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“The modern liberal state … often uses deception to gain its ends — not so much deception of the foreign enemy, but of its own citizens,who have been taught to trust their leaders.” – Howard Zinn
In all my years of blogging, my sole regret is my inability to piece together more than two paragraphs, in any literary fashion, like most are able to…!
So, please allow me the luxury to blend together some of my old scribblings with some of the latest ‘News’ out of the MENA…
Obama Privately Says Israel ‘Doesn’t Know What Its Best Interests Are’
“When informed about the Israeli decision, Obama, who has a famously contentious relationship with the prime minister, didn’t even bother getting angry,” Goldberg writes. “He told several people that this sort of behavior on Netanyahu’s part is what he has come to expect, and he suggested that he has become inured to what he sees as self-defeating policies of his Israeli counterpart.”
As I wrote way back when…‘Israel’s mentality is a barrier to Mideast peace’
Btw, don’t you find this mighty hypocritical of Bibi…? Obama Comments ‘Gross Interference’ in Elections…
Moving along, FDL Alum Jim White penned another awesome post today, and spelt it all out…
Albright Follows Warrick Into Full Neocon Mode, Presents Iran Sanction Manifesto
…It now is clear that the article from Warrick was meant to prepare the ground for the unveiling, one week later, of David Albright’s new working group developed precisely for the purpose of furthering the neocon position on Iran sanctions. By taking on additional policy members in this working group, Albright is now branching out from his usual area of commentary on technical issues (where Moon of Alabama has dubbed his Institute for Science and International Security the “Institute for Scary Iran Stories“) all the way into policy and now promotes the full neocon position that Iran is dangerously close to having a nuclear weapon and therefore sanctions must be ratcheted up further.
As Jim Lobe wrote today… New Push in U.S. for Tougher Sanctions, War Threats Against Iran…
As I had once opined…The Road to Tyranny And Real Men go to Tehran…
Even Jimmy Carter had sounded the alarm awhile back on our failed FP…Carter: ‘Oppose Unnecessary Wars, Preemptive Strikes, And, Embargoes’ And, Obama Imposes Another Round of Sanctions on Syria/Iran…
Moving along to Mali…
Funny thing, eh…? Blowback…! Who would’ve thunk it…?
…The United States previously had correctly warned that Western attacks on the Islamist enclave in Mali could inflame Islamic militants worldwide and lead to blowback terrorist attacks in the West. (American officials have also awakened, at least rhetorically, to this possibility emanating from U.S. meddling in Somalia, which has a sizeable population of immigrants in the United States, but strangely not from U.S. intervention in Pakistan or Yemen, from which Islamists have already attempted retaliatory terrorist strikes in the U.S.) Yet now, in a replay of the war in Libya, with France forcing its hand, the United States has been forced to back its ally’s aggressive action and even provide help. At first, this assistance will likely be intelligence, transportation, and logistics, but the U.S. could very well get involved more deeply.
Btw, does anybody remember those ‘Liberty Fries’…? So,wtf over…?
…“(W)e should have our ally’s back,” said Foreign Affairs Committee chair Ed Royce (R – CA), and while some, like Intelligence Committee chair Rep. Mike Rogers (R – MI) said that meant everything “short of troops on the ground,” some weren’t even willing to limit it in this manner.
Armed Services subcommittee on Emerging Threats Rep. Mac Thornberry (R – TX) didn’t see the need to rule out ground troops, saying the US needed to do whatever it could “to beat this threat back.”…
As I’ve noted numerous times…
Obama Fiddles, Bibi Bombs, and, Libya Kicks SAS’ Buttocks
‘Intervention – Disaster For Libyans’ In that old post, I’d noted Steinberg’s astute observation…
…Al-Qaeda is the buzzword to justify any kind of criminal activity imaginable from military intervention to brutal suppression of a genuinely popular and peaceful revolt against a corrupt and completely bankrupt regime and of course the Saudis in particular have carried out a whole series of brutal campaigns violating the borders of Yemen over a long period of time using this al-Qaeda pretext.
It is noteworthy that according to Colonel Gaddafi in Libya the two main sources of the uprising there are the CIA and Osama Bin Laden so it is almost getting to be comical that this bogeyman is used to justify all kinds of illegal behavior. We are going to find out at some point in the very near future the Saudis are engaged in massive “rendition operations” going into certain neighborhood in Bahrain and picking people off the streets and this is a desperate effort on the part of [Persian] Gulf Cooperation Council countries to basically hold onto these Sunni regimes. It is not going to hold. Either there are going to be some very genuine and legitimate and verifiable concessions or one after the other these regimes are going to go under. The Libya situation has become more complicated by the fact that it is about the American and European interest in Libyan oil.
So that situation is somewhat different when you have a much larger criminal violation going on right now. The whole terms under which the UN Security Council resolution, which was halved with abstention rather than vetoes from Russian and china, has been proven to be a complete sham. The discussion among American and European leaders from day one was not about the humanitarian aid to the people in Benghazi but it was regime change, plain and simple. President Obama went on national television on Monday night and knowingly and systematically lied through his teeth about the nature of the operation was there. So al-Qaeda is the bogeyman of choice for justifying violation international law, and human rights and everything else…
I also went on to note… Hillary to Meet Libyan Rebels and Netanyahu’s Illusory Peace Plan
Peoples…! The Libyan Fiasco set off a dangerous ‘Domino Effect’ throughout North Africa…
Dozens held after Islamists attack Algerian gas field
Islamist militants attacked a gas field in Algeria on Wednesday, claiming to have kidnapped up to 41 foreigners including seven Americans in a dawn raid in retaliation for France’s intervention in Mali, according to regional media reports.
The raiders were also reported to have killed three people, including a Briton and a French national.
An al Qaeda affiliated group said the raid had been carried out because of Algeria’s decision to allow France to use its air space for attacks against Islamists in Mali, where French forces have been in action against al Qaeda-linked militants since last week.
The attack in southern Algeria also raised fears that the French action in Mali could prompt further Islamist revenge attacks on Western targets in Africa, where al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM) operates across borders in the Sahara desert, and in Europe…
*gah*
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So the NYT has found a new Judy Miller, eh. The DDF is the biggest bunch of neo-con losers all gathered in one place that we’ve seen since the Bush era. Check out their leadership council, advisors and the two departed emeritii (Jeanne Kirkpatrick and Jack Kemp). And yes, Holy Joe is among them.
AJE and the Hindu Times had informative profiles of the anti-government groups in Mali. There are two factions of secular Tuaregs, divided over whether to include Songhais. There are Songhai and Fulani militias, each of whom smack of the Hutu militias in Rwanda. There are two Islamist groups, both affiliated with AQIM, both Wahabists, neither popular with the Tuaregs or Songhais, except for a minority of recruits but gathering young recruits from over the country with Wahabist puritanism and complaints of corruption of the government and the primarily Sufi clergy. (The links came up in Twitter; I failed to save them, but they should be easy to get to.)
My sense is that the situation in Mali turns on what happens in Djenne, which is between the area of current conflict and the capital of Bamako. Specifically, what happens to the 13th century mosque in Djenne. The Mosque was the royal palace of the ruler of Djenne before his conversion to Islam and for that reason alone Wahabists might seek to destroy it as infidel.
The Hindu Times article pointed out that the attraction for young men is not the economic condition of the country but the idealism of puritanism.
France handled the situation in the Ivory Coast much better than anything the US has touched in 60 years. And their agenda is to ensure the survival of the current regime.
All war is blowback. Been so since the first attacks on Sumer 5000-6000 BCE. Mali is blowback from what? The fact that Tuareg mercenaries lost their lucrative jobs in Libya and also the assasination of Osama bin Laden, which is blowback from what? The arming of the mujahadeen to fight the Russians, which is blowback from what? Domestic fear of labor?
Mahalo CTuttle, good assemblage of news.
Now that things are winding down on the Afgan Front and we have this large hardened force of Imperial Shock Troops it’s time to stir the pot elsewhere like in Africa.
What seems like unintended blowback from the newly agressive Frog Foreign Legion may be part of the New Agenda. Let the French get bloodied and then send in the real Warriors to clean up their mess.
My sense is that the Imperial Shock Troops are pretty battered up and have to recover before the next misadventure. Looks like no boots on the ground and drones in the air. And rapidly delivered expeditionary forces in and out like Reagan in Grenada and Lebanon. Plus naval power near the Spratly Islands just to keep the conflict tamped down.
Plus a lot of yammering neo-cons waiting for their next chance with President Manchin.
Honestly, Cognitive Dissonance…?
No “credible evidence” shows Syria’s use of chemical weapons: U.S…
…The U.S. government said Wednesday that there was no “credible evidence” so far that showed the Syrian government forces had used chemical weapons.
“At the time we looked into the allegations that were made and the information that we had received, and we found no credible evidence to corroborate or to confirm that chemical weapons were used,” State Department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland said at a daily briefing.
Nuland’s statement came after the Foreign Policy magazine reported on its website Tuesday that a secret diplomatic cable from the U.S. consulate in Istanbul, Turkey, had concluded that the Syrian government had probably used chemical weapons.
While admitting the existence of such message from the Istanbul consulate, Nuland told reporters that the State Department had concluded that the report cannot be corroborated.
However, the spokeswoman reiterated the Obama administration’s harsh warning against the use of chemical weapons in Syria.
“We have been absolutely consistent and clear, from the president on down, that our red line is: we have a red line with regard to use of chemical weapons or their proliferation,” Nuland said.
“If the Assad regime makes the tragic mistake of using chemical weapons or fails to meet its obligations to secure them, there will be consequences, and the regime will be held accountable,” she added…
*gah*
It’s funny how Gen. McChrystal was crowing about Marjah’s success to PBS’s Margaret Warner, tonite…!
Fiction of Marjah as City Was US Misinformation…
…It turns out, however, that the picture of Marjah presented by military officials and obediently reported by major news media is one of the clearest and most dramatic pieces of misinformation of the entire war, apparently aimed at hyping the offensive as a historic turning point in the conflict.
Marjah is not a city or even a real town, but either a few clusters of farmers’ homes or a large agricultural area covering much of the southern Helmand River Valley.
“It’s not urban at all,” an official of the International Security Assistance Force (ISAF), who asked not to be identified, admitted to IPS Sunday. He called Marjah a “rural community.”
“It’s a collection of village farms, with typical family compounds,” said the official, adding that the homes are reasonably prosperous by Afghan standards…
Which we subsequently leveled…!
Now, McChrystal doubled down, today, on that Zero Dark Thirty B*llsh*t…
Good Gawd…! *gah*
I remember seeing reports on mass demonstrations involving austerity in Israel, some in the hundreds of thousands, at places like TRNN, DN, AJ, RT, and Press (none, of course, on domestic Corporatist propaganda MSM) prior to the latest distraction of the neo-con, capitalist incursion into Gaza, and realized how close the Israeli elections were. I guess the Empire works the same world-wide.
I was going to bring up some of what I’d seen on Mali, but TarheelDem did a thorough and probably better job of it.
Suggestion: Run a cut rate triple feature of the remade “Red Dawn”, “Argo”, and, of course, “Zero Dark Thirty” (why did typing those make me feel as if I had worn the “one ring to rule them all” a little too long) and have those domestic drones pull away from dissenters to follow that crowd home. That would give you a pretty good idea where 70% of hoarded guns are in this country. Nah, nothing justifies drones.
Rec’d.
All of this because “They” do no worship “GOD” the way we do.
There are times when I don’t read enough but I’ve completely missed the “why” of France going into Mali. Would someone explain it to me, please?
Here’s a decent background piece on Mali, Algeria.
Thanks, eCAHN.
Thanks, eCAHN. The printed article linked to your link is a very good history. Algeria has a big dog in this hunt.
Refugees to France. France accepts immigrants from its former colonies, and Mali is a former colony. Muslim immigrants were a huge domestic issue in the last election, which Hollande won. And was the proximate reason for Sarkozy pushing for intervention in Libya.
I assume from what you say that the immigrants to France want the French gov’t to intervene. Is that correct?
The French government wants to stabilize Mali to cut off the flow of immigrants. The French government doesn’t want a flood of immigrants because of Marine le Pen and the National Front. Domestics politics of immigration, just like in Arizona.
CTuttle, I think you’ll be interested in this:
Counterinsurgency as Cargo Cult
Another good link:
Mali, Algeria, and the Shadow of Colonialism
Algerian hostage-taking likely just an organized crime operation