but second, i have a question for him and others on the list since we are commenting on outside interventions in internal national conflicts.
the idea of the autonomy of the nation-state as a guarantor of the lives of its citizens should be questioned. we are now half a century into the u.n., an institution that has crafted a number of documents intended to proclaim universal rights.
those rights are meaningless unless there is a force to back them up.
i have often asked those opposed to intervention what they think should be done, or should have been done, when a genocide is occurring. i cite rwanda as a case; i could equally cite other places like bosnia, cambodia, or the congo, where interventions to prevent slaughter would seem to be a clear obligation on the part of the international community.
now, i know that the "international" community doesn't yet really exist, though we are at a point in history where there have been increasing efforts to give it a reality, feeble though they may be. i am thinking of u.n. peacekeeping operations and of the international tribunals. i also recognize that the security council doesn't represent an international community; and i would argue that the leaders of many nations are autocrats, and are hardly representative of their people, hardly voices for an international community.
that said, should any degree of military action on the part of a national government, used against its own civilian population, go unchecked?
my question yesterday could have been for libya; today for syria; tomorrow for who knows who?
there are those who want to argue against interventionism here, and in favor of it there. what arguments might one make, say, concerning the case of syria? is there nothing that can really be done? are we that helpless?
ken
On 8/9/11 6:31 PM, Moses Ebe Ochonu wrote:
Abdul,
I would not have bothered to respond to your latest post if not that it is riddled, with more outright lies, deception, and intellectual sleight of hand. Where to begin?
You may not have supported French/UN intervention in Ivory Coast as a first resort, preferring a homegrown ECOWAS intervention. That's not saying anything, since you'd be hard pressed to locate any African who supports foreign military intervention as a first line of action in resolving African conflicts. That doesn't give you or anyone pan-AfriKan credibility. However, once ECOWAS demonstrated a lack of willingness and capacity to act--a fact that you lamented and bemoaned effusively--you WELCOMED, supported, cheer led, and praised the French intervention and by extension the man who authorized and built the international support for it--Sarkozy. You even inundated this list with triumphalist Western propaganda stories and analyses celebrating and glamorizing the "success" of French intervention and the effectiveness of French military internationalism (read: imperialism).
It is not true that Nigerian air power would have done the job, and you know it. Gbagbo and his forces were dug in in Abidjan, and it was not simply a question of bombing Gbagbo's palace. Were that the case, ECOWAS would have acted. There was a consensus that ground forces would be required to do the job, and many ECOWAS states, including Nigeria, hesitated to commit ground forces, fearing the prospect of being bogged down in a messy, unpredictable military confrontation. In fact the reluctance of ECOWAS to act militarily was a reflection of this anxiety about the necessity of ground troops. They were vindicated. For while it took the New Forces five days to shoot their way to Abidjan, the battle for the capital quickly developed into a stalemate in which Gbagbo's forces counterattacked, gained the upper hand in some areas and even surrounded the New Forces in some suburbs. This was the stage at which French GROUND forces, not just airpower, proved decisive. If the French didn't already have ground forces in Ivory Coast, the stalemate in the capital would have continued. So, in fact, the French military imperialist imprint on the foreign intervention in Ivory Coast surpasses the one in Libya (in Libya they have no conventional ground troops). Yet you welcomed, supported, and praised the intervention by French troops--Sarkozy's troops in the effort to oust usurper Gbagbo. You may say that you supported the French forces but not "Racist Midget" Sarkozy, but that is a distinction without difference, since they are his forces and were carrying out his mission. The question you still cannot answer is: why praise Sarkozy's French imperialist intervention in Ivory Coast only to rail against it in Libya, where there was a clearly expressed genocidal intent on the part of your hero and AfriKan brother, Ghaddafi? I call it hypocrisy and impulsive pan-AfriKanism!
You stated that Ghadaffi even joined the protest against his regime. Are you for real? How can you willfully forget the facts of an event that is so recentt? I would not normally dignify such mendacity with a response, but let me humor you. here is a question: If he joined in the protest against his own regime, why did he send his forces to mow down the innocent, unarmed protesters in several Tripoli neighborhoods and in cities--massacres that forced the Bengazi activists to resort to armed resistance? Given the ridiculousness of some of your claims, I am beginning to think that you must inhabit an alternative news universe, much like members of the American right wing tea party who have invented a fantastical reality in which Obama came from Kenya to destroy the country that George W Bush, their white, competent, surplus-budgeting Republican buddy, built. I would have to subscribe to this Pan-AfriKan news source that you seem to be hooked on, if only to gaze at the incestuous exchange of unscholarly and bizarre pan-AfriKan conspiracies, half-truths, and fabrications that goes there---silly, distorted, pan-AfriKan pro-Ghadaffi slogans that you shamelessly inflict on this list daily.--
On Tue, Aug 9, 2011 at 2:08 PM, Abdul Karim Bangura <theai@earthlink.net> wrote:
All Pan-Afrikanists who called for Gbagbo to go were quite adamant in their insistence of ECOWAS to do the job. Anyone who says that any Pan-Afrikanist wanted racist Midget Sarkozy to do the job is a liar. Two Nigerian air force jets could have taken out Gbagbo's heavy weapons just like the French and UN did. It took the New Forces only five days to take the entire country. In essence, Sarkozy's boys were not needed had ECOWAS leaders carried out the mandate for which they had voted.
As for what happened in Libya, those who do not swallow Western propaganda line, hook and sinker know better. In fact, Gadhaffi joined the protests against him when they started. The frustration prompted the racist Arab Libyans to take up arms and started killing poor Black Afrikan workers who they dubbed as "Black mercenaries," as if there are no "Black" Libyans.
This will be my one and only response to you on this issue. So to you your own truth and to me mine.
-----Original Message-----
From: Moses Ebe Ochonu
Sent: Aug 9, 2011 2:12 PM
To: usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com
Subject: Re: USA Africa Dialogue Series - March Against US & NATO Terrorism In Libya
He has embraced all of them. Unlike the people's revolutions in Tunisia and Egypt, the racist Arab Libyans in Benghazi introduced violence in the protests because they knew they had very little support in the country and were banking on the push by racist Midget Sarkozy.
--Mwalimu Bangura, the Afrikan
This is the kind of dishonesty and hypocrisy that has discredited the impulsive pan-AfriKanism of Bangura and his ilk. The Libyan protesters "introduced violence in the protests"? I thought their violence was a response to the deadly, scotched earth violence of Ghadafi's security forces. Are we now blaming the victims, who resorted to violence AFTER their peaceful protest was met by a hail of gunfire and repressive violence and only AFTER they faced imminent decimation from vengeful Ghadaffi forces? As a historian whose academic practice thrives on chronology and chain of causality and effect, I will not allow the chronology of this recent history to suffer in the hands of self-proclaimed AfriKan brothers of the tyrant called Ghadaffi. And, by the way, is it not the height of hypocrisy and intellectual duplicity for those who only a few months ago were hailing Sarkozy as the deracinated savior of Ivory Coast to now expect us to take them seriously when they describe the same Sarkozy as "racist Midget Sarkozy"? I can listen to reasonable and consistent anti-imperialist voices, but on this matter, you, Mwalimu Abdul Karim Bangura, are credibility-challenged.
On Tue, Aug 9, 2011 at 9:02 AM, Abdul Bangura <theai@earthlink.net> wrote:
Thanks a heap for your response, Mwalimu Kwasi. Yes, we gave Brother Gadhaffi a road map for a peaceful resolution of the conflict and reforms. He has embraced all of them. Unlike the people's revolutions in Tunisia and Egypt, the racist Arab Libyans in Benghazi introduced violence in the protests because they knew they had very little support in the country and were banking on the push by racist Midget Sarkozy.----- Original Message -----From: Kwasi Gyan-ApentengSent: 8/9/2011 8:22:05 AMSubject: RE: USA Africa Dialogue Series - March Against US & NATO Terrorism In Libya
Mwalimu Bangura,--
I know you are passionate about democracy in the concrete sense and campaigned hard for the right thing to be done in the Ivory Coast. I know you are equally hard against NATO bombing in Libya, and I am with you there.
However, imagine that you were an anti-Gaddafi Libyan (as not everyone can, should or does support the Brother-Leader), and in the absence of any possibility of legally contesting his rule in any shape or form, and given that he is grooming is children and possibly grand children to rule without given the people any real choice in the matter, what would be your response to NATO bombing? Remember that on March 16th, I think, Gaddafi warned his Benghazi foes: we will show no mercy, no pity.
Will the anti-NATO march also propose ways of getting all Libyans to talk and move their country forward or will it just be bashing NATO as usual and praising Gaddafi, etc?
Cheers
Kwasi
Kwasi Gyan-Apenteng,
Journalist & Communications Consultant
Accra
President,
Ghana Association of Writers
PAWA House, Accra
From: theai@earthlink.net
To: USAAfricaDialogue@googlegroups.com
Subject: USA Africa Dialogue Series - March Against US & NATO Terrorism In Libya
Date: Tue, 9 Aug 2011 00:11:25 -0400
Millions in Harlem to March to stop Illegal US, NATO warmaking in Libya
The Honorable Minister Louis Farrakhan will be the keynote speaker
----------------------------------------------------------
By Saeed Shabazz -Staff Writer- | 8-3, 2011
-
NEW YORK (FinalCall.com) - Activists representing a broad coalition of anti-war organizations, the Nation of Islam, the political left, Islamic organizations and a plethora of grassroots community organizations recently stood together on the stage of the Assembly Hall at the Riverside Church, proclaiming that all roads lead to Harlem for the Aug. 13 Millions in Harlem March to stop the bombing of Libya.
"Where are we going to be on Aug. 13?", asked Sara Flounders, co-director of the International Action Center, the main sponsors of the Riverside Church event. "In Harlem!", the standing room only crowd shouted back.
President Barack Obama never believed that his actions against Libya could galvanize the movement that will be in the streets of Harlem on Aug. 13, said Abdul Akbar Muhammad, the international representative of the Nation of Islam, in response to a question from The Final Call. Marching alongside of the Nation of Islam the second Saturday in August will be members of the White Left and other progressives, Pan Africanists, Black grassroots organizations and national Islamic organizations, he added.
<http://www.finalcall.com/artman/publish/National_News_2/article_8057.shtml>
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