I hope they’re proud of themselves:
Russia and China on Saturday vetoed a Western and Arab-sponsored U.N. resolution condemning Syria’s violent repression of anti-government demonstrators, throwing their prestige and power behind President Bashar al-Assad as he intensifies a military operation aimed at crushing the 10-month-old uprising.
The Russian and Chinese stance came as a blow to U.S. and European efforts to rally behind an Arab League plan that would require Assad to step down, making way for a democratically elected unity government with a leader commading support from both the government and the opposition.
U.N. Ambassador Susan Rice tweeted her disgust and said on the Council floor: “This intransigence is even more shameful when you consider that at least one of these members” — Russia — “is still delivering weapons to Syria.”
It’s like old times. Russia and China didn’t like how Libya turned out so we get this ridiculous behavior where they can’t even condemn the brutal slaughter of the civilian population by the Assad regime.
The correct progressive position is to thank Russia and China for keeping the Obama war machine from swinging into action again.
Name me one time in human history when we were not busily killing each other, formally or informally?
Indus Valley Civilization
Doesn’t count.
That was before the invention of oil, and hipness.
sumerian city states as well. and they invented writing, cities and irrigation
Ooh, impressive showing, Davis. What with linking to a fucking comments section and all. Your google fu not on its game today?
Taking “correct progressive position” as a term of snark, I read him as agreeing with you. But maybe that’s just me.
Of course it was snark.
It was also pathetic. Pulling random anonymous comments from some blogpost is the lamest form of patting oneself on the back.
If that’s the only thing standing between us and more crackpot interventionism, I thank the Russians and Chinese.
U.N. Ambassador Susan Rice tweeted her disgust and said on the Council floor: “This intransigence is even more shameful when you consider that at least one of these members” — Russia — “is still delivering weapons to Syria.”
As we just approved sales of military weaponry to Bahrain!! I am sure the hypocrisy didn’t go unnoticed.
The hypocrisy never does.
Nor does the false equivalence from degenerate anti-statists like yourself who don’t see a difference in the urgency and intensity of the situation in Syria and the situation in Bahrain.
If Bahrain unleashed its (or should I say, Saudi Arabia’s) army on entire cities, instead of a single protest square, the United States would not abuse its UN role to shut down international condemnation.
We are not angels. But we are also not Russia or China.
But that won’t stop wretched fools like you from trying to score points off the slaughter of a people half the world away.
Count me in if that term refers to people who do not countenance bare-faced lying about economic imperialist violence from any side of the game.
“Degenerate anti-statist?”
As Muhammad Ali replied when that blowhard sportscaster Howard Cosell called him truculent:
Bet on it.
AG
So far everybody here seems to be seeing through our own government’s deceit. Congrats, people.
Welllll…almost everybody.
Remember the old saying?
“Two wrongs don’t make a right?”
Yup.
Neither do 200,000.
Bet on it.
AG
It’s not “two wrongs don’t make a right.” It’s more like, “If you’ve ever been wrong, you can never be right.”
I was going to say 2 wrongs don’t make a right but doesn’t capture what the illogic is; I like Booman’s terminology – irrelevant equivalency
Yes, a good term — irrelevant equivalency. And important, because it’s another example of the kinds of pseudo-reasoning that are so common today on both sides of the political spectrum. Right up there with superficial analogy, extreme-case example, he said/she said, shibboleths, etc. What these have in common is, they are all examples of “formalism” — putting formal symmetry ahead of actual content — a lazy way of creating something that looks like a valid argument without having to worry whether it actually is or not.
good point, formalistic argument.
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The West and NATO repeatedly seek confrontation with Russia and China. Clinton with the Bosnia and Kosovo lies, Bush with the overthrow attempts in the Ukraine, Georgia and Iraq. What about the provocative stance of the US and Obama in staunch support of Israel, the Mossad assassinations in Lebanon, Syria, Tunesia, Jordan, UAE, Turkey and Iran. The US in its support for the Mujahideen in Afghanistan/Pakistan helped create the Taliban and a stronger Al-Qaeda. Clinton introduced Al-Qaeda in Bosnia and the US funded NGOs spread western influence to many nations. Egypt and Israel in particular take action to block western funds and meddling in internal politics.
How many times has the US used its veto in support of Israel, a state in flagrant contempt of UN Security Council resolutions? Never did the UN and Atlantic allies apply sanctions on Israel. Never did the US deliver on Middle-East peace beyond President Carter in 1979. To have a chance for a second term, Obama has to make a deep bow to Netanyahu’s Likud policy and the money flow deciding US elections on many levels.
"But I will not let myself be reduced to silence."Is any of that meant to convey that the Assad regime should be left alone to slaughter its people?
Because if I wanted to argue that point, I’d be talking about different subjects related to owning a country that can’t be put back together. You know, the kinds of arguments I made against intervening in Libya.
Unless you happen to enjoy the Iran-Syria nexus and their role in the world, you have no reason to defend the Assad regime. And it should surprise no one that the Sunni-run countries of the Gulf want to sever Damascus’s umbilical cord with Tehran.
That’s a cheap shot, Boo. I don’t see anyone arguing that point. Yes, the Assad regime is despicable, and yes, Russia and China’s antipathy toward interference in an ally’s domestic suppression is entirely predictable (and despicable), given their own records of violence against their people.
But the US is in no position to register disgust with states that use their UN Security Council veto to stymie UN action against a human rights violator. One word: Israel. For 45 years and counting, the US has blocked literally scores of UNSC measures trying to address or even condemn the festering wound on human dignity that has been the Israeli apartheid state’s policy for at least two generations.
One of the many side effects of US policy on Israel is that we have no moral authority to pressure countries on issues of legitimate global concern like Syria and Iran. Until the US shows even a modicum of willingness to hold its “special friend” accountable to the same human rights standards the rest of the world is expected to meet – and I’m not holding my breath, are you? – bluster of this sort will only be laughed at.
It’s remarkable that it’s acceptable for other UNSC countries to whine about our vetoes but we have no moral authority to whine about theirs. That makes no sense to me. We all have the same responsibility to protect innocent lives.
I admit that U.S.-Israeli policies/relations undermine our moral authority and our support in the world, but ask Libya or NATO or the UN how they’d be able to protect themselves or protect lives without US support and equipment. How many humanitarian missions have Russia and China led? Of course we have the moral authority to condemn Syria. To say otherwise strikes me as completely ridiculous.
And, remember, I opposed our efforts in Libya. I oppose any role for the U.S. in Syria. But not on moral grounds.
I think the dumbest thing in the world is to suggest that the United States can’t do its part with the UN, the Arab League, NATO, or other regional organizations to do humanitarian work or to use military force when necessary to enforce UN resolutions because…ISRAEL!!
This is the crazy kind of logical consistency that so totally rejects American exceptionalism that it can’t see how our entire system of collective security and the whole UN project depends on American power, leadership, and capabilities.
Assad cannot point to Tel Aviv to escuse a single thing that he’s done and he derives no moral authority or legitimacy from anything Israel has or has not done.
That’s a lazy form of irrelevant equivalency.
China and Russia have their reasons for vetoing, just as we do when he intervene on Israel’s behalf. Just each case on its merits, but never use these instances to argue that our responsibilities to uphold the international system of collective security are in any way diminished.
Booman, you’re free to whine all you like. But others are free to point out the obvious.
Forget all the pro Israel vetos for a moment. I mean, its not like the invasion of Iraq is ancient history. It’s not like the US didn’t kill far more innocent people there than both father and son Assads together.
So Suzie Rice being “disgusted” is only making a spectacle of herself.
It’s also high time we recognized that Syria is now fighting an armed insurgency, not simply a protest movement. That doesn’t make the Assad regime nice, and doesn’t mean Syrians don’t have a right to rebel. But no government anywhere tolerates armed rebellion.
Lastly, I don’t know if you realize how laughable (in a “so that we might not weep” sort of way) it is when the US presents itself as a protector of Arabs.
OK really lastly, whatever the situation in Syria is, do you REALLY think the US needs to stick its nose in EVERY conflict in EVERY corner of the world?
Or just the places that concern Israel?
And who did the Arab League go running to when Gaddafi was getting particularly brutal? Who are they going to now in regard to Syria? How is it a joke when they come to use for help?
Who went in and did flood assistance in Pakistan and tsunami assistance in Indonesia?
Any Arab who laughs or scoffs at American assistance is exercising a rather selective memory.
As for those UN vetoes, where would the Palestinians be without the architecture we put in place and subsidize and house in New York? Whether it is the direct assistance they’ve received in Palestine or the refugee camps, or its the institutions they’ve successfully used to build support for their case, without the UN, the Palestinians would not be where there are today.
More than that, who got Egypt back the Sinai?
Our record is checkered and I don’t expect Arabs to be pleased with our overall record, but let’s be fair.
The Arab league? With the possible exception of Tunisa, every single one of them would kill whomever they had to to stay in power. Do you have any illusions that the Saudi royals would not kill every person in their way if their power were threatened? The Arab League has no moral authority whatsoever.
Where would the Palestinians be were it not for the US? Are you really asking that?
Flood assistance? I recall Martin Sheen’s line in Apocalypse Now. “we cut them in half with a machine gun, then give them a band aid.”
The Sinai? Who rearmed Israel in the 1973 war? Who gave them satellite intel? Should Arabs be grateful for that, too? Who gave Israel cover to pound Gaza for a month? And Lebanon before that? Lebanon only ended because there was someone in there who could hit back.
Worse than all that is the invasion of Iraq. After that fiasco, I would think you’d keep you mouth shut, at least for a decade or so. But I guess not.
And what exactly would you do with a UN resolution? Bomb Syria and kill more people? Help the rebels massacre anyone who isn’t on their side? Because I can assure you there are many who aren’t.
This line of reasoning is really shameful.
A band-aid?
As for events that occurred during the Bush administration, whether that be the bombardment of Lebanon, the decimation of Gaza, or the invasion and botched occupation of Iraq, none of those things have any bearing on what we should do today, or on our centrality in the world’s collective security system, which is mainly based on the United Nations and its various agencies, but also on other collective regional efforts.
There is nothing to your argument. If I tried to express it logically it would go something like this:
“The Arabs have brutal, illegitimate leaders so no Arab country has any business appealing for international help to stop the slaughter of Arabs in some other country. The United States is no friend to Arabs so that have no business responding positively to Arab requests for help. Syria is bad, but ISRAEL!!”
It’s not an argument. It’s just petulance and the belief that all actions taking by the US on the world stage and in the Arab world are illegitimate neocolonialist power grabs.
Never let the Bush years undermine your belief in America or convince you that our role in collective security (whether it be humanitarian, military, counter-proliferation, peace-keeping) is illegitimate.
As for the resolution, maybe you should read it before you go popping off about bombing Syria.
I wish it were only the Bush years. Bill Clinton paved the way for him with operation desert fox, periodic bombardment and ever increasing sanctions. Obama actually escalated the war in Afghanistan. Yes it seems he’s finally getting ready to leave, but only after he tried every avenue available to stay. Same thing in Iraq he sent Biden, Bob Gates and Panetta to Iraq over and over to persuade them to allow an American presence.
As for what the US should do now: The US really does not need to pick sides in every civil war/conflict everywhere. Syria is not a threat to the US. The only reason the US is seeking involvement is to assist Israel in breaking the Syria/Iran/Hezbollah axis. It is not in the least concerned about the welfare of Syrians. It would happily kill many more Syrians than Assad if it felt it needed to.
Like it or not, Assad enjoys substantial support in Syria. Like it or not, there are many Syrian who oppose the rebels vigorously. The US is not in a position to judge who is good or bad, or he is bad or worse.
Your lack of understanding about the topic (with all due respect. I don’t mean to condescend and I’m no expert either) was revealed in an earlier comment of yours when you posted that a democratic Syria would dissociate itself from Iran/Hezbollah. That is far from clear. ANY Syrian government that is not a Saudi-US backed puppet, will need to try to get the Golan heights back. The only leverage Syria has to accomplish that is its relation with Iran/HA which it might trade away for the Golan.
If it gave that away for free, they can kiss the Golan good bye forever. That is why Burhan Ghalyoun (the Syrian Muslim Brotherhood leader) immediately back tracked from a statement that he would end that relationship right away.
If anything, a democratic Syria would be MORE opposed to Israel and therefore MORE dependent on anti-Israel allies. Look at Egypt. It is doubtful Sadat would have proceeded with Camp David if he had to face reelection.
That is why a democratic Syria is the last thing the US wants to see. It wants to see a Mubarak like dictator beholden to the US and Saudi Arabia.
If that is not possible, the US would like to break Syria up into several smaller, easier to control pieces, ala Lebanon 1985.
And if you personally don’t believe those are US intentions, I can assure you MANY in the Arab world and Syria do. Therefore, you should not get involved where your intentions are deeply suspect.
Lysander,
I think you are right about what it is reasonable to expect of US intentions, given that our policy is all about Israel.
But Obama seems to have other thoughts.
Republican dogma is that we are at war not only with al-Qaeda but all the forces of Islamism.
Some even insist we are really at war with Islam.
You would expect them to favor relatively secular governments, dictatorships or not, but they prefer to treat all the states in the area the way Israel treats Gaza, nearby Syria, and nearby Lebanon, as targets of invasion and pretty much wholly destructive occupation.
The war with al-Qaeda, Islamism, or all Islam is their all-purpose excuse for clobbering anti-Israeli regimes in the area – those whose opposition has been more than just talk, anyway – in whatever order happens to appeal.
Obama, on the other hand, seems to think no one can or should stop the democratic rise of anti-Israel Islamism in the region.
He seems to see attempts to frustrate this democratic rise as actually immoral and indefensible, as many democrats seem to do.
But he also seems to think that the Jew-hatred and any actual anti-Israeli moves of newly Islamist democracies can be contained and perhaps even used as leverage to make Israel see the necessity of getting real about making peace and actually accepting a two-state solution.
Though the Republicans have all but officially abandoned that goal, it seems to be still his real aim.
He may intend to provide American guarantees to get the Israelis to buy in, with or without UN sanctions.
And he may even make, or let the Israelis make, an attack on Iran’s nuclear capacity to buy some cred, though he seems to prefer not to.
With due respect, I’ve been studying the Middle East to varying degrees since my college days, and with much increased intensity since the 9/11 attacks. I’m no expert on Syrian society or even on what is going on there right now. On the other hand, most real experts on the ME in this country are being paid to push an agenda, so you always have to read what they say very carefully.
Israel isn’t clutching to the Golan Heights with the tenacity that they’re holding the West Bank. Syria could win back most, if not all, of the Heights if they took the right steps and agreed to a demilitarized zone, perhaps with peacekeepers. Their relationship with Iran and Hezbollah is precisely why they can’t get the Heights back. Ringing Israel with rockets creates some deterrence but it is ultimately counterproductive. Witness the insane behavior of Netanyahu and Barak. They wouldn’t be acting so irrational about Iran if they didn’t feel besieged by an Iranian-sponsored ring of death.
Again, if you actually read the UN resolution, it doesn’t authorize any force. I’m not recommending the use of force and would oppose, as I did in Libya, the use of force (and for all the same reasons, on steroids). However, I support the UN resolution. I support a negotiated exile for Assad. I support a coalition caretaker transitional government. And I recognize that Syria will likely fall apart if the center collapses, much like happened in Iraq and probably in a much more troubling and bloody way than has happened in Libya. Yet, the center is only holding now by butchering its own people. The merits of stability have been overwhelmed by the moral imperative of protecting civilians. That doesn’t mean we should intervene directly and militarily, but our diplomatic efforts should be aimed at supporting an end to the fighting, and that begins (but, by no means, ends) with regime change. The regime change should be voluntary. If not voluntary, then by Syrian forces winning the battle. The Saudis are involved in the latter angle. But hopefully it will lead to the former result.
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Russia and China won’t fold on Syria nor Iran and the US and UK are in a propaganda war on the Syrian issue funded by their oil buddies of the GCC. Remember the Kuwait funded PR campaign? I wonder who funds the Syrian Observatory of Human Rights.
Of course, the neocons and hawks are poised for the next step to thwart the bloodshed of a prolonged civil war in Syria: US should intervene with funds and arms.
Cross-posted info from my diary – Stellar Propaganda on Syria by BBC and US MSM.
"But I will not let myself be reduced to silence."This needs to be pointed out. I’m glad you did.
Anytime. While I’m at it, look what twitter is saying about the massacre in Homs:
“BREAKING: BBC’s Jim Muir says activist groups in #Syria are revising down death toll in #Homs significantly from earlier figure of 200.”
“…@DamascusTweets Local Coordinating Cttees now says 39 deaths in Khalidieh, 8 in other districts of #Homs, and 8 outside city. #syria …”
Via Friday Lunch Club
http://friday-lunch-club.blogspot.com/
Wow.
Just wow.
In a dispute about Syria Booman so frankly reveals his profound commitment to global American interventionism and the continuance of our post-World War Two alliances and commitments that I am simply taken aback at the clarity of the thing.
NATO.
The UN.
And, yes, even the “American exceptionalism” Republicans so viciously gut Obama for not believing in.
National Review devoted a ridiculously long and silly essay to the wonderfulness of capitalist, globalist, interventionist America that started all that hooey, many moons ago.
And Booman has bought in!
Wow.
Why is America always at war?
With liberals like this and neocon crackpots on the other side of the aisle, how could we not be?
Wasn’t that AG’s view?
It’s certainly mine.
Non-interventionism means you don’t intervene..
“But the US is in no position to register disgust with states that use their UN Security Council veto to stymie UN action against a human rights violator.
“One word: Israel.
“For 45 years and counting, the US has blocked literally scores of UNSC measures trying to address or even condemn the festering wound on human dignity that has been the Israeli apartheid state’s policy for at least two generations.”
That’s the only thing the Zionist loons of the Republican Party think the UN is good for.
Christians, Jews, and hired guns of the military-industrial complex alike.
If they couldn’t use our seat on the SC to protect Israel we’d have bulldozed the UN headquarters into the East River decades ago.
You ask:
My answer?
About as much as the U.S. is to be “left alone” to slaughter Muslims.
You cannot have it both ways, Booman.
Well…you can, but only by dint of mental contortions that Orwell’s concept of “doublethink” did not even begin to cover unless you consider the costive efforts of the Omertican people as they try to pass the dried-out shit that passes for news through their mental digestive systems.
Bin Laden…if indeed he really existed and was not some kind of intelligence construct meant to inflame the negative passions of the white American middle class:
Where do you get off, Booman? Really. When do you leave the bandwagon?
Inquiring minds want to know.
Gonna go the whole Daily Kos route? Off the dissenters?
Feel free.
Or are you going to wake the fuck up?
Ron Paul pinned it, years ago”.
Where do you stand, Booman?
Or do you “stand” anymore at all?
Inquiring minds want to know.
Really.
AG
If it weren’t for you, AG, I would be the only anti-interventionist here.
Amazing how warlike these liberals are, isn’t it?
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Whenever regime change was forced by outside intervention such as running arms and mercenaries, see links in my comment. In Syria it is not simply a people’s uprising. What will happen to the historic 10% christian population? What will happen to the Coptic minority in Egypt? What is happening under the new “rule” in Libya with torture and execution of prisoners, the Gaddafi hometown of Bani-Walid, The sodomization and execution of Gaddafi was an indication of the failure of the rebels and its NTC leaders in Libya. ICC will be a busy court, too bad it’s not justice applied for all.
I never thought I would refer to an article by Daniel Pipes – Alawites and sectarian rule in Syria. Do read some of the comments.
"But I will not let myself be reduced to silence."I agree that stability is underrated. Syria, much like Iraq, has developed a vibrant diverse society where people of different ethnic and faith backgrounds can coexist, intermarry, and work together. No one wants to see that all fall apart.
But it is held together, much like Iraq, by an oppressive security state owned by religious minorities.
It will suffer terribly if the center comes apart.
The problem is that it is already falling apart. The stability is already gone.
I don’t the U.S. to get very directly involved in this tragedy. If we can lend some financial support or technical expertise or assist a UN humanitarian/political effort is some modest ways, I am okay with that. But we can’t be involved militarily.
Politically, we share the Saudis desire to decouple Syria from Iran, but that will be a natural consequence of a representative government there. We don’t have to force that on anyone.
The Syrian regime lost its legitimacy when it lost the ability to provide the stability than makes their repression tolerable. It’s pretty much the same thing that happened in Libya.
I think this is pretty much on target. Diplomats are going to be trying to contain this conflict instead of intervening — it they are realistic about the situation.
All true, but what’s the point?
you fail to quote the Secretary of State. This from the NYT:
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"But I will not let myself be reduced to silence."This whole thread is an ongoing argument for Ron Paul’s foreign policy.
Let us stop interfering with the lives of others in this vast world and start caring for those who suffer within our own borders. Should we ever eliminate injustice in our own country…and the percentage of people of color in prison is evidence enough of how far we have to go in that regard…then and only then we will have sufficient moral standing to start pointing fingers at others.
We have enough to do right here. Let’s circle the wagons and get it done.
AG
Politics in the UN, no less than the Congress, is the art of the possible. The situation in Syria in broad principles is the same as the situation in Libya: human rights are being violate; people are being killed for protesting against the regime.
Given the Gadhafi propaganda (and its echo by Hugo Chavez) and, in Syria, the Baath regime propaganda, both Russia and China are reluctant to lose their symbolic position as the sole opponents of US imperialism. Don’t think the US is an empire but a huge alliance? How many military bases of other NATO countries operate in the US with the same latitude as US bases overseas? That is a political description of the situation. And in international relations, politics trumps morality every time.
From a diplomacy and military standpoint, it is not clear what the US should be doing. If it stands aside and awaits Assad’s fall or his absolute suppression of the rebellion, the US will be seen to be betraying it’s much trumpeted human rights commitments. As contrasted with Russia, which post-Soviet Union, has commitments of non-intervention–where it doesn’t have the resources–and support of other nations against intervention — where it can spare the resources. Saying no in the United Nations Security Council is about as cheap a deployment of resources that a nation can deploy. As contrasted with China, which has a long history of tributary not imperial relationships with its vassal states and thus rarely has to intervene directly in the internal affairs of states unless it intends to absorb them into greater China. So intervention by other countries into non-tributary state looks even more out of place. And a UN veto is again a cheap action. And because of the military difficulties of intervention in Syria, it is much easier to make out that outset.
From the military standpoint, it is difficult to intervene in Syria — limited or otherwise — without destabilizing the wider region, including NATO ally Turkey and “first among equals” ally Israel. There are no good military options. (But the absence of good options has not stopped the US in the past. Let’s hope that the Obama administration is wiser as a result of having to unwind Bush’s recklessness.)
The Baath regime (Assad tends toward being a figurehead) has upped the intensity of repression slowly instead of doing the massive and brutal immediate crackdown that had key regime official defecting to the opposition in Libya. In effects, it is no less brutal but it is harder to gin up the outrage diplomatically when there are no diplomats defecting. Professional courtesy and all that.
My expectation is that the UN will do nothing. And that Saudi Arabia will have to find a more limited way of protecting the Sunnis in the rebel area of Syria. Or that the Syria people finally lose their fear and topple the regime after a very long struggle and civil war.
This is the situation that you thought Libya would be, BooMan. There actually are the religious and ethnic divisions in Syrian society that make civil war likely.
And after the brutal (by US standards) suppression of the Occupy movement, the US government and its NATO are not on the high ground to continue to pontificate about human rights without looking silly.
Sometimes they’re right and we’re wrong.
Back when the Vietnamese invaded Cambodia to run out the Khmer Rouge the Russians supported them but Kissinger opposed.
Just another evil move by that evil bastard.
He never gave a shit either about the interests of the faraway states US policy affected or even about the real interests of the US.
With him, it was always all about his stupid, totally pointless global power games.
Assholes just like him touted him as a realist.
Globalist interventionists dominated the whole American foreign policy establishment.
Today they still do, but with a marked pro-Israeli twist.
Sumer?
Indus valley?
You’re kidding, right?