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The theory.
The Praxis.
The United States has placed, and continues to place a great deal of geopolitical importance on the Middle East. The problem is that, as the record shows, everything they touch turns to ash or is reborn as a even greater threat to America and American interests world wide.
Recent events have not done much to dissuade me that the American conflict in the Middle East is only going to get more intense, more bloody, and have greater ramifications for not onyl the US, but the rest of the world.
Of course, with the Commander in Cheetoh Chief at the helm of the American military, the situation is unlikely to get better. Case in point being the thought (and the following actions) that adding a cruise missile strike into an already chaotic civil war situation, is somehow going to make things better.
(?)
“Without any recourse to international law or the United Nations, the Trump administration has embarked on an act of international aggression against yet another sovereign state in the Middle East, confirming that neocons have reasserted their dominance over US foreign policy in Washington. It is an act of aggression that ends any prospect of détente between Washington and Moscow in the foreseeable future, considerably increasing tensions between Russia and the US not only in the Middle East but also in Eastern Europe, […]”
It’s like, hey we had really shit results with this whole intervention strategy, what can we do.
*insert institutional black memory hole* .
Oh! Hey! Let’s intervene with military strikes in Syria, what could go wrong?
*The noise of near infinite headdesking & facepalming from the rest of the world*
” […] only the most naïve among us could believe that this US airstrike against Syria was unleashed with justice in mind. How could it be when US bombs have been killing civilians, including children, in Mosul recently? And how could it be given the ineffable suffering of Yemeni children as a result of Saudi Arabia’s brutal military campaign there?
No, this US attack, reportedly involving 59 Tomahawk missiles being launched from ships in the eastern Mediterranean, was carried out with regime change in mind, setting a precedent that can only have serious ramifications for the entire region.”
And they will welcome us as liberators and greet us with flowers…
“Trump has proved with this unilateral military intervention that he can easily be dragged into conflict. Just a few days after his administration confirmed that regime change in Syria was off the table, that its focus was on defeating terrorism, he unleashes an airstrike that will only have emboldened the very forces of terrorism whose defeat he had stressed was the focus of his foreign policy previously.
So what now?
Clearly, this military action places Russia in a very difficult position. Since joining the conflict in Syria at the end of September 2015, at the behest of the country’s government, Moscow had been working tirelessly to bring about a negotiated settlement, one involving opposition forces and parties deemed moderate relative to the Salafi-jihadi fanatics of ISIS and Nusra, etc. It is a diplomatic process that has just been dealt a shattering blow, with the opposition now undoubtedly convinced that regime change is in the offing via Washington and therefore encouraged to work towards this end.”
From the dynamo that is George Orwell in his grave:
“The war is not meant to be won, it is meant to be continuous. Hierarchical society is only possible on the basis of poverty and ignorance. This new version is the past and no different past can ever have existed. In principle the war effort is always planned to keep society on the brink of starvation. The war is waged by the ruling group against its own subjects and its object is not the victory over either Eurasia or East Asia, but to keep the very structure of society intact.”
“On a wider note, the lack of short-term memory in Washington is staggering to behold. Fourteen years after the disastrous US invasion of Iraq, which only succeeded in opening the gates of hell out of which ISIS and other Salfi-jihadi groups emerged, and six years after turning Libya into a failed state, in the process sparking a refugees crisis of biblical proportions, here we have yet another act of aggression against a sovereign state in the Middle East by the US.
Destroying countries in order to save them is the story of every empire there has been. But as history reveals, every empire carries within itself the seeds of its own destruction. Donald Trump is now on course to end up going down in history as a leader who rather than save the US from itself, may only have helped speed it down the path to its ultimate demise.”
[Source:Counterpunch – John Wight]
Our imperial conquests in the Middle East are, of course, busily blowing up in our face. The new normal is a murderous state of higgledy-piggledy brought on by us wiping out the quasi-stable societies that had kept the peace (of sorts). Because nothing says we love peace like bombing the shit of a country we now have religious extremists attempting to establish a new Caliphate in the ruins of our bastion of democratic freedom imperial conquest.
So anyhow, once you cripple the umbrella of supports (infrastructure and otherwise) that keep a civil secular society running it comes as no surprise that the radically religious and their magically-shitacular beliefs will step up and fill the gap left, cue ISIS.
Now, back here in secular society the moderate religious factions (read: kept in check by secular society) are distancing themselves from the ISIS’s murdery-behead-a-thon, clear evidence of what happens when you let the radical religious run society.
However, the moderates ensconced in secular society are unsatisfied with their usual level of bollocks and feel the need to up their game.
Apparently, suckering children into going to war zones is on Islam’s approved list of shitty things to do to people.
“Two Austrian teens got way more than they bargained for when they abandoned their homes and families to become “poster girls” for ISIS terrorists, and now they desperately want to come home.
Samra Kesinovic, 17, and friend Sabina Selimovic, 15, would love to press the undo button on the last six months, during which they traded their comfortable existence in Europe for a life of evil engineered by terrorists.
Hmm. I wonder who could have persuaded these two children to renounce their families and go to a war zone.
“The teens apparently were lured to ISIS by propaganda preached at their local mosque.
Clerics told them that the only way to know true peace was to head to Syria and take part in the holy war, officials said.
The girls had started lecturing schoolmates about their lifestyle and were even suspected of being behind a vandalism attack at their school calling for jihad.”
Was there any surprise? Pushing extremism in the ‘religion of peace’ (except when it’s not) was the modus-operendi – at least in Australia. But let’s hear from the children in their own words:
“That’s a change of heart from the April note they left behind for their parents that read: “Don’t look for us. We will serve Allah, and we will die for him.”
Because a focus on the afterlife as opposed to the only one you’ll have here in reality, is always a great go-to strategy.
“Now Kesinovic and Selimovic have had enough and are eager to return to their families, according to CEN. The girls reportedly managed to get word to their families they want to come home. But reports also said the teens don’t feel they can flee because too many people now associate them with ISIS savagery.“The main problem is about people coming back to Austria,” said Austrian Interior Ministry spokesman Karl-Heinz Grundboeck. “Once they leave, it is almost impossible.”
You knowthat feeling when you are well and truly being screwed in the deepest, blackest, pit of shit imaginable? Take that feeling and multiply it by 10, or heck even go logarithmic. Imagine now being a pregnant child in a war zone surrounded by (and married to) people who want to die for their bearded imaginary friend in the sky.
Made of Awesome? You betcha!
All of this, made possible by religion.
[H/T to Bleatmop for bringing this article from the New York Post to my attention.]
Fascinating reading about some of the circular nature of events that are playing out in the Middle East as of late. This excerpt from the Counterpunch article titled Once More, Into the Quagmire.
The Middle East Needs Our Military Might
One can hear, in the reverberating noise of mainstream justifications, a series of claims. Among them is the idea that the Middle East is united in opposition to ISIS. Indeed it is, if you confine your poll to the rotten monarchies of the Gulf, including Saudi Arabia, Qatar, the United Arab Emirates, and Bahrain. Adding Jordan to the mix, this fulsome collection of anti-democratic and largely puritanical theocrats is by some stretch of the imagination supposed to provide Arab and Muslim legitimacy to America’s war.
Fancy that, legitimacy conferred by five of the most authoritarian governments in the Middle East. Thus we are ostensibly defending the cause of freedom by assembling a coalition of five treacherous freedom deniers. One human rights violator is leading a coalition of human rights violators against a new human rights violator whose actions deeply offend it. We are appalled at the sight of beheadings and intend to destroy those who practice it, supported by the leading beheader on the Arabian Peninsula. We bomb ISIS oil depots, claiming they have been criminally seized. This barely a decade after we criminally seized major Iraqi oil contracts, while our troops “guarded” the oil ministry (from ‘insurgents’).
Then there’s the dutifully ignored footnote, a poll conducted by the Arab America Institute, which found that:
“Strong majorities in every country favor U.S. policies that support a negotiated solution to the conflict, coupled with more support for Syrian refugees. Majorities in all countries oppose any form of U.S. military engagement (i.e., “no-fly zone,” air strikes, or supplying advanced weapons to the opposition).”
And most Arabs found President Obama most effective in ending the U.S. presence in Iraq. Perhaps the true patriot could efface all of this were it not for the additional fact that our partners in extermination are the leading financial backers of extremists across the Arab world. Saudi Arabia and Qatar are nothing if not open-air markets for arms merchants, money launderers, and angry mullah mosque builders. You could be forgiven for wondering if half our coalition is helping attack ISIS and then immediately re-arming it when it emerges from the rubble, as it invariably will. This is what’s known in arch capitalist circles as “creative destruction.”
Some results of the latest Israeli raid :
* Destroyed tunnels, most often used to smuggle into Gaza household items that Israel, in violation of international law, prevents from being imported.
* Massacred nearly 2,000 people, including hundreds of children as young as newborns; injured thousands more.
* Destroyed hundreds of homes, leaving thousands of men, women and children homeless.
* Destroyed power plants, leaving hundreds of thousands of people without electricity or running water.
* Destroyed factories that produce such dangerous items as pretzels, cheese and biscuits.
* Targeted and murdered journalists.
Israeli officials have stated that, in Gaza, they periodically need to ‘mow the lawn’, meaning to destroy infrastructure, and bomb that beleaguered area back as close to the Dark Ages as possible. So one might add that to a list of Israel’s ‘accomplishments’.
Ah, the benefits of collective punishment continue to accrue for Israel.
“There are, however, some unintended results to this latest genocidal bombing of Palestinians.
* Unexpected international criticism of Israel. While this hasn’t been universal, Israel has seen ambassadors recalled, and even the U.S., which provides Israel with a blank check to do whatever it pleases on the world stage, has dared to timidly issue criticism of its puppet-master. It’s unfortunate that it took the repeated bombings of United Nations schools, which were being used to house thousands of Palestinians driven from their homes, for the U.S. to dare to speak up to Israel, but at least some mild criticism was expressed. The resignation of Sayeeda Warsi, a senior minister in Britain’s Foreign Office, who accused Prime Minister David Cameron’s government of taking a ‘morally indefensible’ approach to the conflict between Israel and Hamas, is also a striking statement against Israel.
* International demonstrations in support of Palestine. Even Israel has seen thousands of its own people protesting the carpet-bombing of the Gaza Strip. London has seen tens of thousands of demonstrators demanding that the British government stop supporting Israel.
* The social media storm that slammed into Israel. Apartheid Israel last ‘mowed the lawn’ in Gaza two years ago. At that time, Twitter had approximately 20 million users. Today, it has over 120 million, and Twitter users have spread around the globe graphic pictures and information that the news media didn’t dare report. This, at least in part, resulted in huge demonstrations in front of London’s BBC headquarters, causing that organization to announce it would review its policies to see if it was, in fact, reporting in a manner biased towards Israel.
* Greater motivation for the BDS (Boycott, Divest and Sanction) movement. As people see graphic photos of young children playing on a beach being targeted and blown to bloody bits by IDF (Israeli Defense Forces) terrorists, someone basically apathetic becomes motivated.
* Further overall isolation of Israel from the international community. This may not actually be a separate category, since those listed above all contribute to it. The demonstrations, cancellations of Israel-sponsored events, the growing BDS movement and the increasing awareness, thanks in large part to social media, of Israel’s horrific crimes, cannot forever be ignored by the governments of the people who show their opposition to Israel by supporting these actions.
Perhaps some good has come out of this tragedy after all.
“Although the U.S. will oppose it every step of the way, the U.N. looks poised to investigate possible war crimes committed by Israel. Its findings will probably not be surprising, since the U.N. has issued more resolutions critical of Israel than it has of all other nations combined. But until the citizenry awakens from its public-relations induced sleep, and sees that the U.S. is financing genocide, nothing will change. There is evidence from the last few weeks that perhaps a large crack in the wall of U.S. and Israeli public relations has appeared. Those shocked by Israel’s crimes must widen it.”
Just doing what I can to make the crack a little wider.
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