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Showing posts with the label "foreign policy"
Humanitarian relief is increasingly seen as giving Western governments the appearance of ‘doing something’ in the face of a tragedy while providing an alibi to avoid making a riskier political or military commitment that could address the ‘roots of a crisis’.   The advocates of human rights-based foreign policy are in the forefront of the campaign against humanitarian approaches. Under the slogan that ‘humanitarianism should not be used as a substitute for political action’ they are in fact arguing for a rights-based humanitarianism that is entirely subordinate to policy ends. Today, instead of feeding famine victims, aid may well be cut back as the UK government has done over Sudan and Ethiopia.   Human rights advocates would seem to be happier with military intervention and the establishment of ‘safe areas’ rather than granting asylum which is seen as legitimising ‘ethnic cleansing’.   As journalist David Rieff notes: ‘humanitarian relief organizations...have become some
Lack of democracy, Lack of solidarity,  Lack of a bold approach to the capitalist state  From today’s perspective, it can easily be argued that Syriza’s attempt at achieving real change not only failed miserably; it also inflicted a major blow to the Left’s credibility on an international scale and " Despite election promises to end military cooperation with Israel, Tsipras maintained and even expanded this cooperation. Tsipras has referred to Jerusalem as “Israel’s capital”, something not even the United States have dared to do and, needless to say, a slap in the face of millions of Greeks in solidarity with the Palestinian cause. The architect of Syriza’s foreign policy, the “left nationalist” foreign minister Nikos Kotzias, is a true practitioner of Henry Kissinger’s  realpolitik , constructing strategic alliances with the Israel state, the Egyptian junta and any other regional player perceived to be against Turkey, no matter how vicious and ruthless..." "