Friend Mystic, we are talking past each other. I fear you are, in the sometimes accurate jargonish term, “projecting” onto me the attributes you assume must go with those you think prefer to use violence, or at least advocate for the use of state-controlled military force, as the preferred solution to all difficulties. Very very wrong you are as far as I am concerned. Whatever may or not lurk in the minds of others you may have encountered, in person or perhaps less repulsively via this fog-spreading medium, the militarist mentality, and popular pathologies,  that increasingly have disfigured and distorted America’s foreign and domestic attitudes and actions is as far from my outlook as you can get. I’m old enough, have seen enough,  and been in enough Bad Days at Blackrock to know better than to expect much good to come from actions that fantasists of this narcissistic nation tend, from the safe distance they mostly enjoy, to urge others on to undertake I see no point in repeating ourselves re the particulars of the original subject. We assess rather differently the realities of the situation,  the dramatis personae, and the route most likely to leave less bodies littering what’s left of the scenery. The $0.00002 devalued coin of opinion we are hardly contributing is not going to shift views that are moulded by complexities of our experience, and are of course of no importance to anyone but ourselves. C’est tout.

Copernicist

You write:
 
“Well, Mystic, I too assumed this seminar had expired of its own sense of non-utility to [or likely notice by] any but its slumped-over sages. Your metaphoric points are of course duly noted and even theoretically arguable if nothing of any consequence was involved; that, however, unfortunately, ain’t the case.”

Your assertion seems to be that I am unaware of the consequences, while my contention is that are adamantly in favor of action with clear consequences, as well as unforeseen consequences. That is the case.

You expound:

“As you’ve previously registered your apparent acceptance of Gaddafian rhetorical statements at a face value perhaps regarded otherwise by those with more direct experience of Brother Leader & his Sons, people whose lives are rather more at risk than your own, I won’t repeat myself. But as you also mentioned the inevitably, most often irrelevantly, dragged-in Adolf, may one say That Leader also had a view about agreements he “accepted”  from time to time? And those weren’t even ones “brokered” by even less credible buddies owing dubious debts to him.”

Ghadafi and his demonic sons might have some interest in seeing hostilities cease and negotiations proceed, which is an idea that you reject out of hand. That is a negotiation position which makes negotiation and a corresponding succession of hostilities un-tenable. Testing the veracity of the family of demons does not eliminate other options; options that have indisputable consequences. If the demonic family were to renege on its agreements, the demonic family would be immediately facing the might of the Western Powers and their less powerful, but determined previous opponents. Nothing ventured, nothing gained. There is much to be lost by not venturing in this case.

Adolph planned to create a German Reich that would last for a thousand years, but his only positive legacy has been as an example of how not to do things. Forgive me for taking advantage of this positive legacy. I do not equate you or anyone else with Adolph, I was attempting to point out the dangers of certain carnal proclivities, and a devil may care philosophy.

(More)

(Cont.)

Next, you begin astutely, but digress into the realm of ridiculous accusations of support for satanic rituals of human sacrifice, and expound on mythical gods that revel in irony, and practice mirthless laughter? Are you asserting evil laughter devoid of mirth? I’ll suggest that even the most demonic of laughers are motivated by a deranged mirth, but that is a small point of dialectic criticism, devoid of any real relevance, very similar to your offered sophistry (I apologize for the prolonged, but necessary, introduction to your abstract sophisms.)
 
“That the crimes of triumphalist neo-con bigots & deluded “liberal interventionists” are now being used to justify or even require the sacrificial offering up of people not guilty of the original sin in the interest of its non-rectification might be causing mirthless laughter from the Olympian gods of irony, but down here it doesn’t; not even a little, not at all.
So, as we sit back and watch, enjoying or not, the tragedies or comedies humaines [according to viewer taste], ineffectual hand-wringers, but keeping them clean, feeling bad for a week,  “lacking all conviction, while the worst are full of passionate intensity”...Is that the idea?”

Where to begin? I would hate to believe that you are enjoying the events that are devoid of comedy. Are you projecting the “we” onto me? Yes you are, which only leaves me the option of denying your disparagement, but I will say that I find this method of dialectic reprehensible, and beneath contempt. Your assumption about me is errant, but my observation about you in this respect is not. Being totally honest, as I am, I’ll admit that I am not immune to using satire from time to time, I would most certainly not compare myself with Jonathan Swift, but I’ll point out that Jonathan Swift more than likely did not enjoy the events unfurling in his day, but he did use satire to good affect. If you wish to assert that I am guilty of being flippant then I will agree, I am guilty of a brief flippancy, but I do not find the events in question in any way comical, or a subject for sophistry. Sophistry is not an indication of passionate intensity. Passionate intensity is displayed in many milieus: sporting events, political speeches, exhortations, condemnations, accusations, etc. Passionate intensity is often, but not always, characterized by displayed emotion, while sophistry is often characterized by an evil snicker. Let me remind you that you and I both occupy the position of observers to the events unfurling in Libya. Your advocating violence, and my advocating non-violence, does not, in spite of your sophistry, give you a moral authority, it only gives you an advocacy of violence.

Please forgive my being harsh; I hold no animosity towards you, only for your point of view, and your insulting accusations, that offer nothing to the debate of any substance. You wish to portray me as a miscreant, hoping that doing so will advance your point of view. It may to some, but not to me, try another tack, you’ve run out of wind, maybe you should resort to blowing real hard. Based on past experience with others, I expect that blowharding will soon be evident.

Now I’m feeling guilty, I should go back and do some serious editing, but I’m finding this too tedious to continue. I fear I’ve spent far too much time on a lost cause, fire away, I’m afraid that I’ll have to pusillanimously “Shut Down.” It’s the potentiality of prolonged boredom that scares me.

Well, Mystic, I too assumed this seminar had expired of its own sense of non-utility to [or likely notice by] any but its slumped-over sages. Your metaphoric points are of course duly noted and even theoretically arguable if nothing of any consequence was involved; that, however, unfortunately, ain’t the case.
As you’ve previously registered your apparent acceptance of Gaddafian rhetorical statements at a face value perhaps regarded otherwise by those with more direct experience of Brother Leader & his Sons, people whose lives are rather more at risk than your own, I won’t repeat myself. But as you also mentioned the inevitably, most often irrelevantly, dragged-in Adolf, may one say That Leader also had a view about agreements he “accepted”  from time to time? And those weren’t even ones “brokered” by even less credible buddies owing dubious debts to him.

That the crimes of triumphalist neo-con bigots & deluded “liberal interventionists” are now being used to justify or even require the sacrificial offering up of people not guilty of the original sin in the interest of its non-rectification might be causing mirthless laughter from the Olympian gods of irony, but down here it doesn’t; not even a little, not at all.
So, as we sit back and watch, enjoying or not, the tragedies or comedies humaines [according to viewer taste], ineffectual hand-wringers, but keeping them clean, feeling bad for a week,  “lacking all conviction, while the worst are full of passionate intensity”...Is that the idea?

I’ve tried to post this several times over the last two days. Apparently this thread “Shut down” for some reason. It seems that this discussion is over, and that victory has been declared, but I’m not done.

The assertion made from the ideological Right, and the not so right (not so correct) is that it’s not possible to put tooth paste back into a tube or to un-break the eggs broken to make an omelet. In the first seemingly trite metaphorical analogy, I’ll argue that it is possible to put tooth paste back into a tube, although the task would be messy, and require a specialized syringe or device of some sort, and that there would be an unfortunate unrecoverable residue of tooth paste lost forever. Regarding the second seemingly trite metaphorical analogy, the solution to the dilemma of unwanted broken eggs is not readily apparent to me; perhaps not breaking the eggs in the first place would be the only prevention of the unwanted broken egg dilemma. Continuing to break eggs does not seem to me to be a logical solution to the un-wanted broken egg dilemma.

As time passed over the weekend, an item reported in the news had to do with the African Union’s attempt to put the tooth paste back into the tube, if you will. A ceasing of hostilities was negotiated with the Libyan Government, but that hostility ceasing initiative was rejected by the opponents of the Ghadafi regime. I’m quite certain that this peace initiative, killed in its infancy, will not be recognized, much discussed, or given any credence by those who see violence as the only solution to the current violence.

Apparently, the peace initiative lacked/lacks the necessary pragmatism demanded by the pragmatic advocates of a violent solution to the violence. Forgive the seemingly irrelevant semantic correction, but altruism is an act of self sacrifice to serve the common good, to some degree. The ideologues of pragmatism, fail to see that that idealism, or altruism (The most dedicated commitment to idealism,) is, in the final analysis, the highest form of pragmatism, and that the ideologues of pragmatism are not pragmatic at all.

I could reiterate the somewhat famous quotation used by Robert Kennedy regarding life as it is, as opposed to the way life could, or should, be, but I will suppose that that quotation is familiar to most, and that that quotation never had, and never will have, any credibility with the ideologues of pragmatism.

I’ll make the quantum leap, and suggest that ideological pragmatism is cynical at its core, inadequate in possession of a faith in the power of a greater good, and will ultimately lead to the philosophy that states, “I see no reason why man should not be as cruel as nature.” That quotation may not be original, and it was not used by Robert Kennedy, it was used, and it has been attributed to, Adolph Hitler.

A pragmatic humanitarian solution to the current violence is being rejected because of non-pragmatic, non-humanitarian, reasoning, and yet these pseudo-pragmatists claim a humanitarian goal.

 
Folly marches on.

Mystic: – my apologies for neglecting, late last night, to acknowledge your astronomical footnote, one that I regrettably thought not of the utmost urgency, however relevant or not it may be to the matter at hand. I am glad to say that We Can Agree on the failure of Brother Nicholas to hang around for some 300 more years, benefit from Stephen Hawking’s up-to-date thoughts, even if heard through the latter’s now-robotized voice, and at least do the rounds on the TV Talk-Shows. 
Though the Friar did lack observational data sufficient to prove, like Galileo, those blasphemic notions re What then known revolved around Which, it is not entirely without use, I hope,  to note the eventual non-success of Churchmen and other Enforcers of Conformity of Thought in the Service of Ignorance, Superstition, and Myth – all of which these days flourish more with Flags, Anthems, and Guns than lcons, Incense, and People Burned at the Stake. I’m sure you know what I mean.

I am in complete support of employing non-violent means of conflict resolution - with a simple caveat.  Whatever the tactic employed, it must have a mind toward dealing with the world as it is.  Not as we would wish it to be.  The most successful non-violent movements, be it a general strike, civil disobedience or negotiation, all had real events (real cause and effect) in mind.

Grand pronouncements and altruistic ideology is, in most cases, not enough to save lives in the world as it is. 

-

It’s frustrating, when reading American opinions and comments on global events and issues, that so many are unable to discuss any event without making the United States the center of the universe.  It is the single most common complaint I have heard around the world.

-

The odd claim that events in Libya over the past two months was “not so bad after all”, and that Qaddafi’s military was targeting only armed rebel forces, is intended for a single purpose.  To defend a murderous tyrant who is considered an enemy of the United States.  Not only is that narrative a failure of imagination, it’s born of near complete ignorance of a world in which over 190 nations reside.

Point out the cluster-bombs being used against civilians in Libya and what do we see on this thread?  A long and incoherent ramble on the evils of the United States.  A truly desperate attempt to quickly change the subject away from Libya and Qaddafi.

Mystic – I “shut down” because, fyi, I live in a time-zone normally GMT now one hour later for “summer” , and I did not wish to stay up all night trading talking-points and theories of conflict resolution, no matter how scintillating the verbiage on offer.
Please note that I did NOT claim that YOU were the source of unsubstantiated assertions that you quote others as saying – eg,  re “tens of thousands of Benghazi families” at risk of being killed by Gaddafi’s forces of one provenance or another. The only direct quote I mentioned = “street by street, house by house”—came from the simultaneous translation by Libyan State Television of what Muammar repeated several times in the course of his non-stop tirade from The Ruin.  Now, please. You found “Gaddafi’s exhortation to the people of Benghazi to root out the rebels among them”? Like the massive crowds, people of all types and ages, men, women, children, that filled the central square of Benghazi to watch, listen, and throw shoes at Brother Leader on the huge screen, “exhorting”? Are you REALLY buying the ludicrous line so non-credibly spun by the disingenuous pseudo-innocent ubiquitous government mouthpiece Moussa Ibrahim? So, aha, there is a small number of ruthless rebels =  plain criminals, Al Qaeda infiltrators, disguised Israeli operatives, or all three working together, depending on the time of day for Moussa’s briefing of the foreign press being held under hotel-arrest for their protection. Those trouble-makers in need of being out-rooted are holding hundreds of thousands of Benghazans prisoner, pending a decision by wiser parents to keep their misguided sons at home behind closed doors after throwing down & out whatever weapons they might or not have, while awaiting an invitation to have tea and talks in The Tent.  Mystic, if you believe that Muammar and Saif Gaddafi were “offering to negotiate grievances”, it’s a good thing for your health that you don’t need to act on that “interpretation”. Or were you, for the sake of cyber-argume, staking your claim to the Annual John McEnroe “You Cannot Be Serious” Award? 
Well,  Mystic, I share your “hope” for a “good outcome” of all these increasingly visible horrors,; however vague, or perhaps pious is the word, that hope seems.  We are both well aware of the endless, repetitive Marches of Folly that, believe me,  I have watched with dismay and experienced first hand, throughout most of my seven decades.  That is why, as I said, I am not an Optimist. Are you? Does your or your families’ lives depend on hopefully optimistic interpretations of our species’ depravity?  Especially on the more notorious practitioners thereof?
Meanwhile, Have a Pleasant Day.

Gerard

I have nearly always agreed with your comments. I find them to be, not simplistic, but simple to comprehend, clear and concise, optimistic, and inspiring. I was amazed the first time that I read your age; you give credence to the idea that wisdom is acquired.

Are women more non-violent than men? Clearly there is a huge body of evidence that supports that contention, but we men should be given credit where credit is due. For the most part, the greatest teachers, and practitioners, of non-violence were men. There are many women on the political landscape today who demonstrate a hawkish political perspective. Having recently discussed cluster bombs, I feel compelled to point out that the British, under the leadership of Margaret Thatcher, (referred to as the “Iron Maiden,”) used cluster bombs in the Falkland Islands.

I can’t resist a cheap shot here. Doesn’t the dim-bulb awareness that keeps referring to you as “garard” and not “gerard” bother you a little? Obviously not; clearly you are civil, and not as opportunistic as I am.

Copernicist

Have you pusillanimously “shut down”? I have to reply to your gross misinterpretation and insults.

I find your recent post to be a kind of vague, and abstract, sophistry. Do you have anything more specific and tangible to say?

Replying to your one specific, I’ll say that I did not “… admit now to knowing that a vengeful bloodbath in Benghazi and other rebellious enclaves was specifically and repeatedly threatened by the ranting figurehead chief of the Gaddafi family enterprise…” My exact words were, “I have not been able to find Ghadafi’s non-existent threat to “Kill tens of thousands of Benghazi families,” but I did find Ghadafi’s exhortation of the people of Benghazi to root out the rebels among them, and his son’s passionate warning that the rebels were causing a civil war that would only result in a “bloodbath.” If you can not see the distinction between what I wrote, and what you assert, then you must be somewhat imbecilic, or attempting to distort my words. It’s my contention that words were twisted, and given a new meaning. Those kinds of pronouncements are not in anyway atypical of comments generally made by warring parties. Those kinds of words are intended, or interpreted, by opposing parties to ascribe the cause of war to their opponents. “the ranting figurehead chief of the Gaddafi family enterprise…” was, by one possible interpretation, blaming the rebels for the war, and pointing out what might be the tragic consequences of said war, while you and others have interpreted those words as a threat. Another interpretation might be that, “the ranting figurehead chief of the Gaddafi family enterprise…” was passionately pleading for an end to hostilities, while offering to negotiate grievances. The rebels, and our President, have one goal in mind, and both sides have vowed to fight to the death to achieve, or deny, that goal.

Your namesake Copernicus was wrong about our Sun being the center of the Universe; could it be that you, like your namesake, might also be wrong regarding this particular issue?

Again, I would like to see Ghadafi make a humanitarian based decision, and leave the country, but that doesn’t seem likely to occur at the present time.

What will be the future of Libya, what will be the outcome of current hostilities, and what will be the aftermath of current hostilities, can not be determined at the present time. Time will tell. Let’s hope that the outcome will be a good one from a humanitarian perspective, and not just be another example of human folly, with tragic consequences.

garard, - “please, other people who have any interest at all in the specifics of non-violent disobedience or action, support my statements with your own and help me out here.”

-

Obviously I am interested in the specifics of non-violent disobedience.  Why not be specific in the real world application of non-violence by applying it to Misrata and Benghazi?

What is it that keeps you from sharing this with everyone?  Will you at least give a short and succinct answer to that question?

gerard— Thank you for correcting me re your gender.  I am very glad to know it, and to yield the dubious honour of most time so far accumulated while breathing. I now will join you in taking a break from fuming onto the space this Site provides, a marginally more useful exercise than Talking to The Wall, but, alas, no patch on the late, much lamented All-Azimuth-World-Service-Listener-cum-Fulminator-in-Chief. No, this mess-of-a-planet is not what we wished for our daughters and grandsons, but it won’t get any worse for my shutting down.

Mystic – I agree with the basic thrust of your recent very explanatory posts, but what use is an Obfuscation Contest, Elimination Round 3.1? That there are Axe-grinding Warmongering Imbeciles galore on the Right is not in dispute. There is, of course, no serious Left in the US, but that there are Anti-war Axe-grinding Imbeciles among the feeble substitute afraid to call itself Liberal is equally beside anyone’s point. So?, as an Infamous Villain Infamously said. The question you insistently raised was about the validity of fears within the “international community” sufficient to produce, against jaundiced expectations of paralysis and pusillanimity,  UNSC Resolution 1973, deliberately left open to diplomatic interpreters dancing on the head of self-supplied pins. You admit now to knowing that a vengeful bloodbath in Benghazi and other rebellious enclaves was specifically and repeatedly threatened by the ranting figurehead chief of the Gaddafi family enterprise –  BUT you require Proof that such was about to be wreaked by the junior commanders and expectant hereditary predators of LibyaSpoilation, Inc.. You demanded to see “documentary evidence” that any such event was a Real Probability and not the typical “scare tactic”, lies and invented disinformation spread by aggressors in need of pretexts for launching attacks on their chosen target for territorial or natural resource acquisition. Are you expecting a Wikileaked report on the Libyan equivalent of the Wannsee Conference to be found sometime in 2016?  The signature of Saif on Misrata Delenda Est? And Until Then, what?  You would, I assume,  dismiss anything said by defectors, high or low, a reasonable precaution, I’m sure.  Better wait for a body count, exhumed and supervised by forensic teams from an NGO of your choice. Posthumous Counterfactualism for Dummies, Volume XVII, Section 4 should do it, You think?

Sorry for the double post!  I honestly don’t know how that happened because I got
a message back that the first one didn’t go through.  Gllitch somewhere.  My
apologies to all.  After all that confessionalism I had better swear off Truthdig—
at least for a few hours—and let you all have at it without my presence.

Copernicist and JDMysticDJ:  FYI, as to “pulling rank,”  I am pretty sure I am the
oldest living being posting on this website.  I am also a woman, which no doubt
prejudices me against violence!  As to past experiences that have set my
attitudes:  Daughter of a teacher who married a teacher.  A Quaker, to boot. 
Long-time supporter and activist in various “pacifist” organizations,  who knew
and lived among victims of Hiroshima etc.,  a long-time “activist” on, I suppose,
a number of FBI lists for opposition to wars and nuclear antics of all stripes.
  If and when I “rant” it’s because of shortness of time but not of breath! 
Actually, I am “fighting” for my great grandchildren who are too young to know
what we have let them in for as a future, so there’s guilt mixed in with all the
other angst. 
  When others support my views here I tend to calm down and rant less. 
Sometimes they have, and I appreciate that very much.  Thank you.  What we
can ever accomplish with words—especially in the case of non-violence—I
do not know.  One thing is for sure:  The more you try, the less likely you are to
“succeed”—whatever “succeed” means.  It’s all a crap shoot at best.

Sorry all ‘round!  But ... please, other people who have any interest at all in the
specifics of non-violent disobedience or action, support my statements with
your own and help me out here.  I do not wish to stand alone or to promote
some mindless ideology.  From time to time others have indicated support, (for
which I sincerely thank them)—but I have to take responsibility for the
seemingly endless harangues that I have felt necessary.  Sorry I couldn’t to a
better job of explaining.  But after all, the “explaining” cannot stand alone.

As to “pulling rank”—I am absolutely sure that I am the oldest person writing
in this blog site.  But that is neither here nor there. As to experience, I’ve had
enough to know for sure that human beings have to give up violence (and the
cruelty and blindness that goes with it) if we are to survive.  Being “not long for
this world”, I am primarily interested in the survival of my great grandchildren’s
children at this point.  Also, I am a woman, which has something to do with my
“frame of mind.”  Also a Quaker.  Also spent time teaching abroad.  Also actively
worked in and for the peace movement for years .  Also a teacher, with all the
handy-dandy criticisms heaped on that “profession”.  What can you expect?

GRYM: Please just reread my April 15, 9:12 comment. More is less at this point.

Actually I feel sad that your mind is so closed —not that I have failed to mean
more to yo than an ideologue and a preacher, but that you—and so many like
you—are stuck on “no exit.”

Cluster bombs were used in the first Gulf War, in Kosovo, Afghanistan, the invasion of Iraq, and possibly in Yemen in 2009.

Laos is said to have been the most heavily bombed country in the world and is still the worst affected by the legacy of cluster bombs dropped during the Vietnam War.

Reports indicate cluster bombs were used in Gaza.

An international treaty banning the production and use of cluster bombs has come into force. The treaty is binding only on countries that have signed and ratified it, and so does not include the US, Russia, China Israel, Libya etc.

Ghadafi according to my own personal belief is a war criminal, but I believe there are many war criminals on the world stage, and many bad actors.

The debate, regarding U.S. intervention, is being defined by U.S. “vital interests” i.e. strategic, ideological, geopolitical, and economic interests. Underlying U.S. action or lack of action are the concerns of empire, and in the final analysis, Western hegemony in Muslim lands. Democratic movements, or supposed democratic movements, are being supported militarily and diplomatically where U.S. “vital interests” are not at risk, and not supported where U.S. “vital interests” are perceived to be at risk.

Events in Egypt and Tunisia developed rapidly, strong advocates of democracy enthusiastically supported those developments, while the U.S. State Department remained reticent until after the tide had been turned. Machiavelli would be proud.

As events continue to develop in Egypt, U.S. diplomatic influence will be determined exclusively by concerns for U.S. “vital interests.” Meanwhile, it appears that Libya will be enveloped in a long and bloody civil war. Advocates of regime change, in Libya are seen by many as being justified in resorting to violence and of being worthy of military support, while non-violent advocates of more democratic governance in other countries are being ignored.

U.S. diplomatic and military actions will be, and have been, determined by establishing pro-Western governments, or governments allied with the U.S. regardless of how autocratic and repressive those governments might be. No matter how you slice it, U.S. foreign policy will be determined by U.S. “vital interests,” and not by humanitarian concerns. It’s ALL about hegemony and empire. When thorny humanitarian issues come to the fore, empires will always come down on the side of the empire’s “vital interests,”

We are not engaged in a “Great Game” contested on a global chess board. It’s not a game at all; it’s a matter of life and death, with very real fatalities, and with very real human suffering. Fatalities and human suffering are the legacy of empires, long after they have reached the “tipping point” and toppled under their own horrendous, unmanageable, and oppressive weight.

I have not been able to find Ghadafi’s non-existent threat to “Kill tens of thousands of Benghazi families,” but I did find Ghadafi’s exhortation of the people of Benghazi to root out the rebels among them, and his son’s passionate warning that the rebels were causing a civil war that would only result in a “bloodbath.”

If Ghadafi were a decent human being, recognizing that his leadership is catastrophic for the people of Libya, he would find a safe haven in some other country, and go there, but he is not a decent human being. Call me arrogant and pompous, but I firmly believe there are many leaders on the world stage who believe they are ordained to sacrifice human life in order to meet their personal, political, and national objectives.

(Cont.)

#2

Finally, a relatively small matter, but indicative, the constantly repeated statement that, “…every Arab Muslim nation on the planet began pleading with the United Nations, the United States, Europe and NATO militarily intervene…” was shown to be a falsehood early on, but that falsehood is constantly repeated. This kind of behavior is typical of people from the Right. Many people from the Right typically gloss over, or ignore facts, and continue on with their errant talking points, and ideologically based falsehoods. They babble on like a lying whore of Babylon. They babble on despite the overwhelming evidence that their utterances are manifestly false. Those facts that they find inconvenient, and not conducive to their ideological dialectic, are ignored. The examples of such behavior are common place in everyday discourse, and glaringly obvious in national discourse. The hope of these people from the Right is that the facts will be obfuscated, and that their interests will be served by obfuscating facts, this is the reason our government has become dysfunctional, and explains why our government has been infused with lunatic ideologues and reprobates, supported by the ignorant, who base their decisions not on facts, but instead on their fear and hatred of the opposition.

Gadhafi Forces Fire Into Residential Areas

Posted on Apr 15, 2011 on TruthDig

Reports are in that Moammar Gadhafi’s forces are firing into residential neighborhoods with cluster bombs and ground-to-ground rockets, weapons criticized for their indiscriminate trajectories, as loyalists vow to crush the anti-Gadhafi rebellion in the city of Misurata. —JCL

-

Whether or not these reports are accurate I’m doubting we’ll see Mr. Mystic back on this thread defending his earlier disinformation designed to defend, yet another, murderous tyrant.  Unless, of course, he can find some evil deed perpetrated by the monstrous United States.

Attn GRYM & gerard – May we agree that your expressions of concern are sincere; that you are motivated by genuine and justified concern for the Peoples who, after all,  are the proper subjects for our attention, regardless of disparities in your (or my) preferred and/or suggested remedies, given their present danger and likelihood of continuing distress. This current cyber-site spat clearly illustrates the “downside” of disembodied disputations between necessarily anonymous participants,  tempting too many of us to employ mockery as a substitute for reasoned argument. Mea culpa as well as anyone. Many many years ago, in one of my first positions of authority, I was chastised [later and in private] by a more senior person who had heard my sarcastic response to a perfectly legitimate query that had been clumsily expressed. Not for the last time in my life, I had done neither my interlocutor nor myself any favours. SO, first step on any route to useful discussion is mutual respect, however much the patience of Job would be tested.
I think most of those who bother to read (and/or opine on) this Site would share and respect the GOALS that gerard strains to maintain. The skills of mass resistance and long-term tactics he has prescribed as alternatives to reflexive violence are not, he admits, an instant panacea for the relief of imminent victims of armed, professionally murderous oppressors. Those who today are out on the actual streets facing batons and bullets have already learned more than any online guru’s tutorials can offer, Much as I and others share your ideal outcome, gerard,  you do realize, I hope, how “campus and coffee-shop” is the tone of your Seminar on Passive Resistance in The Spirit of the Master, etc, rather like the senior year course I took in 1958 from a distinguished academic traveller who had brought his Tibetan monk back with him for our meditative benefit.

GRYM I see, has humanized himself, having until now wrapped himself in the tattered flag of our repeatedly self-mutilating nation. The question for him is how far he is prepared to apply to the geese of Our SOBs the plucking and roasting he applies, with justifiable vehemence, to Them-There-Other SOBs.  Does one need to spell out the Places-One-Must-Not-Disturb or ever, shhh, criticize [read Israeli-Occupied and daily brutalized Palestine] on pain on banishment from the Beltway, or cyber-orchestrated tar-&-feathering [see under Goldstone, A.] The great irony of these current agonies glibly subsumed as an Arab Awakening [= Reawakening] is the spontaneity of the popular struggle to realize for Their societies the liberating Ideals that Our supposed national example [as its proclaimed-in-parchment Embodiment] has from the start to the present contradicted in practice at home and increasingly worked tirelessly abroad to prevent or undermine (Selected) Others from achieving,  Which is why, GRYM. People Bring That Record Up, and Why,, my Righteous friend,  so many people at home and abroad who are Inspired by the words “We the People” and what our secularly-holy parchments profess are the same as those who despise our hypocrisy and the self-defeating realities of our actions. You can’t have one without the other.

Sorry, gentlemen, to “pull rank” of age, but I’ve been around a long time, too often in front of guys with guns, not behind them. And I ain’t an Optimist.

garard,

I understand conflict resolution is not magic.  I believe that so deeply that it’s part of the reason I ask you the questions I do.  To be fair and honest you have opined on this thread that at this time and space, in the context of American military involvement, it’s mostly being handled, well, stupidly and dangerously.  You write that there are better ways to save lives.

I’m willing to listen if you can take it past the generalities or theories.

garard,

My question to you on an approach we could apply to Misrata and Benghazi was sincere.  Trust that in no way do I wish to denigrate your goals.  I hold the same goals.

In all honesty I found your approach to the real situation in Libya, which had the potential to escalate into a massive human disaster, directed by a man proven to be both unstable and uncommonly brutal, written as an passionate ideological argument for a blog. -Which, of course, is what people gather here to do.  What was missing from your answer, I felt, was a true effort to find a solution designed to save human lives.  Which, if I have listened to you at all, is your goal

You do write much on how all parties involved, with a distinct focus on the United States, fail to apply sound methods to avoid the violence today, last week and last month.  Yes?

I would sincerely like to ask the question again; using the methods and theories of non-violence and conflict resolution which you write of, how would you advise the people of Misrata and Benghazi 40 hours prior to troops and tanks arriving? - Negotiation was not the intention.

Also, applying the same methods, how might you advise the President of the United States after every Arab Muslim nation on the planet began pleading with the United Nations, the United States, Europe and NATO militarily intervene to prevent, what they claimed was a coming human massacre?

GRYM”  One thing I forget to state over and over because it seems so obvious to
me:  Non-violent resistance is something you can’t pull out of a hat at the last
moment like magic. To make fun of it on those grounds is to admit you don’t
know the first thing about it—that it has to be learned, thoroughly
understood, and carried out with consistent commitment.  Asking what people
can do when they are under fire is asking too late.  Violence has already set the
stage.
  Non-violent resistance is a “way of life” totally foreign to most people up to
this point in human history.  The few times that it has been prepared for and
used have had some success which indicates that it can be useful if perfected in
practice under a variety of circumstances.
  The powers behind violence don’t want non-violence to become known and
used. Yet it is obvious that violent action has reached its ultimate culmination
as weapons have become so devastating, and their use so dehumanizing that
at present humans can easily become worse than beasts. The signs of brutality
and decay are visible everywhere you look.
  Not only lives are massively lost, but the minds/hearts/souls of the users of
violence are so corrupted that they can scarcely imagine any escape from the
vicious enthrallment. Hence the resistance to non-violent alternatives.
  Every attempt to suggest alternatives to mass murder, no matter how feeble,
ought to be honored as an effort to sustain the very meaning of being human.

GRYM:  What is this “argument” about anyway—ways to trap some addle-
pated “do-gooder” into some logical corner and laugh your head off?  That’s
what it sounds like.  Too bad.  Sincere searches for better ways should not be
stifled in their cribs.
  Of course I have expected this kind of reception from the beginning, knowing
you are only interested in defense of ancient errors.  Those who are convinced
of the “virtues” of force do not see any need for change, even though the whole
world goes down in flames.  For them, words like “think creatively” and “do
nothing to make things worse” etc. etc. fall on ears deafened by centuries of
repetitious destruction and denial.
  All hope now lies in the hands of the “saving remnant” which, hopefully, will
appear soon and invent ways to move people sickened by violence toward some
degree of mental health.  Day by day, hear and there, little by little.
  You, GRYM, will probably not be among them.

April 15, 2011

MISURATA, Libya — Military forces loyal to Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi, who have surrounded this city and vowed to crush its anti-Qaddafi rebellion, have been firing into residential neighborhoods with heavy weapons, including cluster bombs that have been banned by much of the world and ground-to-ground rockets, according to the accounts of witnesses and survivors and physical evidence on the ground.

Contrary to what some people wish to imagine (or pull out of their hind-quarters), such “indiscriminate” weapons, which strike large areas with a dense succession of high-explosive munitions, by their nature cannot be fired precisely, and when fired into populated areas place civilians at grave risk.

gerard – Yes, I thought you might well know the publications of MERIP, a valuable resource and no axe-grinder’s mouthpiece, no Guess-Which Wizard puffing the smoke, no combat boots sticking out not quite hidden behind a curtain. But Mona El-Ghobashy’s Egyptian “Praxis” was not a Manual for Committing Suicide in Benghazi subtitled Assist the Killers while Feeling Morally Superior….etc.
GRYM: I was about to suggest to gerard your likely reaction to his missionary effort to advise you, but I see you have far exceeded the water I was poised to pour. Sadly, there will always be “that 2%” [as Airmen who “missed the notice” were called circa 1961]. Defenders, excusers, Deniers that Any Such Thing Ever Happened [see Srebenica] [or of course that Those Bodies were Killed by Themselves to Gain Sympathy etc,,,,]  Some situations are too complex for solutions written on the back of one’s hand for glancing at while ducking bullets. I could, but won’t, repeat why. Suffice to conclude, as Those of a Certain Age used to say re Some Advice:  “That, and a dime will buy you a cup of coffee”. [Yes, I know, a billion now might just do the trick…in the right pockets]

From HRW.org

During the March 19 protest against the presence of government tanks and soldiers in Misrata a crowd of civilians gathered in the city center chanting, “We don’t want Muammar!” According to HRW witnesses watched government tanks advance towards the protesters on Tripoli Street. Then the tanks and soldiers opened fire.

This event, according to some, was not deliberately massacring civilians but, rather, narrowly targeting the armed rebels who fight against the Qaddafi government.

None of this matters, of course.  What truly matters is what the United States has done in the last 200 plus years.

Good Grief!

Mystic,

After every Muslim Arab nation on earth, along with several European countries, all determined that the people of Misrata and Benghazi, the second and third largest cities in Libya, were in mortal danger of being “massacred” by Qaddafi’s military, you have determined that U.S. President, Barack Obama, grossly exaggerated the humanitarian threat?

Once again the evil United States is at the center of the universe and the words and actions of the entire remaining globe are not to be considered.

After every Muslim Arab nation on earth, along with several European countries, all conclude that the people of Misrata and Benghazi were about to face the danger of being “massacred” by Qaddafi’s military you have determined that Human Rights Watch, a single group, has reported that the situation was, really, not so bad?

According to every Muslim Arab nation on the planet the issue was not what had taken place in Libya the previous months, the fear was in what was about to happen.

But, hey, Misrata and Benghazi are not in the United States.  It really doesn’t matter. 

Good Lord!

garard,

Knowing as we do that this was not an exercise but, rather, a real world situation with several thousand of lives on the line, let us look at your solutions to the situation facing the people of Benghazi.

Only hours after Qaddafi promises to send his heavily armed soldiers with tanks to Benghazi to conduct a search, closet to closet, and kill all who dare oppose him, you arrive and inform the people of Benghazi that their situation is, first and foremost, unique.  You advise them that in the next 40 hours they all need to….

A. Not do anything to make the situation worse and don’t use violence when the tanks and soldiers arrive.
B. Think creatively. Formulate initiatives that reduces Qaddafi’s desire to kill you and your children.
D. Let Qaddafi know ahead of time what you are planning, why, how.
E. In the next 40 hours you need to suggest possible compromises that do not cause you to lose your rights to justice.
F. Hurry and go through some training so that your “family” can understanding why Qaddafi wants them dead. Understand (and try to “identify with”)  Qaddafi’s point of view.
G. Eliminate your fear because fear builds the spirit of violence. Disrespect is also destructive.  Cowardice is destructive. 
H. After you do all of that, with the minutes you have left, try to heal wounds, encourage cooperation and mutual understanding.  Never give in to rage or destruction.  Don’t be goaded into violence when a soldier arrives to bash your child’s head in.

People of Benghazi, clearly you can see there are no prescriptions.  It’s all up to you and your neighbors to devise the answers and the methods and to trust yourselves and each other, and work with “Qaddafi” in finding a common goal. Experience builds confidence.

While clearly time has run out today, keep in mind that it’s better to start to solve problems earlier rather than later. Prevention of violence is much easier than dealing with it after it has started.

This is all so over-simplified that it requires you to use a degree of imagination to understand it.  If you wish to know more, read the Gene Sharp books online at the Einstein Institute site. Remember, Benghazi:  Moral strength is almost always superior to immoral strength—in the long run. 

I know this is a tough and unique situation you all find yourselves in.  Violence against violence is not the way, however.  Neither is cowardice.  Prepare to die in 40 hours.

-

Qaddafi’s army was not directed to enter Benghazi to talk. I would hope, garard, that you would understand if I do not stand next to you when you address the people of Benghazi on how to conduct themselves in the coming hours before men with guns and tanks arrive.

GRYM:  Your previous questions are actually very interesting, and revealing as well:  “Using some of the strategies from the Einstein Institute, how should the people of Benghazi been instructed immediately following Qaddafi’s threat to kill tens of thousands of families living there?  What wisdom was available to save their lives in less than 40 hours?”  Let me try to help you answer them:
1. First of all, no two conflict situations are the same; each is unique, and what can best be done to develop adequate strategy and tactics varies case by case. There are no “immediate” answers:  preparation is essential. So is dedication to the principle itself.  It means you have to believe in nonviolence as superior to violence, and as possible because of its moral, ethical necessity.
2. Certain attitudes can be said to apply universally:  First, Don’t do anything to make the situation worse.  Second, get together with others and inquire deeply about what causes are at work and how to treat those causes without using violence. Suggest mutually beneficial alternatives to violence.
3. Think creatively.  Don’t simply react, but formulate initiatives that reduce the tendency of your opponent to kill you or anybody else.  Offer alternatives and deal fairly; don’t lie, cheat or make secret plans to destroy people or property.
4. Let your opponent (oppressors) know ahead of time what you are planning, why, how, and in what ways your plan can be helpful to him/they in exchange for considering your goals. 
5. Suggest possible compromises that do not cause you to lose your rights to justice.  And on and on.
6.  Go through some training process where you and your “side” can develop an understanding of both sides of the problem at hand.  Understand (and try to “identify with”)  your opponent’s point of view. Practice multual understanding of what is best for all concerned.  Don’t threaten, boast, act aggressive and nasty.  Even when you are confronted with difficulties, stick to mutual work on non-violent alternatives.  Explain the disadvantages of violence. 
  7. To the extent possible, eliminate mutual fear because fear builds the spirit of violence. Disrespect is also destructive.  Cowardice is destructive. 
  8. Try to heal wounds, encourage cooperation and mutual understanding.  Never give in to rage or destruction.  Don’t be goaded into violence—a very common tactic by those who want to “break” you and make you resort to violencer
  As you can see, there are no presciptions.  It’s all up to you and your co-workers to devise the answers and the methods and to trust yourselves and each other, and work with your “enemies” in finding a common goal. Experience builds confidence.
  It is better to start to solve problems earlier rather than later. Prevention of violence is much easier than dealing with it after it has started.
  This is all so over-simplified that it requires you to use a degree of imagination to understand it.  If you wish to know more, read the Gene Sharp books online at the Einstein Institute site. Remember:  Moral strength is almost always superior to immoral strength—in the long run.  Prepare for the long run.

JDMysticDJ –  What GRYMonger thinks is irrelevant, but I’m afraid you’re simply Wrong to dismiss as “a scare tactic” the quite real intent of the Gaddafis, proclaimed by them for us all to hear. Yes, of course. your indictment of the role played by European Powers in the post-Ottoman lands is correct, part of the “Peace to End All Peace” of First World War history; yes, much blood & oil has kept flowing since the Anglo-French carve-up arranged by Messrs Sykes & Picot, a chapter [neither the first nor last] in the complex double-dealings and contradictory broken promises made to inhabitants then present and continuing to this day. But to posit Pretended Fear of a Bloodbath in Benghazi as Just Another Imperialistic Pretext for [oil-greedy] US-led Intervention, etc., is a serious misreading, mishearing, mistaken idee fixe.  The US, UK, & quite a few others had kissed & made up with the semi-reformed Tyrant of Tripoli, ex-terrorists’ friend, IRA-supplier & revenge-seeking PanAm bomb planter. Indeed so close had some Western intelligence services become to their new Libyan buddies,  the mercenary GWOT business proving profitable in the usual wrong way,  that no sleep would have been lost had Muammar & Sons managed, unlike Mubarak and Ben Ali broods, to have snuffed the serfs’ rebellion out QUICKLY. Only it proved A Desert Too Far,  the bonfire of the Arabian vanities, Cyrenaica Branch, burned too strongly, mega-thousands of Libya’s semi-indentured imported work-force fled across its borders lest their thuggier hosts catch up etc.
But I guess you must not have seen, heard, or been paying attention to Muammar the First’s rather lengthy and tediously repetitive monologues (polite word for maniacal incoherent rants], colourfully delivered from his favourite stage set ruin. I am sure if you try you can find the transcripts. Al Jazeera English [available online even Behind the US Corporate Curtain] and the BBC’s 24-hour news channels carried Brother Leader’s Greatest Denunciations excruciatingly live, plus regular excerpted highlights. Indeed,  those non-idle threats—re which you claim no evidence exists, but I and everyone heard and understood—to wreak unmerciful revenge on Benghazi’s offending residents “street by street, house by house”, [he said, over & over], unless those resisting his forces immediately threw their weapons Out of their Door, Into the Street, then Stayed Inside while ALL Non-surrendering Fomenters are Destroyed [the identity of such miscreants changing every other moment from Al Qaeda infiltrators to Israeli agents to Gangs of Thugs and Criminals holding the People Prisoner, etc etc ad inf]. While diplomats waffled and waited for the UNSC to cough enough before issuing the necessary legal warrant, Gaddafi’s tanks and armoured carriers were headed full speed to do what Dynasty-founding requires. Would YOU have Bet Your Life It was Bluff?
As Al Jazeera’s Anita McNaught asked Saif Gaddafi, “Why must people die so your family can stay in power?”  He laughed, of course.
If you think Everything is All invented propaganda, you’ve fallem victim to wishful suspicioning, the well having been poisoned by the unfortunate history we know.

Copernicist:  Thanks for the Middle East Report citation, which I read with interest. I used to see the MIR regularly but have not paid particular attention to it recently. Although references to non-violent resistance training or adoption was not clearly spelled out in the article, there are many places that indicate it was at work to an undetermined degree: (many references to experienced, relatively sophisticated “street action” that imply non-violent awareness, one entire paragraph indicating a knowledge of Sharp’s work was in the background, the “dynamism and stamina of exceptionally diverse crowds” etc., plus clear indications that police action and interference were made more difficult by lack of armed resistance and cries of “No Stones” etc.)  I first came onto references to Sharp in connection with the revolt in, I believe, AlJazeera, early on in the recent demonstrations.
  It is disheartening to see the U.N.S.C. consenting to NATO forces going into situations of popular revolt with tons of huge weapons rather than to take a less deadly, more sophisticated nonviolent approach. Enough for now.

By Go Right Young Man, April 13 at 10:37 pm Link to this comment
   
“Using some of the strategies from the Einstein Institute, how should the people of Benghazi been instructed immediately following Qaddafi’s threat to kill tens of thousands of families living there?  What wisdom was available to save their lives in less than 40 hours?”

This kind of scare tactic is as old as war itself, best illustrated by the Nazi claim that Ethnic Germans were being slaughtered in Poland, or the British propaganda regarding German Soldiers raping and murdering innocents in France in order to shape public opinion and enhance recruitment for the First World War.

The first casualty of war is the truth. It gets confusing; Neo-con journalist and contributor to the New York Times, Alan J. Kuperman, who has advocated bombing Iran, wrote the following:

“EVIDENCE IS now in that President Barack Obama grossly exaggerated the humanitarian threat to justify military action in Libya. The president claimed that intervention was necessary to prevent a “bloodbath’’ in Benghazi, Libya’s second-largest city and last rebel stronghold.
But Human Rights Watch has released data on Misurata, the next-biggest city in Libya and scene of protracted fighting, revealing that Moammar Khadafy is not deliberately massacring civilians but rather narrowly targeting the armed rebels who fight against his government.
Misurata’s population is roughly 400,000. In nearly two months of war, only 257 people — including combatants — have died there.”

I don’t dispute that Khadafi or his government made threats against the people of Benghazi, the problem is I can’t find documented accounts of those threats. If anyone can direct me to such documented evidence, it would be sincerely appreciated. Threats of destroying opposing forces is common to war, for example, Colin Powell’s publically stated comment during the run up to the first Gulf War, was that his strategy was to “cut off and kill” Saddam’s troops in order to “reduce their threat to the region.” Incidentally, that was not an idle threat, anyone with knowledge of the “Highway of Death” knows that Powell was serious. The annihilation of retreating Iraqi troops along with residents of Kuwait seeking safety, gave weight to Powell’s threat. Never the less, the destruction of Iraq’s infrastructure, along with prolonged military action, and sanctions placed on humanitarian aid, caused many more Iraqi deaths than the “Highway of death,” but I digress, the point is that claims of a future massacre in Benghazi have not as yet been proven to be anything more than misinformation, or scare tactics. 

Unless someone can show me otherwise, I’ll have to conclude that Obama was ill informed, or used scare tactics, in order to justify military incursion into Libya, and that GRYMie is using those same scare tactics as a justification. Many of us are conflicted on this issue, but GRYMie is talking out of both sides of his mouth.

Quote:

“garard, I was largely apposed to NATO and U.S. involvement in Libya.  All the while knowing that Libyan opposition to Qaddafi, along with every Muslim Arab nation on the globe, in partnership with several European nations, were calling for such involvement.”

First, the above statement is a gross exaggeration to put it politely, a falsehood would be more to the point. The anti-western authoritarian socialist governments in Syria and Algeria, members of the Arab League, opposed the implementation of a no-fly zone. Secondly:

The Independent/Africa reported:

“Arab support wavers as second night of bombing begins
By Donald Macintyre in Tripoli

“The first potential crack in the coalition behind the Western-led military onslaught on Muammar Gaddafi’s air defences opened up yesterday when Amr Moussa, Secretary-General of the Arab League, condemned ‘the bombardment of civilians.’”

(Cont.)

#2

It seems clear to me that Arab League authoritarian governments consider Khadafy’s brand, and all brands, of socialism a threat, but that they also fear that western military actions might destabilize their regimes.

It’s my belief that western intrusions into Muslim lands, dating back to the conclusion of the First World War, have destabilized Muslim lands, and that the glaring and bloody proof should be obvious to any unbiased rational person.

(“It is accordingly understood between the French and British Governments—-

That in area (A) France, and in area (B) Great Britain, shall have priority of right of enterprise
and local loans.

That in the blue area France, and in the red area Great Britain, shall be allowed to establish such direct or
indirect administration or control as they desire and as they may think fit to arrange with the Arab State or
Confederation of Arab States.”)

The “Seven Sisters” (Oil Companies) succeeded in establishing Arab Borders based on control of Oil producing regions from Iran to Northern Africa. In 1953 the Western Powers instigated the overthrow, and assassinated the democratically elected leader of a secular Iran because of the desire to control and profit from Iran’s oil reserves. Again conjecture comes into play, one can only wonder what the destiny of Iran and its peoples, and peoples from the Persian Gulf throughout the Middle East and Southwest Asia might have been without the intrusion of Western Powers, but this one event is only a minor footnote in the all encompassing history of intrusions by Western European Culture over the entire planet, beginning with the Crusades, and on through colonialism: in Africa, the Caribbean, Central America, South America, North America, China, Southeast Asia, Indonesia, Micronesia, Eastern Europe, and on and on, there is no area of the world that has not been victimized by the intrusion of Western Powers,

The goals of warring societies have always been the same, whether it be a quest for booty, glory, dominion, land, Gold, or commodities of many types, and the results have always been the same, varying from mere subjugation, to: slavery, annihilation, or genocide; lives lost, bodies: enslaved, rent, maimed, disemboweled, dismembered, charred, blown to bits, turned into red mist, or vaporized, and yet, those of us who object to this kind of deranged barbarism, are seen as being naïve, irrationally idealistic, not sufficiently patriotic, treasonous, and lacking in the necessary pragmatism.

(Cont.)

#3  

Whether a million or more would have died and millions more suffered in Muslim lands without the intrusion of western forces, can only be conjecture, but the truth is that over a million have died and millions have suffered in Muslim lands, corresponding to western intrusions.

GRYMie writes:

“Many here and elsewhere will continue to battle in the cause of making every global event all about the universe with the United States at its apex.  That is a given.”

Anyone who denies that the West’s demand for oil has not affected circumstances in Muslim lands can only be considered profoundly ignorant; or a disingenuous denier. It is this demand for Oil that is at the “Apex” of Western intrusions into Muslim lands, and “that is a given.”

GRYMie writes:

“The problem is, of course, that almost nobody in the situation knows how non-violence could be ‘organized and evoked with sufficient unity and cooperation —step by step—’ to defuse the situation.”

Step One: Only non-violence presents a rational, and humane, solution to meeting political objectives.

Step Two: See step one.

GRYMie needs to further investigate the philosophy of Mr. Nabeel Rajab.

“Does the BCHR use violent tactics to achieve its goals?

Of course not, and it never has. The BCHR advocates strictly non-violent methods, and all BCHR volunteers adhere to a strict code of non-violence.

On the other hand, the Bahraini government has in the past not hesitated to use violence against our non-violent activities. The government repeatedly dispatches its paramilitary anti-riot squad to prevent us from holding peaceful seminars, vigils and marches. Several BCHR activists, including president Abdulhadi Alkhawaja and vice-president Nabeel Rajab, have suffered injuries due to the government’s tear gas, rubber bullets, and batons.”

Again, no believer in non-violence would advocate military intervention in Bahrain, but instead are advocating diplomatic, and non-violent, support for the non-violent activists in Bahrain. The U.S. is clearly more concerned with its “vital interests” in the area, than in helping further the cause of democracy in Bahrain.

The most powerful military power in the history of mankind is so concerned with its security, that it sallies forth to wreak murder and mayhem on lesser nations rather than defend its own borders from attack. It’s these military actions and incursions that make the U.S. vulnerable to terrorist attack, ceasing such actions, along with humanitarian actions, would greatly diminish, if not eliminate, the threat of terrorist attack. I personally am not overly concerned with the threat of terrorist action directed at the U.S. I am more concerned with the terrorist actions perpetrated by the nation of which I am a citizen.

Attn gerard, and anyone else to whom the subject is of concern—Given the present set of complex and dicey “Middle Eastern” situations still unresolved and likely to remain in flux for some time,  and assuming the accurate reporting and analysis of observed actualities “on the ground” are thus of more interest and use than theories of hope, however elegant and detailed the instructions for likely non-practitioners thereof, may I recommend a look at http://www.merip.org/mer/mer258/praxis-egyptian-revolution,  “The Praxis of the Egyptian Revolution”, by Mona El-Ghobashy, in MER 258, the Spring 2011 issue, Volume 41, “People Power”,  published online & in print by the Middle East Research and Information Project [MERIP], re which see http://www.merip.org/about

Copernicist:  The message was not for GRYM, though he is the one who asked the question.  Sarcasm aside, the works of the Einstein Institute are not completely unknown in the Middle East. Any reference to them anywhere is better than none—“... before we are all dead and nothing to show for it.”  (a quote from Lawrence Durrell)

gerard— your suggestion to Mr Nabeel Rajab was somewhat directed in vain, as his words were merely being Quoted by Go Right Young Man in the middle of the latter’s Offer to stand beside you, IF you could
“truly articulate some demonstrable solutions in these matters”
which ended with this rhetorical query, the exact extent of whose sarcasm I leave to your judgement:
“Using some of the strategies from the Einstein Institute, how should the people of Benghazi been instructed immediately following Qaddafi’s threat to kill tens of thousands of families living there?  What wisdom was available to save their lives in less than 40 hours?”
Should you, or even I,  find the answer, we must, of course, let GRYMonger know, as I doubt he’s breathlessly Googling the Einstein Institute.

RE:   Note:  If people learn how to prevent violence, the arms manufacturers
are going to be very angry, aren’t they?

hear, hear!

and the entire global finance oligarchy as well… why they need agents
provocateurs, shock-and-awe false flags, staged beheadings, patsy show
trials, rabble fighting in the streets, arms and drugs flowing, hot-
money laundromats running 24/7

Nabeel Rajaab:  Please Google Albert Einstein Institiute website and scan through available publications, many by Gene Sharp, particularly “From Dictatorshiop to Democracy”—a detailed, step-by-step guide translated into many languages and a text based on past experiences plus insights on how to prevent and/or resist force without using counter-violence. 
  It’s worth studying and considering carefully, as the results of increasing violence are so completely counterproductive these days.  Incidentally, the differences between the Egypt revolt and the Libyan revolt may be due in part to the manner in which they were conducted, and some aspects of nonviolence may have been responsible for the differences.
  Of course nothing is guaranateed, particularly since nonviolent resistance is so poorly understood and difficult to predict.  It’s not simply a matter of declaring “we will not fight back”—but an entirely different kind of strength is required—the “strength not to kill” as somebody said.
  There’s hope of a new humanity being born if violence and killing can be first, prevented, and second, stopped once it gets started (which is harder). 
  Note:  If people learn how to prevent violence, the arms manufacturers are going to be very angry, aren’t they?

RE: Add to that Bahrain’s strategic role: It is where the U.S. Navy’s 5th Fleet is
based, tasked with protecting “U.S. interests” like the Strait of Hormuz and the
Suez Canal, and supporting the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

... pretty much sums it up - any soothsayer still waving their arms over the
‘miracle’ of the so-called ‘Arab Spring’ as a purely homegrown aspiration for
freedom and democracy, inspired by ‘free elections’ in Iraq and Afghanistan, and
of which the Anglo-American Empire is in full support - best cut your losses and
peddle your crystal ball at the nearest pawn shop

JDMysticDJ – Sorry I overlooked your excellent post while submitting my own. I note your citation of the poll done for Channel 4, and recommend to all the first-rate and genuinely independent reporting of Ch 4’s correspondents,  their eyes & ears & guts never more needed than now. Staying alive while reporting the truth, the latter rather better than line-toeing echoes like John Burns ever did and does, is a constant challenge now getting daily more dangerous, as the continued targeting of Al Jazeera, among others, has shown. Although Channel 4 is only broadcast here in the UK, its online site, with extensive written as well as photographic material available on demand, is or should be accessible via http://www.channel4.com/news/
This is not a Commercial but an Endorsement.

Many here and elsewhere will continue to battle in the cause of making every global event all about the universe with the United States at its apex.  That is a given.

I would like to highlight the words of Mr. Nabeel Rajab again in the off chance that some will simply listen.  There are tens of millions of people shouting the exact same words and the exact same sentiments all over the Middle-East and Africa today.  I know.  I have listened for years.

-

Nabeel Rajab is the president of the Bahrain Center for Human Rights—the organization formerly run by the recently abducted Abdulhadi al-Khawaja.

Rajab noted that democracy in Bahrain would lead to democracy in neighboring Gulf dictatorships, especially Saudi Arabia, so most regional governments have a stake in crushing the protests. - “As far as I’m breathing, as far as I’m alive, I am going to continue. I believe in change. I believe in democracy. I believe in human rights. I’m willing to give my life. I’m willing to give anything to achieve this goal.”

-

“The problem is, of course, that almost nobody in the situation knows how non-violence could be ‘organized and evoked with sufficient unity and cooperation —step by step—’ to defuse the situation.”

garard, I was largely apposed to NATO and U.S. involvement in Libya.  All the while knowing that Libyan opposition to Qaddafi, along with every Muslim Arab nation on the globe, in partnership with several European nations, were calling for such involvement.

I hold a healthy respect for your goals.  I will quickly stand beside you if you could truly articulate some demonstrable solutions in these matters.

Using some of the strategies from the Einstein Institute, how should the people of Benghazi been instructed immediately following Qaddafi’s threat to kill tens of thousands of families living there?  What wisdom was available to save their lives in less than 40 hours?

And while I’m here, should we not say how Very Nice of Go-Right-nik to Listen to Those Syrians & Libyans whose Cries he Hears, so strangely the ONLY ones apparently mentionable on the GRYMing Liberation Agenda… Umm, .subtitled,  ...well, it doesn’t need spelling out, does it?...
But perhaps he doesn’t know that No One cares whether he Sits Up or Shuts Down & vice-versa,  though he could stop insulting what limited intelligence he clearly assumes is all that’s possessed by any unfortunates reading his selectively myopic BS.  “What happened in Iraq”, as he and all the world knows, was a Shock’n’Awful Invasion crudely cooked (& cocked) up by Dick & Don, Inc, with trimmings provided by little-dressed-up-Dubya with mascot-Tony-in-the-poodle-sidecar—all done for reasons everyone not on the Front-group payroll long since learned to Loathe, so GRYM can cut the “How We Gave Them Freedom Fries” & other gibberish of his choice, OK?

Non-violent protest and anti-tyrannical resistance has worked, gerard, when & if those being resisted & protested against are inhibited and/or prevented, due to a variety of countervailing pressures, internally or externally applied,  from employing the Usual Authoritarian Response of Killing the Protestors, however non-violent they may be, should initial gassing, beating, crushing not have the desired deterrent effect.
The Egyptian Army, loaded with conscripts, was not prepared to shoot hundreds of thousands of people massed in Tahrir Square, because (A) it was easier to usher an unwilling Hosni off, finally making him The Offer He Couldn’t Refuse, (B) the Generals fully intend, as we see, to keep the 60-year military-controlled regime in place,  AND in profitable business, not least via receipt of that yearly billion from Uncle Sucker if only to keep the Pharaoh’s boys in toys.
Whereas, as we’ve seen, which was Goodman’s point, In Other Circumstances, it suits He Who Orates to Be Very Quiet or let underling Mice Make Meaningless Squeaks, knowing the “Necessary” Spilling of Blood will not last long on the screens [in HIS blinkered land] of the subserviently self-dumbed non-dwellers in Wherever That Unpleasant Place Over There Is…. Of course, Bahrain is small enough for such recourse to “work”; and, given the chance & the choice,  the Washington Beltway Folly-cheerers would Not Have Minded, this time, the Stopping-in-its-tracks of the initial and inconvenient Revolt in “empty”  Libyan sands, HAD SUCH WORKED QUICKLY AND TOTALLY; but the hands of RegUsPatOff Freedom Sellers were forced to flutter at the Prospective Horrors promised by the Mad, Bad, & Dangerous to Know Winner of Worst Costumed Leader Award.
The Rest, so far, is Not Yet History… but check after the Station Break…

The invasion of Iraq had absolutely nothing to do with non-violent popular protest, and the desire for democracy. It was the continuation of the destruction of a foreign nation and its people based on a guilt induced fear compounded by leadership in the U.S. that believed in U.S. Empire and military means to achieve its objectives. Note that this article is not advocating military intervention in Bahrain, but support for the democratic forces in Bahrain and not support for the U.S. friendly Monarchy in Bahrain.

If none else will say it, I will. GRYMie, SIT DOWN AND SHUT UP! GRYMie was wrong in supporting George W, his father H.W., the brutal destructive invasion of Iraq, and the Foreign Policies of the Clinton Administration, and now the policies of Obama, and until he can admit that fact, he should be told to SIT DOWN AND SHUT UP! In mass.

If the military attacks on Iraqi proper accomplished anything, it was the empowerment of Muslim extremists, a horrendous act of terrorism perpetrated against the U.S., the deaths and misery of millions, a diminishment of democracy in the minds of many, and a scoffing by many at the ink stains on their fingers.

My Assyrian Iraqi friends hated Saddam Hussein, AND the invasion of Iraq, AND the persecution of the Iraqi people. That being said, most Iraqis believe that the quality of their life was better under Saddam Hussein than it has been under the occupation, and the new government. True advocates of democracy in Iraq have been saying to the U.S., GET THE HELL OUT OF OUR COUNTRY!

“A poll from March 2008 conducted by Opinion Research Business (ORB) for the British Channel 4 (2/24–3/5/08) found 70 percent of Iraqis wanting occupation forces to leave.”

61 percent of Iraqis said the U.S. troop presence was making security worse…”

“The same survey found that 70 percent of Iraqis believe the U.S. and other “coalition” forces had done “quite a bad job” or “a very bad job” in carrying out their responsibilities in Iraq.”

John Burns, writing for the New York Times, wrote.

“The United States has been overwhelmingly a force of good in the world. This is very unfashionable talk, but I think this ought to be remembered here. I grew up in a world where the survival of democracy depended on the military and economic power of the United States. If that power became less credible here, I think the world would be a lot less safe. The stakes are extraordinarily high. I think this is a tipping point in the fate of the American empire.”

Burns (and GRYMie) have their point of view, but I can not agree that the deaths and suffering of millions over the last 50 years, and before, indicates a “Force of good in the world” Intelligent informed people know that democracy is not “surviving,” quite the contrary, it’s being subverted nearly everywhere, with the possible, but doubtful, exceptions of Egypt and Tunisia. Burns makes clear his belief in “American empire,” and I’m quite sure that GRYMie concurs.

No I don’t believe the U.S. is responsible for all the world’s evils. The U.S. is only responsible for the evils it is, and has been, responsible for, those evils are many, and those evils can be quantified, in terms of human suffering, and squandered resources.

Another day in the Libyan stand-off with a “board of directors” bringing their weight to bear toward a settlelment and offering a fund of support NOT to be used for arms. Apparently a step toward supporting non-violence.
  The problem is, of course, that almost nobody in the situation knows how non-violence could be organized and evoked with sufficient unity and cooperation—step by step—to defuse the situation. That is the logical result of keeping information about non-violent strategies and tactics “under wraps” deliberately by not giving it any publicity—an obvious more or less universal national government stategy.
  Yet the quick rush to “get together” and devise some plan to prevent unrest from descending into civil wars here and there indicates that national governments are universally afraid of citizen uprisings.  Fear without understanding and deliberation is not the best motivation for injecting “help” into troubled situations.
  The whole wide world needs desperately to know that a good deal of useful thought and planning has gone into non-violent resistance to dictatorial government action (or reaction).  Some of it is centered in the work of the Albert Einstein Institute in Europe and the U.S.  It consists of the writings of Gene Sharp and others, plus training sessions and study groups.  It needs all the help it can get in putting its valuable message before publics everywhere, especially in times of unrest and what might be termed a general, vague but evident “battle fatigue” due to the hideous results of sustained violence evidenced in modern weaponry, “terrorism” and “black ops.”

“And all that, because one day, a month ago, almost half of the Bahraini population came out in the street demanding democracy and respect for human rights.”

“Rajab noted that democracy in Bahrain would lead to democracy in neighboring Gulf dictatorships, especially Saudi Arabia, so most regional governments have a stake in crushing the protests”

-

Post Saddam Hussein, after millions of Iraqis risked their lives to exercise their own right to vote, I wrote here that what had just happened in Iraq could turn out to be a watershed event.  I wrote that the same strong desire may very well be seen in neighboring nations in the near future.  That was roughly six years past.

I was labeled a simple-minded Bush administration apologist.  I was labeled a war-mongering Neo-Con.  I was commonly asked how I could defend something so evil.  Nearly every individual on TruthDig wrote that I should, essentially, sit down and shut up. 

My response to this unmitigated anger was to point out that my observation had nothing to do with support for the Bush Administration.  My observation was, I wrote roughly 6 years ago, a defense of people in the Middle-East and Africa.

I can repeat today what I wrote here roughly six years ago.  If given the chance human beings will always choose freedom.

-

Three months past I wrote that the world may see Syrians and Libyans rise up against their respective governments in a call for free and fair elections.  I was repeatedly shouted down.  I was told there was no way I could know such a thing.  Again I was told to Sit Down and Shut Up!

I simply ignored the hate-filled rhetoric on this Web space and, in stead, listened to Syrians and Libyans.

Thank you, Napoleon:  You Done Your Part!  The organization that made the video is Iraq Veterans Against War—a bunch of brave men and women who
in trying to heal from the ravages of participation in the current wars and serving as “Winter Soldiers” making their message public. Look up their website and contribute what you can.

This quick video says it all.. Enjoy:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=akm3nYN8aG8

To my way of thinking: “US Backed Bloodshed” is a big too accusatory.  I understand what is meant to be conveyed—such as:  We “helped” Libya.So what about Bahrain and all the others.  But, but, but—
Just how much we “helped” Libya is questionable. And perhaps—perhaps—the fact that we didn’t “help” Egypt actually helped Egypt. In other words, “help” from the U.S. doesn’t necessarily mean that we “prevented bloodshed.”  These situations are much more complex than that.
  One things seems to be clear:  To the extent that the leadership in the Egyptian revolt understood and invoked basic principles of nonviolent resistance—up to a remarkable point—actually helped the revolt to succeed to the extent that it did.  In Libya’s case apparently nonviolence was not as clearly understood by as many people, and the interjection of NATO forces certainly did not model nonviolent behavior.  Rather, it offered a violent “solution” which probably increased the over-all violence.
  In Bahrain the issue of nonviolent efforts is not clear yet—if, whether, who and how much.  The encouraging thing to me overall, though, is that we know from reports on AlJazeera that many people in the Middle East are not unaware of the validity and possible effectiveness of nonviolent overthrow of dictatorial governments.  That’s a big step forward—trying new ways to bring about change.This point receives little attention in the English press—for obvious reasons.

Nothing unexpected here, the US is continuing it’s practice of situational ethics, under it’s banner of realpolitik, which serves the interests of it’s rulers, which are definitely NOT ‘We, the people…’
Unless you accept the SCOTUS definition that corporations are people. And that since the corporations have huge hoards of ever-replenished cash, which they are now free to use limitlessly to bribe our politicians, the SCOTUS decision in reality said, ‘US corporations and independent Plutocrats are the ONLY ‘We, the people…’, who matter when it comes to ruling, and benefiting from, the US and it’s Constitution.
So the Bahrain deal is just a matter of our situational ethics being applied to our situational foreign policy, as it is to our situational application of Shock and Awe and War, and situational covert assassinations, and situational spying on US citizens, and situational limited ‘education’ of our kids, and situational restricted media and information coverage, and situational etc., etc., etc..
And the evaluation of individual situations is determined by the CEO’s and the Plutos, whose raison d’etre is making money, any way they can, and whose motto is ‘More is never enough’.
That seems a close-to-perfect definition of a totally amoral society, which the US is rapidly becoming.
And so long as we keep thinking of ourselves as a ‘Democracy’, and let the CEO’s and Plutos keep up the charade that we are one, ‘We, the people…’, the ones who do the work of, and love the USA as it was conceived, are responsible for this mess.
And we can’t just move out and escape, for there are few places in the world where the US has not become a predator, does not self-appoint itself the ultimate arbiter.
So we better change it. ASAP. Because it’s the right thing to do. And because the way we are acting, we are just begging some outside force to come in and change it for US. It might be Mother Nature, it might be some ‘god’ or another, it might be a butterfly flapping it’s wings in Bumf***, Wherever. But if you are aware of history, you cannot believe we can continue as we are.