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

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

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-mideast-crisis-syria-usa/mattis-sees-larger-u-s-civilian-presence-in-syria-idUSKBN1EN1H8

U.S. Defense Secretary Jim Mattis said on Friday that he expected to see a larger U.S. civilian presence in Syria, including contractors and diplomats, as the fight against Islamic State militants nears its end and the focus turns toward rebuilding and ensuring the militants do not return.

Hmmm, wonder who will decide on the contractors...

no-bid contracts, here we come!

Thread on Iran protests from yesterday

Thread: Iran’s protests--including in traditional cities like Qom and Mashhad--are a reminder of the country’s deep political, social, and above all economic frustrations https://t.co/PRT1RUTdNX

— Karim Sadjadpour (@ksadjadpour) December 29, 2017

Trump tweeting about Iran being an “oppressive regime “ after he has been selling military ware to Saudi Arabia and sucking up to China, Philippines, and Russia is well typical. Plus Trumpies tweeting that CNN is ignoring the protests is wrong . If Glen Greenwald tweets about Iran it will probably just be a mention of the CIA’s history in Iran.

Any 2018 thread name ideas?

MENA, MENA, Tekel, Parsin 2018

Confess that I had to google that, but it works

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Belshazzar%27s_feast

Seems legit.

I took Mordy's suggestion and started a 2018 thread

MENA, MENA, Tekel, Parsin (Middle East, North Africa & other Geopolitical Hotspots) 2018