How Widespread is this Point of View?

[Occhidiangela]

EDITED since the tags went all goofy on me.

"Your post is founded on pure BS, an attempt to play cute with definitions."
- this adds utterly nothing to the discussion. Thanks anyway. May I also refer to my signature.

"Not even your signature can save you from me." :lol:

Oh, and to the original question: I think this p.o.v. is quite widespread in the European Union. I guess that, while ~20% don't know if growing immigration and integration of islamic people is good or bad, about 35% rather resent it, and about 55% rather welcome it, many of them thinking that it's essential to establish peace in the middle east in the long term. Course these aren't official numbers, just mine.

Interesting insight, thank you. :D Let's assume your numbers are pretty close to the mark. How is welcoming the immigrants essential to establishing peace in the Middle East in the long term. By taking population pressure of the Mid East? By changing cultural norms through mixing? Can you elaborate on that? I think I get the indifferent position, and somewhat the contra position.

The rest of this is rebuttal to your replies on the other stuff. Feel free to ignore, as it is a digression from the real question I was asking of our European Lurkers.

"The Shah was the legitimate government of Iran"
- the legitimate government is supported by the populace. Which the Shah was not, since broad parts of it hated him for adhering too fast and subservient to the quite exploitive (at that time) and untraditional ways of the Western civilizations.

The underlined statement is false, unless you live in a dream world or a classroom. I wish it were true. :o The UN would be less of a mess were your assertion true. If all nations in the UN were indeed led by governments of functioning constitutional republics, accountable to their people (considering of course diverging views within any nation) rather than a mix of autocracies to democracies, the UN would be more effective.

"The consent of the governed" is not the only form of recognized government. Practical legitimacy arises when a government is recognized by other governments. I agree with you that this leaves the Palestinian Arabs in a strange sort of limbo. They are not a nation state, but could be called a nation. I see them as conquered, and the losers of a territorial war, since 1948. Stinks to be them, and many are trying to change that condition. Politics is a game where the play is continuous. Nothing is fixed or final.

When an ambassador arrives and is treated as the representative of his country, he is recognized, and thus his country gains legitimacy. That has been the norm and the standard since long before the UN was around.

"just as Saddam was the legit government of Iraq"
- You should hear yourself talk. He was (how do I put it prudently...) 'enforced' as the dictator of a military-supported one-party-state by the "Western civilizations". Nothing much legit here, if you ask me.

So, why did China, France and the UK have embassies in Iraq if the government was not legit? Was it not recognized? Why did any nation accept an Iraqi ambassador from Saddam Hussein while he as in power? Why did the UN? He might have been a jerk. Stalin was a jerk, but he was the recognized head of state of a nation state. Saddam and Iraq had a recognized rep to the UN. Ambassadors to many nations. Legitimacy under the conventions of international practice. Saddam led the government of record. And so on.

If you remember that the United Nations began as the alliance of nations who defeated Germany and Japan, and later expanded to include others, and then grew into "League of Nations, part II" you see how Chiang Kai Shek's government, the Kuomintang, was a charter member, and Mao's was not. It took nearly 30 years to resolve that political snarl, but the People's Republic of China was in every way a legitimate government in China, even if Washington refused to "recognize" it. Loads of other nations recognized the PROC.

ROC and PROC were recognized differently by different governments. They still sent their ambassadors to other nations, and as nation states had status. Their governments were able to work within international laws and conventions, not constrained by some US puppet mastery of the planet earth.

"The legit government's delegates show up at the UN and are recognized as the representatives"

- again, see legit above. Just because a U.S. dominated UN in fear of the cold war and under the influence of followers of the U.S. accepts them, it ain't legit. That's (only a little bit, I will admit) comparable to the palestinian situation, and also the situation of 'Taiwan' or the 'Republic of China' comes to mind. And I'm not even sure that Saddam (at least in the late years before 'war'), Kim Jong-il and Ayatollah Khomeini attended to UN meetings all the time.

It is not "the US" alone, it is the entirety of the international polity: hundreds of governments. US dominated UN? Were you alive in the 60's and 70's? It was an organization well used politically by America's opponents, led by the USSR and the "non aligned bloc." It's not just recently that the UN has been a forum for objecting to American policy. Anyone with a hand in the game of international politics tries to use the UN as a tool to further its ends. Its original purpose has morphed, and of course having become an institution, it is infected with the disease of bureaucracy. So it goes. :unsure:

Khomeni and Kim Il Sung had embassies, and sent ambassadors to, other nations if not all nations. No matter that the US did not "recognize" Sung's government, other nations did. It was the government of the People's Republic of Korea just as Chiang's was the government of the Republic of China (confined to Taiwan. The Kuomintang's pretensions of return to power in the mainland were a joke. )

"specifically Hezbollah"
- the Hezbollah were the army that helped Seyyed Ruhollah Khomeini to re-establish an islamic nation state of Iran. His Army. Officially instructed and authorized, and since he was the instance that held all the power, I can't see what complicates the matter here.

Not even a nice try.
From the DOS web site.

Hizballah (Party of God)
a.k.a. Islamic Jihad, Revolutionary Justice Organization, Organization of the Oppressed on Earth, and Islamic Jihad for the Liberation of Palestine

Description
Radical Shia group formed in Lebanon; dedicated to increasing its political power in Lebanon and opposing Israel and the Middle East peace negotiations. Strongly anti-West and anti-Israel. Closely allied with, and often directed by, Iran but may have conducted operations that were not approved by Tehran.

Activities
Known or suspected to have been involved in numerous anti-US terrorist attacks, including the suicide truck bombing of the US Embassy and US Marine barracks in Beirut in October 1983 and the US Embassy annex in Beirut in September 1984. Elements of the group were responsible for the kidnapping and detention of US and other Western hostages in Lebanon. The group also attacked the Israeli Embassy in Argentina in 1992 and is a suspect in the 1994 bombing of the Israeli cultural center in Buenos Aires. In fall 2000, it captured three Israeli soldiers in the Shabaa Farms and kidnapped an Israeli noncombatant whom it may have lured to Lebanon under false pretenses.

The Hezbollah is a fine working examples of a terrorist organization. The Iranian army, the legitimate forces of Iran, are not. Nor are the Pasdraran. (Special Ops of Iran.) The Iranian army fought Saddam's Iraq. The Hezbollah is a terrorist organization in every sense of the word. Why?

External Aid
Receives substantial amounts of financial, training, weapons, explosives, political, diplomatic, and organizational aid from Iran and Syria.

You will note that it is not a department of the Iranian or Syrian government, it is thus an extranational organization. Even if US and Iran have strained relations, there are legitimate avenues for interaction via governments whose ambassadors are in Teheran. There is no such relationship with Hezbollah.

Khomeni was not the legit head of government until the Shah was deposed and he took over, and most importantly, was able to stay in power.

"What is a terrorist, and who are the terrorists I dealt with and to whom I refer?"
- jahcs (and wikipedia) answered that quite well, thanks to him.

No, it didn't, which is why I went to the detail that I did. It dances around the topic in true, gutless, academic fashion.

"If you can't understand what an extranational organization is"
- Don't you get personal. Referal to my signature.

So, do you get it? Your reply was no reply.

"The US, for example, slid support to various mujahadeen on the sly in the revolt against the legit (and Soviet sponsored) government in Kabul."
- which could be interpreted as supporting terrorists, don't you agree?

Sure, the US' Reagan (and I think Carter) administrations support various Mujahadeen groups against the Soviet ally/client (pick your descriptive) government. What's your point? The Cold War was on. The so called "war on terror" was not.

Also it is interesting that you don't lose one word about the Iran-Contra Affair.

What about it? What does that have to do with the price of bread in Bangkok, Frag?

The international community is NOT, nor has it ever been, united in its treatment of terrorists and terrorism. There is still considerable disagreement on how to deal with it: as a criminal matter, INTERPOL and all that, or as a matter of foreign policy of a conventional sort. The irony in the second aproach, and it is indeed rich, is that the second approach can afford a terrorist organization a perception of the legitimacy that conventional political organs have accrued through practice, without having to take on any of the responsibilities of a state.

Occhi