The developing situation in Libya more and more begins to resemble a classic case of civil war along the clan-based and political fault lines, however, professor Cole, you continue to routinely referring to Kadaffi supporters as "thugs" instead of actually talking about their individual stories, positions and motivations - which i find rather disingenuous and a form of propaganda, no matter how well intended it is. I'm also amazed at the fact that people yielding RPGs and large caliber machine guns are still referred to as civilians, as well as apparently overblown allegations of "massacres", the evidence of which is still to be seen. By no means i'm against the rebels, but on the other hand i have no interest in deciding Libyan internal politics based on my personal sympathy to them.
Recently Obama could not even stop the continuation of built up of settlements in the West Bank, not to mention any other more drastic measures against Israeli right wing government's will, so what gives you confidence that somehow now Israel's current political interest is contrary to the position taken by Obama's administration?
That assertion simply challenges the odds of realpolitik as we know it.
To my understanding, "genocide" as a legal term is confined strictly to: either routine and indiscriminate killings of unarmed civilians, or an absolute MASS killing of (formerly or presently)armed people. But by that token, could i allege that for example Russians had conducted a genocide of Germans? Or perhaps the events that recently had happened in Bahrain?
Clearly, a categorical terminology is easy to produce, unlike handling it's consequence.
The problem is, in my opinion, that practically no single sizable state in the world, neither Russia, nor China, Saudi Arabia, Iran etc, are treating their population with any degree of notable difference when it comes to suppressing the descent. For argument sake, if you think that even here in US one could reliably expect himself to toss rocks at the government buildings and police without risking getting shot at in the process is just utterly naive. I'm not trying to make false equivalences here, but the reality is that every security state in the world brutally represses every form of violent descent, disregarding the safety of the people in the process. So to accept this notion as a solid criteria for an immanent and justified invasion, is in my opinion both irresponsible and reckless.
The developing situation in Libya more and more begins to resemble a classic case of civil war along the clan-based and political fault lines, however, professor Cole, you continue to routinely referring to Kadaffi supporters as "thugs" instead of actually talking about their individual stories, positions and motivations - which i find rather disingenuous and a form of propaganda, no matter how well intended it is. I'm also amazed at the fact that people yielding RPGs and large caliber machine guns are still referred to as civilians, as well as apparently overblown allegations of "massacres", the evidence of which is still to be seen. By no means i'm against the rebels, but on the other hand i have no interest in deciding Libyan internal politics based on my personal sympathy to them.
Recently Obama could not even stop the continuation of built up of settlements in the West Bank, not to mention any other more drastic measures against Israeli right wing government's will, so what gives you confidence that somehow now Israel's current political interest is contrary to the position taken by Obama's administration?
That assertion simply challenges the odds of realpolitik as we know it.
To my understanding, "genocide" as a legal term is confined strictly to: either routine and indiscriminate killings of unarmed civilians, or an absolute MASS killing of (formerly or presently)armed people. But by that token, could i allege that for example Russians had conducted a genocide of Germans? Or perhaps the events that recently had happened in Bahrain?
Clearly, a categorical terminology is easy to produce, unlike handling it's consequence.
The problem is, in my opinion, that practically no single sizable state in the world, neither Russia, nor China, Saudi Arabia, Iran etc, are treating their population with any degree of notable difference when it comes to suppressing the descent. For argument sake, if you think that even here in US one could reliably expect himself to toss rocks at the government buildings and police without risking getting shot at in the process is just utterly naive. I'm not trying to make false equivalences here, but the reality is that every security state in the world brutally represses every form of violent descent, disregarding the safety of the people in the process. So to accept this notion as a solid criteria for an immanent and justified invasion, is in my opinion both irresponsible and reckless.