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Interestingly, China took much affront to Madame Shrillary’s slander in Paris, apparently, just before her ‘surprise’ visit to Kabul…
Clinton ‘slander’ of China will not work, Beijing says
Chinese spokesman rejects America’s claim that the nation and Moscow have hindered resolution of crisis…
China yesterday rebuffed US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s accusation that Beijing and Moscow have hindered the resolution of the crisis in Syria, saying any attempt to “slander” China was doomed to fail…
Now, why is it that the UN head, Ban Ki Moon, is still pushing the ‘Annan Plan’, when Kofi, himself, is declaring it a ‘failure’…?
Looking inside Syria, the BBC…
‘Death or exchange’ fate of seized Syrian soldiers
…Amidst all the doubt and speculation that surrounds the violence in Syria, these “confessions” are part of opposition groups’ efforts at proving to the outside world that the government is behind the bloodshed.
But when the camera has stopped rolling, and the point is made, the captured are no longer of use. So what becomes of these men?
UK-based Syrian journalist Malik al-Abdeh told the BBC: “What do you think they do with them? They kill them. What else can they do?” {…}
Activists claim rebel groups only kill the detainee if he “has been heavily involved in killing civilians.”
But since the FSA holds the government responsible for massacres like those in Houla and Qubair, along with frequent brutal attacks around the country that may have left nearly 16,000 people dead, how many of the detained could have committed crimes that, in the eyes of the rebels, do not merit death?
Estimates of soldiers killed in the conflict range from 1,500 to nearly 5,000, but it is unclear whether these numbers include those facing rebel firing squads.
This local brand of rebel justice points to a new trend in insurgent operations, with an opposition instituting its own makeshift tribunals as it prepares for what could be a long, drawn-out war…
From Reuters…
Friend flees Assad as U.S. pressures Russia
…One of President Bashar al-Assad’s personal friends has defected and was headed for exile in France on Friday, as the Syrian crisis took on a Cold War tone when Washington threatened to make Russia and China “pay” for backing the government in Damascus. {…}
…As Clinton declared in Paris: “Let me say to the soldiers and officials still supporting the Assad regime – the Syrian people will remember the choices you make in the coming days.
“It is time to abandon the dictator, embrace your countrymen and women, and get on the right side of history.”
SECTARIAN STRAINS
As rare faces from Syria’s Sunni Muslim majority within a ruling clique dominated by Assad’s fellow Alawites, Tlas and his father Mustapha, who friends said left for Paris some months ago claiming medical problems, long furnished an answer to Syrians who complained of sectarian domination by Alawites. Their flight may show Assad is losing wider support among wealthier Sunnis.
It also suggests the Tlas clan, whatever moral scruples friends say were their prime motive for abandoning their friend and patron, has seen the writing on the wall for Assad’s rule…
…Abdel Baset Seda, the president of the opposition Syrian National Council, told a news conference in Paris that he was in contact with “several” high-ranking officials still inside the country and also hoped to speak with Tlas in the coming days.
“This shows that the very heart of the regime is starting to crumble. This is reminiscent of what happened in Libya toward the end, when there were defections every day,” he said, recalling the fall of Muammar Gaddafi last August…
Woo-hoo, Just think how much of a ‘smashing’ success Libya is… Ballots burn as most of Benghazi votes…!
Col. W. Pat Lang served up some interesting commentary on Tlas’s defection, today…
Tlas defection sets the stage…
…The father, Mustafa Tlas, was Minister of Defense for a very long time. If memory serves, he lived next door to the US Embassy in Damascus and was a good neighbor. He was a connaissaeur of fine Kurdish antique carpets. I visited his carpets once. He also liked good Scotch (his, not mine).
Contrary to ignorant expectation many of the Baathi elite in Syria are Sunni Muslims. This fellow has been a favored creature of the regime. He differed with the rest of the inner circle around Bashar in that he thought that an unwillingness to compromise with the secular left would lead to an onslaught of Jihadi Islamists. Maliki over in Iraq says his situation is now better because AQ in Iraq have left to fight in Syria for a Sunni Islamist state there. In that endeavor the AQ types have the active encouragement of the BHO Administration.
No matter. If the Government of Syria is swept away, there will be a need for a Sunni leader… pl
Btw, as most of the Western lame stream media is trumpeting…
Another shell hit the nearby village of Al Hisheh, they said, killing an 8-year-old boy and wounding his father and four children. (Reuters, quoting residents, reported that three other Lebanese civilians were killed in the shelling.)
The security officials spoke on the condition of anonymity because of police rules.
It should be noted that some good old gumshoe reporting soon proved it false…
…In Lebanon, a teenager died when a rocket hit her house in the border region of Wadi Khaled, a Lebanese security official told AFP, adding that five others were wounded by rockets and exchanges of gunfire.
“A few hours later, an eight-year-old Bedouin girl, who recently fled with her parents from Syria, was killed,” said a hospital source in Akkar province. “A military expert who visited the site said it was either a mine planted in the area or an explosive they were handling,” the security source said, after initially reporting that a shell had hit their tent.
A local official said clashes had broken out at dawn between the Syrian army and gunmen on the Lebanese side of the border…
The whole point of this entire sordid affair is to destabilize all the Secular/Shi’ite regimes, and replace them with a Sunni, Salafist/Wahabbist, and/or, any combination thereof…! Any coalition that would impose a strict Conservative view of Shari’a law…! Akin to what is happening in most of the Red States, right now…! Just like with the Texas School Board and even in the neighboring state, with Jindal’s school ‘vouchers’ crusade…!
Anyways, moving along to Iran, the ever-intrepid, Pepe Escobar, says it’s well past time for the real adults to step up to the plate…
…Let’s start sledgehammer style. Iran won’t crack. Iran won’t crack. Iran won’t crack.
No sledgehammer, though, is likely to perforate the limitless fog of delusion hovering over a US elite that a relentless propaganda campaign tries to sell as “the international community”.
See, for instance, this bland op-ed, where we discover that “the international community is now on watch for cracks in Iran’s defiant stance: Will increased sanctions compel Tehran to make real concessions and allow for a diplomatic solution to the standoff?”
Here’s your short answer: no. {…}
…The Obama administration has to make a real decision; it’s either the “roll over and die” school of diplomacy, or real negotiations. Treating Iran like a pariah will only lead to a blunder equaling the Bush administration’s – whose Shock and Awe ended up with a Baghdad closely aligned with Tehran (while the US didn’t even become “the new OPEC”, as savant warmonger Paul Wolfowitz would have it).
But this will pale compared to Iran, Russia and China trading energy in other currencies (as they are already doing); the beginning of the end of the petrodollar as the pillar of global energy politics, and thus of American hegemony. Time for the Iran cracking gang to go back to school.
Here’s a great primer that should be mandatory for all CIA, DoD, Foggy Bottom, and/or, other related personnel…!
Are there any ‘Big Boyz’(or Girlz!) left, capable of stepping up…?
*gah*
68 Comments
Killary Clinton’s face drips with vile.
Wonder if Libya will blow up in our face like Iraq ?Or will just become “move over , nothing to see here” like former Yugoslavia (there is hardly any talk about that these days).
The situation in parts of Syria is now such that we are evacuating back to Irak people who had fled to Syria. We are also honouring our pledges to Syrian team members and supporters that if they ever were to become refugees from Syria that we would find them somewhere to live and provide them with economic, medical, and educational support.
The Obama administration is continuing the policy of its predecessor of attempting to “get” at Iran by attacking and destabilising its allies. The fact that the overthrow of the Ba’athist government headed by Assad will result in something far worse as it has following every single American intervention in MENA is irrelevant the Iraki proverb about “away goes the white dog and now comes the black dog” is entirely apposite here. Other than the fact that they are somewhat more effective than their predecessors in the Bush administration there is no difference, none whatsoever between the Obama administration and its predecessors.
As to the sanctions against Iran, Charles you know quite as well as I do that they are designed to fail, just as the so-called negotiations on Iran’s (non-existent) nuclear weapons programme are designed to fail. What the government and people of the USA simply cannot abide is the fact that the Iranians kicked you and your spectacularly vicious hireling the “Shah” to hell out of their country in 1979 and will under no circumstances have you back. Can’t muzzy ragheads running their own country can we?
If the people of the USA and their government want the Iranians to cave in to their demands then your government and people are going to have to spout yet another pack of lies and launch yet another one of your illegal wars of aggression and occupation. That’s the only way that people of the USA and their government will stop the Iranian nuclear enrichment programme. If you want to stop the Iranians from doing what they have every right to do the only way to do it is by invading and occupying the place and installing a puppet regime backed up by American occupation forces.
The need to invade and occupy Iran is a fact that has been publicly acknowledged by the then Vice-Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. James Cartwright two years ago in testimony to the U.S. Senate Committee On Armed Services:
Source: http://www.armed-services.senate.gov/Transcripts/2010/04%20April/10-28%20-%204-14-10.pdf
Now lets examine America’s recent record. Having been defeated and run away in South East Asia the USA was defeated in Lebanon (ran away from the place after one, count ‘em one bomb attack) on one count ‘em one barracks. America’s Israeli front-men in the region have similarly been defeated in every single war and occupation they’ve launched against Lebanon.
The USA was defeated and ran away in Irak leaving several billion dollars worth of “enduring” bases behind them to say nothing of the several hundred million dollars worth of weaponry and other items of TOE. (You also left behind a population united in their entirely justified loathing of America, Americans, and the deliberate American tactic of targeting the weakest and most defenseless parts of the civilian population for revenge attacks).
The USA is defeated in Afghanistan and is looking for some way to exit (leaving behind a population who if they agree on nothing else agree that they loath America and its cowardly soldiers who target the weakest members of the civilian population as a tactic).
This litany of defeat of America running away comes about because while American soldiers are very good at running away the moment they come up against even moderately effective armed resistance and while American soldiers are very very good indeed at attacking and killing defenseless civilians in revenge attacks they are not so good at fighting resistance forces determined to throw the hated American invader out.
Charles, I’ve been going back and forth to Iran for decades starting with my time in Qom doing postgrad research followed followed by post doctoral research and then by my time on the Iran/Irak border as a peacekeeper. I’m fluent in the three most important regional languages and am not bad in Kurdish. I know and have professional respect for quite a few of the Iranian officer corps. That officer corps has had a long long time to put in place all they need to grind occupying American forces down to a screaming bloodied pulp before the said forces engage in that well known tactic engaged in exclusively by losers and run away. Moreover Charles, this time around, those Iranian officers are not going to confine their attentions to American forces and assets on Iranian soil. Any American forces and all American assets will, entirely legally, be fair game.
mfi
The entirety of the United States of America … including ALL of us who live “here”, mark, IS and ARE … “fair game” …
And, if WAR is “our” preferred “solution”, so often as to be “characteristic” of “us” … then ALL of justice demands that “we” (all) have the opportunity of personally experiencing “it” … first-hand, not “over there” … but right here, in the “homeland” …
Frankly, I see no other “way” by which the rest of the human beings living in this world may find anything close to a lasting peace until and unless the hubris of the “homeland” is dealt with … in the prescribed “manner” …
DW
CTut, I thank you for your continuing insistence upon sharing the truth, despite the fact that most Youessians (even “here”) will ignore that truth.
Recommended, as always, to the conscience and consideration of everyone at FDL.
DW
You are surely not expecting a professional military officer who has spent more than 30 years in the Middle East to agree with you?
What you have written is flat out wrong, deliberately targeting civilians as the American armed forces have now been doing deliberately and as a tactic since at least early on in the Vietnam war (and probably from before then) is the act of a coward and a war crime. At the end of World War II Americans quite rightly tried and then hung soldiers and commanders of the Axis forces who engaged in it. Those who had engaged in such behaviour but whose involvement was such as to not deserve the death penalty were sentenced to very lengthy prison terms. Those punishments were entirely justified and correct, and it is a source of considerable regret to me that later generations of American soldiers have consistently and as a deliberate tactic engaged in this sort of contemptible and cowardly crime. I was very careful in what I wrote:
“Forces and assets” does not include the general civilian populace. Nor should it.
mfi
Your gloating over burning ballots in Benghazi–a minor incident by the way in yesterday’s successful election (1.6 million to polls, only 24 closed polling stations that were later reopened, peace in Bani Walid and Sirte, and wild celebrations after polls closed in Tripoli and Benghazi) — seems to drive for consistency of narrative instead of reporting what turned out to be news. That does not mean that everything is hunky-dory in Libya; the votes must be counted honestly and the parties and independent candidates (some 8000 for 200 seats) must accept the results. But the people of Libya seem to disagree with your doom-and-gloom perspective.
Sometimes the construction of a narrative that emphasizes the humiliation of the American empire (which is in decline) misses the key events. The importance of the report about China’s rebuff of Secretary of State Clinton’s arrogant statements is not that Shrillary got put down but that China is solidifying its relationship with Russia by acting in concert on Syria. That adds one more data point to the trend toward the Shanghai Cooperation Organization becoming the major counterbalancing power to NATO. That is a significant long term change that must be accepted and managed by US and NATO diplomats for years to come if the world is not to return to the days of a global “stability” ensured by mutal assured destruction.
This is a clear signal of the end of the era of the US being the sole superpower. And biggest squandered opportunity in history.
Only the losers get hanged for war crimes.
Read James Carroll’s The House of War about US targeting of civilians in air raid conducted by Curtis Lemay. And then there is Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
What point are you trying to make? The German officers and soldiers who were hung deserved their fate many times over. The fact that they were defeated is irrelevant to that fact.
Losers also get fought to a standstill in Korea, kicked out of South East Asia, kicked out of Lebanon, kicked out of Irak, losers are also shortly to be kicked out of Afghanistan, and I doubt very much whether this pack of losers will last long in Iran should America be unwise enough to invade the country. Losers also run amok amongst the civilian population that spawned them and take the coward’s way out when they can’t face the evil they’ve committed by committing suicide. It was perfectly clear from what I wrote that I was talking about atrocities committed close up and personal by ground troops but you are entirely correct to point out that the use of air power as a terror weapon against civilian targets is also a war crime. I’ve read Caroll’s book and suggest that anyone interested in the topic do the same: House of War: The Pentagon and the Disastrous Rise of American Power.
mfi
Ah, mark, you and Mohammed have consistently suggested, very properly, that it IS the responsibility of the CIVILIAN population to pressure “authority”, the powers that be, to cease and desist from the unthinking use of violence.
I completely agree with you.
Civilians should not be the target of warfare.
Ever.
However, history and “policy” do NOT agree with us.
If you are suggesting that there is some way of getting the USA to STOP, rather than war … then I am most anxious, and more than ready to hear it.
You know the old saying, “Those who live by the sword …”
Perhaps I am not clear in my language?
Let me be very blunt.
It would appear that the vast majority of the civilian population of the USA does not fully “appreciate” the reality of war. That lack of appreciation has a very direct consequence for other civilian populations, not resulting from hatred per se, but rather, uninformed indifference.
That indifference is what permits the deceptions, practiced by the masters, to succeed in “convincing” the public, here in the USA, that a war with Iran, for example, is both just and inevitable.
It, is of course, neither.
I have long respected your perspective mark, and would appreciate the opportunity of learning what you would suggest that those outside of the USA may be able to do that will NOT involve waging war ON the USA, directly, in order that they, or “you”, the rest of “you” will not become the victim’s of this empire’s hegemonic ambitions.
You could patiently wait until we exhaust ourselves, economically, which would be very nice of you …
You could appeal to our better angels, as you and Mohammed have been doing, although I note that Mohammed is sometimes rather disgusted by the responses, often unthinking and simplistic, which he encounters, here.
I have not the slightest doubt, mark, that you are much wiser than are we, when it comes to imagining solution … for “we”, those of us at FDL, are on the “inside” marginalized, and for all practical intents and purposes, seemingly unable, as yet, to mobilize our fellow citizens successfully in opposition to the war machine, which, I assure you is pervasive and growing, daily, in its power to crush any domestic efforts to end “our” endless wars, to address the moral failure inherent in the use of drones, and to even put forth the notion of the consequence which our failures, as a people, as human beings, to understand and empathize must bring about … in terms of our own humanity.
Frankly, to permit what we have permitted in laying waste the lives and nations of others, we have had, first, to lay waste our own sanity.
That is why your suggestion of solving the crisis, without dire, personal cost to the civilian population of the USA is so very important … and dare I say, intriguing.
Please, share with us, your vision for so doing.
For not only will it benefit us in the short run, in the long run, it might make all of the difference regarding the fate of our species.
Despite what you may imagine about me, I am neither bloodthirsty nor particularly interested in mayhem … neither am I unduly pessimistic.
The USA has targeted civilian populations from the “beginning”.
That is what “we” did to the indigenous peoples, even to the point of deliberate genocide.
That was the effect of Manifest Destiny in the lands to the South of the USA.
That is what we did when first we became “empire”, during the “war” in the Philippines, which like Vietnam, and Irak, was engaged on the basis of a deliberate lie …
During that WW II, as you know, the USA targeted civilian populations, most infamously in Dresden, Nagasaki, and Tokyo … there was no international accounting then … although I most certainly hope that there might dare to be one now.
DW
We do squandering well.
“Tokyo”, of course should be Hiroshima.
My brain is fried, and I apologize …
DW
IVAW is both life-saving and politically essential.
The “close up and personal” versus “remote and indifferent” is not a distinctions that are morally relevant in assessing war crimes. Technologically advanced nations have an advantage towards the latter and a disadvantage towards the former.
I think that Carroll’s book is very relevant to this, as you agree, because it points out how the US’s emergence as the only undamaged major power from World War II and Henry Luce’s doctrine of the American Century created the very arrogance and growing indifference that led to US war crimes (My Lai, most famously in the 20th century).
As for winners and losers, my ultimate point is that none of the five permanent members of the UN Security Council and likely none of the other countries in BRICS are likely to see their citizens or heads of state brought to account for war crimes. A situation of “unconditional surrender” no matter what few conditions there actually were was what allowed the war crimes trials of the German and Japanese leadership in World War II. That situation is a rare one in warfare. Most wars end with political settlements, not unconditional surrender, despite the bombast.
Comrade, your sentence would seem to be counter-productive and eminently exploitable.
And wonder of wonders, this is consciously accounted for and guaranteed.
Targeting civilian populations and laying waste to their productive assets is also what Sherman did in his March to the Sea during the Civil War.
But let’s not get anachronistic about moral standards. There really was no widespread concern about war and war crimes until the end of the 19th century. James Russell Lowell’s protest of the Mexican War in 1845, “Once to Every Man and Nation” is one of the earliest stirrings in the US. And actual standards date only from the individual Geneva Conventions and the UN Declaration of Human Rights.
As a popular sentiment in the US, concern about peace and human rights has always been a minority concern–getting a huge boost in the 1960s from the Cuban Missile Crisis and the Vietnam War.
The firebombing of Tokyo on the night of 9/10 March 1945 was the single deadliest air raid of World War II
I think you were closer to the truth the first time.
Robert McNamara had this to say about the fire-bombing of Japan;
All of this is covered pretty well in the book, House of War by James Carroll.
Ah, Ludwig …
Is not the purpose of our political economy … exploitation?
And our production of anything, except weaponry was, some time ago, outsourced …
Thus the “production” of counters … whether furniture or those who can make use of their fingers, on their “own”, if not “the unseen hand”, well ought to result in great wealth for a visionary such as meownself/ssssssss … rather than a “sentence” of approbation …?
Do you not think?
Clearly, my obsfuscation is not appropriately depreciated.
I think, I consider, that I shall have to hie me hither and … sulk.
DW
Thank you, Watt4Bob … somewhere, me mind said, “Tokyo is a prime example”, but me heat-scrambled brains are operating sub-par … not being too-big-to-fail me.
McNamara is a repeat war criminal … as evidenced by his role in the Gulf of Tonkin “incident” … which, by now all Youessians should know was a lie.
I suspect, however, were a poll to be taken, that beyond not knowing where, precisely, Irak, Iran, or Pakistan are actually located, that most good Youessians would not, yet, know that Vietnam was attacked on the “basis” of a deliberate deceit … and one wonders, were they to know it, would very many care?
I watch what is happening, in this nation, to the Rule of Law, and I wonder … actually, I become very concerned … would that be the proper word?
DW
Actually from my perspective you’re wrong I would argue that air power as a weapon is intrinsically so imprecise that only military organisations with wanton disregard for civilian life use it on targets where there are large numbers of civilians. That is not case with well-led, well-trained, and well-disciplined ground troops who are a weapon that can be aimed with considerable precision.
Furthermore aerial bombardment of civilian population centres is – with the possible exception of Dresden, an ineffective weapon. One of the goals of Dresden (and I have always said that Dresden was a war crime) Was to clog the roads with refugees – thereby preventing an effective retreat from the Soviets on the one hand and preventing the timely arrival of reinforcements on the other.
You have only conquered a territory – in this case Iran once your ground troops and civilian administrators can perform their tasks and go about the place unmolested thereby enabling you to force compliance to your will. In the case of Iran that would be the dismantling of their nuclear research and enrichment programme. Atrocities committed by ground troops enrage a population far far more than the impersonal horror that results from dropping bombs or firing rockets and .
You are missing my point about the Germans and other Axis forces officers and troops hung for war crimes after World War II it’s largely irrelevant that there were other war criminals in other armies who got away with their crimes. My point was that that particular pack of murdering swine didn’t.
Yes Carroll’s book is good, however I am capable of reading a map. Retribution against the American mainland is a non-starter retribution against American troops on the ground isn’t and is what wins wars. The American way of war is famously to “never send in a man when you can send a shell instead” but it is that very excessive emphasis on using weaponry rather than troops which has led to one American defeat after another.
mfi
Comrade, I did manage to avoid that your sardonic castigation was vituperative (and that you were consorting with an enemy).
Can I get some credit too?
Were the defeats, the repeated and likely to again be repeated, defeats, affect the people of the USA in very different ways, those at the “top”, are rewarded, with money and power … despite the defeats … while the majority, the lowly, are beggared and robbed of their lives, their well-being and their futures.
That is the assymetry on the “home front”.
I still await your suggestions as to how the rest of the world might rid itself of the predations and destruction of the USA, mark.
Although the “appetite” for war among “the people” is at an all-time. low, in my experience, right now, across all “political”, and age “differences, the momentum, the apparent desire, for “more of the same” among the ruling classes, the monied elite, and the political class, including the media is building …
Another assymetry, which I hope your “solutions” might consider and address.
Looking forward to hearing your thoughts, as always, mark.
DW
Credit where credit is due … as to the “interest”, that awaits further Libor…ation, comrade.
DW
The Greeks handled their beatings much more adroitly.
The American people are not very concerned with the expense of military hardware, but are troubled by the loss of soldier’s lives.
Couple that fact with the obvious motivation of profit on the part of our ‘rulers’, and we’re left facing the strange fact that ‘they’ don’t care if they win or loose, so long as they can continue to run their racket.
Our insistence on believing in ‘enemies’ and the illusion of ‘winning’ prevents us from understanding the racket.
Do you mean the Spartans or the Athenians?
Drubbing up the calls for war … which the Romans might term “argumentum ad baculum” … “You are either with us or against us” … as the Bush beat “around”.
Ah, the peaceful repose of the tomb.
Doth thou knowest the the etymological derivation of “whitewash”, comrade?
A hint: It be found in our ancient urn-ings, in the gravest of terms.
DW
Great comment, Watt4Bob.
Smedley Butler was correct … although mostly (and deliberately, one imagines) forgotten.
We must have mythed “something” … perhaps, most everything?
DW
Ho ho. That, I’ve already been liberated from.
I have never laid claim to wisdom nor have I ever advocated waging war on the USA. Look at a map it’s a non-starter. What I am saying is that while America is very good at starting wars it’s actually pretty crap at winning them. America has been:
* Defeated in Vietnam.
* Defeated in Lebanon.
* Defeated in Irak.
* Defeated in Afghanistan.
Those defeats have come about because local resistance forces waged war against the American invaders (with the exception of Lebanon where the American armed forces left after one bombing of one barracks) and moreover waged unremitting war. One of the Iraki resistance’s commanders wrote this when the war to expel American troops was in full sway:
To win their wars the Vietnamese, the Hizb (against Israel), the Iraki resistance, and the various groups resisting the American invaders in Afghanistan have all been prepared to endure horrific conditions and horrific losses against troops not prepared to endure those conditions or losses. I have no doubt that when America invades Iran that the Iranians will do the same.
If you want to defeat American troops what you have to do is this:
mfi
Precisely.
Works very effectively against an army that is “troubled by the loss of soldier’s lives”.
mfi
How you Americans order your society and your economy is no affair of mine DW. None.
There’s an American proverb that people get the government they deserve is there not?
mfi
” American soldiers are very good at running away the moment they come up against even moderately effective armed resistance ”
come on man. do better than that.
Ah. Interesting. Perhaps it is an epitome of a habit/exploit of wishful thinking? Leading to a pattern of self-defeating prophecy/demagoguery?
Right, so each nation or society we attack need only drive us out, as is right, proper, and morally just.
Yet, if the warmongers are always rewarded, regardless, the dreary “process” will go on … and on … until the USA, somehow, becomes exhausted.
Morally, I completely agree with your thesis, practically, however, you must continue to be prepared for “collateral damage” … including the destruction of what passes for international “law”.
Now, when we no longer can patch together coalitions of the “willing”, then we will, perhaps, as a nation and a society, be willing to rethink our ways … in the mean time, both you and I may anticipate that the “tactics” used against the enemy will be used against the people of the USA … which is also a consequence … whether “deserved” or not.
Thank you, mark, for responding, and for making clear that the civilian population of the USA has nothing to fear, in a truly massive way, from without …
Hopefully, the inherent implication, will not continue to be lost?
DW
Certainly:
” American soldiers are very very good at running away the moment they come up against even moderately effective armed resistance ”
Which is why there are now no American troops in:
* Vietnam.
* Lebanon.
* Irak.
And why your government is frantically looking for a face-saving formula in Afghanistan.
There are no American troops in:
* Vietnam.
* Lebanon.
* Irak.
And your government is frantically looking for a face-saving formula in Afghanistan.
Because while your troops are from my direct personal observation very very good indeed at attacking civilians they can’t take the long term pressure of being constantly under attack by lightly armed irregular forces.
mfi
Yes.
To everything which you say, mark.
I thank you for making clear that we MUST help ourselves, for we do, truly, deserve what we get.
You see, you are possessed of that wisdom of “return” … which our pathetic “philosophy” cannot admit of … for “we don’t read history, we make it …”
You do us a true world of good, mark, and I thank you for your patience and human genuine compassion … for that is what the unvarnished truth you share really is, I hold. Thank you and …
Namaste
DW
but from within … Isn’t this “divine” punishment, comrade, as enjoyed by our betters?
Tuttle, thank you. I’d almost thought of doing something with this piece of Margaret Carlson’s on the Hillary Hawk that’s up on Bloomberg. Kinda hard to satire a piece that’s this funny to begin with, though (even if I did find the time). ;o)
Er…not to detract from your sober diary…eeep.
As Mohammed and I keep on pointing out. These are American troops, born and raised in America by Americans, educated and socialised in American schools by Americans, and then trained in American military tactics and doctrines. I see no reason to believe that they will balk at orders to repress American civilians.
mfi
Of late, as you may have noticed, mark, (and, possibly, wondered about) I have refrained from calling this place, “America”, although that usage is common, it is very inexact. “America” is not simply the USA, it is all of it, from “top” to “bottom”, from the North to the South.
Hence; “Youessians”.
Just to provide a wee (not odious, I hope) “distinction” which I consider quite necessary and perhaps, a thought, to the wise.
DW
As opposed to Heessians …
And I’d say that goes double for employees of Blackwater, Xe, or whatever corporate strongmen they deploy to do the job.
Or “Themessians” … Ludwig.
I seriously pondered “Youessayians” … but realized that Youessayian anything like “that” would be frowned upon, both for length and other considerations.
Now the Bushism, “Murkan” … might be enough to “distinguish”, but the world still says … “Columbus discovered America”.
(How lucky for the indigenous people, otherwise they would never have “found” themselves, one imagines.)
DW
Assuming that the police will, finally, realize that they have families and “where” and with “whom” their true interests lie … what will the military, the individual soldiers, do?
I think it a serious, and very real problem, Watt4Bob, as the “private” armies will happily do as they are told …
It would be foolish of us not to consider what we, very likely, will face.
DW
Mercenaries are beyond the pale. Full stop. One of the little cited but nevertheless important factors in the American defeat in Irak was the American reliance on mercenaries. Mercenaries are effective where only a very short “tail” is required so they’ll probably be very good indeed at repressing Americans on American soil. However they were a disaster in Irak and continue to be a disaster in Afghanistan but frankly from my POV that’s a good thing as the excessive American reliance on them greatly hastened the American defeat in both those countries.
mfi
It would be even more foolish of you not to make plans for how to efficiently and effectively resist them.
mfi
First things first, mark, too many Youessians consider this coming presidential election, Obama-Romney, to be “important” … when unmitigated “disaster” is the truth.
Many here still “believe” that voting will “fix” everything.
In point of actual fact, I have been asking, on this site, for years, “What do those of you here, imagine that the police AND the military will do, if “the people” rise up to challenge the self-selected sociopathic elite?”
Initially, I was labeled an “agent provocateur” for so doing.
Even as we, here, watch what is happening to Occupy, most still do not believe, that the military will fire on “their own”.
Frankly, some have already decided what they will do, in the event that the military do fire on the populace … as they will.
We do not, yet, have the “experience” to solidify a true sense of common cause … and trust is a “commodity” not yet valued … enough.
“Ducks in a barrel” … is the image that comes to mind.
Did I say that the capacity of the public, here in the USA, to “imagine”, to plan, to dare to act … is part of “our” problem?
Well, it is.
I know of but one “cure”.
(Again, I DO NOT wish or desire such a “thing” … but you have learnt all those lessons, mark, both in your native land, and elsewhere.)
Let it be said, “The people in the USA … are slow learners.”
And I postulate that “experience” shall be the “best” teacher, even if the “test” comes first, and the “lesson”, afterwards.
The deeper “question” concerns the potential “learning curve” …
A universal human truth, one imagines … I’m just not certain how “much” we have to “work” with … here, and now …
One always hopes for the best … and prepares as best one is able, for the worst in such circumstance …
I do hope that your “suggestion”, and Mohammed’s, is heard and taken seriously.
DW
Aloha, Gor…! What is the situation with the Kurds, particularly with Erdogan ramping up his rhetoric at Assad, while the PKK in Turkey are making noise…! What will the Kurds in Syria, Irak, and Iran do..? What are your views on the Syrian crisis…? Do you think Assad will fall, and, if so will it degenerate into sectarian strife and civil war for years to come…?
All war is hell, and any soldier worth his salt knows that it is not the answer…!
…Your gloating over burning ballots in Benghazi…
Who’s gloating, Tarheel…? You do realize Libya was an unmitigated disaster, that has produced numerous ‘unintended consequences’ across North Africa…! 8-(
It depends on which Kurds you’re talking about Ctut. If you’re talking about the Kurds who live in the region where Iran Irak and Turkey meet then you’re talking PKK and their various offshoots. Iran and Turkey already allow each others armed forces to cross the border in “hot pursuit” without notice and on large punitive raids with minimal notice. By large I mean 1-3 brigades with air cover.
Despite the recent kiss and make up sessions between the KRG (Barzani, Talibani, and Saleh) and Erdogan I am not convinced that if a Kurdish state is declared that Turkey Iran and Irak will tolerate it. It’s entirely likely that they’ll combine forces to stomp the Kurds far more savagely and far more thoroughly than anything Saddam did. The man to watch in Turkey in this context is Davutoglu not Erdogan. Davutoglu is IMO the brains of the outfit (and Erdogan is by no stretch of the imagination dim) Davutoglu’s also far far more hardline than Erdogan is when it comes to the PKK and to Turkish territorial integrity. The men to watch in Iran are Mohammad Ali Jafari and to a lesser extent Qasem Soleimani neither of whom will tolerate for a moment any threat to Iran’s territorial integrity. Irak’s army is still headed by a Kurd and the Pesh are in far better shape than most Iraki regiments.
Syria’s Kurds are a small and rather vulnerable minority not particularly oppressed but not particularly favoured either. If they fail to keep their heads down they’re going to be stomped upon hard by whoever wins the civil war in Syria. (And the fact that the titular head of the armed resistance to the Ba’ath is a Kurd won’t protect them) if it’s the anti-Ba’ath forces that win.
I don’t know if Assad will fall or not. At present I think not but that could change. Even if he does fall that’s no guarantee the Ba’ath will fall. And even if he does fall he can take an awful lot of people with him. Far more to the point is that if Syria moves completely into civil war that war will spread and will spread quickly. Once that happens nobody knows what will happen. Tell me Charles how happy would America and Israel be if one of the consequences of overthrowing Assad and the civil war in Syria intensifying and spreading were to be the reunification of Lebanon and Syria? There are rather a lot of people in both countries who want precisely that outcome – people who have not forgotten that it was the French who divided what was previously one country into two weak states.
I repeat my earlier comments to you about how we are now (ever more frantically) evacuating people from Syria. That’s not a step we take lightly.
mfi
I don’t realize that at all. I realize that there is propaganda value to a certain segment of leftist pacifists in maintaining that narrative, but the overall evidence points in the other direction. Hugo Chavez might miss his good friend Muammar, but the Libyan people apparently do not.
The self-immolation of Mohammed Bouazizi was an unmitigated disaster that has produced numerous unintended consequences across North Africa. And other places in the Middle East.
Mahalo, Gor…! That chilling report is exactly why I keep screaming my head off about the looming doom we’re facing with all the illegal actions, the US/GCC/EU/Nato are doing…! All under the misbegotten rubric of R2P…! Protect who again…? *gah*
Have you read any of the African press on Libya, Tarheel…?
You do realize that the GCC and the EU/US has actively stifled much of the ‘Arab Spring’, with very little ‘progress’ advanced on the ground…?
Which African press in particular? Which countries in particular?
Yes, I realize that the GCC and EU/US has worked at stifling the Arab Spring in Yemen, Bahrain, and obviously the GCC countries themselves. The thing about the Arab Spring is that the situation in each country is different. And the geopolitical ramifications for the UN Security Council permanent members is also different, and consequently the impulse of some of them to intervene or not.
Revolutions like those occurring in the Middle East are movemental and unpredictable and depend for their success on the persistent institutions established post-revolution. It took the US a good six years to get from a transitional government to persistent institutions. Arguably, it took France a hundred years. We are 18 months after the Tunisian revolution overthrew Ben Ali. There certainly is progress in Tunisia and Egypt and now Libya. The movements in Morocco and Jordan have been temporarily co-opted; we’ll see how open those situations turn out to be. Algeria is in a stalemate of sorts for now. Yemen is in some sort of transition; it is not clear yet where it will turn out; much is still in motion.
As far as the rest of Africa, so far the only major spillover has been Sudan despite the efforts to get something going in Nigeria. Outside of those, the chaos is pretty much unrelated to the Arab Spring. There might be a few heads of state missing the subsidies from Libya, and that will affect politics in their countries. But Africa has been a pretty chaotic region since the Cold War ended, ending the stability of set puppet regimes in the continent.
Another trend is the increasing stature of Turkey in the region.
Some think the Loyalists were vanquished from America….Think again. That flank, known as the American Establishment, has waged a long, covert war here….assassinating opponents and installing their middle finger puppets.
Vietnam worked well for the Loyalist/Establishment/The Empire/The City/The Street/The MIC faction. They killed a president to get it, and wasted 50,000+ Non-Establishment lives and Millions of Vietnamese lives all to their greater glory of Empire and the destruction of the Republic which was the greatest threat to that Empire.
http://www.mackwhite.com/northwoods.html
Thanks Tuttle, as always for exposing them.
That is a fair assessment, Tarheel, and, I certainly agree that every country is indeed a separate case…! But, what good are we doing on the ground, with Africom training militias/armies across MENA, and, even being armed by all those former Libyan arms stockpiles…! Mali is in total disarray from our arming/training the Touaregs, for example…!
My assessment of the Tuareg rebellion is different that yours. Tuaregs have been mercenaries of choice for a lot of regimes because of historical cache if not their military culture itself. Muammar Gaddafi used, armed, and trained Tuaregs as a part of his mercenary force. During the Libyan revolution, some remained loyal to Gaddafi and other joined the NTC forces (likely it was a matter of who was in control and individual decisions). After the Gaddafi was toppled, the NTC asked all mercenaries to go to their home countries. The Touaregs from Mali then came back unemployed and armed. I think it is a US conceit to think that these guy had to be trained by the mighty US military. As for arming, is there evidence of US/EU arming of the Touregs? They could have taken a lot of weapons from Libya at the end of the conflict. And most of those weapons were not US manufacture even if US allies like Qatar provided them to the NTC. Gaddafi’s weapons were mostly Russian and French. That in my mind falls under “other normal chaos”.
That aside, am I worried about Africom meddling? You bet. And not just because of US imperial ambitions. The US has the illusion that it is supporting the African Union in bringing stability to the continent. That is a dangerous illusion rooted in “white man’s burden” thinking. The US military are cultural idiots when it comes to these situations, and that aside from the fact that US soldiers never no matter how hard they try will be natives of the countries that they are “helping”. And I am worried about the possibility that Obama might see the US having a special mission to bring stability to Africa.
…The US military are cultural idiots when it comes to these situations, and that aside from the fact that US soldiers never no matter how hard they try will be natives of the countries that they are “helping”. And I am worried about the possibility that Obama might see the US having a special mission to bring stability to Africa…
Having served 20 yrs as a NCO, I’m in total agreement, our youth are completely oblivious to any cultural norms, whatever Lily Pad they squat on, in any pond that we deem fit…! 8-(
Let me tell you an example from the NPR coverage of the first Fallujah massacre. If you remember, a large number of peaceful protesters went to petition the US authorities about something, some soldier freaked out and at the end of the day there were several Iraqi civilians dead.
NPR was interviewing a soldier in Fallujah who said, “I wasn’t trained to be a policeman; I was trained to kill people.” That was the day I knew that Iraq was absolutely lost, and that was less than a year into the war. There was no hocus-pocus or fancy military work that was going to turn that situation into some declarable victory like Grenada or the First Gulf War.
Fallujah alone, is on a par with Dresden and/or Hiroshima/Nagasaki…! The DU/WP toxic residue is still decimating the residents…! 8-(
The DU and WP was from the second and third massacres in Fallujah. The first was US troops opening fire and killing six Iraqis who were peacefully protesting, probably for better utility service after a year of occupation. This was during the relatively peaceful period during which contractors were conducting their major ripoffs.
The second and third massacres, were sheer revenge for those Blackwater mercs being strung up on the bridge, one of them, ex-SFC Batalona, was a local boy…! It was gruesome what we’d unleashed on those poor souls of Fallujah…! 8-(
Just who is in our international community?
The Irakis were protesting the occupation and closure of the local school by the American invaders. Soldiers from the 82nd Airborne division fired into a crowd of protesters they killed 17 civilians and wounded 70 sufficiently badly to require hospitalisation. You might like to note that Fallujah was a city known for its opposition to Saddam’s government and had been at worst neutral and at best friendly to the American invaders before that pack of murderous rednecks in uniform started slaughtering civilians.
I don’t where you plucked your figure of six dead and “probably for a better utility service” from.
mfi
I truly miss not having access to my old Main & Central posts, Gor…!
Basically, it boils down to the GCC, US, and, Nato, interestingly, even the EU parliament is wavering in their typical blind support, all up against the non-support of the Non-Aligned Nations(the clear majority of nations)…! 8-(
Believe me I sympathise. On a personal I also miss “Lurch”.