World Affairs

[LexusInfernus 908]

Agreed, and the court needs such support. Still, a court can only do something AFTER someone bombed a hospital. Whatever small measure of justice the court is able to dish out (and sadly that is far from certain in a lot of cases, as the court requires international cooperation to get accused war criminals in the benches in the first place), it won't bring anyone back from the dead. 

[A Nonny Moose 8,261]

True.  Man's inhumanity to man will continue to the end of man.

[A Nonny Moose 8,261]

Syria: ;The beat goes on.

Quote

More than three dozen rebel factions said on Saturday that they would not respect the truce, unless the government agreed to extend it over the whole country.

My boldface.  This is the main problem as I see it.  Each and every one of these so-called rebel factions are more interested in something for themselves than for the country.  What needs to happen is that they each need to be annihilated.  If you destroy the dragon one head at a time, it is important to keep the stubs from growing new heads while you are busy with one of the others.

The two class A problems are al-Nusra and I.S. both of which are (theoretically) driven by ideology, but follow the money and see who really benefits here.

[Dreadnought 8,226]

A "partial truce" is totally oxymoron!!   It's like being "a little pregnant"!

The partial option merely allows Assad and Putin to decide which ones they would like to kill off.  And, in reality, they will never faithfully observe the truce anyway. 

Putin won't give up Assad after such a "public" show of support -- and Assad won't give up until he regains every square inch of what is fast becoming a wasteland.

 

[A Nonny Moose 8,261]

Quite correct.

"What's the use of my land,
"Fifty acres of sand.
"What's the use."
 -- A Kenny Gardner lament from the Guy Lombardo New Year's Shows.
 

[Skimbo 304]

I'm worried about turkey. In many ways.

 

The country is straight on it's way into a new turkish facism.

And now as HDP gave AKP them a reason to get rid of them, they do not even shriek back to cancel the diplomary immunity to HDP members in parlament so they can charge them with "crimes".

Turkey's south sees lots of PKK activity which causes the state media to be full of propaganda.

Last but not least: The tourist numbers rapidly decreased during the last year causing a vital part of the country's economy to slowly crash down. Rising debts and numbers of workless people are another ideal help for facism on the rise.

Last but not least all theese millions of syrians in the country......

[A Nonny Moose 8,261]

There is something cooking between the EU and the Turks.  Whatever they are dreaming up, it will be a pipe dream as many of the dealings of the EU in the Med are.

Eventually, because of the behaviour of the Kurds with respect to IS, I expect that their reward will be Kurdistan as they hold considerable territory already and are not acting like idiots.

[igotthis 12]

I worry about Turkey. They always want to cross the road, just like Canada geese. Horrible hazards, no matter how pretty they are.

IGT

[A Nonny Moose 8,261]

Turkey is neither European nor Asian, but something of both.  Few countries span two continents, and geographically they are in a hotspot with the Bosporus in the middle of their major city.  Then there is all the religious turmoil, and the Kurdish activism in the south.  It has always been a bit of a hot spot even when it was the principal province of the Eastern Roman Empire.  History has produced a hard act to follow since the fall of the Ottoman Empire.

[A Nonny Moose 8,261]

Turkey tells EU to get stuffed.

Turkish prime minister quits in spat over EU conditions.  President Erdogan tells EU to go their own way.

[LexusInfernus 908]

So the deal comes crashing down? Good, it was an abomination anyways, and the EU was in my eyes, completely wrong to have made that deal in the first place. 

[A Nonny Moose 8,261]

Carrying the big stick.

"Walk softly, but carry a big stick." -- Teddy Roosevelt.

Well, maybe Obama has more guts than some give him credit for.  Poor Vlad, he rattles his arsenal, and wonders why the U.S. and NATO respond.

[Dreadnought 8,226]

It's rather pragmatic in the end.

Putin doesn't understand the "carrot & stick" theory --

He only understands blatant force, so dealing with him is more a matter of showing him "the big stick" in the hope that he will eventually get the message.  Unfortunately, that won't work either.  Putin uses the US as a "whipping boy" to cover his own indiscretions.  Ever see the movie "Wag The Dog"?  Putin gets a lot of mileage out of making the US the big, mean, bully threatening peace-loving "Mother Russia".  His "children" love it when he roars defiance at imagined enemies.

Soooo -- the only recourse is to box him in with anti-missile systems.  He gets to roar and we go back to our cornflakes and morning paper.

[A Nonny Moose 8,261]

U.S. backs request for UN permission to arm Libyan government.

Remember Libya?  An allied coalition help topple Muhamar Gadaffi, then left them on their own.  Now, having sewn the wind, it seems it is time to harvest the whirlwind.  Daesh is said to be close to taking the country over.

[LexusInfernus 908]

And so the cycle continues and Libya further slips off the edge into another New War. 

Make no mistake, both sides are profiting from this idiotic request to start sending arms to the Libyan government, except all the people caught in the crossfire. 

[Dreadnought 8,226]

Make no mistake --

Wars are fought -- ultimately -- for two reasons; religion or profit.

Here we have a situation where religion AND profit may be involved.

The only real questions are -- WHOM do you want to win -- and WHAT are you prepared to do about it ?

[A Nonny Moose 8,261]

EgyptAir Flight MS804 from Paris to Cairo crashes in Mediterranean

Too soon for any details of cause.

[Dreadnought 8,226]

The Egyptian authorities have already proclaimed it a terrorist attack.

A little too quickly for my taste.  Perhaps a good way to cover up any faults in the plane or pilot?

[Sabretooth78 808]

The Egyptian government has a good track record of obfuscating air crash investigations - see also EgyptAir 990, Flash 604 and Metrojet 9268 (of which those are probably the most infamous).

We shall see.

[A Nonny Moose 8,261]

Erdogan wants to become dictator and is trying hard.

I haven't seen that he has replaced the prime minister he recently dumped.

[Dreadnought 8,226]

I don't expect Erdogan will replace him.

Isn't that the first step of all serious dictator's -- gradually combining the top two or three slots into your own job description?

10 hours ago, Sabretooth78 said:

The Egyptian government has a good track record of obfuscating air crash investigations - see also EgyptAir 990, Flash 604 and Metrojet 9268 (of which those are probably the most infamous).

We shall see.

They just announced that they had a fire alarm alert near the bathrooms just before the plane went down.  Sounds more like a bomb or incendiary device.  Not much information is forthcoming as yet.  They've located some debris and human remains -- maybe a fuel slick -- but not too much said about that, either.

[LexusInfernus 908]

7 hours ago, Dreadnought said:

I don't expect Erdogan will replace him.

Isn't that the first step of all serious dictator's -- gradually combining the top two or three slots into your own job description?

Actually he already replaced the PM with someone else. Also, you are talking about the old school dictators, I think Erdogan is much more the guy who has copied Vlad's playbook. So hes probably gonna keep all those other posts, but like in Russia, the president overrules all. 

[Odainsaker 2,133]

Let us not forget that Erdoğan has a new 1,000-room house to pay off...sure it was all from state coffers, but can we really blame the guy for just wanting to keep up with the neighbors, especially when your neighbors are Putin and Assad?  All this quibbling about peon refugees, lackey ministers, subversive journalists, and terrorists-of-convenience misses the big picture:  you can't be a serious dictator without a serious dictator's palace, and if it was good enough for Ceaușescu, then...

 

[A Nonny Moose 8,261]

Looking at the history since the breakup of the Ottoman Empire, the Turks seem to prefer a dictatorship and not of the proletariat.  Other than a marriage of convenience, I question their membership in NATO.

[Dreadnought 8,226]

5 hours ago, Odainsaker said:

Let us not forget that Erdoğan has a new 1,000-room house to pay off...sure it was all from state coffers, but can we really blame the guy for just wanting to keep up with the neighbors, especially when your neighbors are Putin and Assad?  All this quibbling about peon refugees, lackey ministers, subversive journalists, and terrorists-of-convenience misses the big picture:  you can't be a serious dictator without a serious dictator's palace, and if it was good enough for Ceaușescu, then...

 

Yes, Odainsaker --

I have to agree.  It is much easier to become a dictator in that part of the world -- and Erdogan does have  so many fine examples to learn from.

But "Infernus" seems reluctant to call him "old school".  I don't see why he shouldn't be like his historic predecessors.  If you allow for the emergence of the internet and I-phones, the text book hasn't changed much since Julius Caesars' day.

And Nonny's observation invites speculation that "the Turks" have always had dictators -- even the old Sultan.  "Democracy" is an alien concept for the region.

[A Nonny Moose 8,261]

Ladies and Gentlemen, democracy in the original Attic Greek model is as dead as dead can be.  The term receives nothing but lip service everywhere.  In Attic Athens only the demes had the vote.  They were the male landowners.  No others need apply.

Over the years we have increased the scope of the franchise, but at the same time the overwhelming population has caused many of us to adopt "representative democracy" where the public vote selects a group of spokespersons for groups of people in districts or ridings or wards.  Unfortunately we have also allowed "favourite sons" to sit for unconscionably long times in representative positions.  This might be alright provided that none of these were for sale.  However, these days most of them are bought by specific interests with the result that representation becomes a matter of patronage.  The definition of an honest politician these days seems to be one who, once he is bought stays bought and beholden to the same purchaser.

Now if you look at the current state of the U.S. of A. you see a plutocratic oligarchy.  It takes so much money to run for office that only those of conspicuous wealth need bother, and many of these are members of a clique, often within one of the two ruling parties.  This tends to lead to clinging to the current status long after it has lost its quo.  The Republican and Democratic parties are examples of this.  A new thought would probably shatter the skulls of most of them.

Here in the frozen north, the political science wonks have managed to convince the current government that the present electoral system is unfair because the multiplicity of parties makes it possible to be elected by the present system with less than half the vote.  First Past The Post (FPTP) is considered unfair to the minor parties, most of which never get a seat in Parliament, or at most less than the quota of 12 required to be considered an official party.  FPTP has worked to produce viable governments for 150+ years, but the wonks want to introduce some kind of proportional representation.  All the proposed systems are complicated, and one of them actually reserves seats for the various parties who will then appoint members of Parliament from some pool of political hacks who actually did not run for office.  You like that one?  I don't.  It may be slightly unfair to the squeaky wheels, but the present system really isn't broken, so I don't think it needs to be fixed.

The lack of real democracy in both countries is clearly demonstrable.  It is probably too late to fix either one without at major upheaval.  Let's not be too hard on the Turks.  They are just going on as they have for millennia.  Saddam Hussein may have been a bad boy, but would we have noticed if we had kept our noses out of the affairs that really don't concern the western "democracies"?  Overall he was a pretty good ruler unless you looked closely under the hood.

I think we should all go home and let the chips fall where they may.

[Dreadnought 8,226]

Like I said --

Erdogan sees his neighbors acting like dictators -- so he figures it's OK.

Dictators have been using the same, basic, control the masses tactics for two thousand years -- and they still work -- regardless of electronic devices.

The Turks aren't used to making decisions for themselves.  And they are not likely to grasp the concept of democracy, or plutocracy -- much less Parliamentary Procedure.

But it is nice to find out that the Canadian system is as screwed-up as the one in the US!

Wait until we fart around and accidentally elect Trump !!

[A Nonny Moose 8,261]

The blow back with screwing with the electoral system up here might blow away this nice Liberal government.  The honeymoon is over.  All it would take is enough of a stampede in the back benches to pass a no confidence motion and we get an election in about six weeks.  The gloves are off, and pretty photo ops won't help any more.

[Dreadnought 8,226]

5 hours ago, A Nonny Moose said:

The blow back with screwing with the electoral system up here might blow away this nice Liberal government.  The honeymoon is over.  All it would take is enough of a stampede in the back benches to pass a no confidence motion and we get an election in about six weeks.  The gloves are off, and pretty photo ops won't help any more.

I didn't say anything -- much -- but I thought Trudeau was too much flash and no "boom"!  Didn't take long to show up.

[raynev1 1,886]

Trust the electronic voting devices , what could possibly go wrong .