Will The New Caliphate Unite The Middle East Against It?
There is no longer an Jihadist ISIS or ISIL in Syria and Iraq. The people leading that entity declared (pdf) today, at the highly symbolic beginning of Ramadan, themselves to be a new caliphate:
Therefore, the shūrā (consultation) council of the Islamic State studied this matter after the Islamic State – by Allah’s grace – gained the essentials necessary for khilāfah, which the Muslims are sinful for if they do not try to establish. In light of the fact that the Islamic State has no shar’ī(legal) constraint or excuse that can justify delaying or neglecting the establishment of the khilāfah such that it would not be sinful, the Islamic State – represented by ahlul-halli-al-‘aqd (its people of authority), consisting of its senior figures, leaders, and the shūrā council – resolved to announce the establishment of the Islamic khilāfah, the appointment of a khalīfah for the Muslims, and the pledge of allegiance to the shaykh (sheikh), the mujāhid, the scholar who practices what he preaches, the worshipper, the leader, the warrior, the reviver, descendent from the family of the Prophet, the slave of Allah, Ibrāhīm Ibn ‘Awwād Ibn Ibrāhīm Ibn ‘Alī Ibn Muhammad al-Badrīal-Hāshimī al-Husaynī al-Qurashī by lineage, as-Sāmurrā’ī by birth and upbringing, al-Baghdādī by residence and scholarship. And he has accepted the bay’ah (pledge of allegiance). Thus, he is the imam and khalīfah for the Muslims everywhere. Accordingly, the “Iraq and Shām” in the name of the Islamic State is henceforth removed from all official deliberations and communications, and the official name is the Islamic State from the date of this declaration.
A caliphate, in its self-conception, is the only legal entity to rule above all Muslims.
With this declaration al-Baghdadi also declared war on all monarchs and other rulers in the Middle East. He will soon likely call for offensive jihad against them. This might now unite all the notoriously discordant Gulf countries against this new Islamic State.
There are already signs of this. The Saudis are said to have now, in sight of the danger, even agreed to let the Iraqi Prime Minister Maliki go for a new term. This might set them in opposition to Washington which, as the one trick pony it is, had called again for regime change in Iraq.
It will be interesting to see the reaction from Turkey, the rearward logistic base for ISIS, now IS. Erdogan surely would not mind a new caliphate but he will have objections against one in which he isn't the Caliph ruling it. So will we now see, now confronted with a new common enemy, a real united response of all Middle East countries against this new danger?
Posted by b on June 29, 2014 at 17:01 UTC | Permalink
It is official
Saudi King Abdullah pledged in talks with U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry to use his influence to encourage Sunni Muslims to join a new, more inclusive Iraqi government to better combat an Islamist insurgency, a senior U.S. official said on Saturday.After a week of frenetic diplomacy by Kerry tackling the threat of Iraq's disintegration, Abdullah's assurance marked a significant shift from Riyadh's insistence on the removal of Iraqi Prime Minister Nour al-Maliki, a Shi'ite Muslim.
Posted by: somebody | Jun 29 2014 17:27 utc | 2
There is a new crescent now.
Yes, I think the "crescent talk" stupid analysis but there it is.
If we examine Russia’s influence map, we see a crescent stretching from the Crimea [Peninsula] and the Black Sea through Iran, Iraq, Syria and part of Lebanon. This Russian area of influence may expand.
Posted by: somebody | Jun 29 2014 17:52 utc | 3
So will we now see, now confronted with a new common enemy, a real united response of all Middle East countries against this new danger?
Not a chance. If we are to believe the rhetoric from Arab countries for the past seventy years, Israel, in their view, held this role and look what's happened — Israel has only only gotten stronger and more formidable.
Arab countries can't unite over anything. Perhaps ISIS and a new Caliphate are the answer to that, but the uniting will be because of and through ISIS, not any implausible and improbable unified defense mounted against it.
Posted by: Cold N. Holefield | Jun 29 2014 18:03 utc | 4
How ironic, now Russia is supplying Sukhoi-25 jets to the Iraqis, so one way of the other, the US is at war with Russia via its proxy ISIS/ISIL.
Posted by: William Bowles | Jun 29 2014 18:10 utc | 5
Arab countries will never unite until they get rid of of their Western puppet ruling elites any more than we will never give up waging war on the planet unless we get rid of our elites.
Posted by: William Bowles | Jun 29 2014 18:15 utc | 6
When Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi walked away from a U.S. detention camp in 2009, the future leader of ISIS said See you in New York. And now we have a propaganda video w/ a white baby. OBL's wet dream.
Posted by: TikTok | Jun 29 2014 18:17 utc | 7
I tell you something, this entire ISIS/ISIL thing is a fiction designed to turn the screws on our domestic populations with all this talk 'returning jihadis'. Yet more repression. I see the EU has set up a Europe-wide police force called “European Gendarmerie Force” (EUROGENDFOR), it's remit is so wide and vague as to be used under whatever circumstances the elites decide.
Posted by: William Bowles | Jun 29 2014 18:28 utc | 8
Hmmm.
Aren't we forgetting something, like Izzat Ibrahim Al-Douri?
What do you think Al-Douri's going to say about this caliphate?
I'm pretty sure he's not going to want to give back the land he just took to please some fundamentalist nutjob with a deathwish.
Just a thought....
Posted by: plantman | Jun 29 2014 18:47 utc | 9
@2:
The converse to "Don't believe anything until its been officially denied" is "disbelieve anything that has now been officially confirmed."
Of course the operative phrase is "new, more inclusive Iraqi government," ie., regime change v. 2.0.
Posted by: test | Jun 29 2014 18:52 utc | 10
Posted by: plantman | Jun 29, 2014 2:47:09 PM | 9
Posted by: test | Jun 29, 2014 2:52:15 PM | 10
Regardless of al-Douri’s fate, this month's uprising puts JRTN in a considerably stronger position. It may be that the Baath can achieve a partial, qualified return to power—perhaps with a deal between the federal government and JRTN-led Sunni Arab military councils over the formation of one or more federal regions in Sunni Arab Iraq, each with its own constitution and parliament, akin to the Kurdistan Regional Government.
It would be the oil industry, Kurdish independence, Israeli plan.
Personally, I don't think it is going to work out that way. I am not even sure if that is al Douri's plan. Let's see.
Posted by: somebody | Jun 29 2014 19:05 utc | 11
some US military official admitted al-Baghdadi was a psyops/never existed operation a few years ago. it was in the msm. i'll look for it.
Posted by: annie | Jun 29 2014 19:14 utc | 12
If the new Caliphate sticks then the war will eventually move to Europe. The proud returning victorious Jihadis will not accept their second-class status in Europe and will want to grab sovereignty first over their Banlieues and then, in the weaker countries like Sweden, the entire government.
What will be interesting is when the European Bourgeoisie finally understand the threat, they will beg their native working classes to man-up and fight the insurgents. Seeing how badly treated the native working classes are in Europe, I won't be surprised if many of the working class men switch sides and join up with the Jihadis in order to annihilate the effete urban European elites.
Posted by: EuroNero | Jun 29 2014 19:30 utc | 13
Bowles, I agree with you. Every country in Europe is getting the same dose of 'returning jihadis', almost with every newscast. It's the most cynical propaganda campaign I've heard since Gulf of Tonkin. What could be the purpose of such blatant scare tactis other than tightening screws on domestic pop. Also, UK has identified a few to trot out in MSM, France 1, and 2 or 3 more scattered around N Europe. I'm beginning to suspect there's a big collapse coming of somekind that elites know is certain, but we don't. Climate? Peak Oil? World War? Something...
Posted by: okie farmer | Jun 29 2014 19:59 utc | 14
Bowles your link didn't work. Here it is:
http://www.eurogendfor.org/
Posted by: okie farmer | Jun 29 2014 20:12 utc | 15
'Arab countries will never unite until they get rid of of their Western puppet ruling elites..."
The social foundations of those elites, in Jordan, the Gulf, and the three peninsula states (Saudi, Yemen and Oman) is very insubstantial. Not only are the regimes notoriously corrupt and oriented to looting public resources but there are large populations of migrant labour, with all the classic attributes of a population ready to explode.
On the other hand there has been no indication that the forces making up ISIS are capable of evoking any enthusiasm from the masses, either. In fact, as Syria has demonstrated, their mode of rule is so thuggish and bigoted that it is almost calculated to drive people into rallying around regimes which are, otherwise, despised.
Curiously enough, ISIS seems to conform fairly closely to the model of the fascist "movements" of the 1920s. Though it poses as a mass movement, it is nothing of the sort; an agglomeration of mercenaries, declasse foreigners, lumpen and criminal elements and outcast victims of European racism. Their language is force, their hope is to impose their rule through terror, and their strength lies entirely in the corruption and ineffectiveness of the states in which they operate.
In Syria they rely heavily on the support, if only passive, of the imperialists and their puppets (Erdogan, King Playstation, the Emirs and the Saud family), in Iraq they seem to exist on the sufferance of local Sunni clans and the ex-Baathists. It is an indication of the weakness of their position that they strike no fear into their allies, just as, I suspect, they do not frighten the imperialists either.
And perhaps that is the subtle calculation underlying the US's constant repetition of the (apparently foolish) tactic of forming armies of Sunni fanatics, subsidised by the Gulf kleptocracy, despite their propensity to run out of control: Washington and Bandar understand that none of these "jihads" can exist without their support.
It doesn't matter when the likes of bin Laden, for example "go rogue" because their politics makes them impotent. They have no appeal to the masses, least of all to youth.
We have had much talk of "blowback" but to what has it amounted? Even supposing that 9/11, and the various bombings were actually (and many here would doubt it) carried out by out-of-control mujahideen, what do they amount to compared with the orgies of blood and radioactive explosives that they have enabled the "west" to organise.
Orgies which themselves are mainly useful as means of imposing authoritarian regimes in the de-industrialising west, from whose populations nary a peep in resistance has been detected despite the rapid, radical and reactionary re-ordering of their societies.
And that, in the US and EU, is where the action is.
It is all about their domestic politics at a time of deep, though systematically denied, crisis. The sad truth is that the imperial periphery is still just that-peripheral and that the metropolis has no fear of what happens there. Whether Mubarak, Morsi, Sisi or the Pharaoh rules Egypt is of no interest to Washington.
The only thing that the imperialists do fear is the entrance of the masses onto the political stage, for the masses are the only power that can overturn their system. And ISIS do not represent any large populations, nor will significant numbers ever rally to their banners or fight with them. And that is why, despite their fragility, none of the hereditary houses of cards in the Gulf is panicking as the Caliph Baghdadi and his forces approach their lands.
They could be wrong. If they are taking US advice the odds are that will be wrong, on the other hand their bags are always packed and their plunder is safely stowed away in London.
Posted by: bevin | Jun 29 2014 20:12 utc | 16
This is their mission satement:
EUROGENDFOR Missions
EUROGENDFOR’s first participation in a crisis management operation took place inside the European Union mission EUFOR "ALTHEA" in 2007 in Bosnia-Herzegovina. This first operational contribution was followed, in 2009, by a EUROGENDFOR participation in the International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) mission in Afghanistan. During 2010 EUROGENDFOR provided support to the United Nations Mission in Haiti (MINUSTAH) after the devastating earthquake that shook the Haitian Republic.
Posted by: okie farmer | Jun 29 2014 20:15 utc | 17
Israeli PM Netanyahu endorses Kurdish independence
http://rt.com/news/169252-netanyahu-kurds-independence-iraq/
Posted by: Anonymous | Jun 29 2014 20:30 utc | 18
re 7. And now we have a propaganda video w/ a white baby. OBL's wet dream.
Definite fake, that baby video. The clothes are wrong.
Posted by: Alexno | Jun 29 2014 20:33 utc | 19
The announced CaliFATE is a fictional production that is as slick as any Hollywood production. ISIS is a putup job. And as bevin writes, it is a classic fascist cadre. I read today in RT that Netanyahu has sort of jumped the gun, declaring that the Kurdish state is already a de facto reality, and that Iraq has thus come unraveled as a state. Perhaps the Israeli PM speaks prematurely because his team has had some hand in this farce.
"So will we now see, now confronted with a new common enemy, a real united response of all Middle East countries against this new danger?"
You mean a real united response like in all western countries against this new danger? Whooohooo - the militants are back! AlQaeda, AlNusra, AlCapone.
The new common enemy is the old common enemy, and it's not "the islamic state".
Posted by: slirs | Jun 29 2014 20:38 utc | 21
Totally agree w/ Bowles et al that this a slick hollywood production... and yes, Bibi jumped the gun...
gotta wonder about those cruci/fictions... who does those?
Is this new 'terra terra' what Cheney was alluding to?
Posted by: crone | Jun 29 2014 20:51 utc | 22
That's a great news! ISIS is no more made of loose guerillas roaming in the Arab desert, they now settled in a fixed entity with oil resources.
They will soon become the magnet for all the world jihadists, who want to participate in the creation of this wonderful Sharialand ruled by "pure" Sharia. Plans to expand and take over all the oil fields in the region are been worked out.
How naive and stupid!
When they will be gathered with enough jihadists, they will be bombed to total annihilation by all the Sunnis countries terrified by this monster that they created and fed. Iran and Shias don't even need to intervene.
This caliphate may turn out to be a trap where we will probably see the end of the Sunni jihadism.
Posted by: Virgile | Jun 29 2014 22:13 utc | 23
I'm beginning to suspect there's a big collapse coming of somekind that elites know is certain, but we don't. Climate? Peak Oil? World War? Something...Posted by: okie farmer | Jun 29, 2014 3:59:50 PM | 14
The collapse of the US dollar, perhaps?
Posted by: john francis lee | Jun 29 2014 22:54 utc | 24
Like I said from the fucking beginning, this ISIS horseshit is US/Zionist intelligence led retarded nonsense. Ooga booga.
Isn't it exciting knowing that some more - possibly many more - innocent people will be killed by these murderous fucks during the NEXT false flag attack?
Just remember, kids, it's incompetence all the way up and down the line especially if one of your loved ones is on the kill - oops, I meant "accident" - list.
Fucking scum.
Posted by: JSorrentine | Jun 29 2014 23:39 utc | 25
'Therefore, the shūrā (consultation) council of the Islamic State studied this matter after the Islamic State – by Allah’s grace – gained the essentials necessary for khilāfah, which the Muslims are sinful for if they do not try to establish'
so its a sin NOT to esstablishna caliphate, and its no sin to kill people top establish it...what a wretched religion
theres pretty sure their god allah has graced their wretched caliphate!
Posted by: brian | Jun 29 2014 23:53 utc | 26
Posted by: Cold N. Holefield | Jun 29, 2014 2:03:20 PM | 4
someone tell mr hole-in-the-head the shitty little country is propped up by US taxpayers
Posted by: brian | Jun 29 2014 23:57 utc | 27
is anyone able to provide a specific time and place of the declaration announcement? thanks in advance for any assistance.
Posted by: james | Jun 30 2014 0:43 utc | 28
WBowles @ 6 & 8: Yep!
New Caliphate huh? BFD! More horseshit for public consumption.
Posted by: ben | Jun 30 2014 1:01 utc | 29
@brian #26:
what a wretched religion
I don't believe that Islam is a religion worthy of admiration, but to be fair, what we are talking about here is a specific branch of it, namely Wahhabism.
Some branches of Christianity are wretched as well (even if they are heretical and so not Christian in the strict sense of the word), namely Christian fundamentalism. Roman Catholicism, with its forced conversion of Protestants and Orthodox, and oppression of women, is pretty wretched as well.
Ultimately the nearby populace can overrun the oilfield, therefore what is the opinion of the Caliphate to the current dispensation of the hydrocarbon reserves? Bottleneck them?
Posted by: jay m | Jun 30 2014 1:22 utc | 31
This Caliphate thing is not 'just' a name change. It's a change in ideology. The appeal is no long religious but nationalism. A genuine historic and glorious arab nationalism. Not nationalism based on artificially created French and English post WW I nation states. If this takes hold, and clearly there is evidence that it has, then the creation of a Caliphate ideology is a game changer. A bunch of rag-tag fighters driving around in pickup trucks could not possible take control of and hold the mass of geography that it now has if there was not serious popular support in that area for an Arab Caliphate. Sunni is Arabic Islam, Shia Persian. Anthropologist circa 1900 described the Persian character of Shia southern Iraq (read 9th and 11th ed. of Britannica). What has been called a religious war of Sunni vs. Shia is in fact an ethnic war of Arab vs Persian. This is now evolving into a national war of Arabs vs the Persians (i.e. Iran and southern Iraq) and allies of Euro-Americans.
Posted by: TomV | Jun 30 2014 2:23 utc | 32
The only way a Calipahte can come to be is with American help. The era of the secular strongman is apparently over. Remember the Neocons always spouted the fear of an Islamic Caliphate spear-headed by Al-Qaeda, threatening Israel.
What a mess...largely seems like the Empire's planners just throw a lot of contradictory and often ludicrous bullshit against the wall to see what sticks and what falls off.
Posted by: Prey4Justice | Jun 30 2014 3:52 utc | 33
@33 agree with you...
Neocons are engaging in psychological terror with their creation of ISIS...
Posted by: crone | Jun 30 2014 4:12 utc | 34
Israel's jailhouse bitches establish a... [cough] Calipahte. Humanity is impressed. The human organ eaters have united with the human organ traffickers.
Great step forward for humankind, "exceptionals".
Posted by: scalawag | Jun 30 2014 6:03 utc | 35
Israeli PM Netanyahu endorses Kurdish independence
Have a close look at the Barzani (Barazani, the proper Jewish name), trace their Jewish, Mossad roots. The old Khazar empire emcompassed large areas of modern day Kurdistan, read about Asenath Barazani, everything will start to fall in place.
Posted by: papa | Jun 30 2014 7:25 utc | 36
Now it's clear: FB makes an emperiment, on juicy behalf of two universities probably funded themselves through the Pentagon-Minerva program, and manipulates 700,000 users "through their news feed"
http://www.bbc.com/news/technology-28051930
Posted by: Mina | Jun 30 2014 7:34 utc | 37
35/36 irony - great analysis - /irony
The 40 units outside Peshmerga Ministry control are evenly split between the Kurdistan region’s two biggest parties – the KDP and the PUK. The KDP is the region’s most powerful party and its top leaders, such as KRG president Masoud Barzani, have few ties to Baghdad. They are more interested in a completely independent Kurdistan separate from Iraq. The PUK and its leaders, by comparison, have historically been more interested in a federalist system in Iraq. Some of their top leaders, such as the current Iraqi president Jalal Talabani, have closer ties with Baghdad and many of them spent time or studied there. Today, the KDP has fostered close ties with Turkey while the PUK has better relations with Iran. Iraq’s three provinces that officially make up the autonomous Kurdistan region are commonly referred to as the “yellow” or “green” zones that denote the region’s division into two spheres of political control. The KDP controls the yellow zone, or the western part of the region that stretches toward the Syrian border, while the eastern part of the region is the green zone of PUK dominance, toward the Iranian border. The KDP and PUK fought a civil war over power in the 1990s but have a power-sharing agreement today. Nonetheless, the regions remain distinctly divided and deep bitterness remains between all but the top leaders.
Turkish and Iranian influence on Kurdish politics
Posted by: somebody | Jun 30 2014 7:46 utc | 38
jfl@24
You could be right, they're global players trying to get rid of the petro-dollar system. But it could be something like wsws posted today:
Another global financial crisis in the making, Bank for International Settlements warns
By Nick Beams
30 June 2014
The Swiss-based Bank for International Settlements has stated that the current policies of central banks and monetary authorities could lead to another financial crisis, potentially bigger than that of 2008.
last paragraphs:
The BIS report is the latest in a series of warnings that the present financial boom is sowing the seeds for another crisis. It has a significant degree of credibility because the bank was one of the few official bodies that pointed to the unsustainable financial conditions leading up to the crisis of 2007–2008.But the BIS, as with all the other economic authorities in the global capitalist economy, has no policies that can bring about a return to what were once considered “normal” patterns of economic growth.
Its central criticism of the easy money policies of the Fed and other central banks is that they have diverted attention from what it insists are necessary “structural reforms,” especially in labour markets. In other words, what is needed to pump life-blood back into the sclerotic arteries of the global capitalist system is an intensification of the offensive against the working class that began after 2008.
Posted by: okie farmer | Jun 30 2014 8:38 utc | 39
And kurds wonder why they have no state, working with Israel.
Not surprising, many kurds have the same racist views as zionists towards arabs/muslims.
Posted by: Anonymous | Jun 30 2014 8:43 utc | 40
Posted by: Anonymous | Jun 30, 2014 4:43:33 AM | 40
Labels don't explain much. Kurds face as much Turkish and Arab racism as is possible vise versa. Kurdish languages are Iranian but "are not mutually intelligible without acquired bilingualism".
That is not much to base identity on.
Posted by: somebody | Jun 30 2014 9:06 utc | 41
good article by Bill Van Auken:
Who is responsible for the catastrophes in the Middle East?
30 June 2014
“The United States of America is not responsible for what happened in Libya, nor is it responsible for what is happening in Iraq today,” Secretary of State John Kerry declared at a Cairo news conference held in the midst of his recent crisis tour of the Middle East.As Kerry spoke, the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) and a growing Sunni insurgency were consolidating their grip over the north and west of Iraq, including the country’s borders with Syria and Jordan. Upwards of a million Iraqis had been displaced by the fighting, and thousands had been killed in the mounting sectarian slaughter.
Libya is in a state of complete collapse, with continuous fighting between rival militias, a government that exists in name only, oil production down by at least 80 percent, and over a million people forced to flee the country’s violence. Many thousands are incarcerated in a network of prisons run by armed groups that practice systematic torture.
Kerry’s statement merely made official the steady drumbeat from the political establishment and the media since the situation in Iraq turned into a complete debacle: “The US bears no responsibility.”
Typical was the commentary by New York Times columnist Nicholas Kristof, a “human rights” imperialist who was a vocal proponent of the US invasion of Iraq in 2003. He wrote: “The debacle in Iraq isn’t President Obama’s fault. It’s not the Republicans’ fault… overwhelmingly, it’s the fault of the Iraqi prime minister, Nuri Kamal al-Maliki.”
Maliki, the stooge put in power and kept there by the US occupation, is made the fall guy.
Thomas Friedman, the Times’ foreign affairs columnist, wrote Sunday that Maliki is an “arsonist,” who, “the minute America left Iraq,” deliberately unleashed mayhem. This is the same Friedman who in 2003 declared that the US invaded Iraq “because we could,” spoke proudly of US troops going house-to-house and ordering Iraqis to “suck on this,” and declared that he had “no problem with a war for oil.”
Listening to the chorus of statements insisting that the US has no responsibility for the deepening tragedy inflicted upon the people of Iraq and Libya, one is reminded of nothing so much as the Nazi war criminals at Nuremberg, from Hermann Göring on down, rising one-by-one in the dock to declare themselves “not guilty.”
What are the crimes for which Kerry and so many others in the ruling establishment insist Washington bears no responsibility?
The description that they used for their own actions at the time was “shock and awe,” the unleashing of colossal destructive force upon a society already shattered by a decade of sadistic US sanctions. Killing hundreds of thousands of people and turning millions into refugees, the US war and occupation destroyed every institution of Iraqi society, while Washington deliberately fomented sectarian divisions as a means of overcoming Iraqi nationalism. The country’s deposed ruler, Saddam Hussein, was tried by a drumhead court and unceremoniously executed.
All of this was justified with warnings about the imminent threat from “weapons of mass destruction” and ties between Baghdad and Al Qaeda. As the whole world now knows, it was all lies.
There were no WMDs and there was no Al Qaeda in Iraq until US imperialism overthrew the country’s government and tore its social fabric to pieces. In fact, there was no Al Qaeda at all before Washington set about inciting a bloody war by right-wing Islamists in Afghanistan in the 1980s.
In Libya and now in Syria, the Obama administration abandoned the “war on terrorism” pretext for an equally cynical and fraudulent justification for regime-change: “human rights.” In Libya, the US and NATO heavily bombed the country while organizing and arming Islamist-led militias in a sectarian war that destroyed all of the existing governmental and social structures. As in Iraq, it ended its war with the brutal murder of the country’s secular leader, Muammar Gaddafi.
Washington is carrying out a similar war for regime-change in Syria, backing Sunni Islamist and sectarian militias that are led by ISIS, the same force that has overrun much of Iraq. The US hopes to end this war with the assassination of a third secular Arab head of state, Bashar al-Assad.
Just last week, Obama proposed to funnel $500 million in arms to the Syrian “rebels”—weapons that everyone knows will end up in the hands of ISIS, which the US is supposedly committed to defeating in Iraq.
As the contradictions and deceptions of Washington’s policy become ever more glaring, US officials simply act as though the American people won’t notice, or will believe anything. Or, for that matter, they won’t see that $500 million can be conjured up instantly to pay for a criminal war, while working people are being told “there is no money” for health care, education, housing or jobs.
The destruction that the US oligarchs have wrought in the Middle East, with all of its terrible human consequences, is the external manifestation of their destructive role within the US itself—smashing up the country’s manufacturing base, turning its economy into a gambling casino for financial parasites, destroying the jobs and living standards of millions of people. With no answers to the growing crisis at home, they turn to violence abroad, only compounding the catastrophes they have created overseas.
The “not responsibles” and “not guilties” from Kerry, Kristof, Friedman and the other advocates and apologists for American military aggression won’t wash. US imperialism is responsible for terrible crimes against humanity.
Yet no one has been held accountable. Not those in Washington—Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld, Rice, Powell, et al.—who conspired to wage a war of aggression; not those in the current administration, from Obama on down, who conspired to shield their predecessors and continue the same predatory policies; not the military brass who carried out the war; not the private contractors who enriched themselves off of it; not the lying media that helped foist the war onto the American public; not the cowardly and conformist academics who justified and went along with it.
Together, they are responsible for the catastrophes that have been inflicted upon the peoples of Iraq, Libya and Syria.
Bill Van Auken
Posted by: okie farmer | Jun 30 2014 9:07 utc | 42
somebody
I have heardly ever heard a muslim, arab having clearly racists views as many kurds have about muslims, arabs. Have you really heard that?
Posted by: Anonymous | Jun 30 2014 9:35 utc | 43
Posted by: Anonymous | Jun 30, 2014 5:35:46 AM | 43
Look, I don't know anything much about Iraq, Iran, Turkey or Kurdistan apart from talking to a few people. But the mechanism is always the same, and it is always the minority that has the problem.
So all I had to do was to google "Arab Kurdish jokes"
Lots of them will be "traveling jokes" ie. used by other majorities on other minorities.
Posted by: somebody | Jun 30 2014 9:55 utc | 44
somebody
Being racist have nothing to do with minority has it? Are israelis the minority for example? No.
Posted by: Anonymous | Jun 30 2014 11:24 utc | 45
Posted by: Anonymous | Jun 30, 2014 7:24:10 AM | 45
:-)) Which "Israelis" do you mean? Jewish European Israelis? Jewish Arab Israelis? Palestinian Israelis? Russian Israelis?
You seem to have misunderstood though, the majority tends to be racist against the minority - people are cowards and it is a safe thing to do. It is not the minority which is racist against the majority - people are not stupid.
Posted by: somebody | Jun 30 2014 11:35 utc | 46
Posted by: somebody | Jun 30, 2014 7:35:23 AM | 46
So how do you explain South African Apartheid? Whites are approx. 5% of the population.
Posted by: William Bowles | Jun 30 2014 12:07 utc | 47
somebody
Israelis is of course people living in israel. ARe the jews inside israel a minority? No.
Posted by: Anonymous | Jun 30 2014 12:09 utc | 48
Posted by: Anonymous | Jun 30, 2014 8:09:42 AM | 48
You confirm what I say. Racism is directed towards a minority not a majority. That's why there is this urge to draw borders in a way people don't feel they are the minority.
Posted by: somebody | Jun 30 2014 12:14 utc | 49
Posted by: William Bowles | Jun 30, 2014 8:07:44 AM | 47
That's exactly the reason for apartheid - Whites trying not to be the minority.
Posted by: somebody | Jun 30 2014 12:16 utc | 50
The magnet in the region for terrorists is not Bashar al Assad by the rich and powerful Sharialand, the new Mecca for Sunnis.
Last week, beleaguered fighters from the Al-Qaeda-affiliated Al-Nusra Front, which has previously fought ISIS in opposition-held territory in northern and eastern Syria, defected and joined ISIS in Al-Bukamal, effectively handing over the border town to the powerful group, which controls the Iraqi side of the crossing. http://www.aawsat.net/2014/06/article55333807
Posted by: Virgile | Jun 30 2014 13:17 utc | 51
somebody
Well if israelis are the majority how do you explain the racism? That was atleast my point.
Posted by: Anonymous | Jun 30 2014 13:35 utc | 52
Israelis are still a minority. Some 4.5 vs. 3.5 Mio approximately, that is not a serious "minority" there like in SA though.
And of course, if they would introduce "equality" for Arabs in Israel, Jews would instantly become a (probably oppressed?) minority.
Posted by: T2015 | Jun 30 2014 13:38 utc | 53
We cannot help but recall what President Assad said back in April during a meeting with former Russian Prime Minister Sergei Stepashin:
‘This year the active phase of military action in Syria will be ended. After that we will have to shift to what we have been doing all the time – fighting terrorists’
Everyone laughed at him, even his die-hard supporters. Nobody is laughing now.
Iraq: “The nail in the coffin” of the Syrian Revolution
Posted by: Sajid | Jun 30 2014 13:39 utc | 54
Well,as this caliphate is based on historical conquests of Asia and Africa in the 8th? century,it worries me not at all,as an American we aint in it,but those Israelis now,they sit at the epicenter,and this hostility towards them is ten fold over what they faced in 48,so look out overweening idiots,who have made that bed of hatred and hegemony.
And Obombas support of ISIS has been (or at least attempted)kept on the down low here in America,wait till the public actually add up the facts.(hopefully)
Posted by: dahoit | Jun 30 2014 13:40 utc | 55
Posted by: Anonymous | Jun 30, 2014 9:35:25 AM | 52
Can you read? It is always the majority that is racist, never the minority who cannot afford to.
Does your brain hurt? Good, you need exercise.
Posted by: somebody | Jun 30 2014 14:09 utc | 56
T2015, you fucked up this thread. When you see your link is excessive, either tinyurl it or make a reference to where it can be found but don't "Post" after you've seen its excessive length.
Posted by: okie farmer | Jun 30 2014 14:19 utc | 57
somebody
...and why then did you reject that kurds and zionists often have racist views? ARe kurds a majority too perhaps according to you?
As I tried to say before, racism has nothing to do with majority/minority.
Posted by: Anonymous | Jun 30 2014 14:35 utc | 58
Posted by: Anonymous | Jun 30, 2014 10:35:57 AM | 58
Kurdish people are a minority in Turkey, in Syria, in Iraq and Iran. As we are talking ethnicity here, Arabs are the majority.
So there are racist Arab jokes on Kurds on the internet but not racist Kurdish jokes on Arabs.
You simply cannot afford to be racist when you are in the minority. Wrap your brain around it.
Posted by: somebody | Jun 30 2014 14:55 utc | 59
somebody
If you cannot accept that kurds and zionists could be racists you dont know much about this world.
Posted by: Anonymous | Jun 30 2014 14:58 utc | 60
Virtually every single person is racist at some level. What a minority group member cannot do, which a majority member can do, is ACT affectively upon their racist feelings.
Posted by: Define your terms | Jun 30 2014 15:22 utc | 61
Posted by: Define your terms | Jun 30, 2014 11:22:10 AM | 61
Correct.
Latest casuality in Iraq - ethnic jokes
Posted by: somebody | Jun 30 2014 15:43 utc | 62
Define your terms
More nonsense, what about hatecrime jews/arabs in europe for example?
Posted by: Anonymous | Jun 30 2014 15:56 utc | 63
Pick a spot, add the word 'usually', and try to understand my meaning.
Posted by: Define your terms | Jun 30 2014 16:03 utc | 64
Define your terms
Or you can just respond to my simple question?
Posted by: Anonymous | Jun 30 2014 16:35 utc | 65
Tiny keypad, not worth effort of nuanced explanation, especially if your intent is to dismiss rather than understand.
Posted by: Define your terms | Jun 30 2014 16:59 utc | 66
Clearly, as South Africa illustrates (and Israel for that matter), racism is NOT a product either of minorities or majorities but instead, racism is an ideology! An ideology deeply rooted in European, colonial conquest and first based on a spurious, Christian versus 'pagan' dichotomy, with 'pagans/heathens' eventually dehumanized, less than human, largely to justify stealing their lands and peoples as they were not Christians and hence 'less than human' and not bound by 'our laws'.
But how you guys can go at it tooth and nail over minority versus majority is beyond me.
Posted by: William Bowles | Jun 30 2014 17:17 utc | 67
"A vain Emperor who cares about nothing except wearing and displaying clothes hires two swindlers who promise him the finest, best suit of clothes from a fabric invisible to anyone who is unfit for his position or "hopelessly stupid"..[at last] a child blurts out that the Emperor is wearing nothing at all and the cry is taken up by others. The Emperor cringes, suspecting the assertion is true, but continues the procession." -- from Wikipedia
Ah yes - The Emperor's New Clothes.
But consider a comparison: that while the sycophants of NATO are a pack of whining dogs, always grateful for a bone from Obama or whoever; by contrast the dictators of the Middle Eastern have learned the art of handling Uncle Sam - merely refrain from pointing out that the Emperor has no clothes! And this is doubly apt, since according to the article just referred to, the earliest traceable source of this Hans Christian Andersen tale is a medieval Spanish compilation "drawn from various sources, such as Aesop and other classical writers, and Arabic folktale".
Posted by: rackstraw | Jun 30 2014 17:18 utc | 68
@67 I doubt if the Neanderthal and Cro-Magnon folk used those terms. Probably more of a fight over dead mastodons.
Posted by: dh | Jun 30 2014 17:22 utc | 69
PS: May I recommend a book to you good folks called 'Black Athena'(sub-titled 'The Afro-Asiatic Roots of Classical Civilisation) by Martin Bernal (Rutgers University Press) which deals at length with the role of racism in European history and the rise of colonialism/imperialism.
Just how powerful the book is was illustrated by the fact that no Brit publisher would touch it!
Posted by: William Bowles | Jun 30 2014 17:23 utc | 70
"You simply cannot afford to be racist when you are in the minority"
WRONG!
All over Europe muslims immigrants ARE racists and they are (still..) a minority.
Posted by: Anonymous | Jun 30 2014 17:26 utc | 71
These guys declare an Islamic state in any dusty alley they control. It's not a real change, they just feel empowered because they control chunks of two states. They're feeling rowdy and boastful. Recent history has shown that it's pretty easy to win as a fundamentalist insurgency supported by Saudi. It's much harder to survive as an Islamic demi state. Chechen republic of Ichkeria and Taliban Afghanistan for example.
Posted by: Crest | Jun 30 2014 17:27 utc | 72
Missing teenagers bodies found in Hebron.
Here we go! Time for the apartheid genocidal Israelis to level the rest of the West Bank.
Posted by: JSorrentine | Jun 30 2014 17:28 utc | 73
Sajid@54
Thanks for the link. Another quote “Forget that Iran is the enemy – its services are now essential for the security of the Middle East and western world.”
All the millions of young Sunni Muslims, once with no hope for the future with their religion under drone attack, now have a purpose; to do God’s will and bring the Caliphate home.
The frightening thing is that the Robber Elite, President Barrack Obama and Senator John McCain do not get this. They will refuse to find a peaceful settlement to ongoing Sunni Shiite Jihad. The oil flow out of the Persian Gulf will shut off; the global economic system will collapse.
Another example of shortsightedness; the USA has appointed John Tefft to be its new Ambassador to Russia. He was American Ambassador in 2008 to Georgia when they decided to start a war with Russia and then the US Ambassador to Ukraine from 2009 till last year during the lead up to the current civil war. He is not the man you to appoint to this job if you want to find a peaceful resolution of the Western attempt to destabilize Russia.
http://voiceofrussia.com/2014_06_30/US-strategy-for-Russia-new-ambassador-old-war-5193/
Posted by: VietnamVet | Jun 30 2014 17:33 utc | 75
Just to note, there are many people using the "Anonymous" nick, #71 is a duplicate.
Posted by: Anonymous | Jun 30 2014 17:36 utc | 76
dh
Real in the sense that I use the nick in 9 of 10 cases here past 6 months or so yes.
Posted by: Anonymous | Jun 30 2014 18:11 utc | 78
Posted by: William Bowles | Jun 30, 2014 1:17:57 PM | 67
Sure. And you can afford this ideology of superiority and inferiority
when your "race" is the norm and not the exception.
When you begin this game, as happened in Yugoslavia and now in the Middle East,
once it is started, you will have everybody rushing to find a majority identity,
for fear of getting thrown under the bus.
You have a choice of tribe, religion or ethnicity.
You will also have to find geographical space and economic viability,
oil well or smuggling route.
Posted by: somebody | Jun 30 2014 18:27 utc | 79
Posted by: Anonymous | Jun 30, 2014 1:26:00 PM | 71
Last time I checked Muslim was a religion not a race.
Posted by: somebody | Jun 30 2014 18:31 utc | 80
Posted by: somebody | Jun 30, 2014 2:31:20 PM | 80
Thank you Somebody!
Posted by: William Bowles | Jun 30 2014 19:11 utc | 81
somebody
While I didnt write that comment (71), there are just one human race. So of course you can be racist against muslims.
Posted by: Anonymous | Jun 30 2014 19:48 utc | 82
is being jewish a religion or a race? obvious question..
Posted by: james | Jun 30 2014 19:56 utc | 83
Posted by: james | Jun 30, 2014 3:56:44 PM | 83
The answer to that question depends on if you are a Nazi or not.
Posted by: somebody | Jun 30 2014 19:58 utc | 84
@84
Then zionists like yourself are nazi, according to your own reasoning (such as it is)
Because you zionists believe judaism is both a religion AND a race
Posted by: lol | Jul 1 2014 6:32 utc | 86
Posted by: lol | Jul 1, 2014 2:32:38 AM | 86
That is complex and contradictory.
Zionists think that there is a Jewish nation defined by common culture.
It is not the same as Israeli citizenship. It is not the same as religion.
And it is very different from what Nazis considered race.
You cannot change your race. However you can convert. And you can get citizenship.
Nazi racism is based on Darwinism,
Mendelian inheritance and
the breeding of a superior race. The way farmers breed animals.
You can blame Zionists being ultra-nationalist chauvinist, their ideology is not racist.
There are all kinds of politics and identities in Israel.
None of us can chose parents or place where we are born.
Posted by: somebody | Jul 1 2014 7:04 utc | 87
somebody
their ideology is not racist.
So a state for only jews in arab palestinian land is not racist? What did Hitler tried to do if not the the same type of thing?
Posted by: Anonymous | Jul 1 2014 8:14 utc | 88
No somebody, nazism is based on idiotism, on having enough frustrated idiots who believe the nonsense. Usually they have a small di*k too, which is why the compensation is required.
Posted by: T2015 | Jul 1 2014 8:15 utc | 89
Posted by: T2015 | Jul 1, 2014 4:15:15 AM | 89
Your knowledge of history, let alone the Nazis, is sorely lacking. Idiotism? Why waste people's time with your idiotism?
Posted by: William Bowles | Jul 1 2014 10:48 utc | 90
Thank god you are here Willy, with all the undisputable knowledge and truth you gave us and your HUGE experience with nazis.
And thanks for contributing such sound arguments to support your OPINION.
Posted by: T2015 | Jul 1 2014 11:03 utc | 91
Posted by: T2015 | Jul 1, 2014 7:03:13 AM | 91
I'm assuming you've directed your comment to me. So, you require a more thorough-going breakdown of the Nazis?
Ok, The German Nazi Party was formed in the aftermath of WWI in response not only to impoverishment of Germany following the Versailles Treaty but to the rise of socialism in Germany. In effect, Nazism was the last gasp of German capitalism that could no longer ensure its rule through 'democracy', thus showing that any capitalist country can become Fascist if the rule of capital is threatened (eg the establishment of police states in the UK and the US, surely the first step toward out-and-out fascist states).
Thus, you way well consider it idiotic but Krupps, Thyssen, Volkswagon, Bayer, not to mention the US corps that backed Hitler inc. Ford, General Motors et al, didn't. They backed the Nazis because it ensured the survival of capitalism.
Posted by: William Bowles | Jul 1 2014 16:06 utc | 92
thanks lol and somebody.
somebody - it sounds as though you are trying to articulate what zionism is and how it differs from racism.. zionism is a political ideology as i understand it.. zionism had as a political goal the ambition of wanting to have a specific geographical area for the jewish faith as a country - israel - all as i understand it too.. how many countries in the world today treat those who aren't a part of the selected religion as 2nd class citizens while also stealing land that belongs to these same people who have been displaced by this same political ideology? serious question.
Posted by: james | Jul 1 2014 19:50 utc | 93
Posted by: TomV | Jun 29, 2014 10:23:06 PM | 32
before you get too enthusiastic...the sunni shia divide serves a certain entitys geolpolitical ambitions, and its using its back channels to kick start the regional war
the caliphate however is still religious as nagture not so much nationalistci as see how the city of Raqqa has been set up along sunni fundamentalist lines
Posted by: brian | Jul 1 2014 22:39 utc | 94
@39
The BIS issued no such report:
http://www.bis.org/speeches/sp140629.htm
General Manager's speech: Stepping out of the shadow of the crisis: three transitions for the world economy
Speech delivered by Mr Jaime Caruana, General Manager of the BIS, on the occasion of the Bank's Annual General Meeting, Basel, 29 June 2014.
Seven years on, the Great Financial Crisis still casts this long shadow on the world economy. The good news is that the global economy is healing and global growth has picked up during the past year. Reforms have taken hold, if unevenly. The recovery in the advanced economies has broadened. The euro area has eventually emerged from recession, while the slowdown in emerging market economies (EMEs) seems to have abated. The consensus expectation is for global growth to gradually return to pre-crisis rates (Graph 1).
I suggest the USA and the West fund Al Qaeda to fight ISIS....
Posted by: virgile | Jul 2 2014 12:41 utc | 96
The comments to this entry are closed.
Amazing but that is what blowback is about. The masters have lost control of their puppet surprise surprise.
Posted by: jo6pac | Jun 29 2014 17:21 utc | 1