The current trope on the left is that “Black Lives Matter.”
The Democrats have an impressive record of genocide, beginning with the abandonment of South Vietnam. The Vietnam War was begun by Democrats, specifically John F Kennedy, who agreed to the assassination of South Vietnam leader Ngo Dinh Diem, who was killed by Vietnamese generals with Kennedy’s agreement.
Now we are faced with a somewhat similar situation in the Middle East. To quote Richard Fernandez, who I have always found reliable,
The collapse in the Middle East feels like Black April, 1975, the month South Vietnam fell. And it should, because just as the collapse of Saigon did not happen in Black April, but in a political American decision to allow South Vietnam to fall after a “decent interval”, so also is the ongoing collapse rooted, not in the recent tactical mistakes of the White House, but in the grand strategic decision president Obama made when he assumed office.
We are about to witness the total collapse of any American influence in the Middle East.
The reason the press has been trying to corner interviewees into “admitting” that George Bush made an error in toppling Saddam Hussein is the need to reassure themselves that catastrophe in the Middle East isn’t really their fault. The constant need to be told it’s not their doing is a form of denial. The more certain they are of their blunder the more they will need to tell themselves that the sounds they hear aren’t the footfalls of doom.
Because the alternative is to admit the truth and accept that to reverse the tide, 20th century Western liberalism has to die or radically reform itself. None of the people who have built political and establishment media credentials want to hear that, but all the same …
We are on the verge of a massive human catastrophe, one that the world has not seen since the fall of the Soviet Union or, in terms of percentage, since the fall of Rome.
In the next few years the political parties of Western Europe and the United States will clamp down hard in an effort to preserve themselves. They will try to square the circle and cobble together a Frankenstein stew of political correctness, repression, dysfunction and temporizing. It will fail, big time and when it does, it will take 20th century liberalism to the trash heap with it.
The challenge before ordinary people is to join actions which will help Europe and North America work its way through this coming episode of psychosis. In general three survivable exits from madness can be attempted.
1. Reforming the system through regular political action in a way similar to how the British went from absolutism to a constitutional monarchy. The old system replaces itself with new parts in a more or less peaceful process;
2. Creating “monasteries” of survival by establishing affinity groups which preserve culture, technology and values from submergence in the wave of chaos;
3. Flight to the frontier. Creating technology that will allow some people to physically escape or hold off barbarism.
Reforming the system through political action is probably the most obvious response and the one people will most commonly use. It means engaging in thankless, often fruitless interaction with the generally dishonest political class, but while it will never deliver as much change as one hopes, it will never be completely fruitless. It does something. Whether it can do enough to help us avoid the crisis entirely remains to be seen. But it should be tried.
I doubt this will be tried until is too late. In the meantime, massive shifts of population will be coming.
The president was never going to defeat ISIS, because that would require what he will not do. Despite the [Washington] Post’s belated exhortations, America won’t come back to Iraq. If Baghdad pulls it together, it will be a minor miracle. But it doesn’t look like it. One hundred thousand refugees are reported on the road to Baghdad, fleeing the house-to-house reprisals of ISIS and running straight into the hands of waiting bloodthirsty Shi’ite militias.
Behind the tide of misery is the Islamic state, now in control of a supply route running from Syria to the Baghdad. “This is a very big threat to Baghdad. If [ISIS] controls Ramadi and Anbar, it gives them a big morale boost,” Iraqi General Najim Abed al-Jabouri told The Daily Beast. “The road between Syria and Ramadi is open, so they can always send more fighters to Ramadi.” The capital, consumed with suspicion and hatred, waits in suspense for the assault, unable to trust itself with guns, unable to unify its strategy. Jacob Siegel of the Daily Beast reports:
The Sunni force to retake Mosul has not been built yet. The force to take back Ramadi exists, but it needs weapons, ammo, and more important, Baghdad’s willingness to trust it enough not to disarm it afterward. It may also need Iran’s approval.
The refugees flows are seen in the massive attempts to flee Libya, now that Hillary Clinton’s gambit has failed miserably.
Deep in their hearts the Washington Post and the New York Times must realize they endorsed Obama precisely because they knew that when this moment came he would harden his heart and refuse to re-engage, except for show. Since this is the plan, the only effective strategy, the only sane thing to do is to accept the liberal gambit and continue it.
The obvious continuation is not to dampen the sectarian conflict, but to exacerbate it to the greatest degree possible. America, like Britain in the Napoleonic age, should adopt the policy of supporting first one side then the other, or preferably both at once, so that the combatants inflict the maximum degree of damage on each other.
To be perfectly fair to president Obama, the weapon of sectarian warfare was originally the brainchild of Abu Musab Zarqawi. Aided ironically by the Iranians, Zarqawi sponsored attacks on the Shi’ite population because Tehran cynically calculated a civil war would loosen the grip of the United States on post-Saddam Iraq. The idea was that when America withdrew Zarqawi’s gang — and Iran — would inherit the carpet of bodies.
By an extraordinary effort of will America beat the civil war back temporarily, cementing it together with the the trust that people used to have in the good old USA , perhaps for the last time in history, forming a coalition in what was known as “the Surge.” But it did not last. With Obama’s 2008 election, it was plain to the wicked and cunning old men in Turkey and Tehran that he would throw it away and that the conflict would continue as soon as he withdrew and they could inherit what was left.
Obama has opened the Gates of Hell.
[T]o be the winner stand back and watch while the Arabian peninsula, Levant and North Africa destroys itself. Take every opportunity to make it worse. Clearly a humanitarian catastrophe of unprecedented scale will result. Hundreds of thousands are already dead and millions of displaced persons are on the road. That will only grow in scale and number to millions of dead and tens of millions of refugees. Therefore steps like preparing to sink the people smuggling boats, as the EU is doing, are in order.
If you can stomach it, it can work like a charm.
The main problem with this strategy is that Obama may not be able to contain its effects. The growing catastrophe may simply swamp European border controls. And playing balance of power politics is complicated by the fact that nobody will trust America — at least not Obama — any more. The Sunnis rulers have shown a distinct skepticism toward him and are now acting independently.
The coming age will be one of barbarism and turmoil approaching the vision of Thomas Hobbes who described a war of “all against all.” Not exactly the vision proposed by the political left that supports Obama.
President Obama need not have worried about a lack of legacy. He will have a legacy in abundance for historians, if there are any left in the future, as will the liberal project of the 20th century. At best the balance of power game will be as sad and dolorous as the clever machinations of imperial Britain in its heyday, which if nothing else, produced the Pax Britannica or the maneuvering which let Franklin Roosevelt enter World War 2 in time to win and produce the Pax America. At worst it will be worse than we can imagine.
It does add to a certain satisfaction that I am old.
Jay Nordlinger at National Review online adds a postscript from an American Iraq veteran.
Last year when I talked about John[an Iraqi officer friend] with my friend, I casually wondered aloud whether John had gotten out when his city fell to ISIS. My friend looked at me, surprised, and said, “Seriously? He’s dead, man. He’s dead. You know him as well as I do. He loved [his hometown]. He either died fighting or died in the mass executions after the city fell.”
At least some of the South Vietnamese allies got out.
More on what is coming in Iraq.
While publicly the Administration and the Pentagon have started to sound a bit like Baghdad Bob, Administration officials have anonymously begun voicing their unease with the situation, in one instance describing Ramadi as a “powder keg” noting that there is a potential for things to go “very, very badly.”
And while another anonymous insider said “You got to fight with the army you got, and this is the army they got,” nonetheless that doesn’t mean you’ll necessarily win with “the army you got.” There is no guarantee that the militias will be successful.
This will ignite the Sunni-Shia war that Zarkawi was trying to start in 2004.
Judged on the current crime stats black lives matter only when it is a white (or sort-of-white) person involved somehow in the death of one. If a black man falls in the forest, is he only dead if a white cop has shot him?
Yes, I am getting to be that cynical.
Quick everybody – the italics are out and running wild!
Why would America oppose Isis when it is in fact their puppet? One cannot mention Vietnam by omitting the role of China and the Soviet Union. Yet the Islamic state today is apparently a virgin birth and the role of Turkey and Saudi Arabia in shepherding it is pointedly ignored by the American establishment. The Islamic state is a dog pointed directly at Iran with its leash running back through Riyadh. Every single policy decision of the United States for more than a decade has been to support the fundamentalist Sunni and subjugate Shia. As far as I can tell, Iraq today is just business as usual rather than a failure of policy.
I have had trouble turning them off in posts here for some reason. I even use an extra but they are too powerful.
[Fixed. J]
“As far as I can tell, Iraq today is just business as usual rather than a failure of policy.”
Actually, as I have repeatedly pointed out in posts, the ISIS army is run by Sunni generals from Saddam’s army. Some of them went to Syria during the American occupation. What we are seeing is the beginning of a Sunni-Shia civil war. We tried to prevent it by helping the Sunnis of Anbar evict al Qeada and we could have done a lot by keeping a good sized force in place. That was why “the Surge” was to protect Anbar allies in The Anbar Awakening.
The Kurds have also been stiffed by the Bagdad Shia regime. We, and by that I mean Obama and Hillary, decided to side with Iran and excluded the Sunnis who had joined our side by 2007. This is all about Obama involving himself in the Sunni-Shia civil war and it will be horrendous.
Here’s a link to a related story about abandoned Muslim refuges.
Malaysia and Indonesia agreed to provide humanitarian assistance and temporary shelter to migrants in Southeast Asian waters on Wednesday, but stopped short of announcing search-and-rescue operations to seek out boats in peril.
I must confess that, back in the oughts, I said a number of times that it would be a US interest to get the Sunni and Shias to engage in titanic war with each other, and thus kill off any number of themselves while leaving everyone else alone. Iran-Iraq war writ large. I even mentioned the old ‘Mission:Impossible’ TV gambit of inserting themselves into the enemy’s lair, and gaslighting them into turning on each other.
However, I grant then and now that this is probably largely simplistic hyperbole, but also another thought has occurred to me – I am a huge US Civil War buff, and I was reading about one moment high on my list of time machine targets to witness if I could, and that was the magnificent two-day victory march of the Army of the Potomac and Sherman’s Army of the West through downtown DC, as they marched on parade before the President, literally on the way to their de-activation stations. What a sight that must have been!
And it occurs to me that the end of any civil war usually (not always, but usually) leaves a victor. Maybe, as with the US Army, a colosally large, well-armed, combat-hardened, militarily talented victor. Think about it – President Andrew Johnson’s armies and navy could have seized all of North America and then some in the year 1865, had they been disposed to do so. There was not a power on this earth that could have stopped them. Instead, they marched peacefully through the nation’s capital (think for a moment how globally unprecedented that was and remains so) and then went back to their homes, farms, and families… as ordered.
Anyone think a victor in a Sunni-Shia civil war would be equally disposed to peacefully disband and go back to home and hearth? Oh, yeah, yeppers, no doubt at all, I have every confidence. I mean, all cultures are alike, aren’t they? That’s what they’ve been teaching me since God-knows-when.
So, while these people seem inclined to kill each other off until hell-won’t-have-it, as long as they leave us alone, whatever. I’m pretty much done trying to bring sanity to the insane. But an aftermath as I mention would be of grave concern, no doubt.
“But an aftermath as I mention would be of grave concern, no doubt.”
The present day problem is with incredible refugee flows that have already begun. The Civil War did not involve barbarians like this one does. Andersonville was pretty bad but this will be like nothing the world has seen since Rome fell. World War II was pretty bad but not like this will be as most outhouse refugees were civilized people. They were able to adapt and many went to new homes and prospered.
These people do not play well with others.
The smugglers are locking the refugees beneath decks and allowing them to drown.
A fishing boat packed with about 700 migrants was reported capsized 60 nautical miles (110 kilometers) from the Libyan coast, in what may become the largest refugee tragedy in the Mediterranean.
It’s early. The Europeans don’t want them. They are taking measures to discourage the smugglers.
The European Union is preparing to bomb targets in Libya to stop migrants from attempting to cross the Mediterranean Sea in small boats. EU foreign policy coordinator Federica Mogherini is to brief the United Nations Security Council Monday on plans for a “Chapter VII” resolution that would give a UN green light for the use of force.
The plan is the outcome of several weeks of high-level consultations among the 28 EU members, including a foreign ministers’ meeting, held in response to a series of incidents of mass drowning of refugees. The worst such tragedy took place April 19, when some 900 drowned when their small boat capsized after colliding with a freighter.
Note the source,
“of those refugees…”
Love autocorrect.
“Anyone think a victor in a Sunni-Shia civil war would be equally disposed to peacefully disband and go back to home and hearth?”
I’m sure that if we just let them all move to Detroit they will instantly become peaceful and tolerant liberals. ;-)
The left has been heard from.
ISIS’s leader, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, sounds like a Republican candidate for president.
Wow. Such denial. You broke it, you own it, fix it.
Hell, have the Russians drop a division or two on them. It would not last long. Oh right, you broke that too.
“You broke it, you own it, fix it.”
Would you mind terribly explaining what “IT” is ?
The Ottoman Empire ?
PenGun you are a pretty decent humorist. Maybe the Onion would have something for you.
I’m always amazed how lives of the “other” don’t matter to those on the left – in the ghetto, in the Ukraine, in the Cultural Revolution, by the Blackstone Rangers, by the Khymer Rouge, by Che Guevera. That’s not exactly your point but just thought I’d comment.
The left, like Lenin, do not care about individuals. Only the mass of the proletariat are of interest and only if they are in control.
Interesting thoughts today here.
We always feel that our incredible traditions of freedom and liberty will convert those who show up on our shores, that they will appreciate the way of life we have created””isn’t that why they wanted to come here in the first place? We can’t imagine anyone coming here, experiencing the true wonder that is living in this country, and wanting to destroy that. But that’s exactly what the Frankfurt School wanted to do.
And this
“a young middle-class Egyptian spending some time in the US had the misfortune to be invited to a dance one weekend,” and like the emigres of the Frankfurt Institute, was similarly “horrified at what he witnessed,” in which another Hollywood product again inadvertently played a leading role, causing our “young middle-class Egyptian” to feverishly write:
The room convulsed with the feverish music from the gramophone. Dancing naked legs filled the hall, arms draped around the waists, chests met chests, lips met lips . . .
Where was this den of debauchery? Studio 54 in the 1970s? Haight-Ashbury in the summer of love? No, the throbbing pulsating sewer of sin was Greeley, Colorado, in 1949.
And the Muslim Brotherhood was launched.
A relatively chaste church hop, so it was …and yet Sayyid Qutb saw the evil incarnate in it.
Says more about Qutb … since he was one of those sweaty and writhing Puritans, incensed at the thought of anyone having a bit of fun and flirtation with the opposite sex.
Oh, yeah – he was projecting, with one of those metaphysical Big Bertha railway guns. What a sad and pathetic, impotent little man he was, looking back on his writings and his movement. I’ll bet that he had a d*ck the size of a Vienna sausage. Overcompensation can be such an ugly thing.
Quick everybody – the italics are out and running wild!
They are getting bold
MikeK,
You overstate matters. This is not a “civil” war. That requires a country. The only countries as such in the Middle East are Egypt and Israel. The rest are just groups of tribes rammed together during European occupation, excepting Saudi Arabia where a coalition of tribes prevailed over other tribes, and didn’t fragment afterwards due to the coalition finding a foreign patron (the US) plus the miracle of oil giving the coalition enough money to buy off everyone.
Right now we are only seeing ethnic cleansing during border adjustment. This is very familiar. The two most recent really big such events were the separation of Pakistan from India, and the post World War Two expulsion of Germans from Eastern Europe. For the latter, see:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flight_and_expulsion_of_Germans_(1944%E2%80%9350)
I include in the latter the death of about million German civilian refugees in the winter of 1944-45 while fleeing the Soviet conquest of East Prussia. Those mostly died of exposure.
Oops, posted too soon.
The current fracas won’t be more than the usual unless the Syrian Sunnis cross into Lebanon to exterminate the Shiites who are driven out of Syria.
Muslim Lives Matter.
Yes they do and from our standpoint the less the better.
Oh I have many friends but that doesn’t change cold facts.
The only downside to our balance of power games that will now include Iran and nukes all around is if Europe doesn’t defend it’s borders from refugees.
Defending Europe from refugees being a primary driver of our entry into the Balkan Wars in 1995.
However at the end of the day if Europe won’t defend itself it’s a lost cause.
Speaking of borders and lost civilizations we need to defend our own, and leave the rest to their own devices. That will mean killing but it always did.
Actually Sgt Mom there’s no evidence Sayid Qutb had any sexual relations in his entire life.
Sad little man.
The Muslim Brotherhood was launched in Egypt in the 1920s after the fall of the Caliphate, which is the current root of chaos amongst the Sunni. Even Catholics never had to contend with no Pope, at times they had several competing ones. But never without one.
Vxxc2014 – That possibility (or probability) doesn’t surprise me in the least. Someone getting all hot and bothered at other people getting it on, likely isn’t getting any themselves.
“This is not a “civil” war. That requires a country.”
What do you call The Thirty Years War ?
A religious war ?
This is pretty much the model, I think.
Initially a war between Protestant and Catholic states in the fragmenting Holy Roman Empire, it gradually developed into a more general conflict involving most of the great powers of Europe, becoming less about religion and more a continuation of the France–Habsburg rivalry for European political pre-eminence.
This is a Sunni-Shia war and will involve the nation states, such as they are. Israel is really in a bad neighborhood but should be able to defend itself unless all out nuclear war results.
Mike,
A “sectarian” conflict is not a “civil” war, and both are different from “tribal” conflicts. Those are three quite different things, united only by being sort-of organized, as opposed to anarchy. IMO the present conflicts in Syria and Iraq are “sectarian”.
A “sectarian” war need not be about religion – it can be about ethnicity, with Serb aggression against Croatia, Slovenia, Bosnia and Kosovo, after the breakup of Yugoslavia, being a significant recent example. OTOH, a real knock-down, drag-out, fight between Kurdish factions would qualify as a “civil” war because the Kurds pretty much have a real unitary state (rare for them), a single religion (Sunni Islam) and a shared language.
Going back as far as the 30 Years War starts getting into definitional games given that it was driven so much by outside states whose financing was critical.
I’m sorry, but muslim lives don’t matter to me. Or perhaps I should say that they matter exactly as much to me as Yazidi or Christian lives matter to muslims.
As far as I’m concerned every quasi-nation state in the Ummah can get nuclear weapons, then use them against each other. End result- the world will be a happier, better place.
I apologize for being so harsh, or crazy- but we’ve done our best to save them from themselves. We aided the muslims of Afghanistan, with significant risk to ourselves, during the Cold War. We rescued Kuwait from the secular Hussein regime of you-know. We saved the muslims of Kosovo from extermination by the Serbs. We destroyed the Hussein regime, at great cost to ourselves, only to obtain a reward of an Iraqi population that apparently believed that terrorism was a-ok when used against the American troops who had freed them.
It was more important, apparently, that the infidels didn’t pollute the sacred soil of the Ummah, than an elected muslim government survive.
I’m done caring about these folks, preferring to worry about Americans. I only hope we can survive their eventual catastrophic failure with a minimum of American casualties- perhaps only a few hundred thousand.
I suppose that may also be seen as harsh, or crazy- but I have no faith at all in in the present American political class. Interesting times, as that Chinese curse has it, and I have no doubt we live in them.
Alas.
I do not disagree with anything you say, but note that once the enemy gets usable nuclear weapons, they will inevitably also be used on us by one or another of the different Islamist groups. Keeping our casualty count down below 8 figures will be a miracle. And it may well go higher, given that the current National Command Authority will not order either retaliation or strikes to prevent further strikes on us.
We have sown the wind . . .
“You broke it, you own it, fix it.”
Couldn’t agree more. Obama, Clinton, Jarrett, Powers, they broke it, they own it, they won’t fix it because they want chaos, violence, and blood.
“We have sown the wind ”
It’s as much our fault now that Islam and its adherents hate the West and wish to destroy it as it was in 622, 711, 902, 1071, 1453, 1529, and 1683. It’s amazing how often the West sows the wind with regard to Islam. Oh, wait….
“there’s no evidence Sayid Qutb had any sexual relations in his entire life.”
Selfie porn not yet having been invented. That we can now have proof of Kardashians’ sex lives is not improvement.
“we’ve done our best to save them from themselves. ”
It’s probably just as well that Fouad Ajami died before he had to see this. He called the era “The Time of the Americans” and said it was the chance of the Arabs to jump to the modern era. He would be heartbroken as the Arabs throw away their chance for modernity.
Tom, I still say it is a civil war in that it is a war between two recognizable peoples. The Shia and the Sunni are religious but Islam is a political system. The original division was not religious, in the sense of the Catholic-Protestant division that caused the 30 year war. It was the succession of Mohammed and that was political.
“Serb aggression against Croatia, Slovenia, Bosnia and Kosovo, after the breakup of Yugoslavia”
Perhaps you should read Rebecca West’s magnificent account of that area “Black Lamb and Grey Falcon” which explains the hostility of the Serbs toward the Croats and the Bosnians. It was political but religion divided them as Croatia stayed Austrian and Catholic, Serbia stayed Orthodox under Turkish occupation which was unpleasant to say the least, and the Bosnians were Serbs who converted to Islam and, as a result were prosperous city dwellers, not at all like Arabs and Turks.
The Turks, among other things, took Serbian male children as slaves and those slaves became “Janissaries.”
Mike,
By your definition, the Franco-Prussian War was a civil war.
BTW, I recommend _Furies: War in Europe, 1450-1700_ by Lauro Martnes.
http://www.amazon.com/Furies-Europe-1450-1700-Lauro-Martines/dp/1608196186/ref=tmm_pap_title_0?ie=UTF8&qid=1432324192&sr=1-3
ISIS are positively British by comparison with European combatants of the late 16th and early 17th Centuries.
Tom, I think many historians consider the 1914-1945 period as a second “Thirty Years War” and a “Civil War of Europe.”
I tend to agree. Even Foch said the Armistice was “Not peace. It is a 20 year truce.”
The Franco-Prussian War was not as destructive but it may well be considered part of the 1914 war by historians, assuming any are writing 100 years from now. I have often wondered what the effect would have been if we had stayed out of WWI. Also, if the British had stayed out.
Then we can consider what the result would have been if the British Navy had acted promptly in the Dardanelles in 1914-1915.
Frustrated by the mobility of the Ottoman batteries, which evaded the Allied bombardments and threatened the minesweepers sent to clear the Straits, Churchill began pressuring the naval commander, Admiral Sackville Carden, to increase the fleet’s efforts.[43] Carden drew up fresh plans and on 4 March sent a cable to Churchill, stating that the fleet could expect to arrive in Istanbul within 14 days.[44] A sense of impending victory was heightened by the interception of a German wireless message that revealed the Ottoman Dardanelles forts were running out of ammunition.[44] When the message was relayed to Carden, it was agreed a main attack would be launched on or around 17 March. It transpired that Carden, suffering from stress, was placed on the sick list by the medical officer and the fleet was placed under the command of Admiral John de Robeck.
Disaster followed. We nearly had the same result at Anzio in WWII and for the same reasons. What Lincoln called “The slows” in McClellan.
The major difference between the various present Islamic conflicts, recently past sectarian conflicts, and the really big ones more than 40 years ago, is publicity. The present ones are, well, _present_, and the newsies want eyeballs (cannibal bunch, that) for their own income purposes.
Less important, but still significant, differences are the means available for refugees from current conflicts to get to areas with financially significant (for the media) media markets, access by the newsies to locations safe (for them) to reportable (or at least not especially improbable) sources of information about the conflicts, and the greater numbers of people and better means of communication and transportation, etc., about all this.
In terms of raw horror, Boko Haram in Nigeria and adjacent countries has it all over ISIS. ISIS offers better access for the newsies, and so gets the newsies’ attention.
Our problem is America, or our respective Western Countries.
None other.
And if we’d fight and yes here we can only improve our situation, if we don’t we’re dead and gone and deserve it.
Interesting developments coming very soon.
The Middle East will be a charnel house.