Can you say the following two sentences in the same breath?

BBC: The International Narcotics Control Board (INCB) has dropped Colombia from its list of countries requiring special observation. It said Colombia remained the world’s biggest producer of cocaine but had made progress in its war on drugs.

Posted by: Maracatu | Mar 2 2011 23:55 utc | 3

Not to beat a dead horse… but it recently occurs to me that the US might have more support for a no fly zone over Libya in the Security Council if it hadn’t just recently thumbed its nose at the fourteen other members by vetoing the resolution on Israeli settlements.

Posted by: Night Owl | Mar 3 2011 4:02 utc | 5

As a gedanken experiment on a no-fly zone:
If the enforcer remained neutral except to impose the no-fly zone, Gadddafi’s air assets would be sidelined, and, to the extent that force would be decisive, the issue would presumably be resolved by ground combat.
So, would a no-fly zone be acceptable if it were enforced by NATO? USA? China? Iran? Russia? Saudi Arabia? Turkey?
Would it result in fewer casualties?
Is Gadddafi’s removal an end which justifies virtually any means? The ascendancy of virtually any successor?

Posted by: Watson | Mar 3 2011 6:02 utc | 7

As one might have expected, a court in Lahore has rejected the claim of diplomatic immunity for “Raymond Davis”. It’s interesting that the decision was based in part on the absence of a restraining order from a the high court where the immunity appeal is pending, and scheduled to be adjudicated on March 14, and in part on the complete absence of documentation for that claim at the level of the court where the murder case is being heard.
Meanwhile the assassination of Minister Shahbaz Bhatti is certainly not going to make the search for due process and calm detachment any easier. The temptation to speculate on these matters is very strong, but I resist it on the grounds of insufficient information to make a reality-based conjecture.

Posted by: Hannah K. O’Luthon | Mar 3 2011 9:28 utc | 9

BBC:

The Libyan oil terminal town of Brega has been targeted with air strikes, sources in the town said. (…) Forces loyal to Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi took control there on Wednesday morning but were forced out by opposition fighters later in the day. (…) Libya’s governing council rejects a peace initiative by Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, but the Arab League says it is studying the proposal.

Posted by: Maracatu | Mar 3 2011 12:01 utc | 11

The human rights council and the Security Council and the UN in general are congratulating themselves on cohesion, consensus, speedy action, etc.
After Egypt and Tunisia, everyone wants to wave clean hands, be for human rights, democracy, against green clawed-dictators, etc. (They are having their very own popular movement I swear!)
Kadafi, whose rehab after 2004 can be sorta, if clumsily, washed away, is easily presented as a lunatic.
The timing plays a role – at some point it becomes essential to ‘intervene’, take a stand, play one’s role, be very present in the media, on the international stage, even if it’s a lot of blah and argument – otherwise one is nobody, powerless.
(Therefore Clinton’s trip and speech to the HRC, which has been disdained by the US since forever. And the arguments about no-fly zone etc.)
Another factor is that Lybia is energy rich and while large in area very small in population and foreign investment – maybe 7 million in Lybia as compared to 85 + in Egypt. Tunisia and Egypt are both far more lucrative and intertwined with the ‘West’ – Tunisia in the hands of the French, say (and the news from there right now is dicey), Mubarak’s Egypt traditionally a US ally re. Israel etc., both thus being gingerly treated with a wait and see policy, or just holding off thru confusion in the hope of some smooth ‘transition’ where more ‘rights’ are given to the ppl (association, pol. parties, etc.) but where they remain economic serfs, even if many demands will have to be acceded to.
Lybia does not have that status, it is a candidate for take over.
Moreover, because of Kadafi’s labor policy, to quote an anon. Brit ex. dipl., of my acquaintance:
“There will be nobody left there once the foreignors leave and they won’t be able to run the place themselves.”

Posted by: Noirette | Mar 3 2011 14:46 utc | 13

From Angry Arab

that clown Chavez

can anyone tell me what the AA has ever done for the Palestinians? Or is he a clown who sits on his comfortable armchair coming with slogans

Posted by: hans | Mar 3 2011 15:47 utc | 15

the demonization of chavez is facile & is also taken up by intellectuals like the mexican carlos fuentes & the beruvian vargas lhosa – it is an ignorance of the facts & an underestimating of the struggle chavez has to engage. a far more realistic & sympathetic assessment has been made by that truly great latin american writer, eduardo galeano
from what i can gather aa antipathy has come with no analysis & there is analysis out there – with the bolivarian movement – some criticizing the identification of chavez inextricably with it – the reality he is – but he has done everything to democratize the process – at every level of venezuelan society & it is he, in his person who has born the brunt of the attack on venezuela including his kidnapping in the 2002 coup
there is a very real attempt though to change that with popular assemblies, & the like but he is fighting an opposition who are clearly following orders from washington & whose funding almost entirely comes from washington
when i hear such tomfoolery from aa or anyone else i want to remind them that it was the people’s revolt in venezuela, very similar in its nature to the arab revolts, a fight to the death against neoliberal economies enforced by imperial power – a people’s movement that chose chavez & not the other way around & it has been that movement who have consistently supported him
the political process are not complex in venezuela & have a transparence – that no western society could live with
i understand the role of the latin americans participating at an international level but i am frightened that their own fragility makes them a target & the western world has little subtle understanding of the reasonable positions proposed & it is clear there are those in the state department who want to usurp the momentum of the arab revolts to use elsewhere as they have already attempted to do

Posted by: remembereringgiap | Mar 3 2011 16:26 utc | 17

From Thom Hartmann. ” Ceo, public worker, and Tea Party guy are in a room with a plate of twelve cookies.
Ceo takes 11 cookies, and tells the Tea Party guy, look out, that public worker wants part of your cookie.”
Perfect anology for what’s going on in the US today.
The assult on Labor here in the US is breathtaking.

Posted by: Ben | Mar 3 2011 16:34 utc | 19

And I suppose the answer, as it’s always been, Ben, is to hire an intermediary, who also happens to be banging the CEO’s daughter, and the CEO is banging the intermediary’s wife, to get a cookie of your own, and a bonus lifetime prescription of Viagra, but you have to give half the cookie to the intermediary. The CEO, gives the intermediary’s sons and daughters some cake and pie, and keeps eight cookies for himself, and everybody’s happy happy.
I have an idea, how about there are no CEO’s and no thing called Labor, meaning erase the divide and share the cookies equally amongst all humankind….in fact, no more cookies, too much sugar, it’s not good for anyone. Instead, a cornucopia of equally distributed fruits and vegetables.
Imagine.

Posted by: Morocco Bama | Mar 3 2011 16:44 utc | 21

@21 Couldn’t agree more. Nice dream.
Here in the US, with the uber-rich owning most of our elected officals, including Obama, plus most of the national media, we’ve a hugh uphill battle ahead of us.

Posted by: Ben | Mar 3 2011 19:00 utc | 23

fidel

Posted by: remembereringgiap | Mar 3 2011 19:28 utc | 25

Wow, Fidel and I are in agreement, and I too, have a beard, but I guess Bernanke also has a beard, and Bernank and I never seem to agree. It’s not the first time, and it certainly won’t be the last.
My all time favorite rendition of Hasta Siempre

Posted by: Morocco Bama | Mar 3 2011 21:15 utc | 27

Fidel defends globalism?

The population wasn’t lacking food and essential social services. The country needed an abundant foreign labour force to carry out ambitious plans for production and social development.
For that reason, it provided jobs for hundreds of thousands of workers from Egypt, Tunisia, China and other countries.

So according to Fidel, a country with an ‘official’ unemployment rate of over 20% (non-regime estimates say more like 30%) “needed an abundant foreign labour force” of 1.8 million guest workers – a labor force specifically imported to drive down wages and standards of living of 6 million native Libyans so that Q and his western clients could siphon off the excess profits resulting from this wage arbitrage.
And this guy calls himself a socialist?
Sheesh….

Posted by: Night Owl | Mar 3 2011 22:02 utc | 29

Michael Hardt:

One of the fundamental characteristics of the imperialisms of the 19th century was their competition. Today, competition between the dominant nationstates is less important than the co-operation among them. This is one way in which the traditional model of imperialism no longer defines our contemporary era. Two of the fundamental differences between imperialism and Empire are that the latter has no centre and no outside.

Posted by: slothrop | Mar 3 2011 22:57 utc | 31

the other *humanitarian* intervention
http://tinyurl.com/4tg539z
now a de facto us colony.
same lies, same actors, different target

Posted by: denk | Mar 4 2011 5:29 utc | 33

i am rereading – angler – the secret presidency of cheney – it is difficult to see how the darkness which has fallen during that period can ever be lifted. it was imperialism in extremis – we are still there – perhaps further down that dark corridor

Posted by: remembereringgiap | Mar 4 2011 16:11 utc | 35

Swiss press and radio ran a story about the main hospital in Bengazi, with several interviews, this was a few days ago.
The head doc said that he had 125 ppl in intensive care, with 3 of them post-op/birth, the rest burnt maimed shot up and so on from the fighting. Not to mention hundreds of less serious wounded.
He said his hosp. is very well equipped (and pictures showed a tip top facility) and he doesn’t lack medecines, he was not making a plea, he explicitly stated, for matériel or donations, but half his nurses had already left (Bosnians, Ukrainians, and Chinese) and the rest were set to leave as soon as possible, as soon as their Gvmt. could get them out.
Keeping intensive care patients alive, he said, will not be possible, except for a very few. He was asked about Lybian nurses and said there were ‘willing hands’ but an intensive care nurse has to be highly trained, there is nobody there. (‘Il n’y a personne…’)
This reminded me of the Bulgarian nurses saga – 450 children infected with AIDS in El Fatih hosp. in Bengazi, 1998. The West framed this a scapegoating of innocent 5-6 almost-Europeans (one was a Palestinian doctor who became Bulgarian), but in fact all the nurses in the children’s unit were first arrested, and they were all Bulgarians.

Posted by: Noirette | Mar 5 2011 14:26 utc | 37

Noirette, that video is so disgusting.

Posted by: annie | Mar 5 2011 21:07 utc | 39

this remains for me one of the most exceptional films ever made – voyage à cythere – angelopolous

Posted by: remembereringgiap | Mar 6 2011 1:47 utc | 41

interview with bela tarr

Posted by: remembereringgiap | Mar 6 2011 18:18 utc | 43

mb
the travelling players is available on you tube in 24 parts – a real test of will – but an extraordinary work that is watched over thirty years & has not lost its power
was having a real feast of it – in this lasst week in part because of sickness & a little time off work – but the limit was a russian torrent of ‘dust of time’ whereinstead of subtitling or even dubbing – you have a russian baritone describe everything including dialogue – & even for me that was too much
i now realize that angelopolous has allowed dvd’s to be made – because he was opposed to it – but even those are few & far between in france – so youtube was the only way to rewatch
they are treasures, in any case

Posted by: remembereringgiap | Mar 7 2011 14:34 utc | 45