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Stalinism: Not what it used to be

By Owen Paine on Thursday March 31, 2011 07:06 PM

"Participants in Libya's uprising certainly deserved protection from the brutal attacks the Gaddafi regime unleashed against them"
-- Nerf People's Planet editorial

Seems the humanitarian pretext for armed intervention is indivisible: either the empire can't use it, no matter what, or the empire can use it, no matter why (real 'why', that is; the nominal 'why' is always he same).

Hugo and Danny and Fidel are scrambling here because they could be next, if sovereignty is conditional on good behaviour, as defined by the western media machines.

Seems to me that's plenty good reason to play for Col Q's side in any venue available, no matter how much of a neoliberal torture-chamber Minotaur in glad rags the Colonel has become. Hoping to somehow stymie a clean win for Uncle Slamdunk here looks like a game you gotta play, whatever the odds, if you happen to be running a sovereignty-bolstered outfit that Uncle might decide to Slobo-Sad-icide some bright sunny morning.

Then we get this from the Webb-ites:

It is ironic that an international conference of over 30 countries, to consider, in the president's words, "what kind of political effort is necessary to pressure Gaddafi, while also supporting a transition to the future that the Libyan people deserve," is being held after the military intervention began. Had such discussions taken place earlier, one wonders if a consensus could have emerged for more powerful political and economic measures, short of military intervention, to protect Libyan civilians and open a space for a popular uprising.
"Containment," comrades?!

Might I point out the events of the Kennedy 60's vis-a-vis cuba. Oh how these red nerfers have spongified.

Comments (9)

op:

barry's feverish narrative:


"..Faced with this opposition, Gadhafi began attacking his people. … In the face of the world’s condemnation, Gadhafi chose to escalate his attacks, launching a military campaign against the Libyan people. Innocent people were targeted for killing. Hospitals and ambulances were attacked. Journalists were arrested, sexually assaulted, and killed. Supplies of food and fuel were choked off. The water for hundreds of thousands of people in Misratah was shut off. Cities and towns were shelled, mosques destroyed, and apartment buildings reduced to rubble. Military jets and helicopter gunships were unleashed upon people who had no means to defend themselves against assault from the air....At this point, the United States and the world faced a choice. Gadhafi declared that he would show ‘no mercy’ to his own people. He compared them to rats, and threatened to go door to door to inflict punishment. In the past, we had seen him hang civilians in the streets, and kill over a thousand people in a single day. Now, we saw regime forces on the outskirts of the city. We knew that if we waited one more day, Benghazi – a city nearly the size of Charlotte – could suffer a massacre that would have reverberated across the region and stained the conscience of the world.

“It was not in our national interest to let that happen. I refused to let that happen. And so nine days ago, after consulting the bipartisan leadership of Congress, I authorized military action to stop the killing….” "

worthy of a prize eh ??


--- thanx toi that equally feverish braymondo
for reproducing these nice potus droppings ---
http://original.antiwar.com/justin/2011/03/29/you-lie-mr-president/

Boink:

Comment on first comment:
MisratahFallujah... this is pot calling kettle stuff.

Also: "Military jets and helicopter gunships were unleashed upon people who had no means to defend themselves against assault from the air..." scratch Libya fill in Iraq and Afpak.

Fortunately GUSA has a stain resistant conscience and the population, i.e. the tv audience, has a collective memory with a half life of about 2 hours.

Oh, yeah, I am so thick... the difference is that "his own people" trope. It makes all the difference, or would if it were not the case that no one really does a nasty to "his own people". Recall those radioactive oatmeal kids in the 1950's. Were they anyone's "own people"? Nope. Or the pregnant relatives of the Nevada atmospheric bomb testers, that somehow took a trip at crucial intervals while the rest of the people, not our own, of course, got assurances that the testing posed no threat to human health.

juan:

...no matter how much of a neoliberal torture-chamber Minotaur in glad rags the Colonel has become. ..."

though there's question about how much violence, he's still worth supporting.

interesting[?]that libya has an hdi of 53; I believe highest in africa -
http://hdrstats.undp.org/en/countries/profiles/LBY.html

juan:

Boink

strontium 90 and milk

what the heck, from 1963
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1921007/

Boink:

I want Obama to get another Peace Prize so I can hear his acceptance speech. It oughta be a doozy...

MJS:

That will have to wait until he invades Norway.

sk:

No doubt a Norwegian Karzai will be found to lead his nation to a bright future.

Boink sez on 03.31.11 @21:19:
Fortunately GUSA has a stain resistant conscience and the population, i.e. the tv audience, has a collective memory with a half life of about 2 hours...

Two whole hours? Aren't you being a bit charitable?

Boink, generous to a fault:

Let's make it two segments of a Survivor episode.

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