U.S. Politics

[villakram]

6 hours ago, blandy said:

I dunno. I mean the President of USA ought, to my mind at least, be a bit more considered in his words and actions than something that flips more often than a windsock in a tornado.

International affairs ought to be something that are analysed in great detail before words , formal positions and actions are taken.

Trump's just an  idiot blowhard, reacting to whatever stimulus he most recently detected. Bad!

I agree, but that is very difficult to achieve in practice, e.g., see the mess the Tories have gotten themselves in. In comparison, one might say that the best examples of what you state are Russia/China/E.U., and there are clear democratic/accountability issues with each of those institutional schemes.

It's just that Trump is making this incredibly obvious. Obama would continuously make one of those pretty speeches extolling virtuous this and that, while then signing off on exactly the opposite, e.g., Yemen/Syria/Afghan/Egypt/TPP/US oil production. Likewise Bush was closer to Trump than Obama, but still a large distance from Trump. The mask slips and I find peoples reaction to it funny. In objective terms, not a great deal has changed.

Edited April 5, 2018 by villakram

[HanoiVillan]

A trip down memory lane. 

[TheAuthority]

42 minutes ago, HanoiVillan said:

A trip down memory lane. 

Governments lying to their populations is nothing new. But the Bush/Cheney/Rumsfield/Wolfowitz rat-pack were the absolute kings of telling straight faced porky pies. Oh and don't forget around the same time Blair telling Parliament that Saddam's missiles could reach the UK in 45 mins?

[Chindie]

I'd probably argue that for straight up lying, the Trump regime takes the prize. Literally everything said is some form of lie. Even the stuff that doesn't even matter.

[bickster]

The Stormy Daniels thing certainly seems to have blown up in his face now

He opened his mouth yesterday and dropped Cohen right in it, whilst also effectively breaking the contract he said he knew nothing about which also meant the contract was also invalid in the first place.

That's also has repercussions that may mean Attorney / Client privilege between Trump and Cohen also no longer apply so Mr Mueller may be coming knocking on Cohens door again real soon. Currently he's $130,000 out of pocket (if you believe this nonsense), paying off someone who he says has zero credibility (run that one by me again, why are you paying her) and he did this by taking out a personal loan against his own property (really?) to do something his client knew nothing about (illegal and a reason to be disbarred in itself).

I think if this ever went in front of a Jury they'd need incontinence pants supplied by the state

Get out of that one then...

 

[TheAuthority]

4 hours ago, Chindie said:

I'd probably argue that for straight up lying, the Trump regime takes the prize. Literally everything said is some form of lie. Even the stuff that doesn't even matter.

Sure they do, but (thus far) the Trump admin has not lied the US and it's closest ally into two, decade long wars.

[TheAuthority]

As we a going down memory lane I was reminded of this website* which was started in around 2003. It catalogues the cost of all of the wars in the name of "war on terror." Worth a quick and sobering look.

https://www.nationalpriorities.org/cost-of/

*Used to be costofwar.com but the organization has developed.

[peterms]

On 04/04/2018 at 19:20, villakram said:

Trump agrees to maintain illegal US invasion of Syria.

Not just maintain it, but actually extend and entrench it.  Here.

Quote

The United States is currently building two new military bases in the north of Syria, more specifically in the Manbij region. This means the American army shifts slightly closer to the Euphrates and towards the area controlled by the Turkish army.

 

[HanoiVillan]

19 minutes ago, peterms said:

Not just maintain it, but actually extend and entrench it.  Here.

 

Let's not forget that we're there too:

British soldier killed by explosion in Syria

'A British soldier fighting against Islamic State has died in an explosion in Syria, the Ministry of Defence has said.

The individual, who was embedded with US forces, was killed on Thursday night alongside an American soldier.

Five others were wounded in the roadside bomb blast in Manbij, northern Syria, near the Turkish border. No further details about the victims have yet been released.

A spokesperson for the MoD said: “It is with regret that we must confirm that a member of the UK armed forces was killed by an improvised explosive device in Syria yesterday.'

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/mar/30/british-soldier-killed-explosion-syria

Though of course politicians don't want to acknowledge that:

Pissing on me and telling me it's raining as usual. I look forward to his passionate calls for intervention to stop the bloodshed in Yemen, which I'm sure will be arriving some time soon. 

[peterms]

4 minutes ago, HanoiVillan said:

Though of course politicians don't want to acknowledge that:

The difficulty with doing so, as Mark Curtis points out, is that it would be an admission of acting illegally.

Quote

...There is a good reason why the UK never admits to undertaking covert action. As the same House of Commons briefing notes, “assistance to opposition forces is illegal”.

A precedent was set in the Nicaragua case in the 1980s, when US-backed covert forces tried to overthrow the Sandinista government. The International Court of Justice held that a third state may not forcibly help the opposition to overthrow a government because it would breach the principle of non-intervention and prohibition on the use of force.

This means that Britain has been acting illegally in its years-long covert operation in Syria, and anywhere else it deploys covert forces without agreement from the host state...

We don't seem prepared to go quite as far as the US in openly flouting international law and being utterly shameless about it.  We seem to think it better to be very slightly more discreet.  Not much more, just a little.

[blandy]

33 minutes ago, peterms said:

The difficulty with doing so, as Mark Curtis points out, is that it would be an admission of acting illegally.

We don't seem prepared to go quite as far as the US in openly flouting international law and being utterly shameless about it.  We seem to think it better to be very slightly more discreet.  Not much more, just a little.

Do you think (as a general point) that international law has kept up with changing nature of the world? specifically the development of non-national terrorist groups such as ISIL and Al-Qaida? My feeling is that it hasn't.

You put forward an argument for the UK (and others) to get involved in Libya and used an analogy of Srebrenica as a reason

On 22/02/2011 at 19:51, peterms said:

I would make a big distinction between long-term interventions aimed at gaining control of their natural resources, and short-term intervention to prevent mass murder. The first is deeply unwelcome to the people of the countries involved, the second is needed now.

Latest reports are that Libyan ships are shelling Benghazi. What is the difference between this and Srebrenica?

Of all the possible reasons for spending billions each year on military power, being able to intervene quickly and effectively in situations like this is surely the most defensible.

Our history looks too much like intervening in our self-interest, but standing around playing for time uttering sympathetic but hypocritical noises when speedy intervention is called for.

Yes, it's hard to draw the line. Why intervene here, now, and not other places where corrupt rulers are killing people on a larger scale without attracting the same media interest? My answer is that the failure of international diplomacy in other situations doesn't make it right to sit out every new instance.

What's the difference between the slaughter in Syria and the slaughter in Libya or Srebrenica?

The point of my post really is to put forward that "international law" is not fit for purpose given the state of the world today. People can make arguments for or against intervening in the horrible mess that has arisen for a multitude of complex reasons in the middle east, but for me "abiding by / contravening international law" is one of the weakest. It's a shame that it is so, but that's where we are, IMO.

Consistency may be over rated, but politicians demanding action in (say) Libya and decrying action in (say) Syria seems a little twisty~turny. The USA stayed out of Libya, and initially reluctantly got involved in Syria, we've almost been the opposite, being keen to intervene in Libya and then Cameron losing the Syria involvement argument.

The presence of a small number of embedded (presumably specialists - special forces, or bomb disposal or chemical weapons treatment experts or whatever) troops with US forces may technically be a breach of an unfit law, but realistically it's not a stick to beat anyone with.

[OutByEaster?]

57 minutes ago, HanoiVillan said:

'A British soldier fighting against Islamic State'

Is that what we're doing in Syria then? 

 

[blandy]

3 minutes ago, OutByEaster? said:

Is that what we're doing in Syria then? 

That's a very good question. I don't think anyone knows what we're doing in Syria at an overview level - Cameron couldn't explain it when there was the vote on it and no one has since.

[HanoiVillan]

6 minutes ago, blandy said:

The presence of a small number of embedded (presumably specialists - special forces, or bomb disposal or chemical weapons treatment experts or whatever) troops with US forces may technically be a breach of an unfit law, but realistically it's not a stick to beat anyone with.

Is it not a breach of the parliamentary vote which failed to authorise military engagement in Syria? I mean, it kind of makes it seem pretty pointless having democratic votes if the government just goes ahead and does what it doesn't get permission for anyway. 

[blandy]

Just now, HanoiVillan said:

Is it not a breach of the parliamentary vote which failed to authorise military engagement in Syria? I mean, it kind of makes it seem pretty pointless having democratic votes if the government just goes ahead and does what it doesn't get permission for anyway. 

Yes I agree. My point really was about international law being out of date, to say the least and so not really a strong argument for "don't intervene because the law doesn't allow it" - there are many arguments of much greater merit, for and against. I'm not defending the UK getting involved - I wouldn't have in either Libya or Syria, though obviously I don't know what I'm talking about as just an idiot on the football bit of the internet, rather than anyone with a Country to lead.

On 22/02/2011 at 20:19, blandy said:

And under no circs should we be sending the RAF to bomb the crap out of Egyptian bases or whatever. They would not "welcome" us, and I wouldn't blame them.

Libya too, we should not be attacking their soil.

The UN, which is admittedly sclerotic may need to intervene, for humanitarian purposes, but only under their auspices should, maybe, UK forces be involved, and even then, seing as they are so overstretched, I rather think we should leave it alone, militarily.

 

[HanoiVillan]

9 minutes ago, blandy said:

Yes I agree. My point really was about international law being out of date, to say the least and so not really a strong argument for "don't intervene because the law doesn't allow it" - there are many arguments of much greater merit, for and against. I'm not defending the UK getting involved - I wouldn't have in either Libya or Syria, though obviously I don't know what I'm talking about as just an idiot on the football bit of the internet, rather than anyone with a Country to lead.

 

I think we're pretty close to agreement here, but what I would say is that I would like to hear government ministers making serious arguments about international law being out of date, and ways to improve it which are not simply backdoors to making international conflict easier, rather than you having to give the best-faith interpretation. But they're not doing that, they're engaging in 'secret war' stuff, so now it'll be impossible for me to take them seriously even if they start the conversation. 

Stuff like this is absolutely corrosive to trust in politics. 

[blandy]

5 minutes ago, HanoiVillan said:

I think we're pretty close to agreement here, but what I would say is that I would like to hear government ministers making serious arguments about international law being out of date, and ways to improve it which are not simply backdoors to making international conflict easier, rather than you having to give the best-faith interpretation. But they're not doing that, they're engaging in 'secret war' stuff, so now it'll be impossible for me to take them seriously even if they start the conversation. 

Stuff like this is absolutely corrosive to trust in politics. 

I agree with you that "I would like to hear government ministers making serious arguments about international law being out of date" completely. I am less sure that "they're engaging in 'secret war' stuff [and as a result] people will further lower their view of politics. I'm not sure there is any trust left in politics, anyway. It's all just become totally tribal in the USA and in the UK.

My feeling is that a small number of British troops being in Syria would almost be expected by anyone with half an interest in what's going on there. And for as long as it is only a few special forces bods most people would not equate that with the vote back in 2013 or whenever it was as some kind of "betrayal". As Peter said "We seem to think it better to be very slightly more discreet" compared to the US style of having a big stick and waving it around very publicly. I'm less sure that the US public would be so sort of accepting of their troops being sent to the middle east yet again (to keep the thread on topic).

 

[peterms]

38 minutes ago, blandy said:

Do you think (as a general point) that international law has kept up with changing nature of the world? specifically the development of non-national terrorist groups such as ISIL and Al-Qaida? My feeling is that it hasn't.

No, it hasn't.  It's based on nation states, and doesn't seem able to deal with the growing power of cross-national forces, whether those are private companies or undeclared alliances of parts of states, as in for example Syria, where the US President says one thing and sections of the military promptly do the opposite, working with other national interests in doing so.

38 minutes ago, blandy said:

You put forward an argument for the UK (and others) to get involved in Libya and used an analogy of Srebrenica as a reason

I think the basis for that argument is shot.  We were presented with a scenario of Libyan forces imminently launching mass attacks on civilians, which turned out to be greatly exaggerated and which policymakers no longer stand by.  See for example the HoC committee report:

Quote

32.Despite his rhetoric, the proposition that Muammar Gaddafi would have ordered the massacre of civilians in Benghazi was not supported by the available evidence. The Gaddafi regime had retaken towns from the rebels without attacking civilians in early February 2011.72 During fighting in Misrata, the hospital recorded 257 people killed and 949 people wounded in February and March 2011. Those casualties included 22 women and eight children.73 Libyan doctors told United Nations investigators that Tripoli’s morgues contained more than 200 corpses following fighting in late February 2011, of whom two were female.74 The disparity between male and female casualties suggested that Gaddafi regime forces targeted male combatants in a civil war and did not indiscriminately attack civilians. More widely, Muammar Gaddafi’s 40-year record of appalling human rights abuses did not include large-scale attacks on Libyan civilians.75

33.On 17 March 2011, Muammar Gaddafi announced to the rebels in Benghazi, “Throw away your weapons, exactly like your brothers in Ajdabiya and other places did. They laid down their arms and they are safe. We never pursued them at all.”76 Subsequent investigation revealed that when Gaddafi regime forces retook Ajdabiya in February 2011, they did not attack civilians.77 Muammar Gaddafi also attempted to appease protesters in Benghazi with an offer of development aid before finally deploying troops.78

34.Professor Joffé told us that

the rhetoric that was used was quite blood-curdling, but again there were past examples of the way in which Gaddafi would actually behave. If you go back to the American bombings in the 1980s of Benghazi and Tripoli, rather than trying to remove threats to the regime in the east, in Cyrenaica, Gaddafi spent six months trying to pacify the tribes that were located there. The evidence is that he was well aware of the insecurity of parts of the country and of the unlikelihood that he could control them through sheer violence. Therefore, he would have been very careful in the actual response…the fear of the massacre of civilians was vastly overstated.79

Alison Pargeter concurred with Professor Joffé’s judgment on Muammar Gaddafi’s likely course of action in February 2011. She concluded that there was no “real evidence at that time that Gaddafi was preparing to launch a massacre against his own civilians.”80

35.We were told that émigrés opposed to Muammar Gaddafi exploited unrest in Libya by overstating the threat to civilians and encouraging Western powers to intervene.81 In the course of his 40-year dictatorship Muammar Gaddafi had acquired many enemies in the Middle East and North Africa, who were similarly prepared to exaggerate the threat to civilians. Alison Pargeter told us that

the issue of mercenaries was amplified. I was told by Libyans here, “The Africans are coming. They’re going to massacre us. Gaddafi’s sending Africans into the streets. They’re killing our families.” I think that that was very much amplified. But I also think the Arab media played a very important role here. Al-Jazeera in particular, but also al-Arabiya, were reporting that Gaddafi was using air strikes against people in Benghazi and, I think, were really hamming everything up, and it turned out not to be true.82

36.An Amnesty International investigation in June 2011 could not corroborate allegations of mass human rights violations by Gaddafi regime troops. However, it uncovered evidence that rebels in Benghazi made false claims and manufactured evidence. The investigation concluded that

much Western media coverage has from the outset presented a very one-sided view of the logic of events, portraying the protest movement as entirely peaceful and repeatedly suggesting that the regime’s security forces were unaccountably massacring unarmed demonstrators who presented no security challenge.83

37.Many Western policymakers genuinely believed that Muammar Gaddafi would have ordered his troops to massacre civilians in Benghazi, if those forces had been able to enter the city. However, while Muammar Gaddafi certainly threatened violence against those who took up arms against his rule, this did not necessarily translate into a threat to everyone in Benghazi. In short, the scale of the threat to civilians was presented with unjustified certainty. US intelligence officials reportedly described the intervention as “an intelligence-light decision”.84

38.We have seen no evidence that the UK Government carried out a proper analysis of the nature of the rebellion in Libya. It may be that the UK Government was unable to analyse the nature of the rebellion in Libya due to incomplete intelligence and insufficient institutional insight and that it was caught up in events as they developed. It could not verify the actual threat to civilians posed by the Gaddafi regime; it selectively took elements of Muammar Gaddafi’s rhetoric at face value; and it failed to identify the militant Islamist extremist element in the rebellion. UK strategy was founded on erroneous assumptions and an incomplete understanding of the evidence.

The shadow of Srebrenica

39.The Bosnian Serb Army killed more than 8,000 Muslims near the town of Srebrenica in July 1995. The international community’s inability to prevent that act of genocide influenced a generation of Western politicians and policymakers. Dr Fox told us that “a fear of…another Srebrenica on our hands…was very much a driving factor in the decision-making at the time.”85 Lord Richards observed that “it would be a stain on our conscience for ever if we allowed another Srebrenica; I remember a lot of talk about Srebrenica”.86 Lord Hague also cited the influence of Srebrenica on his thinking.87 The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs, Tobias Ellwood MP, referred to “the horrific examples of Srebrenica, and Rwanda before, which we saw unfolding again before us in Libya in 2011.”88

40.In his analysis of the operation of the National Security Council in February and March 2011, Sir Anthony Seldon reported a generational split between the 40-something politicians, including the then Prime Minister and Deputy Prime Minister, for whom Srebrenica had been a formative experience, and older officials, who highlighted the need to strike a deal with Muammar Gaddafi.89 Given the lack of reliable intelligence on which to build policy, British politicians and policymakers may have attached undue weight to their individual and collective memories of the appalling events at Srebrenica.

38 minutes ago, blandy said:

What's the difference between the slaughter in Syria and the slaughter in Libya or Srebrenica?

I think there's more similarity between Syria and Libya, for example self-interested motives of intervening countries, and exaggerated and unfounded stories of imminent slaughter propounded by opposition forces.  Srebrenica actually was what the Libyan and Syrian opposition claimed was happening to them.

38 minutes ago, blandy said:

The point of my post really is to put forward that "international law" is not fit for purpose given the state of the world today. People can make arguments for or against intervening in the horrible mess that has arisen for a multitude of complex reasons in the middle east, but for me "abiding by / contravening international law" is one of the weakest. It's a shame that it is so, but that's where we are, IMO.

Consistency may be over rated, but politicians demanding action in (say) Libya and decrying action in (say) Syria seems a little twisty~turny. The USA stayed out of Libya, and initially reluctantly got involved in Syria, we've almost been the opposite, being keen to intervene in Libya and then Cameron losing the Syria involvement argument.

Perhaps the lessons of Libya might inform current thinking on Syria.

38 minutes ago, blandy said:

The presence of a small number of embedded (presumably specialists - special forces, or bomb disposal or chemical weapons treatment experts or whatever) troops with US forces may technically be a breach of an unfit law, but realistically it's not a stick to beat anyone with.

It goes back to the question of what we are doing there, and by what right.  It's very clearly about regime change in the interests of strategic partners like Saudi and Israel, and to change the regional balance of power by weakening Iran and reducing Russian influence.  At least with Libya there was a belief that it was meant to be a humanitarian intervention, even if there were other motives alongside.

[blandy]

25 minutes ago, peterms said:

It goes back to the question of what we are doing there, and by what right.  It's very clearly about regime change in the interests of strategic partners like Saudi and Israel, and to change the regional balance of power by weakening Iran and reducing Russian influence.  At least with Libya there was a belief that it was meant to be a humanitarian intervention, even if there were other motives alongside.

Thank you for the long answer. I agree with a fair chunk of it.

On the quoted bit, I'm less sure I agree. I don't see that the (very limited) UK involvement is about helping out Israel or Saudi interests, and I don't see that it's even about weakening Iran or was initially about reducing Russian influence, though there's definitely an aspect of that now from the US. From the UK perspective, I suspect that our involvement is based around nothing much more than military and to an extent political interest in having a small number of expert troops work with a key ally.  Politically and within military leadership the UK want to be buddies with the US at a military level, to demonstrate that we have expertise and are reliable, militarily. That's pretty much the extent of the motivation in my view.

I also think that there will be some justification to themselves from the UK Gov't people who authorised this involvement that the troops involved are there to save lives in the wider sense - limit casualties, gather information on potential threats to the UK via terrorism, dispose of IEDs, kill leaders or key figures in some of these nut job groups. Maybe also to be there in the event of rescuing hostages, media people kidnapped and threatened with beheadings and so on.

I was just going back to the tunisia thread (it's quite interesting in hindsight, some of the views in there. I saw this

On 02/03/2011 at 23:40, peterms said:

We seem perfectly happy to actively undermine international law when it comes to tax havens, or Israel, but when we might take a stand and lead rather than follow and save lives in the process, we seem to want to prevaricate.

I could imagine such an argument being considered by Gov't regarding (say) an Special forces team being in Syria.

As for the USA and why they're there, (which is more what the thread is about), I think Obama's initial reluctance opened the way for Russia to get involved and the Russians are a lot less squeamish about CWs and such like. The middle east just pulls people in and ends up feeding the tornado.

[blandy]

29 minutes ago, peterms said:

I think there's more similarity between Syria and Libya, for example self-interested motives of intervening countries, and exaggerated and unfounded stories of imminent slaughter propounded by opposition forces.  Srebrenica actually was what the Libyan and Syrian opposition claimed was happening to them.

Perhaps the lessons of Libya might inform current thinking on Syria.

...At least with Libya there was a belief that it was meant to be a humanitarian intervention, even if there were other motives alongside.

On this bit, the slaughter in Syria is huge and horrific, it's not exaggerate or unfounded - it's, if anything, underplayed. irish times

Quote

The third conflict is that between Assad and the rebels who mounted an uprising against his rule in 2011. Russian intervention at Assad’s side tipped the balance in his favour, and today those rebels have been pushed back into their few remaining bastions. Throughout the conflict, Assad has pursued a scorched-earth campaign that has killed hundreds of thousands of people. His latest target is Eastern Ghouta, a pocket of towns and farms near Damascus where nearly 400,000 people have been under government siege since 2013. Almost 300 people have been killed there since Sunday, and reports tell an unspeakable story of whole families wiped out, hospitals destroyed, queues for what little food remains and utter destruction of infrastructure. Aid workers said the latest violence in the area, where 1,300 people died in 2013 after the Assad regime deployed sarin gas, has included the use of indiscriminate barrel bombs. It would be unconscionable for the world to stand idle, but that is exactly what is happening. Western powers refuse to intervene. The UN Security Council, hobbled by the Russian veto, stands impotent. Moscow itself shows no inclination to use its leverage to rein in Assad. A political deal ending the conflict between Assad and Syrian rebels is crucial. But the priority must be to stop the massacre of civilians. The longer the international community allows it to continue, the more complicit it becomes.

And I think "the lessons of Libya" have informed thinking on Syria.