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On the other hand
Joined: 19 Apr 2003
Location: I walk along the avenue
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 Posted: Mon Feb 09, 2009 10:57 pm Post subject: Are sick refugees a form of weaponry? |
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Hitchens seems to think so.
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The situation has altered recently, however, and an examination of what has altered may help us to clarify when a state crosses the boundary from "failed" to "rogue." So great is the misery of the Zimbabwean people that deficiency diseases like cholera are now rife. And such is their degree of desperation that they have started crossing the frontier en masse, chiefly in the direction of South Africa, taking their maladies with them. This means that Mugabe has made himself an international problem, destabilizing his neighbors and thus giving them a direct legitimate interest in (and a right to concern themselves with) the restabilizing of Zimbabwe. If the voices of people like Desmond Tutu and Gra�a Machel, who are beginning to insist that regional action be taken to remove Mugabe, are ever heard properly, it will probably be because Mugabe went too far in driving infected people onto the territory of the countries next door. This is germ warfare of a kind.
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Obviously the main agenda here is for Hitchens to concoct justifications for someone to invade yet another country.
http://tinyurl.com/d8sj4c |
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Blockhead confidence
Joined: 02 Apr 2008
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| Posted: Mon Feb 09, 2009 11:34 pm Post subject: |
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What's Hitchens these days? American?
Having him mouth off from whatever country he's attached to makes that country a potential threat the world and self-reflective thinking. This is psychological warfare of a kind.
And justification plenty for an invasion of America. |
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Ya-ta Boy
Joined: 16 Jan 2003
Location: Established in 1994
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| Posted: Tue Feb 10, 2009 12:47 am Post subject: |
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| It wasn't clear to me in the OP: Is Hitchens writing his own opinion or is he reporting what Tutu said? |
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On the other hand
Joined: 19 Apr 2003
Location: I walk along the avenue
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| Posted: Tue Feb 10, 2009 4:20 am Post subject: |
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| Ya-ta Boy wrote: |
| It wasn't clear to me in the OP: Is Hitchens writing his own opinion or is he reporting what Tutu said? |
I think he is stating his own opinion about the need for military intervention, and trying to imply that Tutu agress with it. |
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Gopher
Joined: 04 Jun 2005
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| Posted: Tue Feb 10, 2009 8:16 am Post subject: |
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First, C. Hitchens is no more than just another screaming, sensationalist journalist. I can hardly stand him. But even broken clocks tell correct time twice every day.
Second, govts have indeed used refugees as weapons, at least politically and socially. F. Castro comes to mind, for example. Here, Hitchens suggests biological warfare. Not implausible. We would need to see more evidence than the circumstantial conspiracy-theory case he presents here. |
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Ya-ta Boy
Joined: 16 Jan 2003
Location: Established in 1994
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| Posted: Tue Feb 10, 2009 8:26 am Post subject: |
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| I think he is stating his own opinion about the need for military intervention, and trying to imply that Tutu agress with it. |
Not to nit pick, but to nit pick: Wouldn't that be the other way around? Tutu said it and now Hitchens is agreeing with it?
Isn't it a lot different for a black southern African to say that things are wretched in a neighboring state and that things have gotten so bad that they are disrupting the area and 'something' needs to be done vs a white European from some other continent with no personal stake in the matter saying things are so bad that something needs to be done? |
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On the other hand
Joined: 19 Apr 2003
Location: I walk along the avenue
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| Posted: Tue Feb 10, 2009 8:31 am Post subject: |
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| Second, govts have indeed used refugees as weapons, at least politically and socially. F. Castro comes to mind, for example. Here, Hitchens suggests biological warfare. Not implausible. We would need to see more evidence than the circumstantial conspiracy-theory case he presents here. |
I don't think Hitchens is arguing that Mugabe is deliberately using the refugees as weapons against South Africa. What I think he means is that Mugabe's policies are the direct cause of choleric refugees fleeing into South Africa, thus SA would be justified in responding as if it were a deliberate germ-warfare attack. |
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On the other hand
Joined: 19 Apr 2003
Location: I walk along the avenue
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| Posted: Tue Feb 10, 2009 8:39 am Post subject: |
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| Ya-ta Boy wrote: |
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| I think he is stating his own opinion about the need for military intervention, and trying to imply that Tutu agress with it. |
Not to nit pick, but to nit pick: Wouldn't that be the other way around? Tutu said it and now Hitchens is agreeing with it?
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Well, it's not clear from what Hitchens writes that Tutu was calling for specifically military action.
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| If the voices of people like Desmond Tutu and Gra�a Machel, who are beginning to insist that regional action be taken to remove Mugabe, are ever heard properly, it will probably be because Mugabe went too far in driving infected people onto the territory of the countries next door. |
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| Isn't it a lot different for a black southern African to say that things are wretched in a neighboring state and that things have gotten so bad that they are disrupting the area and 'something' needs to be done vs a white European from some other continent with no personal stake in the matter saying things are so bad that something needs to be done? |
Well, if Tutu has indeed said that military action is necessary, and if we agree with Tutu's analysis, then I don't see much objection to Hitchens saying the same thing. Any armed incursion into Zimbabwe will have the same outcomes whether or not Hitchens endorses it.
The only concern I have is that Hitchens' agenda might be to encourage non-African nations to join in the anti-Mugabe coalition, in which case he would NOT be saying the same thing as Tutu. |
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On the other hand
Joined: 19 Apr 2003
Location: I walk along the avenue
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| Posted: Tue Feb 10, 2009 8:46 am Post subject: |
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It looks as if Tutu really did call for military action...
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London, June 30 (ANI): South African Archbishop Desmond Tutu ha said that the use of force to remove Zimbawean dictator Robert Mugabe would be justified, as that country was presently in a precarious state, both politically and economically.
�I think that a very good argument can be made for having an international force to restore peace,� The Mirror quoted Tutu, as saying.
He also urged this week�s African Union summit in Egypt to reject President Robert Mugabe�s rule.
Mugabe has presided for 28 years over a once-prosperous economy now crippled with inflation estimated at two million per cent. (ANI)
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From The Indian |
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Gopher
Joined: 04 Jun 2005
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| Posted: Tue Feb 10, 2009 8:55 am Post subject: |
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| On the other hand wrote: |
| I don't think Hitchens is arguing that... |
All right, you have taken the position of defending Hitchens's piece.
Here is my criticism: he tantalizes us with "failed/rogue state," "germ warfare," almost genocide, almost an invasion, and talk of dramatic arrests and trials. An interventionists' wet dream. Throw that language out of that article and rewrite it as a professional journalist.
What is going on there? He is destabilizing his neighbors in subSaharan Africa? Who said subSaharan Africa was ever stable? And why is this instability our problem? This remains the Europeans' continuing mess -- especially Belgium, Britain, France, and Portugal. Let them intervene. |
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caniff
Joined: 03 Feb 2004
Location: All over the map
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| Posted: Tue Feb 10, 2009 9:16 am Post subject: |
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| Last I heard the South African leadership was all buddy-buddy with Mugabe. If that country is the one being most affected by the state of collapse in Zimbabwe, it seems to me the onus is on them to do something about it (or at least ask for help in doing so). |
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On the other hand
Joined: 19 Apr 2003
Location: I walk along the avenue
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| Posted: Tue Feb 10, 2009 9:40 am Post subject: |
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All right, you have taken the position of defending Hitchens's piece.
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Not neccessarily. I was just trying to clarify for you what I think he's arguing.
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Here is my criticism: he tantalizes us with "failed/rogue state," "germ warfare," almost genocide, almost an invasion, and talk of dramatic arrests and trials. An interventionists' wet dream. Throw that language out of that article and rewrite it as a professional journalist.
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re: rogue state, I don't think Hitchens' use of the phrase is too far removed from the commonly accepted usage. From wiki...
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Rogue state is a term applied by some international theorists to states considered threatening to the world's peace. This means meeting certain criteria, such as being ruled by authoritarian regimes that severely restrict human rights, sponsor terrorism, and seek to proliferate weapons of mass destruction.
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I think what Hitchens is arguing, as far as the choleric refugees go, is that Mugabe's deliberately-pursued policies are having the exact same effect as if he were(for example)sending agents into South Africa to dump cholera into the reservoirs. Hence, SA would be justified in responding the same way to the refugee crisis as they would to an actual bioweapons attack, ie. invading Zimbabwe and toppling Mugabe.
One problem with Hitchens analysis...
The refugee inflow does not flow from any desire on Mugabe's part to attack South Africa. Rather, it results from his complete indifference to the ways in which his policies are harming South Africa. As such, it probably does not fit the traditional understanding of a "war".
That said, if a guy is trying to quiet his screaming infant by hitting her on the head with a hammer, it doesn't really matter whether he's trying to commit murder, or if he just wants a little peace and quiet and is unconcerened about whether the girl dies or just gets knocked out for a few hours. If the police burst into the room and see him lifting the hammer above her head and saying "This'll shut ya up, ya little bastard!", they are justified in taking the same actions, no matter what his ultimate motivations may be.
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| An interventionists' wet dream. |
Well, yeah, it's Hitchens. The guy is pretty much the chief propaandist for intervention. |
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mises
Joined: 05 Nov 2007
Location: retired
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| Posted: Tue Feb 10, 2009 10:54 am Post subject: |
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http://network.nationalpost.com/np/blogs/fullcomment/archive/2009/02/10/hugh-segal-mugabe-wins-his-bet-on-west-s-pusillanimous-principles.aspx
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Lloyd Axworthy had two breakthroughs as foreign minister: gathering a large consensus and many signatories for a convention and treaty on ending anti-personnel mine use (the Ottawa Treaty) in 1997, and chairing a task force for the UN on humanitarian intervention which came up with the �responsibility to protect� doctrine, later adopted by the United Nations in 2000.
Unfortunately, the �responsibility to protect� commitment seems to have come to an end with Zimbabwe, a humanitarian nightmare and international embarrassment. No country more directly requires international intervention. No population requires protection from its government more urgently. But the world has provided neither.
The �responsibility to protect� convention established two criteria for intervention: a population whose government can provide no help, or one whose government has set about to harm. Today�s citizens of Zimbabwe are sadly victimized by both. So why are expeditionary military measures not being put in place to liberate the women being raped by the young thugs of Mugabe�s Zanu-PF, the children dying of cholera and the opposition voters who are being tormented, beaten and murdered?
Why have special forces not removed Mugabe (who claims Zimbabwe �is mine�) to The Hague? Why has the leadership of the Zimbabwe armed forces (who have a reasonable reputation among African militaries) not been engaged by military colleagues in Africa and elsewhere to become �leaders in relief delivery� and convince Mugabe to leave in the nation�s interest? Why has South Africa been allowed to be so hands-off in its alleged hands-on approach?
There are two possibilities. The first is that there is a double standard. If it is blacks who are suffering � well, then the world thinks the matter is somewhat less urgent than when whites are suffering. Witness the engagement of NATO allies on Kosovo vs. the inaction on Zimbabwe. The second possibility is angst about a European or Western force entering a predominantly black country � and confronting the Zimbabwean military.
Intervention is sometimes more demanding than just dropping food aid or sending in white UNHCR land cruisers. If the �responsibility to protect� really meant the responsibility to intervene to save lives only when there is no risk of hard feelings or casualties, then the policy proposal shaped by Axworthy�s task force should have said so.
The various appropriate American, Canadian, British, French, South African and other potential coalition command centres should be planning the appropriate intervention now. If stealing farms and land from minority citizens, killing and beating opposition voters, plunging the country into famine, raping female supporters of other political parties and allowing cholera to spread while denying its continued existence does not constitute humanitarian destruction, then what does? Does Mugabe�s role as a front line anti-apartheid leader buy him a pass whatever cruelties, insanity or brutality he unleashes on his own people?
Like Hitler in the 1930s, Mugabe is counting on Western evasion of responsibility and pusillanimous principles. Hitler watched Mussolini get away with �Abyssinia� while the League of Nations did nothing other than impose weak economic sanctions on Italy. A question for Mr. Axworthy, his fellow Liberals and our Conservative government in Canada: Who is now watching Mugabe and learning from his corruption and cruelty and the West�s insouciant response?
National Post |
Good god. Is this actually being put on the table? Is this the start of a drumbeat??
Gopher wrote:
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| What is going on there? He is destabilizing his neighbors in subSaharan Africa? Who said subSaharan Africa was ever stable? And why is this instability our problem? This remains the Europeans' continuing mess -- especially Belgium, Britain, France, and Portugal. Let them intervene. |
Exactly. It hasn't been stable, it isn't our problem. |
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On the other hand
Joined: 19 Apr 2003
Location: I walk along the avenue
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| Posted: Tue Feb 10, 2009 11:14 am Post subject: |
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From the Segal piece...
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Why has South Africa been allowed to be so hands-off in its alleged hands-on approach?
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(emphasis mine)
Umm, maybe because South Africa is an independent country, with the right to determine its own foreign and military policy? |
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caniff
Joined: 03 Feb 2004
Location: All over the map
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| Posted: Tue Feb 10, 2009 11:22 am Post subject: |
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| On the other hand wrote: |
From the Segal piece...
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Why has South Africa been allowed to be so hands-off in its alleged hands-on approach?
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(emphasis mine)
Umm, maybe because South Africa is an independent country, with the right to determine its own foreign and military policy? |
South Africa's government until recently poo-pooed the existence of AIDS. Perhaps it believes its population is impervious to other forms of disease, as well. |
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