Kouchnerism, SOFA, , Manas

Intervention as PR .....sans frontières

...UN Resolution 43/131. There was something sneaky about the way the measure was implemented: it calls for intervention in case of ‘natural disasters and similar emergency situations’. Political turmoil turned out to be similar enough to storms or earthquakes, and in 1990 and 1991 the UN Security Council invoked 43/131 to open a ‘humanitarian corridor’ for Kurds fleeing Iraq.

This changed everything. It rendered national sovereignty conditional, and led to the increasing militarisation of humanitarianism, starting in Somalia. On the eve of the invasion of Somalia in December 1992, Kouchner wrote in Le Monde: ‘We believe in an armed and saving intervention by the international community.’... If intervening in Somalia made it permissible, on principle, to intervene in the Balkans, then intervening in the Balkans made it permissible, on principle, to intervene in Iraq.

... Rony Brauman later wrote, dismayed, that ‘for the first time, in Somalia, we killed under the banner of humanity.’ Yet these views, which would have seemed the merest common sense five years earlier, were in the minority. Public opinion, or at least public sentiment, was squarely behind Kouchner. Péan sees the droit d’ingérence as the start of a path that leads from Iraq to Somalia to Kosovo and then back to Iraq. He is right.
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Once the humanitarian case for going to war against Saddam Hussein was established – gassing his own people, death squads, assassination of political opponents – everything else, if you accepted Kouchner’s premises, was beside the point. The absence of weapons of mass destruction was unfortunate, but it was a side issue, as Kouchner forthrightly admitted: ‘The Americans,’ he said, ‘have led a legitimate war on the basis of bad and false reasons.’
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,,,Péan is quite right to say that neoconservatism is merely Kouchnerism taken to its logical conclusions.
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lrb

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CNI (central north island) Maori iwi (tribes) have been given half a billion worth of pine trees.
I have rather little race-pride, my white landlord might just as well be Polynesian.
Dont know if Maori will plant more trees - the NZ planting rate is currently lowest in 60 years
Wouldnt be surprised if they carry on cutting, converting to methane rich butter-fat farms.
Not so happy about the phrase "Tree-Lords", we already have "Sea-Lords" - some sort of corporate Maori structure about fish. Who seem happy to fire (Maori?) workers in the interests of profit.
Maori seem to me rather too much like the English - too ready to bow to "Lords", aristocrats.
...To hell with aristocrats, that includearistocracys Maori "Princesses" like Bob Dylan's girlfriend, and Alan Duff's heroines.
I expect that as Euro-Capital sinks further beneath the level of human nature, Maori will continue to seize the chance to invent themselves as noble, human, warm, true holders of wonderful values. Might as well have separate prisons, which I guess would be some kind of "Prison Lords" corporate structure.

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Sacha Baron Cohen -
I see his schtick is still a Jew mocking Muslims. Why not try to get some laughs about Jews shelling UN schools in Gaza with Phosphorous?
Or Jews tying a 10yr old Palestinian boy to the front of a Caterpillar bull-dozer as it advances to demolish houses in Jenin, which may or may not have old people still inside?

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Free Gaza

Larnaca, 1 July 2009) Yesterday, the Israeli Navy boarded the Free Gaza Movement boat, SPIRIT OF HUMANITY and kidnapped the 21 human rights activists, humanitarian workers and activists on their way to Gaza...
The Free Gaza Movement is calling for their release and the release of our boat, seized in international waters off the coast of Gaza as our SPOT locator clearly shows.
But more importantly, twenty-one internationals can get headlines. What about the 11,000 Palestinians who languish in jail, many of them tortured...

freegaza

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lrb
alcohol ravings

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lrb
Patrick Cockburnn on SOFA Iraq
- how good is the LRB!

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Manas
24June... A Kyrgyz parliamentary committee on Tuesday approved the deal to allow the US to use the Manas air base as a "centre of transit shipments" for .. Afghanistan. ... .. US agreed to pay more than triple the rent ..

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Stuff I just didnt read...
.. on Monday, an extraordinary televised auction will see the multi-national majors from BP and Shell to China's Sinopec conduct an unseemly scramble for the right to develop the country's fields of black gold
telegraph

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theage
Australia solar power... faltering?

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Is China faking economic recovery?
dnaindia
re house price fall: locally there are many fewer on the market. The "realestate" shills interpret this as 'likely to boost prices', not the glum resignation of would be sellers. The end quote was there are more sales than 'usual' (sic) ..... owners are desperate for good news

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911blogger
nano-thermite?

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