and their enablers are rushing for “statehood” by 2012. Their window is likely to close with the US presidential election.
Wretchard:
You wrote, “And then the disadvantages of her own idea will be all too obvious. But by then the damage will have been done.”
Whether she sees or understands the contradiction is known only to her and the Almighty. As we’ve seen with all those ‘moral outrages’ during the last administration which have become accepted, even endorsed, during this administration, it’s never wrong when the ‘right’ people do it.
Any article in National Geographic which in any touches the environment spouts the propaganda of the socialist/green/progressive watermelons. National Geographic is signed up with Obama’s Politics of Energy Starvation for America.
I never ever read anything in the magazine if the article looks remotely concerned with politics or energy. Instead, just look at pretty pictures of plants and animals. Otherwise, with it’s rabid support of the Man-Made Global Warming scam, National Geographic is now just a propaganda rag of the left.
To bad, it used to be a great magazine.
Per the fungi, apparently the “oyster mushroom” type just loves to gorge itself on all sorts of nasty concoctions and render them harmless. It can clean up oil spills and spills of raw human sewage, it turns it into harmless compost in a jiffy.
bc@95: National Geographic is now just a propaganda rag of the left.
Undoubtedly, but blert’s linked article @61 reinforces the message that the next generation of oil extraction technologies has environmental issues that can’t be dismissed because the AGW crowd flew over a cliff.
Need some proof-of-concept pilot plants for the fungi.
“In this scenario the UN would set up “Palestine” in 2012 and UN and NATO would go for a no-fly over west bank and Israel, not just Gaza.”
Don’t forget the Arab League in the No-Fly-Zone mix.
Plus WTF is this UN complement.
It is militarily impossible for the USAF to set up a NFZ over Gaza, Samara and such…
For starters, Gaza is too small.
Ditto the west bank.
And then there’s the impossibility of proximate air bases.
All of which means that basing F-22s with effect is impossible.
Like trying Khalid Sheikh Mohammed in New York City… It’s a leftist fantasy that just can’t pan out.
It’d also be pure poison on the campaign trail.
Gotchercancerstudiesrightchere
http://www.smalldeadanimals.com/archives/012649.html
#98
It is militarily impossible for the USAF to set up a NFZ over Gaza, Samara and such…
Hold on there. I think you’re forgetting that Obama can always ask Bibi to use some of Israel’s air bases.
(I mean, what are allies for, anyway?)
File under: “Nothing. Is. Impossible.”
http://www.thelocal.de/politics/20110312-33671.html
Barry…
First off, neo-Nazis and paleo-Nazis are Left-Wingers.
The whole Right-wing schtick was a First Directorate agitprop dis-information gambit.
If anyone pages through American political discourse of the pre-war era the term Right-wing Nazis NEVER appears.
It also didn’t appear in wartime propaganda, either.
It arose specifically because after their defeat and full exposure it was impossible to hide the astounding congruence between Soviet and Nazi policy.
——-
And it’s a running gag from the gulag to the death camp that the best Nazis were ex-Commies — and vic versa.
One can go from Commie to Nazi without changing ANY fundamental belief. All that is necessary is a change in icons and uniforms.
Oh and gee thanks Mr. Kennedy.
http://www.nrdc.org/media/pressreleases/040610.asp
http://www.oilweek.com/news.asp?ID=31134
This goes a long way in explaining why for the previous decade, hordes of 22 year old Ivy Leaguers have been traveling from reserve to reserve every winter teaching the Cree and Ojibwe how to freakin’ dogsled.
Summers are obviously spent in Mumbai teaching the Punjabis war elephant synchronized swimming.
The Tides are high but I’m holding on.
Gee, can we apply R2P thingy to Congress. As in we the taxpayers need protection from Congress. Turns out, Speaker Boehner’s $38.5 Bil deal is really only $8-14 Bil.
I don’t think I would want to be him today. Kinda hard to esplain how you went form $100 bil to $8. Some are saying the Tea pariters in Congress will have none of it, and the guvmint will be shut down.
Some how to me the awful truth of just how conniving, treacherous, dishonest, gutless and just plain stupid the Republicans are, is a lot more scary than the government shutting down.
R2P, hell. We need rescue –a Grenada, an Entebbe –the American people held hostage and prisoner, for some reason of tradition and momentum, outrageously complicit in our own damnation, spellbound by a thin red liar.
How will we, how could we, stand by our own legal law –the laws that (one is given to believe) have put this own-nation-destroying administration in the control of a so-recently-free USA’s 310,000,000 people –if and when that administration turns us to act –against the wishes of say 300 million of that 310 million –militarily upon the “dictates” of the Goebbels-modeled lies of a gang the likes of a Samantha Power?
The supposed once-in-a-lifetime-emergency spending needs of 2010 behind us, we today (upon the release of the March numbers) learn that to-date in 2011 we are exceeding the all-but-impossible 2010 by –no not 4%, not 8%, not even 12 or 14% –by a full 16%.
About, i’d say, 32 times the MOE in the picture we thought we were in.
And meanwhile, we have turned on our best most loyal and dependable friends, in favor of a freakish political zoo of old-nightmare back-again monstrosities, and with R2P are on the very verge of double-crossing that hitherto merely official, that so-far only psychological, transgressive step over the thin red line beyond which it will no longer matter what we were thinking or whether or not we agreed with what we did, because it will be only what we have done that matters, that matters to history, that matters to any timeless power judging our history.