And next, Syria?

[Casually Red]

dfp

 

[Delroy Booth]

its the same posture theyve had from day one. Theyre rooting their opposition firmly in international law , the subject Putin did his phd in. The west are making the excuse the proper UN channels cant be used to address the issue because Russia is blocking them to protect an ally engaged in crimes against humanity, and therefore undermining international law. Therefore they will instead examine their secret evidence in secret and insist everyone trusts them on the conclusions, having already pronounced syria guilty beforehand.
Putin is saying if youve got the actual proof bring it for rigorous examination by the appropriate authorities and theyll abide by international law regardless of the outcome. Therefore the appropriate channels arent blocked As Putin clearly believes the whole thing is staged anyway he doesnt want to see his insistence they abide by international law used as an excuse by the west to break it .

Its restating the point that Russias position is based firmly upon legality and legitimacy and not cynical partisanship

It's almost cute that you're naive enough to have such faith in "international law". I had no idea you were such a liberal. It's even funnier than you think Putin's someone who gives a flying fuck about any kind international law. What about the international law that states the breakaway states of South Ossettia and Abkhazia threaten the territorial integrity of Georgia? Or the status of Transdnistra? Funny how international law doesn't apply when it's contrary to the Russian national interest.

Here's a couple of indepedent reports detailing Putin's flagrant violations of international law during the recent 2008 Russian-Georgian war.

http://www.ceiig.ch/pdf/IIFFMCG_Volume_I.pdf

http://amnesty.org/en/library/asset...55-11dd-a4cd-bfa0fdea9647/eur040052008eng.pdf

 

[Casually Red]

one doesnt need to be a liberal to support international law, in fact for many years my politics have been very much concerned with it .
What Russia did in south ossetia, after its peace keeping troops and co nationals came under a no warning and quite murderous assault intended to cleanse them from the area, is certainly on pretty dodgy legal grounds unless Russia can actually prove the intent was ethnic cleansing. But id say it was a definite quid pro quo as to what happens when other parties repeatedly set it aside, whether in kosovo , Palestine, Lebanon or Iraq in the years immediately prior to it. And a sharp lesson in what the world is likely to look like once international law is set aside .

Again, Putin without a shred of doubt has international law on his side on this one . Any attack on Syria without UNSC approval will be a criminal act of aggression .

 

[Delroy Booth]

one doesnt need to be a liberal to support international law, in fact for many years my politics have been very much concerned with it .

The very concept of international law in the post-Wilson era is associated with liberalism and the extension of US led global capitalism after world war 1.

What Russia did in south ossetia, after its peace keeping troops and co nationals came under a no warning and quite murderous assault intended to cleanse them from the area, is certainly on pretty dodgy legal grounds unless Russia can actually prove the intent was ethnic cleansing. But id say it was a definite quid pro quo as to what happens when other parties repeatedly set it aside, whether in kosovo , Palestine, Lebanon or Iraq in the years immediately prior to it. And a sharp lesson in what the world is likely to look like once international law is set aside .

Why not read the reports I linked? The ones that contain extensive lists of the international laws broken by Russia. It makes an absolute mockery of the your idea that Putin is some great scholar who sincerely respects and cares for international law. Does he fuck. That's not how imperialist states operate.

Again, Putin without a shred of doubt has international law on his side on this one . Any attack on Syria without UNSC approval will be a criminal act of aggression .

Why not call the international police then, and have those criminals arrested for breaking international law.

 

[Mr.Bishie]

Putin caring about International law? lol He doesn't give a flying fuck.

 

[Casually Red]

The very concept of international law in the post-Wilson era is associated with liberalism and the extension of US led global capitalism after world war 1.

its also how the world tends to get run from time to time, its sort of important to politics and stuff.

Why not read the reports I linked? The ones that contain extensive lists of the international laws broken by Russia. It makes an absolute mockery of the your idea that Putin is some great scholar who sincerely respects and cares for international law. Does he fuck. That's not how imperialist states operate.

except thats not my idea . I said its were russia is rooting its position on this issue, because they are . And as such their position on this issue is the legitimate and legal one .
and i dint bother reading the stuff you linked to because a/ ive heard most of it before and b/already stated Russias actions were a quid pro quo for previous violations . I havent attempted to defend their legality, bar from pointing out the fact it clearly wasnt a war of aggression, as is being advocated on syria . Russian citizens and peacekeepers were attacked first with overwhelming force .

Why not call the international police then, and have those criminals arrested for breaking international law.

Because there is no such thing

 

[Delroy Booth]

its also how the world tends to get run from time to time, its sort of important to politics and stuff.

Not the world the rest of us are living in.

i dint bother reading the stuff you linked to because a/ ive heard most of it before and b/already stated Russias actions were a quid pro quo for previous violations

Thats ok then, international law doesn't count if it some else started it. Glad you cleared that up for us.

Because there is no such thing

Wow it's almost as if international law is a liberal conceit that doesn't actually exist other than as an extension of US strategic interests, and that imperialistic power-politics and the interests of nation states trumps all else in geopolitics.

Keep this up, you might learn something.

 

[CyberRose]

International law means big countries can tell little countries what to do. It doesn't mean the big countries actually have to abide by it themselves...

 

[Mr.Bishie]

That's reet tickled me that has - someone saying Putin caring about International law.

 

[Delroy Booth]

International law means big countries can tell little countries what to do. It doesn't mean the big countries actually have to abide by it themselves...

Yeah it's that funny kind of law which isn't actually binding and has no-one to actually enforce it.

The kind of law that's used as a nice liberal dressing for the ruthless imperial interests of the nations states who have the most military and economic power.

If only we had some kind of political theory that could explain this state of affairs, some kind of historical materialism perhaps....

 

[Delroy Booth]

That's reet tickled me that has - someone saying Putin caring about International law.

He did his PhD in it! He doesn't just care a bit about it, he loves it. He'd rather see Russia ruined and in flames than have the burden of breaking international law on his conscience.

 

[co-op]

The very concept of international law in the post-Wilson era is associated with liberalism and the extension of US led global capitalism after world war 1..

Yep - and that doesn't mean that it was right wing at the time since the alternatives to expansion of US capitalism via International Law was expansion of German and Japanese capitalism via guns and concentration camps or the maintenance of French and British capitalism via imperial slavery.

The idea that just because something is associated with bourgeois/capitalist economic development it must be wrong seems daft to me - it's like the SWP slagging off "bourgeois justice" recently as a way of ducking out of a tricky spot. There's nothing wrong with bourgeois justice per se - all the various rights that make up a fair trial etc; the problem is that stripped of its social and economic context it becomes highly unfair because of who ends up in the dock.

Ditto with international law - it can (in my view arguably should) be something a socialist would believe in - the fact that it springs out of classic yankee liberal imperialism does not on its own make it a bad idea.

 

[Casually Red]

so lets get this straight..your advocating a world without international law. Thatll be interesting .

 

[Delroy Booth]

so lets get this straight..your advocating a world without international law. Thatll be interesting .

No, get it straight, we already live in a world without international law. International law exists as a buttress to the imperial interests of powerful nation states, as a basic understanding of modern world history ought to show. It was set up explicitly for these purposes.

Do some reading.

 

[Casually Red]

Ditto with international law - it can (in my view arguably should) be something a socialist would believe in - the fact that it springs out of classic yankee liberal imperialism does not on its own make it a bad idea.

international law is highly progressive once you get into it a bit . The problem is the administration of it is highly undemocratic . The logical stance for a progressive would be to support the democratisation of the UN as an urgent imperative . But for dickheads of course theres always the illogical route to go down . Such as down with bourgeouis international law .

 

[Casually Red]

No, get it straight, we already live in a world without international law. International law exists as a buttress to the imperial interests of powerful nation states, as a basic understanding of modern world history ought to show. It was set up explicitly for these purposes.

Do some reading.

weve already established you support the abolition of international law . How you arrived at that position is of little relevance .

 

[Delroy Booth]

Yep - and that doesn't mean that it was right wing at the time since the alternatives to expansion of US capitalism via International Law was expansion of German and Japanese capitalism via guns and concentration camps or the maintenance of French and British capitalism via imperial slavery.

It's a shame that we're only allowed to have a choice between fascism and liberalism in International Relations. If only there were some kind of dialectical theory based on class conflict we could use to step outside of this destructive theoretical binary...

The idea that just because something is associated with bourgeois/capitalist economic development it must be wrong seems daft to me - it's like the SWP slagging off "bourgeois justice" recently as a way of ducking out of a tricky spot. There's nothing wrong with bourgeois justice per se - all the various rights that make up a fair trial etc; the problem is that stripped of its social and economic context it becomes highly unfair because of who ends up in the dock.

It's not just "associated" with bourgeois capitalist, it's an intrinsic part of it. It provides a pseudo-legal framework that encourages the deepening and entrenching of markets and capitalism under the leadership of the US, or more specifically the primarily US-based capitalist ruling class. It provides a basis for US leadership which incorporates the smaller nations of the with promises of pluralism and so forth, whilst keeping those nations utterly subordinate. It can be abandoned at will by rich and powerful nations whenever it hurts their interests, but enforced on smaller and weaker nations that dare step out of line.

Ditto with international law - it can (in my view arguably should) be something a socialist would believe in - the fact that it springs out of classic yankee liberal imperialism does not on its own make it a bad idea.

No it's a bit more to it than that. It isn't something that springs out of classic yankee imperialism, it's a mechanism that was designed to entrench and further yankee imperialism, a task which it continues to perform to this day. Which is why the USA always vetoes any resolutions at the UN that attempt to hold Israel to account for it's behaviour in the Palestinian territories. It's not in the USA national interest, so they ignore it.

You could probably argue for some alternative international socialist institutions (A Workers UN!) but as long as there's captialism and imperialism and nation-states competing for power within an anarchic structure the concept of international law is little more than an extension of US foreign policy, or the foreign policy of whichever state is dominant at the time.

 

[Delroy Booth]

weve already established you support the abolition of international law . How you arrived at that position is of little relevance .

How can I support the abolition of something that I don't think exists in any real meaningful sense?

I arrived at that position by being a Marxist and having a pretty straightforward Marxist approach to IR.

You can have your 100 year old Wilsonian liberalism, cling to those liberal platitudes.

 

[co-op]

You could probably argue for some alternative international socialist institutions (A Workers UN!) but as long as there's captialism and imperialism and nation-states competing for power within an anarchic structure the concept of international law is little more than an extension of US foreign policy, or the foreign policy of whichever state is dominant at the time.

So I'm posting these in between putting stroppy 5 year olds to bed and I may not be writing them as well as I might but this ^^ right here is the point I was trying to make. There's nothing wrong with the concept "international law" - it's the social and economic context within which that law is located that will either make it work or not. So it's not just some inevitably 'liberal' concept. In fact I'd argue it remains a highly progressive one in the world in which we live - which is one reason why the US, the UK, Israel etc are so keen on sidelining it and undermining it; so that they can get on with dominating the world in the interests of their rulers.

 

[white rabbit]

No, get it straight, we already live in a world without international law. International law exists as a buttress to the imperial interests of powerful nation states

We live in a world where international law exists as a set of diplomatic agreements. Statutes exist, but they are always subservient to national autonomy. Treaties and declarations can be agreed to but they are not ultimately binding. The most they can amount to is leverage and in the end, might is right. It's the way it always has been. That's not quite to say that international law doesn't exist. Being a signatory to certain conventions does carry some weight and occasionally, international agreements are incorporated into national laws (much to the annoyance of isolationists). It's a bit like saying that government is irrelevant. It may well be, largely. But we'd be worse off without it.

 

[Barking_Mad]

Worth a read.

Behind the Uncertainty on "Nerve Gas"
The intelligence summary includes a notable indication that the intelligence community was far from convinced that nerve gas had been used August 21.

The summary said the intelligence community had "high confidence" that the government had carried out a "chemical weapons attack," and added, "We further assess that the regime used a nerve agent in the attack." The fact that a separate sentence was used to characterize the assessment of the nerve agent issue and that it did not indicate any level of confidence is a signal that the intelligence community does not have much confidence in the assessment that nerve gas was used, according to a former senior US intelligence official who insisted on anonymity. The former official told Truthout that the choice of wording actually means the intelligence analysts "do not know" if nerve gas was used.

The summary includes yet another sign of the analysts' lack of confidence that nerve gas was used, which was equally well-disguised. "We have identified one hundred videos attributed to the attack," it said, "many of which show large numbers of bodies exhibiting physical signs consistent with, but not unique to, nerve agent exposure." Unless it is read carefully, the use of the word "bodies" - meaning corpses - instead of "victims" might be missed. But why would the intelligence community be focused on how many "bodies" – meaning corpses – exhibit particular "physical signs" when the far more relevant indicator of nerve gas would the number of "victims" exhibiting certain symptoms?
That strange choice averts acknowledgement of a fundamental problem for the intelligence community: Most of the alleged victims being shown in the videos posted online do not show symptoms associated with exposure to nerve agent. Corpses without any sign of wounds, on the other hand, would be "consistent" with a nerve agent attack.
The symptoms of a nerve agent attack are clear-cut: Soon after initial symptoms of tightness of chest, pinpoint pupils and running nose, the victim begins to vomit and to defecate and urinate uncontrollably, followed by twitching and jerking. Ultimately, the victim becomes comatose and suffocates in a series of convulsive spasms. The symptoms shown in dozens of videos of victims being treated in medical centers in Ghouta, however, are quite different. In an interview with Truthout, Dan Kaszeta, a specialist on chemical, biological and radiological weapons who has advised the White House on those issues, pointed out that a nerve gas attack would have been accompanied by a pattern of symptoms that are not shown in the videos posted online. "There should be more or less universal vomiting," Kaszeta said. But he did not see any vomiting or evidence of such vomiting on the clothing or on the floor in any of the videos he saw. Stephen G. Johnson, a chemical weapons forensics expert at Cranfield University in the United Kingdom, noticed the same thing. "Why aren't more people vomiting?" he asked Truthout in an interview.

A number of specialists, including Kaszeta and Johnson, also noticed that personnel were shown handling the victims without any special protective clothing but not exhibiting any symptoms themselves. Paula Vanninen, director of the Finnish Institute for Verification of Chemical Weapons, and Gwynn Winfield, the editor of CBRNe World, a magazine specializing in chemical weapons, made the same point in interviews with AFP on August 21. The only evidence of such effects is secondhand at best: Statements issued the following day by both the spokesman for the Supreme Military Council of the Free Syrian Army, Khaled Saleh, and the spokesman for its Washington, DC, arm, the Syrian Support Group, said that doctors and "first responders" had reported that they were suffering symptoms of neurotoxic poisoning. Saleh claimed that at least six doctors had died.

Experts noticed yet another anomaly: The number of those treated who survived far outnumbered the dead, contrary to what would be expected in a nerve gas attack. Dr. Ghazwan Bwidany told CBS news August 24 that his mobile medical unit had treated 900 people after the attack and that 70 had died. Medecins Sans Frontieres reported that 3,600 patients had been treated at hospitals in the area of the attack and that 355 had died. Such ratios of survivors to dead were the opposite of what chemical weapons specialists would have expected from a nerve gas attack. Kaszeta told Truthout that the "most nagging doubt" he had about the assumption that a nerve gas attack had taken place is the roughly 10-to-1 ratio of total number treated to the dead. "The proportions are all wrong," he said. "There should be more dead people." Johnson agreed. In an actual nerve gas attack, he said, "You'd get some survivors, but it would be very low. This [is] a very low level of lethality."

http://www.truth-out.org/news/item/18559-how-intelligence-was-twisted-to-support-an-attack-on-syria

 

[elbows]

The rather large questions about whether it was a nerve gas leave me pondering questions I've posed previously, such as whether something on the ground was blown up by traditional weapons that could have lead to the symptoms that were actually seen.

 

[Casually Red]

How can I support the abolition of something that I don't think exists in any real meaningful sense?

I arrived at that position by being a Marxist and having a pretty straightforward Marxist approach to IR.

You can have your 100 year old Wilsonian liberalism, cling to those liberal platitudes.

next time you fancy travelling abroad try taking das kapital instead of your passport with you . Youll find it exists soon enough . Just as apartheid SA found it did too .

 

[white rabbit]

There is the cock-up version of events. It could be that there was a sarin dump that got hit by conventional missiles. One does have to ask what the Syrian regime had to gain by gassing rebel positions. From the sound of it, they have control and are even getting the upper hand. Why offer an opportunity for the West to attack?

 

[Mr.Bishie]

The rather large questions about whether it was a nerve gas leave me pondering questions I've posed previously, such as whether something on the ground was blown up by traditional weapons that could have lead to the symptoms that were actually seen.

1. Rebels were supplied with chemical weapons they didn't know how to use. There was an accident on the ground resulting in the death of hundreds in the vicinity.

2. Rebels were supplied with chemical weapons, & an Assad attack blew them up, resulting in the death of hundreds in the vicinity.

 

[Casually Red]

The rather large questions about whether it was a nerve gas leave me pondering questions I've posed previously, such as whether something on the ground was blown up by traditional weapons that could have lead to the symptoms that were actually seen.

we dont even have any proof that youtube video has anything to do with it . We dont even know when it was taken, much less where . All these kids with no sign of parents .
In my view its a fact this rebel district was completely surrounded , it was never going to be relieved or reinforced , or even resupplied. It was their backs to the wall and not the regimes . It was inevitable the Syrian army was going to use its familiar tactics, surround on all sides, pound with artillery and basically pummel until surrender or overrun . The bastards have activated some sort of weapon of last resort when faced with the onslaught and the people whove supplied it are making sure the blame is put on Assad . France, Britian, Israel, the united states , Saudis and the Jihadists have all been absolutely gagging for this scenario .

 

[CyberRose]

next time you fancy travelling abroad try taking das kapital instead of your passport with you . Youll find it exists soon enough . Just as apartheid SA found it did too .

You're missing the point spectacularly...

Does Israel abide by international law in your opinion? How about America or the UK?

 

[white rabbit]

You're missing the point spectacularly...

Does Israel abide by international law in your opinion? How about America or the UK?

I don't know about the US or Israel, but in the UK having the sanction of legitimacy from the UN does play into the political process. Part of the reason the commons vote failed was because of the stain of Iraq and there is only a stain because the process of gaining that legitimacy was railroaded so badly. Without the UN, there would be absolutely nothing to use as a standard. Whatever we did would be legitimate. Now, we use our heft to cajole and twist arms, bend the rules and straight out ignore other states, but we still have to present a facade of compliance. When that facade slips, there can be consequences, as Cameron et al discovered.

 

[Casually Red]

You're missing the point spectacularly...

Does Israel abide by international law in your opinion? How about America or the UK?

no, as I already pointed out the process under which its administered is very undemocratic . But what is the point your trying to make..im missing it . Is it that international law should simply be abolished..because it sounds like it .

 

[weltweit]

1. Rebels were supplied with chemical weapons they didn't know how to use. There was an accident on the ground resulting in the death of hundreds in the vicinity.

2. Rebels were supplied with chemical weapons, & an Assad attack blew them up, resulting in the death of hundreds in the vicinity.

Hopefully those aren't the only two possibilities you have?