Israel, Palestine and Iran

[blandy]

20 minutes ago, OutByEaster? said:

But with State terrorism - shouldn't the responsibility rest with the state, not the individual - if not, isn't every member of any state armed force a terrorist?

Simplistically, yes. But once you get into "who's really in charge?, is that person the one instigating it?...etc. And then into retribution being taken at differing levels of escalation, that's when key individuals get targeted. 

[villakram]

54 minutes ago, Awol said:

The original sin in 2003 was ours (well, Bush & Blair) no question. I’m writing a thesis on that very point! To the extent that we’re in Iraq now it’s by invitation - Obama didn’t want to go back in 2014 but ISIS was going to sack Baghdad.

Libya is much complicated, because the government established after Gaddafi fell rejected all security assistance from NATO, as was their right. Various Arab regimes then jumped in to back different actors and it’s now about to be invaded by Turkey, slave markets and all.

Yemen & Syria were not Western inspired, but the result is much the same. We (the West) have been bit part actors in those conflicts subsequently, but have not driven them. 

There’s no question we have a lot to answer for, but it doesn’t help the analysis to blame the West for everything, or even most of what’s happening now. Others have agency and use it in spades. 

Oh and it's just a coincidence that Haftar use to live in exile right next door to CIA-land. Yes, Erdogan bad!

And while not sure who you mean by "we", but using the west as "we", we certainly played a major role in Syria or perhaps McCain just enjoyed the local hiking. Perhaps something for you to look into after you graduate.  

[HanoiVillan]

'On top of all else we have done for them'

 

[peterms]

5 hours ago, OutByEaster? said:

If Soleimani is carrying out terrorist attacks, he's a rogue agent who should be picked up and arrested; if (as clearly seems to be the case here) he's an agent of Iranian foreign policy then it should be dealt with at a state level - diplomacy, sanction, war - that sort of thing.

On that point:

 

[Davkaus]

3 hours ago, HanoiVillan said:

'On top of all else we have done for them'

 

Is this real life?

3 years later, his sheer tactlessness continues to blow me away. Astounding.

[Brumerican]

We all know where this is headed.

Another Coldplay album.

[Awol]

4 minutes ago, Brumerican said:

We all know where this is headed.

Another Coldplay album.

 

[KenjiOgiwara]

4 hours ago, blandy said:

Iranian foreign policy includes promoting instigating and funding terrorism. That's where it gets murky. As AWOL says, it's not "traditional". He's a state terrorist.

Does that make it legitimate to execute Israeli public servants, i.e. in Shin Beth, Mossad or Knesset? 

Just wondering where the lines are drawn for acceptable assassinations. 

[blandy]

28 minutes ago, KenjiOgiwara said:

Does that make it legitimate to execute Israeli public servants, i.e. in Shin Beth, Mossad or Knesset? 

Just wondering where the lines are drawn for acceptable assassinations. 

There's a lot of answer layers to that question.

Legitimate in whose eyes? I mean killing people is one one level not legitimate at all, whoever they are.

On another, there's "these people are (as above) "accredited diplomats" and therefore there's rules about leaving them alone. But then it's utterly commonplace for state personnel to operate under diplomatic immunity yet conduct themselves in ways which are not 'legitimate" - whether espionage, or in extreme cases organising funding and logistics and even participating in terrorist activities, with the intent or consequence of the loss of innocent civilian life. So at that point it's reasonable to ask "fir they are "protected" from normal process (arrest etc.) yet are killing civilians, what is to be done? just leave them alone, because that's "legitimate"? I'm not talking about one nation here, just generally. So if an Israeli, or an American, Russian, Chinese, Iranian...whatever "diplomat" is basically killing people of another nation, is it overall legitimate to stop them doing it again via this kind of action? Some people would say, in the real world, yes. Others "no".

There are a whole set of laws and precedents, largely built up years ago, under wholly different circumstances, but blocked from being changed to reflect the world as it is or we'd like to to be today, by veto from one nation or another. Whether it's the US and the international War Crimes courts, or whether it's Israel or Russia or China....

There is no single "legitimate"  - it's in effect "national opinion" these days. The laws are flouted and the consequences are nil. The US will veto action against Israel, or Russia will veto action against her allies and so on. And of course even UN resolutions authorising the use of force are subverted via lies, espionage, blackmail etc.

Iran is in breach of various money laundering (to sponsor terrorism) laws and obligations, but there's no "legitimate" action against the Iranians responsible.

It's a bit of a Wild West. Like @Awol said much earlier, the bloke's a serious force behind hundreds of deaths, a ringleader and he got targetted as a consequence of Iran pushing further, of US (and Trump) motives, all of which are dishonourable.

Big fish eat the little ones.

[peterms]

4 hours ago, blandy said:

Iran is in breach of various money laundering (to sponsor terrorism) laws and obligations, but there's no "legitimate" action against the Iranians responsible.

It's a bit of a Wild West. Like @Awol said much earlier, the bloke's a serious force behind hundreds of deaths, a ringleader and he got targetted as a consequence of Iran pushing further, of US (and Trump) motives, all of which are dishonourable.

A complex post.  Most of what you say is true.  The sentiments in the bit I quote, I reject.

The money laundering rules are not about money laundering,  which the US and others are ok with, but about punishing Iran for not falling into line with the US.

The dead man apparently did more than the whole US armed forces to counter Isis.

This seems like a very stupid move.

[HanoiVillan]

Good article on the people pushing the narrative, and their long-standing aversion to telling the truth:

 

[villakram]

12 hours ago, blandy said:

....Iran is in breach of various money laundering (to sponsor terrorism) laws and obligations, but there's no "legitimate" action against the Iranians responsible.

It's a bit of a Wild West. Like @Awol said much earlier, the bloke's a serious force behind hundreds of deaths, a ringleader and he got targetted as a consequence of Iran pushing further, of US (and Trump) motives, all of which are dishonourable.

Big fish eat the little ones.

Money laundering is centered in the British and US empires, see the panama papers and numerous other important pieces of work.

Errr... also, didn't the UK courts just rule that MI5 personnel could legally commit and assist in committing of crimes (no limit defined) if some national security justification existed, which always does in no-oversight land.

It's not a bit like the wild west, it is the wild west and we are bigtime bandits.

[blandy]

8 hours ago, peterms said:

A complex post.  Most of what you say is true.  The sentiments in the bit I quote, I reject.

The money laundering rules are not about money laundering,  which the US and others are ok with, but about punishing Iran for not falling into line with the US.

No, absolutely not. The exact opposite in fact.

France, the UK and Germany set up “Instex” a means, or vehicle, for barter-based trading, to get around US rules, so Iran to EU trade can at least in part continue and keep the agreement Obama and the world made with Iran to stop them building nukes. The one Trump just arbitrarily cancelled.
The EU countries are trying to circumvent the US block on Iran trading, but want Iran to stop funding terror  The money laundering rules I mentioned are European and set by the Paris-based Financial Action Task Force, but Iran is not fully compliant with them and is in fact moving away from compliance. The mechanism to avoid US punishments looks like falling by the wayside because Iran is refusing to stop funding terror. Make no mistake, Iran’s leadership is as bonkers and as dangerous and as recklessly self interested as is Trump.

[chrisp65]

We’re being faced with a succession of pretty awful choices in life at the moment. Lots of binary choices on what to do or who to support where the two options are both shit.

Fascinating to see the number of people that are now up for a bit of political debate. People that weren’t all that motivated to bother having an opinion when it was about the number of NHS dentists available or whether teaching assistants are worth funding.

Then the choices get down to skirting around Gulf War 3, spending more on NATO, sacking off Northern Ireland and people are energised. But not in a good way. It’s like the **** aggressive nutter gene has been triggered.

I wonder how many of the people ‘up for it’ would personally face the consequences. How many of them think Poppy Day and Help For Heroes should be replaced with proper budgeting of the military that includes life long care and support of all the people it **** up mentally and physically.

See all those tents in your High Street or park? How many of them people did you send on the last adventure?

UK currently running at approximately 52% idiot. 

[Awol]

1 hour ago, blandy said:

Iran’s leadership is as bonkers and as dangerous and as recklessly self interested as is Trump.

Yes, exactly.

The level of religious nuttery is also widely misunderstood. The ‘defender of the Shia faithful’ piece is real, but is also instrumentalised as a means of enforcing regime control at home & creating military power abroad - generating militias etc as force multipliers. 

Nor does it stop the IRGC cooperating with supposed ideological enemies. It funds Hamas (Sunni), trained AQ (Sunni) in Lebanon to build truck bombs prior to AQ attacks on US embassies in East Africa, & sheltered top AQ officials in Iran itself for years after 2001 Afghan invasion. 

All to say Iran is a realist international actor pursuing a strategy to increase its regional power & influence. Terrorism is usually the tactic of choice, but where core interests are involved they’re prepared to employ conventional force to supplement their militias, see Iraq & Syria 2012 - present.

Happily, the lot currently in Downing St clearly have no interest in replaying the ‘great game’ in Asia. The one big decision I’d like to see is getting the few hundred UK troops currently deployed as trainers in Iraq out, then staying out.

The corollary to that will be standing back, watching the massacres unfold   as the region slowly shreds itself, drop these ludicrous delusions about arresting this or that horror-bag and saying very frankly that it ain’t our problem. 

If the Americans still think the Middle East is worth the candle then they’re welcome to it. 
 

[blandy]

3 minutes ago, chrisp65 said:

We’re being faced with a succession of pretty awful choices in life at the moment. Lots of binary choices on what to do or who to support where the two options are both shit.

Fascinating to see the number of people that are now up for a bit of political debate. People that weren’t all that motivated to bother having an opinion when it was about the number of NHS dentists available or whether teaching assistants are worth funding.

Then the choices get down to skirting around Gulf War 3, spending more on NATO, sacking off Northern Ireland and people are energised. But not in a good way. It’s like the **** aggressive nutter gene has been triggered.

I wonder how many of the people ‘up for it’ would personally face the consequences. How many of them think Poppy Day and Help For Heroes should be replaced with proper budgeting of the military that includes life long care and support of all the people it **** up mentally and physically.

See all those tents in your High Street or park? How many of them people did you send on the last adventure?

UK currently running at approximately 52% idiot. 

I agree with a lot of the sentiment behind that, but sort of don't agree with all that much of the content, if that makes sense. Being semi-forensic/pedantic, what I mean is that

1. "we're" not faced with any choices at all on most stuff. It is what it is, "we" the normal folk have no say or choice. Sure we can discuss if we agree or disagree with the orange shit-gibbon or with the murderous Iranian Republican Guard or whatever, but realistically, as far as. I can tell they're all "bad". Bad man ordered killing of other bad man, for reasons which are murky at best. So yeah, it's shit, but it's not a "choice".

2. People up for debate. This is interesting. going back to the first point you make, if someone feels that on the UK Gov't election Johnson was terrible and Corbyn was terrible (and here we sort of had a Hobson's choice,  I agree) then maybe people didn't bother choosing. But when it comes to something presented (falsely, perhaps) as nasty bad terror man killed by nasty US drone, people can at least see a baddie in there - either, if it suits their prejudice or world view, US aggression or Middle Eastern terror nutters and feel "they need to be stopped".

3. Yeah, totally. It's always been like that, I think. Politicians of wherever sending other people's kids to be killed and injured and do killing and injuring, with all the grim consequences never really impacting them or their families. And then as you say, they don't look after the poor souls when they come back broken and damaged.

52% idiot - I don't accept this at all. Probably about 98% lacking in accurate, unbiased information, but not "idiot". Of course people have differing levels of intelligence and people make incomprehensible decisions at times, but mostly I don't think it's so much through being idiots, as being uninformed, or misled, through no fault of their own. There are a lot of very powerful and vested interests controlling things and keeping people misled and uniformed and most of these interests are not benign or "good". They are mostly self interests amongst leaders, business, religious figures and so on.

 

[blandy]

1 minute ago, Awol said:

The corollary to that will be standing back, watching the massacres unfold   as the region slowly shreds itself, drop these ludicrous delusions about arresting this or that horror-bag and saying very frankly that it ain’t our problem. 

I'd give your whole post more than 1 like if I could, but this bit in particular. It's not an easy choice,  but it's always been my view that this is the least bad option. I think we (the UK) should have a strong (enough) military to defend ourselves, and our allies against malevolent actors, but that it should be a last resort, and a deterrent, not a tool of international influence beyond "we will protect the UK and our genuine friends from attack". We should not go beyond that. The idea that we can spread democracy to areas that have no tradition of it, or that we can "free oppressed people" in the Middle East or elsewhere is proven wrong again and again. We do more harm than good. Whether it's Libya, Syria or Iraq (2nd time). Clearing Saddam out of Kuwait was, on balance, right when he invaded in 1990/1. But that's where it should have stopped. There are vile people in control in Syria, Iran, Israel, Russia and so on, but we can't change that, and the people there overall don't want the West deciding their futures. Stay out of it, militarily. There are pretty dire people in charge in the US, Australia, Hungary etc. too, and we wouldn't dream of trying to militarily address that - their people elected their leaders. Leave them be, use diplomacy, sure, but the notion of force is inconceivable and so it should be in the Middle East.

[sne]

The leaders of Iran are no doubt horrible religious/nationalistic nutters with a agenda non of us want to see come to fruition.

On the flip side the axis of goodness in this conflict that are the US, Israel and Saudi Arabia are not exactly in it for the goodness of their hearts or altruistic reasons. They are just as bad or even worse.

[Awol]

8 minutes ago, blandy said:

I think we (the UK) should have a strong (enough) military to defend ourselves, and our allies against malevolent actors, but that it should be a last resort, and a deterrent, not a tool of international influence beyond "we will protect the UK and our genuine friends from attack". We should not go beyond that. The idea that we can spread democracy to areas that have no tradition of it, or that we can "free oppressed people" in the Middle East or elsewhere is proven wrong again and again. We do more harm than good. Whether it's Libya, Syria or Iraq (2nd time). Clearing Saddam out of Kuwait was, on balance, right when he invaded in 1990/1. But that's where it should have stopped. There are vile people in control in Syria, Iran, Israel, Russia and so on, but we can't change that, and the people there overall don't want the West deciding their futures. Stay out of it, militarily. There are pretty dire people in charge in the US, Australia, Hungary etc. too, and we wouldn't dream of trying to militarily address that - their people elected their leaders. Leave them be, use diplomacy, sure, but the notion of force is inconceivable and so it should be in the Middle East.

Agreed. There’s no question we genuinely did some good in the Balkans, as a result buying the whole R2P and the “force for good” stuff informing the post-Cold War UK mindset. I now think it was the exception that proved the rule - probably due to the European context.

Those advocating that approach also need to be aware that a shift in cultural mindset away from “white saviour” (copyright D Lammy) syndrome, will likely see a fall in public support for foreign aid to regions in conflict, and even greater hostility to accepting refugees - if the ME really melts down it’ll make the flows from Syria look like a picnic. 

Basically we’d look and act a lot more like Japan does now internationally than the country we’re used to. Some will definitely find that hard to swallow. 

[chrisp65]

51 minutes ago, blandy said:

I agree with a lot of the sentiment behind that, but sort of don't agree with all that much of the content, if that makes sense. Being semi-forensic/pedantic, what I mean is that

1. "we're" not faced with any choices at all on most stuff. It is what it is, "we" the normal folk have no say or choice. Sure we can discuss if we agree or disagree with the orange shit-gibbon or with the murderous Iranian Republican Guard or whatever, but realistically, as far as. I can tell they're all "bad". Bad man ordered killing of other bad man, for reasons which are murky at best. So yeah, it's shit, but it's not a "choice".

2. People up for debate. This is interesting. going back to the first point you make, if someone feels that on the UK Gov't election Johnson was terrible and Corbyn was terrible (and here we sort of had a Hobson's choice,  I agree) then maybe people didn't bother choosing. But when it comes to something presented (falsely, perhaps) as nasty bad terror man killed by nasty US drone, people can at least see a baddie in there - either, if it suits their prejudice or world view, US aggression or Middle Eastern terror nutters and feel "they need to be stopped".

3. Yeah, totally. It's always been like that, I think. Politicians of wherever sending other people's kids to be killed and injured and do killing and injuring, with all the grim consequences never really impacting them or their families. And then as you say, they don't look after the poor souls when they come back broken and damaged.

52% idiot - I don't accept this at all. Probably about 98% lacking in accurate, unbiased information, but not "idiot". Of course people have differing levels of intelligence and people make incomprehensible decisions at times, but mostly I don't think it's so much through being idiots, as being uninformed, or misled, through no fault of their own. There are a lot of very powerful and vested interests controlling things and keeping people misled and uniformed and most of these interests are not benign or "good". They are mostly self interests amongst leaders, business, religious figures and so on.

 

Without turning this in to ping pong a couple of really quick responses.

1.0 we do have a choice, the US chose Trump, he has managed (with his next election and an impeachment looming) to get the crowds on the streets of Iran to stop protesting the price rises and start chanting ‘death to America’. The U.S. voted for that guy. We voted for Brexit then doubled down by endorsing the Brexit champion Johnson. We have voted to need to be the U.S. loyal side kick. We will be loyal sidekick to a crook that will kill people as a diversion. We have chosen that path.

2.0 People can absolutely see the baddie. A man almost 100% of people could not have named or identified 3 days ago is now confirmed to millions as the bad guy. I don’t doubt for a second that someone high up in Iran didn’t get there for hosting charity fundraisers. But time and time again we are fed this juvenile white hat / black hat narrative and we (as a whole) are keen to suck it up. If we are so knowing on the Middle East how is it so **** up after 100 years of our benevolent oversight and parental guidance?

that’s it for now, got to do last night’s dishes!