discipline posted:I hope all the rubes who have been primed by hearing how horrible the Assad regime is for years realize this is the desired outcome of those peddlers of death and destruction, an israeli flag flying over damascus
There already is. Israel doesn't want it taken down.
http://www.businessinsider.com/israel-faces-increasing-danger-as-assad-weakens-2013-2
But Syria's southern neighbor is facing an increasingly dangerous situation on its borders as the rule of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad weakens.
“Israel will miss the Assads,” a veteran intelligence source told The London Times. In reference to keeping peace in the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights he added: “The Assads, father and son, were very nasty people. But with them, we knew that a promise was a promise, and an agreement was solid as the boulders of Mount Hermon.”
As the Syrian civil war continues into its 23rd month, Israel is considering creating a buffer zone reaching up to 10 miles inside Syria to secure the 47-mile border against the threat of Islamic radicals in the area.
The source is tongue-in-cheek about this. Israel prefers the enemy they know, but since the FSA is being bankrolled by khaleeji and American partners they need to get in there. if they create a situation where the FSA can step up, they will make sure the people who step up love them and are willing to play ball, just like what happened in Libya
That's the theory. In reality the liberal democracy they've tried to set up in Libya has totally backfired, creating strong jihadist bases. USrael is now trying to deal with the results in Mali and Syria. And I don't even need to mention what happened to vilerat.
Al Nusra getting ahold of nerve gas, let alone establishing a caliphate, would be an incredible victory. Israel knows this and its desperation is showing. It was much, much safer under Assad. Their attempts to co-opt the "Free Syrian Army" (which no longer wants any association with jihad) strengthen the anti-imperialist blacklash.
Lol why do you think this was a goal and that the backfire wasn't their plan
Gadaffi enacted quite liberal foreign investment laws himself in the years before being overthrown. It's not a matter of liberal democratic government so much as having a government, which Libya currently doesn't, and its inability to prevent attacks on corporate oil infrastructure is causing billions in foreign investment losses in Algeria and West Africa.
Assad launched his own privatization campaign in the 2000s and once it became clear he was a tool of western business interests the country revolted.
I agree Iraq and Afghanistan were victories for the multinationals, but in the other cases they lost ahold of their own counterterrorist cronies.
ed: The US approved sales of surveillance equipment to Gadaffi. They wouldn't do that unless they wanted him in power.
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424053111904199404576538721260166388.html
TRIPOLI—On the ground floor of a six-story building here, agents working for Moammar Gadhafi sat in an open room, spying on emails and chat messages with the help of technology Libya acquired from the West...
The sale of technology used to intercept communications is generally permissible by law, although manufacturers in some countries, including the U.S., must first obtain special approval to export high-tech interception devices.
Libya is one of several Middle Eastern and North African states to use sophisticated technologies acquired abroad to crack down on dissidents. Tech firms from the U.S., Canada, Europe, China and elsewhere have, in the pursuit of profits, helped regimes block websites, intercept emails and eavesdrop on conversations.
Edited by mustang19 ()
Oil produced prior to 2011 in Qaddafi’s Libya was subject to 95 percent tax aimed mostly at multinationals. The figure has now decreased to approximately 75 percent, on par with energy giants like Russia and Norway. With nothing but time to bide, the proper divestiture of oil revenue to a vulnerable population, coupled with a flourishing democracy, may just reverse the bygone days of Qaddafi’s centralised socialism.
https://ceinquiry.wordpress.com/2013/05/05/libya-oil-tax/
also, the revolution was led in part by defectors from Gaddafi's regime who didn't think he went far enough in "reforming" the economy.
Edited by HenryKrinkle ()
Oil produced prior to 2011 in Qaddafi’s Libya was subject to 95 percent tax aimed mostly at multinationals. The figure has now decreased to approximately 75 percent, on par with energy giants like Russia and Norway.
That's little compared to what BP is losing from having its refineries blown up in neighboring countries now that Gadaffi isn't there to keep the place under control. In Algeria FDI has fallen $1.7 billion year over year because of the attacks, and now that they've "taken" it, the MNCs don't even want to invest in Libya.
Also, marginal tax rates are an almost useless measure because the deductions large corporations normally get, not to mention bribery.
http://www.libyaintelligence.org/content/oil-growth-interrupted
Heightened political risk is consistently cited as an explanatory reason for slow uptake in foreign investment in Libya’s oil sector. Ongoing political violence presents significant security, cost, logistical and reputational risks for IOCs. Libya shares long, porous borders with its Saharan neighbours; these under-patrolled frontiers have allowed jihadists with affiliations to Al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM) to roam within striking distance of Libya’s oil refineries.
In March 2013, clashes were reported in the Dhari and Ghani oil fields, and production at Libya’s Waha Oil Company was interrupted by strikes at the Gialo field. This month French pipeline company Ponticelli pulled out of Libya on account of escalating violence around the oil facilities it operated on. Uncertainty over Libya’s precarious security situation has led to an estimated $1 billion loss in export revenues since the start of 2013. Confidence in the government’s 18,000 strong special guard for oil installations runs worryingly low.
A stable North Africa with Gadaffi keeping Al Qaeda down was a lot better deal for the US.
And of course there's Gadaffi's financial links to the major banks, at least until Goldman pissed him off.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2011/may/31/goldman-sachs-libya-investment
A bitter rift has opened up between the world's most powerful bank and one of its most fearsome dictators after Goldman Sachs invested $1.3bn (£790m) of Colonel Gaddafi's money – and lost virtually all of it.
According to an investigation by the Wall Street Journal, Goldman offered to make Gaddafi one of its biggest investors as compensation for losing 98% of the money the Wall Street firm invested on behalf of the Libyan Investment Authority (LIA). This left the $53bn Gaddifi-controlled sovereign wealth fund, which elsewhere has stakes in companies such as Financial Times-owner Pearson and BP, with just $25.1m of the money it entrusted to Goldman...
In one of the most extraordinary examples of the fallout from the financial crisis Mustafa Zarti, then LIA's deputy chairman, summoned Goldman's North African chief, Youssef Kabbaj and some colleagues, to a meeting in July 2008 to discuss the losses. It is understood that Zarti was so angry he behaved "like a raging bull", cursing and threatening the Goldman staff to such an extent there are rumours the bank arranged for security to protect its staff until they left Libya the next day. The LIA went on to demand restitution and issued vague threats of legal action, the Wall Street Journal reported.
As relations between Goldman and Gaddafi became increasingly strained, the Wall Street firm made a total of three separate compensation offers to invest in the group on attractive terms between May and June of 2009, including the deal involving preferred shares. Another proposal would have given the LIA unsecured debt in Goldman, promising a stream of payments that would eventually have repaid the losses.
And just to give an indication of how corrupt and crappy he was- Gadaffi raised wages dramatically once the rebellion began to try to stay in power, although it turned out to be too late for that. The IMF was unable to contain these wage increases and living standards have probably improved a lot since the revolution.
http://www.imf.org/external/np/ms/2013/030613.htm
http://www.psnews.com.au/worldpsn3506.html
http://www.jpost.com/Middle-East/Libya-announces-increase-in-wages-food-subsidies
In a bid to hold on to power, the Libyan government announced on Friday that it plans to raise wages, increase food subsidies and give special allowances for all families, according to Reuters quoting Libyan TV reports.
The reports said that every family will receive about $400 to help cover increased food prices, and that salaries for some public sector workers would increase by 150 percent.
Edited by mustang19 ()
i don't think it's useful to construct these grand narratives about US foreign policy based almost entirely on speculation. of course we shouldn't take the US government on their word either and see policy on Libya or Syria as principled opposition to tyranny and support for democracy, but much of the analysis i see from the left is similarly shallow - we invaded Iraq and toppled Gaddafi for the oil, or perhaps just intended to destroy those countries because they represented a threat to American hegemony in one way or another. there are serious problems with these analyses because they aren't based on evidence, and also seem to operate on the assumption that US foreign policy is conducted in a straightforward and rational manner with precise strategic and economic goals. i don't think this is true; in a lot of ways the interventions in the Middle East over the past decade have been debacles, and a concrete analysis of US foreign policy needs to take a broad range of interests into account and understand the ways in which imperialism is often irrational, reactive and incompetent.
http://www.finalcall.com/artman/publish/World_News_3/article_7886.shtml
(FinalCall.com) - The war raging in Libya since February is getting progressively worse as NATO forces engage in regime change and worse, an objective to kill Muammar Gadhafi to eradicate his vision of a United Africa with a single currency backed by gold.
Observers say implementing that vision would change the world power equation and threaten Western hegemony. In response, the United States and its NATO partners have determined “Gadhafi must go,” and assumed the role of judge, jury and executioner.
a concrete analysis of US foreign policy needs to take a broad range of interests into account and understand the ways in which imperialism is often irrational, reactive and incompetent.
It's not just the US. China is a capitalist imperial power which doesn't play by Chomsky rules. It uses the DPRK as a pawn against the western capitalist bloc.
Likewise Chavismo is largely bullshit, Venezeula has slightly more social programs than nearby countries and the difference can be explained by oil revenues rather than some special feature of Chavez's leadership. Latin America isn't in a battle between capitalism and socialism, it's a bunch of different capitalist states, with a few pretending to be left.
More unrelated offtopic links posted:Former Zionist Mossad chief Shabtai Shavit (1989-1996), has recently declared that Qatar played a historic role in favor of the Zionist entity "greater than that of the United Kingdom," the Zionist daily Yediot Aharonot reported.
http://qatarise.blogspot.com/2011/04/qatari-israeli-saudi-alliance.html
Edited by mustang19 ()
Lessons posted:people on the left assign all these strategic and economic motives for US intervention in the Middle East but it's not actually clear that any of them reflect the actual decision-making process that sets foreign policy. it's like how Chomsky and others have been saying for decades that the US felt it had an economic imperative to intervene in Chile in 1973 because Allende was charting a course independent of Washington, but if you look at recently declassified documents you find that practically no one in the CIA or the military, let alone the State Department or Treasury, saw Allende as a threat and consistently advised against intervention, and the policy of destabilization was more or less rammed through by Nixon and Kissinger despite these objections because they hated Allende and thought he was a communist. it wasn't a rational, calculated decision at all, and even if we conclude that US action in Chile ultimately furthered imperial interests, the standard left narratives don't hold up.
i don't think it's useful to construct these grand narratives about US foreign policy based almost entirely on speculation. of course we shouldn't take the US government on their word either and see policy on Libya or Syria as principled opposition to tyranny and support for democracy, but much of the analysis i see from the left is similarly shallow - we invaded Iraq and toppled Gaddafi for the oil, or perhaps just intended to destroy those countries because they represented a threat to American hegemony in one way or another. there are serious problems with these analyses because they aren't based on evidence, and also seem to operate on the assumption that US foreign policy is conducted in a straightforward and rational manner with precise strategic and economic goals. i don't think this is true; in a lot of ways the interventions in the Middle East over the past decade have been debacles, and a concrete analysis of US foreign policy needs to take a broad range of interests into account and understand the ways in which imperialism is often irrational, reactive and incompetent.
Yeah the obsession with islamic terror after sept 11 is a perfect example, from a neorealist perspective t it makes no sense. Compared to its actual ability to threaten U.S. interests our response is so completely disproportionate and has so clearly exacerbated the problem. I mean take Somalia for example, the U.S. pays warlords to help find terrorist suspects, the warlord's excesses drives the creation of the ICU, the U.S. finances the Ethiopian invasion and subsequent formation of Al Shabaab which begins organizing international terrorist attacks and inspiring militants within the U.S. Somali community. These were all predictable outcomes that run completely counter to U.S. interests, and explaining U.S. policy in this case seems impossible without resorting to psychological or structural analyses
discipline posted:Lessons posted:i don't think it's useful to construct these grand narratives about US foreign policy based almost entirely on speculation.
It's called "Marxism"
It is well-known that an automaton once existed, which was so constructed that it could counter any move of a chess-player with a counter-move, and thereby assure itself of victory in the match. A puppet in Turkish attire, water-pipe in mouth, sat before the chessboard, which rested on a broad table. Through a system of mirrors, the illusion was created that this table was transparent from all sides. In truth, a hunchbacked dwarf who was a master chess-player sat inside, controlling the hands of the puppet with strings. One can envision a corresponding object to this apparatus in philosophy. The puppet called “historical materialism” is always supposed to win. It can do this with no further ado against any opponent, so long as it employs the services of theology, which as everyone knows is small and ugly and must be kept out of sight.
http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-4340049,00.html
Turkish Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu slammed Israel's alleged strike in Syria, urging Damascus to retaliate, the Hurriyet news agency reported.
"Why didn't (Bashar) Assad even throw a pebble when Israeli jets were flying over his palace and playing with the dignity of his country?" Davutoglu told reporters Saturday on his way to an international conference on Syria in Munich, which Defense Minister Ehud Barak is also expected to attend.
"Why didn't the Syrian Army, which has been attacking its own innocent people for 22 months now from the air with jets and by land with tanks and artillery fire, respond to Israel's operation? Why can't Assad, who gave order to fire SCUD missiles at Aleppo, do anything against Israel?" Davutoglu added.
The foreign minister suggested there might exist a collaborative conspiracy between Israel and Assad's regime. "Is there a secret agreement between Assad and Israel? The Assad regime only abuses. Why don't you use the same power that you use against defenseless women against Israel, which you have seen as an enemy since its foundation," he said.
The Turkish Minister insisted that Turkey will not stand by as Israel attacks a Muslim country.
On Friday, the American TIME magazine reported that Israeli warplanes struck several targets inside Syria in an alleged raid Tuesday night, including a biological weapons research center that was reportedly flattened out of concern that it might fall into the hands of Islamist extremists fighting to topple the government of the Syrian president.
A variety of news organizations reported that Israeli jets hit a convoy carrying advanced anti-aircraft defense systems toward Lebanon’s Beqaa Valley, presumably for delivery to Hezbollah.
strange how i havent seen any reports about dead civilians and such yet. explosions that huge must have leveled entire city blocks; a ton of people certainly died
If a bomb falls in an apartment and none of the tenets are left, did it really fall?
the policy of destabilization was more or less rammed through by Nixon and Kissinger despite these objections because they hated Allende and thought he was a communist.
Being in a position of extreme power changes people, it makes them feel like they can do whatever they want without consequence.
discipline posted:Lessons posted:way to take a joke
:negative:
mustang19 posted:strange how i havent seen any reports about dead civilians and such yet. explosions that huge must have leveled entire city blocks; a ton of people certainly died
If a bomb falls in an apartment and none of the tenets are left, did it really fall?
there have been reports about civilian casualties in the aftermath of regime strikes against "rebel-held" locations in and around damascus. certainly those areas are more depopulated than the central areas held by the government
Squalid posted:what is a khaleeji
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Khaleeji
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arab_states_of_the_Persian_Gulf
discipline posted:I hope all the rubes who have been primed by hearing how horrible the Assad regime is for years realize this is the desired outcome of those peddlers of death and destruction, an israeli flag flying over damascus
How in Tetragrammaton’s name would the IDF possibly be able to occupy and control an Arab capital of 2.5 million people.
edit: fcuk, only 800,000. looks like i got the fail aids
Lessons posted:people on the left assign all these strategic and economic motives for US intervention in the Middle East but it's not actually clear that any of them reflect the actual decision-making process that sets foreign policy. it's like how Chomsky and others have been saying for decades that the US felt it had an economic imperative to intervene in Chile in 1973 because Allende was charting a course independent of Washington, but if you look at recently declassified documents you find that practically no one in the CIA or the military, let alone the State Department or Treasury, saw Allende as a threat and consistently advised against intervention, and the policy of destabilization was more or less rammed through by Nixon and Kissinger despite these objections because they hated Allende and thought he was a communist. it wasn't a rational, calculated decision at all, and even if we conclude that US action in Chile ultimately furthered imperial interests, the standard left narratives don't hold up.
i don't think it's useful to construct these grand narratives about US foreign policy based almost entirely on speculation. of course we shouldn't take the US government on their word either and see policy on Libya or Syria as principled opposition to tyranny and support for democracy, but much of the analysis i see from the left is similarly shallow - we invaded Iraq and toppled Gaddafi for the oil, or perhaps just intended to destroy those countries because they represented a threat to American hegemony in one way or another. there are serious problems with these analyses because they aren't based on evidence, and also seem to operate on the assumption that US foreign policy is conducted in a straightforward and rational manner with precise strategic and economic goals. i don't think this is true; in a lot of ways the interventions in the Middle East over the past decade have been debacles, and a concrete analysis of US foreign policy needs to take a broad range of interests into account and understand the ways in which imperialism is often irrational, reactive and incompetent.
this is good, you're right that we can't divine the complex reasonings or happenstances that led to every invasion/occupation/etc but don't get it twisted, it's not as if these wree natural catastrophes free from human control, like an earthquake, or like a great wind blew a bunch of planes into libya to bomb qadaffi's artillery lines. western interventions are the product of human action, and throwing up your hands saying we can't figure out why, while it may be true to some degree, is defeatist, nihilistic... you said nixon went against most of his advisors to ram through an attempt to unseat allende, because he thought he was a communist; that's a reason and knowing that helps us understand what hppaned in chile. maybe that's the same reason iraq happened, w just hated saddam; more likely there's some unifying thread weaving through most modern interventions: imperialism. because if the interventions are orchestrated by the united states, or even if the intervention is not orchestrated but simply opportunistic, it's still correct to assume the US is attempting to act in its own interest. maybe the US miscalculates the outcomes, maybe the US is incompetent, maybe we can't nail down the precise reason. but closing your eyes to the intentions isn't helpful, and absolute clarity isn't required to know the general malice involved
ilmdge posted:western interventions are the product of human action, and throwing up your hands saying we can't figure out why, while it may be true to some degree, is defeatist, nihilistic...[/
I don’t agree with this line of reasoning at all, what with it’s assumption that we as individual humans have the ability to first identify and secondly synthesize the complexities, angendas and mechanisms at play on this strange planet.
Never forget that we are but animals, animals who for whatever environmental reason developed certain cognitive abilities that the other didn’t. Taking for granted the idea that the brain-skills we developed for hunting and gathering also extend to successfully or rationally comprehending history and politics strikes me as sheer, unadulterated hubris.
Lessons posted:discipline posted:Lessons posted:i don't think it's useful to construct these grand narratives about US foreign policy based almost entirely on speculation.
It's called "Marxism"
It is well-known that an automaton once existed, which was so constructed that it could counter any move of a chess-player with a counter-move, and thereby assure itself of victory in the match. A puppet in Turkish attire, water-pipe in mouth, sat before the chessboard, which rested on a broad table. Through a system of mirrors, the illusion was created that this table was transparent from all sides. In truth, a hunchbacked dwarf who was a master chess-player sat inside, controlling the hands of the puppet with strings. One can envision a corresponding object to this apparatus in philosophy. The puppet called “historical materialism” is always supposed to win. It can do this with no further ado against any opponent, so long as it employs the services of theology, which as everyone knows is small and ugly and must be kept out of sight.
mustang, you seem to have a poor understanding of marxism. profit has to do with the accumulation of surplus value, not money. the wars in the middle east have more to do with future resource control, displacing the crisis of capitalism geographically, depressing the working class (especially with the rise of latin america since 2000), and a million other factors which have been well studied.
IWC, you seem to have it backwards. no one is saying humans are all knowing. in fact its the opposite, we are saying people act out their structural roles as a class even if it appears irrational or contradictory.
thug lessons seems to have posted in the wrong forum, D&D liberals do that all the time but I don't know anyone here who subscribes to those beliefs. I agree that looking for boogeyman is a poor ideology which basically describes the first world left.