dagblog - Comments for "Slaughter In Syria?"

No prob. I was just looking

PeraclesPlease — Sun, 19 May 2013 11:06:09 +0000

No prob.

I was just looking back to find a comment I'd made near real-time about the Benghazi consulate, and came across this BSLEV gem:

http://dagblog.com/reader-blogs/dagblog-limbo-14892#comment-164979

Of course words like the "5 high-five dancing Israelis" matter.

Point taken, my reply was

Bruce Levine — Fri, 17 May 2013 11:09:11 +0000

In reply to Oh, I think you summed it up

Point taken, my reply was stupid. I don't think you are The Evil (that would be Wolraich) by any stretch of the imagination. Sometimes (lots of times) you piss me off, and sometimes I think you are an asshole, but generally I think you're OK in a thorn in the paw kind of way, and I certainly do not think you are The Evil. Sorry PP, my bad.

Oh, I think you summed it up

PeraclesPlease — Thu, 16 May 2013 14:12:26 +0000

In reply to Thought I had responded

Oh, I think you summed it up - Peracles just wants to win arguments & doesn't give a shit about people's feelings. Yep, I'm Teh Evil.

Sorry AA, I'm in transit in

Bruce Levine — Thu, 16 May 2013 12:06:33 +0000

In reply to Bruce, this op-ed struck me

Sorry AA, I'm in transit in one of my favorite places, Buffalo! No joke, I love it up here and am awed by the folks who I get to represent up here. Point is, other than finishing up my little colloquy on manners with PP, I've had no time to read your article. I will, I promise. Also, look up Michael Young, who has an interesting article on Alawite exit strategy. No time to get cite now but just do the google. He speaks of contingency plans to establish an Assad-safe Alawite enclave (a mini-nation state) if things continue this way.

Just for clarification. My focus on international intervention would be on separating forces, and not occupying the country with the expectation that it will look like Peoria in a couple of years. And I'm no military expert, but I'm bothered by what I see as knee-jerk isolationism, which just doesn't seem to have the most wonderful track record in the world, historically. And I think it's fair to discuss this without the showroom dummy, cereal box-top knee jerk response that anyone who wants to consider intervention is a Dick Cheney in disguise. That's not what Michael was doing when he wrote this, but that's the discussion I've been obliged to participate in, culminating in the idiocy of parsing the definition of genocide as an end game for some.

P.S. I was gonna get pissed about being asked about Israel's "position" by some folks in this thread. But I guess I've earned that distinction. I trust you understand that Israel's posture has nothing to do with this American's consideration of American intervention to stop the slaughter (is that word OK?) in Syria.

Thought I had responded

Bruce Levine — Thu, 16 May 2013 11:54:20 +0000

In reply to Quite the opposite - I'm

Thought I had responded before, and I guess it didn't work. I'm rushed but for your last comment it doesn't matter. Beyond the high fallootin stuff by an obviously very talented and really smart writer, what I take out of your comment is that I tend to place a presumption of respect on the sensitivities of my brothers and sisters and you are too busy trying to win arguments solely for the sake thereof to give a shit about other people.

OK. Have the last word PP. We all know it really does rock your boat.

I also have to ask if they

Aaron Carine — Wed, 15 May 2013 22:00:14 +0000

In reply to The AP reporters didn't say

I also have to ask if they inspected the whole village before deciding that virtually everyone was long gone.

The AP reporters didn't say

Aaron Carine — Wed, 15 May 2013 20:46:43 +0000

In reply to Well, I might have muddied

The AP reporters didn't say the place was empty of civilians on that day. They said that "virtually" all had left earlier, but they acknowledged that a group of fleeing villagers were intercepted by Serb police(What happened then? They don't say). The wikipedia article speaks of Albanian survivors being interviewed, so clearly the place hadn't been empty of inhabitants. A massacre of 45 people isn't inconsistent with virtually all the inhabitants having left, if "virtually" meant something like 80-90 percent.

I haven't heard that the Finnish pathologist said she was under pressure to doctor the report. I read excerpts of the report on the internet; these parts, at least, indicate there was a massacre.

Well, I might have muddied

PeraclesPlease — Wed, 15 May 2013 19:10:05 +0000

In reply to You didn't deny there were

Well, I might have muddied this a bit - my position is that there were mass graves & Serb atrocities, including against civilians, but nowhere near the 100,000 scare numbers NATO used to justify the bombings, and most likely coming during the bombings and not beforeas we had pretty good satellite & overflight tracking to keep an eye on large movements.

Re: Racak, we have 2 AP filmers + reporters from Figaro, Le Monde and AFP, with the film apparently supporting that the village was empty of civilians. We have reports of mutilated bodies (including by Walker I believe) that were later recanted. We have 2 suspect inquiries from Serbia & Belorus, but then we have a Finnish inquiry that for some reason was never release, only some comments of its head were suggested to be the final report but they weren't, and later she noted the pressure she was under to make her report more suggestive.

And yes, there was reporting on the other side, BBC & ITN, etc.

Quite the opposite - I'm

PeraclesPlease — Wed, 15 May 2013 18:49:55 +0000

In reply to A rather selfish response, I

Quite the opposite - I'm saying they don't suddenly have overriding significance just because you say they do.

But to be fair, yes, we're both selfish and want words and our arguments to frame our preferences. You say to-may-to and I say to-mah-to. But quite frankly, I hop & dance around a lot of your sensitivities re: being Jewish, the holocaust, the precarious situation of Israel in the Mideast. You don't have to worry too much about my personal sensitivity because for the most part I haven't got one - more like Marvin the Paranoid Android. I don't have a dog in most of these fights - I'm arguing from preference, not partially from identity.

Now often I do play Devil's Advocate - not to be contrary so much as the rush to full agreement tends to display huge holes in logic and a good deal of situational hypocrisy - such as the morals we might most espouse get chucked out the window the moment of some kind of inconvenience. And often words are used to entrench the status quo, make sure no one steps out of line and comes up with an original thought. And sometimes using the uncatholic phrasing can allow some different perspective, maybe break through an impasse in thought & habit. So yeah, words can be important for a number of reasons, not just as a danger sign, but as a rhetorical aid.

Bruce, this op-ed struck me

artappraiser — Wed, 15 May 2013 14:47:57 +0000

In reply to Michael, I have to say this

Bruce, this op-ed struck me as exceptionally eye clearing: The real danger of Syria’s sectarian stalemate by Bernard Haykel, The Globe and Mail. It took me back to the big picture. Maybe it will help you too.

In a situation where there's so many potential proxy wars already inherent, the neo-liberal ethos of Slaughter types seems exceptionally naive. Seems to me that most kinds of interference in a situation like this only serves to escalate--more Cold War or Afghanistan or Vietnam or Iraq style, not so much Kosovo or Libya style. Despite horrific loss of life and other misery, any kind of force cannot be help in a situation like this, as it only serves escalation of long-term animosities, and the only tools that have any potential are diplomacy and humantarian aid? Too many proxies = long-term quagmire?

(It occurs to me now why this article struck me too when I saw it the other day: How Do You Say 'Quagmire' in Farsi? Why Syria could turn out to be Iran's Vietnam -- not America's.)