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Iraq: The U.S. Has No Role In This
The ISIS/former Baathist/Sunni alliance in Iraq is consolidating its position in north-west Iraq. It has captured border post towards Syria and now also towards Jordan. The last item will let red lights flash in Washington and elsewhere.
The ridiculous position of the United States, supporting, arming and training Jihadi insurgents in Syria while seeing them as a danger in Iraq and elsewhere, is coming more to the front. What are we to think of such lunatic headline? Kerry Arrives in Cairo on Trip to Help Form New Iraqi Government
Nobody wants Kerry's "help". The threat thereof unites even strong antagonists. Iran as well as the Saudis are against any U.S. intervention or "help" in Iraq. The Iraqi Prime Minister Maliki would probably like some U.S. support for his disintegrating army but will rather go it alone if such support is connected with demands for him to leave his position.
And is Kerry really asking Sisi, the new brutal dictator of Egypt, for support? What could that jailer of a bancrupt nation do? He will neither be for Maliki nor will he support the Jihadists. There is no alternative to those two in sight. Sisi will simply take the bribes Kerry brings in support of Israel and leave it at that.
There is nothing Kerry can do for Iraqis. Unites States policies in the Middle East have run their course. Their impotence was shown through two lost wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Its incompetence demonstrated in the contradictoriness of "promoting democracy" on one side while supporting radical religious dictatorships in the Gulf. A step out of that would be an U.S. alliance with Iran but such a radical policy change would likely be ripped apart within Washington's polical circus.
It is not only in the Middle East where U.S. polices lead to disillusions of allies and to shaking of the head by foes. Consider what even the neoconned Polish Foreign Minister thinks of U.S. "friendship":
Polish Foreign Minister Radek Sikorski, generally viewed as a leading ally of the United States in Europe, said in a mysteriously-leaked recording Sunday that the alliance between the two countries is “not worth anything.”
“The Polish-American alliance is not worth anything. It’s even damaging, because it creates a false sense of security in Poland,” Sikorski says on an excerpt of a longer conversation set to be published Monday morning in the magazine Wprost, which is reportedly between Sikorski and former finance minister Jacek Rostowski.
…
“We are gonna conflict with both Russians and Germans, and we’re going to think that everything is great, because we gave the Americans a blowjob. Suckers. Total suckers,” Sikorski says, according to a translation of the account for BuzzFeed.
The U.S. should stay out of Iraq. Local forces there will battle it out and the sponsors of each side will find their common interest and some agreement. They already agree on one major point. The U.S. has no role in this.
To write off the many disputes between factions in the US, including party politics as mere kabuki theatre is to misunderstand the nature of US society and of the capitalist system.
Spoken like a true NON-AMERICAN know-it-all. But you don’t talk down to people right, Professor Bevin? You just enjoy telling people in other countries how THEIR country works. I get it. Gee, I guess since I actually LIVE HERE in this godforsaken war criminal hell-hole and have spent decades watching and detailing how life in this Spectacle nation has deteriorated – both domestically and internationally – into the murderous madness that we see now means nothing to the Professors of the world, right? Nope, they – like, for example, everyone’s favorite lecturer, Juan Cole – enjoy casting down their opinions from on high and tell us horrified American peons who witness and experience the consequences of our leaders just what it is we are actually seeing EVEN IF WHAT THEY ARE SAYING IS NOT SUPPORTED BY EVIDENCE (more below). No, you don’t arrogantly presuppose ANYTHING, Professor Bevin.
Yup, kids, it’s not the unabated continuation of war criminality of your leaders that you’ve experienced. No,it’s a complex situation that only further accentuates the hopeful light at the end of the tunnel which you obviously aren’t smart enough to see – but us Professors are, mind you – because…well, just because I/we say so living OUTSIDE your country. That’s about it, right, Professor?
Now that we’ve addressed it issue of arrogance, let’s talk about why are you completely wrong:
First, let’s remind ourselves what the good Professor’s thesis is:
What is unreasonable is the view that everything that occurs does so because the US wishes it to do so. That Amerika never suffers defeats, the evidence of our eyes notwithstanding, because wars like those in Afghanistan and Iraq have turned out precisely as the US (presumably deep state) wished them to. This is just the flipside of American Exceptionalism: the exceptionalists, such as Obama believe that the US has the power and the right to do whatever it wants in the world. And Penny, amongst many others who post here, disagrees only over the question of “right.” As to US power none worship it more sincerely than those who execrate it for the omnipotence that they sense with every fibre of their being.
1) So it is unreasonable to doubt the power and agency of the war criminal US and its leaders? Ok, fine.
a) Give me the names of ANY US war criminals – past or present – that have been prosecuted for the murderous mayhem they have caused.
b) Show me where ANY of the US war criminals – past or present – have paid restitution or given back land to any of the people that they have murdered/stolen from.
c) Show me how ANY of the US elite have suffered – be it financially/legally/etc – from ANY of the murderous mayhem that their war criminal brethren have caused. Or better yet, show me where they have NOT profited from the said murderous mayhem.
d) Show me where the US has ROLLED BACK it’s forward projections of power – i.e., bases, the funding of instability in sovereign nations, it’s arming of mercenaries, etc – because it has felt the diminishing of its power.
Go ahead, Professor. I’ll give you…oh I don’t know the REST OF YOUR LIFE…to show me the evidence as to WHY a rational person in the year 2014 should be thinking that the end of the American hegemon is right around the corner. Or maybe you’re implying that “rapidly diminishing” will yield tangible results in 50 years?
Again, I am being rational and asking for evidence of what you’re saying and NOT the chattering propaganda of government mouthpieces who will say ANYTHING and EVERYTHING to keep the peons busy and reassured that what they – the peons – are NOT witnessing is a decades-long wholesale war of aggression inclusive of innumerable war crimes and near limitless theft.
Moving on:
As to US power none worship it more sincerely than those who execrate it for the omnipotence that they sense with every fibre of their being.
2) Exceptionalism. So, even though I despise and regularly articulate my visceral hatred for the very war criminals that lead my country, you Professor have the audacity to state that it is because I actually WORSHIP that power?
Note: you and others probably have some idea as to the herculean restraint that I am employing to NOT explode at you in the ridicule and derision that you so deserve due to the above statement. For that statement you deserve to be viciously called out and belittled because you effectively equated MYSELF and other conscientious and well-meaning people with the very war criminals we all detest. But I have bitten my tongue because I want everyone who reads MOA to understand that I am better than you NOT because I swear more colorfully than you but because I am smarter than you, know more than you do about the topics I speak to and can express said intelligence/knowledge better than you can – i.e., I am also a better writer than you. I want this post to survive so we can lay bare your deficiencies, Professor.
Back to exceptionalism. So, moving on from Point #1 from which will we find that there IS NO tangible evidence of the US hegemon’s power appreciably – and certainly not “rapidly” – diminishing at this point in time, how is the position that I and others take – namely, that the US does indeed move about and act with near total impunity and omnipotence – contradicted by reality? Pushing things right up to the point of endangering the survival of the very war criminal leaders themselves – e.g., nukes – I don’t see how – WITHOUT A LICK OF EVIDENCE, mind you – a reasonable/rational person could (I’ll speak to “should” in a moment) take the point of view that the US is declining. Allow me to say this: I WOULD LOVE for the US hegemon to be in decline and for all the murder/rape/displacement etc to stop but THERE IS NO EVIDENCE that this decline is happening. NONE. Thus, beyond your tawdry and cheap psychoanalysis of myself and others and our supposed “worship” of power lies a profound misunderstanding on your part as to what it is I and others have been saying all along: we desperately want this murderous madness to stop but this will not happen until people start treating the situation with the IMMENSE gravity that will be necessary if a successful – i.e., no more war, etc – outcome is to be made manifest.
Our point which you consistently – due to your “cosmopolitan” professorial arrogance – miss is that you CANNOT address the MASSIVE problem of the murderous US Empire and its current war of aggression until you begin to accommodate the facts on the ground and consider what it means for mankind’s first nuclear superpower to be going on a decades long murderous rampage with no end in sight. Oh, it’s just like Rome and China during the Ming Dynasty? NONSENSE. We are talking about an entity with the proven capability to erase life on this planet as we know it going around criminally killing and stealing as much as it wants and you think we should focus on the lessons of the Ming Dynasty?! Contrary to the honeyed beliefs of the professorial class, history is REPLETE with first-time events/occurrences that defy adequate analogization as those “one-offs” often bring with them questions/situations that hadn’t exactly arisen before.
3) And that brings us to the topic of SHOULD rational people think – we know they rationally CANNOT because there is no evidence – that US power is in decline with said decline being the product of incompetence or ineptitude of its leaders. To clarify the situation that the world is involved in with the war criminal US, I often write little imagined conversations with some of the most well-known/prolific serial killers. I do this in an attempt to accentuate the absurdity of people’s attempts to think about the war criminal US as a rational actor – incompetence implies rationality – or just one nation among many when that is NOT THE CASE WHATSOEVER. Yes, it would be nice if there were evidence that the US was a weakened entity that other nations could reason with but as we’ve seen there is no evidence of that and the murder/war crimes continue. Thus, the real question is then SHOULD – given what we know, the evidence etc – SHOULD people be making the mistake – like Professor Bevin and others – of treating the war criminal US as an entity in decline that is just incompetently bungling itself out of existence? OR should we be treating the US like the serial killer nation – nay EMPIRE – that it ACTIVELY STILL IS so that a greater sense of urgency and awareness to its litany of unforgivable crimes is inculcated among the populace.
Further, by taking the dangerously misguided/naive stance that what we are seeing is incompetence/decline, those adherents to said school of thought are implicitly telling us the WE CAN JUST WAIT until the US stops ALL ON ITS OWN. Yes, that’s right. What the “incompetent” crowd are telling us with their “rapidly diminishing” diagnoses is that us witnesses to the needless slaughter/maiming/displacement of MILLIONS of people perpetrated by the US should just sit tight, keep hope alive and wait…wait…wait….wait…because the heretofore unmitigated/unpunished “incompetence” of the US war criminal elite is surely about to bring the whole thing to a standstill.
But, Professor Bevin, if recent history is any guide, doesn’t taking the position that the US is on the decline necessarily mean that while we are all patiently waiting for American “incompetence” to bring about the demise of the war criminal US that MILLIONS MORE innocent people might end up dying/being maimed/made homeless? SHOULDN’T we rather take a the more rational/sensible approach – the one supported by EVIDENCE – and treat the war criminal US as the murderous rogue empire that it is acting like instead of what we would like it to be? SHOULDN’T we maybe abandon taking solace in the downfalls of history’s past empires UNTIL THE GLOBAL BLOODSHED STOPS and those who are responsible are brought to justice?
Well, if Juan Cole is indicative of professorial class – and I believe he is, the murder/raping/maiming/displacement of innocent people doesn’t warrant the contemplation of those dons who have history to guide them to the rationalizations needed to protect their psyches/egos from pondering those crimes all the while they tell us that we the situation in front of our eyes is really just a replay of past events that they are just oh so knowledgeable about and which have an outcome they are sure that we can just sit around and wait for.
Incompetence. It might take millions of more innocent lives but eventually the professors will be proven correct.
Wait for it.
Posted by: JSorrentine | Jun 23 2014 16:55 utc | 134
Nobody is denying that the USA (poodle-roles left out) has used, and continues to use, radical / opposition / x / factions of many types, notably jihadists. Nor that this is often contradictory, e.g. fighting the Taliban, funding so-called moderate rebels in Syria.
E.g. at present, funding and supporting, fascists or ‘Nazis’ in Ukr. because they are anti-Russia. (The anti-Jewish slant is white-washed.)
The principle is always the same, the temporary enemy of my present enemy is my friend.
In Iraq, the US re-wrote the Constitution and disbanded the Army (this point might be interesting to re-visit ..), as well as the police, and de-Ba-ath-ified. Basically they removed the previous power structure and tried to create a new one, but needed an ally, or allied group, which turned out to be those, surprise, who were the most anti-Saddam. Or, in Syria, anybody who was anti-Assad, etc. which leaves some mighty airy doors open, to use a F expression.
Booted Bremer even tried to change the traffic rules in Iraq, I remember a hilarious article about that, even the police would not comply. Of course the carnage was horrendous (I’m not addressing that now.)
Inevitably, the new oppressors, stooges or puppets followed the old model, and reaction was inevitable.
What do ppl think the endless bombings, for years now, in Iraq are about? So-called sectarian violence in a country that ‘hasn’t settled down’? Argh. That Maliki is a ‘better leader’ and ‘less corrupt, violent’, than Saddam? (Not that anyone is saying that here.)
And since 2014, the Iraqi parliament (such as it is) and Ja’fari law, see e.g. the Guardian in March, http://tinyurl.com/ms9xeg3, etc. etc.
US foreign policy, if one can call it that, projects from an attitude of Hucksterism or ‘Mafia’ type alliances, which are always based on the assumption of a position of ultimate, enduring military strength and financial control -> domination. Within loose alliances built on threats and strong-arming, it is always possible to co-opt (method no 1, it is expensive!), or subjugate, undermine, without too much damage, groups or other who are opposed but stay quiet – for a while.
Now we are seeing a break down of submission to this model. The only opponents willing or capable are: radical violent desperate stupid left for no account young men. (Or freedom fighters, religious nuts, or whatever.)
Scripted Color Revolutions turn real as the BS is unmasked. When civil society is destroyed, that is what you get.
Posted by: Noirette | Jun 23 2014 17:49 utc | 138
Responding to yah @ 139, a bit late in the day or rather, thread.
I have never contested the Divide to Conquer strategy of the the US (uk, etc.) which is plain as a nose on a face.
I have mentioned it many times, but not in the last 3 months iirc.
However, just seeing “ISIS” (for ex.) as an emanation of US encouragement (funding, training in Jordan, etc. not to mention Zionist plots or Saudi meddling etc.) is really very simplistic, and part of a -to me- reductionist discourse.
Discourse, hopefully not yah’s but in general, stipulates that terrorists, broadly defined as any movement or force that opposes the status quo anywhere, are either US proxies or symptoms of ‘blowback.’
see >> The US being evil it is no surprise that poor oppressed ppl take up arms or return to fundamental religion, violence, etc. E.g. Chomsky and Hedges for ex.
The US as centre stage, with one prism only.
The plan for Iraq was not to cut it up into regions.
The plan was for a pliant puppet state with a ‘democratic’ seeming Gvmt and a ‘modern air’ (as the EU accomplished in parts for ex-USSR spaces, btw) with permanent military bases and ongoing oversight, massive investment in and control of resources (oil ..), banking, agri, biz in general (IT, MacDonald’s, etc.)
An example of re-modelling according to an US image which would transform the ME.
One might argue this was all fake guff, sure, but then why spend many trillions of dollars over at least 5 years on an effort that was planned to fail? No.
Or why not .. if one turns to mafia type scammers, along the War is a racket line. Massive stealing, corruption, fraud, killing, imprisonment, torture, razing trees/agri, bombing clinics, etc.
Bremer and co. could have cut up Iraq in 2003-5 easily. The Iraqis might even have not objected faute de mieux. (e.g. Kurds, etc.) ..idk.
As for Zionist machinations, what would suit Israel better: a stable, Americanized, controlled Iraq, with the oil industry managed (to send oil to Isr. etc.) or a bad-lands with open borders (Iran, etc.) and 5-yr-old children who survived to grow up to be jihadists?
Didn’t work. Why exactly, another story. The fall-back after failure is more strife and of course division.
Posted by: Noirette | Jun 24 2014 15:26 utc | 161
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