Good Luck With the Isolationism
From many accounts, Syrian refugees are now streaming across the Turkish border as Syrian troops mass on the other side of it. Anita McNaught--that's Al Jazeera English--is on the Turkish side.
• #Syria soldiers with rifles clearly visible on hilltop opposite Turkish border post #guvecci. APCs also visible.
about 1 hour ago via Twitter for BlackBerry® •• Media #guvecci uncertain how to proceed. We see nothing, are increasingly concerned at reliability of accounts from Syrian side. Waiting
about 2 hours ago via Twitter for BlackBerry® •• Turks have sent convoy of minibusses to evacuate Syrians on border fence who want to go. Right now we see no Syrian military or stampede.
about 2 hours ago via Twitter for BlackBerry® •• #Syria#Jisr Team at Guvecci. Turkish villagers say saw tanks and soldiers on hilltop. Syrian flag replaced Turkish on tall white building.
about 2 hours ago via Twitter for BlackBerry®• Racing to Guvecci with team. Sent Reuters/AP on ahead of us. If Syrian troops clearly present, would be first time dared appear Turkey side.
about 3 hours ago via Twitter for BlackBerry®• Syrian troops visible on hillside opposite Guvecci, villagers say. Syrian refugees in camps on border fence very scared, refugees tell us.
about 3 hours ago via Twitter for BlackBerry®
Good luck with the isolationism, America, muscular or otherwise. I'm not far from this. But in the era of medium-range ballistic missiles, neither are you. This article in Zaman--the pro-AKP press--suggests that the Turks are beginning to grasp what's going on. This involves Iran. That's not Zionist propaganda and it never was.
You're not hearing about these things not because they aren't really happening, but because long ago the American media made a collective decision to stop covering foreign news. American isolationism set in years ago.
But all of this is really happening--exactly as we're announcing to the world that we're done with it.
I'm just waiting for someone to say that it's all happening in far-away countries of which we know nothing. Then my understanding of how this happened the last time will be complete.
I've always been curious about that.
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Mar '11
Re: Good Luck With the Isolationism
The following is all I could find in the on-line edition of the Chicago Tribune this morning.
Not a word about troops on the border of a NATO ally. NATO does get mentioned in the headline of another story. The NATO summit will be in Chicago next year.
Yay.
I'm not sure why I still check the Trib's web page. My opinion of the Chicago Tribune could not be printed in the Chicago Tribune.
Edited on Jun 23, 2011 at 5:14amMay '10
Re: Good Luck With the Isolationism
Not to minimize your point, but if the American press made a collective decision to stop covering foreign news, then whither the message, "Sent Reuters/AP on ahead of us"? If you're arguing the U.S. outlets will make a hash of the information when they eventually print a story below the fold on page C17 next to a liquor store clearance sale ad, then I'm with you. Oh, and stay safe. I was in Japan for a few months in the '90s when Kim Jong Il decided to poke around with everyone's patience. Ultimately, it wasn't serious but still not fun.
Oct '10
Re: Good Luck With the Isolationism
thank god john mccain is not an "isolationist" on the spratlys island issue.
Apr '11
Re: Good Luck With the Isolationism
Well, there has to come a point where states need to do for themselves to begin with. We are on the other side of the world, after all. Let the Turks, who have the best Muslim army in the world, teach Assad and his pals the lesson they actually need to get. Turkey does not need NATO to defend itself; but being in NATO they will be more likely to curb their worse excesses.
But we can't police the world. The world must police the world. I am not against us being involved in foreign problems, but it can't just be us doing it.
But that's what people expect us to do and we simply can't.
Oct '10
Re: Good Luck With the Isolationism
c'mon USA... Isolationism? I can understand not coming to the aid of non-allies... ;)
Edited on Jun 23, 2011 at 5:52amRe: Good Luck With the Isolationism
That's what I'm arguing. Of course there's still some foreign news coverage. But detailed coverage will come from Al Jazeera, which has the budget they don't have anymore--and reports things one way in English and another way in Arabic.
Re: Good Luck With the Isolationism
What is happening here, there, and everywhere is very instructive. It is a reminder of the manner in which the international sphere tends to spin into anarchy in the absence of active management on the part of a hegemon. Barack Obama neither knows nor, I suspect, really cares. But you cannot lead from behind. Give it a year or two, and the "realists" will once again be enthusiastically praising Syria as a stabilizing force in the Middle East.
Jul '10
Re: Good Luck With the Isolationism
Claire, I have 3 questions: What would you have the United States do in this situation? How is this a vital strategic issue for the United States? I just heard on John Batchelor's show that Turkey has been, for some time, shipping weapons to anti-Assad forces. Have you heard anything about that?
Jun '10
Re: Good Luck With the Isolationism
I think it's time to redefine isolationism. In past it was binary, like on on-off switch. Either America was into the world or not. Today's isolationism, muscular and otherwise, is staged in that one brand is offered for one part of the world and another brand for another part of the world. How that relates to press coverage is another issue that must be weighed along with the overall weakening of the industry in the age of the internet. It seems that first they came for the foreign correspondents might be an apt paraphrase.
Somewhere there is a trade-off between listening to the screaming and shouting going on in the blogs, twitter feed, and on Facebook, and the cogent analysis formerly provided by the Walter Durantys of the world. What's clear is that America may be becoming more isolationist in the same instant that individual citizens are becoming more engaged. Is this likely to lead the American republic becoming more engaged? I guess it's to early to tell.
Re: Good Luck With the Isolationism
Kenneth, let me start with the second question. Obviously, I don't have access to the kind of intelligence information that would allow me to say confidently how much of this stuff Syria really has--but I'm guessing most of it. The possibility of all-out civil war in Syria seems very real to me now, and the first thing is to ask where that stuff will end up and in whose hands. In the wrong hands--I don't need to spell out why that's a vital strategic interest. Second question: I don't know and couldn't know. I doubt it. The first question is your key question, though. (Con't ... )
Jul '10
Re: Good Luck With the Isolationism
Claire Berlinski, Ed.
Kenneth, let me start with the second question. Obviously, I don't have access to the kind of intelligence information that would allow me to say confidently how much of this stuff Syria really has--but I'm guessing most of it. The possibility of all-out civil war in Syria seems very real to me now, and the first thing is to ask where that stuff will end up and in whose hands. In the wrong hands--I don't need to spell out why that's a vital strategic interest. Second question: I don't know and couldn't know. I doubt it. The first question is your key question, though. (Con't ... ) · Jun 23 at 9:24am
Claire, the claim about Turkey shipping weapons came, I believe, from Aaron Klein, on Batchelor's June 21 podcast. You might want to check it out.
Re: Good Luck With the Isolationism
The single most dangerous thing here is the impression we're giving that this is a splendid moment for opportunism--that we're switched off, clueless and have no special interest in the outcome. That's exactly the impression we're giving. We're giving it rhetorically and through a million other signals of sheer inattention. We're not projecting subtle ambiguity about what we might do, we're projecting total inattention. Remember April Glaspie? We're making that kind of diplomatic mistake over and over. The first thing I'd do if I were president is say publicly that we're deeply concerned for the physical security of the nations in missile range of this dying regime, and committed to their security, so no one should get any ideas. We are completely committed to NATO and Article 5.
(Kenneth, stay tuned--I'm not avoiding a more comprehensive answer to this question, but right now I need to read the news, not write about it. I'll come back to this. Stay tuned.)
Re: Good Luck With the Isolationism
My instinct, Kenneth--keeping in mind that I don't have access to the information a policy maker really needs--is that we've got to bring him down. He's going down. So: 1) Massive sanctions. 2) Insist he resign, and (possibly) tell him we'll let him retire alive somewhere if he does. 3) Insist our allies do the same. 4) Recall our ambassador. 5) Expel the Syrian ambassador. 6) Insist our allies to do the same. (Pro-Assad forces just tried to attack our embassy, by the way.) 7) Demand the IAEA inspect Al Kibar. 8) Aid to the most liberal factions of the opposition. 9) Security council resolution insisting he go. 10) Dare the Russians to veto a US resolution. 11) Aid to refugees in Turkey--they need to see that we're they're friends and capable of helping them. 12) The US president visible on this, all the time. 13) Make it clear--as the Bush Administration did in the First Gulf war--that if missiles with WMD are launched from Syria, there's no more Syria.
And plan for the worst.
Jul '10
Re: Good Luck With the Isolationism
I dunno, Claire. What worries me, as with all of the Arab Spring, is we don't know who steps into the vacuum.
May '10
Re: Good Luck With the Isolationism
Random question, Claire (and tangential at that): do you think Assad would jump at the chance of exile in London in under five seconds or over?
Mar '11
Re: Good Luck With the Isolationism
I got so engrossed trying to get the formatting to work that I managed to miss my own point.
The coverage of international news is so abysmal that most people have no idea what is going on in Syria, or anywhere else for that matter. I make an effort to find out, but for the most part, the main stream media doesn't bother covering it.
Apr '11
Re: Good Luck With the Isolationism
Hundreds of Syrians flee from tanks into Turkey
"Hundreds of displaced Syrians poured into Turkey on Thursday after Syrian troops backed by tanks approached their makeshift camps along the border, an AFP journalist reported.
Several hundred people broke through the barbed wire marking the frontier between the two countries and were seen advancing into Turkish territory on a road used by Turkish border guards, a few kilometers from the Turkish village of Guvecci.
They were flanked by Turkish paramilitary police vehicles and minibuses, called apparently to ferry the refugees to tent cities the Turkish Red Crescent has erected in the border province of Hatay, where more than 10,000 Syrians are already sheltering."
http://www.nowlebanon.com/NewsArticleDetails.aspx?ID=284803#ixzz1Q8tCVI6M
Apr '11
Re: Good Luck With the Isolationism
Syrian army deploys near Aleppo
"Reuters reported Thursday morning that Syrian security forces deployed along the main highway leading from Aleppo to Turkey.
Troops with armored vehicles “set up road blocks on Wednesday along the road, a major route for container traffic from Europe to the Middle East,” the agency cited residents as saying.
“Armored personnel carriers reached the area of Deir al-Jamal, 25 kilometers from the Turkish border,” residents also told Reuters.
The agency also reported that dozens of people have been arrested in the village of Heitan, which is north of Aleppo.
Meanwhile, AFP quoted a resident as saying that he saw troops on the Syrian side of the border crossing a hill less than a kilometer from the boundary.
“A Turkish flag that was raised a few days earlier by Syrian refugees in gratitude for Ankara's hospitality was replaced by a Syrian flag,” the report quoted an AFP correspondent as saying.
He added that Turkish police were “laying sandbags and mounting precision binoculars on tripods” near the border."
http://www.nowlebanon.com/NewsArticleDetails.aspx?ID=284757#ixzz1Q8u1lLFD
Apr '11
Re: Good Luck With the Isolationism
Syrian army sweeps through border towns
"Syrian troops and armoured vehicles are sweeping through villages in an advance towards the Turkish border, witnesses say. Soldiers drove through the village of Khirbet al-Jouz, just 500 metres away from the Turkish border, on Thursday, according to the witness accounts."
"Syrian armoured personnel carriers were visible on a road running along the top of a hill, and machine-gun fire was heard although it was not clear who the troops were firing at.
Speaking to Al Jazeera by phone from Khirbet al-Jouz, Mohamed Fezo, a witness, said: "At 6:30 in the morning about 30 tanks and several buses carrying thugs and intelligence operatives attacked Khirbet al-Jouz. They opened fire randomly across the village."
"Our correspondent said a building in Syrian territory on which a Turkish flag could be seen earlier, was now carrying a Syrian flag and had snipers based on the roof.
"We can see men carrying rifles standing on the building and we're being told that those are snipers up there, on patrol," she said."
http://english.aljazeera.net/news/middleeast/2011/06/2011623134246255582.html
Apr '11
Re: Good Luck With the Isolationism
"The violence should stop, period"
Ersat Hurmuzlu, advisor to President Abdullah Gul
http://english.aljazeera.net/video/middleeast/2011/06/201162216551327806.html