The BBC has admitted that Assad will remain in charge of Syria.
Now I have no mandate for Assad, by all evidence he’s a profoundly evil man who delights in torture as a way to send a message. His excesses in this area are such that I wouldn’t be surprised if he personally gets off on it, but the fact of the matter is that the rebellion has made Syrians worse off. Period.
I will note that when Hezbollah committed its forces I said then that Assad would probably win. What’s worse is that any moron ought to have known that Hezbollah could not allow Assad to fall because if Assad fell, its lifeline to Iran would be severed. The forces which were arrayed against Assad either had to win quickly enough that Hezbollah couldn’t turn the tide, or they had to cut a credible deal with Hezbollah, which due to both ideological reasons and because of the preferences of their backers, they never could. Well, or they had to intervene directly: Western air support as in Libya.
There is no point, if you are are unhappy with your domestic regime, in accepting Western aid to overthrow it at the moment, not unless you’ve got a plan to bite the hand that feeds you. The reason is that the West is no longer exporting prosperity, and hasn’t been for some time. Excepting (sort of, very sort of) China, the last countries to get prosperity from the West were a few Eastern European ones; before that, the Asian Tigers.* Instead the sphere of prosperity based on the West is in contraction, just ask the South of Europe, or Ireland. (The Chinese sphere is another matter, though they have problems too.)
Even if you win your revolution with foreign aid, a la Libya or the Western Ukraine, you aren’t going to be offered a good deal: the Ukraine is still going to get shafted by the IMF to the tune of a 50% cut in pensions, a 50% increase in gas prices even before Russian price increases, government austerity and selling off the crown jewels of energy companies and arable land to foreigners. Libya is a bloody mess: again, however bad Qaddafi was, he was better than the current situation.
There is no real money; no real resources, for prosperity to be spread to new nations by the West and its allies (like Japan). The new money being created is heavily leveraged debt piled on the back of countries who already can’t pay, money they’d be better off without.
So, don’t play with the West. Don’t take their money and aid in overthrowing your corrupt government, unless you know exactly what you’re doing and plan to to turn on them and align with someone else. If you do, your country will be worse off.
Though, perhaps you should take their money. Personally, I mean. You can get rich yourself and then escape your country, if you’re a traitor.
Non-traitors, however, shouldn’t touch Western or Saudi money for revolution.
*One might argue that the West has rarely offered prosperity to those it backs in revolution, Latin Americans would certainly agree, but it’s not quite true: the Koreans did, the Poles did, some other East Europeans. However, now they not only don’t offer prosperity, they offer the prompt austerity and debt driven destruction of your economy.
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Celsius 233
Lets see; we’re the worlds leader, technologically superior, a superpower, and the largest economy.
That would imply the rest of the world is incompetent by comparison, but wait; we’re leading and everything is deteriorating.
Apparently our leadership is wanting or worse; malignant…
Though, perhaps you should take their money. Personally, I mean. You can get rich yourself and then escape your country, if you’re a traitor.
Non-traitors, however, shouldn’t touch Western or Saudi money for revolution.
*One might argue that the West has rarely offered prosperity to those it backs in revolution, Latin Americans would certainly agree, but it’s not quite true: the Koreans did, the Poles did, some other East Europeans. However, now they not only don’t offer prosperity, they offer the prompt austerity and debt driven destruction of your economy. Ian
Hmm, the above leaves few if any options for the individual. I took individual action that involved leaving.
I do agree with the 2nd to last paragraph.
Celsius 233
Also Ian; what’s with this traitor talk? The average U.S. citizen isn’t a traitor.
In fact; who in the U.S. are the traitors? That may food for a thread all by itself.
I’m pretty confident I know the answer; but I doubt this has ever been deeply questioned by the population…
Hvd
It isn’t Americans Ian is referring to.
Celsius 233
Hvd
April 25, 2014
It isn’t Americans Ian is referring to.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Oh shit! Your right! Fuck me…
Celsius 233
Above; you’re, not your…
Gee
You say they shouldn’t accept Western “help” because they’ll suffer. But what is being said is, if the leaders of the country take Western aid, the REST of the country will be worse off. But the leaders of the country are aligned with the leaders of the West ultimately, both of which end up prospering via the looting that takes place. An oligarchy of insiders in the target, and benefits for the Western corporations that loot via privatization etc. The problem (again) is that Ian keeps speaking to the little people in each country as if they have any say in the matter. Some of them I suspect know better, the rest are like us ignorant hopefuls that voted for Obama, thinking something would change. The real game being played here is the massive upward redistribution and concentration of wealth across nations, producing a global elite that owns the elite RE (London, SF, NY, HK, etc) and everything else they can squirrel away that will for some time maintain their hold on the rentier reins. It’s a sad spectacle, and nice that Pikkety’s book has come at such an opportune time to spread the word about how we are being screwed without an alternative.
Which gets us back to Ian’s post about politics, and what can the little people do, and do we have any power. Clearly at the national level, no, or just not enough knowledgeable people to make a difference. I know during the financial crisis a lot more people wrote their Congressperson about having their wishes represented. And were summarily dismissed… but it’s nearly impossible for someone to fathom how at the local level they could make a difference that ever percolates up to the top.
Anyway…just my 2c. sigh….
IMFcashreceipient
Some of these countries which accept bailout money are in such poor shape that they face little alternative. They are faced with a hobson’s choice of one evil (economic ruins now) for another (less prosperity over the long term through an oligarchial state run by elites which destroy the middle class). The game almost seems wildly rigged at this point. Increase the countries borrowing costs by shorting their bond market, just to offer them ‘economic aid’ after they hit the floor.
We (the USA) are basically like drug dealers giving meth out to addicts knowing they will be ours forever. That game usually ends badly for everyone involved.
Ian Welsh
Some of them do have options other than taking the money. Greece was in a hard spot, because it can’t feed its own population, but there were options, and I wrote about them at the time. The Ukraine should have tried to align, hard, to China while keeping open and friendly relations with Russia.