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The UN Security Council resolution draft on Lebanon reflects a new stage of Western colonialism in the Middle East, and perhaps a historic precedent: for the first time, the UN Security Council – should the resolution draft be endorsed – breaches the fundamental principle of the right of people under occupation to resist, and in fact legitimizes the violent partition of the sovereign state of Lebanon.

The American-French draft reflects the interests of three central colonial powers in the region: the U.S., the main colonial power in Iraq and Afghanistan; its client and proxy Israel, which is occupying the Palestinian territories of the West Bank and Gaza as well as part of Syria, and occupied south Lebanon for 22 years (1978-2000); and France, the former colonial empire in Lebanon after WWI. No wonder that the draft, which pays lip-service to Lebanon's sovereignty and territorial integrity, in fact suggests a partition of this small land.

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Originally posted by Cueball:
I thought it was generally agreed that a former colonial power should not act as peace keepers in the former colony. The only example I can think of where this was done was Belgium in Rwanda. They pulled out after some of their numeber were executed. Disaster ensued.

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I hadn't heard that. It probably makes sense in general, though it may make a difference on the level of relations between the two countries. Some ex-colonizers are on good terms with their ex-colonies.

Pertinent to this, there was an Op-Ed in the G&M today regarding Germany's peacekeeping role. There was a big fuss over whether the grandchildren of Nazis might end up fighting against the grandchildren of holocaust victims should Germany participate in the UN force.

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Originally posted by Flash Walken:
historical query:

Were the chinese involved at all in securing post-war japan?

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Originally posted by Proaxiom:

Securing against what?

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Originally posted by Proaxiom:

Securing against what?

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Well, in the official version, securing the country from civil upheaval.

China would not have been in Japan after the war. China was in civil war until Mao won out, with support from Soviet-occupied Manchuria.

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Originally posted by Proaxiom:
Japan's main post-war wealth was an open-minded, tenacious, hard-working population. This wealth was left largely intact. After getting the shit bombed out of them by B-29s, there wasn't all that much material wealth left.

China would not have been in Japan after the war. China was in civil war until Mao won out, with support from Soviet-occupied Manchuria.

Did you know that the Soviet Union and Japan never signed a peace treaty? Technically they were at war until Russia signed one in 1993.

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I'm aware of rudamentary chinese and japanese history, I just thought it would've been possible for Chiang kai-shek to have had troops stationed in japan, if not for his eagerness to further increase his stature on the world stage (and in the eyes of America), but because of his historical affinity for Honshu.

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Originally posted by Proaxiom:
Fair enough. I didn't intend to be patronizing.

So let's move on to why that is relevant to the Lebanon situtation.

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I believe we were discussing colonial powers and involvement in former colonies.

I know Japan was never a 'colony' of China, but I felt the question was applicable, as I don't see lebanon as a former colony of Israel.

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Originally posted by Flash Walken:

Well, in the official version, securing the country from civil upheaval.

In the unoficial version, securing nice pieces of wealth (cultural and monetary) from anything that remained unburned.

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Originally posted by Proaxiom:

I hadn't heard that. It probably makes sense in general, though it may make a difference on the level of relations between the two countries. Some ex-colonizers are on good terms with their ex-colonies.

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France has been involved on an off in Lebanon, even after the war.

I think it is a little simplitistic to assert that their are "good relations" between the Lebanese and the French. I think there are definitely sectors of Lebanese society that saw their fortunes tied in with the French (largely the Maronite Christians) but to suggest the good will is pervasive throughout is a little to generalized to be accurate.

However, one of the points that should be made is that prohibiting troops from former colonizers into peacekeeping missions has as much to do with the attitude of the former colinizer, not just the Lebanese (in this case.) It seemed very much that the decision of the Belgians to leave Rwanda was partly based on Belgian feeling about returning, and then getting embroiled in more or less the same political dynamics which had forced them to leave in the first place, and having their troops killed in a fruitless and brutal peackeeping task.

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Originally posted by Proaxiom:
You misunderstood. This discussion was about French troops in Lebanon, not Israeli. Lebanon was controlled by France until the Second World War. Some are suggesting that France shouldn't deploy troops to Lebanon for that reason.

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Proaxiom: China would not have been in Japan after the war. China was in civil war until Mao won out, with support from Soviet-occupied Manchuria.

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The Soviets were in Manchuria because they had just defeated the Japanese Kwantung Army. Up to that point, they had had a Non-Aggression Treaty with Japan. They didn't want to fight on two fronts simultaneously. After the other Allies convinced the Soviets to join the war against the Japanese, it only took 23 days, from August 9 to September 2, 1945, for the Soviets to rout the Japanese in Manchuria. Japan signed the unconditional surrender on September 2, 1945. Very clearly, it was not the use of nuclear weapons alone but the military defeat that finished the Japanese war efforts. Even many honest US commentators admit this now.

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Soviet text: On August 9, Soviet and Mongolian troops began hostilities against Japan along a front of more that 5,000 kilometers. The Kwantung Army was routed in 23 days; its losses were 84,000 killed or wounded, and 593,000 Japanese officers and men, including 148 Generals, were taken prisoner.

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Proaxiom: Did you know that the Soviet Union and Japan never signed a peace treaty? Technically they were at war until Russia signed one in 1993.

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This is quite misleading.

Up until the Soviets joined the war effort against Japan, they weren't at war with Japan. Mind you, there were some territorial disputes that had been outstanding since 1904-05 when the Japanese routed the Russian Navy.

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BBC: Under the terms of the agreement the disputed southern Sakhalin and the Kurile Islands will pass into Soviet hands. The islands have been occupied by Japan since the Russo-Japanese war of 1904.

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Furthermore,

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BBC: The Japanese had asked the Soviets to represent them at Potsdam - but under a new deal with the Allies, the Russians were about to break the Russo-Japanese non-aggression pact and did not put their case forward.

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Finally,

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BBC 2 September 1945: Marshal Joseph Stalin has welcomed the unconditional surrender of Japan.

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BBC - "On this day, September 2, 1945"

It may very well be that Japan did not "surrender" officially or "separately" to the Soviet part of the Allied forces on the U.S.S. Missouri but they very much "surrendered" on the field of battle, where it counts. The numbers speak for themselves. They even gave up territory that they had occupied since they had routed the inferior Russian Navy in 1905. So the Soviets were part of the post-militarist Japanese situation in September of 1945, whether separate documents were signed or not.

The Cold War had already begun. Perhaps it started with the blasts in Hiroshima and Nagasaki, completely unnecessary militarily, or perhaps it started with the blasts in Dresden and similar cities in Europe that were expected to be under Soviet occupation.

Edited to add: My apologies for continued thread drift. But every August I read on babble a pile of misinformation as it relates to the events surrounding the end of WWII (especially in the Pacific).

By the way, the Soviet text I referred to above is Recalling The Past For The Sake Of The Future: The Causes, Results and Lessons of World War Two. It was published in August of 1985, in the Gorbachev period, by Novosti Press Agency.

[ 24 August 2006: Message edited by: N.Beltov ]

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The Soviets were in Manchuria because they had just defeated the Japanese Kwantung Army. Up to that point, they had had a Non-Aggression Treaty with Japan. They didn't want to fight on two fronts simultaneously. After the other Allies convinced the Soviets to join the war against the Japanese, it only took 23 days, from August 9 to September 2, 1945, for the Soviets to rout the Japanese in Manchuria. Japan signed the unconditional surrender on September 2, 1945. Very clearly, it was not the use of nuclear weapons alone but the military defeat that finished the Japanese war efforts. Even many honest US commentators admit this now.

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Uh huh. Japan surrendered unconditionally to the US on August 12, only three days after the Soviets invaded Manchuria. Given that, exactly why was it necessary for the fighting to continue on the mainland?

The Soviet Union declared war on Japan after the first atomic bomb was dropped, when it was clear that the war was about to end. They did this because they wanted a seat at the peace table in order to claim Kurile Islands. This was in spite of acceding to the Cairo declaration in which the Allies agreed not to seek their own territorial expansion.

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So the Soviets were part of the post-militarist Japanese situation in September of 1945, whether separate documents were signed or not.

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No documents were signed at all. That's why they remained at war after World War II ostensibly ended.

The Allies and Japan signed the San Franscisco Treaty, and Japan agreed to give up the Kuriles to the Soviet Union, but the Soviets did not sign the treaty. The Soviets occupied the islands anyway, of course.

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Proaxiom: Japan surrendered unconditionally to the US on August 12, only three days after the Soviets invaded Manchuria.

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Your first statement is a falsehood. The Japanese surrendered unconditionally to the US on September 2, 1945.

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Wikipedia: On August 14, 1945, after the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, at a meeting of the emperor and the leaders (gozenkaigi), the Japanese leadership decided to accept the Potsdam Declaration. The next day, the Japanese Emperor Hirohito made a radio speech to the public, the Imperial Rescript on Surrender, announcing the acceptance. The day is commemorated as Victory over Japan Day in the U.S. and Shusen-kinenbi in Japan and is generally considered to mark the end of World War II.

On August 28, the occupation of Japan began by Supreme Commander of the Allied Powers. On September 2, the Japanese government signed the Japanese Instrument of Surrender, which officially ended World War II.

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So, while it is "generally considered" that World War II ended on August 15th (USA = Victory over Japan Day, etc.) the fact is that the unconditional surrender took place on September 2, 1945.

Edited to add: So what happened in the intervening month?

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Pro: Given that, exactly why was it necessary for the fighting to continue on the mainland?

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Uh ... because the Japanese refused to surrender in Manchuria. So the Soviets, along with some Mongolian troops, had to defeat Japan militarily. What were the Soviets up against?

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NPA text: By August 1945, the Japanese armed forces numbered about 7.2 million officers and men of whom 5.5 million formed the land forces. The Kwantung Army was a particularly highly organized force which consisted of several front formations and had more than one million officers and men, about 1,200 tanks, 5,400 artillery pieces and mortars and 1,800 planes. Tokyo considered the areas it occupied in China as its strategic rear.

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Added: That's what happened. The war went on. And the dead Japanese and dead Soviet and Mongolian soldiers prove it.

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Pro: The Soviet Union declared war on Japan after the first atomic bomb was dropped, when it was clear that the war was about to end.

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Maybe it was "clear" that the war was about to end, but the Soviets were the ones tasked with finishing the job. Fact is, the Soviets entered the war against Japan at the request of the other Allies, primarily the USA whose soldiers' lives would be saved by the Soviet entry into the war.

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Henry Stimson: Russian entry will have a profound military effect in that almost certainly it will materially shorten the war and thus save American lives.

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from: W. Averill Harriman and Elie Abel, Special Envoy to Churchill and Stalin, 1941-1946, Random House, NY, 1975, p. 462.

What a disgrace that so many US commentators spread the big lie that the atomic bombing of civilians ended WW2, when American lives were saved, according to US officials, by the Soviets who routed the Japanese military in Manchuria, thus truly ending WW2.

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Pro: No documents were signed at all. That's why they remained at war after World War II ostensibly ended.

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This is still highly misleading. Japanese troops were militarily defeated by Soviet troops in Manchuria. Japan lost. Her military was dismembered. Hell! Under US occupation, even martial arts were banned in Japan and could only be developed secretly or depicted in film.

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There were numerous attempts at a treaty over the years, but none succeeded until 1993. Even now, the status Kurile Islands is disputed.

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Perhaps that is why there is no treaty on other matters. The Japanese took a gigantic amount of territory in 1905, some of which the Soviets took back in 1945.

Are Russia and Japan at war? Of course not. But they have their disputes, just as the continued occupation of Lebanon and parts of Syria, etc., etc., by Israel is an ongoing matter of dispute.

Edited to add: And some of Israel's victims refuse to "recognize" the territory acquired by force. Israel calls this a "refusal to recognize Israel".

Yea right. Maybe they refuse to recognize Greater Israel.

[ 24 August 2006: Message edited by: N.Beltov ]

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So, while it is "generally considered" that World War II ended on August 15th (USA = Victory over Japan Day, etc.) the fact is that the unconditional surrender took place on September 2, 1945.

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Okay, yes, I was wrong. They surrendered on August 15th, not unconditionally, but on the terms of the Potsdam declaration.

Interestingly, the terms of the Potsdam declaration (which the Soviet Union also acceded to) included the disarmament of the Japanese forces overseas and their return to the home islands.

So, if Japan agreed to surrender Manchuria on August 15th, then why did the Soviets have to continue fighting for it until September 2nd?

The Soviet Union entered the war, and continued fighting after Japanese surrender, out of pure self-interest.

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Maybe it was "clear" that the war was about to end, but the Soviets were the ones tasked with finishing the job. Fact is, the Soviets entered the war against Japan at the request of the other Allies, primarily the USA whose soldiers' lives would be saved by the Soviet entry into the war.

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The agreement with the Soviets was made long before the nuclear bomb was widely known about, or the timing of the end of the war. This was when it was thought that an Allied invasion of Japan and her mainland territories would be necessary for victory.

It was not a coincidence that the Soviets declared war 2 days after Hiroshima.

And I have seen few people claim that Japan would not have accepted the Potsdam terms on August 15th had they not been fighting in Manchuria. The atomic bombs were compelling.

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This is still highly misleading.

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I don't understand why it's misleading to say that no peace agreement was signed until 1993.

They were technically at war until that time, though certainly not in practice. In a way, it was opposite to the Soviet-US relationship, which was practically at war but not technically.