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Does Assad have the authority that Lincoln had to put down a rebellion?
Civilian casualties?
1. Cite a source that is reliable with respect to:
a. How many casualties there have been
b. Which sides have the casualties been on
c. How many have been civilian
d. How many have been foreign fighters, especially al Qaeda
2. Were there civilian casualties during Lincoln’s war?
a. Sherman
b. Since conscription was huge (few wanted to fight in that war; NY draft riots for example), many ‘soldier’ casualties should be counted as civilian
c. Foreign intervention: Not much during Lincoln’s war, though the British Empire nearly entered to help the rebels. Imagine how long the war would have gone on, and how many additional casualties that would have caused.
The U.S. war on Syria is now documented since the front page revelation that Obama signed a statement authorizing arming the rebels.
The plan is modeled after Operation Ajax that the CIA effected to overthrow Mossadegh in Iran in 1953. A difference seems to be that Assad was prepared for it, Mossadegh not so much. A commentator this morning also raised the Nicaraguan example.
Finally, compare the casualties in Syria and Libya, operations run by the west with the support (in Syria anyhow) of feudal Middle Eastern dictatorships, with casualties in demonstrations in Egypt, Bahrain, Saudi Arabia, which seem to be more grass roots and the demonstrators are not being armed by outside powers.
Sorry there’s no indentation to make the points clearer. The numbered points should be indented under the topic above, and the lettered points should be indented further under the numbered points. I am told you can’t do that in FDL.
132 Comments
Anyone have a link to the Nicaraguan example?
Lost Among the Findings in Syria…
Interesting comparison you’re drawing between the “rebellion” here in the 1860s and what’s going on now in Syria, eCAHN.
Britain and France were ready to jump in, but Antietam and the Emancipation Proclamation seem to have altered their plans. (A contemporary account by a European observer underscores the singular importance of the slavery issue.)
In the 1860s, battles were in well-defined areas and there are even accounts of people getting all dressed up, picnicking in fancy carriages while watching from afar young men fight ever so desperately, and die. All that’s changed now, particularly with urban warfare, house-to-house, door-to-door, killings and woundings irrespective of combatant/noncombatant status, age and gender.
It would be one thing if “interventions” were made to stop the slaughter and try to achieve peaceful settlement of conflict, but it does seem that interventions are sometimes made, at least in part, in order to turn a situation in a direction that benefits the intervenor.
Thanks for stimulating thought and discussion on these matters, eCAHN. We slipped into Vietnam so easily, and the current situation–in the absence of earnest discussion and debate and the quiet use of “executive orders” and “findings”–almost seems to invite future “slips”. Dunno.
Here’s one. You can also search under Negroponte.
Don’t imagine that civilians in Sherman’s way dressed up & brought picnic baskets to watch him.
Excellent and thought provoking post, eCAHN !
Also, rebels didn’t use civilians as shields, take over apt buildings, etc.
Thanks Petro.
So, the Nicaragua example begins with the destructive company, immediately after Marijuana/Cannabis Hemp was banned in the US: This paper company, like the Koch brothers, is direct beneficiary of the US banning Hemp. And now, it’s everyone invested in Oil who profits getting this war going.
… and also all those who invest in arms sales !
We’ve got enough bullets flying around our own country with which to concern ourselves.
Find out where to send sympathy cards and flowers.
We’ve got to accept that the middle east is not a nice place to live. Hasn’t been for centuries. There isn’t anything to suggest we could make it otherwise.
No, they didn’t. Those that were able, fled while he marched through and burned everything to the ground. Upon returning, they would try and figure out where the old smokehouse used to be, put a large open kettle over a fire with water and dirt from the old smokehouse in it and let the water boil so salt crystals would form around the lip of the kettle. With that and what dried beans and grain they had, they tried to survive until they could get vegetables planted and grown.
Few of them were plantation owners. They were dirt farmers.
We need to focus on the language used by the MSM. It’s an “offensive” if the rebels do it. It’s a “massacre” if Assad does it. Indeed, Assad is so evil he “massacres” men who are actually firing rocket-propelled grenades at his soldiers. Fancy that…! 8-(
Fox News is asking uncomfortable questions; washingtonsblog.com had this video posted.
Saw some plantation foundations on a trip to south several years ago. Some left them as a reminder.
Not sure if Sherman was inventor of Total War, but he sure was a big proponent of it.
Great point.
One of the main reasons I wrote the diary. Put in U.S. lionized Lincoln terms, the war looks a bit different.
Thanks for the link.
More like that.
I’m shocked at Faux Spew’s candidness…! ;-)
This is a great read… Your guide to what the hell is going on in Syria…
The Cato Institute’s Doug Bandow, (whom I rarely agree with) wrote an interesting article… Syrian WMDs Don’t Justify Intervention…
Something I’d mentioned before, the issue first reared it’s ugly head…! 8-(
For Gens X & Y and those who forget history, Operation Desert Shield & Storm rewrote history and international (cough) law. The US folk were required to despise Saddam because he dropped poisonous chemicals on “his own people”, murdering tens of thousands. We were required to believe that is somehow worse than attacking, bombing, or invading another country, also known as an act of war.
I wish Orwell would post a diary here.
The 1775-1781 War Of Independence seems a more apt analogy than the War Between The States, though the scale is much smaller.
If it was calm or if you were downwind from Sherman’s army of 60,000, you could smell their shit from many miles away and gauge the distance. His army could span a swath of some 50 miles.
Let’s not put it all on Sherman; his supply lines were in danger of being cut and the troops were having to live off of the land. (That’s why the South sent JB Hood into Tennessee, thinking Sherman would have to withdraw to meet that threat.) It doesn’t excuse the zeal of the destruction, but it at least gives a rationale for it.
OTOH, at roughly the same time, Fightin’ Phil Sheridan was busy burning the Shenandoah Valley to the ground in Virginia. Not because his troops needed the supplies (as Sherman’s did), but because the fertile valley had been a strong resource for the Confederate cause and, as the Union couldn’t spare the troops to occupy it, Sheridan simply wrecked it so that the South couldn’t receive its benefits, either.
Sherman is a straw man. This diary is about Assad not about Lincoln.
I think my point about conscription is much more important. Most of those cannon fodder soldiers were de facto civilians.
So when bleeding heart lefties whine that Assad is killing his own civilians, I invite them to think about how many civilians Lincoln killed & maimed thru involuntary enlistment in a war they didn’t want to fight.
That’s a keeper.
I typed the other day that, although Syria is where Saddam Hussein hid his WMDs (/s), the U.S. will never find them there bc they still have the DoD barcode on them.
I would point you to the Second Punic War.
LOL. I’ll take your word for it since I know nothing about the Second Punic War (nor the First, nor the Third & subsequent ones for that matter).
I knew that Sherman didn’t invent it but didn’t want to figure out who did.
It occurred to me that I should link to Total War, as some might not be familiar with the concept.
…they still have the DoD barcode on them.
*snort* Ya owe me a beer now, m’dear, I just lost half of one…! ;-)
Isn’t it amazing that “left” humanitarian warmongers cannot see the degeneration of the new world order that went from the betrayal of Solidarnosc, to the humiliating impoverishment of Russia, to the destruction of Yugoslavia, to the demolition and corruption of Afghanistan, to the rape of Iraq, to the pauperization of the Homeland, to the decapitation and abandonment of Libya!
No, we’re supposed to ignore that degeneration like the madmen say and debate the probability that some leftists in Syria will overcome not only their autocrats but that of the heinous new world monsters which hide behind networked terrorism. Poor mind-fucked Americans.
For those who want to get a look at the “promising” adolescence of the new world hegemonster, an interesting book has come out from MR Press, From Solidarity to Sellout: The Restoration of Capitalism in Poland
This has been a public service announcement. Thank you.
The rebellion President Lincoln put down was fueled, in large measure, by the evil notion that one race of human beings has the right to own another race of human beings.
Is the rebellion Assad is attempting to put down fueled by an idea that is objectively evil?
That’s a pretty good Wiki entry…
Taiping Rebellion
The Taiping Rebellion (1850–1864) was one of the deadliest wars in history, and the first total war in modern China. About 20 million people died, many due to disease and famine.[7] It followed the secession of the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom from the Qing Empire. Almost every citizen of the Heavenly Kingdom was given military training and conscripted into the army to fight against the Imperial forces.
During this conflict both sides tried to deprive each other of the resources to continue the war and it became standard practice to destroy agricultural areas, butcher the population of cities and in general exact a brutal price from captured enemy lands in order to drastically weaken the opposition’s war effort. This war truly was total in that civilians on both sides participated to a significant extent in the war effort and in that armies on both sides waged war on the civilian population as well as military forces.
As an Asian-Pacific History major, I’d point out that those horrid conditions is what inspired Mao’s rise to power…!
In Sherman’s March and Vietnam (1984), James Reston, Jr. suggests that Sherman invented the tactics used in Vietnam. (Available in The New Yorker archives in a shorter version.)
What truly is at issue in Syria, oldgold, is what will arise from Assad’s ashes…? Look at what is attempting to supplant Assad’s secular state…! It is the predominately, Sunni/Salafist, Jihadists that have zero tolerance for any Alawites, Christians, Druze, and/or Shi’as that all happen to reside in Syria…! 8-(
Aleppo residents give Syria rebels mixed reviews…
…”We don’t even know these fighters, they don’t talk to us much. But people here just accept whoever has power,” one man whispered. “I’m not with anyone, I am with the side of truth. Right now, that is only God.”
Btw, eCAHN, Mahalo for this post…! It’s been awhile since ya last penned a Diary…! *g*
Sam Adams or Heinekins?
Zinn’s version: Lincoln preserved the “union” at all costs so his reputation was secure for history. He didn’t give a ff about slaves or AAs, who he thought were inferior.
Assads (father & son) have ruled over a country much more diverse than the U.S., and anaict, their goal has been to preserve unity under circumstances quite unpropitiuous, like Israel constantly wanting to blast the country to smithereens, down to the last Saudi $, U.S. plane & bomb.
Taiping Rebellion is one of China’s historic events that make it so important for them to maintain national unity and a major reason why Mao is lionized despite his many faults. Mao reconstituted the Chinese nation.
Charles Gordon, the Brit who successfully ended the Taiping Rebellion, died trying to defeat the locals in Khartoum a bit later.
Perhaps the most colorful character of western history I have read about.
Here’s the definitive book about his Sudan adventures. A nail biter, page turner, adventure story if there was ever one, and all true/.
Actually it was a Bitburger of Bitte ein Bit fame…! ;-)
Of which, I’d personally toured in Bitburg, later on, I’d toured Heineken’s factory, also along the way I hit every winery along the Mosel, and half the Rhine River…! Loved my visit to Jägermeister’s HQ too…! ;-)
Did 2 a month or so ago on beezzzz.
Ya got 2 choices in my house. Take it or leave it. :-)
That Sam Adam’s sounds tastier…! Tho, I was stationed outside of Boston, I didn’t get to visit their Beantown HQ…! That whole marriage thingy put the kibosh on it…! ;-)
Cold one sliding down the bar.
Mahalos…! ;-)
The least memorable moment in Germany, was when one of my buddy’s hurled a cup of water over a Toiletten’s divider in one of Frankfurt’s Hauptbanhauf, yelling ‘Surfs up’… the train is leaving…! ;-)
I was in Berlin the weekend before monetary union. Got caught cheating on the U-bahn.
Gonna head off to sleepy time.
I think diaries are open for a couple of days so will check back again to respond to additional comments.
Thanks for your feedback.
Sweet dreams, eCAHN…!
There have been plenty of times where Fox did better, more honest interviews than most. We need to take what’s at hand and judge, imo. The Fox interview with Neil Barofsky was the best among several I watched.
Pertinent diary and comments discussion in light of POTUS Obama having removed Obama WH/Pentagon/CIA cloaking of American Empire meddling in the business of Syria. Thank you eCHANomics.
At this point a very valid comparison can be made with what POTUS Obama,his SoS Hillary Clinton and several ranks of Pentagon and CIA foot soldiers did/have not done about Bahrain political/civil strife during 2011 or in 2012.
How POTUS Obama squares Obama WH Bahrain politics/policies with Syria or what POTUS Obama clearly okayed,enabled and empowered to befall M.Gaddafi and Libya would be a worthy inquiry. Doubtless the Obots/Dbots here at FDL,Salon and DKos sites and other pro Obama/D Party sites would prefer to ignore,heavily discount any need for such an inquiry. Something to do with IOKIYAAD partisan practices.
Very well framed diary eCHANomics. Many worthy comments.
We know the French helped us throw off the British Empire during our revolt against the British Crown and we know the American Civil War was one that left deep scars on the body politic of the USA we still see and know here in early 21st century. And it was not even about religion creeds or whether Roman Catholics or Protestants were real Christians.
If the British had intervened on behalf of Richmond in heavy enough ways it may indeed have swung the balance far enough for the Confederate States to have gained a stalemated trucial treaty or run the clock out towards an all out victory.
As it is the debris fields of the American Civil War were wide and deep. A large portion of bloodlust remaining after 1865 was soon applied to what remained of Native American lands and tribes. By 1900 — only some 35 years after the Civil War ended the Americans had taken Hawaii and taken a big chunk of Spain’s colonies as well. See the Filipino and Cuban peoples histories to better understand what American Empire is about and does. Still is about and does as seen with post WW2 Iran,Vietnam,Iraq,Afghanistan,Pakistan,Libya and now Syria. Not difficult to surmise POTUS Obama and SoS Clinton would be howling foulplay if China or India were doing what USA is doing across ME and Asia.
But again — IOKIYAAD — should Mitt Romney pick up where a defeated in November 2012 Barack Obama left off as POTUS one can safely suggest this sites dedicated WarMonger/WarCriminal Obama defenders will soon change tack and mock,berate and attack POTUS Romney for doing what POTUS Obama has been doing,is doing or did. At this point the Dbots/Obots have demonstrated the credibility of their politics as being R vs. D FlimFlam and expediency driven.
Compliments for this diary as it dovetails with a recent MyFDL diary fairleft posted that migrated to this topic as it aged. Recommended.
We’ve been distracted by the odious O’Donkeytale to defend our anti-imperialism; isn’t it time to investigate what the hegemonster’s objective really is?
Thanks so much for this, eCAHN, I’m enjoying your post and learning a bit more about the Syria situation, which to be honest I don’t know much about to make and informed comment. But reading this side of the story has been enlightening.
Recommended.
Nice.
I have been asking my liberal humanitarian intervention apologist buddies this for the past few months : What if there is an armed Teabagger uprising (aided by Russia/CHina) against Obama? And they don’t have a convincing answer.
What is a right?
Might makes right.
A state claims the “right” to have a monopoly on violence, does that make it valid?
Under a real democracy? – yes
Under a dictator brought by a coup? eh..
Under an empire?
Under all our fashion accessories, fake tans, plastic titties, and fancy hairdos, humans are mostly a bunch of jackals.
Interesting to know. Have you watched Fox long enough to judge whether this is new trend or whether they have dropped an occasional reasonable piece into their otherwise craziness all along.
Thanks.
Hypocrisy is certainly the order of the day wrt Bahrain and Saudi demonstrations.
My point about those, though, is a larger one. Namely that the slaughter of innocent civilians is much lower in those without outside interference.
If you are interested in saving lives, instead of being morally superior and determining from the outside what kind of government other nations should have, then noninterference is the way to go. IOW in the case of Bahrain & Saudi Arabia, western hypocrisy is the innocents’ friend.
Thanks.
I tried that approach first, i.e. what would O do if there were a rebellion in U.S., and rebels were being armed from Mexico (or better still Cuba). Got nowhere bc it is a hypothetical and people have a hard time thinking honestly in hypothetical terms.
Which is what made me think of Lincoln’s war comparison. It’s enough in the past that the record is there and the main points can be extracted.
Might makes right, or monopoly on violence, is not the way I would frame it.
I look at it from both a smaller and a larger POV.
From the smaller POV, what is the evidence. U.S. international interventions post-WWII have always made things worse, often MUCH worse, for 99ers in those countries.
From the larger POV, national sovereignty, the concept of which gained widespread recognition in the west after the Treaty of Westphalia is one of the major watersheds in history that promoted the transition from feudalism to modernity.
Thus, if turning the hypothesis around is fair, interfering in other nations’ business is a return toward feudalism.
That certainly seems to be the U.S. objective.
I noticed the person in question has put up a diary.
I note what I think the objective is at the end of the prior comment.
What do you think the objective is?
BTW, could you provide a link to fairleft’s diary?
Barofsky’s framing is wingnut pornography. It’s the FED. It’s the government. It’s the Jews. It’s the African.
Thank god it ain’t capitalism.
Didn’t know that. Link.
Also, the four high ranking Syrian ministers who were assassinated were of diverse religious & ethnic backgrounds. One, I remember, was Sunni.
Fair enough, but you can still do a better interview instead of a worse interview. :-)
CTuttle, if you come back, please link to some of your diaries.
I made the post short & confined to one comparison to encourage people to read it, but there is no reason why comments can’t get into a lot of other matters, as they have.
I tried to figure out a way of working in that point but couldn’t get the language succinct enough. From the link at 63.
From same link. An ‘expert’ testifying to one of my main points.
I wouldn’t even call it an internationalized civil war. There may have been some grass roots demonstrations at the outset, although those, qua Ajax, might have been ginned up, but I haven’t seen evidence that there are any widespread demonstrations.
The clips I’ve seen (which could be propaganda to be sure), show localized devastation of buildings which Syria claims to be rebel enclaves, and normal life elsewhere in Damascus & Aleppo.
Is this neocon exploit of terrorism a tactic for the return to feudalism, the real destiny of neoliberal globalization? I rather think these are synergistic and flow from a common cause, i.e. they are both goals.
The objective I was interested to discuss was what the US is trying to achieve in Syria. My comment on our propagandist’s diary quotes a strategy to disable Hezbollah and Syria in order to prepare for an attack on Iran. A Trotskyist rebellion in Syria is pure charade for doofus American humanitarian bombardiers.
Israel wants their neighborhood subjugated before economic collapse. When they get Iran, the hegemonsters will have a good scapegoat for crapitalism’s crash.
That’s my hypothesis.
The propaganda in a crisis gives experts an opportunity to latch on to their specialty-aspect and contribute to boosting the narrative. This is a networked terrorist invasion masqueraded as a civil war.
I left my Q open on purpose.
There are many goals, short run & long run.
Breaking up Syria to get to Iran is certainly one of them.
More broadly, return to feudalism seems to fit much of the available evidence on western economic & military & political behavior. It’s a good working hypothesis anyhow.
Agree.
But… There will always be those who will argue that there is grassroots opposition to Assad, and I don’t see the mileage in disputing that, as we don’t know. Concede the point and move on to the area where there is much more evidence. Avoids a lot of useless thumb wrestling contests.
The other consideration is that indigenous populations rarely join outsiders when their govt is under attack, no matter how bad their govt is (think W on 9/11). More likely that the population unites around the govt.
Ludwig,
OffT, but this strikes me as something you would be interested in.
Still struggling thru finishing reading The Prize.
It’s a good book, I’ve got only about 150/500 pages left, but we’re up to the time I lived thru. Less for me to learn, thus more difficult to keep plowing ahead.
Will read some & then be back to catch up on additional comments.
Is Israel an American satrapy?
Where is the pope?
howdy friend….loves me some Echan in the morning,well all the time!
Syria’s geographic position dictates the interest of what otherwise would be generally disinterested parties, us included I regret. A seemingly worried Jewish state keeps so many other folks paying attention anymore. (wonderful fear injection pump to our MIIC) At least Romney didn’t give his go-ahead to attacking Syria as he did for an attack on Iran, unless its a two step process that you and Ludwig touch on.
I wish the MSM would ease off playing the humanitarian violin or the neocon bugle, and Obama would just tell us how many Billions more it’ll cost so that we can go back to sleep.
heard Assads mommy dearest is the brains behind the 7 ft tall monster
Mrs.Frankenstein?
Yes, thanks. I had just read a little speculation about Egypt’s betrayal of Syria then but don’t remember where.
Not well versed in this history, but Sadat’s proposed motivations seem flimsy to me. If the Egyptian army had such good advantage and the Soviets did back him up, it seems his play for a political rejuvenation was cowardly – and for a bump in popularity he lost his life. Of course. as the story goes, Vinogradov and the USSR were betrayed by Sadat so I suspect Sadat would have unrevealed deals. A CIA besting of the KGB?
There’ve been quite a few instances of Insiders turning Outsider, or at least whistle-blowing, and Barofsky’s first person account is valuable, imo. Simon Johnson, Joseph Stiglitz (former IMF/World Bankers), Paul Craig Roberts, et.al. are important voices calling out just how far the capitalist free market IS NOT free, and is being played by the 1% like an ATM. Many former insiders are also illuminating that instead of money, the US has…debt, the vast majority of which can never be paid, leading to the Over the Cliff scenarios we expect.
A writer at anti-capitalist.com made a good case that as Americans wake up to how far the system is rigged against them, and will never be righted by the Oligarchs, redefining or retooling historical socialist terms will be in order so that more of us can agree to at least a more socialistic-mixed economy than the Lemon Socialism we now have (I’m transposing a little). He points out that Americans sincerely want to own things, like houses, so that now’s the time to jettison old fights, memes… and move forward.
Who knows how many of these Notable Figures are twigging to the fact that capitalism itself is at the core of the present calamity? Do they think it can ever be reigned in again? I dunno, but a lot of them may be thinking that through. And we’ll need their help in the future, imo.
I’m just beginning to learn, although I sorta flunked out of Southern Dragon’s Marxist Economics class, so…it ain’t lookin’ good for me except for: forward in the new discussions of what will serve us best.
I haven’t really watched in ages, but when I’m hunting for interviews, there’s have been the best several times. Granted, they’re the opposition party, but some conservatives are the old-school non-interventionists. So…I really don’t know if the ones I saw were outliers or not. But I do remember from years ago, the odious Chris Wallace asking some probing questions of Republicans.
I’m not the one to ask or even to engage in a sensible conversation.
The role of Israel vs. the U.S. has changed enough (perhaps in subtle, but important ways) over time to make it difficult to be definitive from what I have read. There’s always been a close relationship, and Israel, with narrower goals, seems able to dance around U.S. pols, experts and govt foreign policy.
Kinda like the U.S. relationship with Saudis. Simple, yet complicated.
That’s all I got for now.
In The Prize, I’m reading about the long-lived animosity betw Saudis & Iran. Shah’s time, but Saudis viewed him as a megalomaniac who was dangerous to ME stability & correctly predicted that he would be replaced by religious extremists. Who the Saudis like even less.
Saudis thought the U.S. had taken leave of its senses not to see the dangers of being close to the shah.
Heh.
The article does portray Sadat as a light weight & a coward fwiw.
In the Assad pere bio I read a month or so ago, which was published in 1988, Assad instantly spotted all the peculiar behaviors of the Egyptian army that are more clearly defined in the Vinogradov memos. That’s what made the memos so convincing to me.
CIA doesn’t seem to have been involved. Seems more like a Kissinger-Meir besting of everyone else.
Kissinger is supposed to be charming. I went to one meeting where he was one of the foreign minister pooh-bahs (UK, Germany & maybe France) holding forth. Boring story about how I got to be there. Was in early 80s. Anyhow I found them all to be pompous assholes, and Kissinger most of all bc he had that low pitched growly gravely voice that he put on to enhance his creds, but to my ears it sounded stupid.
Anyhow, how anyone could be seduced by him is a mystery to me but there again, I’m way outside the usual crowd.
Keep in mind that insiders turning outside might be kabuki. I reserve my greatest skepticism (or is it cynicism) for such sorts.
Odious Chris Wallace.
Ya got that right.
I am too weak emotionally to subject myself to Fox, or now, anything on corp media.
Sorry, Wendy. These paper geniuses played ignorant of the developing crisis as it was being implemented. I don’t now credit them with some foggy inkling that crapitalism is the radical concern. They, moping cynics that they are, know full well what the problem is.
With help like theirs, who needs enemies, eh? O’Bummer, eh?
You know how the wingnuts are relentless in their lies and fantasies. Time for some lefties to be relentless with the truth. “Redefining or retooling historical socialist terms” to pander to party liars who played patsy to hegemonsters is not a good strategy. Capitalism is fraud and the deceived only need a little more apocalypse to see how deep the collusion is. I don’t believe a socialistic-mixed economy is feasible and the objective of the 1% is so heinous that it’s time for more bold objectives.
China’s latest on Syria.
Seems like Russia & China just maybe might hold the line against the 5 evils.
We’ll see.
& wendydavis @ 80
Yeah, Fox has always been too draining/disgusting/disheartening for me. If they could only have heard me yelling, I might have got some reward out of it.
I might could align with an old-school non-interventionist conservative if I ever saw one that wasn’t an ignorant idealist. But even then I doubt I’d get far given their liberal (by the English definition) belief in the wonders of trickle down capitalism and it’s glorious future for mankind.
Fucking bunk.
The Shamir article in counterpunch refers to the KMS conspiracy originating with the Rogers plan so I looked that up.
I guess the lesson is that we need to keep an eye out for plans that don’t work out right away but that stay active in the background & eventually, usually out of the blue, come to fruition.
Lord knows, plans to smash Syria have been around for a long time.
I was deluded into thinking that O had become content with jerking off to drone snuff videos to avoid another major intl conflict before the election.
What a fool I am.
Off to read another chapter in The Prize. The book is not 500 pages, it is 775, and I’m up to 650.
It does tie into topic at hand in tangential ways though.
I don’t watch ANY teevee news or talking heads for the same reason. But I do search for youtube interviews here and there. And yes on the theatrics, like Friedman dissing Bibi. We’ll see on the others. Simon Johnson spent two years on his own speaking to any audience who’d have him on the dangers of TBTF banks, the need for serious fin-reg, etc. I doffed my cap to him often.
It’s almost impossible now to believe that any regulators will do their job, or the DoJ put any CEOs, CFOs in jail. But postal workers can lose their pensions if they’re ‘severely in arrears to the IRS’. I feel better, don’t you?
Thanks for the link.
A WWII bomber pilot and State Department officer of my acquaintance claimed IIRC, that the UN observers pullback was evidence of collusion with Israel. From Wikipedia:
As usual with cynical manipulators, the UK/US/Israel denial came packed with humiliation:
And thus they blamed the consequences on misperception:
Surely Sadat had some understanding of US intentions in ’73 and had no illusions that he could make lasting headway against Israel. He bargained with Kissinger for a little reduction in domestic animosity and betrayed the Soviets. I doubt the motivation for the latter was solely that he disliked socialism.
Kissinger charming. Huh. Charming like a psychopath?
Wasn’t it Kissinger who famously said, “In the future everyone will know about our wickedness for 15 minutes”?
Excellent, thought and comment-provoking post, eCAHN.
“Lost” my keyboard, so I couldn’t comment earlier.
Recommended, of course.
DW
Because every major scandal shows how capitalism works for the 1%, not for us, I guess is what I’d say.
I keep planning to do a post on Maarxist economics (maybe a Wolff video if I can find a short enough one), some of the anti-capitalist ideas; but with an eye to a discussion/open thread. Trouble is, as I said, I’m clueless about a lot of it. You could be a big help in the discussion, imo, as could several others here.
Wolff has been working with an Occupy or two working group, I think. That’s cool.
And by the by, Wolff’s written plenty about the Fed, lack of fin-regs, LIBOR, Robin Hood tax, etc. He’s tuned into the realities.
I know the lawyer whose firm represents the postal workers union. I haven’t talked to him in detail bc I’m not up to snuff on the situation, having been focused on Syria. Once I get to that topic, he knows every jot & tittle bc he’s in on every negotiation.
The Assad-Sadat agreement was to make the 1973 war a 2-front wh Israel could have lost. Sadat’s treason make it a one-front, which Syria could not win.
Can’t prove it by me but you read it over & over again.
Besides he’s been married a couple of times, and escorted numerous prominent women.
You’d have to put a paper bag over my head.
Was not familiar with that quote, but it seems like Kissinger, in the area where he was undeniably a huge expert.
Thanks DWB.
Add your comments. I think comments are open for 2-3 days & I check back regularly.
Sorry about your keyboard.
Shish. That dastardly Assad will do anything to stay in power. /s
That’s the closet BBC has come away from being a complete propagandist for its boss.
presstv analysis. I haven’t listened to all of it yet.
In case anyone skipped eCAHN’s voltairenet.org link @63, it is a must read for understanding the dynamics in Syria. WOW.
Thanks for emphasizing something you found particularly useful, ysd.
This is funny in a tragic way. Suggests that with regime change in Egypt, things might not be a one-way street for Israel anymore. Or one can hope.
All of Fox isn’t bad. Looks like you found a winner with Ben Swann’s reality check. The daytime news guy Shep Smith is as good he’s allowed to be. He beats anyone on CNN.
48 hours we just found out recently on a post which a few people here wanted pulled by management (it had some mistakes in it, which management corrected, then let stand.) Good choice, imo.
@ kissesfrogs
Yes, that was the interviewer’s name. I’ve heard of Shep Smith; good to know. We have no cable, so I just stay away from news in general. Wot? Not Wolf Blitzer, lol? Geraldo still alive? ;o) Ah, me…
@ysd I’d recently stumbled onto Voltairenet through one author. Interesting site.
That is funny, but it just exposes what has been the status quo since at least Mubarak.
A dictator enslaved his people, made a separate peace that didn’t include them.
It’s how the PTB does business.
John Perkins: http://youtu.be/NM1Rq4Q3qYY?t=1m15s
Your right in the long run, IMHO.
It’s kicking the can down the road, and in the case of Israel, who hubristic leaders feel confident in continuing belligerence against their enslaved brothers, It’s like putting a lid on unpopped corn in a small pan. Sooner or later it’s going to blow up. The orthodox colonizers in Israel are looking forward to taking down King Abdullah in Jordan next to make a palestinian state. It’s why they are supportive of FSA.
Here’s my personal Schadenfreude:
7/22/2012:Sinai Gas Pipeline Blown up for Fifteenth Time
Neocons making their own reality isn’t really going to pan out for them. Getting in bed with wahabbists and Christian premillennialists is a fatal mistake.
wow Wendy! I missed your diaries, I need read through them all the way.
By the way, Imani “I prioritize my vagina over drones.” Gandy, aka ABL or Angry Black Lady was fired by RawStory. I don’t think that cult lasted two months there.
Which diary did the totalitarians want pulled?
Reading the section of The Prize about the shah’s overthrow. Lots of similar signs in Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, but overwhelming U.S. military force will be used if necessary, unlike the shah, who was too sick to do anything and teh U.S. hadn’t a clue.
A great RT clip, eCAHN… ‘Democracy cannot be brought about from outside’…
Btw, Pepe penned another article… Obama does Syriana…
…CTuttle, if you come back, please link to some of your diaries.
I’m headed up the mtn tonite, I’ll post some of my ‘golden oldies’ later on, M’dear…! ;-)
Syriana is a movie that was absolutely a mystery to me. I did not unnerstan what was happening for a single minute.
Wunnerful.
Have a great evening.
Here’s one of my first posts referencing Syria, specifically, from last year, when it started to bubble up, eCAHN…
‘What Do You Call Radical? Democracy!’
A great post on Libya… ‘Intervention – Disaster For Libyans’
One that’s more focused on Iran… The Persian ‘Magical Mystery Tour’ and ‘the Phantom Menace’…
Goldberg Redux…
Pick A Conspiracy Theory, Any Conspiracy Theory
A lot of killer comments on that post…! ;-)
One more… The Afghan Trap…
I had no idea there were so many Alawites in Turkey. That should work out well for Erdogan. Link.
Another recent Escobar article.
Let’s look at the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights…
Doing a Monday AM FDL follow-up and am seeing this thread now has over 125 comments. Appears to be one of those rare FDL diary and comment threads that extended beyond norms.
The fairleft diary can be found by clicking on shootthatarrow and as of August 8,2012 is within last ten postings of my FDL sta>>> log.
Compliments to you eCAHNomics for a superb diary/comments thread. :-)
Correction to comment at 127 above — as of August 6,2012–
CT, I’ve made my way thru many of your diaries. They really are an excellent record.
May I suggest that you do another diary, linking all of them chronologically with the overriding theme(s) as you see it (them)? One that comes to mind is Israeli-U.S. plan to micronize ME as they did to Balkans. Another is Sunni terror at Shia crescent of power.
WRT Turkey, I came across another explanation that makes the most sense so far. It’s all Davutoglu’s fault.
Meanwhile, since you’ve done the work to link them here, you might consider adding a link @ comment 118ff to future diaries so that people can grasp you’re full oeuvre.
And thanks for all your work.
Thanks shootarrow.
Good discussion, I thought.
…May I suggest that you do another diary, linking all of them chronologically…
*sheesh* Quite the slave driver there, eh eCAHN…? ;-)
“No” is an acceptable answer.