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L'Hôte: all by yourself - 0 views

lhote.blogspot.com/...all-by-yourself.html internet online social solitude conformity
shared by Javier E on 06 Apr 11 - No Cached
  • "I ask no mercy and I plead for no immunity." freddie7 AT gmail DOT com My brother is a tailor and dressmaker. Check him out. Blog Archive ▼  2011 (81) ▼  April (6) seriousness and honesty are only conditionally vir... all by yourself straight fire failing students drop classes reason for optimism today in unfortunate yet amazing errors, Freddie e... ►  March (30) winning is fast, humanitarianism is slow we don't have a worker shortage quote for the day "you see an old woman...." amen sympathy for the juice box set first principles an open letter to Juan Cole on Libya they should have done a miniseries about Benjamin ... next big thing anniversary note the more things change ad hominems left-wing non-interventionism sorry about comments system how perfect is your knowledge? here they come France and the UK Libya gentrification involves more than the gentry the profession that wants to destroy itself they're bringing back all the classics marijuana legalization is a human rights issue Bobby Sands was an MP damn you, DVD clearance fees links and such a man from somewhere today in insanity the incredible naivete of the incredibly savvy ►  February (33) marked bodies What does it mean for a movie to be experimental a... subversion and containment IOZ on Reason's absurdity Reihan and progressivism/neoliberalism/leftism California good people are everywhere what I want submitted without comment welcome to lottery ticket America another perfect opportunity what's before us by the way the Atlantic and the working class ►  January (12) archivedate collaps
  • Paradoxically, what I find more and more is that the Internet is a place for people to affirm and support each other. It's as if the understanding of the fundamental weakness of these electronic proxies to represent human connection causes people to push for it more and more. And this could be beautiful. But it can also be dangerous. Because of the depth of the loneliness, I blame no one for how they interact and connect with others online. I just worry. I worry about the urge towards conformity. I worry about Twitter. I worry that all of those retweets and all of those "right on"s contribute to a kind of coarse postmodernism, where what the truth becomes what is most agreed on. I worry that dissent is confused with a lack of etiquette. And I particularly worry about the echo chamber effect, and the way that small groups of people who are just like each other can come to think of themselves as representing the opinions of everyone. On the Internet, we all make the world in our own image.
  • The pressure, online, will always be to tack towards the crowd, and people will look endlessly towards their peers-- not intending to undermine the individual voice, but getting there, often, anyway. Don't get judgmental about it, but keep saying your piece. In the tenor of the single voice, you can find strength, and if you keep saying what you think is true, in spite of it all, you will find what is incorruptible in yourself.
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South Korea Proposes Resuming Reunions of War-Divided Families - NYTimes.com - 0 views

www.nytimes.com/...s-of-war-divided-families.html culture crisis policy south korea north war
shared by julia rhodes on 06 Jan 14 - No Cached
  • South Korea’s president proposed Monday that the two Koreas improve their tense relations by resuming the reunions of families separated since the Korean War, a humanitarian program that seemed close to being renewed last year but was scuttled as negotiations soured.
  • President Park Geun-hye’s overture came five days after the North Korean leader, Kim Jong-un, urged that Seoul and Pyongyang create “a favorable climate for improved relations” in a New Year’s Day speech.
  • Ms. Park, a conservative, made two other conciliatory gestures toward the North, offering to increase humanitarian aid to the impoverished country and to let South Korean civic groups provide assistance to its farmers and ranchers. But she expressed skepticism about the prospect of meeting with Mr. Kim, whose government has until recently exhorted South Koreans to overthrow her “fascist dictatorship.”
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  • She also said it had become “impossible” to predict “what will happen to the North and what actions it will take” since the purge and execution last month of Mr. Kim’s uncle, Jang Song-thaek, who was long considered Mr. Kim’s mentor and the second-highest-ranking figure in his secretive government.
  • South Korea halted the flow of aid and investment to the North in 2008, demanding that Pyongyang give up its nuclear weapons. It also curtailed inter-Korean trade following the sinking of a South Korean naval ship in 2010, which Seoul says was caused by a North Korean torpedo attack.
  • After months of harsh rhetoric following the North’s nuclear test last February, North and South Korea reached an agreement last August to revive the reunions. But the North later ended the talks, blaming the South for refusing to resume an inter-Korean tourism program at the North’s Diamond Mountain resort, which had been highly lucrative for Pyongyang until it was shut down in 2008.
  • The Korean War, which began in 1950, was fought to a stalemate and an ultimate cease-fire in 1953. Since then, no exchanges of letters, telephone calls or emails have been allowed between North and South Koreans, and family reunions remain a highly emotional issue and an indicator of the state of relations on the peninsula.
  • Mr. Kim made similarly conciliatory comments toward the South during his New Year’s Day speech in 2013, but they were followed by a series of provocative acts, including its February nuclear test. Just last month, Pyongyang sent a letter to Ms. Park’s office threatening “strikes without warning.”
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Children 'beheaded and mutilated' in Central African Republic, says Unicef | Global dev... - 0 views

www.theguardian.com/...rican-republic-violence-unicef
shared by Maria Delzi on 05 Jan 14 - No Cached
  • The UN agency for children says attacks against children have reached new levels of viciousness in the Central African Republic (CAR), where fighting between Muslim Seleka rebels and Christian militias left more than 1,000 people dead and displaced an estimated 400,000 in Bangui, the capital, this month.
  • According to Unicef, at least at least two children have been beheaded, and one of them mutilated, in the violence that has gripped Bangui since early December
  • Some 370,000 people – almost half the population of Bangui – have been displaced to dozens of sites across the capital over the past three weeks. About 785,000 people have been internally displaced throughout the country since the outbreak of violence more than a year ago.
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  • Diabate said armed groups were accountable for taking specific measures to provide protection to children. These include: clear directives by those in positions of authority within armed forces and groups to halt violations against children, meaning that children must not be recruited into the fighting, nor targeted. Unicef also called for the immediate release of children associated with armed forces and groups, and their protection from reprisals. Transit centres set up for the release and reintegration of children must also be protected from attacks.
  • Unicef and its partners say they have verified the killings of at least 16 children, and injuries among 60, since the outbreak of communal violence in Bangui on 5 December. In November, the UN warned that the number of child soldiers in the former French colony had more than doubled to up to 6,000 as anti-balaka militias have sprung up to counterattacks by the Seleka.
  • Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF), the medical charity, said on Monday that fighting, lynchings and violent attacks remained a daily occurrence in Bangui, and the situation in the city appeared to be out of control, despite the presence of international armed forces in the capital.
  • MSF said health facilities had been affected by the violence, hindering the provision of medical aid. On Sunday, a ministry of health ambulance was stopped and the staff were threatened with violence, preventing them from collecting the wounded. On the same day, armed men entered the Hôpital Communautaire with the intention of lynching patients, while health staff were threatened.
  • The UN launched an appeal for $152m last week to rapidly scale-up humanitarian operations over the next 100 days. The country has been plunged into chaos as its Christian majority seeks revenge against the Muslim rebels who seized power in a coup in March. Many Christian and Muslim civilians are armed, and the foreign troops brought in to try to rein in the violence have been sucked into the conflict and accused of taking sides.
  • The Chadians, part of the African Union force, are Muslim and are seen by the population as backing the Seleka rebels who toppled the president. But 1,600 French troops who were deployed in the first week of December are accused of backing the Christian majority, and their patrols have come under fire in Muslim neighbourhoods. Many say the bloodshed has little to do with religion as Muslims and Christians had long lived in peace. Instead, they blame a political battle for control over resources in one of Africa's most weakly governed states.
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[Publisher's Note] | A purposeless, symbolic war, by John R. MacArthur | Harper's Magazine - 0 views

harpers.org/...a-purposeless-symbolic-war war US history politics
shared by Emilio Ergueta on 27 Oct 14 - No Cached
  • “Since World War II, very little that could be called genuinely humanitarian has resulted from American military intervention—not in Korea, certainly not in Vietnam, and not in Panama, Afghanistan, or the two Iraq wars and Libya.”
  • Since World War II, very little that could be called genuinely humanitarian has resulted from American military intervention—not in Korea, certainly not in Vietnam, and not in Panama, Afghanistan, or the two Iraq wars and Libya. The only wars of rescue that might have been conceived on moral grounds—Grenada and Kosovo—were so badly tainted by U.S. deception that the liberal interventionists don’t even talk about them anymore. The American medical students in Grenada were in no real danger after the communist coup, and the Serbs weren’t committing “genocide” against the Albanians in Kosovo.
  • ’ve been consistent in my criticism of the president since even before he was first elected. But I don’t think that he’s ignorant, or even a fantasist like Reagan. Mr. Obama surely knows that America cannot defeat a religious ideology with missiles or soldiers, any more than we could defeat the Vietcong and Ho Chi Minh’s North Vietnamese troops with massive aerial bombing and more than 500,000 ground troops.
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  • The trouble is, the conventional wisdom is wrong. America’s beleaguered working and middle classes have lost their illusions about American goodness and virtue in the world. They just want a raise, and Mr. Obama and the Democrats didn’t deliver it.
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'Don't bury me': Yemen's forgotten war - CNN.com - 0 views

www.cnn.com/...index.html politics US culture economic education Obama
shared by Alex Trudel on 27 Oct 15 - No Cached
  • "Don't bury me." 6-year-old Fareed Shawky cries as doctors treat his many shrapnel wounds.
  • six months of war in his country, Yemen, had taught him the bitter realities of conflict.
  • "I was trying to calm him down and at the same time my tears are falling, but I did not want him to feel it," al-Thamry Shawky says, "I told him, 'Don't be afraid, my son. You will get better.'"
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  • " The father told Basha through tears, "I stood far away as they put him in the ground."
  • t was quickly picked up by social media at a time when little else on Yemen's war seems to gain much attention.
  • quickly
  • Two rival factions are vying for power in Yemen: the Shiite Houthi rebel movement and the backers of ousted President Abdu Rabu Mansour Hadi.
  • Fareed
  • The battle for control triggered the formation of an Arab coalition, led by Saudi Arabia, to intervene on behalf of the Hadi's internationally recognized government.
  • "human catastrophe" that had killed or wounded more than 27,000 people as of midsummer, according to the U.N. Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), and has left 80%
  • Four out of every five Yemenis are lacking the most basic things, including water, food, adequate medical care, and shelter, according to OCHA.
  • For all this suffering, that doesn't mean Yemenis have given up.
  • "Fareed saw burial of neighbor kid killed by Houthi shell & was traumatized. Hence pleaded #DontBuryMe .. #Yemen" Hishal al-Omeisy, a prominent Yemeni activist, posted on Twitter. The hashtag originally started in Arabic, but as the story spread, more users began using the English version."A child in #taiz told his father after he was injured: do not bury me. Sadly, the father could not [fulfill] his son's call.#Dontburyme" Kawkab Ahmed, a Turkish observer, said on the microblogging site
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U.S.-Russia Deal on a Partial Truce in Syria Raises More Doubt Than Optimism - The New ... - 0 views

www.nytimes.com/...fire-in-syria-obama-putin.html u s deal truce syria doubt optimism new york times politics crisis history culture obama putin assad
shared by katyshannon on 23 Feb 16 - No Cached
  • The United States and Russia announced an agreement on Monday for a partial truce in Syria, though the caveats and cautious words on all sides underscored the obstacles in the way of the latest diplomatic effort to end the five-year-old civil war.
  • Under the terms of the agreement, the Syrian government and Syria’s armed opposition are being asked to agree to a “cessation of hostilities,” effective this Saturday. But the truce does not apply to two of the most lethal extremist groups, the Islamic State and the Nusra Front, raising questions about whether it will be any more lasting than previous cease-fires.
  • The agreement calls for the Syrian government and the opposition to indicate by noon on Friday whether they will comply with the cessation of hostilities, a term carefully chosen because it does not require the kind of agreement in a formal cease-fire.
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  • The United States is responsible for bringing the various opposition groups in line while the Russians are supposed to pressure the government. Washington and Moscow also agreed to set up a hotline to monitor compliance by both sides.
  • President Obama sealed the final terms of the arrangement in a phone call with President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia, who has become perhaps the most influential player in the Syrian war since Russia thrust itself into the conflict in September on behalf of its client, Syria’s president, Bashar al-Assad.
  • The diplomatic efforts did yield a small victory: Aid was delivered for the first time in months to several towns after the combatants gave permission under intense pressure.
  • On the ground in Syria, the prospects for an end to the bloodshed seemed even more elusive. In the last week alone, more than 100 people in Homs and Damascus were killed by suicide bombings by the Islamic State.
  • Airstrikes by the Syrian government and its Russian allies in Aleppo and elsewhere have killed scores of people, including in at least five hospitals, one aided by the international charity Doctors Without Borders.
  • Farther east, scores of civilians were said by locals to have been killed in airstrikes by the American-led coalition fighting the Islamic State, also known as ISIS or ISIL.
  • The priorities, Mr. Obama told Mr. Putin, were to “alleviate the suffering of the Syrian people,” accelerate a political settlement and keep the focus on the coalition’s battle against the Islamic State.
  • hundreds of thousands of Syrians remain trapped in areas that are classified as besieged or hard to reach, without regular access to food and medicine. Humanitarian groups caution that the more access to aid is used as part of political deals, the less the combatants will provide it unconditionally, as required under international law.
  • The agreement came after one false start: Secretary of State John Kerry announced in Munich on Feb. 12 that the truce would take effect in a week, but the target date passed as the two sides wrestled over how to carry it out. On Sunday, in Amman, Jordan, Mr. Kerry spoke three times by phone with Russia’s foreign minister, Sergey V. Lavrov, to iron out the details.
  • On Monday, while flying back to Washington, Mr. Kerry briefed ministers from Britain, France, Germany, Saudi Arabia, Qatar and Turkey about the agreement, according to a senior State Department official. He is expected to discuss the truce when he testifies at a budget hearing Tuesday before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.
  • Mr. Kerry has tended to be more optimistic than the White House about the prospects for a diplomatic solution in Syria. But his statement on Monday was also notably reserved. He did not mention the Feb. 27 date and said that while the agreement represented a “moment of promise,” the “fulfillment of that promise depends on actions.”
  • Analysts expressed skepticism about the deal, noting that in the five days before the truce takes effect, the Syrian forces and their Russian allies could inflict a lot more damage to Aleppo through bombing raids. Some speculated that Russia might expand its military campaign to Idlib, southwest of Aleppo, where Nusra fighters are also operating.
  • “This depends entirely on the good faith of Russia, Iran and the Assad regime, none of whom have shown much good faith in the last five years,” said Frederic C. Hof, a senior fellow at the Atlantic Council who worked on Syria policy during the first term of the Obama administration.
  • In Riyadh on Monday, a Saudi-backed consortium of Syrian opposition groups and political dissidents said they would agree to the terms of the truce. But Riad Hijab, who coordinates the group’s efforts, did not expect the Syrian government, Iran or Russia to abide by it since, he said, Mr. Assad’s survival depended on “the continuation of its campaign of oppression, killing and forced displacement.”
  • For the Obama administration, a partial truce in Syria may simply be a way to keep a lid on the violence there while it turns its attention to planning and carrying out military operations against Islamic State fighters in Libya.
  • Some analysts said the agreement was less an effort to end the fighting in Syria than to ease the bloodshed enough to allow more humanitarian aid to reach stricken cities like Aleppo.
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Migrant crisis: EU proposes $760 million emergency aid for Greece - CNN.com - 0 views

www.cnn.com/...index.html crisis greece emergency politics policy
shared by rachelramirez on 03 Mar 16 - No Cached
  • Migrant crisis: EU proposes $760 million emergency aid for Greece
  • The European Union announced plans Wednesday for 700 million euros ($760 million) in emergency aid to Greece as the economically struggling country copes with an influx of migrants stranded
  • Greece, the main gateway to Europe, had asked the EU for help to provide for tens of thousands of migrants in its territory.
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  • The aid proposal -- intended to meet basic needs such as food, water and shelter over the next three years -- came a day after NATO's top general told a Pentagon briefing that ISIS was exploiting the migrant crisis.
  • the U.N. refugee agency warned the constant influx of migrants meant Europe faced "an imminent humanitarian crisis."
  • The U.N. refugee agency said the number of migrants stuck in Greece had soared to 24,000 by Monday night, with about 8,500 of them stuck at Idomeni.
  • Some member states have temporarily suspended 1985's Schengen Agreement, which has guaranteed free movement within Europe.
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Jordan Calls UN Refugee Claim 'Exaggerated' | Al Jazeera America - 0 views

america.aljazeera.com/...refugee-claim-exaggerated.html jordan refugee policy crisis border world news
shared by lenaurick on 10 Dec 15 - No Cached
  • U.N figure of 12,000 stranded refugees.
  • Human Rights Watch (HRW) called on the kingdom to let the refugees in
  • The UNHCR has warned that the lives of the stranded refugees will be at risk in coming winter months if they are not admitted to Jordan and receive substantial assistance. 
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  • Momani says that "our borders are open for refugees" and that "we take care of humanitarian cases, particularly children and women."  
  • Jordan hosts about 630,000 of more than 4 million Syrians who have fled their homeland since 2011.
  • Jordan has permitted entry to small groups at a time, typically several dozen a day, citing the need for stringent security checks to weed out potential fighters alligned with armed groups.
  • U.N. refugee agency made a rare public appeal to Jordan to change its policy, while acknowledging the country's "tremendous contribution" to hosting refugees
  • "Testimony from Syrian refugees and international aid workers in Jordan ... suggests that hundreds of refugees have been arriving on a daily basis in recent weeks but have been denied access to Jordan by the authorities,"
  • Amman to take "immediate action" to assist them, saying failure to provide refugees with sanctuary could fuel a "humanitarian disaster." 
  • The group said the images show more than 1,450 tent structures, compared to 175 in April.
  • lenaurick on 10 Dec 15
     
    "She said women have given birth at the berm in unsanitary conditions, and that there are increasing signs of diarrhea and malnutrition among children. "
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Starvation in Syria 'a war crime,' U.N. chief says - CNN.com - 0 views

www.cnn.com/...index.html
shared by alexdeltufo on 15 Jan 16 - No Cached
  • Ali was 16 years old and badly malnourished.Workers for UNICEF
  • The city is controlled by rebels and under siege by forces loyal to Syrian President Bashar al-Assad
  • The UNICEF team screened the children they found in the hospital. They found 22 children under the age of 5 suffering from malnutrition, according to a statement Friday from Hanaa Singer, the organization's representative in Syria.
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  • "The people we met in Madaya were exhausted and extremely frail," Singer said. "Doctors were emotionally distressed and mentally drained
  • No plans to evacuate the starving
  • He spoke after U.N. convoys had finally arrived in Syrian towns to deliver food to malnourished residents
  • "Let me be clear: The use of starvation as a weapon of war is a war crime," he said. "All sides -- including the Syrian government, which has the primary responsibility to protect Syrians -- are committing this and other atrocious acts prohibited under international humanitarian law.
  • The starvation here is no act of God -- not the result of drought or flooding or crop failure.
  • "The people we met in Madaya were exhausted and extremely frail," Singer said. "Doctors were emotionally distressed and mentally drained, working 'round the clock with very limited resources to provide treatment to children and people in need. It is simply unacceptable that this is happening in the 21st century.
  • Workers for UNICEF, the United Nations Children's Fund, met him
  • The UNICEF team screened the children they found in the hospital. They found 22 children under the age of 5 suffering from malnutrition, according to a statement Friday from Hanaa Singer, the organization's representative in Syria.
  • The use of starvation as a weapon in Syria is "a war crime," U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said Thursday.
  • In al-Fouaa and Kefraya, two towns in the country's northwest, about 20,000 have been suffering under a rebel blockade, said Dibeh Fakhr,
  • Thursday evening, delivering desperately needed food and humanitarian supplies to residents, the International Committee of the Red Cross said.
  • "We now meet the families to talk about their needs," he said on Twitter.
  • Earlier Thursday, the Madaya-bound convoy of 44 trucks arrived on the outskirts of the city, in a mountainous area 25 kilometers
  • More than 250,000 Syrians -- mostly civilians -- have been killed, according to the United Nations. About 10.5 million Syrians have fled their homes
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U.N.-Appointed Panel Calls for a Tax to Pay for Crises - The New York Times - 0 views

www.nytimes.com/...r-a-tax-to-pay-for-crises.html
shared by sgardner35 on 18 Jan 16 - No Cached
  • That idea — a small tax on high-volume goods and services — is among those proposed by an independent panel appointed by the United Nations to figure out how to pay for the staggering humanitarian crises facing the world today
  • Aid for the millions of people affected has sharply risen, but it has not kept pace with demands.
  • The world needs $40 billion each year to meet the needs of those affected by wars and natural disasters and already faces a shortfall of $15 billion for this year. Those needs are expected to grow; as the report stated bluntly, “Never before has generosity been so insufficient.” Already, food aid has been repeatedly slashed for refugees fleeing conflict in places like Somalia and Syria.
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  • “Today’s massive scale of instability and its capacity to cross borders, vividly demonstrated by the refugee crisis in Europe, makes humanitarian aid a global public good that requires an appropriate fund-raising model,” the report says
  • Countries that host refugees feel the impact acutely, but do not always have direct access to donor money. And refugees are often prohibited from working in the countries where they are living.
  • The report urges money transfer agencies to drop their fees, which is a nod to the importance of remittances from migrants to their home countries, especially in times of crisis. The authors of the report also encourage more cash assistance, rather than food, tents and blankets. They cite one 2014 study in which 70 percent of a sample group of Syrian refugees traded “in-kind assistance they received for cash.”
  • The microtax idea is modeled after a tax on airfare that helped raise about $2 billion between 2006 and 2011, largely for immunization programs worldwide.
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US withdraws assistance from Myanmar military amid Rohingya crisis | World news | The G... - 0 views

www.theguardian.com/...-military-amid-rohingya-crisis myanmar military Rohingya Muslims US
shared by knudsenlu on 25 Oct 17 - No Cached
  • The US has announced it is withdrawing military assistance from Myanmar units and officers involved in violence against Rohingya Muslims that has triggered a mass exodus and humanitarian crisis
  • Militant attacks on Myanmar security forces in Rakhine sparked an army crackdown that has already been likened to ethnic cleansing by the UN. More than 600,000 members of the minority Muslim group have fled across the border into Bangladesh since late August.
  • We express our gravest concern with recent events in Rakhine state and the violent, traumatic abuses Rohingya and other communities have endured,” said a state department spokeswoman, Heather Nauert, announcing the punitive measures.
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  • The government of Burma, including its armed forces, must take immediate action to ensure peace and security; implement commitments to ensure humanitarian access to communities in desperate need; facilitate the safe and voluntary return of those who have fled or been displaced in Rakhine state; and address the root causes of systematic discrimination against the Rohingya,” Nauert said.
  • The measures announced by the state department are the strongest US response so far to the months-long Rohingya crisis but fall short of the most drastic tools at Washington’s disposal, such as reimposing broader economic sanctions suspended under the Obama administration
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The Guardian view on Saudi Arabia and Yemen: Britain's shame, Britain's duty | Opinion ... - 0 views

www.theguardian.com/...n-britains-shame-britains-duty saudi arabia yemen britain duty humanitarian
shared by knudsenlu on 12 Mar 18 - No Cached
  • The visit by crown prince Mohammed bin Salman has highlighted UK responsiblities in the devastating war
  • wo announcements marked the end of the Saudi crown prince Mohammed bin Salman’s visit to the UK on Friday. First came a £100m aid deal, promptly branded a “national disgrace”. While DfID says it will pool expertise to boost infrastructure in poor countries, critics say that it is meant to whitewash the reputation of Saudi Arabia, which needs such PR thanks to its leading role in the war in Yemen.
  • The UN says that 8.5 million Yemenis are at risk of famine. Its humanitarian chief describes conditions as “catastrophic”. The shattered health system battles diphtheria and cholera. The country’s new special envoy, former British diplomat Martin Griffiths, must try to revive the moribund attempts to find a political exit. Whatever the hopes of the Saudi crown prince, there is not a military solution
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  • A successful peace initiative will need to involve them all, as complex as that will be; a simple deal bearing no relation to realities cannot hold. It will also require persuading Riyadh to be clearer and more realistic about its aims. Britain’s shameful role in Yemen gives it an extra duty to press that case. But for now it seems more focused on security and promoting Typhoon sales.
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Letters: 'And Now, Now Will We Go to War?' - The Atlantic - 0 views

www.theatlantic.com/...558161 war politics
shared by oliviaodon on 05 May 18 - No Cached
  • Readers weigh in on the ethics of American intervention in Syria.
  • It’s a dangerous puzzle, too hot to touch A Jenga game on fire—don’t remove too much— A giant house of cards already burning How can we play, when we’re getting worse at learning?
  • Is there any way to help without more blood on our hands? Would Syria turn out better than Iraq? Afghanistan? We can’t fix what we can’t understand We can’t help ourselves, much less these foreign lands.
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  • (He’s selfish and ignorant and a bit of a fascist, But the bar’s pretty low now, at least he’s not gassing us!)
  • Some people voted for him, despite all the lying, Thinking he’d avoid war, telling themselves they were trying. But our new NSA guy already knows how to love the bomb And now they too will get dragged alongNow we can’t hear ourselves think above all the noise and If we stay or if we go, Assad’s still got that poison The children will still choke on sarin gas and vomit
  • Forgive me for not thinking war will solve this It seems nothing we can do can absolve us It’s all already our fault, according to this thesis Perhaps in 20 years we can help pick up the piecesI see no way of helping besides running away—and taking some of them with us
  • One of the considerations in “just-war” or “moral war” theory is that the war or intervention must be effective, or must have at least a reasonable likelihood of being effective, and a reasonable likelihood of doing more good than harm. So if we’re going with moral war theory, or just as a pragmatic matter, we need to consider (1) will our intervention (whatever it is) have the desired effect?, (2) will it have a counterproductive effect?, (3) will it have little or no effect?
  • The real question here is: What strategy, if any, by the US, the UN, or any other foreign power, can resolve the Syrian Civil War?Not everything is fixable.
  • Yes, humanitarian intervention in Syria is warranted. But then comes the question: What would this intervention be? We can find the answer to this question in a document adopted by the UN in 2005. In 2001, the International Commission on Intervention and State Sovereignty (ICISS) published a report called The Responsibility to Protect, which was meant to be a response to the atrocities and crimes against humanity committed at the end of the 20th century. This report later became known as R2P, and became a political commitment signed by all the member states of the United Nations, in 2005.Article 138 of the 2005 World Summit Outcome Document states: “Each individual State has the responsibility to protect its populations from genocide, war crimes, ethnic cleansing and crimes against humanity.” The following paragraph, Article 139, states:
  • We can see that, according to Article 139, states are not only permitted to intervene in cases of crimes against humanity, but in fact, have the duty to intervene. F
  • Ultimately, the answer of what the U.S. (or any other country) should do, in terms of intervention, is thus up to the country and its strategists. Countries like the U.S., who are member states of the UN and have signed on to R2P, do have a moral obligation to intervene in the case of Syria, at least in such a way that will protect civilians from further harm. But, as stated in R2P and proven by history, it is crucial that interventions be planned carefully, in order to be tailored to the case in question. Perhaps there is no “one right way” to perform a humanitarian intervention, but the complexity and multiple factors involved in staging one mean that while there is much room for error, there is also much room to create a proper intervention. The key, then, is to err on the side of caution and care—for if we are to step into a quagmire, we should be careful not to lean too deep into what may become quicksand.
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China's 'Arab Pivot' Signals the End of Non-Intervention | The Diplomat - 0 views

thediplomat.com/...ls-the-end-of-non-intervention US politics history culture crisis policy Chia non-intervention
shared by krystalxu on 23 Oct 17 - No Cached
  • the cutting of diplomatic ties between Iran and a handful of Sunni governments.
  • China’s growing international activities, specifically those attached to the Middle East are part and parcel to a new era of “internationalization” for China
  • China is now part of the complex geopolitical mire of the Middle East and with its increasingly dependence on oil, disengaging from the region even willingly will be a daunting task.
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  • China has been openly vocal about its interests in building ties with Middle East states, predominantly as a way to probe for opportunities to satisfy China’s burgeoning energy needs,
  • Another is the formulation and implementation of humanitarian assistance programs, which can easily act as coverage for establishing the presence of a conflict-ready military force.
  • Beijing’s presence in Syria brings it in closer alignment with Russia.
  • Beijing will need to turn to the pressing issues of how to operate now that its has vacated its longstanding positions of non-alignment and non-intervention.
  • Syria represents just one case in the broader Middle East, but is an instructive example of the complexities ahead.
  • Uyghur presence and an enduring insurgency in Syria and Iraq presents the great instability and a challenge to China’s “One Belt, One Road” (OBOR) project.
  • China’s peacekeeping contributions began in the early 1990s, and troop deployments continued with significant contributions reaching nearly 2,000 troops by 2009.
  • China is standing at the epicenter of instability in the region.
  • Latent expectations of alignment by Beijing with specific Middle East states already exist, having been established decades prior to its present-day interactio
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Undocumented Venezuelans Given Protected Status In United States : NPR - 0 views

www.npr.org/...tected-status-in-united-states US Biden Politics trump Venezuela
shared by yehbru on 09 Mar 21 - No Cached
  • The Biden administration said Monday that it will allow many Venezuelans who are already in the country illegally to remain because of the humanitarian and economic crisis in the socialist South American nation that is an adversary of the U.S.
  • Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas granted Temporary Protected Status to an estimated 320,000 Venezuelans.
  • Venezuela has fallen into a life-threatening economic and humanitarian crises that have caused more than 5 million Venezuelans to flee in search of food, medicine and shelter.
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  • The decision represents a dramatic shift in policy from the previous administration, which withstood bipartisan calls to grant the protections to Venezuelans.
  • Fernand Amandi, a Miami-based Democratic political strategist and pollster, said granting TPS to Venezuelans could open up a new relationship for Biden with an electorate that largely supported Trump in 2020.
  • Temporary Protected Status is granted to those from countries ravaged by natural disasters or war, allowing them to live and work in the United States until conditions improve back home.
  • "Venezuela is a failed state in every single measure," he said. "There's simply not enough food to go around. Hospitals had collapsed before the pandemic. You have a repressive dictatorship and extraordinary levels of violence in the street. You have pro-government militias attacking protesters. It's just inhumane to send people back into those conditions."
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Biden Grants Protections for Venezuelans to Remain in U.S. - The New York Times - 0 views

www.nytimes.com/...biden-venezuela-maduro.html politics
shared by delgadool on 09 Mar 21 - No Cached
  • Biden Gives Venezuelans Reprieve to Remain in U.S. Trump Had RejectedHundreds of thousands of Venezuelans can temporarily continue to live and work in the United States as the administration considers its next steps in the effort to force out Venezuela’s president.
  • WASHINGTON — As many as 320,000 Venezuelans living in the United States were given an 18-month reprieve on Monday from the threat of being deported, as the Biden administration sought to highlight how dangerous that country has become under President Nicolás Maduro.
  • Two senior Biden administration officials said the new protections would be offered to those who can prove they are living in the United States as of Monday. The cutoff date aimed to discourage smugglers from enticing other Venezuelans to make the arduous journey to the United States at a time the Biden administration is already struggling with how to accommodate thousands of Central American migrants headed to the southern border.
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  • For years, the world watched in horror as man-made humanitarian and political crises turned Venezuela into a failed state,” the senators said in a joint statement. “Despite these disastrous and dangerous conditions, Venezuelans were still forcibly deported ba
  • “It gives us protection,” he said, “but also reminds us that we’re here because there’s a dictatorship in our country.”
  • The immigrants also will be allowed to work legally in the United States as part of the temporary protective status the administration issued as it considers the next steps in a yearslong American pressure campaign to force Mr. Maduro from power.
  • Venezuela is mired in one of the world’s worst humanitarian crises under Mr. Maduro, who, through a mix of corruption and neglect, oversaw the decay of the country’s oil infrastructure that had propped up its economy. The United Nations has estimated that up to 94 percent of Venezuela’s population lives in poverty, with millions of people bereft of regular access to water, food and medicine.
  • The United States has been at the fore of an international campaign to force Mr. Maduro from power since disputed elections in 2018. It is one of the few foreign policy priorities that has been advanced by both the Biden and Trump administrations, each of which recognizes Juan Guaidó, the opposition leader and former head of Venezuela’s National Assembly, as the country’s legitimate leader.
  • Roberto Marrero, a Venezuelan opposition leader who moved to Florida after spending a year and a half in jail in Venezuela, called Monday’s decision a “bittersweet victory.”
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Yemen: Saudi Arabia Proposes A Peace Deal, But Houthis Say It's Not Enough : NPR - 0 views

www.npr.org/...but-houthis-say-its-not-enough
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  • Saudi Arabia has proposed a peace deal to end the nearly six-year war in Yemen, if the Iranian-backed Houthi rebels agree.The Saudi proposal calls for a nationwide ceasefire and reopening the airport in the Yemeni capital, Sanaa.
  • "The initiative aims to end the human suffering of the brotherly Yemeni people, and affirms the Kingdom's support for efforts to reach a comprehensive political resolution," the Saudi Foreign Ministry said in a statement.
  • The war has been a quagmire for the Saudis and they are apparently looking for a way out.
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  • "We expected that Saudi Arabia would announce an end to the blockade of ports and airports and an initiative to allow in 14 ships that are held by the coalition," the Houthis' chief negotiator, Mohammed Abdulsalam,
  • The United States and the U.N. have been trying to end what they call the world's worst humanitarian disaster. President Biden has pledged to use diplomacy to end the war and to allow more refugees to come to the U.S.
  • In a briefing, U.N. spokesperson Farhan Haq said he welcomed the Saudi proposals, and that U.N. envoy Martin Griffiths has been working toward these goals. Asked about the Houthis' rejection of the Saudi offer, Haq said Griffiths would be in touch with all parties to discuss moving forward with Saudi Arabia's proposal.Peter Salisbury, senior Yemen analyst at the International Crisis Group, says the Saudi proposal is essentially a new take on an idea that was put forth a year ago.
  • Salisbury says he believes the Saudi proposal is likely aimed at pressuring the Houthis. For now, he predicts more talks, more air strikes, and more fighting on the ground
  • The conflict has become a proxy war between Saudi Arabia and Iran. Years of fighting have left 80% of Yemen's population reliant on aid and millions are on the brink of starvation.
  • The war in Yemen began in 2014, when Houthi militants supported by Iran overthrew the unpopular Saudi-backed government in Yemen's capital. A coalition of Gulf states — led by Saudi Arabia and with support from the U.S., France and the U.K. — responded with airstrikes, beginning in 2015.While the Biden administration has been critical of the way the Saudis have waged the war, it has also raised alarms about recent Houthi attacks against Saudi Arabia.
  • The State Department said that in a call with Saudi Arabia's foreign minister, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken "reiterated our commitment to supporting the defense of Saudi Arabia and strongly condemned recent attacks against Saudi territory from Iranian-aligned groups in the region."
  • The two officials reportedly expressed support for diplomatic efforts to end the conflict in Yemen, "starting with the need for all parties to commit to a ceasefire and facilitate the delivery of humanitarian aid."State Department deputy spokesperson Jalina Porter said the proposal is "one step in the right direction," calling on all of the parties to negotiate under the auspices of the U.N.
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American weapons ended up in the wrong hands in Yemen. Now they're being turned on the ... - 0 views

www.cnn.com/...index.html miltary
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  • Fresh evidence shows that military hardware that was supplied to US allies has been distributed in contravention of arms deals to militia groups, including UAE-backed separatists. They are now using it to fight the Saudi-supported forces of the internationally recognized government, who are also armed with US weapons.
  • These new findings follow an exclusive investigation by CNN in February which traced US-made equipment that was sold to Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates. The weapons were being passed to non-state fighters on the ground in Yemen, including al Qaeda-linked fighters, hardline Salafi militias and the Iranian-backed Houthi rebels, the report found, in violation of arms sales law.
  • Saudi Arabia has led a coalition, in close partnership with the UAE and including various militia groups, to fight Iranian-backed Houthi rebels in Yemen since 2015. But, in a clear break with its Saudi partners, the UAE said in July that it was reducing its forces in the country, and fighting escalated between separatists and government forces on the ground in August. The UAE has since thrown its support behind the separatist movement.
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  • Saudi-backed forces have since regained control of Aden and talks are under way to end the power struggle over the city, news agencies report.
  • US lawmakers have reacted with outrage to CNN's new findings. One of them, Senator Elizabeth Warren, a frontrunner to become the Democratic Party's presidential candidate in 2020, said: "One report of US military equipment ending up in the hands of our enemies is troubling. Two reports is deeply disturbing."
  • When asked whether it knew if its technology was ending up in the wrong hands in Yemen, Real Time Laboratories told CNN they had supplied the product to BAE Systems in 2010 under a US government subcontract, but "cannot comment on what the US Government may have eventually done with this vehicle."
  • It, like several other pieces of weaponry that CNN identified, can be traced back to a $2.5 billion arms sale contract between the US and the UAE in 2014. Like all arms deals, this contract was bound by an end user agreement which certifies the recipient -- in this case the UAE -- as the final user of the weaponry. From this evidence, it is clear that this agreement has been broken.
  • One of the most prominent is a group known as Alwiyat al Amalqa or "Giants Brigade" -- a predominantly Salafi, or ultra-conservative Sunni -- militia supported by the UAE. One of their videos shows a US-made MaxxPro MRAP vehicle, purportedly being driven in convoy to join the separatists' battle against government forces in the south.
  • Not only is US weaponry being used directly against America's allies in Yemen, but its presence also plays into Iranian propaganda in the region. The latest example of this saw footage being broadcast on a pro-Iranian Lebanese channel that showed US-made armored vehicles being unloaded into a Yemeni port off UAE ships. It turned out this footage was not recent, but the broadcast indicates the presence of US hardware in Yemen continues to be a card played by America's enemies.
  • With the conflict spiraling and the role of US weapons in its deterioration becoming clearer, all while the humanitarian crisis deepens by the day, the Pentagon has pledged to investigate how its military hardware ended up in the wrong hands.
  • Senator Chris Murphy authored an amendment to the annual US defense spending bill, which is currently being debated in Washington, that would cut off support for the Saudi-led coalition until the Secretary of Defense could certify that both the Saudis and Emiratis have stopped transferring US weapons to third parties in Yemen. It's just one of recent bipartisan efforts in the US Congress to address US military involvement in Yemen.
  • Sen. Murphy responded to CNN's latest findings, saying: "For years, US-made weapons have been fueling the conflict in Yemen and it's no surprise they are now ending up in the hands of private militias."
  • A UN-commissioned panel of experts recommended that the US, UK and France "refrain from providing arms to parties to the conflict" because of "the prevailing risk that such arms will be used by parties to commit or facilitate serious violations of international humanitarian and human rights law."
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The Rohingya Know International Law's Failures Better Than Anyone - The Atlantic - 0 views

www.theatlantic.com/...600169 culture crisis politics
shared by anniina03 on 22 Oct 19 - No Cached
  • And on the second anniversary of the genocide, it fell upon Ullah to tell his fellow Rohingya that they were fast running out of options.
  • he spoke into a microphone, telling the assembled spectators that they had two choices: to resign themselves to life here—by some measures the world’s densest refugee camp—and rely on global compassion that was eroding, or demand that their rights be upheld in Myanmar (by a government whose army has sought to slaughter them) and then return home.
  • These are now the only real possibilities on offer for the Rohingya, a community that is, by and large, on its own, with dwindling numbers of supporters on the international stage
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  • In the reams that have been written about the plight of the Rohingya, chronic and utter disenfranchisement is the most consistent thread. The origins of their bottom-tier status are colonial, but were codified in 1982 when the Burmese government passed a law that restricted their movement and access to education, and allowed for arbitrary confiscation of property.
  • With repatriation stalled, Bangladesh is now exploring relocation. The country has thus far been patient and welcoming, but its willingness to host such a large refugee population is wearing thin.
  • The atrocities continue to this day, deepening the humanitarian catastrophe in the province of Rakhine. (Myanmar has repeatedly denied carrying out any ethnic cleansing or genocide.)
  • Myanmar government signed a memorandum of understanding with two UN agencies as a first step toward the Rohingya’s repatriation, they were not consulted. So when 3,450 Rohingya families were offered voluntary return to Rakhine, not a single one took up the offer.
  • Wave after wave of extreme violence against them culminated in August 2017 with a crackdown that forcibly displaced nearly a million people. At least 9,000 members of their community died in just the first month of the onslaught
  • the storm surge during the monsoon often triggers landslides, and the mud, water, and sewage from makeshift toilets in the camps combine to form a deadly cocktail of infectious and waterborne diseases.
  • Staying here in the camps carries its own risks. Children have had no access to formal education, creating what UNICEF has called a “lost generation,” while human traffickers prey on young girls and boys.
  • Yet somehow, when faced with repatriation to Rakhine or relocation to Bhasan Char, the squalid camps appear the safest option.
  • For one thing, donor support is in doubt. Bangladesh, itself a poor nation, is struggling to cope with the economic and environmental impact of hosting so many refugees.
  • At the same time, the conditions in the camps are worsening. Bangladesh directed local telecom operators at the beginning of September to shut down networks in the camps
  • Last week, the government took the clampdown a step further, announcing that refugees were now expected to stop using Bangladeshi cellphone SIM cards or face potential fines and jail time. Rohingya families rely on internet connectivity to stay in touch with loved ones still in Rakhine
  • On September 7, a parliamentary committee on defense recommended that a barbed-wire fence be built around the camps, restricting the free movement that refugees are afforded under international law. The decision has essentially created an open-air prison.
  • This relative unwillingness to criticize either the Myanmar or Bangladesh government—seen by UN agencies as necessary to preserve relationships with the two countries so that they continue to allow them to carry out relief work—has rankled Rohingya leaders such as Ullah, who argue that the language of international politics and humanitarianism is instead being used to mask inaction.
  • official UN Security Council designation of genocide is critical to activating the 1948 Genocide Convention, allowing perpetrators to be punished and peacekeeping forces to be deployed.
  • China and Russia, veto-wielding members of the body, are likely to block any action against Myanmar
  • Two years ago, when foreigners rushed in with aid, the Rohingya expected their plight to improve. They thought they would get a seat at the negotiating tables where their fates are being sealed, so that the human rights enshrined in international law might be extended to them.Instead, Ullah and his fellow Rohingya here are reduced to holding out hope that their children will receive a better education, to at least offer the prospect that their community’s lot will improve in the future.
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