Unskilled and Unaware of It

[james_davis_nicoll]

Michael Ignatieff: idiot.

Although I did get a great idea for a movie in which he and Conrad Black are shackled together and must cooperate in their escape from search gangs and hound dogs.

Comments

[actsofminortreason.blogspot.com (from livejournal.com)]

Given the rhetoric in that essay, I have to wonder that if Ignatieff had somehow managed to become Prime Minister--presumably after Harper's death in an unfortunate shaving accident or something--he would just as eagerly be tripping over his own feet to sell off Canadian natural resources to China.

Probably.

[realinterrobang.livejournal.com]

I did get a great idea for a movie in which he and Conrad Black are shackled together and must cooperate in their escape from search gangs and hound dogs.

What's that, the grittier reboot of Greed?

...that would be apropos, really, I guess.

[lpetrazickis.livejournal.com]

So it's a proxy skirmish rather than a proxy war. Meh.

[(Anonymous)]

It's a proxy nothing, sir. The Russians and Chinese are providing no aid or materiel of any substance whatsoever. To call it a skirmish is to devalue the term skirmish.

Best,

Noel Maurer

[pickledginger.livejournal.com]

Really, I think it's more of a sales opportunity, a marketing niche -- a profit skirmish, if you will. (Still deadly, but such things often are.)

[fridgepunk.livejournal.com]

It's not a proxy anything, as is plainly clear if you notice that the notion of it being a proxy anything doesn't actually explain why China is siding with their arch-rival Russia over the issue – Russia and China care about the legal ramifications of a UN resolution against assad, end of.

If assad were to use chemical weapons or do anything else for which there is already precedent in international law they'd be more likely to stop stonewalling things even if Russia was currently selling arms to Syria, because as it currently stands the international community is asking them to condemn things they themselves do and to work towards regime change of a state that does those things...

This btw was why Libya was a NATO operation rather than a UN one (because Russia and China would have cockblocked things then too), and why the UN is not the forum to deal with Syria or anything like Syria, that NATO members did not use the shooting down of that Turkish jet as an excuse to launch more forcible actions and are instead faffing around with the UN says alot about NATO's leadership.

[peter-erwin.livejournal.com]

No, the Libyan operations were (nominally, at least), authorized by the Security Council (Resolution 1973 (http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/mar/17/un-security-council-resolution)); the fact that military operations were run by NATO isn't relevant[*].

A better analogy is Kosovo in 1999, where any Security Council action was blocked by Russian and China, for reasons similar to the Syrian situation (i.e., Milosevic was doing things in Kosovo similar to what Russia had done in Chechnya, and what China would want to do if the Uighurs or Tibetans ever tried a serious uprising).

[*] Strictly speaking, it was a subset of NATO countries, plus Qatar, the UAE, and Sweden, not the whole alliance itself (e.g., German forces did not take part), and the initial military actions were under an ad-hoc French/British/US leadership, not NATO itself.

[(Anonymous)]

The German air force ran combat missions in Kosovo. In fact, their Tornados were in the first wave of attacks against Serb air defenses. It's widely but incorrectly believed that they stayed out of Kosovo, mostly for reasons of German pacifist sensibilities.

Best,

Noel Maurer

[peter-erwin.livejournal.com]

Sure -- I was referring to Germany staying out of the Libyan operation last year, in consonance with their abstention from the Security Council vote. (Although I think they shifted some additional personnel and/or equipment to Afghanistan, to lighten the burden on other NATO countries, so they provided a bit of indirect support.)

[(Anonymous)]

(Rereads what you wrote.) That's right --- you were referring to Libya. My apologies! I've run into people who were /sure/ that the Germans didn't fight in Kosovo so often that I think I'm beginning to see the claim everywhere.

[maruad.livejournal.com]

" At least Canada doesn’t have the capability to act on the ahistorical bizarro-world musings of its head of government." (quoted from the indicated article). Oh Really? I think we just got a different bizarro-world PM is all.

[(Anonymous)]

Point very well taken, sir! I stand corrected. Let me revise that: "At least Canada doesn't have the capability to act on the ahistorical bizarro-world foreign-policy musings of its head of government."

Noel Maurer