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Look, I'm not making any normative statements about secularism, or claiming that its always better -- in fact, I think a lot of times the "religion vs. secularism" debate distracts from more important issues of economics and power dynamics. All I was saying is that people who are concerned about radical Islamist dominance need not worry too much, because in general, a movement toward a more equitable society and away from both dictatorship and foreign oppression will coincide with a movement away from religious fundamentalism. If this is "Eurocentric", so be it. I don't happen to believe that the causal relationship works the other way around, however -- just saying "oh, hey, we're secular now!" won't do anything about oppression; just look at Ceausescu, Saddam Hussein, Stalin, or Hoxha for secularists who were also tyrannical.
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Dec 3, 2012 00:08
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V. Illych L. posted:Defined here as relatively wealthy, stable and equitable if you object to the term "developed." I think people are really objecting to this, as well as all the 'empirically' things thrown in. Short history; Europeans begin colonizing and say that everyone else is foreign and weird and inferior. Then comes Marx. Left as he was, he still entrenched a very Euro-centric 'stages of development' mentality where other places weren't evolving in different ways, they were evolving in the same way, and Europe just happened to be farther along that path than anyone else. Which is... still kinda hosed up. 'Modern' and 'developed' countries are secular because Europe happens to be secular, and the normative standard to which everyone else is held up to because. Marx et. al. were actually pretty poo poo at history outside of Europe, painting with broad strokes, and if we can see Marxian stages in other places it's normally because Europe got exported over there or because it was intentionally mimicked.
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Dec 3, 2012 00:11
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OwlBot 2000 posted:I don't happen to believe that the causal relationship works the other way around, however -- just saying "oh, hey, we're secular now!" won't do anything about oppression; just look at Ceausescu, Saddam Hussein, Stalin, or Hoxha for secularists who were also tyrannical. I think that's something we can all agree on. Whether a developed/educated/equal society will trend to secularism or not, a choice of secularism in itself does little to nothing to prevent inequality, repression, or even mass killings.
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Dec 3, 2012 00:17
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VI Lenin you say you're not a social scientist, so, as a social scientist, lemme offer a suggestion. Instead of treating "seclarity" as an independent quantifiable variable, something you measure by putting the magic social science dipstick in the murky waters of society, treat it as a claim that people living in those societies make about themselves and the relationship between state institutions, and assorted private and civic milieux. A claim serves the same rhetorical & orienting role as say, "democracy".
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Dec 3, 2012 00:26
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Good point, tatankatonk. Maybe we should instead claim that those societies which self-identify as democratic and have more economic equality and higher "development"* will also tend to perceive themselves as more secular. *Here defined as near-universal access to adequate nutrition, housing, medical care and education. OwlBot 2000 fucked around with this message at 00:41 on Dec 3, 2012 |
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Dec 3, 2012 00:38
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V. Illych L. posted:For industrialisation/GDP per capita, see this gallup poll: This is a very poor article that doesn't prove anything. Qatar highest GDP per capita and scored ~95%. Singapore - 3rd highest GDP per capita and scored ~95%. UAE - 7th and scored 91%. etc. I'm also shocked that a western polling company found results favoring western countries.
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Dec 3, 2012 00:41
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OwlBot 2000 posted:Good point, tatankatonk. Maybe we should instead claim that those societies which self-identify as democratic and have more economic equality and higher "development"* will also tend to perceive themselves as more secular. Mainly I made the suggestion because treating it as a claim or aspiration allows us to toss it in with terms like "freedom" "democracy" and "equality", terms which have the potential to usefully describe actual material social relations and cultural beliefs -- but which you don't take at face value, which carry intense political and emotional connotations, and which clearly need to be put in historical and local context to be useful from a scholarly standpoint.
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Dec 3, 2012 01:03
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tatankatonk posted:VI Lenin you say you're not a social scientist, so, as a social scientist, lemme offer a suggestion. Instead of treating "seclarity" as an independent quantifiable variable, something you measure by putting the magic social science dipstick in the murky waters of society, treat it as a claim that people living in those societies make about themselves and the relationship between state institutions, and assorted private and civic milieux. A claim serves the same rhetorical & orienting role as say, "democracy". Sure, no problem. I don't really see how this alters my point, however. I initially reacted to az jan jananam saying something to the effect of "any universal claim that society moves away from religion as it develops should intuitively be dismissed as eurocentric nonsense", which struck me as a rather strong statement.
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Dec 3, 2012 01:10
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V. Illych L. posted:Sure, no problem. I don't really see how this alters my point, however. I initially reacted to az jan jananam saying something to the effect of "any universal claim that society moves away from religion as it develops should intuitively be dismissed as eurocentric nonsense", which struck me as a rather strong statement. Anyway it alters your point because if you had to analyze "secularism" as a claim, and historicize it, and contextualize it, rather than treat it as some kind of absolute measure, then it. might occur to you to reflect on the development of the nation-state in the euroamerican sphere as a historical process rather than a completed project with no precursors. And if you did THAT, well, if your evidence associating the political principal of secularism with infrastructural development, social evolution and prosperity is the euroamerican sphere, it might occur to you that the two global superpowers that pop right to mind in that project -- the UK and the USA -- literally Literally spent the 19th and early 20th centuries preaching progress to the benighted and savage peoples of the world with their fist on the Bible and their other hand hand on the gun. That like, you know, a vast global colonial project for resource and labor extraction for the benefit of the metropole got done with Christianity being wielded as both an explanation for the Anglo-Saxon's unique fitness and supremacy in carrying out this task, and justification for the eradication of savage superstitions and backwards degenerate native governments. So they could be replaced. With enlightened Christianity. And guided by their benevolent Anglo-Saxon Christian masters to a prosperous and peaceful future. And you might go "hmm, crikey, maybe my theory about secualrism/progress/prosperity is eurocentric trash that's disturbingly smilar to the claims Victorian imperialists were making about Christianity"
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Dec 3, 2012 02:00
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As the old story goes, When Queen Victoria was asked: "What is the secret of the greatness of Great Britain?" She pointed with her finger to the Bible and said: "This is the secret of the greatness of Great Britain." tatankatonk fucked around with this message at 02:03 on Dec 3, 2012 |
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Dec 3, 2012 02:01
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Yeah, I'd be less likely to point to 'secularism' as a cause of the developed world we, as internet denizens, are residing in in some way. A couple of centuries of worldwide domination and exploitation kinda help in getting that whole ball rolling, a fact that, as tanttonkabadonkadonk has pointed out, had a very religious component. Invoking secularization as a way to bring about economic prosperity is a bit... cargo cultish? If you want to look at the way Europe is now you go to way back before atheism was a thing or secularization at all an option. Hell, the Protestant Work Ethic was the by word for how all that came to be not too long ago, and it's no more or less plausible than your 'secular society.'
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Dec 3, 2012 02:19
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Paper Mac posted:You're still essentially restating a teleogical framework that ought to be problematised and seen in its ideological context rather than accepted with some additional nuance. Death to your writing style.
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Dec 3, 2012 02:28
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tatankatonk posted:It's wise to be suspicious of universal, teleological developmental claims about human society?? The claim I responded to wasn't "be wary", it was "dismiss it as nonsense". I certainly agree that we should be wary. I am well aware of the history of imperialism and the role of religious ideology in this. I do not see why that renders, for example, ideology in general invalid, not indeed religion. This is a bit of a gripe I have with postmodernism in general, really - it seems to me to relativise itself into oblivion. It is possible to measure aspects of society that have objectively improved with the advent of technological development and scientific and social progress in, for example, life expectancy, infant mortality, population numbers et cetera. There remains a lot to be done, and we should not be too eager to impose our own world-views on others - I get this, no problem. That these indicators do not tell the whole story - yes, I get that as well. Again, no problem, but they are still valid indicators of progress. If one is not interested in this kind of progress, then that's OK, but it is still a progressive trend in history (it is not an unbucked trend, of course). Postmodernism seems to just ignore this in favour of an odd sort of anti-ideology. The fact of the matter is, yes, during the Victorian era most "civilised" - or, if you will, relatively developed - countries were christian. These imposed Christendom on the world as part of a chauvinist scheme of "uplifting the savages". Your argument seems to be that because of this, any notion of definable societal progress is essentially chauvinist. I do not accept this argument. Now, I'll try to recapitulate - I'm a bit tired, so bear with me if I get muddled at any point. We seem to basically agree that both religiosity and secularism are ideology. If I'm not reading you wrong, we also agree that ideologies wax and wane in strength according to the social conditions of its potential adherents, i.e. that they're dependent on the objective material situation. Where I think we diverge is in our reading of different ideologies. To me, it seems natural that a stable, prosperous and equitable society saps religious ideology of its strength, and thus feeds its opposite, namely secularism. This has, I believe, been pretty soundly documented in sociology of religion - the poor, the desperate, the downtrodden are more likely to be religious than the reasonably well-off - it's an empirical claim, and can be checked as such. Again, social status is obviously not the only reason for religiosity, just to be absolutely clear on this. Now, another point of discontent seems to be in my buying into the notion of society "progressing" to a "developed" level. I will certainly accept that there is no necessary compulsion for a society to develop itself along the lines I mentioned for a developed society - modern capitalism will almost inevitably cause economic growth, but it may very well fail to grant stability and especially equality into a society. So, in this sense you might say that I'm projecting my own values onto others, and in a sense I think you'd be right. It is certainly possible that there are people who are perfectly happy scratching a living day-to-day in a war zone while the nobility drives around in luxury cars, and projecting my idea of a relatively safe and equal society onto them would be depriving them of ideological agency and thus fundamentally chauvinist. I have no coherent defence to offer here except that such a charge would render literally any political act chauvinist, and to state that it's basically sophistry. So, to round off: I have defined something as social progress, based on what I believe to be relatively uncontroversial metrics (i.e. [sufficient] wealth, equality, stability). I have stated that these metrics seem to nurture the ideology of secularism, and provided empirical evidence that this might be the case. That any given society *will* progress is not guaranteed, but capitalism has tended to evolve in at least a slightly progressive way previously. Where, exactly, is your problem with the argument as summed up in the end here?
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Dec 3, 2012 02:40
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the JJ posted:Yeah, I'd be less likely to point to 'secularism' as a cause of the developed world we, as internet denizens, are residing in in some way. A couple of centuries of worldwide domination and exploitation kinda help in getting that whole ball rolling, a fact that, as tanttonkabadonkadonk has pointed out, had a very religious component. but this is not what anyone is doing argh
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Dec 3, 2012 02:40
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V. Illych L. posted:So, to round off: I have defined something as social progress, based on what I believe to be relatively uncontroversial metrics (i.e. [sufficient] wealth, equality, stability). I have stated that these metrics seem to nurture the ideology of secularism, and provided empirical evidence that this might be the case. That any given society *will* progress is not guaranteed, but capitalism has tended to evolve in at least a slightly progressive way previously. AJJ made the salient point that Mamluk Egypt was in many ways a freer society than contemporary Egypt. We're talking about a region with a history characterised by periods of flourishing intellectual and artistic traditions, extensive personal freedoms, decentralised governance, legal pluralism, etc- all in societies that were deeply committed to Islam. The claim is being made that there is a general trend toward secularism when societies are freer, more equitable, and more prosperous, but that's pretty dubious given the history (not particularly ancient, either) of the peoples in question. That's also a claim echoed by, and genealogically related to, ones made by people interested in imperial and colonialist ventures in the region, so you're going to raise hackles by making it. If your point is merely that currently wealthy states tend to have secular populaces or secular governance mechanisms, and currently poor states tend to have religious populaces or governance mechanisms, that's a big 'no poo poo', but it's not a reason to predict that a stable, prosperous middle east would move toward secularism, nor is it a reason to a priori prefer secular governance of the region if what you care about is the well-being of the people living there. SedanChair posted:Death to your writing style. Glad you like it!
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Dec 3, 2012 03:45
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WE NOW RETURN YOU TO YOUR REGULARLY SCHEDULED PROGRAMMING. Sounds like there could be some of the heaviest fighting in Damascus yet before long. Next few weeks could be a big deal. http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-18563_162-57556680/syrian-rebels-closing-in-on-damascus/ quote:"The rebels have been able to harass the capital as well as its supply chain for several days and this is unprecedented in the history of Syria," said Andrew Tabler, an analyst at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy. "It's another sign that the Assad regime is going to contract and perhaps on the way out."
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Dec 3, 2012 04:40
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steinrokkan posted:I wish I did, but I mostly read continental comparative politics and have no ideas about the state of English translations in the field :-/ That is a shame. Thanks anyway! As for the attack on Damascus, it might be a little premature to say any side is winning. The groups that are on the offensive are Liwa Al Islam and Liwa Al Mustafa, both of which started off Operation Damascus Volcano. Back then they were based out of Douma, and moved into South Damascus after the regime pushed them out of Douma due to their unwillingness to move out with all the other battalions when it was clear what was going to happen. Their sudden offensive in South Damascus wasn't coordinated with any of the other groups in Damascus, and forced them into the fight at an inopportune time. The two groups do have some accomplishments to their name, but they aren't immune to doing stuff like this. Lets wait and see.
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Dec 3, 2012 07:30
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the JJ posted:I think people are really objecting to this, as well as all the 'empirically' things thrown in. Marx managed to recognize the superiority of the science and social systems of the Western World while at the same time recognizing they had nothing to do with genetics, could change to another area of the world at any time, and still kept a keen critical eye on the atrocities committed by the Western World at the time. He never ceased fighting against these atrocities, and always managed to articulate his points practically without compromising his principles or priorities. The best example of this is Marx's view of the United States. Marx himself was a fierce debater of the Blanquism leftists of the era who didn't give a poo poo about democracy, but since a healthy democracy was Marx's final goal, he continuously pointed to three nations as the ideal model for stable democracy even though neither of the three nations were based along the proletariat-centric economic plans he supported, the US, the UK, and the Netherlands. Marx again and again said all three nations didn't need to have revolutions to help improve the lot of the proletariat, and would develop a socialist economy through healthy democracy. By the same token, Marx also thought the US's practice of slavery was the singular most horrific practice in the Western World, if not the entire world, outside of Russian Serfdom, and correctly believed that the US would always be a backwater until slavery was abolished. Marx probably saw in more shades of grey than any other leftist of his generation. More importantly, any government that institutes inherent superiority of a specific religion with no meaningful room for debate or change is every bit as barbaric and intolerable as a government based on racial superiority, and has no cultural or societal merit regardless of what buttcrack of the world practices it. If you're actually enough of a lunatic to justify a pisshole system because it's somebody's culture, what the gently caress does that make slavery, Jim Crow, or Ron Paul supporters?
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Dec 3, 2012 09:40
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BadChipotle posted:Okie dokie, I hope I don't walk out of here ridiculed (fingers crossed). On the other hand our current parliament is down to 4 Salafis down from 21 last election, 3 women up from 0, and a healthy amount of minority representation in that 1/3 of the seats are now Shia. I know that's not how democracy is supposed to work but I prefer this to nothing but Islamists and people voted in from illegal primaries.
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Dec 3, 2012 09:53
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Devil Child posted:Marx managed to recognize the superiority of the science and social systems of the Western World while at the same time recognizing they had nothing to do with genetics, could change to another area of the world at any time, and still kept a keen critical eye on the atrocities committed by the Western World at the time. He never ceased fighting against these atrocities, and always managed to articulate his points practically without compromising his principles or priorities. Can we all define superior? And don't tell me 'their people had more things,' it doesn't count if they've stolen it or acquired it through the mass exploitation of others and themselves. Better at killing and oppressing people? Okay, not sure why that's laudable. quote:The best example of this is Marx's view of the United States. Marx himself was a fierce debater of the Blanquism leftists of the era who didn't give a poo poo about democracy, but since a healthy democracy was Marx's final goal, he continuously pointed to three nations as the ideal model for stable democracy even though neither of the three nations were based along the proletariat-centric economic plans he supported, the US, the UK, and the Netherlands. Marx again and again said all three nations didn't need to have revolutions to help improve the lot of the proletariat, and would develop a socialist economy through healthy democracy. As with many things Marx, the devil lies in how his ideas were used and abused by the people who came after him. I'll say this, and leave it at that; his histories outside of Europe were pretty poo poo and he thought he saw stages of progression that all societies 'had' to go through, but that progression starts to break down outside of France, the UK, and German, much less the Middle East, much less the future. (Except, again, in those cases where the Western Europe situation gets exported. Which is mostly everywhere.) Re: Moral relativism. Yeah, it's poo poo. Your choices are to be a wishy-washy live and let live do nothing or a great moral crusader, forcing people to believe the right things because you are right drat it and it's for their own good! And if it can't be shown to them, but I posses the power to make them act correctly, and in such a way that will educate them, why inaction would be positively immoral. It's like I have a... burden. To lift up these Wait, I forgot, am I doing this because God told me to or Marx, because I'm sure that'll matter a lot to the person whose life I'm reordering Only then if I'm a moral relativist, wait, poo poo, if he starts oppressing someone then that's messing with their morals, so I should stop him from doing that, only that's loving with his morals and... I mean I'd love to see a peaceful post-scarcity society with respect for human dignity and everyone's individual choices, but I don't think trading one dead Jew for one dead German, or the all enlightening splendor of 'well look at Europe, they have shiny things, let's do that!' is really going to be much more than a lateral move. The West is modern because modern is the West, the ideal is the West because the West is the ideal.
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Dec 3, 2012 10:38
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Devil Child posted:Marx managed to recognize the superiority of the science and social systems of the Western World while at the same time recognizing they had nothing to do with genetics, could change to another area of the world at any time, and still kept a keen critical eye on the atrocities committed by the Western World at the time. He never ceased fighting against these atrocities, and always managed to articulate his points practically without compromising his principles or priorities. As the JJ pointed out, the term superior will cause problems. I guess it would be more fruitful to talk about the complexity of political systems and related economies. Raymond Aron pioneered this approach after he abandoned Sartre's pro-Soviet intellectual circle. Modern secular (industrial) societies can be seen as resulting from the need to retain political control over increasingly complex societies. These industrial states could assume varying forms of capitalist and socialist constitutions, but in the end were motivated by the same issues of organization, adaptation and control in new and difficult conditions. Now, it could be argued that the developing of Europe and America into industrial states doesn't really have implications for the rest of the world: But I don't think that's true. Be it because of historical ties, because of structural imperatives of the center - periphery dynamics, or because of West's dominance in constructing the concept of good governance, even traditional countries reform themselves to fit the industrial order, coming to face the same old problems Aron talked about. If we are truly living in a globalized world, we must recognize the importance of reproducing old means of development, whether we like it or not. That's not really a good thing per se: Aron recognized, together with his peers, that industrial society represented a new quality in organized violence, and saw totalitarian regimes as one of possible outcomes of development. Huntington was aware of the challenges of industrial modernity which can be easily defeated by its complexity (http://www.wright.edu/~gordon.welty/Perlmutter_98.pdf). I think a sound hypothesis about this issue would be that "As a political system adapts to more complex forms of organization, it necessarily isolates traditional institutions of religion etc. from their previous privileged position, and opens access to interest groups identified with the industrial basis of the new regime." It doesn't include the normative element of secularization and merely paints it as a means to achieving an instrumental goal, plus it shows that religion isn't actively "pushed away" in secular states, that it just doesn't have anything to say anymore.
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Dec 3, 2012 11:21
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Paper Mac posted:AJJ made the salient point that Mamluk Egypt was in many ways a freer society than contemporary Egypt. We're talking about a region with a history characterised by periods of flourishing intellectual and artistic traditions, extensive personal freedoms, decentralised governance, legal pluralism, etc- all in societies that were deeply committed to Islam. The claim is being made that there is a general trend toward secularism when societies are freer, more equitable, and more prosperous, but that's pretty dubious given the history (not particularly ancient, either) of the peoples in question. That's also a claim echoed by, and genealogically related to, ones made by people interested in imperial and colonialist ventures in the region, so you're going to raise hackles by making it. I'm not making any normative statement, once again, because if I did I'd have to justify why secularism is superior/why socialism is superior/why whatever is superior. I obviously have opinions on this, but they're not strictly relevant to the point I'm making. The claim is not only that currently developed states have secularised, it is that when states have reached a point of economic development they have tended to exhibit certain cultural traits, in this case secularism - the Japanese were considered a lazy, superstitious bunch as late as the late nineteenth century, for instance. I also haven't claimed that economic factors are the only determining factors in religiosity/secularism (in fact, I repeatedly insisted that it wasn't), and that there are obvious exceptions to the general trend. I know very little about Mamluk Egypt, so I can't really comment on how liberal that society was, but I don't see that it really refutes my point even if it were relatively liberal. If I'm reading steinrokkan right, I basically agree with his last paragraph. If I haven't read him right, I'd appreciate it if I were corrected.
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Dec 3, 2012 14:41
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So, any concrete theories as to why Syria dropped off the net (and is now apparently back up)?
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Dec 3, 2012 16:56
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Volkerball posted:WE NOW RETURN YOU TO YOUR REGULARLY SCHEDULED PROGRAMMING. Sounds like the rebels learned from their mistake of trying to directly assault the capital too early, instead they are going for wiser siege tactics to slowly wear down the regime.
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Dec 3, 2012 17:16
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Golbez posted:So, any concrete theories as to why Syria dropped off the net (and is now apparently back up)? Maybe to cover Assad's flight from Syria? There's no evidence of the other big theory coming to fruition, the regime using chemical weapons, thank god.
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Dec 3, 2012 18:19
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Eh, all the theories surrounding the fall of the net were/are retarded and based on zero evidence. Meanwhile the people who know the actual reason are not telling. There's nothing concrete to go on with. United Nations is pulling all of its non-essential staff out of Damascus, says Auntie Beeb.
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Dec 3, 2012 18:28
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Apparently a high government official left assads side. Also that flights to damascus have been told to turn around
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Dec 3, 2012 19:17
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The defector is Syrian Foreign Ministery Jihad Makdissi. You can also now vote for me in the finals of the Golden Twit awards here, there's some tough competition so every vote helps.
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Dec 3, 2012 20:42
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Is Makdissi another Sunni, or has a high-ranking Alawite finally quit?
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Dec 3, 2012 20:59
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Brown Moses posted:
Sent a vote your way - thank you for the continuous coverage of Syria and Hackgate, I and I'm sure many others are appreciative. Best of luck cracking into journalism!
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Dec 3, 2012 20:59
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Wired's Danger Room has this article on reports of Assad preparing chemical weapons (and also mentions me).
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Dec 3, 2012 21:36
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Brown Moses posted:Wired's Danger Room has this article on reports of Assad preparing chemical weapons (and also mentions me).
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Dec 3, 2012 21:59
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Brown Moses, how likely do you think it is that Assad's forces will actually use chem weapons? They have to be getting desperate, and gassing your own people isn't exactly a huge line to cross after you've been shooting them and blowing them up for months on end. Using something considered to be a WMD is a pretty huge gently caress you to the world though and I'm afraid of more countries getting involved in a big loving war. Doesn't Assad realize that using that poo poo is probably just going to hasten his being ousted from power/straight up killed?
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Dec 3, 2012 22:00
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Young Freud posted:Maybe to cover Assad's flight from Syria? There's no evidence of the other big theory coming to fruition, the regime using chemical weapons, thank god. Does anyone think the rebels might have turned it off for some strategic reason?
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Dec 3, 2012 22:05
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Paradoxus posted:Does anyone think the rebels might have turned it off for some strategic reason? Is it at all possible they have that capability?
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Dec 3, 2012 22:46
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Feranon posted:Brown Moses, how likely do you think it is that Assad's forces will actually use chem weapons? They have to be getting desperate, and gassing your own people isn't exactly a huge line to cross after you've been shooting them and blowing them up for months on end. It would pretty much be an invitation for military intervention, so he'd would have to be desperate. That's unless he believes foreign powers don't actually want to be involved in Syria that way, which is possible.
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Dec 3, 2012 22:51
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According to this article from Ars Paint it black—How Syria methodically erased itself from the 'Net http://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2012/12/paint-it-black-how-syria-methodically-erased-itself-from-the-net/ it's highly likely the governemnt was behind it (as they've done similar shenanigans in the past) quote:At noon Damascus time on Thursday, the Syrian Telecommunications Establishment began another shutdown. First, the routing advertisements being sent for Syria's networks over the Border Gateway Protocol via PCCW were withdrawn, and then each of the other connections was shut down in succession. A CloudFlare network engineer recorded the changes in routing advertisements as they disappeared
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Dec 3, 2012 22:52
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Paradoxus posted:Does anyone think the rebels might have turned it off for some strategic reason? I don't see any reason why it couldn't have been some form of sabotage. Ranging from a planned attack (physical or cyber) to collateral damage to the government department responsible just shutting things down before fleeing from the country. Do I have any reason to think that any of that happened in real life? No. I think the simplest answer is that the government had to shut it down, for reasons that we don't know. The alternative is that someone else shut it down, for reasons that we don't know.
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Dec 3, 2012 22:58
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CNN Breaking News posted:President Barack Obama issued a direct warning to Syrian President Bashar al-Assad on Monday over that country's stockpiles of chemical weapons, warning their use "would be totally unacceptable," and vowing there would be consequences if such weapons were used.
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Dec 3, 2012 23:16
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I haven't seen anyone mention this yet. Sadly it's behind Haaretz paywall so I can't get the details. Haaretz posted:Israel has asked Jordan twice in the last two months for a green light to attack chemical weapons facilities in Syria, according to a report by journalist Jeffrey Goldberg of The Atlantic. That could really have hosed things up.
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Dec 3, 2012 23:41
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