Very compelling case of worthy/unworthy victims and counting only the good bodies.. This morning there is an announcement on yahoo... 30 Billion dollars defence aid for Israel.. yahoo

 

its a compelling case of worthy israeli and unworthy palestinians.

SK:

Great stuff.  Thanks. 

"The 'good effects' of bombing a village market in Afghanistan," Marc W. Herold, Cursor, August 16, 2006

(The truth is that I was sent an attached file copy of this piece the other day.  But though I could open it with my computer, I wasn't sure how to post it.  So you've solved this problem.)

Since you mention Herold's closing sentence, let's quote it: "The U.S. Pentagon, the U.S. corporate press, and Human Rights Watch only 'see' and count good bodies."  This is a variation on Ed H.'s  worthy / unworthy victim dichotomy -- along with the notion of applying propaganda modeling to the performance of the establishment media, easily one of the most useful conceptual tools for understanding both the unfree man and the maliciously moral Tartuffe.  There is no end to the variations on this dichotomy; I've always wondered how best to express it.  But rather than focusing on the relative status of the victims within the system of power and ideology (e.g., whoever's dying on the ground in Afghanistan, Iraq, and the western Sudan), my preference is to focus on the status of the perpetators (the Americans, the British, and the NATO-bloc powers, on the one hand, and the Arabs in Khartoum, on the other). -- If (a) you want to decry atrocities taking place somewhere on this planet, (b) you want to denounce their perpetrators, (c) you herald from one of the states actively engaged in perpetrating atrocities, and (d) above all, you don't want to risk a fuckin' thing, but even want to shine in your role carrying out (a) and (b), then what are you going to decry and whom are you going to denounce?   

Thus, once they realized which from among a panoply of crises was going to be the meal-ticket crisis (or "cause celebre") of the period during which the Western powers actively decimated Afghanistan and Iraq, the leading lights of the Western Illuminati adopted the "Crisis in Darfur," and the No. One Variable that does more to explain the totality of concern expressed over Darfur has been the perpetrators in each case.  What should we call an American or a British citizen who simultaneously (a) excoriates their governments for not doing enough to stop atrocities in Darfur while (b) ignoring the atrocities that their governments are commiting elsewhere?  Are they not performing their little moral dramas in the theater of Western power and ideology, the sick little fucks fingering the Arabs in Khartoum with a zeal they'll never match for the perpetrators who fill the gallery to capacity and applaud every ever scene of every act?      

Here's what a Google search turns up for the phrase 'Crisis in Darfur' (at least as of Thursday morning, August 16).  The Page-One matches include the International Crisis Group, Human Rights Watch, the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum, and, of course, the Save Darfur Coalition.  These outfits eagerly use the term 'genocide' to designate events in the western Sudan, where, the truth be told, the margins of survival are the slimmest, and the struggles existential above all -- at least shorn of foreign interference.  (Sudan Post-Conflict Environmental Assessment (Nairobi: United Nations Environment Program, 2007); "A Climate Culprit In Darfur," Ban Ki Moon, Washington Post, June 16, 2007; and "Darfur conflict heralds era of wars triggered by climate change, UN report warns," Julian Borger, The Guardian, June 23, 2007.)  And they lobby on behalf of bringing Khartoum's political leadership to justice. 

As for the perpetrators - aggressors of Afghanistan and Iraq?  Always remember to ask: Who does what to whom?  The moral agent assesses what he's responsible for (e.g., Afghanistan and Iraq).  The moral huckster what someone else is alleged to be responsible for (i.e., the true meaning and role of the "Crisis in Darfur").  We can account for probably something on the order of 99 percent of what inundates us in the United States on the simple hypothesis that this elementary moral principle is turned on its head.   

Adjudication on the Save Darfur Coalition's U.K.-based advertising campaign, British Advertising Standards Authority, August 8, 2007
"Darfur: pornography for the chattering classes," Brendan O'Neill, Spiked Online, August 14, 2007 

"'Bomber McNeill' reveals the 'Cheapness' of Afghan lives," Marc W. Herold, Cursor, August 7, 2007 

David Peterson
Chicago, USA

The last sentence of this mentions Human Rights Watch in fitting company.

lol sk, I do happen to like the captcha software , it help improve my english literacy.. it does a good job repelling the spam, the trolls and the rats.. ( although , the programmers could had called the catcha software ketchup instead; its more easy to spell.) Bare with Znet, SK, I received email from C Spannos and he told me that the blogs are undergoing a major change may be in a few weeks. Although it is anticipated to have no problem during this transition, you could expect a few bugs; regardless the "content" and the information of the blogs by far outdo the minor bugs that may be encountered by software. On a personal level, the blogs content helped me understand better the political issues that affect me or and the wrongs that affect others. The topic covered here are important issues and when ever I have the chance to give information or correct a falsehood in social circles, I do direct people to the web address of this blog. Recently, I walked into a commercial library and I heard someone looking for socialist book ( must have been some sort of teacher); I took my time talking with him, I told him to visit Znet, the blogs and to look for Parecon books, Michael Albert and Chris Spannos.. Also, a lot of people read the blogs without posting, the reason for this could be multiples: one of the reason could be some just come to collect the information and the debates without getting involved, another could be that not to many people knows the blogs exists. So it is important to tell people " this blogs exist " to their benefit.

Oops, thanks for making the correction. The new, "improved" software on this site has turned making a minor post into such a hassle that one can lose track of what's in the Copy/Paste buffer (not to mention having everything marked as spam by the most user unfriendly Captcha software I've ever come across).

SK:

Kirsten Sellars' The Rise and Rise of Human Rights (Sutton Publishing, 2002) is a superb piece of work.  (Though I believe you had intended to link to Jean Bricmont's Humanitarian Imperialism (Monthy Review Press, 2007).)

David Peterson
Chicago, USA

That line is from an article by Paul de Rooij that appeared yesterday. He has also added a succint version of his review of Humanitarian Imperialism: Using Human Rights to Sell War to amazon.com that is reproduced below:

 

The adoption of the humanitarian war rationale has had a particularly damaging effect on what remains of the Left in Western countries; one of the basic tenets for Leftists should have been to oppose imperial wars, and it has been disconcerting to witness the adoption of the human rights lingo to either co-cheerlead wars, accept portions of the rationale for war or simply to demonstrate unreflective muddled thinking. Jean Bricmont's book, Humanitarian Imperialism, is a clearly written guide through this moral maze, an unmasking of tendentious interpretation of history, and an antidote to the principal malaise afflicting our times: hypocrisy. It is an important contribution to help the Left to assess critically history, and to break through an intellectual logjam surrounding the so-called humanitarian wars. 

Cyrano & SK:

In the name of "national emergencies," the Washington regime appears to be creating and filing for potential future use a whole range of unconstitutional powers that it could invoke against U.S. citizens, in case it commits another "supreme international crime," and this time, opposition coalesces around its crime.  So whatever happens with respect to Lebanon, or Syria, or Iraq, or Afghanistan, or Iran, if dissent has the purpose or the effect -- and how's that for open-endedness! -- of constraining the regime's capacity to carry out its policies, the regime can designate these to be crimes against the American state -- treason, in a word.

This is how I see it.  The regime is decreeing some insurance for itself.  Just in case.

David Peterson
Chicago, USA

Postscript. SK: Where did you take this line from: "Human Rights Watch in particular has been a key organization pushing for humanitarian wars, and a proper appreciation of such organizations is necessary to counter their influence."

One superb analysis that I read yesterday was: "Darfur: pornography for the chattering classes," Brendan O'Neill, Spiked Online, August 14, 2007 .  

If the 2'nd link above doesn't work, try this for a summary.

 Also, an apt excerpt from an article that appeared yesterday:

 

 Human Rights Watch in particular has been a key organization pushing for humanitarian wars, and a proper appreciation of such organizations is necessary to counter their influence. 

I can't understand why the political structures in Lebanon would become a threat to Canada or Cuba or Mexico.. or even the US. After all the threatening decrees by the US impedes on the Lebanon affairs, I can understand why a country like Lebanon need resistance against . I think all these decrees are a sort of provocation, if you recall , a lots of attempts are made to creates conflict by Israel and the US with Lebanon. I also think Nazarellah has becomes a target for assassination like Yasser Arafat. The Lebanese and the Palestinians are people who are suffering, I think by continuously pushing and cornering this people, If the US continue to hold the tiger by the tail, a fuse will break somewhere, as the tiger like the vengeance best as a hot meal.. The main problem and obstacle to peace in the ME is the US. Arabs aren't stupid, they will organize.

How about nominating other nations that could benefit from the solicitude of policy wonks in DC? I propose Somalia where "all sides" are guilty. Come to think of it, Somalis are already bearing the brunt of "unilateral actions" thought up by bright folks behind impressive desks in DC.