I Never MENA Hurt You; I Never MENA Make You Cry 2017 (Middle East, North Africa, and Other Geopolitical Hotspots)

I agree. But that doesn't make the whole thing less idiotic...

The peace process wasn't a literal peace process any more, hasn't been for a long time. Instead though, it did maintain a status quo, and not an insignificant one at that: to keep Israel (ignoring every resolution and happily building away new settlements, oppressing Palestine but not "hard enough" for the West to act upon) from demolishing Palestine further, and on the other side to prevent a third intifada, of rockets flying into Israel.

Fact is that this is an unwanted, rash and ill-thought through (if at all) intervention. Israel won't mind. But the rest of the world looks on in dread. Because that fuckup of a president of yours put the cat among the pigeons with this utterly useless provocation. And for what?

It's one thing to fear major repercussion because of this. I agree that might be a bit overblown. But it's another to act all "what's new? nothings gonna happen! be cool ppl! nothing to see here! been there done that," a position you seem very keen on to take. Bit too keen imo. Saying this won't have big consequences doesn't mean it's not an absolutely cuntish thing to do for a US president. It's something he, nor the US, nor anyone benefits from (apart from maybe dollars from Israel for mr. Trump himself but who knows right?). It achieves nothing, doesn't give him any leverage or hand he did not have already. It only sparks the flame of instability. Because that's what Trump does. No new war in the Middle East because of it? Probably. But it's not something to shrug off and sneeze at either.

(that was an xp to Mordy, but I think you got that Fred)

it's true i think it's much ado about nothing. i think trump and his critics would prefer everyone think otherwise.

i mean we'll soon find out who was right so it doesn't make much sense to argue esp since you seem to agree ""Saying this won't have big consequences doesn't mean it's not an absolutely cuntish thing to do for a US president."

We're not arguing iirc. Just strikes me as odd as to why you'd make a song and dance about something you think has zero implications and does not matter one bit in the first place.

i thought i said that upfront? it's bc i've seen a lot of ppl online say hysterical things about it. like that it would spark ww3. ppl on this v website!

idk why you'd call what i wrote a "song and dance" btw i think i've been extremely straight-forward. i'm projecting what i think will result from this. i'm not making any argument about what i think should result or what i hope results or what i think a good resolution would be etc. there are arab writers i'm reading today that say the exact same thing.

Idk your last ten (?) posts here are all 'I don't see anything coming from this'. Which you are entitled to, obv, it just feels a bit like driving home a 'nothing happens' (nethack flashback) point over and over. Which is, I agree with you, "projecting what you think will result from this".

"We'll see" indeed...

And for what?... It only sparks the flame of instability. Because that's what Trump does.

this is otm

today on NPR Up First, the framing was exclusively WILL THERE BE ANOTHER INTIFADA? THIS ONE GUY WE INTERVIEWED SAID THERE WILL BE AN INTIFADA! HAMAS WANTS AN INTIFADA! WILL PALESTINIANS WAIT FOR A PEACE PROPOSAL BEFORE THEY START INTIFADA-ING?

— techno-serf (@worldfleshdevil) December 7, 2017

yep. also the frame Cory Booker, Sanders, and other dems used. The “but Trump will unleash the scary Arab!”, “inflame tensions” “Now is not the time” line is the safe liberal take because it’s a process objection that avoids addressing issue of apartheid and land theft. https://t.co/Kj20JLohBt

— Adam H. Johnson (@adamjohnsonNYC) December 7, 2017

Jerusalem: More journalists than protestors after Friday prayers https://t.co/bQZ55JMlCE

— Björn Stritzel (@bjoernstritzel) December 8, 2017

This is interesting:

https://www.wsj.com/amp/articles/saudi-arabias-crown-prince-identified-as-buyer-of-record-breaking-da-vinci-1512674099?__twitter_impression=true

Prince Mohammed, known by his initials MBS, was identified as the buyer of the 500-year-old painting, “Salvator Mundi,” in U.S. intelligence reports, according to people with direct knowledge of the information. American officials have closely watched the activities of the 32-year-old, who is trying to portray himself as a reformer determined to root out corruption in the oil-rich kingdom.

The story is completely false - the painting was bought for the new Abu Dhabi Louvre by the UAE - but there appears to have been an attempt by (someone in) US intelligence to undermine MBS with a planted story, unless the WSJ made it up themselves, which seems unlikely. Not sure if it should be read alongside the Yemen tweet earlier in the week as a warning to play ball.

African refugees not welcome in Israel or Europe. African Refugees arriving in Libya mistreated

https://psmag.com/social-justice/understanding-libyas-slave-trade

While most migration in Africa is within African countries, after Israel's fence went up, many asylum seekers turned to Libya and the sea...

The number of asylum seekers reaching Italy's shores plummeted in 2017...

In 2015, Chancellor Angela Merkel announced that all Syrian asylum seekers would be allowed to stay in Germany independent of their first country of contact. The move was celebrated by some as a watershed moment. What received less attention was that these asylum seekers amounted to a little under half of those in the country at the time; other asylum seekers, including many from Africa, were stuck in the unstable purgatory of the undocumented.

i'll read it but i think expecting unlimited immigration to europe was always unrealistic

expectations by EU countries, unrealistic or otherwise, are not the core issue imo. mass emigration from poor unstable countries into wealthier more stable countries will continue beyond the effective control of governments, because desperate people will risk the chance of death to escape certain misery.

Mass migration toward its northern coast will continue to be a reality of the 21st century whether or not it is convenient for Europe. Global attempts at containment are not only inhumane, but insufficient: People will always fight to survive. Western countries can't ask them to find a quieter place to die, even though the measures they've taken over the past decade have amounted to just that. This includes the E.U. paying Turkey €3 billion to ensure that Syrians and other refugees never make it to Greece, the U.S. paying Mexico to ensure that children fleeing the gangs of Central America's Northern Triangle never make it to America, Israel building its southern border fence to keep Eritrean and Sudanese asylum seekers out, and Australia maintaining numerous, horrific offshore detention centers such as those on Manus and Nauru. The list goes on.

The belief that these barbarous exercises in inhospitality will serve as effective deterrents has proven false. The destination might change, but nothing will stop migration, because nothing will stop those who know their lives are threatened from seeking refuge elsewhere.

maybe i'm misreading but this certainly sounds to me like an attempt to shame first world western countries for not accepting desperate migrants. expectations are the core issue bc this is written for westerns and it is attempting to convince them of something and i think we know what that something is.

While inhumane, genocide is an effective deterrent. As the bottleneck century progresses and the number of overpopulation/conflict/climate refugees grows, Europeans and North Americans will support nationalists in the Maghreb, Turkey and Mexico as bulwarks against the human tide. Its just the reality of lifeboat ethics.

There are several elements in your response that need to be teased apart.

sounds to me like an attempt to shame first world western countries for not accepting desperate migrants

and?

if one accepts that compassion and charity are the appropriate responses to desperate and miserable humans, and that morality enjoins those with excess resources to use them to mitigate that misery, then the first question becomes whether or not that moral standard is being met. if one believes it isn't being met, then what is to be done next?

if you lack the power to change the situation unilaterally, then you must persuade others to see the situation as you do. if one sees this in moral terms, then defining your point of view as the moral high ground is one obvious way to approach the task of persuasion. you can call it shaming if you wish, but you seem to be implying that using shame as a tool is wrong or underhanded, iow you seem to be using a sort of shaming, too.

i think we know what that something is

why use circumlocution here? just blurt it out and we can all decide if we know what "that something" is.

and presumably as it increases and becomes increasingly dire western countries will be pressured by unprecedented efforts to open their borders for more migration. ppl who oppose this will be labeled bigots and murderers for their complicity in the deaths of these refugees. it will be very hard for western countries who consider compassion to be a core value to say no to photographs of dead children. if the left becomes seen by its polity as untrustworthy in keeping the borders closed nations will choose more right-wing governments to do so on their behalf. xenophobia, nationalism, etc will increase. xp

The Four Freedoms enshrined in the Rome Treaty back in 57 are the free movement of goods, services, capital and persons. And as long as EU and the rest of the west insist on having the first three freedoms guide globalization, people elsewhere will take the fourth into their own hands.

aimless you're a smart guy. it was obvious what i was saying. articles like these are pushing for looser borders and they're disapproving of countries that close them.

The responses to the migration crisis are either open borders or a serious, comprehensive plan for alleviating global inequality. There is no other choices.

you mean there are no other choices that you personally think are moral bc there are other choices that are real choices and much more likely than either of those

as always it's important to keep ought/is in mind

No, in the long run there are no other choices. Everything else is avoidance.

Neither Iran or Saudi Arabia is likely to be very helpful; some will continue to choose to rationalize supporting or working with certain authoritarian governments but not others

The EU is currently working with Erdogans Turkey to keep out immigrants, but clearly that's not a longterm solution either.

everything else is avoidance of what? what are you saying exactly? why can't a country limit immigration, build walls, etc and continue on ignoring the misery going on outside the walls? isn't that history of most of civilization? xxp

the problems with the EU bribing Turkey and Libya to be their border control are frightfully obvious.

xpost: And it has never worked in the long run...

Also, it's really not true, most states throughout history has been trying to expand, I'd say.

there are other choices that are real choices and much more likely than either of those

I understand your concern that immigration is strengthening the trend toward fascism in all western nations. But you seem to be preemptively embracing the solutions proposed by the radical nationalists, as a way of undercutting them. In my view this not only makes you their unwilling ally, but also concedes that a huge swath of their political principles are legitimate. You might be hitting yourself in the hope that the blows will be softer if self-administered.

And, yes, I know this is a huge issue with massive ramifications that is bound to increase rapidly in the next couple of decades and it isn't at all clear what is the most practical means of dealing with it.

fwiw I am not particularly concerned nor am i advocating for anything. i'm just observing what seems to be a fait accompli at this point.

fwiw it does not work to compromize with the radical nationalists at all. They've been pretty much in control of Danish immigration politics for 12 out of the last 16 years, and the government in the remaining 4 years didn't to anything that different. It's a mistake to say radical nationalists in Europe are for closed borders, and if only the left closes them enough, they will be mollified. They are 'tough on immigration' parties, and their whole raison d'etre is to always be tougher than the other parties. Any law they get through, and any move in their direction, only lead to further demands, while also in most cases hurting actual efforts at immigrating people who have legitimate reasons to be here. Which of course leads to further problems, leading to more demands, leading to more problems, etc.

'integrating' not 'immigrating', sorry.

fred otm about the hard right. however

The responses to the migration crisis are either open borders or a serious, comprehensive plan for alleviating global inequality. There is no other choices.

imo the choices are either fascism, or a serious comprehensive plan for alleviating global inequality (feat. open borders). open borders without the latter will have the results mordy describes.

this is why revolutionary internationalist leftism and fascism are the only real political positions and everything else is fantasy tbh.

One too many. Revolutionary Internationalist Leftism. Everything else is reaction.

lol well sure but the reactionaries might win, which is more than you can say for anyone else but us. i mean we could comfort ourselves by saying that actually it wouldn't count as winning because their civilization would extinguish itself. but that would be no comfort at all so instead we'd have to hope that they escaped the dying earth and constructed a monstrous fascist empire throughout the stars that much later fell to revolutionary internationalist leftism. which aside from requiring an even greater exertion of teleological faith would actually feel even worse.

lads

your two realistic options for how to resolve the migration crisis is "revolutionary international leftism" and "fascism" - neither of which mean anything.

#IntergalacticRevolutionaryLeftism

Do keep up

fascism would look pretty much like how it usually looks.

revolutionary internationalist leftism would aggressively redistribute global wealth downward by every means possible, redistributing political power along with it, in the belief that this would relax the stresses that give rise to fascist nationalism, maintain habitability on the maximum planetary surface, and produce the minimum possible 21-22c death toll.

imo if i can be monday morning stoned on anyone's middle east north africa and other geopolitical hotspots thread it's mordy's.

thoughts?

http://www.rojava-info.com/2017/12/us-gives-ypg-500-million-weapon-aid.html?m=1

Take that with huge handfuls of salt. The US does arm the YPG but it’s a sticky point of negotiation between various parties. Turkey believed it secured a commitment from Trump to stop sending them weapons, the US has said that they will reduce arms deliveries and may phase them out over time, it is still up for discussion. If they were going to spend half a billion next year, they wouldn’t be announcing it.

Actually, I think the US technically claims to arm SDF divisions under YPG command rather than the YPG directly. The $500m figure seems familiar - it might be the total cost of supporting the SDF and aligned groups.

Have any writers critiqued the Politico allegation re the Obama White House allegedly derailing an in investigation into alleged drug dealing by Hezbollah, in order to ensure that the Iran Nuclear Treaty would be reached?

https://www.npr.org/2017/12/20/572195727/politico-reporter-says-obama-administration-derailed-hezbollah-investigation

http://www.jpost.com/International/Hezbollah-scandal-perfect-timing-for-Trump-administration-520038

https://www.politico.com/interactives/2017/obama-hezbollah-drug-trafficking-investigation/

In its determination to secure a nuclear deal with Iran, the Obama administration derailed an ambitious law enforcement campaign targeting drug trafficking by the Iranian-backed terrorist group Hezbollah, even as it was funneling cocaine into the United States, according to a POLITICO investigation.

The campaign, dubbed Project Cassandra, was launched in 2008 after the Drug Enforcement Administration amassed evidence that Hezbollah had transformed itself from a Middle East-focused military and political organization into an international crime syndicate that some investigators believed was collecting $1 billion a year from drug and weapons trafficking, money laundering and other criminal activities.

saw some references to the CIA/FBI not giving a fuck about whatever the DEA is up to because of the pecking order in these sorts of things..

The obvious critique is- who cares? If you consider the threat of Iran obtaining nuclear capability to be a serious one, you'd obviously prioritise that over aome drug trafficking by an Iranian proxy.

Sounds like US done played itself, letting the drug trafficking continue for the sake of halting a fictional weapons programme.

Idk if Purdue pharma pretended to have a nuclear weapons programme lol