About Putin's NYT editorial

[DonCoquixote]

"the best lack all conviction, the worst are full of passionate intensity" - William Butler Yeats "The Second Coming."

As usual, the worst from all sides came out to howl at this. Let's put the emotions aside.

First off, Putin did not say anything that was not true.

No one wants the United Nations to suffer the fate of the League of Nations, which collapsed because it lacked real leverage. This is possible if influential countries bypass the United Nations and take military action without Security Council authorization.

Now,is any of that a lie, NO. Granted, it is possible to throw a lot of good solid rebuttals to this, as Russia and China have disagreed with the UN when they did not have the same interests, but now, since they are in sync, seem to stand by the UN. Yes, it SHOULD be brought up that Putin is NO champion of human rights. However, just because someone says the sky is Blue, do you insist it is now purple? No.

Facts, are facts. Truth be told, the UN has been compromised for a long, long time, because the big nations use it as a toy, especially the so called "permanent members." Part of the reason there is so much war is because all nations have done whatever they can to hamstring the UN. Of course, the UN does not help matters; such it when it kept denying there was any link between the cholera epidemic in Haiti and the troops they sent there fresh from a Cholera epidemic. When even a disaster-ridden nation like Haiti distrusts you when you bring help, you have a serious problem. The UN has it's own credibility issues, which is why neither Israel nor Palestine is willing to trust them to broker peace.

And that is right where we run into the "exceptional-ism" thing. Look, every nation has ideals, including and especially US, all nations fall far short of those ideals, including and especially US. France is invading Mali, Canada is building the Keystone pipeline, and indeed, any and every nation will have some moral failure that others can and will point at, without exception. None of that removes us from the responsibility to try and live up to those ideals. If we want to be exceptional, we will have to act it, and that includes telling the people that offer the same old solutions to shut up. There is no need for any sort of national gotcha or shame.

[pnwmom]

1. You apparently missed this lie.

"No one doubts that poison gas was used in Syria. But there is every reason to believe it was used not by the Syrian Army, but by opposition forces, to provoke intervention by their powerful foreign patrons, who would be siding with the fundamentalists."

There is NOT "every reason to believe" that the gas was used by opposition rather than government forces. The United Nations Team and Human Rights Watch have both concluded that the evidence is very strong that only Assad's forces could have carried out that large scale attack.

[markpkessinger]

10. That was ONE paragraph out 18

. . . and thought it may well be false, that odesn't render untrue the other things in the Op-Ed.

[pnwmom]

11. The OP said: "First off, Putin did not say anything that was not true."

And that wasn't true. He lied about the probable source of the poison gas.

The rest, coming from HIM, can't be taken seriously, no matter how much truth there might be in it. It was a brilliant PR effort though.

[markpkessinger]

12. I didn[t write the OP, so you misattributed the quote to me n/t

[pnwmom]

14. You're right. You defended the OP and I mistakenly thought I was speaking to the writer. n/t

[LuvNewcastle]

2. As far as Putin's editorial goes, there was nothing in it that

was out of bounds of world opinion. Anyone who has spoken to people from other countries has heard the same points. Some people are trying to argue against the opinions by criticizing the source, and from what we've all read in the past, there's nothing admirable to say about Putin. But that editorial could just as easily been written by someone in Italy or Japan or South Africa. The very reason there's been such angst about it is because Americans know it's true.

Some people around here can call others who acknowledge the truth of that editorial as Putin-lovers all they want, but everybody around here knows that they're only trying to deflect. There aren't any more Putin lovers around here than there are Ron Paul supporters.

[Harmony Blue]

3. +1 Yup

so true.

[DonCoquixote]

4. yes, and no

You were about 90 percent true, save that we cannot forget there are putinlovers, paul-lovers, and others that are here to cause mischief. Being in Florida in 2000, I remember hearing people who got on the radio and bragged about how they were Green party members, only to admit they were GOP plants. Psy Ops, Ratfucking, call it what you will, is real. It is not an excuse to slam all critics, but it is real.

[LuvNewcastle]

5. It might be real, but I haven't seen anyone who I would call

a real Putin-lover or a Paulbot. All I've seen is some people agreeing with a couple of things Putin or Paul has said. Actual supporters of either man? Someone will have to point them out to me.

[pampango]

6. Wouldn't the UN's "lack of leverage" be corrected if the Big 5 did not have the veto power?

The US, Russia, China, the UK and France could still be permanent members of the Security Council but there vote would count for no more than those of the other, rotating members. (You can make the case that India and Brazil should replace the UK and France as permanent members, but that is another discussion.)

Then the UN would not be hamstrung by one or two members when 90% want the UN to do something. I realize this would outrage the "national sovereignty" lobby on the right because the US would not be able to veto any UN action that it did not like (which we do more than any other country). Indeed, the US would have the same power as every other country on the Security Council - which would not meet the "exceptionalism" standard - and would probably lead conservatives to push even harder for the US to withdraw from the UN.

[LuvNewcastle]

8. I think there should be proportional representation in the UN,

just like we have with our states in the House. The UN doesn't really have much credibility as things are set up now. It's just a 'legitimate' way for the powerful countries to get together and exert their will on the others. As things stand now, most countries might as well not even send representatives to the UN. They're routinely ignored when they do speak up.

[Pretzel_Warrior]

13. Very bad idea.

[KharmaTrain]

9. Kinda Like Changing The Electoral System...

...it sounds good when equal representation works in your favor. There's little chance that the major powers will ever submit to giving up their veto powers; it was tough enough to create a world forum that had some kind of official functions. Remember, the U.N. has no real binding authority over anything except the garbage removal from its building in Manhattan. It's up to the member nations to enforce those resolutions on their own or to form a coalition to enforce those resolutions on "rogue" states...in short, the U.N. will always be dominated by those with the biggest wallets and militaries...

[cali]

7. he said plenty that wasn't true by omission.

I think Juan Cole covered it best.

I'm no fan of American exceptionalism and I don't have a problem with what he said regarding that issue.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/10023654304

http://www.juancole.com/2013/09/arguing-president-putin.html

[quinnox]

15. Putin told some harsh truths and some authoritarian types heads exploded