theyâre not Laws tho ainât it, I mean by definition, theyâre more like i.e. guidelines, or at best, they are promises, but itâs more like when I tell my Mum that Iâm not going to be eating all the sweets that she has bought for my nephew, but then later when she tries to give him a Treat, she is finding Cupboard Is Bare, or at best, only contains the i.e. gross raisin ones that I donât like, and Iâm like oh soz, and she is like bad bear, I would punish you if I could, but I canât because you havenât broken an actual Law, Iâm more just disappointed, that is what International Law is like.
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Originally posted by @Fowllyd
Iâm not saying that we should ignore Russia or avoid dealing with them, merely pointing out that they have their own vested interests and that this is what is driving them. Double standards and hypocrisy are the order of the day among the major powers; they all act in much the same way. How many Soviet/Russian interventions have been about anything other than a government that they didnât like?
I think you can argue quite successfully that from a Soviet point of view, their sphere of influence, subversion of democratic principles and subjugation of neighbouring states as opportunistically defensive. I will not condone the horrors of what that state inflicted on people for decades. but I can see why they were paranoid about security. Between 40 and 50 million Russians or Soviets died as a direct result of Germans beelining it through the states they ended up subjugating. Whether you agree with it or not (I donât, personally), the vast majority of encounters the Russians have been involved in have been in, or next to, their own territory.
Now I am certainly not going to be bold enough to call it all defensive, and we concur that big countries flout international law. I just donât think it should be a bar to working with them, because as you say, we all play the same games.
The dangerous double standard is that close allies excepted, everybody else is expected to observe international law. In many ways, the UN is the opposite to its forebear, the League of Nations. The League dissolved because the big boys didnât get involved enough, whereas certain nations have too much power in the UN. The net result is oddly enough, the same. A breakdown of international law and a perception that the governing body is ultimately toothless.
The reason the big boys didnât get involved in the League of Nations can be observed in what they got from the UN. It was too democratic, and large world powers had interests which conflicted with the aims of the League, especially self-determination. When push came to shove, the US decided not to join, while the major powers turned a blind eye when trade partners or potential war allies barrelled into places like Manchuria and Abyssinia.
All countries have ignored international law when they donât like it. The US does so, we do so, Russia does so (and the Soviet Union did so). And on it goes.
Yeah, I know - which is kind of why I did a couple of paragraphs on the League of Nations. I think itâs relevant because a lot of countries, including Russia, have already crossed red lines again and again. Itâs not great for world stability, as weâre all currently experiencing.
I do wonder what sort of world weâd have if weâd applied self-determination and a rigorous application of international law from the formation of the League. Self-determination would probably have led to more countries being created along rational ethnic or religious lines, reducing the conflict weâve got from arbitrary lines on a map and probably balkanising behemoths like Russia, and dare I say it, even the US.
While weâve argued on many points on this topic, I think we could both agree that a just international law, applied without prejudice, would have stopped a lot of these problems from even occurring.
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The news the other day was reporting on the fact that a Chinese person was beheaded by ISIS recently and some of their business people have been caught up in shit so the Chinese feel like they have to start getting involved. I find it interesting that as an emerging superpower, the Chinese pretty much stay out of everything. Iâd like to see what they do now. If I were ISIS, it wouldnât be the French, Americans or British that I feared, it would be the Russians and Chinese.
Interesting (and very valid) point about the League of Nations; Iâve also seen it argued that, had the biggest powers actually respected the UN and allowed to work as intended, things would have been very different. Certainly, itâs easy to envisage what the UN might have been had it not simplly become an arena for the big boys to play their games. As it is, like international law more generally, the UN is always invoked by world leaders when they agree with its resolutions, and ignored when they donât.
Having spent time in the old Soviet Union back in the 1980s, I wouldnât argue with your view that its motivations were, for the most part, defensive. I remember being told while in Odessa for a few days that around two thirds of the population of that city died in the Second World War. Unimaginable to us. The idea that a nation that had suffered losses on that scale in the (then) relatively recent past would be mad keen on starting another war was patently ludicrous. That said, the behaviour of the USSR towards its eastern European satellites and other client states was often thoroughly reprehensible.
I donât think we disagree too strongly on a very great deal to be honest.
Russian jet shot down by Turkish forces.
Turkey is a NATO member.
I am guessing but I reckon the Turks are relying on their NATO membership to adopt a more aggressive stance over the sovreignty of their airspace. They have warned the Russians previously.
I can imagine that the Nato leaders are privately calling the Turkish PM a tit for escalating the crisis.
Not for much longer I suspectâŚ
The Chinese donât need to aser their dominance as they are one of only two true World superpowers, Russia isnât and feels the need to try to be, it will never be a World power superpower again.
Russia only understands action, thatâs why they tread all over the West, they donât respect diplomacy, look where diplomacy got us with Crimea.
If the plane was in unauthorised airspace and adequate warnings were given respect to the Turks and they have far more balls than we do, it will probably get far more respect from the Russians regardless of what is said in the media.
Turkish rebels killed the 2 pilots that ejected from the plane. They were asked more than once to get out of the Turkish airspace, but did not.
Russia are saying they did not come within 1km of the boarder⌠this will rumble on!
Leaving aside the debate as to whether the USA and UK should ever have gone into Iraq in the first place (FWIW, a resounding NO, imo), there can be little doubting the sheer incompetence with which much of the aftermath of war was conducted.
Excluding the Sunnis from power-sharing was bad enough, but to then, 4 years later, enlist their services to help rid Iraq of the more extreme jihadist insurgents, with promises of government and military positions, only for al-Maliki to then renege on theses promises, was simply asking for trouble; and, as you say, Fowllyd, this certainly helped foment conditions for the development of IS within the region.
As for the quoted newspaper article ⌠well, it seems to me, this is yet another example of the West failing to grasp the ever-changing complexities of sectarian rivalries, shifting allegiances and local power struggles within that region; a failure encapsulated by Obamaâs Jan 2014 description of IS as: âjunior varsity playersâ.
Incidentally, anyone interested in the factors driving the development of IS within that region could, imo, do worse than read âIslamic State: The Digital Caliphateâ by Abdel Bari Atwan.
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Israel has granted a U.S. company the first license to explore for oil and gas in the occupied Golan Heights, John Reed of the Financial Times reports.
A local subsidiary of the New York-listed company Genie Energy â which is advised by former vice president Dick Cheney and whose shareholders include Jacob Rothschild and Rupert Murdoch â will now have exclusive rights to a 153-square mile radius in the southern part of the Golan Heights.
âThis action is mostly political â itâs an attempt to deepen Israeli commitment to the occupied Golan Heights,â Israeli political analyst Yaron Ezrahi told FT. "The timing is directly related to the fact that the Syrian government is dealing with violence and chaos and is not free to deal with this problem.â
http://www.businessinsider.com/israel-grants-golan-heights-oil-license-2013-2?IR=T
Pap
but under Saddam Iraq was effectively a Sunniârun state. Under the now departed Al-Maliki, Iraq became a massively sectarian Shia state, with Sunnis banished from all areas of government and the miltary. Meanwhile, Syria is a Sunni majority country ruled by a Shia clique; groups opposing Assad are universally Sunni. Put these two factors together and you have a potent brew of discontent
Yet many liberals love positive discriminationâŚ
Interesting piece of analysis right here. If the allegations in it are true, then Turkey must also shoulder a hefty wedge of responsibility. I knew that the Turkish air force had effectively used US air strikes on IS as cover for carrying out their own attacks on Kurdish opponents, and this is mentioned:
Shortly after that, Turkey opened a new front against the Kurdish separatist group, the PKK, with which it had fought an internecine war for close to 40 years. In doing so, it allowed the US to begin using its Incirlik air base for operations against Isis, pledging that it too would join the fray. Ever since, Turkeyâs jets have aimed their missiles almost exclusively at PKK targets inside its borders and in Syria, where the YPG, a military ally of the PKK, has been the only effective fighting force against Isis â while acting under the cover of US fighter jets.
However, I was unaware of this:
Despite that, links to some aspects of Isis continued to develop. Turkish businessmen struck lucrative deals with Isis oil smugglers, adding at least $10m (ÂŁ6.6m) per week to the terror groupâs coffers, and replacing the Syrian regime as its main client. Over the past two years several senior Isis members have told the Guardian that Turkey preferred to stay out of their way and rarely tackled them directly.
Concerns continued to grow in intelligence circles that the links eclipsed the mantra that âmy enemyâs enemy is my friendâ and could no longer be explained away as an alliance of convenience. Those fears grew in May this year after a US special forces raid in eastern Syria, which killed the Isis official responsible for the oil trade, Abu Sayyaf.
A trawl through Sayyafâs compound uncovered hard drives that detailed connections between senior Isis figures and some Turkish officials. Missives were sent to Washington and London warning that the discovery had âurgent policy implicationsâ.
So, on the one hand weâve had Russia attacking any and all anti-Assad groups except IS, thereby weakening opposition not just to Assad but to IS, and weâve had Turkey (a NATO member, let us not forget) launching air strikes against the only effective non-Assad, anti-IS military force in Syria - again for its own ends. Both actions have contrived only to strengthen IS.
If this had been written as the plot of a novel or film it would have been slated as ridiculously unrealistic. In real life, it looks like world politics in microcosm. Perhaps we should ask Kim Jong Un if heâll be willing to broker a peace settlement.
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Interesting vid from the Russkies, along with some potentially contradictory information from the Turks. I think I read somewhere that the Russians were warned ten times, yet the Turkish military also claim that the plane was only in Turkish airspace for 17 seconds.
Thatâs 1.7 seconds per warning, assuming no pauses.
I notice it says site of attack whereas it should say site of Turkish defence as the Russians were invading Turkish airspace.
Fuckoff Fuckoff Fuckoff Fuckoff Fuckoff Fuckoff Fuckoff Fuckoff Fuckoff Fuckoff Right you asked for it Blam
Next doors cats get less than 17 seconds before my dogs attack, when they encroach within the borders of PhilippineSaintâs abode
Originally posted by @Fowllyd
Interesting piece of analysis right here. If the allegations in it are true, then Turkey must also shoulder a hefty wedge of responsibility. I knew that the Turkish air force had effectively used US air strikes on IS as cover for carrying out their own attacks on Kurdish opponents, and this is mentioned:
Shortly after that, Turkey opened a new front against the Kurdish separatist group, the PKK, with which it had fought an internecine war for close to 40 years. In doing so, it allowed the US to begin using its Incirlik air base for operations against Isis, pledging that it too would join the fray. Ever since, Turkeyâs jets have aimed their missiles almost exclusively at PKK targets inside its borders and in Syria, where the YPG, a military ally of the PKK, has been the only effective fighting force against Isis â while acting under the cover of US fighter jets.
However, I was unaware of this:
Despite that, links to some aspects of Isis continued to develop. Turkish businessmen struck lucrative deals with Isis oil smugglers, adding at least $10m (ÂŁ6.6m) per week to the terror groupâs coffers, and replacing the Syrian regime as its main client. Over the past two years several senior Isis members have told the Guardian that Turkey preferred to stay out of their way and rarely tackled them directly.
Concerns continued to grow in intelligence circles that the links eclipsed the mantra that âmy enemyâs enemy is my friendâ and could no longer be explained away as an alliance of convenience. Those fears grew in May this year after a US special forces raid in eastern Syria, which killed the Isis official responsible for the oil trade, Abu Sayyaf.
A trawl through Sayyafâs compound uncovered hard drives that detailed connections between senior Isis figures and some Turkish officials. Missives were sent to Washington and London warning that the discovery had âurgent policy implicationsâ.
So, on the one hand weâve had Russia attacking any and all anti-Assad groups except IS, thereby weakening opposition not just to Assad but to IS, and weâve had Turkey (a NATO member, let us not forget) launching air strikes against the only effective non-Assad, anti-IS military force in Syria - again for its own ends. Both actions have contrived only to strengthen IS.
If this had been written as the plot of a novel or film it would have been slated as ridiculously unrealistic. In real life, it looks like world politics in microcosm. Perhaps we should ask Kim Jong Un if heâll be willing to broker a peace settlement.
Some more information on the Turkish situation, Fowllyd.
Evidence to back it up as well.