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Randy, you've not yet said what form you think this intervention should take and what you think it would achieve despite being asked directly by wiggin and myself. Your proposed plan here seems to be:
a) Bomb the bad guys
b) ???
c) Free and democratic Syria
Care to fill is in a little more, or is this thread just going to be a venue for Asmodian's pro-dictator dick-waving?
I honestly don't know. I think that's a good summary unfortunately :(
Ideally like wiggin says that it'd be ideally a good idea if we can get around the problems, I do acknowledge that the problems are pretty serious though. I just think in the face of such bloodshed it should be possible to do something.
Interesting to note one Arab state (Qatar) has openly considered Arab force as an option now: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-16561493 - It's a start.
I don't think it makes sense to separate the desirability of something and its practicality. It's like saying that it would be great if we could achieve world peace. Well that's nice, but that's no practical way of obtaining that goal, so the whole point is moot.
Doing something doesn't necessarily mean military action. For all those who claim "money" doesn't matter as a powerful political force domestically, it definitely matters in foreign affairs, and is used as a weapon. ie, Iran's central bank feeling the pressure from other central banks, and the rial losing value.....Quote:
Originally Posted by RandBlade
Second best misspelling of the day! ;)Quote:
Originally Posted by Loki
I disagree with you, though. World Peace isn't some impractical goal, or moot point. It doesn't have to start as a globally collective agreement and work its way down, but probably begins in smaller units and works its way up, and out. It's harder to fight (or kill) people in our daily lives, or anyone we have a relationship with. If Syrians are killing their own neighbors, or their military is killing its own people....that signals a massive disconnect between people....that can't be solved by other nations coming in with lethal force.
So, a few more hundred dead in Homs and another Russian/Chinese veto in the UN. Where is this going?
More violence. I think we're going to begin to see the Syrian military start to lose control over the countryside and economic-based protests in the major cities is probably a few months away. If the Alawites know what's good for them, they'll depose Assad and create some kind of a unity government that gives them disproportionate power. Otherwise, Syria is heading for an economic collapse, and the only thing that could save Assad is a massive military assault against the opposition (likely with Iran's and Hezbollah's help).
I like Jentleson's approach: http://news.yahoo.com/blogs/envoy/fo...221239125.html
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Originally Posted by Loki
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Bruce Jentleson,
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former senior adviser on Middle East issues at the State Department office of Policy Planning, 2009-2011, now at Duke University (via email):Flood the zone—Do lots short of military intervention: tighten sanctions, keep naming and shaming Russia and China, provide refugee relief. Don't arm the opposition, but don't kill ourselves stopping others from doing so if they so choose. No boots on the ground--but perhaps some Nikes on the ground (as there likely already are, whether US/French/Turkish or other).
Find channels--probably quiet ones and not necessarily U.S. ones--to reach out to key Syrian elites like the business community that while having been pro-Assad, has its own interests which it may be starting to see as pointing in a different direction. And do all this without making it a U.S. issue. Call it 'lead with partners, lead for results" ... with the Arab League and individual Arab states out front.
How does anyone provide 'refugee relief' under those circumstances? They're ALL citizen refugees, risk their lives taking wounded to hospital, or burying the dead.
There are refugee camps at the Turkish border; if a guarantee of their safety was made explicit by the UN/NATO/US/Arab league/whoever, I imagine they would grow in size significantly.
I wonder if Russia's veto will bring an end to Putin's re-election bid. Surely the Russian people are seeing what's happening (and how the Russian government is turning a blind eye because they want to pretend to be a world superpower again) just the same as everyone else.
It is looking like more and more of a systematic reprisal against civilian protests, one city at a time: they destroy the fire station and the hospital and then shell the residential buildings with tanks...
Speaking of tanks, don't we need some more target practice for our drone pilots?
Not a chance.Quote:
Originally Posted by agamemnus
The opposite. The Russian people punish politicians seen as pro-Western. Part of the reason for the veto is Putin trumping his anti-Western credentials in the president's race.Quote:
Originally Posted by agamemnus
Silly question but are Jews considered Western in Russia? Sure would explain their mass deportation to Israhell.Quote:
Originally Posted by Loki
Russia deported Jews to Israel? :confused:
Impossible to answer a question with another question.Quote:
Originally Posted by Loki
Impossible to answer stupidity.
Do Russians consider Jews to be Western?Quote:
Originally Posted by Loki
Jews are a religion/race, not a nationality. That's like saying do they consider Christians to be western when they're a nation of Orthodox Christians themselves, or do they consider whites to be western when they're a white race themselves.
They probably consider Israel to be western. Jews != Israel.
Didn't we already cover the :bulb: surrounding calling Jews a race?
There's a fundamental misconception here, Being. Back during the USSR, Jews were discriminated against and were absolutely forbidden to emigrate to Israel - very few were allowed out of the country, despite the fact that Israel would have been happy to take them. For example, read Sharansky's excellent book Fear No Evil about his time as a Zionist and human rights activist in the USSR and his subsequent imprisonment by the KGB and time in gulag.Quote:
Originally Posted by Being
As the Soviet Union fell apart, such emigration restrictions were eliminated, and as a result over a million Russian/Eastern European Jews fled - mostly to Israel and the United States. They were NEVER deported.
I suspect that the reasons why Jews were discriminated against in the USSR was multifaceted. The discrimination went back much earlier than the establishment of the State of Israel (and actually early on in Israel's time, the USSR was friendly with them) - there is deep-seated antisemitism in the region and frequent pogroms reaching back centuries. Furthermore, communist/Soviet doctrine had a strong antireligious stance and was opposed to organized religion at all, so most forms of Jewish ritual/worship/observance/education were forbidden along with other religions. I suspect that as the USSR and Israel became antagonists in the 50s and 60s, some Russian Jews who also were Zionists may also have been persecuted on that basis.
I'm sure that this is a very simplistic summary of a complex and multifaceted story of Jews in Russia/USSR, but the point is that it probably has little to do with some perception of Jews as a group being pro-Western.
RB/OG: Really, let's not hash out the 'Are Jews a X?' again, eh?
I don't remember that, but I thought Jews could reasonably be defined as a race. Certainly there are genetic differences between Ashkenazi Jews I thought as opposed to other Europeans.Quote:
Originally Posted by Ominous Gamer
Race is a social construct. There are no objective criteria that determine whether a certain group is a race. If you meant ethnic group, it's still ambiguous because of two millenia of inter-marriage. Without inter-marriage, an average Jew would look pretty similar to an average Arab. :noob:Quote:
Originally Posted by RandBlade
Loki, Jews actually did practice a remarkable degree of endogamy for the last few millennia; IIRC genetic studies have shown that disparate Jewish groups (i.e. European vs. African vs. Middle Eastern) actually share more genetics in common with each other than their respective non-Jewish neighbors. So depending on one's biological definition of race and/or ethnicity, one might argue they are one, but it's a highly subjective construct. I suspect that Jews tend to 'look' roughly like their non-Jewish neighbors after a few centuries has more to do with selection and environmental factors than anything else - certainly this isn't to suggest that there hasn't been conversions/rapes/intermarriages over the years, but it has not appreciably led to genetic intermingling on any large scale.
This is much less the case today; there is a roughly 50% intermarriage rate in the US, and it's probably higher in other countries that don't have large communities.
Then why does your average Ashkenazi Jew look so much different from a Sephardic (or Yemenite) Jew? :noob:
Magnets!
Environmental factors for the most part, along with some genetic factors (they're related, not identical). There may also be founder effect issues, especially with the Ashkenazi population (brief explanation: if a new population starts off with a very small sample size of the broader source population, these 'founders' may result in a distinct subgrouping just because they are selected from a much larger and more diverse background; it appears that a large proportion of Ashkenazi Jews are descended from only a handful of distinct lineages).Quote:
Originally Posted by Loki
Walk around Israel and look at the kids of Ashkenazi vs. Mizrahi descent. If they've been in Israel for a few generations, the differences are far less pronounced than you might think. Diet has a lot to do with it, along with environmental stresses (climate etc.). It's not the only factor, of course, but it's an important one. The genetic studies don't lie; it seems like there are strong genetic relationships between geographically separate Jewish communities.
I'll take your word for it. I will note that ethnicity has an objective and subjective component; numerous groups with close genetic ties don't recognize themselves as being part of the same ethnicity, and plenty of groups that do consider themselves part of the same ethnicity don't have much in the way of genetic ties. Ultimately, Jews have some claim to being an ethnic group today because of Jewish cultural norms (i.e. strong resistance to outside influence, including inter-marriage) and because of the Jewish religion (i.e. most countries refused to assimilate Jews even if they wanted to), with the latter mainly being an accident of history (i.e. Jews being blamed for killing the founder of Christianity, a religion that eventually spread to most of Europe, and which had strong influences on Islam). Genes would not override these social realities, and had the latter been different, it's quite likely the Jews would be assimilated into other groups, as was the case of most tribes from two millenia back.
Oh, I don't deny that it may be an accident of history - just look at intermarriage rates outside of Israel today.
I would give the Russian people more credit than you. It's not a question of pro- or anti-Western this time around. I think this is why Putin is talking out of both sides of his head when it comes to the issue. Publicly, he continues saying that the violence must end and it is bad, etc., but obviously when it comes to "facts on the ground" he's doing the exact opposite. I think he is hoping that his speeches and interviews will plaster over the facts on the ground in the media, but I wouldn't be so sure...Quote:
Originally Posted by Loki
Every media report coming out of Russia suggests otherwise.Quote:
Originally Posted by agamemnus
Thak you wiggin, much more relevant information than I thought I would get with such a silly question. I didn't use the word deported literally, discrimination causes people to move to more hospitable environs.Quote:
Originally Posted by wiggin