How do you recognize a military coup in Egypt and remain silent when the

[malaise]

democratically elected President in locked up by said military and then say a referendum is a violation of international law and is illegal.

Further, after Iraq does the West have any credibility on violations of international law?
Isn't that the real problem - that George Bush and Dick Cheney and poodle Blair brought us to this point.

This planet has serious problems - international law is not what the West says is law.

[joshcryer]

1. Who are you talking about?

Who is recognizing the military coup in Egypt? I know of literally one DUer I can think of who is glad about that David__77 or something like that.

[malaise]

3. Your government did as did most of the Western governments

Was the abuse of Gaddafi's body not a violation of international law.
Do the think the rest of the world doesn't look at some of this shite including violations of international conventions and say no - this is not international law.

[joshcryer]

5. OK, so the government, gotcha.

Just because someone does something I don't agree with doesn't mean I agree with it.

[geek tragedy]

9. "Your government"

Interesting.

[Igel]

22. And appropriately so.

IIRC, malaise is in Jamaica and isn't American, but it's a safe bet that those she's talking are Americans.

[BelgianMadCow]

4. the government that kept funding it?

it's a pretty solid indicator of recognition: cold, hard cash.

Doesn’t the U.S. have to cut off foreign aid after a coup?

The Foreign Assistance Act mandates that the U.S. cut aid to any country “whose duly elected head of government is deposed by military coup or decree.” But in July the White House decided that it was not legally required to decide whether Morsi, who was democratically elected last year, was the victim of a coup — which allowed the aid to keep flowing. “We will not say it was a coup, we will not say it was not a coup, we will just not say,” an anonymous senior official told the New York Times.

http://www.propublica.org/blog/item/f.a.q.-on-u.s.-aid-to-egypt-where-does-the-money-go-who-decides-how-spent

[joshcryer]

6. OK, just wanted to know what page we're on.

We're speaking rhetorically.

[BelgianMadCow]

8. I understood that you were thinking this was meta - a discussion about DU

could also be known as DUscussions

[malaise]

7. This

“We will not say it was a coup, we will not say it was not a coup, we will just not say,” an anonymous senior official told the New York Times.

----------
and that is the norm so there was no coup in Ukraine either.
No wonder our civilization is under threat. We are out of control.
International law is for everyone but the West.

[WhaTHellsgoingonhere]

13. we will not say it was not a coup = double negative

coup!

[malaise]

15. Indeed n/t

[Igel]

24. Language =/= syllogism.

Google "litotes." My high school seniors have to review this term when they study figures in literature in backwards, uneducated Texas. They first learn it in 9th grade.

"He was not uneducated" has two meanings, neither of which is simply "He was educated."

The first is denying he was uneducated, without saying he qualifies as "educated." In modern America, simply graduating high school fits the bill. In earlier decades, having a 10th-grade education, a 6-grade education, or merely being able to make your mark would have put you in the gray area. Your education is not completed; nor is it left unstarted.

The second is intentional understatement that serves as intensification, and in a lot of literature it's the primary use. "It could not be said that Lady Jane was not without her graces, nor that her suitor was not without means" would imply that Jane was a knock-out and her suitor dripping wealth. I would not say that somebody with a BA is "not uneducated". They are simply educated. They are too educated to be counted as not especially educated; they are not educated enough to be counted as very educated.


In this case, "we will not say it was not a coup" is to say nothing about the matter. It is not saying it was an "uber-coup", a coup so impressive as to be breath-taking. It is simply a non-assertion coupled with a non-denial.

More tomorrow--anacoluthon--check back then, don't forget.

[WhaTHellsgoingonhere]

30. All the faith he had had had had had no effect on the outcome of his life.

Here's tomorrow's lesson. I see too much of this and I blame you, the teacher.

I know "there, their, and they're" drive every Grammar Nazi nuts, but for the most part, I don't find them indicative of anything. Everyone is guilty of misusing them on occasion. The following, however, I find indicate ignorance.

then/than, then is being used exclusively
supposed to, not suppose to
used to, not use to
should have, not should of (would of, could of)
no one, not noone
cannot, not can not
Chris's, not Chris'

Fix those and my life will improve immeasurably.

TIA

[Downwinder]

25. Got away with it in Honduras.

[BelgianMadCow]

2. Yes. Iraq + Egypt = end of standing

I'm still surprised Kerry didn't burst at the seams.

[geek tragedy]

12. The world is not a blog. Standing does not evaporate with a mere

gotcha moment.

[BelgianMadCow]

14. I just read Naom Chomsky's Failed States - which deals with the hypocrisy about spreading democracy

and freedom as an excuse the US has used and abused as fit its needs. We're not really speaking about a moment. This started at the selection of Bush for me, but reading more history it goes further back. But to be clear, it's not like other world powers don't have similar ugly pasts or presents.

You're right that the hypocrisy about Iraq has been there for all to see. Yet the world is more awake and informed, and somehow I think we're at a turning point.

[Igel]

26. One must distinguish between hypocrisy and failure.

It's like distinguishing between a and an untruth.

Both are necessary to avoid wholesale collapse of any attempt at morality. Both involve an other-based definition, because the listener's perception isn't what's at stake.

I can say that my wife is at the store and be lying. Perhaps I know she's elsewhere but wish for you to believe she's at the store to save face or for some other reason. Or perhaps I honestly believe she's at the store and am incorrect--perhaps I've been deceived, perhaps her car broke down and she's walking home. In each case what I'm saying is untrue; in one case it's a lie, and in the other it's a simple untruth. Intent and speaker knowledge matters, not what the listener decides, based on emotion or attitude, the speaker must mean. We tend to decry untruths from those we don't like as lies; we tend to assume out-and-out lies by those we do like are mere accidents.


Hypocrisy is imposing on another a rule or moral precept that you do not believe holds in your case. Ways can be found to make something technically not hypocritical. A UN resolution, for instance, often works, but that presupposes a purely formal, amoral view of what law and codes of behavior are. There is no "principle" behind morality except it's what those with power (or a majority) say is moral for the moment. This week we are inclusive and that's moral because we say so; next week we round up all the Japanese and put them in internment camps and that's moral because we say so. It's a thin reed as far as support goes.

Failure is not upholding your moral views, possibly through weakness or even through self-deception. The distinction can be subtle: I've known people who condemn others for drinking while drinking themselves into oblivion. In some cases the next day in some cases the condemners beat themselves up for falling off the wagon and acting like asses; in other cases, the attitude is that they've earned the right to be lushes but the kids haven't. One's weakness; the other is hypocrisy. Humility is necessary for refraining from issuing the easy judgment--"hypocrisy vs weakness" is a hard judgment, "do I dislike the person or like him" is the easier question to answer and is substituted for the hard question. Again, we tend to accuse those we don't like of hypocrisy; those we like we tend to think of as having a moral failing.

Neither makes the moral precept void. There's nothing about a hypocrite saying, "Stealing is wrong" that suddenly makes stealing right. If stealing is wrong, it's wrong no matter who says it's wrong. We use an ad hominem argument to avoid having theft condemned for one of two reasons: We want to defend the current thief or we want to condemn the person speaking. In the case of Crimea, some want to defend Russia; others really are indifferent to Crimea, Ukraine, and Russia, and just want to condemn the US for something still stuck in their craw. Again, we have a difficult question and instead of dealing with hard thinking we substitute an easy one: What do I want to do?

Critical thinking is hard thinking.

[Adam051188]

10. we've also recognized a coup(of questionable origins) in Ukraine as a legitimate government.

Capitalism and democracy are incompatible systems. If it weren't for greed, megalomania, ignorance, and apathy that previous statement would not be so true, but sadly it is.

;^) expansion on these subjects is highly frowned upon by certain groups, so i should probably stop there.

[arely staircase]

17. is that why Putin crushes democracy at home and abroad

It is incompatible with his crony capitaliem?

[Adam051188]

18. um, sure? i think? you should read this.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BRICS

[arely staircase]

19. I see no BRICS members shpported Russian aggression at the UN

They must realy be feeling lonely.

[Igel]

28. Ukraine is squirrelly.

Imagine is Obama and Biden left. Perhaps they ran because they feared protesters. They agreed to certain things that were legal to salve over problems, but then they turned up in Canada a week later.

In the US there's a mechanism for dealing with that. They can be impeached. The 3rd in charge takes over and is confirmed by Congress. That's a legitimate head of state at that point, even if nobody voted for that person for president. It doesn't matter if Obama at that point says the person's illegitimate or not. The procedure was followed.


Yanukovich inked a deal and then welched. He left town. The elected parliament impeached him and appointed somebody else. The elected parliament's still there, and it's still elected and, contrary to the silence it's received, still fairly representative. It regularly meets, isn't undergoing active intimidation, and still passes measures. A few reps bugged out with Yanukovich, heading towards Hungary or Russia, but even most from the ethnically-Russian areas stayed. Many changed parties, so PR has gone from top dog to on the rocks.

So the appointee of the elected parliament is decreed illegitimate because he wasn't elected? Well, the same would be true for the #3 person in the US. We'd expect nobody to have a problem with that.

And the the same is true for Aksenov in Crimea, with a rather important difference. The parliament that disposed of the former leader and elected Aksenov in his place wasn't representative--members were barred from being there on the one hand, and members that the next day said they hadn't been there were listed as having voted. And the parliament had armed "Russian-but-not-quite-Russian" armed troops at the door.


Democracy and capitalism with some means of ensuring that large economic units don't continue forever are completely compatible. You just have to find the right sub-definitions of each, because democracy and feudalism or slavery are also compatible as are totalitarianism and collective ownership of the means of production. The devil's in the details. Even old-school Christian Reconstruction is a democratic theocracy coupled with an agrarian kind of capitalism.

In fact, what we think of as capitalism and (liberal) democracy typically arose in lockstep. Both are distributed, non-monopolistic power, but with power dependent on things like skill and education, transient traits that tend to be passed down in families but which aren't exactly inheritable, and with power also dependent on having others contribute to your power (either with purchases or with votes). With distributed power associations of individuals form transient power centers--economic units or "civil society" (liberals used to like civil society; we don't now, often because we don't like those organizations' views). Politicans and corporatists have found ways to make their concentrations of power semi-permanent and to use goverment to enhance their power (this to my mind argues for both regulation but also limiting the spoils to be fought over). The solution isn't to concentrate power even further, in hopes of being able to have just the right people in charge and achieve something that's 50% totalitarian under a set of "philosophy-dukes" or technocrats. We all think that we and ours are above temptation; we're all idiots in that regard, self-deluded and wilfully blind, and any power we can get is a good thing because we, of course, will only use power for good. Instead, we need to make sure that there are limits on political and economic concentrations of power and that the associations aren't set in stone. For example, some like the idea of a hefty estate tax (or death tax--the phrase has been around for far longer than it's been used as a RW "frame&quot . However, if you don't let money continue in perpetual trusts like the Kennedy or Bush family you find that most offspring are idiots and over the course of their lifetimes lose most inherited wealth or their economic power's distributed over a plethora of stocks and bonds. (They may be wealthy, but it's not like they do much with it.) And if they do retain it and grow their concentration of economic power, it gets too big for them and they have to issue stock--and tend to lose control. It's also necessary to have a long-term view that includes 2-3 generations and doesn't think of late next month as "long term" or even "medium term."

[functioning_cog]

11. Lol. Wah Wah. The US will speak up anyway. Deal with it.

[Bad Thoughts]

16. Don't forget Bostonians and their Damned Tea

Being elected (or coronated) gives no one the right to abuse power.

[Catherina]

20. Everytime the West invokes international law, it destroys international law just a little bit more.

n/t

[malaise]

21. Wasn't that John Bolton's plan

[Catherina]

32. Yes. Another stunning Bush success being cemented in

We expected it from Bolton. This? Not so much, not going full speed ahead, almost unobstructed. Sad times for our country.

[ProSense]

23. Any way

"How do you recognize a military coup in Egypt and remain silent when the democratically elected President in locked up by said military and then say a referendum is a violation of international law and is illegal."

...you slice it, Putin's actions were illegal. From an editorial posted here: http://www.democraticunderground.com/10024675127

Russia’s dispatch of military forces to Crimea is a clear violation of international law. Putin justifies the invasion as necessary to protect Russian citizens and allies, but this is a fig leaf. The Obama administration is right to condemn it, although much of the world will grimace at the irony of Secretary Kerry denouncing the invasion of a sovereign country even as the United States only now winds down its “war of choice” against Iraq, which is thousands of miles away from US borders. Crimea, of course, not only abuts Russia but houses its Black Sea Fleet, which, by treaty agreement between Ukraine and Russia, is set to remain there until at least 2042. Crimea historically was part of Russia until 1954, when Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev transferred it to Ukraine in what many viewed as a gesture of good will.

People are focusing on hypocrisy, when it's also hypocritical to condemn the Iraq invasion, and then try to use other events to justify Putin's illegal invasion.

The editorial's point that the "world will grimace at the irony" isn't relevant to the fact of the illegality. In fact, the UN voted to condemn Russia, and even China left Russia out in the cold.

[Scootaloo]

29. However from a standpoint of ethics, it's a good question

The US continues to fund and even arm an illegal and illegitimate military junta in Egypt, which has murdered a few thousand egyptians, and as we speak is busy imprisoning opposition politicians and journalists under charges of treason and terrorism, both carrying death sentences in Egypt.

From an ethical standpoint, where's the high ground we're claiming?

Do you perhaps believe that the US government should not concern itself with ethical behavior? pure realpolitik?

[Adam051188]

27. law is whatever the strongest party says it is. this isn't Athens 2800 years ago.

it fascinates me that we are a nation that topples nations. we play god with other peoples lives. we rule the world, laughably negligent to any irony or hypocrisy that occurs in our interest. a little less now than we once did, but still very much so. then why is there so much strife here? i suppose because we, the people, don't matter? we are the drones that move in our immediate self interest, trying to get by day to day, distracting ourselves from ourselves, and moving the big wheel forward as we do so. it always crushes what lies in it's path. The pieces of the machine, replaceable and for the most part indistinct from one another, but separated by competition and mistrust.

[FarCenter]

31. Hypocrisy is not a concept relevant to foreign policy

Hypocrisy relates to morals and ethics. Morals and ethics have nothing in common with foreign policy.