I very much doubt if George W. Bush and Tony Blair were gone from the scene, the Coalition of the Willing would stay in Iraq a single minute longer, all the talk of spreading freedom and democracy and staying the course notwithstanding. Back in late 2004, the US announced that the insurgency was almost defeated. In 2003, George W. Bush proclaimed “Mission Accomplished”. In 2006, one of the most sacred sites of Shia, the al-Askari or Golden Mosque in Samarra has been bombed, probably by insurgents associated with Abu Musab al-Zaqarwi (whose death has been prematurely announced by the Americans frequently). As Paul Rogers writes, Samarra, a Sunni majority city, has been an object lesson for the failure of the latest American counter-insurgency strategy, as reported in specialist defence publications, if not in the mainstream media. The weak and Shia dominated Iraqi government now ignores the diktats of the American Ambassador/Plenipotentiary, Zalmay Khalilzad, who threatened on Monday to cut off US aid (although all the reconstruction funds have been spent, and Baghdad still has only 4 hours of power a day and only 25% of Iraqis have access to clean water). Now, as 168 Sunni mosques have been attacked, 10 Sunni Imams killed and 15 abducted, Khalilzad warns that Iraq is slipping into a sectarian civil war, and the American military are throwing up their hands about what they are meant to be doing in Iraq.
What is to be done? No one, it seems, knows any more. Is there anyone who still argues that Iraq is on track to a peaceful and democratic future, in the face of humanitarian disaster, and the effective and tragic wreck of a country? Could Paul Wolfowitz be asked, in light of his 2003 predictions, where all the flowers have gone, long time passing?
Where have all the soldiers gone?
Long time passing
Where have all the soldiers gone?
Long time ago
Where have all the soldiers gone?
Gone to graveyards every one
When will they ever learn?
When will they ever learn?Where have all the graveyards gone?
Long time passing
Where have all the graveyards gone?
Long time ago
Where have all the graveyards gone?
Covered with flowers every one
When will we ever learn?
When will we ever learn?
The mind just reels. Lord have mercy on us all.
Its no good just nailing one of the problem regimes. The others just poor resources onto your static targets. You have to kill them all.
So there is no mystery to the reason the ‘insurgency’ keeps reviving.
The American ruler and his accomplices committed troops to a shooting war in Iraq just in time to prevent a political resolution of the Saddam Hussein issue and the “WMD” problem as well as the oil supply threat. After ignoring all the advice and warnings of their own experts, they went in WITHOUT any effective troop training, war plans, civil affairs plans - or exit plans. Then, like the British half-way through the Boer War, held their Victory celebration. Now, having caused the deaths of thousands, worsened the regional situation, wrecked the U.S.economy and endangered us all in our own homes, they have finally become ….. irrelevant.
Having disposed of that minor, if noisy, factor in today’s situation let’s have a glance around for what might be really happening:
1. Yes, there have been a lot of mosques damaged and adherents of rival sects murdered and wounded but are these loosely connected outbursts of widespread violence arising from personal or tribal disputes OR is this the start of a 21st century version of the French Wars of Religion or maybe the Thirty Years War?
2. Most journalists and their editors are obsessed with being in the thick of the action but maybe the real story is somewhere else. Are there any reports coming out of areas where there is little or no violence? What is going on in such areas - and why are they different?
3. Incidents of sectarian violence have happened in many parts of the Islamic world lately and we in Australia sometimes hear statements by various imams calling for calm or condemnation. Yet surely there is dialogue going on somewhere between senior people in the rival sects; why do we hear nothing of such dialogue in our English-language mass media?
Sorry Mark, I have only vague questions and no answers (besides, who would listen?). I do think it is important for us here in Australia to shift the focus of our attention away from the slick entertainment that is dished up to in the mass media by people who usually haven’t got a clue about what’s really going on in Iraq. We should, instead, try to find out what’s actually happening and what trends are emerging in the Islamic world and how all of these affect us here in Australia - and how they affect the thousands of Australian ex-patriates.
(sort of OT, sorry)
Comrade G. — On another thread, I read you saying that you were an observer of the ‘Californian innovation.’ This occasional Californian was a little curious… what ‘innovation’ were you referring to?
Meanwhile, this from good old Robert Creeley:
I KNOW A MAN
As I sd to my
Friend, because I am
Always talking, John,
I sd, which is
Not his name, the dark-
Ness surrounds us, what
Can we do against
It, or else, & why not,
Buy a goddamn big car…
Drive, he sd, for
Christ’s sake, look
Out where yr going.
I was talking about my Apple Computer.
If you want to talk about stuff that doesn’t fit on a particular thread, there’s an open thread published each Saturday.
Two good articles in the Asia Times:
http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Middle_East/HB25Ak02.html
and
http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Middle_East/HB24Ak01.html
The sectarian killings may spiral out of control but what is certain is that 1) The COW has lost any semblance of control in these matters long ago and 2) Only the moral force of Shia leadership such as Sistani and at a lower level influential clerics such as Muqtada al-Sadr can prevent it.
As reported by A-time’s Syed Saleem Shahzad:
Interesting point is that some Mosques revered by the Shia have been controlled by Sunni families from time immemorial.
The scary aspect of trying to work out who would commit such a crime as blowing up the Golden Mosque, is in considering the seemingly deliberate intention of the bombers not to kill people. This could suggest that whoever did it did not want to kill Shias but to deliberately drive a further wedge between Sunnis and Shia, giving an excuse for Shia to retaliate, perhaps to cement ultimate Shia power in a volatile political situation. If this line is followed, one could tentatively point the finger at some faction in the Shia coalition but this it seems to me to be flailing away in very murky waters indeed and counterproductive.
Of course following another line of logic, none of this would have happened if the US had not perpetrated an illegal invasion. The abortion of a state set up by the Brits on the fall of the Ottoman empire could arguably only be held together by a dictator in any event, a point undoubtedly put by experts in the State Department to the Bush/Rummy/Cheney cabal in 2002 but wilfully ignored.
Solution? As always, I have said that the US should withdraw prontissimo. That the people would then engage in a bloodbath would be no different than what they have now, excepting it would be their bloodbath alone. With Iranian help it would most likely be resolved quickly once US interference is taken out of the equation and a political solution could be forced onto the Sunnis in lieu of a threatened violent crackdown. The Al-Zakawi foreign element would have no reason to persist in the absence of the US and in the presence of overwhelming Shia ascendancy, leaving simply the Shia/Sunni divide to resolve. With five parties (I-Sunni/I-Shia/COW/Zakawi-AlQ/Iran) reduced to I-Sunni/I-Shia/Iran, it stands to reason that l’affair Iraq distills into a more resolvable situation.
Couple of things I’d take issue with Peter (some pretty trivial):
While Sistani is easily the most revered and worshipped Shia leader alive today, Muqtada al-Sadr’s political influence has grown immensly over the past two years - some now consider him the ‘kingmaker’ inside the UIA (the Fundy Shia Bloc). In this regard terms like ‘lower level influential cleric’ is a bit misleading - no one can surpass Sistani in moral and religious authority, but viz. political power Sadr is closer than anyone inside and outside the UIA to parity.
Respectfully, I don’t think there’s anything more likely to intensify the bloodshed and chaos in Iraq than overt Iranian intervention. Such a move would be deeply unpopular not only with the secular classes and the Sunni but with nationalist Iraqi’s everywhere, particularly the Sadrists (fundamentalist Shia =/= friend of Iran) and possibly even the Kurds. Iranian millitary or security intervention would lead almost invetitably to interventions by Iraq’s other neighbours in an attempt to prevent an Iranian takeover - running the risk of a inter-national conflict as well as a civil war.
Re: ‘violent crackdown’ - what was Fallujah exactly? What are the Iraqi Security Forces (now stacked with Badr Brigade and other Shia Militia supporters), the US and the ‘death squads’ attempting to do right now, if not a violent crackdown on the insurgency? So far their best attempts have done little to hurt it and much to strengthen it - direct Iranian involvement would be at least as respulsive to many Iraqis as the current American efforts.
I think this is unlikely - Al-Zarqawi’s faction has shown itself to be interested in more than just attacks on Coalition forces. They are no fans of the Shia and have preached open hatred and practised it too. When Sadr talks about Takfiri and Nawasib, he’s referring to Salafist Sunnis like Zarqawi, who have zero tolerance for any forms of Islam other than their own. A driect Iranian military or political intervention would give this section of the insurgency new life for decades to come.
Via Tim Dunlop - No everything is ok according to Fox News
Respectfully Leinad I don’t agree with the reaction to the Iranian involvement you posit. Firstly they would be invited in by the Iraqi Shia’s, I don’t think they will just invade without that invitation–(that seems to be the proclaimed exclusive prerogative of the USA alone.) If the situation became so bad, even Sistani, an Iranophile could be the one who asks for help, in which case it becomes like a fatwah.
The Al-Zaqawi lot draws presumably some support from Iraqi Sunnis (probably Baathists) and in the absence of the COW, they would still be blowing up proportionate numbers of Sunnis and Shias in an attempt to prevent Shia dominance which would be futile. If at that time Sunnis became pragmatic and were being offered a viable political solution, the Al Zaqawi element of foreign fighters could find themselves pariahs even among their Sunni co-religionists given that with the COW gone every Iraqi would just want peace to break out. Assume there are perhaps only a few hundred Al Z members, but in any case, the Shia would be moving heaven and hell to drive a wedge between the Baarthists and the Al Z.
While the US remains, their support for the political Sunnis in trying to create a secular govenment in defiance of Shia desires generates suspicion and distrust among the Shias. With the Americans gone, they will all have to sit down and work it out, and I believe they will. In effect, the US is complicating the process and preventing that pragmatism from happening.
Secondly, in combatting an ongoing Baathist and Al Z insurgency, with Iranian support, we are not dealing with idiot Americans spraying 50 calibre bullets through mud walls and indiscriminately killing people, but with people who speak the same language and who would have an intelligence network like the Shah’s Savak and would be prepared to act ruthlessly but without mass slaughter. My “violent crackdown” was clumsily expressed. Such violence would be specifically targeted.
The old Arab saying “Myself against my brother, my village against the province etc etc but ALL of us against the infidel” comes to mind, and given that some Iraqis would welcome back what they had in the form of stability under Saddam, I don’t think the Shia at least will regard the Iranians in such a bad light.
This is mainly conjecture on my part, and I could be totally wrong, but I hope I’m not, as genocide of the Sunnis is not a circumstance I would like to contemplate.
Interesting mess they made of that mosque. There are stump blasters all over rural Australia who would love to know the technique.
Fortunately for the traditionalists, it looks rather as if the explosions protected the basic structure but tore all the coverings off. I imagine it will be possible to make it just as good as new.
As a religion of place rather than physical structure (the opposite of the US inclination about the Trade Centre), I suspect the actual physical reality of the thing as old is not such an issue.
The act is the act, which is a violent and despoiling and barbarbic act of war, but I am thinking about the aftermath rather than the present.
“I have said that the US should withdraw prontissimo. That the people would then engage in a bloodbath would be no different than what they have now, excepting it would be their bloodbath alone.”
Sounds like someone is making an entirely racist ethical judgement here. Persians? fine. Arabs? sure. Americans? Verboten.
“Secondly, in combatting an ongoing Baathist and Al Z insurgency, with Iranian support, we are not dealing with idiot Americans spraying 50 calibre bullets through mud walls and indiscriminately killing people.”
Rrrrrrriiiiiiiiiiiiiggggggggghhhhhhhhhttttt. Common occurences no doubt? And the Middle Easterners are oh so much more discriminating in their military operations.
“Such violence would be specifically targeted.”
I’m glad we have your reassurance on such matters.
Now I don’t think they can really end the insurgency without destroying three more regimes, or up to 5 for good measure. But things are not nearly as bad right now as people here are claiming. Here is someone who just got back:
http://www.nationalreview.com/hanson/hanson200602240629.asp
Birdy, notwithstanding “racist ethical” is an oxymoron, the Americans were “verboten” for invading in the first place.
It also helps to read a whole comment before commenting on it yourself, such as “this is mainly conjecture”. I’m clearly not supplying “reassurance” but positing a scenario.
Re your solution of ending the insurgency:
All I can say is that type of thinking is what created the problem in the first place, but if you want a economic world depression, that’d do it.
Far more Christian churches are being destroyed in Sulawesi and Nigeria. Compared to the internationally illegal torching of various consulates recently or Saddam’s genocide of the Kurds, it’s close to yawn-worthy.
As usual, the left’s response is to wonder if Mid-East darkies should have been given the vote. David’s laughable comparison of the destruction of this quaint pile (which commemorates two of the “prophet’s” barbarian descendants) with the WTF is risible. The Twin Towers were on US soil and the whole American response to their destruction was about place and very little to do with physical structure.
Peter’s solution? Get rid of the Americans and lay out the flowers for the Iranian Hitler. Truly hilarious.
Birdy, notwithstanding “racist ethical� is an oxymoron, the Americans were “verboten� for invading in the first place.
No ‘racist ethical’ is not oxymoronic. And not the Americans were well within their rights to invade and before that to ally with other countries in the region like Kuwait.
And no thinking that they could take on all the criminals sequentially is the reason they had more trouble then was expected in Iraq. And NOT the idea that you have to hit the Hydra on every pressure point at once.
Wrong on EVERY COUNT. Not doing so well this afternoon fella.
But if you were expecting a point by point rebuttal then I suggest that you focus laser-like on one point alons.
Kill god and let ‘em all sort it out.
Now that is truly hilarious, Birdy, along with “take on all the criminals sequentially.” Assertion purported to be fact without substantiation, just like a regular Bushovic, but not doing so well the last 3 years, let alone this afternoon, are you Birdy?
I was just about to write “good points Graeme”, then I realised it was Graham. Still at least it’s not as bad as the Aus bloggoworld’s ongoing Tim problem.
No no. The Americans were OBJECTIVELY well within their rights to invade without so much as even consulting third parties. Now stop being an idiot and if you have an argument make it.
And of course you have to hit every regime at the same time. Or the others will just murder people where you soldiers are stationed and murder your soldiers.
If the English-speaking world have tried to liberate Nazi-controlled Europe by only fighting in Holland could they have done it?
Taking down all the regimes is childs play. Taking down one of them and occupying is not. Because the regimes that give us trouble are hated by their own people and have many enemies and therefore endless oppurtunities for proxy war.
So far today its hard to find a single thing you have been right about.
CL, I’m sure you know why this is an incredibly silly thing to say. So why did you post it?
Lazy non-argument, Bill. Typing isn’t that traumatic, old son. Have a go.
Peter, note that I didn’t use the word ‘invasion’. My post was predicated on your scenario of the UIA inviting Iranian security forces to ‘deal with’ the insurgency. I don’t find this scenario compelling for a number of reasons:
1) Most obviously, despite its best efforts SAVAK couldn’t quite crush the Iranian revolution, in fact famously it gave the Ayatollahs their greatest recruiting tool (google: Black Friday SAVAK). Now imagine VEVAK (SAVAK’s post 79 theologically pure re-incarnation) trying to crush the well armed Sunni militias, in another country, in predominantly Sunni areas. On operational grounds alone this is unworkable - if Iraq’s (part of what you suggest is already happening) indigenous Shi’a death squads aren’t getting any results, importing unfamiliar, Persian intelligence forces isn’t going to be any more effective.
2) Politically it’s suicide for the Shi’a bloc. Contrary to your scenario, Shi’as aren’t all alike, and pro-(fundamentalist)Shia does not mean pro-Iran. Within the ruling Shia coalition there are widespread differences in political and religious opinion from the local, nationalist politics of the Sadr faction, to the Iranian-backed pro-velayat-al-fiqh SCIRI. While Sadr has defended Iran publically against the US/UK/EU and Israel, domestically his party are opposed to Iranian police/military intervention, and in the event of such, the very least his party will do is depart en-masse from the UIA, depriving it of a majority in parliament, and thereby initiating a total collapse.
Similarly, such move is unlikely to have the support of quietist ayatollahs, most notably, Sistani himself.
3) As regards the Sunni Insurgency, it would be a boon for the Ba’athists, who could drag out all the 80s-era Iranian Boogeyman doomsday scenarios with the added advantage that this time around they wouldn’t be propaganda - Iranian troops would be on Iraq soil. Far from inducing a pragmatic solution, it would encourage even further resistance - what sort of compromise could they possibly get from a government have aligned themselves with Iran?
I’d also like to challenge your third-paragraph assertion that US support for Sunni inclusion is the source of the current conflict. On the contrary, I don’t think you’d find any Sunni leader who would agree that they’d enjoyed a moment’s support from the US. Attempts by Proconsul Khalizad to get the Sunnis involved with the political process have so far revolved around badgering them to sign-off on a Constitution that offers them a few crumbs and hands over revenues, authority and political influence to the Shia’s and Kurds. In any event, the insurgency began under the Coalition Provisional Authority’s watch, and has continued unabated throughout all drafting commitees, negotiations, referenda, elections etc,
Inshrining a weak and impotent federal government while the UIA gobble up nine provinces and most of Iraq’s oil revenues is not pragmatism. Nor is putting the Supreme Command of the Islamic Revolution in Iraq in charge of the security services. These are recipes for division and hatred for decades to come. Both sides are unwilling to budge, and bringing in extra Iranian muscle for some ‘targeted crackdowns’ against the Sunnis will not amend this situation, just make it all the bloodier.
Peter, I don’t doubt that you’re sincerely proposing this as a pragmatic solution to what looks an ugly unsolvable mess - I think all of us here are disgusted by what we see in Iraq and are desperately hoping for a peaceful outcome - it just seems to me that what you propose is that recipe for genocide.
It’s all it deserved.
Bill bails.
In lieu of Bill exploring the issue with more than a few keystrokes, my point is that this bombing is being massively over-rated as a symbol of the civilisational strife existing in the world today. As cultural tragedy, it doesn’t rate next to anti-Christian vandalism, progroms and random violence in the places I mentioned. As political tragedy, it doesn’t rate next to the assaults on extra-territoriality, free speech and international law played out at several embassies and news organs in the world in recent weeks. As sign of systemic chaos, it doesn’t rate next to the institutionalised state terrorism of Saddam Hussein.
It’s no good for the situation in Iraq but its weight as international and even regional event is being exaggerated.
Peter’s eccentric talk of a cleansing, genocidal, in-house civil war - facilitated and/or followed by a Greater Iranian Co-Prosperity Sphere - is complete codswallop.
Glad I popped in here …. more thoughtful discussion and relevant info on the subject than in the mainstream media. Thanks. You’ve given me some interesting insights to mull over. Shall call in again later this weekend.
Coding was getting wierd, so here are some links - Sistani and Quietism, Sadr and SCIRI,2, Shi’a politics in the south, Sadr and Iran, 2 (scroll down), Sadr and the Sunnis, ICG report on the Insurgency, This article discusses an Egyptian intervention, but an Iranian one has similar problems, notably the fact that “Iraqi politicians have repeatedly said that they might accept troops from other Muslim countries, but not from any direct neighbors.”
As I said Leinad, I may well be wrong, but re
I’m not suggesting this US support is the only source of the conflict, merely that US attempts to force a secular government on the Shias via the Sunnis, is a major irritant creating suspicion of the Sunnis by the Shias. Perception of that by the Shia may indeed be flawed. The Sunni perception of the US “helping” them is negative, but they have been persuaded to reverse the boycott and participate politically, which is a positive sign of representation of Sunni interests apart from the bomb and bullet.
The pragmatism and scenario I’m suggesting may be a puff of smoke, but we’ll never know unless the US leaves. I agree with your comments about Iraq rapidly becoming Balkanised with the UIA gobbling up 9 provinces, but if the central government is to mean anything, it needs to ultimately come to a political accomodation with the Sunnis, and my major point is that they need to be allowed to do that without interference from the US. Only the UN, if any, should be invited to broker a political solution.
Shia and Sunni have apparently extensively intermarried in the past, so it’s not as if the divide is absolute, but it is conceded that the Shia bitterly resented the Baathist Sunnis who mistreated them for so long, hence the death squads.
It may well be that genocide happens anyway, but the American presence has always been part of the problem, not the solution. Ultimately, it has to be an Iraqi solution, it is not for the US to impose one or try to skew a result in their own interests. To anybody that says the US must stay to prevent civil war, I say the only authority that could prevent that is the Iraqi people themselves whether or not they invite the Iranians in. The only mediator should be the UN, not the US which uses a pretext of preventing civil war to make hugh bases in their attempt to control all Middle East oil.
In essence, the Sunnis have two stark choices, become the second class citizens that the Shia were before and accept the crumbs, (that’s my posited pragmatism) or fight and keep up a civil war which may result in Iran entering the fray with unknown consequences, which either way will end up giving the Sunni no crumbs at all.
CL, in case you haven’t noticed, the “Greater Iranian Co-Prosperity Sphere” is already a reality. Trying to shoot the messenger doesn’t make it go away.
Perhaps your energies could be better spent blaming the guy who so stupidly arranged it, one George Bush, who removed Iran’s major regional enemy?
Interesting what you are saying Peter.
Machiavelli seems to counsel getting behind one side or the other in conflicts in an unambiguous way. I cousel using proxy war wherever possible to saturation. Since the government is there for the interests of ITS OWN people. And getting its own people killed is clearly not in their interests.
So given what I consider to be the wrong policy of picking these miscreant regimes off one at a time and occupying my bias would have been to assume that the Kurds and Shia were indeed at war with the Sunnis. And to get behind them in these efforts for the purpose of total victory but in such a way as to near-minimise the body count.
So I agree that they ought not have pushed hard to get the Sunnis into the democratic tent. If people want to come in they should be treated equally. If they want to stay out that’s OK to. If they want to stay out and kill people the killers ought to be exterminated.
That’s a fair deal. It doesn’t get fairer then that.
Peter, I think we broadly agree on most of this, but I’d suggest that Shia and Sunni suspicion is more likely to be long independent of the to-and-fro of constitutional/governmental badgering and that in this regard the US presence is probably not as relevant. None of these guys trust anybody, US negotiations or no. As well, I think you’re underestimating the depth of Iraqi opposition to intervention by any of its neighbours, particularly on the part of the Sadr movement. This situation is already Balkanised to the degree that indelicate events like a US withdrawal or a Iranian intervention are almost guaranteed to snowball into a wider conflict.
I wish I could work out a neat, simple answer to this situation that actually worked and ended the bloodshed, but if it ever existed, the time for such has long passed
I get the cultural cringe bit now..
Sixties song references are passe.
If you look at the picture there is a lot of twisted steel reinforcing lying about - not exactly a building material of antiquity - must have been used the last time they rebuilt the joint.
“The only mediator should be the UN,”
Drawing on their stunning success in Darfur no doubt, Peter.
I didn’t support US invasion and was highly dubious about the prospects of the coalition being able to maintain the peace but I’m unconvinced that withdrawal of coalition forces, at this point, would result in anything other than a holocaust of vengeance in it’s aftermath.
Those muslims attacking Danish embassies and murdering people throughout the middle east in the wake of the 3 month old publication of fairly innocuous cartoons in Copenhagen have been conspicuous by their complete absence following the butchery in Samarra. Similarly, Australian muslim spokespeople, vociferous in their condemnation of Peter Costello’s predictably prosaic observations, have nothing whatsoever to say about muslim killing muslim.
Geoff, in international law, the UN, flawed as it is, has the ultimate authority to broker peace deals. The US has not the remotest shred of credibility in being an honest broker in Iraq, quite the reverse in fact.
Now, the question that must be asked is: exactly how do you propose the US will keep the peace in Iraq? By shooting up Sunnis and Shia shooting at each other and killing more innocent civilians in the process?
By your argument, the US should have never left Vietnam because the North Vietnamese would have created a “holocaust of vengeance” in South Vietnam?
“Geoff, in international law, the UN, flawed as it is, has the ultimate authority to broker peace deals.”
That is arbitrary if not entirely ridiculous. From whence does the UN derive such legitimacy? From what theory of legitimacy do you draw from for this?
“The US has not the remotest shred of credibility in being an honest broker in Iraq, quite the reverse in fact.”
Compared to its competition its got a great deal of credibility. I want to emphasise that it has this crediblility in the comparative and not in the absolute sense.
Jaysus, calm down Peter. It’s just a building. As Rog points out, it’s been built and rebuilt before. No need to bang on about the coming Sistani Caliphate.
The Iraq War was caused by one man and one man only: Saddam Hussein. Working on the imperfect modus vivendi we have now is the best option for building peace and stability in the long term. The trouble with the TV generations is they expect great things to be accomplished in short periods. Knowing and taking advantage of that was the only battle Ho and Giap ever actually won in Vietnam and it was the only one that mattered in the end.
As for the UN, its bureaucrats and rape gangs haven’t exactly won hearts and minds in Nigeria. Lets not give them the lead role in Iraq just yet - however greedy for oil Kofi’s family and friends may be.
Go read the UN charter for a start Birdy and ask yourself why it was set up.
Shorter Birdy: The US has a great deal of credibility, ‘cos I said so, and the rest of the world who disagree can “comparatively” go screw themselves.
How would you feel if someone blew up the dome of St. Peter’s, C.L.? Hang on, it’s just a building. It’s been built and rebuilt in the past.
Look Kemp. Why don’t you try and answer my question. Since it is you and not me that are making these extraordinary, arbitrary and ridiculous claims. To seek legitamicy from one’s own charter is a crock. That would be like me setting up my own paper currencey and you swapping it for barrells of oil.
So lets go over it again:
From whence does the UN derive such legitimacy? From what theory of legitimacy do you draw from for this?
That is the key question. Try and answer it this time instead of more foolishness. Are you ready?
GO!!!
Birdy
Exactly what the US does right now. How did you find out this dark secret of US economic policy?
Re. the UN’s legitimacy, it’s not my job to convince you that common knowledge is not “extraordinary, arbitrary and ridiculous.” I don’t have the time, nor the inclination. Go read the UN Charter, you may be surprised to find it’s not a sycophantic tool of US foreign policy.
Go, Birdy, Go.
Hint: A Charter is a lot like a nation’s constitution, it LEGITIMISES things, the key answer!
Coupla points (mostly from the air, not on the ground):
rog/C.L./Mark — Presumably the mosque derived its importance not from the building itself (lovely though it was), but because it housed the tombs of two of the great Imams, whose persons are a matter of much importance to the Shia. It was a vast slap in the face to the Shia, a mass provocation of great cynicism and cruelty. And it *most* behooves those of us with misgivings about Islam to recognize this as an outrage, to say it publicly, and to mourn the loss of a grand holy place, even if we don’t think it’s ‘technically’ holy. That the whole affair also exposes great hypocrisies on a global scale is not unimportant; but out of respect for the sorrow of a religious people, let us not dissect them today.
As to the ‘legitimacy’ of the UN: well, let’s be grown-ups. Insofar as the UN has any legitimacy, it is because the US and Western Europe said it does. Having vested it with limited ‘legitimacy’, however, by saying ‘Fiat lex,’ as it were, it’s hardly proper for the West to retroactively manipulate that legitimacy, as if they had made not an institution, but a puppet. Personally I find the UN mostly ludicrous except when it provides health and welfare services on the ground; politically it’s silly, but that might be because the majority of the regimes that have votes are silly. Who knows? But as to whence it derives its existence, that’s pretty obvious.
The comparisons of this conflict to Vietnam, like all good comparisons, are both strange and familiar. One thing I would point out about both wars, is that strange though it may seem, the US did not undertake them in and of *themselves*. Great as the human cost was, Vietnam was not a ‘war’; it was a battle in a far larger struggle, and an attempt to keep the Cold War from becoming an all-out World War. The French went into Annam for ‘la gloire de France’ and some neat real-estate. The US never *wanted* Vietnamese real estate; it wanted to show the Soviets that it would not let itself be flanked globally. The whole thing is far too complex to walk through, and I can hear the counter-arguments already, but the truth is that the refs called the match by TKO not in 1975, but in 1989, when the Berlin Wall came down. Final score: US - 1, Lenin/Stalin/Mao - 0. The Viet Cong won a peripheral ladder-match. The proof is the US trade deficit with China, nicht wahr?
As to US ‘credibility’ in Iraq: well, the US generally has very little cred with mobs and militias, ever, but in the hidden rooms on side streets that house the offices of folks who know how things really work, the US often has a tremendous amount of credibility — and most among those who cannot afford to publicly admit it.
That said, this is quite an educational little discussion. Thank you to folks on all sides for the crash tutorial…
Right Kemp. So you have no answer to the question:
“From whence does the UN derive such legitimacy? From what theory of legitimacy do you draw from for this?”
No answer and not even a hint of what philosopher to go to for an answer and no likelihood of ever coming up with an answer.
So we can send the crap conclusions you made based on nothing at al to the fires for all time.
But I’ll take late applications if anyone can provide a base for Kemps belligerent arbitrariness.
Myself I see Indian Prime Ministers and US Presidents as holding great legitimacy, in the first instance, and if these two guys can work well together then we don’t have a great deal to worry about.
“David’s laughable comparison of the destruction of this quaint pile (which commemorates two of the “prophet’sâ€? barbarian descendants) with the WTF is risible.”
Maybe, but not racist.
“The Twin Towers were on US soil and the whole American response to their destruction was about place and very little to do with physical structure.”
Oh, that’s right. I remember all those newsreels about the dirt under the building, to the obvious neglect of those possible images of a huge technological structure in ruins, and thousands of children weeping about their dead parents.
Were people running around saying “They attacked Manhattan. They must DIE”? No.
My point, which C.L. chooses to mock, is that our culture does not particularly valorise or focus on place. While Jews and Muslims struggle over Jerusalem, we have let the place go for a long, long time.
Whereas for the Muslims the fact that this is the place where something significant happened (barbarians doing things, according to C.L.) is central.
Similar remarks can be made about Aboriginal Country.
“The Iraq War was caused by one man and one man only: Saddam Hussein”
God knows we tried everything to avoid it.
” building peace and stability in the long term”
Easy does it:
[link]: “The number of Iraqi army battalions judged capable of fighting the insurgency without U.S. help has slipped from one to zero since September, Pentagon officials said Friday.”
Geoff are you trying to tell us you couldn’t find a story like this one?
Muslim Clerics Call for an End to Iraqi Rioting - New York Times
As for local muslim leaders, yes it’s very odd that they’d speak out more about a domestic issue involving their own community.
In Kontagora, machete-wielding Muslim mobs killed nine people and torched four Christian churches, said a Nigerian Red Cross official. They also looted shops owned by minority Christians, police said.
In Enugu, Christian youths armed with machetes and clubs attacked Muslims, beating one motorcycle taxi driver to death and burning a mosque. A stray bullet also killed an 8-year-old Christian girl and rioters blocked off the area with burning barricades.
More here
All the Nigeria news that’s fit to make you depressed: http://news.google.com.au/news?hl=en&tab=wn&ie=UTF-8&q=Nigeria&btnG=Search News
“By your argument, the US should have never left Vietnam because the North Vietnamese would have created a “holocaust of vengeanceâ€? in South Vietnam?”
Well they did as it turned out, Peter, with over a million Vietnamese fleeing the country and 10’s of thousands dying in the South China Sea. Many more ended up in re-education camps. Then there was Democratic Kampuchea and the Year Zero………….The 100,000 strong Vietnamese community in Australia are the product of that diaspora and only now, thirty years later, is the Vietnamese government rejecting the tragic ideology that wrought the havoc.
But to be totally pragmatic, the US had no choice but to leave. The Congress had refused to vote funds to continue the war. I like to think that 1989 in Berlin and the rise of Deng Xiao Ping in China were the real denouement.
So Geoff, how many people did the North Vietnamese government slaughter after hostilities had ceased?
Are you also blaming Pol Pot on the Vietnamese, or the latter’s attack in Kampuchea to stop the Kymer Rouge from committing a real “holocaust of vengeance”?
Don’t know? Lots? You presumably want a small, easily manageable, compact death stack, Peter - to prove it was all worth it after all ?
Interesting…….
More interesting Geoff to see what is your definition of “holocaust of vengeance.”
The Khmer Rouge were already committing their genocide, Peter, you goose. The Vietnamese did not intervene to stop it, but to arrest the rise of a regional revolutionary force that would rival their own.
You goose Rob, of course the Kymer Rouge were doing it before but the Vietnamese stopped them. Motive was not the point.
And Hussein was ‘doing it’ before but the Americans stopped him. And motive was not the point.
Your line of argument, Peter?
And your line of argument Rob of Saddam’s “holocaust of vengeance” in 2003 necessitating invasion contrary to international law?
Befoire making this comment I want to signal that I’m then going to bed. I won’t be around to chat.
Geoff, in my limited understanding of military matters casualties, or the size of the death stack, including civilian casualties, must always be part of the calculus.
Rob, I recall what I thought at the time was a reasonably authoritative estimate of about 1,000 deaths per annum by Saddam in his latter years. Some say that the number of Iraqi children killed by the sanctions was a lot more than that.
There is no such thing as “international law” - there is only the benevolent power and copious money of the United States, combined with the moral authority of the Western democracies. The UN has no moral authority left and, having refused to reform itself, its function in world affairs is now close to defunct.
Nobody does rape quite like UN troops, though - I will concede that.
The UN has no moral authority because of reports of sexual abuse? Glass houses, C.L. Careful.
If you’re referring to the sex abuse scandal in the Church, I gave up practicing several years because of it. Not sure what I have to be “careful” about.
But a nice, leftily executed trivialisation of the UN’s Nigerian rape gangs. Congrats.
Erratum: “I gave up practicing several years AGO because of it.”
“The UN has no moral authority because of reports of sexual abuse…?”
Well, no; in fairness, it’s more like: The UN has no moral authority because the UN has no moral authority. Goodness knows it’s hard enough to have ‘moral authority’ under ANY circumstances. But for the world? And when something like half its votes are wielded by quasi-illegitimate clowns? I wouldn’t let Kofi Annan lead a pack of Boy Scouts to a candy store.
To be sure, the UN has its useful purposes in the world and so on (the so-called ‘talking cure,’ and all that). And frankly, it’s better to have a world with a UN than one without. But let’s not kid ourselves about what this machinery is, and what it can actually do.
“And your line of argument Rob of Saddam’s “holocaust of vengeanceâ€? in 2003 necessitating invasion contrary to international law?”
Kemp you’ve taken up this lying business and it might be time to be quits with it. Our invasion (yes we invaded to) of Iraq was not contrary to international law.
In fact if the Guiness book of records had a category for this:
We went in with more legal cover, under international law, then any other war ever.
So Peter you just have to stop saying stuff that isn’t true. And one ought not be confused between what is true and what leftist experts say is true. If the left have the gift of astral travel, second site they may also believe they can change reality by makind certain incantations.
But a million leftists saying that the war was illegal a million times WILL NOT MAKE THE SPELL. It may cast a spell over the other leftists but will not change the reality of the situation.
So you can snap out of it.
Snap out of it and realise that it was a shockingly transparent lie. And resolve not to be a cypher for this make-believe again.
Birdy, when it comes to lies, try the multiple sequential “excuses for going to war in Iraq” which in the Guinness Book of Records probably has whole volumes. (Its also rates a big mention under creative fiction.)
I’ll make it easy for you, there’s this guy in the UK called Lord Goldsmith, no he’s not the Jeweller and Gold supplier to the Queen, he’s their Attorney General, you know, that means a legal eagle. He’s a lefty expert as well and he wrote a report, but being lefty doesn’t necessarily make him wrongy.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/Iraq/Story/0,2763,1472450,00.html
and
http://www.guardian.co.uk/Iraq/Story/0,2763,1472459,00.html
See if you can read that and: “change the reality of the situation…so you can snap out of it…stop saying stuff that isn’t true…break the spell…avoid the transparent lie etc etc”
Change your word “excuses” to “reasons” and there is your argument down the poo-hole.
Now Mr Kemp. I cannot come round and beat you with sticks to force you to back up the constant lying claims you make. But you sort of expect people out of common decency to ATTEMPT to back up their claims.
And you have shown that YOU WILL NOT DO SO. Which is bloody annoying.
BACK UP YOUR CLAIMS MR KEMP!!!!!!
1. You claimed that the invasion was illegal under international law.
2. You cannot seem to answer the following question:
“From whence does the UN derive such legitimacy? From what theory of legitimacy do you draw from for this?�
The UN Charter was signed by all of its members - 191 states - representing their people (the vaste majority of the world’s population). From where else would you gain legitimacy - nuclear weapons, a fancy jacket, or adherence to a morality that you happen to agree with?
The UN was formed after WWII in order to prevent the recurrence of any more “great wars”. It has not been particularly successful in this task, but in forming it for that exact reason, all members are clearly obliged to respect its rulings on the legality of a military invasion under international law.
Your unwillingness to respect the existence or content of international law has nothing to do with Peter Kemp or anyone else’s arguments, but is rather an ideological position in which you are clearly firmly entrenched. As such, demanding further responses to your false ‘desire’ for evidence is really quite ridiculous.
“The UN Charter was signed by all of its members - 191 states - representing their people”
How many of these States were governed by directly elected leaders at the time of signing. Does not the effect of wartime propaganda compromise the ability of the peoples that WERE genuinely represented to have made an informed decision (though it cannot be said that they made ANY decision really).
That no UN official is himself directly elected by the people means that it NOT a representative organisation.
I will allow great prestige to Mr Bang Bang and others heads of State who can said to represent their people. But not to this fraudulent, corrupt, structurally unsound group of cocktail drinkers and junket junkies.
I think we should listen very carefully to what the Prime Minister of India has to say. And if it is not a matter of grave national interest I think we should have a bias toward getting behind him as he is the representative of a culturally diverse democracy and the worlds most populous democracy.
But what theory of legitimacy can we use to shore up the UN?
Once we get beyond two steps between the decision-maker and the people it can not be thought to be a representative situation at all.
But your post was very interesting and a legitimate engagement of the debate which is a good thing and somewhat rare on your side of the street. So Bravo.
“Your unwillingness to respect the existence or content of international law…”
This comes close to being a false accusation. Since Kemp is arguing that something was illegal under international law but will not say why. In fact the invasion was legal to the nth degree.
“From whence does the UN derive such legitimacy?”
People do indeed back up their claims with words Birdy so here it is, brace yourself, its shocking in its simplicity, its common knowledge even for people with a modicum of education and a cluster of ten brain cells not dedicated to the Bill O’Reilly Factor, its from the American Oxford Dictionary:
Got through Goldsmith’s stuff yet? More on UN legitimacy there.
As pointed out before it is ridiculous to go to one’s own charter for one’s own legitmacy.
All you are doing here is pre-empting me from using a reduction to absurdity by taking an absurd position up-front.
Don’t hide behind Goldsmith or other links. Make the argument in your own words. That way we can easily see the flaws in it. Or alternatively (ho ho) see the flawlessness of it and be compelled into agreement by the virtually self-evident rightness and elegance of the argument.
The UN is neither a sovereign power or a country with legislature so its law is without foundation.
You really need to have a little peek on the link below Rog, the address un.org/law/ itself takes some wind out of your sails.
http://www.un.org/law/
Peter, Cristy
How does the UN hold moral/legal legitimacy or anything romote when its very own human rights commission has Sudan, North Korea, Bhutan, Burkina Faso, Congo, Cuba, Egypt, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Gabon, Kenya, Pakistan, Qatar, Republic of Korea, Saudi Arabia, Swaziland, Togo and lastly France as sitting members .
Is this a joke?
And yet there are people who say the UN is a legimate organization.
Cristy, Peter, any comment?
Here is a novel idea. No country should be allowed to enter the UN unless the government is democratically elected. Yes, I know it might be novel and different but at least it may be a start to hosing that place down with a fire hose.
JC, the UN is flawed, and so are many aspects of democracy, so we abolish democracy