NP US: Rogue Nation? (was Re: NP Another Left academic...etc

[jbor]

pantychrist at hotmail.com wrote:
 
> I can understand the Marshall Islands voting against lifting the embargo,
> but it's Israel's support that I find vexing. I would imagine that Cuba has
> a pro-Palestine policy but is that enough to keep Israel in the pro-embargo
> camp? Or is Israel forced to support America's Cuba policy in order to
> ensure a steady flow of US aid? I know this issue doesn't really affect the
> p-list very much, I'm just curious.

I think that the Marshall Islands was a US dependency for a while there, and
that it might still be reliant on US aid. I'd also suspect Israel's support
for the US on the Cuba embargo as a bit of quid pro quo but couldn't say for
sure. They didn't seem to be supporting the US's alleged "roguishness" on
the other ones.

The one that surprised me most was that the US, Afghanistan and Sao Tomé and
Principe had signed but not ratified the 1979 UN Convention on the
Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women. Then again, I'm
not really sure what it means to have "signed but not ratified" one of these
treaties, and I think that any implication that there is discrimination
against women in the US, let alone to the degree that there has been in
Afghanistan in the last decade or so, is absurd. Plus I think Sao Tomé and
Principe is a pretty cool little place.

best