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I disagree as well. Non-intervention should be viewed as a good general principle between neighbours and usually intelligent political policy. It shouldn't be viewed as an absolute. For the left to use the UN mandate as the only tangeable standard on which to base this is even more problematic.
Some valid criticism but.... Given the Liberals recent record of voting FOR the very same interventions in Libya and everywhere else in the ME, and given their always uncompromising support for Zionism, they shouldn't even be trying to criticise the NDP from the left. The only ones who'll buy the patheric "the NDP and Conservatives are really the same(but we're not)" line are those who already have a kneejerk anti-NDP reaction, or are working for one of the other pretenders trying to divide the progressive vote. Really they should just admit they too are just another centre-right party beholdin to American CEOs, speculators and military contractors, and start focusing their attention on getting back supporters they lost to Harper. That would be good for all of Canada in fact.
All three parties are imperialist. I have heard Do-War (thx knownothing) mouth propaganda like the "viagra" story. He is now calling on the government to get tough with Syria. In foreign policy the NDP has abandoned most of its long held convictions and now sound remarkably like the other parties. DO-War is either not up on his file since he mouths NATO rhetoric or he actually believes that bombing other people cities and civilians is the way to peace. Either way it is sad to listen to him speak. He sounds like a UK Labour party spokesperson.
Your response, as far as I understand it, is a non sequitur. What do the Liberals or whatever their criticism of the NDP have to with it?
My only mention of the Liberals was to lump them in with the Harper gov. pro Libya war vote. What "progressive vote" is being divided and by whom?
My mention of Liberals is no non-sequiter Contrariana, since you have a history here of attacking the NDP from both left and right, while going easy on or ignoring the Liberal Party of Canada, which OC deserves the lions share of blame for the present sorry state of Canada's centre-left. I also find your predictable attacks on the NDP less than convincing from a progressive standpoint. Are you offended now?
I am no longer a partisan of any official party FYI, hence my ignoing this thread up till now, but I still have somewhat more hope for the party of Douglas, Lewis and Barrett. If that is their leftwing can be re-mobilized effectively, always an open question.
I hope that Dewar and others on the party's right can be challenged on home base and the brain trust made to understand that most their electoral base has never and will never support these foreign ventures, nor do most centre-left swing voters -unless that is there really is a serious humanitarian crisis with serious humanitarian intentions to help. Something I could still on occasion consider. I have no regard for the present Syrian regime, or how it violently destroys all opposition, but I'm even less eager to see US satelites created throughout the region. Layton supporting the Libyan 'mission' was a big mistake on many levels, but to their credit the party is now saying they'll withdraw it. If they do, I don't care much how they try to respin it. That's just politics in a dumbed down, client state, democracy.
..........
Yes, it is clear that Canada and the U.S. should have stayed totally out of the war between empires(in such a war, it doesn't matter who wins because all empires are the same)in 1914, especially if the workers of Europe had done what they were supposed to do and put class before flag. And North American involvement in World War One led to purely right-wing results. Nothing progressive or positive occurred as a consequence of that war's having happened.
If there'd been no World War I(and that war largely happened because the imperialists on both sides wanted their working-class populations to slaughter each other)nothing like Naziism would have come to power in Germany and thus, there would have BEEN no "German Polish situaion in 1939".
Having said that, a person doesn't have to have supported involvement in World War One to defend involvement in World War Two on antifascist grounds.
Care to apologize for making an absurd analogy about two totally uncomparable international situations?
Ya, typical small l liberal overeaction when their pure motives are questioned. I'll just ignore your counter accusation on the assumpion that my own long record criticising the NDP establisment won't be so easily missed (only when waranted tho I hope) and hope the NDP stays true to its word now. The most effective follow through for critiism imo is to reward any sign it has had an affect. Otherwise it just looks like empty partisanship.
There is no overreation in my statements.
Calling me a Liberal is a lie, Erik, and by definition that makes you a liar.
You have shifted this discusion to a squabble of personalites but I suppose that was your intent.
The only party I have ever been a member of, and worked for, was the NDP. Admittedly, that was some years ago and Provincially.
I have always voted NDP Provincially, and likely will continue doing so.
I have voted NDP federally in all but the last 2 elections when I voted for the candidates most likely to beat the Con Gary Lunn.
E.May did in fact beat Lunn, and though her motives may be suspect, at least she voted against the Libyian bombing.
I am on record of supporting the positive noises the NDP has made in the past regarding foreign policy and I am on record attcking the Liberals
Big deal.
None of this personal crap should matter to subject at hand.
Nope. According to his rules we should not jave interfered in either war and he clarified that he meant that. Although we should NOT have been in WWI. The only good wars according to him are UN wars so Kosovo, Iraq I and Korea will all fine but no others were.
I was pointing out the absurdity of a position that no interference should ever be allowed. Be it Rwanda genocide, the holocaust, spamish civil war, WW2 or anything.
No it shouldn't, on that we could agree. But if you've ever made a positive noise about the NDP or shown much interest in the actions of those who actually govern most of this country I've never seen it. My calling your motives in question therefore does not make me a liar. I'm acting in this way because I've seen how extreme partisanship (we all act in that manner at times, except the woefully detached) has damaged this site and more important how it's damaged this country's discourse. One thing I liked about Canada of old was our ability to disagree without being disagreeable. At least at times. But maybe we're past that point too. I now feel like we're living in a reenactment of the Weimer Republic, with all the radicals, socialists, social democrats and centrists too caught up in old battles and old formulas to see the very real threat growing all around. But OC we still have to compete in our FPTP system and struggle to get our own ideas right. But then Pro Rep didn't save the old Republic either from the depression and old attitudes. Whatever. If I'm wrong abut you, well, you can always just prove me wrong sometime.
ETA: I came from that riding, and probably would have voted for eMay last time too. But I remain unconvinced her own small victory or small gesture will mean much beyond reinforcing the artificial divides on the centre-left. Her beloved Liberals should just admit theyre to the right of the old PCs now and go for it, but OC theyre still more interested in blocking the left than the right.
And yes, I again agree. The broad left has openly interfered in other countries in the past, for what they believed was noble and necessary reasons (as in the Spanish Civil war) and even, if we include communists, for no better reason than national security or power (Hungary, Czechoslovakia, Tibet, Korea, Angola, Ethiopia etc etc) so it can't be simply expected to be a leftwing no-go now, regardless of every circumstance. Especially when the borders the UN now recognises are still mostly an artificial post WW2 construct, which reflects the worlds ethnic makeup less than the power of the main signatories of the time. (although somewhat better than before -at least in Europe) Should they remain victims of this division of spoils forever? Because some countries outside the post-capitalist West can still treat their own minorities as badly or even worse.
ETA: Which does not mean that I agree with THIs particular intervention. Or any under the auspices of the present NATO expansion. Just not as a dogmatc line to be adhered to regardless of who's killing who and why.
If you are referring to me, then you are mistaken.
I was comparing Korea, Iraq War 1 and Kosovo 1999 with WW1 and 2. That is to say, I consider them all equally wrong.
I am universally opposed to states, militaries and state actors militarily waging Wars of Aggression on other countries.
If people feel strongly enough about a war or conflict when their own country has not been invaded, then they should do what like concerned people of the (Western) democracies did in the Spanish Civil War: They are entirely in their right to go there and participate as individuals and not to represent their country or anyone else but themselves.
Korea, Iraq War 1, Afghanistan, Iraq War 2 and Libya were approved or acquiesced to by the U.N. Security Council: Some members were either absent, abstained or were bribed (one way or another) by the U.S. to not vote "No" by abstaining.
In the case of Korea, the U.S.S.R. was absent when the UNSC voted on war because it had pulled its delegates in protest over the Berlin Airlift. The People's Republic of China was not a member, instead "Nationalist" China or the Republic of Taiwan represented "China" on the security council. The People's Republic of China did not become a Permanent Security Council Member until 1971.
Had this not been the case, the U.S. would never have commanded a "U.N." multinational military force in Korea.
Kosovo 1999 was not a U.N. "war," it was a U.S./NATO/CIA/MI-5/Albania/KLA War of Aggression.
The Iraq Wars, Afghanistan and Libya (which I'll talk about later) were also cases where Russia and China were bribed to acquiesce or accept what the U.S. wanted.
In the case of Libya, not only were Russia and China bribed and convinced to abstain from voting but like Afghanistan and Iraq War 2, the U.S. and the E.U. countries violated the respective U.N. Resolution - UNSCR 1973, thus being guilty of committing war crimes/crimes against humanity.
The view that I have of the U.N. is that its declared purpose is that war is a crime. To that end, the U.N. (ideally) endeavors to end war and achieve world peace by assisting those who ask to negotiate peaceful settlements to war and conflict. Not as I said above to end war and violence through (more) war and violence as NATO does. Do not confuse the two.
Some examples of this would be Cyprus, and currently in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) and the Sudan where a small contingent of the U.N. is working with a much larger contingent of A.U. (African Union) peacekeepers. Now I know nothing is perfect, and in these cases there have been mass murders of unarmed civilians, sometimes right under the nose of the U.N. peacekeepers. These problems are often caused by a lack of staff (because of a current lack of interest in peacekeeping and a new interest in war and warmaking) and human failings.
For a better understanding of the true purpose of the U.N., read its Charter. The U.N. Charter was written to be compatible with the Nuremberg Principles and the Geneva Conventions.
It is a legal and moral contradiction for the U.N. to be involved in or supportive of a War of Aggression and/or other war crimes/crimes against humanity.
Since powerful countries in the Security Council like France, the U.K. and the U.S. wrested through a UNSCR that allows a U.S./NATO military presence over Libya and then clearly and unashamedly violated it, the U.N. General Assembly (i.e., the rest of the U.N.) can't very well use force against these aggressors and criminal actors.
So what power does the U.N. have to stop the U.S. and NATO countries from committing crimes in Libya?
The U.N. could shame the worst perpetrators by publicly naming them and putting them on a list of war criminals. The U.N. could put out warrants for their arrest and encourage people to attempt to arrest them with the intent of them being brought before an international court to be tried as war criminals and for crimes against humanity.
Those at the top of the list should be U.S. President Barack Obama, U.K. Prime Minister David Cameron, French President Nicolas Sarkozy, Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi, Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper, Canadian Defense Minister Peter MacKay and Canadian General Charles "the Butcher" Bouchard - NATO commander of the Libyan War.
Wars are not noble.
Wars are not launched in defense nor are they waged for noble, generous or humanitarian reasons.
The reason why the Rwandan Genocide occurred was the CIA, MI-5 and American, Canadian, British, French, etc., mining companies wanted instability in the area and a friendly and compliant government in power so they could have cheap labor and access valuable minerals cheaply in Africa and then make obscene profits by selling the minerals to (Western) Europe and North America.
The E.U. and North American governments knew this and that is why they allowed the genocide to occur. The Pentagon, CIA and NATO has since cynically used the Rwandan Genocide to justify its Wars of Aggression in Kosovo (1999), Afghanistan, Iraq War 2, Libya and may use it again in a future war on Syria.
WW2 is a joke: Britain and France declared war on Germany ostensibly over Germany's War of Aggression against Poland. Yet neither Britain nor France did not even so much as raise a finger to assist Poland. Canada soon declared war on Germany thereafter regardless of the fact that Germany neither declared war on Canada nor attacked Canada's military overseas or invaded or attacked Canada itself.
As I have pointed out, U.S. President Roosevelt was working very hard to force either Germany's or Japan's hand to attack the U.S.A. or its military overseas to make America look like an 'innocent victim.' The real purpose behind this was to make the U.S.A. an economic and military Superpower.
As to the Holocaust, NO country entered the war against nazi Germany to end the Holocaust/save the Jews. Winston Churchill and the West knew about the Holocaust as early as 1939.
Until the outbreak of WW2, the number of innocent victims murdered by the nazis numbered from the hundreds to thousands. With the invasion and occupation of Poland, the number of innocent victims murdered by the nazis numbered from the tens of thousands to hundreds of thousands. People who escaped Poland and made it to France and Britain, told of eyewitness accounts and brought films and photographs of what was going on in Poland.
From 1942 to early (pre-invasion) 1944, Allied medium bombers, bomber recon. and fighter recon. aircraft and crew were bringing reports, photos and films of the concentration and death camps. Yet Allied governments and their military commands did nothing - instructing aircrews to carefully avoid bombing, strafing or attacking the camps, their headquarters, guard barracks, roads, railways and other infrastructure that supplied and brought more inmates to them. It wasn't until the end of the war when the concentration and death camps had been captured/liberated by Allied soldiers that the governments of the U.S., the U.K., Canada, Australia, New Zealand, South Africa, France, etc., saw fit to inform their citizens of the Holocaust, having decided previously throughout the war to keep it hidden.
Great posts Frmrsldr
What Will The NDP Do About our General Charles Bouchard's NATO Warcrimes in Libya?
So what are we all going to do about the warcrimes of NATO's Canadian General Charles 'The Butcher' Bouchard in Libya? Anything? Surely the most recent massacre of 85 civilians should be answered for by this general no? Surely everyone here with connections to the NDP should be moving heaven and earth for answers /action on this? No? If you don't think it's important go see the vids on the Libya thread. If you're not moved to action then you're some kind of heartless. Ditto the NDP champions.
"...Accordingly, the most profound act of selfless devotion (commonly called love) in relationship to a society gropped by a sociopathic mode of being is creative resistance. Submission is madness. Sanity entails subversion. The heart insists on it; otherwise life is only a slog to the graveyard; mouth full of ashes; heart a receptacle for dust." - Phil Rockstroh
http://www.ctv.ca/CTVNews/SciTech/20040530/ndp_nato_040529
"We've been very clear we don't think that NATO is the appropriate kind of institution for the future, so we would work to transform it. We are going to work for the restructuring of organizations for the future. People in NATO are already transforming it themselves.."
Jack Layton NDP, 2004
Paul Dewar, NDP Foreign Affairs
paul.dewar@parl.gc.ca
http://www.montrealgazette.com/news/Military+officials+unsure+Canada+wil...
Shocking, who'd have guessed we would stay past the "planned" exit date?
So, choose your favorite lie from the "opposite" ends of the Canada's political spectrum:
Dewar, who has essentially said:
"Mission accomplished, the civilians have been protected by bombing them, we've done a great job and now can do something else."
or,
the government/military: "We're doing a good job bombing but we have to bomb indefinitely longer to-- oh yeah, protect civilians".
Personally, I'd have to favour Dewar's upbeat fabrications because though supporting NATO's cover story, at least his current triangulation doesn't involve dropping more bombs on civilians.
Meanwhile:
We'll just have to see if the NDP has the guts (and brains) to oppose any such extension. And how all the other parties vote.
When the people lead the 'leaders' will follow...
No wars are not noble and always have ulterior motivations. But. Sometimes wars have o be fought. And other forms of intervention can be legimately called for.
Interesting that you neglect to mention a few points central to what others have always argued. First, that the Nazis may have had some agency THemselves over what happened in Europe, partly based on Germanys own imperialist, racist and patriarchal culture of the time. Second, that US isolationists who resisted Roosevelts' efforts to even support the British indirectly were often open backers of the Third Reich. Ford among other VIPs has been implicated. The accusation that FDR simply allowed the Japanese to attack Pearl Harbour is still unproven. Thirdly, that Western governments were of course divided ad themselves weak. After handing over the Rhineland, Austria and the Sudetenland to Germany however Hitler kept demanding more. They were unable to do much about Polnd because they were simply unprepared, as it turned out was Stalin, even after moving into neighbouring Poland himself and signing a mutual non-aggression treaty . The Allies were also unable to stop the Germans in more strategic locations like Low countries, Denmark, Norway, Greece, and France itself. That dosnt mean they weren't at that point mortal enemies. The assumption that everyone in any one camp is united behind any one strategy or tactic isn't necessarily valid anywhere.
Or that some threats don't need to be defeated by force of arms. Even the Soviets may nt have been able to prevail against Hitler without active Western support or a second front.
You also failed to mention other standard explanations, like how the Great Depression and the harsh terms of he Treaty of Versaiiles fed into all of it, leading eventually to the more generous Marshall plan being enacted after WW 2.
Sure, the people. But who is claiming to speak for them? And do 'the people' themselves have one voice or one view point? That's the problem with somewhat democratic societies where the middleclass are the majority and the majority is so easily distracted.
The rebels (freedom fighters!) are at the gates of Tripoli as we speak. This whole thing could be over soon, and Gadhaffi will be gone, his boot off the neck of the Libyan people.
And whose boot will replace it. So far there appears to be no democratic movement opposing him. I pity the poor people of Libya a choice between a home grown tyrant and a western backed tyranny. No choice at all only tyranny in sight.
Precisely. The reason why WW2 occurred is because the capitalist countries enabled Hitler and the nazis to come to power. Yes, Henry Ford and the isolationists enabled Hitler and the nazis through isolationism.
But people who are antiwar/anti-interventionist are not isolationists:
The American Anti-Imperialist League opposed the Spanish-American War and WW1.
As the Allies continued the blockade of Germany, Austria and Hungary from late 1918 through 1919, early in 1919 antiwar and anti-interventionists such as future U.S. President Herbert Hoover, Jane Addams and the charity American Friends Service Committee believed food relief to Germany would help reconcile the animocity this caused between Germany and her neighbors.
Congress did not ratify the Versailles Treaty.
Although Congress did not ratify the Versailles Treaty, the United States concluded its own treaty with Germany - the 1921 U.S. - German Peace Treaty.
Antiwar and anti-intervention lawmakers supported disarmament and treaties of peace with other countries:
They supported the 1922 Washington Naval Treaty.
They supported the 1924 Dawes Plan.
They supported the 1828 Kellogg-Briand Treaty.
They supported the 1929 Young Plan.
They supported the 1932 Lausanne Treaty.
They supported the 1932 Montevideo Treaty.
They supported the 1935; 1936; 1937 Neutrality Acts.
To mention some salient examples.
The guy who invented the American Magic and Purple decoding machines, had cracked the Japanese Navy Code and had figured it out. Yet on December 5, 1941 Roosevelt decided to reward him by sending him from Pearl Harbor, Hawaii to San Francisco, U.S.A. to give him a "rest" and for him to celebrate his birthday with family. Coincidental or intentional?
The British Royal Navy had been tracking the movement of the Imperial Japanese Navy. The U.K. decoders at Bletchley Park had been working on Japanese Navy intercepts.
Royal Navy Intelligence had lost track of the Imperial Japanese Navy in the Philippine Sea. They hypothesized, "What if the Japanese were to start a war in the Pacific, where would they attack?"
British Intelligence came up with scenarios where the Japanese would attack Formosa, Hong Kong, the Philippines, French Indochina, Thailand, Burma, Malaya, Singapore, the Dutch East Indies, Midway Island and Pearl Harbor.
For Pearl, they hypothesized that the most effective attack would occur on a Saturday or Sunday morning - much as the actual attack unfolded.
Just like the inventor of Magic and Purple, Bletchley Park had cracked the Japanese Navy code and came to the same conclusion that Pearl was going to be attacked.
This information was given to Winston Churchill at dinner (U.K.) time on Friday December 5. Churchill initially considered calling or telegraphing this information to Roosevelt, but decided against it because he knew an attack on Pearl would enter the United States into the war, which is what he wanted.
Yet more examples of how Britain and France enabled Hitler and the nazis.
This later became the excuse they used to enter the War of Aggression against Germany. Now don't get me wrong. I'm not saying that Germany was innocent. Britain and France were just as guilty as waging a War of Aggression as Germany, Italy, Japan, the U.S. and the U.S.S.R. (in 1939 and 1940.)
Nazi rearmament, remilitarizing the Rhineland, fighting in the Spanish Civil War, anschluss with Austria, the Sudeten Crisis etc., were post de facto cynical excuses just like the "defense of Poland" to justify Britain's and France's entry into a War of Aggression.
"They were unable to do much about Poland because they were simply unprepared."
That's the excuse Britain and France used to hide the fact that they lacked guts. While Germany was invading Poland, if French and British forces invaded Germany and the French and British airforces bombed the nazi war machine's factories, WW2 would have been over in a matter of weeks.
"As it turned out, [so] was Stalin [unprepared], even after moving into neighboring Poland himself and signing a mutual non-aggression treaty."
The Nazi-Soviet Non-Aggression Pact was signed before Poland was invaded. In order to invade Poland, Hitler wanted to guarantee Soviet neutrality. He set out the bait of offering eastern Poland to Stalin in exchange for Soviet neutrality. Stalin bought it. Why? Well, that's just the kind of guy he was.
In addition to waging a War of Aggression against Poland (1939), Stalin is guilty of invading and/or occupying Finland, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania and the Rumanian province of Moldavia in 1940.
As soon as you wage war in someone else's country, you are waging a War of Aggression.
By sending forces to fight against German forces, Britain and France were just as guilty of invading and waging a War of Aggression in Norway and Belgium as Germany. In neither case, did the French and British governments have any formal agreements with the Norwegian and Belgian governments to invade and wage war in these countries.
cheers to the rebels... they seem to believe in their cause and think it's worth fighting for, even if keyboard generals 10,000 miles away don't
So much so that a group of rebels assassinated their own military commander General Abdel-Fattah Younis.
http://news.antiwar.com/2011/07/29/libya-rebel-commander-killed-by-fello...
yes, it's chaotic:
a 40-year dictatorship is falling (which followed a monarchy and foreign occupation), with no civil society and no organized opposition ready and waiting ... so a bunch of guys grab weapons and the revolt is on
if you want ideological consistency, stand by Khadaffi as a proven quantity; but there is no 3rd way in these conditions
So much for the rebels believing in their cause (singular) and feeling it's worth fighting for.
Sure there's a 3rd way.
Keep our damn foreign war and intervention noses out of Libyans' or any other country's affairs.
End imperialism!
End the American Empire.
End NATO.
End the Pax Americana.