"You're making distinctions where none exist. Al Ahram was the Egyptian government's propaganda organ. So how is this different than the stuff you're talking about in Iran? The fact is 'official propaganda organs' throughout the Middle East say anti-Semitic stuff about Jews and Israel. So why is Iran singled out for being 'insane'?"

Rantings+Nuclear Ambitions= Worried people on the other end of the bulls eye

And the U.S. hasnt intervened against any state that has any semblence of independence, and you know this.

Finally, you are saying that a good portion of Americans dont call GW Bush insane, what rock have you been living under.

*that would be "the US hasnt intervened against every state that has any semblance of independence"

we did do 2 in the last 10 years

And finally, Im not an interventionist, read my post before you throw accusations around

Upon what do you base the assertion that I am an interventionist. I have said nothing of the sort. In what Universe is Libya an enemy of the US? The current Libyan regime has been bending over backwards to do our bidding for 20 years. Of the people you have listed Blair is the only member of the Iraq group. The Neo-Conservatives have been quite vocal in the Mubarak is a dictator chorus. Hitchens, Sullivan, The Weekly Standard, the AEI and most of the hardline Republican types have been looking for a way to use Egypt as a way to damage Obama. They are trying to link Egypt to Iran and paint Obama in as bad a light as possible. The "realists" are defending Mubarak, but they defended Saddam as well. I think that the moment Mubarak really sent in the troops he would have gotten the same treatment. Mubarak had more to do with Israel than anything truly US-oriented explicitly.

As for the Texan crack, I have again bent over backwards to make clear that I was not saying a particular thing and you then choose to reply to that un-argued point. I am coming to the conclusion that it is not random laziness or lack of observation skills on your part but a conscious choice to avoid the actual point. All policy choices do in fact have costs. If Mr. Obama would like to pursue a given policy in spite of the costs, then more power to him and that is the essence of liberal democratic governance; however, the rationale that he is citing exists in la-la-land, and if it is not cynical manipulation targeting the ignorance of other people, then he is insane. Verwoerd can be viewed as evil in light of his racism, but the fact that his actual program had no practical possibility of working in the world of reality and he still clearly believed in it's practicality marks him as insane in my book.

The original point about "sanity" was about Iranian citizens questioning whether the groups in charge of the media actually believed what was being said and that if so they were insane. I am unaware of it, if I have ever met an Arab who thinks that the governing elites of their countries believe their own propaganda. Clearly Mubarak did not. There does seem to be evidence that Faisal did, but I'm unaware of any that the current ruling members of the al-Saud do. Also, I have never doubted Saddam's sanity.

I guess it is a bit intellectually lazy of me, but I spent my last class telling my students why most of the commentators on the financial crisis are stupid. In the interest of consistency, I guess I should make an effort to evaluate their sanity before pronouncing upon their intelligence and honesty. But since you seem to have shown little restraint in attributing beliefs to me that I have never given the slightest indication of holding, I won't beat myself up too badly.

But again to reiterate, this entire conversation was about whether or not Iranian TV could be sighted as an evidentary source to advance a point. Al Ahram can easily be lumped into the same category. If Al Ahram says that Israel is pulling the strings in an Arab political event as Bahrain has claimed, then I will discount it in roughly the same manner as I do Iranian State TV.

As for the Texas crack, even though I do not live in Texas, I am outraged that the State Legislature forces a percentage of electricity production to be wind power thereby placing a highly regressive excise tax on the populace in order to subsidize certain commercial interests including the General Electric Corporation and BP Capital (and formerly Enron) who are then highly politically involved.

The kinds of highly regressive tax schemes that FDR constructed in the 1930s are indeed terribly reactionary.

"And finally, Im not an interventionist, read my post before you throw accusations around"

I didn't say you were, I was referring to gopher. I don't know why you believe I've been addressing you in much of any of this. But feel free to chime in.

"The Neo-Conservatives have been quite vocal in the Mubarak is a dictator chorus. Hitchens, Sullivan, The Weekly Standard"

Who cares about the neo-conservatives? Especially Hitchens? Is he dead yet? Your claim was that Mubarak was being villified in the press. Hardly. Much of the news coverage talked about the threat a revolution in Egypt might pose to the peace treaty. The only time this changed somewhat is when Anderson Cooper got punched in the face. State leaders around in the world, past and present, did not villify Mubarak in the slightest.

As for the 'moment he sent in troops'. Mubarak unleashed his goons on peaceful demonstrators. The rebels in Libya are anything but peaceful. There are scenes of US government cars being used to run over reams of people. There was never any talk of military intervention. The US ruling class tripped over themselves in trying to claim that the opposition had elements of the Muslim Brotherhood, and it could be potentially very dangerous, etc.

Heck, in France it was quite embarrassing. Numerous Sarkozy officials were found in bed with the Tunisia dictatorship. In fact they even advised the government on how to engage in crowd control. So much for the idea that the west cares about removing 'dictatorships', no matter their orientation.

And again, nowhere in any of my posts is there anything which offers even the slightest evidence whether I am or am not an interventionist. And I'm a bit baffled by the accusation. I have stated that I view Libya as a country which consistently kowtows to Washington, so I'm unsure how interventionism would even fit into this context. I guess you are accusing my of being an AmeriKKKa-fascist who should therefore advocate intervening to prop up the current regime.....an issue I have never come close to addressing.

Yeah, I know. I've been astounded by the amount of prose Hitchens has been turning out in the last few months.

Clearly you do not read the WSJ, Slate, The Atlantic, or any number of other publication that have been pretty venomously anti-Mubarak. But again the waffling response was all about Israel and not the US, per see.

As for France, didn't the foreign minister go on vacation to Tunisia during the early stages of the unrest?

Oh and to paraphrase my one time teacher Edward Said, The West can no more be spoken of as a monolithic whole than can the Orient, with motives or even action.

god, i hope he wasnt as awful in person as he is in text

Libya kowtows to the West? How, exactly? Libya has a long list of groups hostile to the West they have armed and trained, even after the fall of the Soviet Union. When Palestinians signed the Oslo Accords, Gaddafi viewed that as a betrayal and decided not help arm the Palestinians anymore. But this idea that he is western client is pretty hilarious. It also completely contradicts your earlier point about Taylor, since Gaddafi most assuredly helped bring Taylor to power as well as armed him. So if Gaddafi was such a western client, why would he do that? Unless Taylor was a client too, I guess, but then why did Bush remove him? Gaddafi also has helped out Khartoum, so is Khartoum a US client? I suppose you could say they have helped with the war on terrorism, but seriously, a client?

Why did Gaddafi have to rely on Russia for all of its military hardware? Doesn't the US like to arm its servants? What about Gaddafi consistently calling for a one-state solution in Israel? Is that the US position these days?

Why was the US so outraged when the Lockerbie bomber was released by Scotland? Why would they care? Why did the US have sanctions on Libya blocking the expansion of oil production? for over a decade after he supposedly started being a client?

If you're not an interventionist, then what is your position on Libya re: western military intervention?

"Oh and to paraphrase my one time teacher Edward Said, The West can no more be spoken of as a monolithic whole than can the Orient, with motives or even action."

You studied English at Columbia? My goodness, what haven't you done? You were a commodity trader for five years and studied under Edward Said. Are you Sue Silvester in disguise?

Havn't you heard? He is an Israeli client ever since he started killing people, Darwyn says so.

on OP:

we should enforce a no-fly zone. the libyan rebels are crying out for it. morally we are obligated to do something.

although if we intervened, i think we should equally intervene in ivory coast.

but oh wait no one gives a shit about ivory coast cause theres no oil there. heh.

well whatever. you pick you battles. stop qaddafi bombing his own people.

troops on the ground though? yeah agreed would probably create more problems than it solved. but definitely arm the rebels, give them a fighting chance.

and monitor the situation closely for islamization.

also what happened to special forces/intelligence?

can we not attempt to assassinate him?

"And I wonder why nobody is talking about intervening in Cote D'Ivoire. Black Africans killing each other is just fine and dandy, I guess."

one point on which i finally agree with you putin.


however... do you really support Gbagbo? Really? Like.... I don't know. You astound me sometimes. If I remember right you also defend Kim Jong Il, correct?

But what about Gaddafi do you support him i didnt read the thread in its entirety. i bet you do, you tend to support autocrats.

and what's this about texas? i can't tell what you guys are debating but i'd be happy to chime in!

Putin, I thought it was all about oil. Libya let Exxon, Occidental and Hess back in the country. Plus he gladly tortured people that the CIA delivered to him. And he helped identify the network that the Israeli's claim was supplying Syria with nuclear tech. How is that not kowtowing to Washington? I mean if you are doing the CIA's torturing for them....

I was a math major at Columbia. I just lucked out that I took classes from Said, Bob Mundell, Peter Awn and Barbara Fields, plus Uma Thurman's dad. But I was a bit of a flake going through history, comparative literature, biochem and philosophy before settling on math. Then I got a Masters, then I was a commodity trader and then I got a PhD in something totally different, if you care.

The release of the Lockerbie bomber was done by the UK. Does that make the UK a non-client?

And again, Said, there is no "West" in the monolith nature of concerns and actions, any more than there is a monolithic "Arab" or "Islamic" or Eastern". France and the US can and do pursue divergent interests. James Goldsmith famously accused the French Intelligence services of assassinating Enrico Mattei. I think it is safe to assume that many Italians believe it. And Italy's relationship with Libya has frequently been at odds with the US position. France in fact refused flyover rights when the US and UK bombed Libya, which was at the root of the Lockerbie bombing in the first place.

" do you really support Gbagbo? Really? Like.... I don't know. You astound me sometimes. If I remember right you also defend Kim Jong Il, correct?"

Where did I say I supported Gbagbo? Whatever Gbagbo is doing now doesn't negate Ouattara's (at least partial) responsibility for the Ivorian civil war of 2002. And, I should add, that Gbagbo accepted a terrible peace deal forced upon by the French in 2004, which made it virtually impossible for him to govern the country. The election was probably not as free and fair as international observers say, considering there were still armed rebel militias throughout the north of the country. The independent commission announced the results under armed guard rather than the commission headquarters. But still, it would be better for Gbagbo to accept the result in order to prevent renewed violence and because the international community is bent on crushing him if he doesn't.

I have to admit those are all reasonable points and deserve serious consideration. What were the "official" turnouts and voter proportions across regions? There are of course reasonable ways to assess the degree of coercion going on in both the North and the South. To the degree that I've been paying attention, I've been more concerned with the need to plant new trees in the relatively near future to maintain cocoa production as there will need to be a massive vintage transition in the next few years. The nuts and bolt of the electoral process has not been at the top of my list of daily concerns.

Demilitarization of the rebels in the north was a condition of the peace agreement, but it was never carried out, even though Gbagbo was forced to make a large number of concessions. Why did Gbagbo disqualify seven northern districts? Because no party except Ouattara's was even allowed in there. In fact, the UN didn't even oversee voter registration in these areas. For the rest of the country, stringent rules applied about registration and vote counting. It's for this reason that I take international "certainty" about Ouattara's "victory" with a big grain of salt.

The only thing is the CEI was supposed to announce the results within three days, but they didn't, because opinion was divided within the CEI. One CEI member even tore up the results in protest. There's a reason why the result was announced at Ouattara's hotel under armed guard and not at the commission HQ. Furthermore, the Constitutional Court is supposed to have the last word on elections. Obviously, if an international organization was able to make a decision overturning the Supreme Court in 2000, people would have been outraged. But in poor weak countries they have no means to do anything about it.

I think Gbagbo has done a pretty decent job holding the country together despite the hand he was dealt. And if I were Gbagbo I too would be outraged about this whole situation. But the writing is on the wall and the international community is not going to give in, so it's time to retreat and regroup.

only = other

Personally, I don't see the harm in a US-led UN-authorized no-fly zone. Might as well give our fighter jocks some experience and get on the rebels' good side.

Putin, there was a writer for the Telegraph who wrote a book in the early stages of the Clinton Administration. It was literally called something along the lines of "Three Challenges for a Liberal Democrat" as a play on Clinton and America. He framed three "crises": Israel, North Ireland and Colombia. His point was that in each case there was a flawed and impure but "liberal democratic" regime facing an avowedly rejectionist and illiberal opposition group. And he practically accused "the West" of in the name of even-handedness penalizing the incumbent regimes for their impurity. He accused/predicted the oppositions groups of employing basically dishonest strategies. They boiled down to offering signatures on pieces of paper promising future action in exchange for real concessions and then playing to "the West" to portray the regimes as being intransigent when they were accepting "compromise" with the knowledge that they would just renege on their concessions later. David Trimble was very much the hero of the book, and I was impressed looking back that he predicted that Arafat would use negotiations to try to push the starting point as far as possible and then renew the Intifada under whatever justification to try to get more. And obviously he had the FARC sized up fairly well.

As a Brit, he was obviously obsessed with the IRA's promises of disarmament and the lack of conditionality and monitoring within the process as the Ulster Protestants were being hung out to dry by the UK.

I do have two questions, though. If the situation was such that the opposition was armed within proximity of the Election Monitors, would the incumbent regime in capital have not had intimidation power relative to the Constitutional Court and have the Monitors in question recanted in the aftermath, possibly after leaving the country?

I would disagree that that has happened with the Farc. The Colombian government has been given a total free hand and money has been poured into the government. Paramilitaries kill with impunity. Agricompanies fumigate peasant crops so all they can grow is coca, and then they claim the peasants are drug dealers. And add to that, they only fumigate the small farmers and peasants, they don't dare do it to the large farmers. So the large landowners seize the small farms that no longer can grow crops.

Colombia is also the trade unionist assassination capital of the world. And Farc peace negotiators have been kidnapped en route to negotiating with the government in foreign countries and hauled before American courts for supposed 'crimes' they did in Colombia. [This kidnapping occurred in Ecuador, which outraged Ecuadorian authorities. The Colombian government has also assassinated Farc members in foreign countries, which almost led to war a couple years back]. The "demilitarization" of the paramilitaries is also a joke. But whenever Uribe declared the paramilitaries 'demilitarized' the US took him at his word. They also looked the other way when scandal after scandal came out about his drug cartel connections or paramilitary connections.

The progressives in Colombia tried to organize a political party and engage in non-violence but they were systemically assassinated. The party was called the UP - Union Patriotica. They no longer even exist anymore because of the violent repression.

So on that question I don't agree with the Telegraph, although I would say it does happen in a lot of other cases. It depends whether the government has powerful friends or not. I think comparing Colombia to Northern Ireland is unfair to the British government, really.

I mean if the British were like Colombia, Gerry Adams would be buried in unmarked grave, not leading a major political party in the Republic of Ireland.