International law is not the most important thing when it comes to international relations; facts are, and these often are the results of wars, with some people -the winners- being able to get their way, and others being the losers.
Israel does not abide by the international law : they want more than they got, and they work hard to get it, with success. The palestinians do not abide by it either : they want to reverse it, they also work hard for that, although very unsuccessfully, but in the end they believe it is only a matter of time before Israel disappears, just like the crusaders did.
Israel conquered Jerusalem and declared it is its capital, and this is a fact that nobody was able to reverse as of now.
The US has always been an ally of Israel, they always supported it, so what Trump is doing now is in fact much less hypocritical than pretending the US cares about the international law.
Israel will continue its war of attrition against the palestinians, the palestinians will continue to resist desperately, the US will continue to support Israel, the Arab states will continue to pretend they support the palestinians and to betray them.
The future is bleak for the palestinians, as it has been since 1947.
As for the Israelis, how long will it take before they will start being ashamed of being abusers instead of being proud of not being abused ? Centuries, probably.
don't be so simplistic. Fighting for your country does not make you a fascist.
French soldiers in Algeria and Morocco were ordered to fight a foreign army (the US) invading their country, and so they did. What would you expect ?
The same soldiers ( or at least those the GIs had not killed) later fought alongside the US in Tunisia, Sicily, mainland Italy, France, and all the way to Germany.
you also write that "Roosevelt despised the Vichy, and ultimately his troops defeated it."
I believe this also is not true.
Until the US were forced by Japan to join the war, Roosevelt established a good relationship with Vichy, which caused great difficulty with de Gaulle, whom Roosevelt did not trust and tried to sideline until Paris was retaken from the germans and de Gaulle strongly established his government.
you write that "During World War II, Germany occupied northern France and installed a right wing puppet government in the south of the country at Vichy, led by Marshal Henri-Philippe Petain, the victor at Verdun in WW I. "
This is not true.
Philippe Petain was not put in place by the Germans, but by the french themselves, and the first thing he did was to negociate an "armistice" with the germans who had invaded northern France.
you wrote that "French President Nicolas Sarkozy had been politically mauled, as well, by the offer of his defense minister, Michèle Alliot-Marie, to send French troops to assist Ben Ali in Tunisia (Alliot-Marie had been Ben Ali’s guest on fancy vacations)"
This is not entirely correct. What she said was bad enough, but not that bad !
As a matter of fact, Michèle Alliot-Marie did not offer to send troops to Tunisia, she only offered advice about how to maintain order,saying the french police know how to do that without spilling blood.
about point n°3 : arguing whether torture is efficient or not is wrong. This is not the issue.
Torture is ethically unacceptable, that is all there is to say about it.
To speak a religious language, torture is evil. Those who torture are evil; those who order torture are evil; those who support the use of torture are evil.
let me point out that, right now, the japanese are suffering from an earthquake and a tsunami; the nuclear disaster has not killed anyone, as far as I know, and to stop drinking milk or eat lettuce is not the worst thing on earth.
Coal and oil are killing many people each year, so things are hardly black and white.
Developing renewable energies would be a good thing, but they will come with their own problems.
Actually, energy is dirty and dangerous, and the only good energy is the one that is not used.
Reducing consumption is the most important path to survival, the one that should be stressed again and again.
there is an interesting argument about the role and efficiency of non-violence in these arab uprisings.
The demonstrators in Tunisia and Egypt remained mostly non-violent, and some analysts believe this is may be why they were successful : non-violence is deeply unexpected and disrupting, and it creates division among the power, some people feeling uneasy at the prospect of using violence against their own non-violent people.
In the case of Lybia, I think it can be argued that Kaddafi's sons only managed to rally their militia after the people from Benghazi started to move west and conquer cities by force; some violence from the revolutionaries would have triggered a vicious reaction from Kaddafi's clan, which triggered the UN resolution and the air campaign; and what next ?
An other issue at stake is of course whether the demonstrators are indeed perceived by those in power as being their own people. This was obviously the case in Tunisia and Egypt, and it is probably more or less the same in Yemen; in the case of Libya, where tribes are more important and Benghazi has always opposed Tripoli, maybe it was less true; in the case of Bahrein, where the people in power are sunni and the demonstrators are shia, it is obviously not the case. And as far as Syria is concerned, I wonder, since I understand the country is mostly sunni but the president an his clan are alaouites.
Those american revolutionaries were not colonized, they were the colonizers, and they never intended to liberate the native americans, who were the colonized.
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International law is not the most important thing when it comes to international relations; facts are, and these often are the results of wars, with some people -the winners- being able to get their way, and others being the losers.
Israel does not abide by the international law : they want more than they got, and they work hard to get it, with success. The palestinians do not abide by it either : they want to reverse it, they also work hard for that, although very unsuccessfully, but in the end they believe it is only a matter of time before Israel disappears, just like the crusaders did.
Israel conquered Jerusalem and declared it is its capital, and this is a fact that nobody was able to reverse as of now.
The US has always been an ally of Israel, they always supported it, so what Trump is doing now is in fact much less hypocritical than pretending the US cares about the international law.
Israel will continue its war of attrition against the palestinians, the palestinians will continue to resist desperately, the US will continue to support Israel, the Arab states will continue to pretend they support the palestinians and to betray them.
The future is bleak for the palestinians, as it has been since 1947.
As for the Israelis, how long will it take before they will start being ashamed of being abusers instead of being proud of not being abused ? Centuries, probably.
Juan,
don't be so simplistic. Fighting for your country does not make you a fascist.
French soldiers in Algeria and Morocco were ordered to fight a foreign army (the US) invading their country, and so they did. What would you expect ?
The same soldiers ( or at least those the GIs had not killed) later fought alongside the US in Tunisia, Sicily, mainland Italy, France, and all the way to Germany.
Juan,
you also write that "Roosevelt despised the Vichy, and ultimately his troops defeated it."
I believe this also is not true.
Until the US were forced by Japan to join the war, Roosevelt established a good relationship with Vichy, which caused great difficulty with de Gaulle, whom Roosevelt did not trust and tried to sideline until Paris was retaken from the germans and de Gaulle strongly established his government.
Juan,
you write that "During World War II, Germany occupied northern France and installed a right wing puppet government in the south of the country at Vichy, led by Marshal Henri-Philippe Petain, the victor at Verdun in WW I. "
This is not true.
Philippe Petain was not put in place by the Germans, but by the french themselves, and the first thing he did was to negociate an "armistice" with the germans who had invaded northern France.
Juan,
you wrote that "French President Nicolas Sarkozy had been politically mauled, as well, by the offer of his defense minister, Michèle Alliot-Marie, to send French troops to assist Ben Ali in Tunisia (Alliot-Marie had been Ben Ali’s guest on fancy vacations)"
This is not entirely correct. What she said was bad enough, but not that bad !
As a matter of fact, Michèle Alliot-Marie did not offer to send troops to Tunisia, she only offered advice about how to maintain order,saying the french police know how to do that without spilling blood.
This is exactly why I said it is wrong to argue about whether torture is efficient or not.
People with no ethics will do anything if if gets them a benefit, and from their point of view they will always find excellent rationales.
Inefficiency is not the reason torture is wrong.
Ethics is the reason !
Torture is evil !
Juan,
about point n°3 : arguing whether torture is efficient or not is wrong. This is not the issue.
Torture is ethically unacceptable, that is all there is to say about it.
To speak a religious language, torture is evil. Those who torture are evil; those who order torture are evil; those who support the use of torture are evil.
Period.
Juan,
let me point out that, right now, the japanese are suffering from an earthquake and a tsunami; the nuclear disaster has not killed anyone, as far as I know, and to stop drinking milk or eat lettuce is not the worst thing on earth.
Coal and oil are killing many people each year, so things are hardly black and white.
Developing renewable energies would be a good thing, but they will come with their own problems.
Actually, energy is dirty and dangerous, and the only good energy is the one that is not used.
Reducing consumption is the most important path to survival, the one that should be stressed again and again.
Juan,
there is an interesting argument about the role and efficiency of non-violence in these arab uprisings.
The demonstrators in Tunisia and Egypt remained mostly non-violent, and some analysts believe this is may be why they were successful : non-violence is deeply unexpected and disrupting, and it creates division among the power, some people feeling uneasy at the prospect of using violence against their own non-violent people.
In the case of Lybia, I think it can be argued that Kaddafi's sons only managed to rally their militia after the people from Benghazi started to move west and conquer cities by force; some violence from the revolutionaries would have triggered a vicious reaction from Kaddafi's clan, which triggered the UN resolution and the air campaign; and what next ?
An other issue at stake is of course whether the demonstrators are indeed perceived by those in power as being their own people. This was obviously the case in Tunisia and Egypt, and it is probably more or less the same in Yemen; in the case of Libya, where tribes are more important and Benghazi has always opposed Tripoli, maybe it was less true; in the case of Bahrein, where the people in power are sunni and the demonstrators are shia, it is obviously not the case. And as far as Syria is concerned, I wonder, since I understand the country is mostly sunni but the president an his clan are alaouites.
Regards,
"to liberate the colonized from a colonizer" ?
That is a myth !
Those american revolutionaries were not colonized, they were the colonizers, and they never intended to liberate the native americans, who were the colonized.