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pietillidie
Joined: 07 Jan 2005
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| pietillidie wrote: | | watt price tully wrote: | How the 'Western World" has misread the Middle East nightmare.
If ISIS doesn't send a terror threat reading this article is less than comforting:
"...More than a decade after the 9/11 attacks and an al-Qaeda-induced realisation that US intelligence services had nodded off on the Middle East, Nathan Brown of the Carnegie Endowment credits the Obama administration with rightly sensing that apart from the military, there are ideological and religious dimensions to this conflict..."
(Looks like the shoulder surgery has led to a professorial chair):
http://www.theage.com.au/world/the-world-has-misread-the-middle-east-nightmare-and-our-war-without-borders-20141010-1143jt.html |
Unfortunately, whether he's right or wrong, based on the extremely insufficient knowledge we have it can't be said his scenarios are less likely.
Before the Iraq War, sane people were saying a massive shift in energy technology was the only fundamental way to put the potential chaos at arm's length, and to let the region sort through its own monumental issues without even more complicating external interference.
Instead, you get a deranged war to entrench a political, anti-competitive commodity at the center of the regional economy, thus completely blocking the modernising effects of competition.
You have to be mentally deluded, or at least shockingly stupid, to think you can "intervene" in such chaos with any success. Much more fundamental socio-economic forces are needed to do that, and short of converting everyone to Buddhism that means genuine socio-economic development.
I'm not talking about money or wealth. That can come from theft or political violence every bit as easily as oil. I'm talking about the broad-based societal effects of economic development and the decentralising competition which accompanies it and wears down the authority and hierarchy of kings, nobles, military leaders and clerics.
But, as I always say, conservative elite power hates competition. For all the West's talk about "free markets", it has enslaved an entire region in a corrupt, anti-competitive currency that much like the resource curse in Africa simply entrenches power mafias.
The focus on religion and ideology is a BS PR ruse to make people think the chaos is caused by "all those people over there" being different to us.
What utter pre-scientific, embarrassing rot!
The West was at war for centuries before the present affluence and stability; there were civil wars and two monumental world wars. And there was deranged religion and ideology all over the place throughout that entire period. And even after the West attained stability, it kept exporting its remaining dysfunctions through violent interference overseas by, as the author notes is the easiest solution, propping up thugs and dictators.
What the countries caught up in the whole mess need are a chance to have a real economic miracle, not the corrupt, grizzly mafioso economy that we help drive and have done our best to lock it into by centralising power in the hands of thugs and whackos for a century.
The problem is, we're still letting our deranged thugs dictate policy. For us, the issue is not that extremist Islam has oil by the throat; our billionaire natural resource thugs and their slimy minion class has our domestic and international policy by the throat.
Focusing everyone's attention on religion and extremists is a deflection: It averts everyone's gaze from the only serious long-term solution for all concerned so those vested in the dysfunction can keep making anti-competitive mafia money at our expense and the expense of genuine progress in other parts of the world.
All that and the bastards use that same mafia capital to fund anti-scientific rubbish to block any associated action on global warming. Even worse, they then try to import back authority and hierarchy from centuries gone by pushing feverishly to create a new feudal two-tier economy at home.
Give the region and the planet a chance by saving it from the menace of mafioso oil money. We had our imperial wars and civil wars and world wars and eventually found equilibrium through an economic growth process which smashed the violent, anti-competitive, centralised power of kings and feudal lords.
Well, almost. The job won't be done until we smash our filthy, drug-like dependence on freedom-hating oil economics, a menace which props up world mafia bosses at home and abroad, sullies the environment, and is anti-science and anti-progress.
It is always and ever about breaking down harmful nodes of power within our own sphere of control. |
The following makes for a very, very interesting parallel, but it's only one of many we could choose:
| Bits and Pieces from Wikipedia, the accuracy of which I can't vouch for wrote: | By the end of Felipe Calderón's administration (2006–12), the official death toll of the Mexican Drug War was at least 60,000.[84] Estimates set the death toll above 120,000 killed by 2013, not including 27,000 missing.
Total displaced: 1.6 million (as of 2012) |
The interesting thing here is the lack of a Coalition to deal with a problem of massive scale and violence right on the doorstep of the US.
The War on Drugs, just like the Iraq War, was always going to fail because it didn't give a damn about the real problem, such as the life-sapping poverty and helplessness of too much of working- and under-class America. It was hijacked by fanatical moralists with quite different interests and intentions to achieve the exact opposite. Guess what? So was Iraq. And on and on cause after cause.
Well, we all know those yellowish-brownish people in Latin America, despite being mostly Christian, don't make the right people wealthy. Nor did the Muslims in Srebrenica, and neither do any number of victims across Africa.
So, we have to talk about who to help and where to help and why to help, and not fall for the causes or photos that those who own and direct the media tell us we should focus on. How many people lost their lives or livelihoods due to Tony Abbott's withdrawal of 4.5B of foreign aid, a substantial portion of which was being used to educate young Muslim girls? Where was the great concern then?
If you're going to intervene and spend money, pick your causes. Don't waste 3T dollars on another Iraq, even though of course everyone was better off to be rid of Saddam Hussein.
I'm not saying any conflict involving ISIS isn't the right place to direct scarce resources and attention. I don't know, and it is plainly obvious no one else knows. And that's the problem: It's just more kick and hope that will not deal with the root of the problem which isn't Islam or any cultural configuration; it's the basic freaking economy of power in that extended region which is funded by the mafia currency of oil, and shrouded in Islam.
What we do know is that we are most responsible for our own sinister agency in the region, and that begins with the oil mafia which stretches from many of those countries right into our own domestic politics.
Doing that, directing our scarce resources where we know they will and do work, and blocking out the public relations of the same opportunistic vultures who picked through the human carcasses in Iraq looking for anti-competitive military, supplies, security and oil contracts, as argued by sane people prior to the Iraq War, is still the responsible thing to do.
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Mugwump
Joined: 28 Jul 2007
Location: Between London and Melbourne
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^ agree with much of that, though surprised at your point re Srebrenica, since i had the impression that it was the Us-led NATO bombing campaign that had a major influence in ousting Milosevich and bringing that particular atrocity-factory to an end.
I think your expression "kick and hope" re ISIS is pretty apt. This is one of the most complex and dangerous problems i've seen in my lifetime. Do we attack them and feed their vicious narrative about a war against Islam, or do we run the risk that their particular brand of inhuman violence and cruelty overruns the middle East with all that entails ? On balance, I'd imagine that we're better off expecting the regional powers -Iran, Turkey, Israel and the Wahhabist states of Saudi, Qatar and Kuwait - to sort out the problem and start taking responsibility for their backyard. Bombing might work in Yugoslavia where you have an organised resistance on the ground, but it seems unlikely to be effective in the present context.
Your "oil mafia" thing might be true, if by it you mean that various governments act militarily to secure the free flow of oil, and some interested parties (Exxon and Aramco spring to mind) have funded denialist groups. If you're suggesting that an organised set of private interests control everything like the Mafia, then I think you're seeing a conspiracy amid a far more complex situation.
I never know how to judge foreign aid. It feels right to give it, but then so much of it seems wasted, and every dollar you spend in an african dictatorship probably allows some kleptocrat to siphon off a little more money from his people. Sometimes I think we'd be better to preserve the funds for short, sharp well-scoped interventions like Ebola, disaster relief, etc, where we can at least focus and track its application and its impact. A lot will still be wasted, but it'd be easier to focus on it.
US society ? Far too unequal, I agree, though the drug problem is also more complex than that. Drug use death rates in the Us are comparable to Sweden, Austria, and well below Ireland and the Uk. So, while inequality is no doubt a contributor, proximity to drug trade routes from the major producing countries seems to be a factor. It's worst in those countries with dire poverty, proximity to production centres, and poor effective government, not suprisingly.
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pietillidie
Joined: 07 Jan 2005
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^Let me explain the subtleties of the oil mafia analysis so the argument is not misconstrued.
The effects of even modest anti-competitive economic bottlenecks are extraordinarily sinister; the return for every fraction of control is well above linear.
If you study the political control Samsung wields in South Korea, for example, you can see how it permeates everything from the obvious contracts and associated service delivery, through to education and right across every single supply and distribution chain.
Now, if we say one good wage supports four people, and 25% of a wage depends on one interwoven group of entities (note: "25% of a wage" is quite a different measure than "25% of all wages), you can imagine the chilling effect of the oil mafia.
As with shareholdings, you don't have to have full numerical control to have effective control by any means. This is precisely the same thing which is happening in Australia; all you have to do is have control of the "rate of increase", and you have enough power to make investors, aspirationals and job hunters dependent on you, and fear you.
Now, ramp that control dynamic up orders of magnitude and the reach of the oil and associated industry mafia in that region would be greater in its own right than any religion could ever dream of being. Ultimately, socio-cultural configurations are a reflection of environmental forces, not the other way around, because the human brain is much more adaptive than the environment, which is of course its fundamental strength.
All the ideological engineering under the sun will get you nowhere without dealing with the primary, primal issues first.
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pietillidie
Joined: 07 Jan 2005
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| Mugwump wrote: | | US society? Far too unequal, I agree, though the drug problem is also more complex than that. Drug use death rates in the Us are comparable to Sweden, Austria, and well below Ireland and the Uk. So, while inequality is no doubt a contributor, proximity to drug trade routes from the major producing countries seems to be a factor. It's worst in those countries with dire poverty, proximity to production centres, and poor effective government, not suprisingly. |
IIRC, I think you'll find it's not an important a factor when you run the numbers; you might be confusing drug supply routes with drug use and drug prices (price being the obvious proxy for availability). Latin America isn't the only source of drugs in the world, so it's well-studied I think.
That is, it presumably wouldn't matter if Sweden shared three borders with Colombia because the most stable, identifiable factors which correlate with drug use in all countries are that master statistical evil, the wealth gap, as manifest specifically in the rate of poverty and unemployment, and living in areas of high levels of poverty and unemployment.
That said, show me the numbers and I will certainly change my mind, though my original point wasn't about the US via-a-vis other countries; it was about their nonsense "War on Drugs" and the money thrown at it.
So, not to get sidetracked, even if supply routes do affect price and therefore use, the point I was making is still the same: They threw money at the problem and didn't solve it because the whole issue was hijacked by the usual whackos who weren't interested in solving the problem, but rather using it as a bludgeon for much darker purposes.
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Help Nick's: http://www.magpies.net/nick/bb/fundraising.htm |
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pietillidie
Joined: 07 Jan 2005
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More on the regional oil mafia—the local godfathers who just so happen to be best friends with certain powerful US elites whom this has *cough* nothing *cough* to do with. Again, I can't vouch for its accuracy:
| A commentator on CBC (Canada's National Public Broadcaster) wrote: | Did censoring a 9/11 report pave the way for ISIS?
A former U.S. senator and co-chair of the Joint Congressional Inquiry into the 9/11 attacks says the rise of ISIS could have been stemmed if 28 pages from the inquiry's report had not been classified.
As co-chair, Bob Graham was one of the authors of the report, 28 pages of which have remained classified since it was published in 2002. At the time U.S. President George W. Bush said releasing the information posed a threat to national security.
Some who have had read the excised pages say they relate to Saudia Arabia's support for the 9/11 hijackers.
Graham says that Saudi Arabia has a long history of ideological and financial support for Wahhabism, a fundamentalist interpretation of Islam. ISIS ascribes to that interpretation.
"I believe that had the role of Saudi Arabia in 9/11 been disclosed by the release of the 28 pages and by the declassification of other information as to the Saudi role and support of the 9/11 hijackers that it would have made it much more difficult for Saudi Arabia to have continued that pattern of behaviour...and I think would have had a good chance of reigning in the activity that today Canada, the United States and other countries either are or are not considering going to war with," said Graham in an interview with Brent Bambury host of Day 6 on CBC Radio.
Graham's comments come as the Obama administration faces increasing pressure to release those 28 secret pages. A bipartisan resolution is calling on the White House to make them public. Democratic congressman Stephen Lynch from Massachusetts, who co-sponsored the resolution, has said he thinks information in those pages has a direct bearing on the war against the ISIS. Graham agrees.
"The connection is a direct one. Not only has Saudi Arabia been promoting this extreme form of religion but it also has been the principal financier, first of Al Qaeda then of the various Al Qaeda franchises around the world specifically the ones in Somalia and Yemen and now the support of ISIS," said Graham.
Vice President Joe Biden speaks to students faculty and staff at Harvard University's Kennedy School of Government in Cambridge, Mass. Thursday, Oct. 2, 2014. (AP Photo/Winslow Townson)
Graham's statements come on the heels of controversial remarks made by Vice President Joe Biden. Speaking to a crowd at Harvard's John F. Kennedy School of Government, Biden implied that Saudi Arabia was partly to blame for the rise of ISIS.
"Our allies in the region were our largest problem in Syria," said Biden in response to a question. He also said that Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates were so determined to topple Bashar Al Assad's regime in Syria that they poured hundreds of millions of dollars and tonnes of weapons into the hands of extremist groups.
"So now what's happening, all of a sudden, everybody is awakened because this outfit called ISIL, which was al-Qaeda in Iraq, which when they were essentially thrown out of Iraq, found open space and territory in [eastern] Syria, work with al-Nusra, who we declared a terrorist group early on. And we could not convince our colleagues to stop supplying them."
Biden said his administration eventually persuaded its allies to cease that support and cooperate in the military campaign against ISIS. He since apologized for his statements.
Graham says it's not just Joe Biden who has singled out Saudi Arabia for its support of extremist groups. Former U.S. Secretary of State Hilary Clinton made similar claims in a top secret cable released by Wikileaks.
"More needs to be done since Saudi Arabia remains a critical financial support base for al-Qaida, the Taliban, LeT and other terrorist groups," said the 2009 document signed by Clinton.
Asked whether the release of the 28 pages could have had an impact on Canada's recent decision to take part in the U.S. lead military campaign, Graham said it's too late to set back the clock.
"ISIS is a reality. It's brutal and it has the potential of reaching in to North America through the apparently substantial number of Canadian and U.S. persons who are now fighting with ISIS. I think had the 28 pages been released 10 years ago and had dampened the ability and commitment of Saudi Arabia to export its extreme form of Wahhabism and exposed the Saudis funding of these extreme organizations it may have avoided the necessity of having a debate in the Canadian parliament as to whether to go to war." |
http://www.cbc.ca/day6/blog/2014/10/09/did-911-report-censorship-pave-the-way-for-isis/
The whole engagement with the region is just a litany of patching up corrupt own goals after corrupt own goals. And each and every time people then turn around and say, "But what about now? This is real; we have to do something now!". Each and every time, as if all of that history and all of those blatant contradictions are just complication in the way of fixing "real" problems.
BS. Utter BS. The real problems are the corrupt, incestuous relationships stemming from the oil mafia money which runs from the region all the way into the political decision making of Anglo-America, among many other countries. (Remembering, of course, oil money is just a discursive proxy for that master gang, the natural resources crew).
And before the usual retort that focusing on such things is exaggerated, as explained in a post above it doesn't take full control to render effective control, or at the very least substantial influence.
Some of us are clearly too cowardly to look our own mafia in the eye for fear of its personal implications. Others simply can't deal with the fact that "we" are not special and the world is not an "us versus them" tale. Many will readily crack down on powerless asylum seekers, condemn obvious whacko groups and terrorists, blame "leaners", blame local minorities such as Muslims, and blame whatever arbitrary case study in dysfunctional violence the media has picked out today.
But, let's face it, most of us avoid asking questions about the serious power relationships which drive these things because it might somehow end up affecting that hidden other reality: Our own financial interests and personal reputations.
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In the end the rain comes down, washes clean the streets of a blue sky town.
Help Nick's: http://www.magpies.net/nick/bb/fundraising.htm |
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David 
I dare you to try
Joined: 27 Jul 2003
Location: Andromeda
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| Morrigu wrote: | | we didn't seem to care about what was happening to the folk of Syria UNTIL all of a sudden Westernisers were being beheaded and we had Australians going there to fight - I'm not sure we were actually concerned about them going there to fight - more concerned they would come back here and wreak havoc on our soil! |
I never understood that, to be honest. I get that they might be radicalised in their time there and that it might conceivably lead them to participation in local terrorist activities, but I don't necessarily see that as being inevitable. It's all about motivation for me: what do these extremists want? Unless someone can explain some part of IS ideology that specifically involves blowing things up in Australia, we still seem somewhat tangential to their aims.
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All watched over by machines of loving grace |
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pietillidie
Joined: 07 Jan 2005
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1061
Joined: 06 Sep 2013
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http://www.vicpolicenews.com.au/cops-and-bloggers/4730-isis-and-the-internet.html
| Quote: | But the ISIS use of the internet and social media as a marketing tool continues to make this task challenging.
That marketing is targeting susceptible youth and acts as a ‘siren call’ to the young people who may be vulnerable in our community.
As incredible as it may seem, some young people are attracted to this criminal terror movement which seeks to wind back human evolution over a thousand years to an age of barbarism.
This is not a movement which is professing freedom or better conditions for people. There is no underpinning, progressive ideology or vision for its followers. It simply wants to wind back the clock in the worst ways possible.
Far from being seen as attractive, this should be regarded as abhorrent to people of all nationality and religion. In my view, ISIS is not a religious ideology, it is a criminal movement that seeks to mask itself behind a religious shroud. These criminals are in fact aiming to divide society along religious lines.
In Melbourne two weeks ago, we heard Sheik Abdul Aziz speak of the ISIS internet influence, describing it as ‘Sheik Google’ such is its ability to shape young minds, independent of any other role models or responsible guidance they receive. This must be a great concern to all Victorians and something we must all seek to address.
Accordingly, I ask and encourage all parents to keep the engagement and dialogue going with our children, particularly with our teenagers even when they challenge us the most.
Educate them on the role the internet plays in their lives and what positives and dangers it presents. Gain an understanding as best you are able of who they are engaging with online and what their online influences are.
It is not easy to recognise or identify when a noticeable change in a teenager’s behaviour or mood swings are just part of growing up, or the result of something far more sinister. |
Don't forget clicking on the Vicpol link will leave the door to your device open for them to get in! |
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David
I dare you to try
Joined: 27 Jul 2003
Location: Andromeda
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What door? I think it's been pulled off its hinges and sent off to the pulp mill.
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Jezza 
2023 PREMIERS!
Joined: 06 Sep 2010
Location: Ponsford End
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| David wrote: | | Morrigu wrote: | | we didn't seem to care about what was happening to the folk of Syria UNTIL all of a sudden Westernisers were being beheaded and we had Australians going there to fight - I'm not sure we were actually concerned about them going there to fight - more concerned they would come back here and wreak havoc on our soil! |
I never understood that, to be honest. I get that they might be radicalised in their time there and that it might conceivably lead them to participation in local terrorist activities, but I don't necessarily see that as being inevitable. It's all about motivation for me: what do these extremists want? Unless someone can explain some part of IS ideology that specifically involves blowing things up in Australia, we still seem somewhat tangential to their aims. |
The "Islamic State" wants to establish a worldwide caliphate with the Caliph in Abu Bakr Al-Baghdadi being the worldwide leader and I think that's been a clear objective since the group had a sudden emergence earlier this year. To say it will ever happen is laughable but nevertheless their prospects are high and they've made large in-roads in both Syria and Iraq.
In regards to the beheadings of Western correspondents and aid workers, the motivation behind it seems to be for recruiting purposes no matter how warped it may be according to international relations scholar Robert Pape. Here's a link explaining his reasoning behind the beheadings.
http://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2014/10/why-isil-beheads-its-victims-111684.html
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David
I dare you to try
Joined: 27 Jul 2003
Location: Andromeda
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| Jezza wrote: | | The "Islamic State" wants to establish a worldwide caliphate |
Do you have a source for the "worldwide" claim?
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stui magpie 
Prepare for the worst, hope for the best.
Joined: 03 May 2005
Location: In flagrante delicto
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think positive
Side By Side
Joined: 30 Jun 2005
Location: somewhere
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Sheesh the way it's spreading all my holiday plans for next year are going down the gurgler
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You cant fix stupid, turns out you cant quarantine it either! |
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1061
Joined: 06 Sep 2013
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| think positive wrote: | | Sheesh the way it's spreading all my holiday plans for next year are going down the gurgler |
I think this is known as FIRST world problems! |
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Pies4shaw 
pies4shaw
Joined: 08 Oct 2007
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| I think the Third World problem at the moment is whether or not to play the 2015 African Football Cup of Nations in January. Morocco is apparently quite loathe to host it. The group D qualifying game between Sierra Leone and Ivory Coast is due to be played in about 4 weeks. That could be a game to watch on TV, rather than at the stadium, I guess. |
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