America’s Long War or Global War on Terror has taken some ugly turns as the West’s continued war-making in the Muslim world leads to new terrorism against Western targets, with no end in sight, explains Nicolas J S Davies.
By Nicolas J S Davies
The recent news from Kabul (in Afghanistan), from Manchester and London (in England), from Mosul (in Iraq), from Raqqa (in Syria), from Marib (in Yemen) and from too many devastated and traumatized communities to list makes it only too clear that the world is trapped in an unprecedented and intractable cycle of violence. And yet, incredibly, none of the main parties to all this violence are talking seriously about how to end it, let alone taking action to do so.
At the start of the U.S. invasion of Iraq in 2003, President George W. Bush ordered the U.S. military to conduct a devastating aerial assault on Baghdad, known as “shock and awe.”
After 15 years of ever-spreading conflict has killed two to five million people, the main perpetrators are still getting away with framing their violence entirely as a response to the violence of their enemies. How much violence and chaos will the world accept before people start holding their own leaders morally and legally accountable for decisions and policies that predictably and repeatedly result in massive loss of life, cities reduced to rubble and shattered societies?
The neoconservative vision of a “Long War” or “generational conflict” to reshape the Middle East and other parts of the world has, in effect, created its own reality, as its proponents in the Bush II administration promised. The new crony-capitalist order they envisioned has taken root in places where entrenched ruling classes were already predisposed to it, like the Persian Gulf monarchies.
But wherever the would-be new rulers of the world – the U.S., NATO and the Arab royals – have made good on their threats to impose their new order by force, the results have only confirmed the soundness of the United Nations Charter’s prohibition against the threat or use of force and the urgency of actually enforcing it.
An intelligent, legitimate response to the 9/11 attacks would have limited the use of force to what was strictly necessary and proportional and prosecuted its perpetrators and planners as criminals. But Al Qaeda’s Osama Bin Laden, the hijackers and their accomplices gambled correctly on unwitting but decisive help from U.S. leaders who fell into the “war psychosis” that the scheme explicitly sought to provoke.
When the U.S. responded to a serious crime as an act of war, it granted Al Qaeda the status of a belligerent that it sought in the eyes of alienated, marginalized Muslims across the world. The U.S. “war on terror” thus exploded the limited threat from a small group of jihadis scurrying between tenuous safe havens in Sudan and Afghanistan into a global franchise that the most expensive war machine ever built can only scatter and splinter farther and wider with every bomb, missile and “special operation” that it launches.
As a result, the greater Middle East is disintegrating into a patchwork of militarized apartheid states surrounded by devastated societies where militias rule and chaos reigns. Every day, U.S. warplanes kill hundreds of people with a hundred bombs and missiles in Syria, Iraq and Afghanistan. Now U.S. leaders are contracting out the killing to new proxies. Saudi forces long dismissed as untrainable by Western military trainers — and armies of mercenaries recruited from Pakistan and elsewhere by Persian Gulf emirs — are committing a crime against humanity in Yemen, killing tens of thousands of civilians and threatening to plunge the poverty-stricken country into a famine that could kill millions. The brutality generates more and more desperate reactions.
The Sri Lanka model
In Sri Lanka, where I was born, rebel groups from the marginalized and oppressed Tamil minority adopted suicide bombing as a tactic and conducted 115 suicide attacks, including the assassinations of Sri Lankan President Premadasa and Indian Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi.
The World Trade Center’s Twin Towers burning on 9/11. (Photo credit: National Park Service)
Dharmalingam Siddarthan, one of the architects of the Tamils’ bombing campaign, explained the reasoning behind it to Mark Meadows, an American writer who went to Sri Lanka after the 9/11attacks to try to understand the “terrorism” that was then a new phenomenon to Americans.
“Terrorism is simply targeting innocent people,” Siddarthan explained. “It is targeting people who have nothing to do with your struggle. You cannot convince them to join you, and you cannot convince the government to change. We decided that Sinhalese people had to understand our suffering. When we bring the war to Colombo, we are hitting economic targets. We are weakening the economy and making it feel our struggle. And by doing so we gain the attention that we need.”
Siddarthan eventually renounced violence, and is now a Member of Parliament for Jaffna.
In another interview for his book, Tea Time With Terrorists, Meadows spoke to Shankar Rajee, the mastermind of the first Tamil bombings in the capital, Colombo, in 1984. Meadows asked Shankar Rajee, who had spent years on the CIA’s “Most Wanted” list, what message he thought Al Qaeda tried to send by the 9/11 attacks.
“They wanted to point out that the Americans are insulated, that all that matters is their ‘American way of life’ and their living standards,” Shankar Rajee told him. “Americans are not paying attention to the pain of the rest of the world. For the Americans, the end justifies the means. They do not care. But they hypocritically hold a high ground – a moral high ground – and cause the deaths of thousands of people to sustain their quality of life…
“See, when you become a superpower, the arrogance with which you exercise that power should be considered. All the great empires and all the great powers of the world have perished because of arrogance.”
The Sri Lankan civil war was in many ways the U.S. “Long War” in microcosm, pitting better-armed government forces against guerrilla fighters and suicide bombers. But the war took place on an island. Government forces eventually used overwhelming force to defeat the Tamil Tigers, also killing thousands of civilians in a final offensive that a U.N. official in Colombo described as a “bloodbath.”
But the U.S. Long War is not taking place on an island. When U.S.-led assaults on cities like Fallujah, Mosul and Raqqa massacre enemy forces and thousands of civilians, they incite more anger and hatred, which then inspires new recruits to Al Qaeda or Islamic State in far-off, unexpected places across the world.
After doing this over and over again for 15 years, U.S. military and civilian leaders should have learned by now that they are just fueling and expanding the conflict.
But instead of fundamentally rethinking U.S. policy, our civilian and military leaders are still counting on propaganda or “information warfare” to evade accountability for systematic war crimes and to limit the political blowback from their military madness.
For example, the U.S. still calls the bombs and missiles it uses to blow people apart and reduce their homes to rubble “precision weapons.” During the U.S. invasion of Iraq, an estimated 15 to 20 percent of these weapons missed their targets by at least 30 feet, but even when they are accurate, the U.S.’s smallest 500-pound bombs are designed to kill and maim across a blast radius that varies from 30 to 300 feet depending on what they hit.
As I wrote in Blood On Our Hands, “the impression created by the Centcom press office and CNN that these weapons could be used to safely and surgically ‘zap’ one house in an urban area was an artful blend of propaganda and science fiction.”
On the other side, Al Qaeda and Islamic State call their own most terrifying weapons, the suicidal murderers of nearly 3,000 people on 9/11 and young concert-goers in Manchester and Paris, “martyrs,” identifying them with resistance fighters across the Muslim world and Muslim warriors throughout history.
‘Constant Conflict’
Ironically, this kind of “information warfare” over language and imagery is exactly what American military planners expected and welcomed as they surveyed the post-Cold War world in the 1990s. But they overestimated their own ability to dominate it.
Barack Obama and George W. Bush at the White House.
A 1997 military journal essay titled “Constant Conflict” by Major Ralph Peters is an example of the triumphalism that passed for realism in the halls of the post-Cold War Pentagon, and of the hypocrisy and arrogance that Shankar Rajee identified as motivating factors behind the 9/11 crimes:
“We have entered an age of constant conflict,” Peters wrote. “Information is at once our core commodity and the most destabilizing factor of our time… Those of us who can sort, digest, synthesize, and apply relevant knowledge soar — professionally, financially, politically, militarily, and socially. We, the winners, are a minority.
“For the world masses, devastated by information they cannot manage or effectively interpret, life is ‘nasty, brutish . . . and short-circuited.’ The general pace of change is overwhelming, and information is both the motor and signifier of change. Those humans, in every country and region, who cannot understand the new world, or who cannot profit from its uncertainties, or who cannot reconcile themselves to its dynamics, will become the violent enemies of their inadequate governments, of their more fortunate neighbors, and ultimately of the United States. We are entering a new American century, in which we will become still wealthier, culturally more lethal, and increasingly powerful. We will excite hatreds without precedent…
“One of the defining bifurcations of the future will be the conflict between information masters and information victims…
“There will be no peace. At any given moment for the rest of our lifetimes, there will be multiple conflicts in mutating forms around the globe. Violent conflict will dominate the headlines, but cultural and economic struggles will be steadier and ultimately more decisive. The de facto role of the US armed forces will be to keep the world safe for our economy and open to our cultural assault. To those ends, we will do a fair amount of killing. We are building an information-based military to do that killing.
“Societies that fear or otherwise cannot manage the free flow of information simply will not be competitive. They might master the technological wherewithal to watch the videos, but we will be writing the scripts, producing them, and collecting the royalties. Our creativity is devastating.”
Meanwhile, over at the State Department, Secretary of State Madeleine Albright and then-First Lady Hillary Clinton were holding regular meetings with their staffs to map out the political and diplomatic policies that would support and justify the more aggressive and widespread use of military force being planned by the Pentagon.
U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton meets with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in Jerusalem, Nov. 21, 2012. [State Department photo]
“There is a refrain,” Clinton declared, “that we should intervene with force only when we face splendid little wars that we surely can win, preferably by overwhelming force in a relatively short period of time. To those who believe we should become involved only if it is easy to do, I think we have to say that America has never and should not ever shy away from the hard task if it is the right one.”
During the question-and-answer period after Clinton’s speech, a banker in the audience presciently challenged her on the threat lurking behind her euphemistic rhetoric.
“I seem to hear that we should pay any price, bear any burden, to spread our way of life abroad,” he said. “I wonder if you think that every foreign country — the majority of countries — would actually welcome this new assertiveness, including the one billion Muslims that are out there? And whether or not there isn’t some grave risk to the United States in this — what I would say, not new internationalism, but new imperialism.”
Clinton quickly backtracked, calling his summation, “an extreme statement I do not subscribe to.” But, as Michael Crowley wrote in the New Republic when Clinton threw her helmet into the 2008 presidential race, this incident shed light on her controversial vote for the Iraq War resolution.
“What if the hawkish Hillary of 2002 wasn’t just motivated by political opportunism?” he asked. “What if she really believed in the war?”
How Will This End?
The American public is still debating these questions about how we got into this mess, who to blame for it, and who we can trust to deescalate this vicious cycle of war and terrorism. But U.S. information warfare has been more effective on the home front than against our enemies or our victims, keeping most Americans in near-total ignorance of the scale of our country’s international violence.
Saudi King Salman bids farewell to President Barack Obama at Erga Palace after a state visit to Saudi Arabia on Jan. 27, 2015. (Official White House Photo by Pete Souza)
Several months after an epidemiological survey found that about 600,000 Iraqis had been killed in the U.S.-led invasion and first three years of hostile military occupation in Iraq, the median response to a 2007 Pew poll that asked Americans how many Iraqis they thought had been killed was only 9,890, less than one sixtieth of that number.
The paradox of this crisis is that, on both sides, the deadly and tragic results of actual military operations and terrorism are offset by success in the information war that sustains them both. We are confronting a perfect storm in which successful information warfare enables leaders on all sides to avoid rethinking strategies and policies that lead only to more violence and bloodshed.
On the U.S. side, every city we bomb, every jihadi or civilian we kill, and every country we plunge into chaos becomes a rallying point to recruit more jihadis and generate more anti-U.S. resistance, often in surprising places. While American bombs and Iraqi death squads have been reducing much of West Mosul to rubble and killing thousands of its residents, the West’s enemies have bombed Manchester; occupied Marawi, a city of 200,000 people in the Philippines; and conducted an unprecedented bombing in Kabul’s fortified “green zone.”
This is full-blown asymmetric warfare, and we would be foolish to think it cannot get much, much worse. But we should not let the asymmetry in the numbers killed or the weapons used to kill them obscure the overarching reality that the violence of each party to the conflict is fueling the violence of the other and thereby perpetuating this horrific cycle of violence.
On the other side, while Al Qaeda and now Islamic State have deftly exploited U.S. policies, which keep playing into their hands, they have failed in the main goals of terrorism as defined by Dharmalingam Siddarthan and Shankar Rajee in Sri Lanka. They have failed to either cripple the U.S. economy or to pierce the thick layers of consumerism and infotainment that insulate Americans from the pain of our victims.
‘Successful’ Propaganda
Just as Islamic State’s propaganda continues to work well within many Muslim communities across the world, U.S. “information warfare” still works well on Americans. So the “war psychosis” is maintained and perpetuated on both sides.
President Donald Trump touches lighted globe with Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi and Saudi King Salman and Donald Trump at the opening of Saudi Arabia’s Global Center for Combating Extremist Ideology on May 21, 2017. (Photo from Saudi TV)
But there are cracks in the U.S. propaganda war’s hold over the allies whose support gives an important veneer of false legitimacy to U.S. war-making. When the U.K.’s opposition leader, Jeremy Corbyn, said that the U.K.’s role in U.S.-led military interventions was partly responsible for the Manchester bombing, he was roundly condemned by Prime Minister Theresa May, his opponent in the upcoming general election. But a YouGov opinion poll soon revealed that most of the public agreed with Corbyn.
In Germany, where the public has always opposed the U.S. Long War, Chancellor Angela Merkel is now running for reelection on the position that Europe (not just Germany) can no longer “rely” on the U.S. and U.K. Merkel now believes that “we Europeans truly have to take our fate into our own hands,” and that that may mean improving relations with Russia as well as maintaining positive relations with the U.S. and U.K. France’s new president, Emmanuel Macron, has already welcomed President Putin to Versailles and clearly agrees with Merkel.
President Trump’s ignorant triumphalism will likely only widen these cracks in U.S.-led alliances. This is surely why the neocons greeted his election with such horror. Russiagate is the weapon they have chosen to counterattack with, but surely what they fear most is how Trump will undermine critical alliances with the U.K., Canada, Germany, France, Japan and other allies, as well as public perceptions of the U.S. all over the world.
Trump’s withdrawal from the very weak, non-binding Paris agreement on climate change could signal the beginning of the end of the era when the United States could lead the world down whichever path that Washington chose, including destructive wars in the name of freedom and democracy.
After George W. Bush and his neocon wrecking-ball team alienated many U.S. allies and people everywhere with the Iraq War and the Global War on Terror, Barack Obama was favored by military-industrial power-brokers and other powerful interests to repair America’s world image and to rebuild geopolitical alliances and win back international public opinion.
After Obama’s largely successful charm offensive, the neocons were counting on Hillary Clinton to do the follow-on job of more aggressively advancing their agenda along now predictable and profitable lines. Trump’s victory threw the mother of all monkey wrenches into their plans.
It is a general pattern in international politics that unstable regimes, alliances and institutions sooner or later collapse and give way to new ones. As Shankar Rajee implied, what any great power should fear most is neither terrorism nor a great power rival but rather the consequences of its own hypocrisy and arrogance coming home to roost.
The nature of political change is that powerful new forces often build slowly beneath the surface and appear to be having little or no effect on existing power relations and structures, until the right catalyst releases their latent energy and new ideas, triggering a cascade of seemingly surprising changes.
Recent examples in U.S. politics have been movements for the $15 minimum wage, gay marriage and criminal justice reform. The paradox of power is that the more that status quo interests or classes suppress new movements and ideas that threaten their dominance, the more they inadvertently fuel the pressures beneath the surface of the political system that are the preconditions for real democratic change.
The exact nature of the catalyst that could trigger a decisive transition in the balance of international power is almost impossible to predict, but there is no question that the pressures that are the precondition for such a shift have been building for some time. The U.S. government’s resort to such widespread, illegal and escalating threats and uses of force, with no rational endpoint or exit strategy, is a symptom of a dominant power struggling to assert an authority that it no longer commands. We may in fact be living through a historic transition that has already passed its point of no return, but this will only become clear in hindsight.
The contradictions of the U.S. role in the world are becoming too dangerous and too obvious to the whole world to paper over with any amount of propaganda, consumerism and political games. The leaders of other nations and their citizens must now come to grips with the grave responsibilities of addressing the “American problem” and shepherding the world through a critical transition to a sustainable, just and peaceful future. If they do, many Americans will support them.
Nicolas J S Davies is the author of Blood On Our Hands: the American Invasion and Destruction of Iraq. He also wrote the chapters on “Obama at War” in Grading the 44th President: a Report Card on Barack Obama’s First Term as a Progressive Leader.
Not if the people are incapable of educating themselves about terrorism and the role of intelligence agencies.
http://politicalfilm.wordpress.com/2017/06/08/why-americans-dont-understand-terrorism-at-all/
Excellent analysis and summary of the futility of aggression and wars to instill fear to control and conquer. It is a travesty, our main stream media neither inform nor educate the citizenry the truth about important issues that concern the citizens or the real reasons for the wars and violence but glorify them. After all, their children do not enlist and do not experience the ravages of war! They create tension between politicians, countries and sensationalize every little incident to get ratings so their pockets are lined very well. Secondly,
Wars do not accomplish anything good. The fruits of war are, death, destruction, anger, hatred and more violence. It is foolhardy to spend the short time we are given to journey on earth to kill our own species. Learned recently, even animals do not kill their own! Why not live peacefully with each other, sharing the resources in a mutually beneficial manner, have fun, enjoy life without fear, hate or anger or competing to be the ‘top dog’. Then, when the time comes to say good bye, let God, determine our fate based on our deeds. Hope this becomes the fervent prayer of all like minded people.
Brilliant.
Status quo interests certainly don’t disfavor the LGBTQ agenda; in fact it’s universally supported by the corporate elite, as just another appetite to slake for profit and distract from the endless war profit machine. If you think that having a gay President would mean a kinder, gentler America worldwide, then you must have equally misbelieved a puppet with melanin would have meant hope for changing Deep State politics, which never happened but in fact grew worse. The reality is that such people as are filtered through the bought political system are inevitably tempted to use the war power they now have, to make their own wars for their own interests and ideologies, and to pay off their sponsors.
If it is accepted that America is one of the most important catalysts, perhaps a major one, in the emergence of terrorism, then we must consider how we must change in order to change the world. Football coaches are fond of KISS, keep it simple, stupid. How we must change is to become a law abiding member of the world community and align ourselves with the principles we try to uphold in our Constitution and our Bill of Rights. If we do not do that then our exceptionalism will continue to be a barrier to ending the war on terror and all the cold wars we are running. It will continue to enable arms dealers and neocons to have their way and the war on terror and our cold wars will hold us captive.
Batman is dead!
“‘The essence of anarchy is constant surprise.’ Spontaneity… Lao-Tse knew, and all those other old chinese guys. So how come we all forgot along the way? How come you can be wise once upon a time, and two thousand years later you’re ignorant as a pig? Doesn’t really matter. The dinosaurs are dead, only they don’t know it yet. They need someone like Anarky to bring home the news. The Dark Ages are passing — and their heroes will pass with them. The city needs a new breed of hero. The night needs a new kind of monster. Anarky.
“I always knew I’d get off on this part of it. There’s something just feels so good about… destruction. But not destruction for its own sake. This is a cleansing… A ridding of the old… It’s necessary.”
The essence of anarchy is surprise… Spontaneity. Lao-Tse knew!”
Source: “Anarky in Gotham” (part two), Detective Comics #609, December 1989; by Alan Grant.
The Light Ages are just down the road and you need a jet to get there. Join the Surprise Party because the others are a drag.
Supreme art of war is to disable the enemy without fighting. This is the art of war.
The short answer to “Will the Neocon wars ever end?” as everyone here knows, is, Nope. As Gore Vidal titled his 2002 short essay, it’s “Perpetual War for Perpetual Peace”. Which, of course, it isn’t but just bamboozles the subjects of the kingdom, who then turn on the TV to forget all about it.
The Checkmate of Israel and the Israeli Lobby
The Windfall Checkmate
Mueller’s windfall investigation of Jared over Russia lays bare Jared’s simultaneous illegal sedition with Israel during Dec 2016 as Jared and Trump were caught in flagranted delicto subverting the USA over the devastating UN SCR 2334 against Apartheid Israel. Obama successfully parried the clear and present danger from Trump, Kushner and the Israelis
During Dec 2016 it was widely reported that Trump had colluded with Bibi and even General Sisi of Egypt to subvert President Barack Obama and American foreign policy over America’s support of the existential-to-Apartheid Israel UN SCR 2334, declaring all Israeli settlements in Palestine to be ‘flagrantly illegal’ and paving the way for 1P1V1S
Jared Kushner, a longtime family friend of Netanyahu was obviously front an center in the secret collusion between Trump and Bibi, during Dec 21, Dec 22, and Dec 23 when the (unanimous 14-0, US abstaining) vote took place
Jared and Trump have obviously have committed t*****n with Israel in Dec 2016, let alone Russia. Mueller will expose Israel, Kushner, and Trump over this.
This culminated in the Dec 23rd 2016 passage of this historic resolution against Israel and precipitated ‘involuntary narcissistic rage’ from an increasinly psychologically desperate and unstable Bibi Netanyahu that apparently required medication and unequivocal conciliatory statements to the US regarding Israel’s continued appreciation of the US as a partner.
Will Mueller seize Jared’s computer and/or find he used Israeli encrypted communications with Netanyahu and the Israelis in Dermer’s office in the Israeli Embassy during their infamous completed crime of trying to subvert President Obama and the US?
CHECKMATE ISRAEL .
CHECKMATE ISRAEL LOBBY.
The million dollar realization is COLLAPSE of Israeli/Israeli Lobby domination of the American political landscape.
Jared’s collusion with Israel and Bibi over UN SCR 2334 is STUCK LIKE A TARBABY to Jared’s collusion with Russia
CHECKMATE Jewish power in the US and Israel
GOGOGOGOGO Courage is Contagious GOGOGOGOGO
The author ignores the fact the fact that the jihadist movement began in earnest with the creation, funding and arming of the mujahadeen to fight the Soviet-backed government in Afghanistan, long before 911. That atrocity, which was run by the Saudis, was then used to make war against nations that had nothing to do with 911. Obama’s offensive was not based on “charm,” but rather on the policy of regime change using the successors of the mujahadeen to achieve those ends in Libya and Syria, costing hundreds of thousands of lives and displacing millions. As the brilliant flanking intervention by Puitn began to turn the tide of that war, only the the election of Donald Trump prevented a Clinton victory and the imposition of a “no-fly zone’ which would have brought us into direct conflict with Russia.
The mayor of London said that terrorism is just “part and parcel” of life in big cities. Wow. That’s impressive. Let’s not address the problem, let’s just say Get Used To It! And the police chime in with a message to “run, hide, and tell”…wherever and whatever that’s supposed to mean! And Theresa May says the internet needs to be made safe from “extremism”… seemingly oblivious to the fact that civilian death by terrorism is something that takes place in physical spaces, not in the already ubiquitously surveilled cyberworld.
The Manchester terrorist was known to the intelligence “community” and had been to Libya. He was allowed to come back to Britain, and, without hindrance, was able to carry out another “part and parcel” of life in the city. Some War on Terror we have going on here.
I wish Jeremy Corbyn could just go for broke and lay it all on the line in the next few days. We all (the civilized) need someone with visibility to call this rot out for what it is…
Yeah, it seems obvious at this point that Trump doesn’t have what it takes. After he fired Comey he should have gone “all in” and exposed the history of the crimes of the “Deep State” directly to the American people. Of course they’d probably have shot him before he could open his mouth. Jeremy Corbyn seems to be a bit brighter and better spoken, and he has already hinted at the real cause of the Manchester attack. It would be great if he would make a major speech and tell the world what’s really going on.
Most of the bullshit in the American media is a successful distraction that prevents us from seeing the corporate stranglehold on our government. “Fake News” is a brilliant continuation. Now, anything embarrassing is labeled “Fake News”. WAKE UP AMERICA.
I think you do a disservice to Trump, at least the Trump who ran for President. The Neocons reacted with horror, because he said he wanted to stop these pointless wars.
SteveK9, I agree with you on that. After Trump unexpectedly won, I wanted to know who he is, and what he stands for. I watched (on you tube) most of his interviews with journalists, going back all the way to 1985. I think, he really believed that we have spent all this money on the wars in Middle East and Afghanistan for nothing , and he wanted to stop all these wars. With Russia, he wanted to get along, and improve the relations.
But Trump did not know or understand the Powers behind the throne who really rule. They can destroy any Politician or other Public servant who does not do their bidding or goes astray. On the top of it, he has no political skills, and he has no P.R. and speaking skills like Obama or any other smart politician.
We can not only blame him for what is going on. Those who are after his hide are more to blame.
This reminds me of Putin’s interview with, I believe Le Monde, where he described what happens shortly after a new president takes office. Paraphrasing:
“The new president sits down at his Oval Office desk and in come the men in dark suits and dark ties with brief cases and they tell him how things work.”
Thanks for an article that really expresses clearly what we otherwise only sense is happening.
It is extremely liberating to read the obvious common sense that US violence created and perpetuates terrorism, and the extreme lack of proportion in suffering.
Why do the EU go along with US wars and lies and propaganda, including my country? Pressure, fear and inability to collaborate?
The comment on Trump above seems justified: his intention regarding Russia is sound, and Mrs Clinton obviously would have created even more suffering in Syria, Ukraine and elsewhere, had she had her will.
There really is a sense of a historic shift in the making, with roots far older than The Trump presidency.
Westerners have short memories. How quickly they have forgotten the long bloody conflict in Northern Ireland that saw car bombs and other terrorist acts perpetrated every day of the week in Christian-on-Christian violence. By now there must be thousands of Islamic State militants embedded amongst the million-plus immigrants from the war-torn Middle East that the EU has allowed allowed into its midst. Events such as Manchester and London may be just the beginning for the Jihadis who fervently want to make the Christian world pay for what it has set in motion.
The bloody carnage of the Crusades and other Islamo-Christian conflicts, like the fall of Constantinople, the rise of the Ottoman Empire, and the resentments they permanently set in the minds of generations seemed far in the past but never forgotten, yet we just had to resurrect them in the aftermath of two 20th century world wars by imposing lines on the map and giving away to European Jews land that did not belong to us. Then to put a cherry on top of the madness we think up the brilliance to recruit the most extreme fundamentalist Wahabi Jihadists to fight against the Soviet Union for us in Afghanistan, which, of course, was like trying to ride a tiger.
The man who conceived this brilliant plan has finally departed this earth, but the lethal consequences of his policies in the form of unending blowback are still in full flower. For the Mujahideen begat al Qaeda which begat Shock and Awe which begat Libya and Syria and Somalia and Yemen and thousands of willing would-be martyrs ready to take Christian Infidel lives throughout Europe and, once they finally arrive here in sufficient numbers, in the American “homeland.”
Mr. Trump claims to want to stop them at our borders by screening them out using typical hapless American inefficiency–think the TSA writ large, with lots of bricks and mortar bought and paid for to create a supposed thing of beauty. Mr. Bush preferred to “fight them over there rather than over here” by devastating their home turf, rather capriciously and provocatively it seemed to more analytical minds, as if the slaughter of women and children and the ridicule of their culture and their honor at Abu Graib would not inspire the thirst for revenge. The vicious cycle is not going to abate by our ratcheting up the violence. Their culture respects sacrifice and martyrdom. Have we not seen that? How stupid and oblivious to reality can we be? When Dubya said, “bring ’em on” they took up the challenge and are not about to back down now even after, especially after, having lost literally millions of lives to American military action. The Jihad started out by recruiting local Middle Eastern fanatics, now it has spread to home-grown kids born and raised in Europe, and the stated casi belli have expanded to include their own perceived persecution by European majorities, whether factual or not. Jihad is a growth industry, the way the problem is being managed by our brilliant Western leaders.
Nope, this stops only when the Western military alliance, essentially meaning the United States, stands down. Since I don’t see that happening any time soon, as military power seems to be America’s primary means of leveraging world events, strap yourself in for increased “terrorism” on our side of the field (or as the late chess master who made the opening move in the current game would put it, on our side of the board).
In the bigger world outside of US dominated one, that is the vast majority, American cultural, economic, military “supremacy” has become irrelevant. Everyone else is moving on. Russia is cutting the military spending 25%. They are ready for any kind of attack. China is focused on the “One Belt One Road” project. Within the US sphere, ‘allies’ are signed on the AIIB development bank and shifting into non-dollar trade. Here in China, 10 year old kids are all speaking English now. The US is left out and left behind. I recommend reading Chinese news. It is mostly very accurate.
I believe The Evil Terrorists and The “Good” Terrorists have created hell on earth and all of them should be arrested and put on trial.
[read more at link below]
http://graysinfo.blogspot.ca/2017/06/the-evil-terrorists-and-good-terrorists.html
Camp Bucca: The US Prison That Became The Birthplace of ISIS
Terrence McCoy
11-4-14
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/middle-east/camp-bucca-the-us-prison-that-became-the-birthplace-of-isis-9838905.html
I would make three comments:
First, an informative article as is generally the case with Nicolas Davies.
BUT
Second, inadequate attention is given to Israel’s role in keeping the US bogged down in the Middle East quagmire. While the US actions there make us the target of jihadis and are a disaster for the region, they make excellent sense for Israel along the lines suggested long ago by Oded Yinon. See: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yinon_Plan
Third, Trump, as is usual and fashionable, is dismissed, in this case for his “triumphalism.” This ignores his oft-stated and politically costly (to him) call to “get along” with Russia which, if he can shake off his wrong-headed notions about Iran, could bring a new structure of peace to the Middle East. When it comes to “triumphalism,” the prize should be given to the Queen of Chaos and her spouse. See: http://www.unz.com/article/how-the-clintons-failed-to-heed-lessons-of-treaty-of-versailles/
Thank you very much Mr. Davies. A very penetrating, and accurate analysis of this very violent and destructive chaos unleashed on the planet, by design – and the direction it is taking the World to.
One of the more thoughtful essays on the current state of affairs. There exists now a “system” of US interests that is in serious need of changing involving the leadership, the military, the citizen as an expendable commodity, and the world in general. Perhaps the allies can have some needed influence to effect some change away from the aggressive stance of US foreign policy. The system needs changing or the empire will fall as all the other empires have fallen when hubris and the psychopathy of absolute power takes over. The USA’s elected and unelected leadership is heading towards collapse at an ever increasing speed toward oblivion.
Nice long article… I saved it. I recall that article with Leon Panetta saying this ‘war against terror’ will last around 30 years. The US could end this war tomorrow if it wanted to. Terrorism won’t effect the US the same way terrorism destroys other countries like Iraq, Libya and Syria and eslewhere. What the neocon psychopaths envision. I’m a big fan of Frank L. Klingberg and what what he called “the historical alternation of moods in American foreign policy.” He uncovered a periodic swing between “extroversion”— a readiness to use direct diplomatic, military or economic pressure on other nations to gain American ends— and “introversion”— a concentration on concerns of the national community. Examining wars, annexations, armed expeditions, naval expenditures, presidential statements and party platforms, Klingberg in 1952 identified seven alternations since 1776
Here’s the table: https://www.secularcafe.org/archive/index.php/t-30307.html
If these neocon psychopaths have their way we will see global terrorism for the next few decades until the real big wars break out amongst countries again in about 25 years or so AFTER this terrorism phase ends.
there is only one country in the whole world that benefits from all the violence in the Middle East. It’s verboten to mention the name of that country but it’s first letter begins with an I.
Terrorism NEVER affects the elite. Its victims are always the defenseless domestic population. The elite then point to faceless enemies and advise vigilance. Meanwhile, they continue uninterrupted the policies which spawned the terrorism in the first place, while implying that public irresponsibility was somehow a contributing factor. After the recent London attack, Theresa May immediately proceeded to blame the internet as a breeding ground for these kinds of atrocities. She made no mention of the daily bombings Britain tacitly enables all over the Middle East through its complicity in neoliberal conquest. She made no mention of maimed children, devastated societies, millions of dead, millions more displaced, economic ruination, malnutrition, starvation, birth defects and cancer from depleted uranium munitions or spreading epidemics caused by collapsing infrastructure.
Her concern was the internet. Claims that the scenario – complete with an unbelievably immediate police response and eyewitnesses who recalled with photographic precision details of the attack which could not have been witnessed by a solitary individual – fostered immediate “false flag” speculation. True or not, the very nature of terrorists attacks is such that “faceless enemies” or “false flags” produce exactly the same “innocent victims” and both scenarios are equally plausible. The “elites” benefit as tighter social controls are imposed, the paranoid public becomes suspicious of its peers, hostility is turned away from exploitative policies and public dissent becomes tainted with accusations of subversion. As Hermann Goering notoriously explained, “It works the same in any country.” The gravest enemy of such elites is a free press, which has been successfully co-opted and brought to heel. The only effective antidote today is the internet, which has now been officially blamed as an unindicted co-conspirator.
Yes, it is imprudent to consider “conspiracy theories” first. But in the mind of a suspicious victim, why would the internet – and not the policies likely responsible – receive the first, and logically least plausible condemnation? What…they think these people who have been devastated have no desire to “get even”? Go to youtube and type in: Captain SKA – Liar Liar GE2017 …and keep in mind, BBC won’t play it. But, it’s gone viral on the internet. Is it any wonder Theresa May blames the internet and not herself? Clintonoid Delusional Derangement Syndrome appears to be contagious.
Off topic but the internet is in serious jeopardy of having the ISP’s being given the ultimate authority of control, speed, and content if the new chair of the FCC gets his way. This could be a direct path for censorship by the corporate or government state.
Framing is extremely important. “Elite” has positive connotations, perhaps oligarchs or corporate globalists?
F. G. Sanford, I’m reading for the 1st time “The Polca Dot File” by Fernando Faura in which describes the immediate aftermath of the RFK Assassination, and it is amazing to read this reporter’s real-time experience as evidence and witnesses disappear into the void, like all of the assassinations of the 1960’s. The startling thing is the similarity of accused criminals, incriminating evidence, and lack of interest in differing opinion and suppression of investigative technique. All followed by a public declaration that “There is nothing further to see here, we’ll take care of it”. All insuring that the facts will never be properly assembled and presented.
https://www.amazon.com/Polka-File-Robert-Kennedy-Killing/dp/1634240596
See also Robert Parry’s excellent article linked below:
https://consortiumnews.com/2012/06/14/admissions-on-nixons-treason/
F.G. : Very informative comments. First, the U.S. and European Politicians and Media have been blaming RT and Sputnik News for subverting the minds of their citizens in making political choices. Now this Theresa May thing you mentioned. It seems that controls on internet and media (Foreign!) may be coming.
The real question in my mind is who bennefitted from the destruction of the Middle East and put neighbour against neighbour? This is just the old British Empire strategy of divide and conquer on a far larger scale? We may well find many of the real culprets hiding in the midst of outfits like the Bilderberg Group. If we could truly answer that question we would know who really needs killing, and
it ain´t resistance groups in the Middle East and Africa..
You seriously don’t know who benefits?..or are you being snarky?
It benefits the people who ‘created’ the phony threat,,,,,.guess what group (and country) that would be.
If has also benefited a host of others who have milked the US fear for their own benefit.
The “Green Peril”: Creating the Islamic Fundamentalist Threat
By Leon T. Hadar
August 27, 1992
https://object.cato.org/sites/cato.org/files/pubs/pdf/pa177.pdf
The Making of a “Peril”
The Islamic threat argument is becoming increasingly popular with some segments of the American foreign policy establishment. They are encouraged by foreign governments who, for reasons of self-interest, want to see Washington embroiled in the coming West vs. Islam confrontation. The result is the construction of the new peril, a process that does not reflect any grand conspiracy but that nevertheless has its own logic, rules and timetables.
The creation of a peril usually starts with mysterious “sources” and unnamed officials who leak information, float trial balloons, and warn about the coming threat. Those sources reflect debates and discussions taking place within government. Their information is then augmented by colorful intelligence reports that finger exotic and conspiratorial terrorists and military advisers. Journalists then search for the named and other villains. The media end up finding corroboration from foreign sources who form an informal coalition with the sources in the U.S. government and help the press uncover further information substantiating the threat coming from the new bad guys.
In addition, think tanks studies and op-ed pieces add momentum to the official spin. Their publication is followed by congressional hearings, policy conferences, and public press briefings. A governmental policy debate ensues, producing studies, working papers, and eventually doctrines and policies that become part of the media’s spin. The new villain is now ready to be integrated into the popular culture to help to mobilize public support for a new crusade. In the case of the Green Peril, that process has been under way for several months.[13]
A series of leaks, signals, and trial balloons is already beginning to shape U.S. agenda and policy. Congress is about to conduct several hearings on the global threat of Islamic fundamentalism.[14] The Bush administration has been trying to devise policies and establish new alliances to counter Iranian influence: building up Islamic but secular and pro-Western Turkey as a countervailing force in Central Asia, expanding U.S. commitments to Saudi Arabia, warning Sudan that it faces grave consequences as a result of its policies, and even shoring up a socialist military dictatorship in Algeria.
Regional Powers Exploit U.S. Fears
Not surprisingly, foreign governments, including those of Turkey, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Israel, India, and Pakistan,have reacted to the evidence of U.S. fear. With the end of the Cold War they are concerned about a continued U.S.commitment to them and are trying to exploit the menace of Islamic fundamentalism to secure military support,economic aid, and political backing from Washington as well as to advance their own domestic and regional agendas.The Gulf War has already provided the Turks, Saudis, Egyptians, and Israelis with an opportunity to revive theAmerican engagement in the Middle East and their own roles as Washington’s regional surrogates. Now that the Iraqidanger has been diminished, the Islamic fundamentalist threat is a new vehicle for achieving those goals.
Pakistan, which lost its strategic value to the United States as a conduit of military aid to the guerrillas in Afghanistan,and India, whose Cold War Soviet ally has disintegrated, are both competing for American favors by using the Islamiccard in their struggle for power in Southwest Asia. That struggle involves such issues as the Kashmir problem and anaccelerating nuclear arms race.[15]
Even such disparate entities as Australia and the Iranian Mojahedin opposition forces are conducting public relationsand lobbying efforts in the United States based on the Islamic fundamentalist threat. Colin Rubenstein recentlydiscussed the need to maintain an American military presence in Asia to contain the power of the Moslem governmentin Malaysia, which according to him has adopted increasingly repressive measures at home/……
Good and thoughtful essay as far as it goes. However, like most things one reads in most of the “alternative leftist” online press it misses several essential points. Davies accepts the mainstream Narrative on the U.S./World political system which is clearly false. There exists withing the creaking and out-of-date structures of the U.S. government something that emerged after WWII sometimes called the “National Security State” or “Deep State” hiding in plain sight partly because in our our mythological framework is still organized around the notion of a leader or a committee making decisions. incorporated the findings of systems theory, recent social -and neuro-science particularly concerning neural networks and emergent intelligence except in specialized fields. Culture is always about a century be hind science but technology is not. We live today in a society dominated by algorithms and we just don’t get it.
Thus the idea that “terrorists” dominated by a relatively minor figure in an organization called Al-qaeda organized and carried out the attack on 9/11 just at the precise time the neocons needed that “new Pearl Harbor” even to galvanize the public into permanent war is an utterly absurd notion. The evidence against the mainstream Narrative on this is so overwhelming and so obvious that it shows to me the efficacy of mind-control not by a cabal of a few dozen but by a system, well-oiled, well-established that has been carrying out major operations since WWII at least and unofficialy before then. The algorithm for all this is called “American Interests” and is a system not a cabal. 9/11 was created by a system that had the neoconservative cabal as a major node only among many other major nodes.
For this Algorithm-regime (the Deep State) to survive and thrive there has to be permanent war of some kind just as people require food and water the Algorithm must have war, cold or hot or all the shades in-between. Unless we understand this Davis’ insights accurate and correct in their way are kind of beside the point. I repeat the Deep State cannot survive without war so there is no possibility of peace under this regime. We have to change the entire regime or alter the Algorithm by forming new networks and dissolving the old ones. That will take time, dedication and focus and it has to begin with getting the correct information out there and clearly established. Otherwise, better to just indulge in various kinds of escapism and not think about this sort of thing.
You certainly posit an interesting view as an algorithm of the US system. The so called ‘deep state’ is just a part of the whole with the corporate US interests a primary source of war profiteering. There are others too involved with the ‘running of things’ or as US interests. Until the whole system or algorithm,as you put it, is replaced the system will continue it’s destructive ways. The over riding [roblem is how to utilize the networks effectively to start change.
Chris Cosmos – “Good and thoughtful essay as far as it goes.”
Lawyer for Tortured Detainees: U.S. Created ISIS Through Misguided Detention, Interrogation Policies
JUNE 05, 2017
We speak with Shayana Kadidal, senior managing attorney at the Center for Constitutional Rights, about an often overlooked footnote in the history of ISIS. Kadidal says the group’s mix of people with religious and battlefield experience was “pulled together in Camp Bucca,” which once hosted thousands of prisoners in Iraq without charge. Many alleged they suffered of torture and abuse by U.S. guards while held there. “We made this. We created this movement and its leadership with our own misguided and amateurish detention and interrogation policies,” Kadidal says, and argues that by keeping Guantánamo open and speaking approvingly of torture, President Trump is running a “long-standing commercial for ISIS.”
AMY GOODMAN: Very quickly, Shayana, before we go, you’ve been talking about the origins of ISIS.
SHAYANA KADIDAL: Sure. I think, you know, with everything that’s in the news lately, it’s important to remember something that got buried when it was first reported on, right when the torture report summary came out in late 2014, which is that 25 of the 27 top leaders of ISIS were all held together by the United States in Camp Bucca, which was a Guantánamo-like detention facility where we held both kind of religious radicals, like Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, who was there, and a whole bunch of people from the Baath Party, who were bureaucrats and military experts, generals from Saddam Hussein’s army, right? And, you know, the crazy kind of mix that we have with ISIS of religious millenarians and people with actual expertise in running battlefield campaigns, which you usually don’t see, because good generals usually don’t think the rapture is coming tomorrow, that was pulled together in Camp Bucca, where people were being abused because of their sectarian affiliation and their Muslim religion, right? Just like what happened at Guantánamo and Abu Ghraib and everywhere else.
So, you know, bottom line with ISIS is—and we see this reported so infrequently—is we made this. We created this movement and its leadership with our own misguided and amateurish detention and interrogation policies. And by keeping Guantánamo open, by speaking approvingly of torture, President Trump is doing nothing more than running a long-standing kind of commercial for ISIS.
https://www.democracynow.org/2017/6/5/lawyer_for_tortured_detainees_us_created
“Deep State” is run by Fleet St and Israel plain and simple. They get others to do their “wet work”. Endless War with No End In Sight as it is planned that way. Deliberate. That is the reason Russia is on the crap list of the West. They are bombing their Mercenaries.
Spot on. The radical Muslim terrorists are a direct reaction to the radical Jewish terrorists who established Israel, starting with the Nakba, and who have continued their terrorism against the Palestinians to this day. To eliminate the root cause of the Muslim terrorist attacks in London one must eliminate the Jewish terrorist attacks in Palestine. This is well-known, but forbidden to speak about in the Western MSM.
It’s forbidden because the bankrollers of the terrorist Jewish state control the mainstream media, politicians, and universities.
Let’s talk about Russian influence
http://mondoweiss.net/2016/08/about-russian-influence/
Why Not a Probe of ‘Israel-gate’?
https://consortiumnews.com/2017/04/20/why-not-a-probe-of-israel-gate
It’s also forbidden because those bankrollers WANT the profits of the endless wars they have instigated. This exact blowback against the U.S. was predicted in the 1940’s by the U.S. Secretaries of State and Defense.
War Profiteers and the Roots of the War on Terror
http://warprofiteerstory.blogspot.com
Excellent comment, Chris. There are now over 3,000 Architects and Engineers who have signed on questioning the possibility of bringing down a skyscraper symmetrically without controlled demolition. That someone could look at the videos of these buildings coming down and not see something obviously “fishy” with the official narrative shows how effective the propaganda is today.
I read an excellent article yesterday that gives a history of the development of the “Deep State”. It is rather lengthy, but it does a great job of shedding light on the real “evil ones”.
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/47183.htm
‘An intelligent, legitimate response to the 9/11 attacks …’
the only legitimate, intelligent response to the 9/11 attacks would have been getting to the bottom of the case : whodunit? instead the cheney/bush/tnc msm swept everyone up in the illegitimate are craze against iraq – which surely had nothing to do with 9/11. it’s been downhill ever since. he usofa has embarked on a decade and a half of serial aggressions, and its aggression have gone from shocking and awful to worse : death, devastation, and destruction of whole nations. dd&d has become the us’ most important … its only product.
the only way we’ll ever regain control of our nation is to charge bush-obama, their mentors and lackeys with their war crimes, convict them, and admit the usofa has gone down the same path in the 21st century that germany and japan went down in the 20th. admitting it is step number one.
I agree with you but WHO exactly is going to do that?! America has actually made a marble bust for Cheney in congress and Dubia is busy painting portraits while Obama is writing his second, or may be third, Autobiography and also preparing for his high-paid speeches to Wall Street Bankers and whoever else is willing to pay. Americans themselves are so selfish and self-centered that, with very little exceptions, are busy entertaining themselves or complaining about being “victimized” by someone!! Here you have the picture. Now, who exactly is going to do the great suggestion that you are making?!
” I agree with you but WHO exactly is going to do that?! “”
If you can get Trump’s adm to give me total immunity and a advance presidential pardon for any crimes I may commit in my endeavors …particularly when I have to water board Cheney and Neo/Zio cabal … then I’ll be delighted to be one who will do it.
An easier way would be to offer Assange immunity and let him unload.
I have often thought of how pivotal Germany and Europe were to the U.S. efforts to the War on Terror, and among other worldly issues, and of how for the U.S. to continue with it’s goals of world dominance that the U.S. must keep it’s European NATO powers within it’s realm of influence. Now, watching Germany along with other alllied nations voice their discontent with the U.S., mostly over President Trump’s bombastic attitude, we are watching these Western and South Pacific nations peel away, or at least show interest in their going it alone without their U.S. master is absolutely astounding. Donald Trump is giving the word ‘respect’ a whole new geopolitical meaning.
Although I wouldn’t want the U.S. to do badly at anything, I sense that for the U.S. to lose it many allied nations that this loss could be a huge game changer for the U.S., as to it’s going forward with it’s War on Terror. Without these various nations where the U.S. has military bases, and the U.S. enjoys at least the backing of these nations leaders, it will be difficult to impossible for the U.S. to continue with it’s wars of world hegemony. Right now we maybe only seeing cracks in the veneer, but cracks can widen into valleys of separation, and I ask myself, how much longer can this go on?
Is it possible that through Donald Trump’s bull in a China shop rudeness we could be watching a new geopolitical world unfold? Will there be a peace of somekind evolve out of all of this, as a result of a U.S. Presidents impoliteness?
Joe, I would add to your excellent comments. I am not too optimistic. European leaders are at odds with Trump, not U.S. policy. They have been supporting that policy all along. They have been, and are now, just the Vassal States – of U.S.. Just imagine, if Hillary had won. Hillary and Merkel, and Theresa May would be celebrating with champagne, and plotting to start a few more imperialist adventures – with no thought for those unfortunate victims in the Third World. We have to go back and read the History of European Imperialism during the last five centuries to understand it all.
I hope, I wish, and I pray that Western Europeans and their leaders, generally being more educated, and informed than Americans, will come to their senses, and start working for World Peace instead of making the World a graveyard of death and destruction.
But I do think, that Mr. Davies – without taking sides – have written a very good analysis in this article.
Dave you make good points. Only keep your eye on Germany and France to see how much longer these two U.S. Allies will continue to impose sanctions on Russia. Secondly keep a focus on where Germany and France will be on the Iran P5+1 NPT Deal. If Trump does trash the ‘Iran Deal’ will Germany and France trash it with him? If Germany and France start trading in other currencies will be another sign of departure from their U.S. Controllers. Don’t forget Europe is feeling the effects of these Middle East adventures, by taking in the many refugees who are a result of these U.S. led invasions, is there any European resentment for this? The U.S. is not turning on the average European with these after affects of these Middle East nightmares. Maybe you and I should list these positive negative issues on a columned asset liability ranking to see what is more, but at any rate times are a changing…the question is, how much for the better?
Joe, you said “. . . but at any rate times are a changing. . .” . You are right on that. But the neocons, entrenched in just about every institution of government, in every organization, think tanks, MIC, media, and financial and academic institutions are not going to be easily driven off their pedestals. And they have some substantial support from European networks. However, Trump’s being elected may just be the sign that as you said ” . . . times are a changing . . .” There is hope that peace may come in Europe, and may be elsewhere. If Hillary had won, there was no hope of it.
Trump’s greatest quality is that he beat Hillary. Now, don’t take that to mean that I like Trump, but seriously Dave, his presidency is a disaster on quite a few levels, yet he still isn’t Hillary. Hillary is all about making what’s perceived as gains by our dropping bombs on lessor armed nations, while Trump is in it for the ratings. So while we may celebrate a Hillary loss, we just need to worry that Trump feels loved.