Russia and China both abstained from the UN Security Council vote about intervention in Libya l. Russia expressed a willingness to mediate with the parties to the Syrian conflict apart from UN intervention or Syrian regime change and may continue to engage the parties in negotiations.

Prof. Walt’s analysis lacks mention of Jews whenever there might be Judenhat. Jews lived in Libya from 300 BC. ’31, 21K Jews = 4% of Libya. ‘42, German troops deported > 2K Jews. Nov ‘45 (post allied victory) Tripoli pogrom killed > 140 Jews. Jun ’48 pogrom killed 12 Jews. ‘48 –‘51, 31K Jews -> Isreal. ‘61 law required special permit proving Libyan citizenship, given to only 6 Jews! ‘67, 7K Jews in Libya. ‘67 war -> pogroms killed 18 Jews; 6k escaped to Rome. Col. Gaddafi had ~ 100 Jews in ’69; he confiscated all Jewish property & cancelled all debts to Jews. A Jewish guy helped out greatly during the anti-Qaddaffi revolt; Libyan gratitude:
http://www.npr.org/2011/10/03/141014576/hostile-crowd-forces-libyan-jew-out-of-synagogue
As usual, treatment of the Jews oft reflects antipathy towards others.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/feedarticle/9825765
http://stream.aljazeera.com/story/black-africans-come-under-fire-libya
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m2-JL6VSgG0
Internment and Terror for Black Libyans | FrontPage Magazine

Note that Prof. Walt’s analysis includes nothing about human rights abuses. Extirpating Gaddafi was a good thing in general for Prof. Walt because the hated Israel lobby was defeated; that the dark skinned might have fared poorly is an acceptable cost. In fact, newly discovered evidence shows Prof. Walt has greater reason for joy! Many in Libya now claim that Mr. Gaddafi was Jewish, a kind of portent for racist Judenhat if ever there were:.
http://www.forward.com/articles/146435/?p=all

It would seem that today's journalism is one of convenience, of political and economic survival and half truths, if not flat out lies.
This NO vote by China and Russia was to be EXPECTED; I would go so far as to say that others on the CS would have voted No too, but they knew that the objective would be won with the No of China, Russia or both.
Let's be real....with Libya, as with Syria, we have some biased one side reporting by the Press, perverse third arm used by a so called "International community", to justify all their perverse underhanded designs. Do we ever hear about who these rebels are, what exactly they are up to? Should the world have armed the Tea Party to overthrow Obama? Since WHEN does ANYONE shoot and Kill peaceful protesters? Should governments tolerate armed and violent gangs and thugs? Why does this so called peaceful opposition NOT want to sit and TALK? WHY?....if not because they are being incited by foreign powers wanting to get rid of the Assad regime, and further isolate Iran???

Twice in the LESS THAN ONE YEAR, the CS has overstepped its powers to overthrow governments....in Libya, and in Ivory Coast. Little is said of the perverse role of France and egomaniacal Mr Sarkosy and his quest for grandeur and markets for the morose French economy. He was the initiator of both these deadly and illegal intervention s that destroyed countries and killed tens of thousands of the innocent citizens they were supposed to protect. And in both these cases (Libya and Ivory Coast) the entire social fabric of the countries have been destroyed, armed bands are killing and torturing, and the French are gobbling up entire sectors of the economy, in an effort to "rebuild" (at exorbitant prices) EVERYTHING they DELIBERATELY destroyed.

Is THIS the new world order? IS this the role of the UN?.....Russia and China were dear right in saying NO?
What is so disgusting? Can anyone count the endless vetoes of the United States, in obstructing EVERY veto concerning Israel, and their heavy handed tactics? where lives and entire populations were concerned.

As the French say: TROP, c'est TROP!!!!! ENOUGH IS ENOUGH!!!! BASTA!!!

Still hard to believe Mr Brzezinski supported the bombing of Kosovo. A fat lot of good that did. The world could have given asylum, as needed, to the Muslim refugees in danger of genocide, but instead, in violation of what was supposed to be learned at Nuremberg, we bombed the heck out them anyways, objections of Canadian jurists notwithstanding.

http://emperors-clothes.com/articles/mandel/aflimsy.htm

So what happened as a result of this "good" war? Was there peace & happiness in the Balkan village?

http://www.policymic.com/articles/834/international-failure-in-kosovo-gives-rise-to-resentment

http://www.hrw.org/news/2004/07/26/kosovo-failure-nato-un-protect-minorities

http://frmilovan.wordpress.com/2011/11/02/the-kosovo-failure/

http://www.amnesty.org/en/library/info/EUR70/001/2008/en

Absolutely monstrous, from an economic, &, yes, LEGAL standpoint. Somehow, the notion that the Arab Spring has no downside became an unassailable truth. Yet the evidence is there to see if you open your eyes. We should now be preparing for mass asylum in Europe, the US, & Latin America of the 10,000,000 Egyptian Copts. That's "adjusting the sails", just as should have been done at Evian.
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Hillary Clinton will not be satisfied until Bashar al-Assad has been sodomized and summarily executed as was Muammar Gaddafi. Only then can she truly gloat!
But if that occurs, then to whom will the U.S. rendition its “detainees” to be tortured? Alas, our once willing partners Mubarak and Gaddafi are no longer available to torture for us.
It’s quite the conundrum!

The West and Russia had a major showdown Saturday Feb. 5 over the Arab League resolution calling on Bashar Assad to step down.

kitchen pantry cabinet

Walt: "and maybe even an internationalized civil war there"

Ahem. The phrase "internationalized civil war" is an oxymoron, is it not?

Assad's military forces aren't just going around crackin' heads for the fun of it.

They are actually in an armed conflict with an organized military force that calls itself the "Free Syrian Army", and whose stated goal is to overthrow the current regime and set up themselves as the rulers of Syria.

In what way ISN'T that a civil war?

Is there some idea that if you DON'T accept that this is already a civil war then (somehow, and I'm not sure how) that makes an outside intervention more palatable?

Get over it: this is already a civil war, and therefore the only question you really need to answer is this:
Q: Are foreign military forces justified in intervening in a civil war?
A: According to Russia/China the answer is: No.

This "Blame China and Russia" meme is a convenient crutch for the US and the other 12 states that supported an Arab League-proposed resolution. That proposed resolution was more of an insult to the Syrian people than not passing any resolution at all. The US agreed to every amendment the Russians and Chinese wanted, until the point where there was no sanctions or embargo and the Assad clan and affiliated Allawis would have remained in power. This is not about good vs evil; it's about the same kind of ideological blocs forming within the UN and amongst regional organizations, like the Arab league or NATO, that exist within states. The US vetoes every Palestinian resolution and even allows Yemen's leader to exit by graceful exile because of his service in the GWOT; Russia and China cut down every resolution that could imperil their own governments in a future internal conflict. Is there a moral difference?

I encourage readers to watch Matthew Lee's report about the actual negotiations behind the Syria resolution:

http://bloggingheads.tv/videos/8876

We need to get beyond a caricature of the realist paradigm where the UN plays on a #-D Risk board. The UNSC is structurally flawed, and worse than the US Senate. Worse, how regional organizations fit into global governance is murky. I think we need to seriously consider that a flawed UN is worse than no UN.

The USA championed a UNSC resolution on Syria, and Russia/China vetoed it, and the immediate reaction from almost every commentator at foreignpolicy is to guess what secret agenda Russia had in vetoing this.

After all, that resolution was Oh-So-Obviously a humanitarian effort from the Oh-So-Goodie-Two-Shoes-West.

Ahem.

Maybe - jussssst maybe - it is "the west" that is being two-faced here, while it is Russia and China who are being honest about what they are doing, and why they are doing it.

After all, "the west" pushed UNSC Resolution 1973 through and then immediately began to bomb Gaddafi's forces into the ground.

Once bitten, twice shy.

Why, exactly, should Russia/China believe that it will be any different this time when it is clear that the assurances they were given "last time" were not only worthless, they were fraudulent?

Karma's come back to bite you on the bum, and I have no sympathy for Obama, Clinton and Rice.

After all, you shoulda' thought more carefully before you rushed off to go BANG! on the Libyan Army, guys....

The pretense that our interest in the Syrian turmoil has to do with support for democracy and/or concern for civilians belies the real intention of destroying a recalcitrant regime. First, we have, and still do, align ourselves with dictators and other authoritarian governments. Whether a Batista in Cuba or a Somoza in Nicaragua or a shah in Iran or a Mubarak in Egypt, we do not let our “democratic” sensibilities interfere with our foreign policy pursuits. Bashar al-Asad is not “our man in Damascus,” and therefore needs replacing. Second, American-Syrian disagreements are not solely the product of the success of the Asads. Decades before Hafez would come to power, Damascus and Washington were not on good terms. Syrian purchase of Soviet arms in the 1950s, rejection of US proposals to divide water resources with Israel, its union with Egypt, tensions over Lebanon resulting in President Eisenhower ordering marines into Lebanon, as well as support for Palestinian guerrillas all preceded Hafez al-Asad’s rise to power in November 1970. Third, twenty-five years of neocon efforts to reconfigure the Mideast has become, and remains, the dominant policy for both Democratic and Republican administrations. Identifying Hamas, Hezbollah, Iraq, Syria and Iran as roadblocks to our dominance in the area as well as calling for these entities to fall has come to fruition. The Iraq war of 2003 removed Saddam. The 2006 Israeli attack on Hezbollah dealt them a major military setback. The Israeli military attacks and economic strangulation of Gaza has crippled Hamas. Discontent towards the Asad regime now offers regime change. The drive to war with Iran is in the wings. Fourth, we are not concerned about the repercussions of the collapse of Bashar. Prior to his father gaining power, Syria was a basket case--sectarian and regional divisions, revolving governments, coups, failure of local elites to develop a national sense, etc. were the hallmarks of Syria. Through brutal methods, the Asads did turn Syria into a regional player of importance. It was a country that could take an independent course when it was beneficial--angered the Soviets when Syria came to help the Lebanese in 1975, angered Iran when Syria opened negotiations with Israel, Syria joined the 1990-91 coalition against Saddam, etc. A recent survey conducted by Qatar--an enemy of Syria--discovered that a majority of Syrians support Bashar. The Arab League investigation declared that an armed insurrection--funded and supplied by outside forces--are the major factor in the escalating violence and death. Our hands and those of our allies play the role in providing these arms and equipment. There are those Syrians who want a democratic and secular country. But the powers that are taking a presiding position are religious radicals that would return Syria to the chaos and political division of decades ago. But Syrian territorial disintegration and internal bedlam appears to be the real goal of our policy in our quest for dominance of the oil producing Mideast.

The Security Council isn't weak and discredited because it didn't jump high enough in meeting American instructions. The disparity among its members seems more a sign of strength. Of course, the veto power is always an abomination in that council, but it wasn't either Russia or China that decided to install vetos in the SC's design, and those states aren't the only ones to use it.
_______________________________
PS Did any foreign state try to intervene to bring to an end the horrors of the US civil war in the 1860s, before it had cost 650,000 American lives? If so, how did the warring Americans greet such compassionate overtures?

the real shame is that the US + NATO + GCC essentially gutted R2P in the process. Since we so cravenly use this when we want to vilify and attack a foe while simultaneously protect our allies doing the same (or perhaps worse), we have essentially cried wolf one too many times. Everyone knows that when we cry out for protecting civilians that is really code for 'regime change'. And for Russia and China (particularly China) they got totally hosed by the decision to abstain on 1973.

They have learned (or more accurately been taught by us) that they have to actively counter our expansionism. Allowing us to do the 'right thing' never works out the way it should.

And because of the US/NATO move in Libya, R2P will simply not be possible any longer. The real losers are the civilians that will die in conflicts all around the world that we cannot help any longer.

....... victory ... in ... Libya ........

Limited idea, of course.

Read the bucket of decaying cow dung for yourself. After Prof. Mearsheimer recommended it, I thought "Why not?", the guy seems google reklam wise, what is there to lose? You can order it from Zero pulbishers (perfect name for a Zero book) from Barnes & Noble on line for under $8. It's so abominable its incredible. The first time google reklam you read it you go "no way anything could be this horrendous.