Meanwhile there have been a number of recent terror attacks on Jews and opponents of the Iranian regime in London. Link here from Security Minister.
The group that have claimed most of the attacks and many in other parts of Europe call themselves the Islamic Movement of the Companions of the Right, which is currently being investigated for links with Iran.
@Pomona. It's pretty common for an opposition government to reverse the policies of the previous one. You really don't have to blame racism.
You do when racism (and jealousy) are the primary motivators. No amount of mental gymnastics will change the fact that Trump is a racist and it's a major influence on his decision making, such as it is. Are you trying to claim that Trump isn't racist or that he somehow manages to compartmentalise his loathing of the only Black US President and consider policies solely on merit? Neither position is remotely credible.
Their faking countries to bypass sanctions is just another example of China not playing by the "rules" either.
What do you expect? That they should just bend the knee and say "yassuh, yas massuh"? Why should they play by rules that they don't agree with, that are not enshrined in international law, and that are set to choke their sovereign right to conduct commerce with anyone they choose?
What nonsense. If it was your country you would do anything in your power to secure the living of your people and the continued functioning of your economy.
We'll just have to agree to disagree about China. If China needed a quick end to this thing they wouldn't be landing X'ian Y-20s full of equipment on Iran's military airstrips.
AFF
With all the virtue signalling about a "rules based" order I was simply pointing out there are a lot of countries that don't play by the "rules", Iran, China and Russia and all these "shadow fleets".
If you play by the rules while others don't, you'll find the rules damage those who do and the rule breakers come out on top.
I imagine your comments above for it being ok for China to disregard the rules can equally apply to the US then. So they are also excused from the "rules based order".
China is the US's biggest threat. By your rules above, it's fine for them to do whatever they need to do to secure their interests.
You are conflating rules with international law.
Many if not all sanctions imposed by the west are unlawful. They are "rules" but not laws.
Why do you think the west hides behind the word "rules"? Because they don't dare to use the word "law" in reference to how they attempt to choke the economies of countries that operate outside their monetary systems.
There is no such thing as a shadow fleet. That's a term that is meant to imply that they operate outside the law, without insurance. They don't. They are simply not insured by Lloyd's of London, but by other firms that operate in other currencies.
When the west starts talking about China breaking actual international laws on the high seas, citing chapter and verse, I'll listen. Until then it's just noise.
AFF
How do you see the difference between the "rules based order" and "international law"?
As for China and "international law", there are plenty of examples of breaches with their actions in the South China Sea.
But I assume you would not count them as breaches (as China doesn't) because they don't accord with China's idea of international law.
It's all a bit of a farce isn't it?
So the US is well within its rights to protect itself for national security reasons according to your definitions.
Rules based order operates informally and unilaterally based on commercial interests, without the review debate and consent of national governing bodies, and is enforced by threats and bribes.
International law operates by treaty ratified by the governng bodies of all parties with agreed-upon norms of fulfillment of terms and conditions, and agreed-upon penalties for breach of duty.
I am not certain what breaches of international law you refer to in the South China Sea. China by its own definition is one nation indivisible. Like America. Imagine if Texas and Alaska decided they didn't want to be part of the union any more? Americans already fought that war 170 years ago and they would fight it again. The fact that China views Taiwan as their version of Texas, and that the Taiwan Strait is their Colorado River apparently never enters anybody's heads.
The United States has indeed undertaken many unendorsed aggressive adventures abroad in the name of "national security" (code for the petrodollar). They are playing by informal rules that nobody else is required to agree with, that no international or national body has legitimized, though they may not actively oppose. When Americans try to impose those rules on a nation like China, the Chinese are perfectly within their right to bypass them and tell America to go piss up a rope. Which I believe they have done. Politely.
Netanyahu uses "Judeo-Christian" all the time, when appealing to xtian-right culture warriors. It's cringe as hell, but OTOH, he's not exactly a fringe voice in the global Jewish community, and he and his enablers should probably bear at least some responsibility if non-Jews get the idea that the term is okay.
Even the Zionists in my circles are embarrassed by that guy. He's a politician and a shameless panderer, and exactly the sort of person to use that rhetoric in the most cynical fashion imaginable. He's a tool's tool and I suspect, once things settle down, I think there is going to be a reckoning. That's one reason he has to keep pushing this war. His career depends on it.
Donald Trump has been basically urinating all over international law since the beginning of his administration.
Cynical power mongers will sometimes appeal to rules and principles at convenience, but that doesn't amount to much. You don't get much cred for appealing to the rules only when it suits you. That's where things like "character" and "integrity" begin to matter a lot in politics at all levels, and the man simply has none.
@Pomona. It's pretty common for an opposition government to reverse the policies of the previous one. You really don't have to blame racism.
And probably no one would if Trump himself hadn’t provided indications that there was racism at work.
You might want to consider the possibility that someone who lives in the US, as I do, and who has a sixty-plus year lifetime of observing politics and race dynamics in the US, could have a better handle on all of this than does someone who lives on the other side of the world.
Netanyahu uses "Judeo-Christian" all the time, when appealing to xtian-right culture warriors. It's cringe as hell, but OTOH, he's not exactly a fringe voice in the global Jewish community, and he and his enablers should probably bear at least some responsibility if non-Jews get the idea that the term is okay.
Even the Zionists in my circles are embarrassed by that guy. He's a politician and a shameless panderer, and exactly the sort of person to use that rhetoric in the most cynical fashion imaginable. He's a tool's tool and I suspect, once things settle down, I think there is going to be a reckoning. That's one reason he has to keep pushing this war. His career depends on it.
He's the longest serving PM, who has been PM for a fifth of the history of Israel. His overall bellicosity is generally relatively popular within Israel insofar as we can tell from polling, and Israeli politics is likely to move rightwards after Netanyahu.
@WhimsicalChristian why are you so keen to assert that Trump isn't racist in terms of his foreign policy? Also, you seem to think that racism is some kind of external and independent force that can be blamed, rather than as part of someone's personal beliefs and actions. Racism is part of who Trump is; therefore it will necessarily influence his decisions in foreign policy as well as domestic policy. His racism isn't independent of his decisions but baked into his thought processes.
He's the longest serving PM, who has been PM for a fifth of the history of Israel. His overall bellicosity is generally relatively popular within Israel insofar as we can tell from polling, and Israeli politics is likely to move rightwards after Netanyahu.
I'm not sure about "generally believed," but I think he might be someone who is walking the line of distributing the frustration evenly across feuding camps. Peaceniks think he's being too violent, land-inseceure warmongers think he's not being violent enough, and so we get a kind of Bill Clinton effect where he's walking the knife's edge between two factions. And he is, in a weird way, rather skilled at it, no doubt.
And of course the war itself is changing perceptions. Having provoked the attack from Hamas and Iran, he can now use their response to make warmongering more popular because his own country is now in terror. He's driving events to further his own political survival, cynically and effectively. And, yes, political inertia means that the hardliners will likely be more popular when he's gone.
I'm not sure how much of that is intentional, or just a consequence of his own self-interested struggle. He was up on corruption charges before all of this broke out, if I recall. I really think part of this started as a simple "wag the dog" operation, and I think he and Trump are similar types in this regard. "Fear the enemy," really a kind of racism, is good for building group cohesion among your base. Ironically, it's also what most of the middle eastern dictators run on as well, in the opposite direction. Evil stuff, but it works.
I do think he's playing the game rather well, in a cynical sense. But I don't think he's doing well by his country or his people in the long run, unless you're into bloody expansionist wars and ethnic cleansing. This kind of hatred runs down generations, you don't need to do centuries-deep analysis to understand why people in the region are resentful.
And yeah, I do think the word "Judeo-Christian" is mostly used to feed a marriage of convenience between the mostly-white-American Christian right wing and the Zionist faction of Judaism. There's nothing else there. Again, most Jewish folks I know don't have fond feelings about Christianity. We stole their holy texts, distorted their philosophies, and spent 2000 years trying to manipulate them into becoming us, sometimes at sword point, later gun point. Plus extermination and forced relocation campaigns. We've been really great friends. Nobody could ever tell us apart.
The more I think about it, the more the phrase "Judeo-Christian" makes me want to retch. It's disrespectful in the extreme. It's so mercenary and dishonest.
I agree that in the modern context Judeo-Christian is problematic. But saying we stole the Jewish books is an overstatement. Most of the early church were Jews or had been attending the synagogue and I don't think anyone in the early church thought they were starting a new religion.
When I was young I heard a Jew said they thought Christianity should be considered an eccentric branch of Judaism and I think they had a point.
I agree that in the modern context Judeo-Christian is problematic. But saying we stole the Jewish books is an overstatement. Most of the early church were Jews or had been attending the synagogue and I don't think anyone in the early church thought they were starting a new religion.
When I was young I heard a Jew said they thought Christianity should be considered an eccentric branch of Judaism and I think they had a point.
Yeah, that's fair. I'm somewhat echoing the partisan attitude I've received from Jewish folks who are rather shoulder-chippy about it.
Whatever went down in the first century was a lot messier than that, I think. And I think it's way past adjudicating. And like The Crucible, you can see a lot of contemporary politics in the way people appropriate past grievances.
He's the longest serving PM, who has been PM for a fifth of the history of Israel. His overall bellicosity is generally relatively popular within Israel insofar as we can tell from polling, and Israeli politics is likely to move rightwards after Netanyahu.
I'm not sure about "generally believed," but I think he might be someone who is walking the line of distributing the frustration evenly across feuding camps. Peaceniks think he's being too violent, land-inseceure warmongers think he's not being violent enough, and so we get a kind of Bill Clinton effect where he's walking the knife's edge between two factions. And he is, in a weird way, rather skilled at it, no doubt.
Which peaceniks are you thinking of ? The few hundred - at most - who turn up to anti war rallies? I think you aren't reckoning with current opinion:
Comments
The group that have claimed most of the attacks and many in other parts of Europe call themselves the Islamic Movement of the Companions of the Right, which is currently being investigated for links with Iran.
“International law” is internationally codified and there is an internationally recognised court to judge actions and clarify meaning.
“Rules based order” is a much vaguer phrase.
@Nick Tamen and @Pomona happy to talk if you want to discuss the US National Security or Defence strategy. It's available online for anyone to see.
You do when racism (and jealousy) are the primary motivators. No amount of mental gymnastics will change the fact that Trump is a racist and it's a major influence on his decision making, such as it is. Are you trying to claim that Trump isn't racist or that he somehow manages to compartmentalise his loathing of the only Black US President and consider policies solely on merit? Neither position is remotely credible.
Rules based order operates informally and unilaterally based on commercial interests, without the review debate and consent of national governing bodies, and is enforced by threats and bribes.
International law operates by treaty ratified by the governng bodies of all parties with agreed-upon norms of fulfillment of terms and conditions, and agreed-upon penalties for breach of duty.
I am not certain what breaches of international law you refer to in the South China Sea. China by its own definition is one nation indivisible. Like America. Imagine if Texas and Alaska decided they didn't want to be part of the union any more? Americans already fought that war 170 years ago and they would fight it again. The fact that China views Taiwan as their version of Texas, and that the Taiwan Strait is their Colorado River apparently never enters anybody's heads.
The United States has indeed undertaken many unendorsed aggressive adventures abroad in the name of "national security" (code for the petrodollar). They are playing by informal rules that nobody else is required to agree with, that no international or national body has legitimized, though they may not actively oppose. When Americans try to impose those rules on a nation like China, the Chinese are perfectly within their right to bypass them and tell America to go piss up a rope. Which I believe they have done. Politely.
AFF
And as a side note, until the 90s, both China and Taiwan had a One China Policy, and the KMT occasionally makes motions in that direction.
Even the Zionists in my circles are embarrassed by that guy. He's a politician and a shameless panderer, and exactly the sort of person to use that rhetoric in the most cynical fashion imaginable. He's a tool's tool and I suspect, once things settle down, I think there is going to be a reckoning. That's one reason he has to keep pushing this war. His career depends on it.
Cynical power mongers will sometimes appeal to rules and principles at convenience, but that doesn't amount to much. You don't get much cred for appealing to the rules only when it suits you. That's where things like "character" and "integrity" begin to matter a lot in politics at all levels, and the man simply has none.
You might want to consider the possibility that someone who lives in the US, as I do, and who has a sixty-plus year lifetime of observing politics and race dynamics in the US, could have a better handle on all of this than does someone who lives on the other side of the world.
He's the longest serving PM, who has been PM for a fifth of the history of Israel. His overall bellicosity is generally relatively popular within Israel insofar as we can tell from polling, and Israeli politics is likely to move rightwards after Netanyahu.
I'm not sure about "generally believed," but I think he might be someone who is walking the line of distributing the frustration evenly across feuding camps. Peaceniks think he's being too violent, land-inseceure warmongers think he's not being violent enough, and so we get a kind of Bill Clinton effect where he's walking the knife's edge between two factions. And he is, in a weird way, rather skilled at it, no doubt.
And of course the war itself is changing perceptions. Having provoked the attack from Hamas and Iran, he can now use their response to make warmongering more popular because his own country is now in terror. He's driving events to further his own political survival, cynically and effectively. And, yes, political inertia means that the hardliners will likely be more popular when he's gone.
I'm not sure how much of that is intentional, or just a consequence of his own self-interested struggle. He was up on corruption charges before all of this broke out, if I recall. I really think part of this started as a simple "wag the dog" operation, and I think he and Trump are similar types in this regard. "Fear the enemy," really a kind of racism, is good for building group cohesion among your base. Ironically, it's also what most of the middle eastern dictators run on as well, in the opposite direction. Evil stuff, but it works.
I do think he's playing the game rather well, in a cynical sense. But I don't think he's doing well by his country or his people in the long run, unless you're into bloody expansionist wars and ethnic cleansing. This kind of hatred runs down generations, you don't need to do centuries-deep analysis to understand why people in the region are resentful.
And yeah, I do think the word "Judeo-Christian" is mostly used to feed a marriage of convenience between the mostly-white-American Christian right wing and the Zionist faction of Judaism. There's nothing else there. Again, most Jewish folks I know don't have fond feelings about Christianity. We stole their holy texts, distorted their philosophies, and spent 2000 years trying to manipulate them into becoming us, sometimes at sword point, later gun point. Plus extermination and forced relocation campaigns. We've been really great friends. Nobody could ever tell us apart.
The more I think about it, the more the phrase "Judeo-Christian" makes me want to retch. It's disrespectful in the extreme. It's so mercenary and dishonest.
When I was young I heard a Jew said they thought Christianity should be considered an eccentric branch of Judaism and I think they had a point.
Yeah, that's fair. I'm somewhat echoing the partisan attitude I've received from Jewish folks who are rather shoulder-chippy about it.
Whatever went down in the first century was a lot messier than that, I think. And I think it's way past adjudicating. And like The Crucible, you can see a lot of contemporary politics in the way people appropriate past grievances.
Which peaceniks are you thinking of ? The few hundred - at most - who turn up to anti war rallies? I think you aren't reckoning with current opinion:
https://www.middleeasteye.net/news/majority-israelis-support-expulsion-palestinians-gaza-poll
Here's a piece by the author of the poll:
https://theconversation.com/in-israel-calls-for-genocide-have-migrated-from-the-margins-to-the-mainstream-250010
As well as a recent interview with genocide scholar Omar Bartov along similar lines:
https://www.wnycstudios.org/podcasts/tnyradiohour/articles/3209c2cec4412c773faccda8
(and as above even earlier constructions omit how 'left on everything but the Palestinians' is a constant thread in even Labor Zionism)