March 30, 2011
Things are bad when a president who says he wants out of Iraq and claims American soldiers will soon start to withdraw from Afghanistan succumbs to international and domestic pressure to do the heavy lifting in yet another civil war — this time in Libya.
2 comments:
This is so "right on" (to use an overworked cliche) I find it hard to add anything of worth except when will we ever learn. Maybe what we need is somebody who is willing to lose an election who dares to talk about American "non-exceptionalism". We can't save all the world's soul. Egypt proves that when a society reaches a point of no fear and has a vision for a new way of life, change will happen but from the inside not the outside. Societies change when their citizens tire of their situations and, we may decry the suffering of those within them, such change only becomes legitimate and possible when its from within.
RULING THE WORLD
To give the appearance of ruling the world requires considerable
misinformation. This succeeds
best in defined ("democratic"?)
societies where the Establishment,
the Media, and the Wealthy control
the misinformation and can
"manufacture consent".
A few vetoes and non-vetoes in
the UN will serve as examples:
1.UN Sanctions (latest: These Iran
sanctions were not vetoed by either
Russia or China. In order to
achieve their agreement, the US and
its allies in furious negotiations
leading up to the vote itself
were required to
-weaken the sanctions
-to include language which
in effect excluded both Russia and China from the effects of any sanctions on any trade between their nations and Iran.
Russia and China voted "yes" with these stipulations.
The UN sanctions of Iran were called "historic" by the US despite these major concessions.
The concessions themselves were
purposefully "forgotten" in public
discourse.
Subsequent to this failure at the
UN Security Council, US government
(House,Senate,Executive) passed
even more stringent sanctions and
these did NOT protect Russia or
China.
Recently US Senators have written
the President complaining bitterly
that China is not following the
sanctions proclaimed by the US
government.
The attempt is to confuse the
decisions of the US with those of the UN. This attempt has been a
very successful case of misin-
formation. Few of us keep track of
the niceties distinguishing one
"historic" decision from another
"historic" decision.
(Of course, while China and Russia
are indeed affected by decisions
of the US, "historic" or not, they
are not bound by them.)
2. Libyan "no-fly: zone: Neither
Russia nor China vetoed the resolution for a "no-fly" zone
in Libya. Both these nations could have vetoed the action but they did
not do so. Joining three other
nations (with no vetoes) they abstained. Along with their
abstentions they issued statements
condemning the decision which was
pushed by the US and by several of
its NATO allies at the UN.
Neither China nor Russia are NATO
members and I have not heard of
their being considered. I doubt they would submit their militaries
to the command and strategic
control of the US which is a pre-
condition of NATO membership.
Purely speculative, I personally
believe that Russia and China
calculated that the US and its
NATO allies would assume not only
the financial burden in financially
and politically difficult times,
but that the US may even fail in its effort.
So, the US achieved another
"historic" victory, or at least
such a victory could be claimed.
The US could thereupon proove
to the world its humanitarian
concern for protecting the world's people from tyrants.
Note that the US vetoed such
accountability by vetoing a
UN Security Council condemnation
of the State of Israel on February
18, 2011. All other members of
the council voted to condemn Israel, including China and Russia.
The US alone vetoed this proposed
resolution giving free reign to
Israel (subsidized by the US)
to continue its crimes with no scrutiny whatsoever.
As is common in cases where consent
is effectively manufactured, liberals and conservatives both
feasted on these "historic" myths.
email: peterloeb@yahoo.com
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