World Politics

[movingtarget]

Re:

little doubt, tomorrow there will be a mass expelling of the american dips.

sure enough, lavrov just announced his 'request' to vlad to expell 35 american dips...the proposed response appears a mirror image with one american consulate and a summer house closure.

by replying symmetrically, i think vlad is not acting with his usual astuteness. imo, he is swallowing a hook dangled by a fisherman who will never get to use his catches...

i think he should have either taken the punch by a symbolic response or, conversely, closing the us embassy entirely thus leaving obama to ponder if he's ready in the remaining 3 weeks for more escalation thus leaving trump with more crap to fix.

in the symbolic move, vlad would show trump and the world that he's waiting for a constructive change past obama while still keeping the option of more expulsions at a time of his choice.

if closing the us embassy completely, he would present obama with a choice of speedily dealing with his own heavy hand and thus escalating tensions with the nuclear superpower...as a new year present to his nation

But that would be a poor start to his love affair with Donaldski. I would say that he did this while laughing with friends. I doubt that it barely registered. Stopping the flow of money and locking bank accounts now that is serious sheet ! That would have been different. Financial sanctions seem to get their attention much quicker. I would say that Donald's proposed extensions to the US Embassy in Moscow have already been approved !

 

[python]

Re: Re:

little doubt, tomorrow there will be a mass expelling of the american dips.

sure enough, lavrov just announced his 'request' to vlad to expell 35 american dips...the proposed response appears a mirror image with one american consulate and a summer house closure.

by replying symmetrically, i think vlad is not acting with his usual astuteness. imo, he is swallowing a hook dangled by a fisherman who will never get to use his catches...

i think he should have either taken the punch by a symbolic response or, conversely, closing the us embassy entirely thus leaving obama to ponder if he's ready in the remaining 3 weeks for more escalation thus leaving trump with more crap to fix.

in the symbolic move, vlad would show trump and the world that he's waiting for a constructive change past obama while still keeping the option of more expulsions at a time of his choice.

if closing the us embassy completely, he would present obama with a choice of speedily dealing with his own heavy hand and thus escalating tensions with the nuclear superpower...as a new year present to his nation

But that would be a poor start to his love affair with Donaldski. I would say that he did this while laughing with friends. I doubt that it barely registered. Stopping the flow of money and locking bank accounts now that is serious sheet ! That would have been different. Financial sanctions seem to get their attention much quicker. I would say that Donald's proposed extensions to the US Embassy in Moscow have already been approved !

not sure to which part of my post you were responding...to a complete closure ? anyway, we now know the vlad choice and i dont think it was made out of some 'love affair' btwn the 2. as i posted above (before the news broke) it was a pragmatic, smart move avoiding swallowing the obama provocation hook he clearly intended for trump. and as i said yesterday, by these last minute expulsions and the un anti-israel vote (note also last minute b/c had obama been genuinely pro-palestinian he'd put teeth to his dealings with bibi much earlier during his 8 years), by these actions obama showed his ugly vindictive side. he wants to stick it to bibi, to trump, to vlad all of whom humiliated him...a sign of a smaller man he intends to project.

the shallow and lazy mass media in the west likes to put it as a 'love affair', but it remains to be seen how well the 2 will dance. while vlad is not limited in his choices and actions, trump is. as broken as the american democracy is, it is still a feeding zone for various competitive players.

but i do see some commonality in their personal world views and values. where will it lead remains to be seen.

 

[blutto]

....something to think about....

For many years now, Israel has sought to make the American people complicit in its own crimes while also encouraging our country’s feckless and corrupt leadership to provide their government with political cover and even go to war on its behalf. This has got to stop and, for a moment, it looked like Trump might be the man to end it when he promised to be even-handed in negotiating between the Arabs and Israelis. That was before he promised to be the best friend Israel would ever have.

Israel’s quarrels don’t stay in Israel and they are not limited to the foreign policy realm. I have already discussed the pending Anti-Semitism Awareness Act, a bipartisan effort by Congress to penalize and even potentially criminalize any criticism of Israel by equating it to anti-Semitism. Whether Israel itself wants to consider itself a democracy is up to Netanyahu and Israeli voters but the denial of basic free speech rights to Americans in deference to Israeli perceptions should be considered to be completely outrageous.

And there’s more. Israel’s government funded lawfare organization Shurat HaDin has long been using American courts to punish Palestinians and Iranians, obtaining punitive damages linked to allegations regarding terrorist incidents that have taken place in Israel. Now Shurat HaDin is using our courts to go after American companies that do business with countries like Iran.

Last year’s nuclear agreement with Iran included an end to restraints on the Islamic Republic’s ability to engage in normal banking and commercial activity. As a high priority, Iran has sought to replace some of its aging infrastructure, to include its passenger aircraft fleet. Seattle based Boeing has sought to sell to Iran Air 80 airplanes at a cost of more than $16 billion and has worked with the U.S. government to meet all licensing and technology transfer requirements. The civilian-use planes are not in any way configurable for military purposes, but Shurat HaDin on December 16th sought to block the sale at a federal court in Illinois, demanding a lien against Boeing for the monies alleged to be due to the claimed victims of Iranian sponsored terrorism. Boeing, meanwhile, has stated that the Iran Air order “support(s) tens of thousands of U.S. jobs.”

So an agency of the Israeli government is taking steps to stop an American company from doing something that is perfectly legal under U.S. law even though it will cost thousands of jobs here at home. It is a prime example of how much Israel truly cares about the United States and its people. And even more pathetic, the Israel Lobby owned U.S. Congress has predictably bowed down and kissed Netanyahu’s ring on the issue, passing a bill in November that seeks to block Treasury Department licenses to permit the financing of the airplane deal.

The New Year and the arrival of an administration with fresh ideas would provide a great opportunity for the United States to finally distance itself from a toxic Israel, but, unfortunately, it seems that everything is actually moving in the opposite direction. Don’t be too surprised if we see a shooting war with Iran before the year is out as well as a shiny new U.S. Embassy in Jerusalem (to be built on land stolen from Palestinians, incidentally). Trump might think he is ushering in a new era of American policy based on American interests but it is beginning to look a lot like same-old same-old but even worse, and Benjamin Netanyahu will be very much in the driver’s seat.

http://www.unz.com/pgiraldi/welcome-to-greater-israel/

....and....

While Kerry has been denounced for abstaining on the U.N. resolution calling Israeli settlements on the West Bank and in East Jerusalem illegal and an impediment to peace, this has been U.S. policy for years.

And Kerry’s warning in his Wednesday speech that at the end of this road of continuous settlement-building lies an Israel that is either a non-Jewish or a non-democratic state is scarcely anti-Semitic.

Prime Minister Ehud Barak, the most decorated soldier in Israel’s history, has warned his countrymen, “As long as in this territory west of the Jordan River there is only one political entity called Israel, it is going to be either non-Jewish, or non-Democratic.”

“If the bloc of millions of Palestinians cannot vote” added Barak, “this will be an apartheid state.” Of John Kerry’s speech, Barak said, “Powerful, lucid … World & majority in Israel think the same.”

Defense Secretary-designate Gen. James Mattis warned in 2013 that Israeli settlements were leading to an “apartheid” state.

After Joe Biden visited Israel in 2010, to learn that Netanyahu just approved 1,600 new units in East Jerusalem, Gen. David Petraeus warned: “Arab anger on the Palestine question limits the strength and depth of U.S. partnership with governments and people in the region.”

Yet facts and reality, however unpleasant, cannot be denied.

http://www.unz.com/pbuchanan/israel-first-or-america-first/

Cheers

 

[blutto]

What Israel Fears

by Vijay Prashad

....about the recent UN resolution....

http://www.counterpunch.org/2016/12/30/what-israel-fears-2/

Cheers

 

[blutto]

....Brexit, populism, quantitative easing, recent rate hikes....read both to get some idea of why this one big interconnected mess....

http://www.globeinvestor.com/servlet/ArticleNews/story/GAM/20161210/RBRIREGULYCOLUMN

Politicians adore QE, whose euro zone edition started in March, 2015. With Mr. Draghi at their backs, they don't have to do all the heavy lifting. But their support will come at a cost. Economic reforms are not being pursued or are being pursued without enthusiasm. Growth remains tepid, as does job creation.

While European Union unemployment is coming down, it's still almost 10 per cent. Youth unemployment, at 20.7 per cent in October, remains atrocious. In the Mediterranean region, youth unemployment is 35 per cent or higher. In Sicily, it's 56 per cent.

No wonder populist parties such as Italy's Five Star Movement (M5S), which could form the next government, are on the upswing in Europe. In Sunday's Italian referendum on constitutional change, 81 per cent of the country's youth - almost half of whom don't have jobs - voted No, as Five Star had urged. The No vote ended the career of Matteo Renzi, the centre-left Prime Minister who had campaigned on the Yes side. "If the Italian government does not implement real reforms to boost the economy, it will just provide a tailwind for the M5S in the next election," Ms. Greene said.

At least one politician in Europe seems to understand the euro zone's ultraloose monetary policies may be doing as much harm as good and is making life easier for the populist parties, most of which are anti-EU, antieuro or both, and some of which are anti-immigrant to the point of rabid xenophobia. That politician is Wolfgang Schaeuble, the all-powerful German Finance Minister.

http://www.counterpunch.org/2016/12/29/the-reason-the-fed-is-raising-rates-and-why-it-wont-work/

Repeat: The vast majority of US corporations are worse off now than they were in “the years preceding the Great Recession.” And the reason they’re worse off now is because of low interest rates. The Fed’s low rates create lethal incentives for CEO’s to pile on the debt which puts their companies at greater risk of default. Corporations are borrowing tons of money from investors in the bond market, which they are distributing to their shareholders rather than using to improve productivity or increase employment. They are also recycling two-thirds of earnings into stock buybacks which is going to dramatically impact their future competitiveness. Here’s a blurb from an article in USA Today that sums it all up:

Stock buybacks– which were illegal before the Reagan administration — are a deceptive form of financial circlejerk that distort prices, create bubbles and lead to crisis. The reason the Fed ignores these issues because it sees profitmaking as a higher priority than ensuring the safety of the system. Go figure?

Cheers

 

[Semper Fidelis]

President Obama schooled by Russia.

He is the Junior Varsity President.

Then CNN ran a FAKE NEWS story about Russia closing the American School in Moscow. How embarrassing could this get?


The Administration was used and abused by Russian strategy.

 

[Brullnux]

....Brexit, populism, quantitative easing, recent rate hikes....read both to get some idea of why this one big interconnected mess....

http://www.globeinvestor.com/servlet/ArticleNews/story/GAM/20161210/RBRIREGULYCOLUMN

Politicians adore QE, whose euro zone edition started in March, 2015. With Mr. Draghi at their backs, they don't have to do all the heavy lifting. But their support will come at a cost. Economic reforms are not being pursued or are being pursued without enthusiasm. Growth remains tepid, as does job creation.

While European Union unemployment is coming down, it's still almost 10 per cent. Youth unemployment, at 20.7 per cent in October, remains atrocious. In the Mediterranean region, youth unemployment is 35 per cent or higher. In Sicily, it's 56 per cent.

No wonder populist parties such as Italy's Five Star Movement (M5S), which could form the next government, are on the upswing in Europe. In Sunday's Italian referendum on constitutional change, 81 per cent of the country's youth - almost half of whom don't have jobs - voted No, as Five Star had urged. The No vote ended the career of Matteo Renzi, the centre-left Prime Minister who had campaigned on the Yes side. "If the Italian government does not implement real reforms to boost the economy, it will just provide a tailwind for the M5S in the next election," Ms. Greene said.

At least one politician in Europe seems to understand the euro zone's ultraloose monetary policies may be doing as much harm as good and is making life easier for the populist parties, most of which are anti-EU, antieuro or both, and some of which are anti-immigrant to the point of rabid xenophobia. That politician is Wolfgang Schaeuble, the all poweful german finance minister.

Please take me to a world where 36% is 'almost half'. It's ridiculously high, but not almost half. Using the actual figure would've had the necessary impact and also had the advantage of being accurate. Don't you hate it when journos shamelessly twist stats to fit what they are saying? Even when the actual facts would achieve the aim of the article just fine?

 

[Jagartrott]

Plus, the Italian referendum was actually more complicated than just protest votes. A fair number of people voted against the proposed change in legislation because of fundamental issues they had with the basic ideas presented, not because they opposed Renzi as such (they thought the reform would go too far, hollowing out the checks and balances system).

 

[Brullnux]

Re:

Plus, the Italian referendum was actually more complicated than just protest votes. A fair number of people voted against the proposed change in legislation because of fundamental issues they had with the basic ideas presented, not because they opposed Renzi as such (they thought the reform would go too far, hollowing out the checks and balances system).

Yes, and others thought it didn't go far enough. It also had the fundamental problem of making the senate more undemocratic by chucking a load of inept and corrupt regional presidents and the like in there. The reforms were a step in the right direction, though imo. The idea of unclogging the Italian parliament is correct, and any change that lowers the time taken to pass a law is very much needed. But they had a lot of flaws in them.

However it is true that Renzi made this vote about him with the 'I will resign if I lose' fiasco. I think it might've passed otherwise. And it's also hard to say that Renzi was a Brussels puppet too, he did speak out against austerity a few times (I am not sure if this was spoken from the heart, admittedly) and also did well to make sure that the Eastern European nations took their share of refugees. But in part it is undeniable to say that the vote was a protest against the administration (not the establishment, however - that was split, in fact probably in favour of 'No' for the most part).

 

[movingtarget]

....Brexit, populism, quantitative easing, recent rate hikes....read both to get some idea of why this one big interconnected mess....

http://www.globeinvestor.com/servlet/ArticleNews/story/GAM/20161210/RBRIREGULYCOLUMN

Politicians adore QE, whose euro zone edition started in March, 2015. With Mr. Draghi at their backs, they don't have to do all the heavy lifting. But their support will come at a cost. Economic reforms are not being pursued or are being pursued without enthusiasm. Growth remains tepid, as does job creation.

While European Union unemployment is coming down, it's still almost 10 per cent. Youth unemployment, at 20.7 per cent in October, remains atrocious. In the Mediterranean region, youth unemployment is 35 per cent or higher. In Sicily, it's 56 per cent.

No wonder populist parties such as Italy's Five Star Movement (M5S), which could form the next government, are on the upswing in Europe. In Sunday's Italian referendum on constitutional change, 81 per cent of the country's youth - almost half of whom don't have jobs - voted No, as Five Star had urged. The No vote ended the career of Matteo Renzi, the centre-left Prime Minister who had campaigned on the Yes side. "If the Italian government does not implement real reforms to boost the economy, it will just provide a tailwind for the M5S in the next election," Ms. Greene said.

At least one politician in Europe seems to understand the euro zone's ultraloose monetary policies may be doing as much harm as good and is making life easier for the populist parties, most of which are anti-EU, antieuro or both, and some of which are anti-immigrant to the point of rabid xenophobia. That politician is Wolfgang Schaeuble, the all poweful german finance minister.

Please take me to a world where 36% is 'almost half'. It's ridiculously high, but not almost half. Using the actual figure would've had the necessary impact and also had the advantage of being accurate. Don't you hate it when journos shamelessly twist stats to fit what they are saying? Even when the actual facts would achieve the aim of the article just fine?

Unemployment has stopped being a seasonal issue it's become an ongoing one. The gravy days of the 50s and 60s are long gone and will never return. In Italy older workers were being coaxed into retirement to free up some jobs for younger people. Eventually many countries will have to adopt shorter working weeks again, maybe longer holidays. The whole idea of face to face contact with client service is also dying off, many companies now only offer email or phone services, some don't even offer phone services. Admin jobs are shrinking and manufacturing jobs have been in decline for a long time. Two sectors that have always employed many people. Any new technologies will be sophisticated with minimal employees.

Little wonder some countries are already discussing their social service payments and systems and how to make them less costly while also discussing paying people a Living Wage. One or two countries have pilot programs in the works already. it's impossible to keep paying many people the same minimum wage when the costs of everything are increasing. Wage rises have stalled in many countries over the past five to ten years. Then you have aging populations. Some governments think this is nothing to worry about but other others think it will cause big problems. Japan is already heading for a labor shortage due to a lack of immigration and a plummeting birth rate. Some European countries have the same issue with birth rates and it's only immigration that keeps it ticking over.

 

[Bustedknuckle]

Re:

i hear the obama lame duck just sent some 35 russian diplomats packing for home plus, and this seems strange, he specifically sanctioned their external intelligence services...for spying

little doubt, tomorrow there will be a mass expelling of the american dips.

little surprise, just days after the the us was humiliated in aleppo, today turkey, iran and russia have quickly worked out and announced a new ceasefire to come into effect tomorrow. that's speedy...i hear the regime and the main rebel factions say they will obey. again, the us was not consulted according to the turkey and russia foreign ministries.

obama will probably go down as the biggest failure in the us middle east non stop fiascos.

vlad decides to not retaliate, I guess cuz he knows he got caught.

Hardly..2003, 2nd gulf war that created the 'arab spring', ISIS, and the mess in Syria.

 

[movingtarget]

Re: Re:

i hear the obama lame duck just sent some 35 russian diplomats packing for home plus, and this seems strange, he specifically sanctioned their external intelligence services...for spying

little doubt, tomorrow there will be a mass expelling of the american dips.

little surprise, just days after the the us was humiliated in aleppo, today turkey, iran and russia have quickly worked out and announced a new ceasefire to come into effect tomorrow. that's speedy...i hear the regime and the main rebel factions say they will obey. again, the us was not consulted according to the turkey and russia foreign ministries.

obama will probably go down as the biggest failure in the us middle east non stop fiascos.

vlad decides to not retaliate, I guess cuz he knows he got caught.

Hardly..2003, 2nd gulf war that created the 'arab spring', ISIS, and the mess in Syria.

Vlad has already won in 2016. He can afford to be generous ! I don't think these stunts are fooling anyone.

 

[Bustedknuckle]

Re: Re:

i hear the obama lame duck just sent some 35 russian diplomats packing for home plus, and this seems strange, he specifically sanctioned their external intelligence services...for spying

little doubt, tomorrow there will be a mass expelling of the american dips.

little surprise, just days after the the us was humiliated in aleppo, today turkey, iran and russia have quickly worked out and announced a new ceasefire to come into effect tomorrow. that's speedy...i hear the regime and the main rebel factions say they will obey. again, the us was not consulted according to the turkey and russia foreign ministries.

obama will probably go down as the biggest failure in the us middle east non stop fiascos.

vlad decides to not retaliate, I guess cuz he knows he got caught.

Hardly..2003, 2nd gulf war that created the 'arab spring', ISIS, and the mess in Syria.

Vlad has already won in 2016. He can afford to be generous ! I don't think these stunts are fooling anyone.

Vlad is cunning, he's gonna play donnie like a drum. donnie is a dope surrounded by dopes.

 

[blutto]

....fake news by the anti-fake news crowd against the fake news.....complisticated , very complisticated....

Julian Assange is a deeply polarizing figure. Many admire him and many despise him (into which category one falls in any given year typically depends on one’s feelings about the subject of his most recent publication of leaked documents).

But one’s views of Assange are completely irrelevant to this article, which is not about Assange. This article, instead, is about a report published this week by The Guardian that recklessly attributed to Assange comments that he did not make. This article is about how those false claims — fabrications, really — were spread all over the internet by journalists, causing hundreds of thousands of people (if not millions) to consume false news. The purpose of this article is to underscore, yet again, that those who most flamboyantly denounce Fake News, and want Facebook and other tech giants to suppress content in the name of combating it, are often the most aggressive and self-serving perpetrators of it.

https://theintercept.com/2016/12/29/the-guardians-summary-of-julian-assanges-interview-went-viral-and-was-completely-false/

....and this on fake news and post-truth bs memes....

We Do Not Live in “Post Truth” World, We Live in a World of Lies and We Always Have

I suspect that “post-truth” has more to do with social media than mendacious elections. The use of social media in reporting the battle of eastern Aleppo has been extraordinary, weird, dangerous, even murderous, when not a single Western journalist could report the eastern Aleppo war at first hand. Much damage has been done to the very credibility of journalism – and to politicians – by the acceptance of one side of the story only when not a single reporter can confirm with his or her own eyes what they are reporting.

http://www.counterpunch.org/2016/12/30/we-do-not-live-in-post-truth-world-we-live-in-a-world-of-lies-and-we-always-have/

....and ....

This was the year of fake news, as I keep reading. But so were most years preceding it. In 1897 newspaper tycoon William Randolph Hearst sent ace illustrator Frederic Remington to Cuba to cover a revolutionary war against its Spanish rulers. Remington wrote to Hearst that he found no revolution and there would be no war. “You furnish the pictures,” wrote Hearst, “and I’ll furnish the war.” War duly followed, and the sorry saga of Cuba-U. S. relations, still ongoing.

In 2002, an adviser to U.S. President George W. Bush derided journalists for seeing themselves as part of a “reality-based community” who believe in a “discernible reality” which they report on objectively. “But that’s not the way the world works any more,” said the mouthpiece. “We’re an empire now and when we act, we create our own reality.”

https://www.thestar.com/opinion/public_editor/2016/12/30/fake-news-is-a-false-problem-salutin.html

Cheers

 

[kingjr]

Re: Re:

Vlad is cunning, he's gonna play donnie like a drum.

Maybe for the better.

 

[blutto]

....an interesting article that puts some twists and turns into a road that in today's world is a straight foreword simple narrative.....

....a sample....

Mahmood Abbas, by the way, as a student at Moscow University, wrote his doctoral thesis on Nazi-Zionist cooperation.

http://www.counterpunch.org/2016/12/30/trump-and-israels-anti-semitic-zionists/

Cheers

 

[Starstruck]

Forecast 2017: The Wheels Finally Come Off
http://kunstler.com/clusterfuck-nation/forecast-2017-wheels-finally-come-off/
(I don't necessarily agree with him on racial politics but otherwise...)

DEFUSING THE APOCALYPSE: A RESPONSE TO JOHN GRAY
http://dark-mountain.net/blog/defusing-the-apocalypse-a-response-to-john-gray/

Uncivilisation: the Dark Mountain Manifesto
http://www.newstatesman.com/books/2009/09/civilisation-planet-authors

During the past century empires crashed, new states foundered, utopian projects failed and entire civilisations melted down. Revolutionary change was the norm, as it has been throughout modern times. Yet today many of us assume our present way of life will last for ever, and any suggestion that it may be facing intractable difficulties is dismissed as doom-mongering. The result is that the precariousness of modern civilisation is underestimated and the impression that things can go on indefinitely, much as they do now is touted as hard-headed realism.

The Dark Mountain Manifesto begins with the observation that this appearance of stability is delusive. "The pattern of ordinary life, in which so much stays the same from one day to the next," the authors write, "disguises the fragility of its fabric." Written by Paul Kingsnorth and Dougald Hine, this slim pamphlet aims to demolish contemporary beliefs about progress, industrialism and the place of human beings on the planet, and up to a point it succeeds. Much in contemporary thought is made up of myths masquerading as facts, and it is refreshing to see these myths clearly identified as such. The authors are right that none is more powerful than the idea that we are separate from the natural world, and free to use it as we see fit.

If the future is going to "pick through the scraps" then that would require humans to pull their heads out of their a$$es on multiple levels (the worse it gets the further those heads burrow). If there's any genuine hope for our species it would require confronting the reality that the titanic is sinking and that the very real elephant in the room are those 400+ nuclear facilities around the N. Hemisphere (never mind nuclear weapons). It takes multi-decades to decommission them and lots of money. Good luck with that. Too much "reality".

 

[blutto]

.....hmmmm....could this possibly be true....?....

Newsbud" - On this episode of The Geopolitical Report, we counter the establishment’s narrative on the conflict in Syria and the flashpoint of Daraa, a town near the Syria-Jordan border where the CIA, working with the Muslim Brotherhood, attacked police and set the stage for a conflict that has so far claimed the lives of more than 400,000 Syrians. The proxy war is designed to take down a secular government and replace it with a Salafist principality controlled by the Brotherhood, a longtime CIA and British intelligence asset

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/46146.htm

Cheers

 

[blutto]

Let there be no mistake: this is by no means a criticism of human rights as an ideal to work for. The complete title should be “Open letter to those who invoke human rights selectively in order to justify the Western Powers’ policy of intervention in the internal affairs of other countries.”

Indeed, the only issue to be discussed about Syria is not the situation on the ground (which may be complicated), but the legitimacy of the interventionist policies of the U.S. and its “allies”, Europeans, Turkey, and the Gulf states in that country.

For decades, the principle on which international law is based, that is, equal sovereignty of States implying non-intervention of one State in the internal affairs of another, has been systematically violated, to the point of being practically forgotten, by champions of the “right of humanitarian intervention”. Recently, a number of such advocates of humanitarian intervention, self-identified as stalwart leftists, have joined the chorus of the Washington war party in reproaching the Obama administration for failure to intervene more in the military efforts to overthrow the government of Syria. In short, they are blaming the Obama administration for not having sufficiently violated international law.

Indeed, just about everything that the United States is doing everywhere in the world violates the principle of non-intervention: not only “preventive” invasions, but also influencing or buying elections, arming rebels, or unilateral sanctions and embargoes aimed at changing the target country’s policies.

Those who consider themselves on the left should take note of the historic basis of those principles. First, the lesson drawn from the Second World War. The origin of that war was Germany’s use of minorities in Czechoslovakia and Poland, extended later during the invasion of the Soviet Union. The war finally had catastrophic consequences for the very minorities that were used by the Germans.

Partly for that reason, the victors who wrote the United Nations Charter outlawed the policy of intervention, in order to spare humanity the “scourge of war”.

In the case of Syria, if, at it now seems, the insurrection ends up being defeated, the Western policy of intervention by arming the rebellion will be shown only to have prolonged the suffering of the population of this unfortunate land. The “human rights defenders” who defended this interventionist policy bear a heavy responsibility in that tragedy.

Although defense of human rights is a liberal concept and liberalism is in principle opposed to fanaticism, today’s “human rights defenders” often display fanaticism

.

http://www.counterpunch.org/2017/01/04/open-letter-to-human-rights-defenders-on-aleppo/

Cheers

 

[Brullnux]

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2017/jan/07/russian-treachery-extreme-and-everywhere

I remember a couple of weeks ago reading a Cohen column in The Observer and it was actually well thought out and a good piece of writing. I found myself agreeing with Nick Cohen. It was shocking. But I shouldn't have feared, because he is back to form with this article. Cohen really brings back his classic style here, making statements without backing them up, refusing to think about or acknowledge the reasons behind the other opinion, refusing to use facts and at one point even nostalgically referring to when communists were tortured by the CIA because the may or may not have been spies (it was often the latter, as even he acknowledged). Awful journalist. Not just because I disagree with him but because he is genuinely very bad from a literary and analytical point of view. And he writes utter bullshite week in week out. But still, the gruan rightfully hires him as he does offer, usually, a different opinion. Would've been better to hire someone better with the same opinions though.

 

[movingtarget]

Re:

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2017/jan/07/russian-treachery-extreme-and-everywhere

I remember a couple of weeks ago reading a Cohen column in The Observer and it was actually well thought out and a good piece of writing. I found myself agreeing with Nick Cohen. It was shocking. But I shouldn't have feared, because he is back to form with this article. Cohen really brings back his classic style here, making statements without backing them up, refusing to think about or acknowledge the reasons behind the other opinion, refusing to use facts and at one point even nostalgically referring to when communists were tortured by the CIA because the may or may not have been spies (it was often the latter, as even he acknowledged). Awful journalist. Not just because I disagree with him but because he is genuinely very bad from a literary and analytical point of view. And he writes utter ****** week in week out. But still, the gruan rightfully hires him as he does offer, usually, a different opinion. Would've been better to hire someone better with the same opinions though.

I have to admit that the Guardian's quality has slipped in general. The amount of navel fluff articles they print has increased. Sometimes they will publish something interesting.

 

[Brullnux]

To be fair Nick Cohen has been a columnnist for a long, long time. And he will be a colummist for a long time presuming he doesn't quit in some infantile rage.

Regarding the decline in quality, I agree it isn't as good as even a couple of years ago but I think it's been a forced change due to the constant losses that they have made. Sensationalist articles have probably increased revenue somewhat. It is still the by far the best newspaper in the UK (and one of the top in the world) and the most independent too. It isn't owned by any mogul (Times and Telegraph) and important editors haven't been fired without any reason (Times) or walked out en masse in protest to bad quality (Telegraph).

 

[movingtarget]

Re:

To be fair Nick Cohen has been a columnnist for a long, long time. And he will be a colummist for a long time presuming he doesn't quit in some infantile rage.

Regarding the decline in quality, I agree it isn't as good as even a couple of years ago but I think it's been a forced change due to the constant losses that they have made. Sensationalist articles have probably increased revenue somewhat. It is still the by far the best newspaper in the UK (and one of the top in the world) and the most independent too. It isn't owned by any mogul (Times and Telegraph) and important editors haven't been fired without any reason (Times) or walked out en masse in protest to bad quality (Telegraph).

Yes and it's pretty apparent that they are pushing for more revenue by asking readers to contribute a one off payment or an ongoing amount. Still most of the other major dailies, the quality ones at least are already pay for view with a limited amount of free articles per month. It's still worth reading but I find myself skipping over more articles now.

 

[Jagartrott]

Smell the irony:
https://www.theguardian.com/business/2017/jan/13/army-of-staff-descends-on-davos-to-serve-wef-super-rich

 

[python]

Kerry says it's inappropriate for Trump to step into German politics

http://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-kerry-trump-idUSKBN15028A?feedType=RSS&feedName=worldNews&utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+Reuters%2FworldNews+%28Reuters+World+News%29

can someone explain to me why it was appropriate for the us govt to hack the german chancellor phones (proven and reacted upon by the mutter) while the honorable dimwit was on the watch...or why it was appropriate for the us under the honourable dimwit's watch to step into iranian, israeli, ukranian, chinese, saudi, syrian, russian, korean etc etc etc etc politics ?

perhaps the honourable dimwit is troubled to understand that no one listens to the irrelevant entity that made its mark by talking too much for years. and very little else...still, better than the neocon colleagues of his