[Debate] Russia, China Veto Western-backed Syria Resolution at UN Security Council

Thu Jul 19 21:05:33 BST 2012

It's ersatz because we have done exactly the same thing before, _just
last year_, regarding Libya; and we had done it before that, too,
regarding other imperialist interventions.  A funny thing is that most
anti-anti-imperialists (other than Pham Binh & Co.) don't even appear
to think the previous ventures were all that successful from their
POVs and they are acting as if they would sooner forget about them all
(and get mad if they are reminded of them).  If that is how they feel,
why do they do exactly the same thing and expect a different outcome?
Isn't that Einstein's definition of insanity?  If the only point, as
it seems to be the case with Doug, is to say that "Assad [or insert
any other proper name you like] is a horror" again and again, why not
make it a rule here that we all attach it to our signatures so we can
be done with it and proceed to consider the real issues?

On Thu, Jul 19, 2012 at 3:33 PM, Riaz K Tayob <riaz.tayob at gmail.com> wrote:
> Neville, I do not mind robust engagements, but like Yoshie I feel I am
> being drawn all over again into arguments that have been made on this
> self same issue, our respective "truths" are not improved by repitition
> - so apologies to the rest of the community. So if I sound hostile in
> this response, please do guide me, irrespective of whether you think I
> am engaged in a "routine"...
>
> Here goes:
>
> I can only insist that these are arguments and that anti-neohumanitarian
> interventionists (more on this below) have engaged - but on this list we
> are obliged to be repetitive because our points are NOT entertained. So
> once more for you, my engagements on this issue in general and with you
> in particular will bear out that these have been raised civilly and
> openly. The use of terminology is not a comfort blanket as you made a
> similar point earlier about my use of the term NHIs. As will be clear,
> there is a decided refusal to entertain what I have been saying. So for
> me your preconditions for dialogue lack decorum. People in glass houses
> should not get undressed in the dark and all that...
>
> Lets get under the covers then, again. A long long time ago... you
> objected to the term NHI. Then provocatively asked what I meant. I said
> an NHI is someone who supports intervention based on a set of rights
> that are limited to humanitarian ones (like R2P) and that beneficiaries
> of these rights in these countries are not recipients of the full set of
> citizens' rights. You continued to protest the term, and I decided to
> let you lump it. The reason was because you did not pick up the obvious
> point of how to support intervention without being characterised as an
> NHI. So I played. I asked, explicitly entertaining (and for dialogue
> purposes accepting) the intervention premise, what should a resolution
> necessarily include to ensure that it is full rights associated with
> citizenship, not humanitarianism, that recipients of intervention
> received. NO ONE rose to the occasion, if I recall correctly. To be fair
> later on Syria Res attempt 1 you did, in your verbose one liner,
> indicate you were not happy with the Syrian resolution - without stating
> why. Pity, because then a dialogue could have started - but mine is to
> make my argument and yours is to make yours. I then intimated that
> resolutions should safeguard the rights of citizens based on principles
> of self-determination, a historically applicable and valid category
> (albeit economic coercion in international law is still unsettled).
>
> So to put it very simply, you could have graduated from an NHI by
> putting forth democratic/citizen credentials within your arguments for a
> resolution. But you insisted on staying within the NHI camp by not
> explicitly stating more ought to be included to safeguard the full
> spectrum of citizenship rights. Now of course I understand your bind. If
> you had stepped out of NHI it would have meant that the Libya resolution
> was inadequate. But even that is trite, actually, because "uniqueness"
> and "necessity" (the core arguments of the NHI) work too well and could
> have also covered for these self-determination/citizenship omissions in
> the resolution (enter Cole and Achcaar with the 3 prong defence for
> hellfire and predators that are non-wars). Now please take note, these
> are arguments within the stated paradigm of the NHIs  - not even the
> broader anti-imperialism argument.
>
> So, not to defend Yoshie (who is about, but not quite, as curt as you),
> what we see is not a dialogue, but how did you put it(?), an "ersatz"
> one. An ersatz one that played within your paradigm, and without. Let us
> forget the latter, it is sufficient that NHIs on this list have mostly
> not engaged with us - preferring to stick to their guns. So like I said,
> there is enough blame to go around - myself included... but in my
> defense, one can only take a horse to water... Yoshie and I stand
> rightly accused. I can accept that. But if you entertain our pov, then
> so do NHIs.
>
> Henning and others are right however, unless we can deal with each other
> more civilly this is a waste of bandwidth and time. But to be clear,
> this is not only a fault of the anti-NHIs.
>
>
>
>
> On 2012/07/19 08:48 PM, Neville Adams wrote:
>> That's the problem; they're not arguments, but, more often than not,
>> exercises in apodictic statements.  Either that or an invitation to wade
>> through, and accept, this cyberspace, Simcity like creation of imagined
>> political positions of others on the debate list - which I do not recognise
>> myself to hold, and I suspect others do not as well - and that comes replete
>> with its own set of acronyms - NHI, AAI, and so forth - as well as penalty
>> points terms of disparagement.   I've said so before: if you want dialogue,
>> shed the ungrounded labels. Or are they too much of a comfort blanket.
>>
>> Neville
>>
>> -----Original Message-----
>> From: debate-list-bounces at fahamu.org [mailto:debate-list-bounces at fahamu.org]
>> On Behalf Of Riaz K Tayob
>> Sent: 19 July 2012 19:32
>> To: Debate is a listserve that attempts to promote information and analyses
>> of interest to the independent left in South and Southern Africa
>> Subject: Re: [Debate] Russia, China Veto Western-backed Syria Resolution at
>> UN Security Council
>>
>> Why? Are you having difficulty following the arguments?
>>
>> Or are your personal predilections or political correctness interfering with
>> your entertainment of the ideas?
>>
>> Or is it you can't bear to hear an argument contrary to yours?
>>
>> On 2012/07/19 08:29 PM, Doug Henwood wrote:
>>> Will you take a break from this endless hectoring and say what you're for,
>> just once?
>>> Doug
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-- 
Yoshie Furuhashi
<http://mrzine.org/>