tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36841665.post8641349967615585965..comments2023-12-31T13:47:05.758+00:00Comments on Fat Man on a Keyboard: AnguishThe Plumphttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09244528534476387323noreply@blogger.comBlogger6125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36841665.post-39997528611267502972015-12-23T14:29:15.890+00:002015-12-23T14:29:15.890+00:00So, basically, your answer to my question is '...So, basically, your answer to my question is 'nothing'.<br /><br />I take it that your argument about mandates does not apply to the air strikes on ISIS in Iraq, which were requested by the elected Iraqi government and have been praised by the Kurdish forces fighting ISIS as being decisive in allowing them to win back Kobane. The Kurds have also asked for the air strikes to be extended to Syria to help them.<br /><br /><i>"people in a foreign country with a culture far removed from our own should deal with their own problems?"</i><br /><br />First, if you used that description of Syrians to any of the Syrian communities around Manchester you might be accused of, well, Orientalism at best. And, as hundreds of thousands of refugees flood out of Syria, and as the corpses of British tourists and Parisian pleasure seekers attest, the conflict is scarcely confined to Syria itself.<br /><br />Secondly, there are some standard tropes ('what buttery', elision, and arguments of hypocrisy) that have never impressed me, but the main thing is that I find your argument to be a mix of leftist and populist conservative isolationism and non-intervention, something that has been around since the WPA in the late 19th century at least. It is based on two things, a mistrust of your own side and an assessment of the balance of risk. <br /><br />The first of these is commonly expressed two ways. a) The malign intentions of any intervening power or b) the limits of the competence of any such power to produce a good result. I think that the latter is a very much stronger argument.<br /><br />The second on the balance of risks always needs to consider the risks of inaction too (the Second World War being a prime example - Manchuria, Abyssinia,the Rhineland, etc.). This is a very good article that is worth considering. http://www.newstatesman.com/world/middle-east/2015/12/syrian-war-and-return-great-power-politicsThe Plumphttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09244528534476387323noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36841665.post-85011142792879980402015-12-18T13:12:42.392+00:002015-12-18T13:12:42.392+00:00Perhaps people in a foreign country with a culture...Perhaps people in a foreign country with a culture far removed from our own should deal with their own problems? Why do you think you or I have the right to decide these questions? The American President or UK Prime minister are not elected by any one in the middle east and have no moral or legal mandate to rule over it. To suppose so is imperialism.<br /><br />The USA says it will not send its own troops to control Syria but use proxies to do so if it can. The only proxies it can use are dictatorships with barbaric Governments and like minded allies. Who will rule Syria if Assad falls? People like the King of Saudi Arabia who plan to murder Abdullah al-Zaher a teenage boy for public protest. These are the people with the guns and they will decide what to do. The track record of the west in pressurising their allies to be more moderate is abysmal and why should we suppose that will change from past practice?<br /><br />As Assad is backed by Russia and Iran as part of their power politics it seems very unlikely Assad will fall, if he does those powers will make Syria ungovernable for decades as they think their interests require it. Russia has Nuclear weapons and a large conventional Army and Iran fanatical revolutionary guards to export. The danger of confrontation between the French, UK, and US backed side and the Iranian and Russian side make bombing syria a very dangerous game indeed. How ever much sympathy people have for the suffering of ordinary people in this region the realities of politics are what matters and a few bombs from the UK are not going to change it.<br /><br /> Isis grab headlines but the Oppressive regimes the west is allied with and whom it must depend on practice injustice every day with our connivance. That is something to be ashamed of in my view, and we should get real about it. Needless to say Terrorism can happen any where if people wish to engage in it and no one has found a way to stop it. Huge numbers of Americans die each year from gun violence, far more than from Terrorism but the American authorities do nothing about it. The Federal and state Governments in the US should sort out the problems of their dysfunctional society rather than engage in the "white mans burden". They are responsible for policy in their own country and would do more good if they accepted their responsibilities for the welfare of their own citizens.<br />Keithhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/00769952853595228563noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36841665.post-56493854348040720222015-12-18T11:42:57.304+00:002015-12-18T11:42:57.304+00:00Keith. First this is about defeating ISIS rather t...Keith. First this is about defeating ISIS rather than democracy and human rights in general. <br /><br /><i>Oil and arms sales drive the policy of the west</i> - even if I conceded the point, if you were a Yazidi or any other of the multitude of victims facing extermination under ISIS, would you give a toss what their motivation was as long as you were rescued? Would you be rather grateful that you had something that they wanted so that they would intervene to save you, rather than being left to die because they had no self-interest to "drive" them to intervene?<br /><br /><i>Bombing syria to combat "Terrorism"</i> - no, this is about bombing ISIS to combat ISIS. This strikes me as logical enough. It is a limited operation against a specific target.<br /><br />Now, a question to you. Your view seems to be that the west is irredeemably cynical and can do no good. So, what practical and achievable policy to deal with ISIS would you propose instead?The Plumphttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09244528534476387323noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36841665.post-81842729411853041272015-12-17T17:30:16.691+00:002015-12-17T17:30:16.691+00:00May be the "left" just are not naive eno...May be the "left" just are not naive enough to believe the USA and UK will bring democracy or human rights to the Middle east with their allies like Saudi Arabia? How likely is that when their friends base their state on barbarism? Oil and arms sales drive the policy of the west or had you not noticed? Bombing syria to combat "Terrorism" is a leg pull, must be april the first.Keithhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/00769952853595228563noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36841665.post-4993349671864294012015-12-08T00:54:55.072+00:002015-12-08T00:54:55.072+00:00The reality is that a large section of the left is...The reality is that a large section of the left is not anti-fascist or even anti-imperialist. It is simply anti-Western. They believe that the West is the root of all evil and the cause of all the world’s problems. Therefore they automatically oppose anything that Western nations do, and they automatically support anybody who is against the West (including actual fascists and imperialists). There is literally no atrocity that the Islamic State could ever commit that would shake their conviction that the West is always the real villain.<br /><br />No doubt there were always people like that on the left. But the collapse of socialism as a mass movement means that the swivel-eyed ideological zealots are no longer a small minority outnumbered by moderates and ordinary working people looking for practical improvements to their lives. They now form a large percentage of what’s left of the left, after the more mainstream elements have given up or been driven out. But social media has allowed them to form online echo chambers in which they only speak to like-minded people and re-assure each other that everyone else is always wrong. This encourages them to take more and more extreme positions as they compete to prove their ideological purity to the group.<br /><br />In their eyes, any support for the actions of the evil West automatically makes you evil too. So you just have to accept that you can’t reason with them, only fight them. But if they are now the largest and most committed bloc within the left then you won’t win that fight, and the only future for the left in Britain will be to shrivel into a weird mad cult that is despised by the rest of society.AndrewZnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36841665.post-67940190403775910012015-12-07T23:53:37.600+00:002015-12-07T23:53:37.600+00:00I was thinking that the reporting on ISIS crimes s...I was thinking that the reporting on ISIS crimes sort of went away in the run up to the decision. The agenda was solely on i) civilian casualties (although we know these will be relatively low) and ii) chance of blowback (which is a total red herring).<br /><br />I think ISIS are so bad, so unbelievably vile that perhaps it's hard to keep that stuff in the newspapers.<br /><br />The goal is to degrade ISIS capability. A quick check of what ISIS have been up to lately includes taking 200 children, lying them on the ground and executing them one by one. Another example (less clear source) involves attaching explosives to a baby and detonating it. Uncovering mass graves of women too old to be sex slaves. <br /><br />Bit grim I know but genuinely surprised me how trying to stop extending existing bombing into Syria became the social media campaign for 2015. And not campaigning for women's or children's rights in the region.borboskihttps://www.blogger.com/profile/12164321640723384187noreply@blogger.com