anyone else following Egypt on Aljazeera?

[MishaK]

First: South Africa has been for decades an apartheid country --- the legal, political, economical, social and cultural arrangements were exclusively White-ish, i.e. European: a mixture of English and Dutch practices which completely excluded native peoples form having any influence on how the country was ruled.

You think I don't know that? Spain, Portugal and Greece were dictatorships after WWII.

Second: years after the apartheid system was undone, South Africa has been on a very steep slope of rampant criminality and economic decline

The numbers disagree with you: http://www.imf.org/external/pubs/nft/2006/soafrica/eng/pasoafr/sach2.pdf

In fact productivity was declining under Apartheid. Look, I'm not saying it's rosy. I'm saying it's no worse than some smaller European nations in the 50s, which are doing very well today, so there is no inherent reason to believe a country like SA couldn't do very well in a few decades time likewise.

--- White neighborhoods being physically and weaponly separated from Black ones.

...just like the US in the 40s and 50s.  You all are forgetting that countries develop. You are looking at snapshots from dissimilar moments in time and declaring an underdeveloped nation essentially incapable of reaching the level of a developed nation because you're forgetting how bad some things were in the past.

Frankly, you could have hardly found a worse example to back your case.  I mean: India, South Africa --- these are countries that have been strongly and indelibly marked by Western values. Presenting them today as some sort of succesful non-Western stories is completely disingenuous

I did not present them as "non-Western" success stories (I actually also didn't mention India in that context at all). The whole concept of Western vs. non-Western is one I don't find very helpful at all in this globalized world. I didn't use that terminology. All countries these days are indelibly marked by their interaction with the West, Islamic societies included. You can't find an isolated prototypical case that preserves some sort of "pure" indigenous system. It doesn't exist. For the same reason, the claims of cultural difference are vastly exaggerated and amount to the worst kind of cultural relativism. Yes, there are different circumstances, and one must tailor assistance to the situation, but the culture in and of itself is no reason why a Marshall Plan would not work.

[knight66]

Things are warming up a bit for my impending visit to Syria. I am watching the Foreign Office website and they remain phlegmatic about the deaths in the southern city of Deraa. I gather it is currently sealed off. Journalists have been refused Syrian visas for the last month or so.

I am due to fly to Damascus in the second week of April. It could be an interesting time for a visit. I was there six months ago. People then did not discuss politics casually. I guess now it will be utter silence or perhaps occasionally an outpouring. I am going back to the same small hotel which has, in the interim, lost most of the staff I chatted to.

I wrote about the visit here.......

http://themirrorandthelamp.blogspot.com/2011/02/jordan-syria-2010.html

Mike

[Archaic Torso of Apollo]

I join Velimir: who are these rebels? What do they stand for? What do they really want? What warranty do they offer they'll not be just as bad or even worse than Gaddafi?

It appears we are starting to get some clarity on this. Lots of jihadists and tribalists:

http://pajamasmedia.com/blog/eastern-libyas-tribes-jihadism-did-u-s-consider-its-own-libya-intel/?singlepage=true

I'm shocked, shocked I tell ya! I expected they'd be pro-Western freedom fighters who had read the Federalist Papers and Locke's treatises on government and been inspired thereby.

Seriously - has the US ever entered a military action before without even knowing who its allies are? The situation is almost surreal.

[Florestan]

Spain, Portugal and Greece were dictatorships after WWII.

Now it's my turn to be lawyer-ish. 

Actually, the dictatorships in the Iberian peninsula predate WWII --- by a few months in Spain and by some 13 years in Portugal.

Greece, excepting the Metaxa regime of 1936-41, was no dictatorship until more than 20 years after WWII ended.

Look, I'm not saying it's rosy. I'm saying it's no worse than some smaller European nations in the 50s, which are doing very well today, so there is no inherent reason to believe a country like SA couldn't do very well in a few decades time likewise.

Agreed in theory. But based on direct and involved testimonies, it seems to me that things have actually worsened compared to the apartheid period, especially in regard to the safety of people and their property.

Yes, there are different circumstances, and one must tailor assistance to the situation, but the culture in and of itself is no reason why a Marshall Plan would not work.

This is all great in theory. If and when a MP for Africa / Arab world will be started, we'll see how it works. (si Dieu nous prete vie ).

[Florestan]

I'll give you a lawyer's answer: depends.  If you're a guilty criminal, for example, the US gives you a lot more rights in the guilt phase of the trial. It's great to be in the US system at that time under those circumstances. But once they find you guilty, you'd be much better off in continental Europe, where the point of the criminal justice system is rehabilitation, while in the US the main objective is retribution and providing a steady flow of customers for the prison-industrial complex, so in the US you would get slammed with a draconian and disproportionate sentence. If I'm a business person looking for the least obstacles to starting a business, the US is attractive. On the other hand, US securities laws and tax code and contract law are so complex, that my transaction costs and lawyers fees would be vastly lower in Europe, though in Europe labor laws are stronger making the labor force more expensive. But all of these are political and economic considerations.

Great survey, but I think you forgot something:  both in US and Europe the trade of lawyer is the backbone of the legal system, and a very lucrative one.

Now could you extend the comparison to an Arab country of your choice?

Remember also that women's rights (another major criticism of Sharia) is a postwar development in the West.

At least concerning the right to vote, it has been granted to women in one form or another before WWII.

[Florestan]

Interesting.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2011/03/21/AR2011032102887.html

http://original.antiwar.com/buchanan/2011/03/22/a-foolish-and-unconstitutional-war/

http://www.salon.com/news/opinion/glenn_greenwald/2011/03/22/libya/index.html

[Archaic Torso of Apollo]

Yes, it seems to me that we've seen this movie before - and more than once:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2011/mar/20/libya-iraq

[Todd]

Lots of jihadists and tribalists:

What?  In Northern Africa?  I do not believe it.

Clearly it makes sense for the US to ally itself with the Libyan rebels and overthrow Qaddafi and finally bring a semblance of peace and stability to region.

[Archaic Torso of Apollo]

The ironies of history march on

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/la-fg-libya-prisoners-20110324,0,5389027,full.story

An excerpt from the above LA Times article:

For a month, gangs of young gunmen have roamed the city, rousting Libyan blacks and immigrants from sub-Saharan Africa from their homes and holding them for interrogation as suspected mercenaries or government spies.

Our previous president, the loudly Christian George W. Bush, left an interesting legacy in Iraq. The Iraqi Christian community, which had lived there since ancient times, is now mostly gone - destroyed and dispersed by the war.

Our first black president, Barack Obama, is now creating an interesting legacy in Libya: facilitating the ethnic cleansing of blacks from an African country.

[Archaic Torso of Apollo]

More proof (as if it were needed!) that neoconservatism is a mental illness:

http://www.weeklystandard.com/articles/party-freedom_554820.html

This stuff is beyond parody.

[Florestan]

More proof (as if it were needed!) that neoconservatism is a mental illness:

http://www.weeklystandard.com/articles/party-freedom_554820.html

This stuff is beyond parody.

Frankly, after the first two paragraphs I thought it was a parody, but then my eyes caught the name of the author and everything was settled. 

I do wonder: do these guys, in the privacy of their home and in the (presumably) full possesion of their mental faculties and moral conscience, really believe what they say / write? 

[drogulus]

     

     Necessary and Sufficient

     The case against Libyan intervention is philosophically flawed.

     William Galston
     March 24, 2011 | 12:00 am

Writing in 1977 on the topic of humanitarian interventions, a noted political philosopher had this to say:

"[W]hen a government turns savagely upon its own people, we must doubt the very existence of a political community to which the principle of self-determination might apply. ... When a people are being massacred, we don't require that they pass the test of self-help before coming to their aid. It is their very incapacity that draws us in. ... Any state capable of stopping the slaughter has the right, at least, to try to do so."

Returning to this topic in 1999, he observed that "the greatest danger most people face in the world today comes from their own states, and the chief dilemma of international politics is whether people in danger should be rescued by military forces from the outside." The problem, he argued, is not that individual states are prone to engage in such interventions, but the reverse: There have been "a lot of unjustified refusals to intervene." It is, he said, "more this neglect of intervention [by individual nations] than any resort to it that leads people to look for a better, more reliable, form of agency." And he offered a number of reasons why humanitarian interventions conducted under U.N. auspices might well meet this standard.

I agree with this distinguished scholar, who is (as you may have guessed) Michael Walzer. And that is why I disagree with his recent critique for TNR of our intervention in Libya.

     Read the rest.

[Scarpia]

The case against Libyan intervention is philosophically flawed.

People who write articles like this would be better employed scrubbing toilets.  The decision to slaughter people has nothing to do with philosophy.   The only justification for the decision to slaughter people is the likelihood that even more people, and more innocent people, will be slaughtered if nothing is done.   

[drogulus]

People who write articles like this would be better employed scrubbing toilets.  The decision to slaughter people has nothing to do with philosophy.   The only justification for the decision to slaughter people is the likelihood that even more people, and more innocent people, will be slaughtered if nothing is done.   

      Excellent philosophy, and quite useful, though you have to take it as given that preventing the deaths of innocents is a worthy goal when so many innocents are sure to die as a consequence of the action. But that's why you have to argue cases. And you have to remember that at the minimum the justification for good philosophy is to counter bad philosophy.

[drogulus]

     More from TNR

     Berlin Ghosts

     Why Germany was against the Libya intervention.

     Jeffrey Herf
     March 24, 2011 | 10:08 am

     It may have come as a surprise to many people that Germany—the lynchpin of the NATO alliance on the European continent and a close ally of the United States since 1949—voted to abstain from the U.N. resolution authorizing force against Muammar Qaddafi. The country was a staunch advocate of humanitarian intervention in the Balkans, and it is most definitely not led by a government of leftists who are given to denunciations of American imperialism. Indeed, Chancellor Merkel's affinity for American values is so pronounced that President Obama recently awarded her our highest civilian honor, the Presidential Medal of Freedom. Why, then, has Germany been so adamant in its opposition to the Libya intervention?


     Read the rest

[drogulus]

More proof (as if it were needed!) that neoconservatism is a mental illness:

http://www.weeklystandard.com/articles/party-freedom_554820.html

This stuff is beyond parody.

     Yes, but is there anything in the piece that you disagree with? Or I should say, that you can disagree with?

     Kristol is making a partisan point so he widens the gap between Republicans and Democrats, but the basic point that Obama has overcome his neurasthenic inheritance as a liberal Democrat to make the right choice is hard to argue with. But no, the Republicans have not been the party of freedom in a unique way. Both parties have mixed records on that score.

[Archaic Torso of Apollo]

     Kristol is making a partisan point so he widens the gap between Republicans and Democrats, but the basic point that Obama has overcome his neurasthenic inheritance as a liberal Democrat to make the right choice is hard to argue with.

It is extremely easy to argue with, if you think it isn't the right choice in the first place.

But don't listen to me. Here, Adam Garfinkle in The American Interest analyzes all the ways in which this action is (or could go) wrong:

http://blogs.the-american-interest.com/middleeast/2011/03/22/down-the-rabbit-hole/

[Florestan]

      Excellent philosophy, and quite useful, though you have to take it as given that preventing the deaths of innocents is a worthy goal when so many innocents are sure to die as a consequence of the action. But that's why you have to argue cases. And you have to remember that at the minimum the justification for good philosophy is to counter bad philosophy.

You scorned philosophy no end in other threads --- now you suddenly have become enamored of it.