The Politics Thread

[mummywhycantieatcrayons]

Why would losing a PR battle matter anyway?

Because if you value your international standing then you'll do things to protect it.

If, instead, you decide that 'the whole world's against us', then you have nothing to lose reputationally.

[thebish]

Why would losing a PR battle matter anyway?

I don't think it does matter - not for Israel, anyway - as I said above, i suspect they have concluded that they are pretty much immune from any actual serious consequences/sanctions stemming from any International condemnation generated... history has shown them that they are probably safe to assume this.

[Lord Kangana]

Why would losing a PR battle matter anyway?

Because if you value your international standing then you'll do things to protect it.

If, instead, you decide that 'the whole world's against us', then you have nothing to lose reputationally.

I don't think the whole world is against them. And I don't think international standing or policy is reliant on what is reported on in the press.

[Lord Kangana]

Why would losing a PR battle matter anyway?

I don't think it does matter - not for Israel, anyway - as I said above, i suspect they have concluded that they are pretty much immune from any actual serious consequences/sanctions stemming from any International condemnation generated... history has shown them that they are probably safe to assume this.

On the contrary, I suspect Israel has the covert backing of many another government. I do suspect that they perhaps suggest that they kill a few less children, but I doubt it goes much beyond that.

[thebish]

Why would losing a PR battle matter anyway?

I don't think it does matter - not for Israel, anyway - as I said above, i suspect they have concluded that they are pretty much immune from any actual serious consequences/sanctions stemming from any International condemnation generated... history has shown them that they are probably safe to assume this.

On the contrary, I suspect Israel has the covert backing of many another government. I do suspect that they perhaps suggest that they kill a few less children, but I doubt it goes much beyond that.

i'm not sure that's on the contrary! I agree!

[mummywhycantieatcrayons]

Why would losing a PR battle matter anyway?

Because if you value your international standing then you'll do things to protect it.

If, instead, you decide that 'the whole world's against us', then you have nothing to lose reputationally.

I don't think the whole world is against them. And I don't think international standing or policy is reliant on what is reported on in the press.

I'm talking about how they themselves frame the question of how many friends they have in the world.

[Lord Kangana]

Why would losing a PR battle matter anyway?

I don't think it does matter - not for Israel, anyway - as I said above, i suspect they have concluded that they are pretty much immune from any actual serious consequences/sanctions stemming from any International condemnation generated... history has shown them that they are probably safe to assume this.

On the contrary, I suspect Israel has the covert backing of many another government. I do suspect that they perhaps suggest that they kill a few less children, but I doubt it goes much beyond that.

i'm not sure that's on the contrary! I agree!

Thats not fair, what am I meant to write now?

[thebish]

I'm talking about how they themselves frame the question of how many friends they have in the world.

it's a fairly complex question - but i suspect the mainstays of an answer are these...

1) they have lots of friends in the world - the condemnation is simply for effect - window dressing - and Israel knows this
2) even if they didn't have lots of friends in the world, I suspect they'd lose no sleep - there is (I think) a fairly strong strain of thought/mentality within Israel that thrives on the idea of righteous victimhood - and International condemnation feeds this...

[Prufrock]

This map opened my eyes a little more:



Two of my Great Grandfathers (my dad's side, a long history of soldiering) were deployed early in WW1 to the ME theatre. Researching (difficult with little, unknown or little understood theaters!) their service records, and trying to understand what the hell they were doing there leads you into some pretty dark places.

Its always fascinating to see how the current commemorations of the war will largely bypass our interest and large scale deployments in the region, and the reasons behind them. Not much has changed in the last century. Plus ca change, plus c'est la meme chose.

That map is interesting. It's a sort of add-on to the oft-quoted observation that God promised the Israelis pretty much the only 'land' in the Middle East that didn't have any oil. On top of that, it seems they managed to drive out the Palestinians into almost the only bit that has any gas! The west bank isn't far from the other bit either.

Not that I buy that it's for the gas, mind.

[Lord Kangana]

I'm not necessarily selling, but you only have to look at the furore over Russian gas, and the whole shale-gas issue (we'll save our national parks, but not our homes because its perfectly safe? Which kind of f*cking moron comes up with that and keeps a straight face?) to see that energy issues are of pressing concern to most "developed nations" It may not be primary, but my gut tells me its in the mix.

[Prufrock]

I've no doubt in plays a part in diplomatic relations between nations. The narrowly self-interested way we have treated Russia over the last however many years shows that, but I don't think it plays a massive part when it comes to wars. They're fecking expensive. If Israel's primary or even major motive was to get hold of that gas, the cheapest and easiest way to do it is at the negotiating table. "We'll slightly up your calorie allowance and give you a bit more money if you sign over a shit-ton of that gas".

I also have an instinctive reflex reaction whenever that sort of 'it's all about the oil' argument comes up, mainly coz it was the go-to for the knowing, crack-pot conspiracy, tin-foil hat wearing Iraq denunciator.

I'm not saying it's never a bit about the oil, or the gas, but that particularly when it comes to war, it doesn't make sense if you're the dominant one in the relationship to get it by military means.

[Lord Kangana]

It would be hugely and historically incorrect of you to think that nations won't wager huge sums on maintaining energy resources.

And beyond that, its piss easy for anyone to use the word conspiracy and think its an end to discussion. I'm pretty sure you won't get away with it that easily in a court of law. So what evidence do you have that its not a conspiracy, or that the arguments of "tin-foil hat wearers" are wrong?

[mummywhycantieatcrayons]

I'm talking about how they themselves frame the question of how many friends they have in the world.

it's a fairly complex question - but i suspect the mainstays of an answer are these...

1) they have lots of friends in the world - the condemnation is simply for effect - window dressing - and Israel knows this
2) even if they didn't have lots of friends in the world, I suspect they'd lose no sleep - there is (I think) a fairly strong strain of thought/mentality within Israel that thrives on the idea of righteous victimhood - and International condemnation feeds this...

Indeed - it's a very complex question, not least because there is more than one 'Israel' and there is a distinction to be made between the state actors and the general population they are pandering to.

The fact that you say they know they have lots of friends and yet in the next breath that they thrive on the idea of righteous victimhood is strongly suggestive of this complexity.

[thebish]

The fact that you say they know they have lots of friends and yet in the next breath that they thrive on the idea of righteous victimhood is strongly suggestive of this complexity.

indeed - that's why i said it is complex and then illustrated its complexity!

[Prufrock]

It would be hugely and historically incorrect of you to think that nations won't wager huge sums on maintaining energy resources.

And beyond that, its piss easy for anyone to use the word conspiracy and think its an end to discussion. I'm pretty sure you won't get away with it that easily in a court of law. So what evidence do you have that its not a conspiracy, or that the arguments of "tin-foil hat wearers" are wrong?

I don't need evidence. The burden is not on the anti-conspiracy theorists to come up with any more evidence. They've already come up with the evidence. That's why theirs is the prevailing view.

I don't dispute that nations will wager huge sums on maintaining, or gaining, energy resources. The self-explanatory point is that they'll spend as little as they can on doing so. When they do spend huge sums, they don't do that because they like spending huge sums, but because they've no other options that don't cost more.

If you want the oil in Iraq, the best way to do it isn't an unpopular, expensive war against the guy in charge who's already shown that his go-to policy of retreat is the 'scorched-oil-field' approach.

If you want the gas in Gaza, the best way to do it isn't an internationally unpopular flattening of Gaza.

Wars are expensive and the last resort. If you want the resources and you're the smaller power, war makes sense; if you're the bigger power, war doesn't make sense. You've got better cards.

So instead, I prefer generally to accept the reasons given for both. That the war in Iraq was to remove an awful dictator who had weapons of mass destruction. That the bombing of Gaza is intended to crush Hamas and its capabilities to harm Israel.

Maybe that makes me naive. Or maybe that's just the government making me say that with their mind-control satellites.

[Prufrock]

I'm talking about how they themselves frame the question of how many friends they have in the world.

it's a fairly complex question - but i suspect the mainstays of an answer are these...

1) they have lots of friends in the world - the condemnation is simply for effect - window dressing - and Israel knows this
2) even if they didn't have lots of friends in the world, I suspect they'd lose no sleep - there is (I think) a fairly strong strain of thought/mentality within Israel that thrives on the idea of righteous victimhood - and International condemnation feeds this...

Indeed - it's a very complex question, not least because there is more than one 'Israel' and there is a distinction to be made between the state actors and the general population they are pandering to.

The fact that you say they know they have lots of friends and yet in the next breath that they thrive on the idea of righteous victimhood is strongly suggestive of this complexity.

I don't know that the language doesn't cause confusion when talking about state actions. It's easy to know what people are talking about when they talk either about 'Hamas' or the 'Palestinians'. Less so when talking about 'the Israelis'. I've had discussions with people over the last few weeks where we've got quite far down the line before realising that one of us meant 'the Israeli government' and the other 'the Israeli people' when talking about 'the Israelis'.

[thebish]

Maybe that makes me naive. Or maybe that's just the government making me say that with their mind-control satellites.

no... that was Derren Brown...

[Lord Kangana]

The very idea that mind-control satellites could exist, I would suggest, makes the need for mind control satellites unnecessary. You're doing the job perfectly well without their help. But as I reiterate, consensus isn't an indicator of truth. I'd have taken you for someone with enough intelligence to know that.

And it seems a little bizarre (perhaps even ignorant) of you to think the burden of proof rests any more on my shoulders than yours. The overwhelming weight of evidence, freely available if you're willing to read it, shows that, overwhelmingly, western governments have staked the whole lot on the pursuit of energy security. That is why, whilst we rushed to the aid of plucky little Belgium with the largest force we could scrape together to try to assist the French in stopping the unmatchable power of the German Army Juggernaut, a force 50% the size of " the largest force we could scrape together to try to assist the French" was posted to the middle of the desert to defend the Abadan Oil refineries in the Middle East. Strangely enough, Abadan would play a huge part 40 years later in Middle Eastern policy. Obviously, just after we used poison gas on Iraqis to protect our oil wells. And temporarily stopped the building of the Berlin Baghdad railway whilst we staked our claim in the region.

Which, in themselves, are far from isolated incidents.

[Prufrock]

That's not evidence. That a historical event happened is not evidence that the same thing has happened again. Greece sailed against Troy to recover Helen. That doesn't mean that the Boer war happened to recover Helen of Troy.

'Governments have gone to war for resources before, so now they have gone to war, it must be for resources' is utterly wrong-headed, particularly in the circumstances. In the midst of a war, posting a shit ton of troops to protect resources makes sense. Starting a brand new war, against someone who has shown that his response to losing control of oil fields is to light them, when it's clearly a war he can't win is not the option you take. If our motive for going to war in Iraq was oil, Saddam Hussein would still be in charge, and we'd have cheaper oil. Starting a war for it makes no sense, and listing unrelated conflicts, in unrelated circumstances is not evidence. When Tony Blair talked about liberating the Iraqi people and removing a dictator that absolutely concurred with the mentality of the man we know. The deeply religious man who later became middle-east peace envoy. He's got a fecking messiah complex. That completely makes sense.

On the other hand, the secret under-ground oil cartel pulling the strings of government is lazy and childish. I cringed every time people I generally agreed with came out with it. It's embarrassing, and sounds like it's been stolen off the pages of a B-list spy hack.

I'm certainly skeptical enough to think it possible that, once we had 'control' of Iraq, the oil-fields became an important asset and I don't doubt that had some effect on policy, but do I think it even a possibility as a motivation for going to war in the first place? Not a chance.

[TANGODANCER]

Religion. It's all very much about religion.