“Just exactly how many articles on Syria and Iraq can you actually churn out?” a friend of mine asked me recently. “You were only over in Damascus for five freaking days. And you haven’t been to Iraq since 2008. So what makes YOU such an expert on these two countries?”
Even after less than a week spent in Damascus and after only having been to Iraq four-and-a-half times, I apparently already know more about Syria and Baghdad and Al Ambar than all those dingbats in the U.S. State Department, the Pentagon and the CIA combined. Unfortunately.
Washington neo-cons and their neo-con counterparts in Tel Aviv have really gotten the Arab world totally wrong. http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article38908.htm
So, even though I would really rather be writing about almost anything else right now, it is still my civic duty to set these fools straight. Sorry about that.
What I really want to be writing about this week is the exciting new Freedom Summer 50th-anniversary conference in Jackson, Mississippi, where a bunch of folks are getting together to celebrate having survived the heroic summer of 1964 when so many civil rights workers poured their hearts out in an attempt to finally bring justice to the Ol’ South — and some of them lost their lives while doing it too http://freedom50.org/.
But apparently justice in the Ol’ South will have to wait a bit longer. Right now we need to talk about justice in the Middle East first.
After the fall of the U.S.S.R., Washington neo-cons needed a new boogeyman to scare Americans into handing over our hard-earned tax dollars to the military-industrial complex. And so the military-industrial complex came up with the idea of making Islam the bad guy. But then apparently Washington neo-cons actually began to believe their own hype — and even went so far as to actually start creating “Islamic Militants” where none had existed so far.
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article38914.htm
According to journalist Finian Cunningham, “The biggest recruitment office for such groups [as ISIS] is the British government and its criminal militaristic foreign policy, which has been destroying countries for years, overtly and covertly. That same destructive British state-sponsored terrorism, alongside that of its American and other NATO allies, is also why millions of Syrians and Iraqis are living in tents, unable to feed their families.” http://www.presstv.ir/detail/2014/06/22/368055/the-western-media-goldfish-bowl/
The thumbscrews were not only put onto various Islamic countries until “militants” actually did start to emerge, but then Wall Street and War Street — bound and determined to sell as many weapons as possible — actually started creating and financing “Islamic Militants” themselves (and of course all the while praying for another “Pearl Harbor”) http://awdnews.com/top-news/8831-obama-administration-has-been-training-syrian-jihadi-terrorists-since-2012.html
According to a recent article in Information Clearinghouse, “Key members of ISIS it now emerges were trained by US CIA and Special Forces command at a secret camp in Jordan in 2012, according to informed Jordanian officials…Former US State Department official Andrew Doran wrote in the conservative National Review magazine that some ISIS warriors also hold US passports.” http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article38908.htm
Neo-cons began manufacturing these Frankenstein monsters left and right. Actually paying thousands of poor unfortunate souls in the Middle East to go on “jihad”. http://www.counterpunch.org/2014/06/24/did-obama-know-that-isis-planned-to-invade-iraq/
Even way back in the 1970s I could have warned the military-industrial complex that these acts of folly would eventually start leading to blow-back — not to mention the sky-rocketing cost of gasoline as a result of all this footsie-playing in the Middle East.
According to journalist Juan Cole, “During the past ten years, American drivers have seen their gasoline bill go up tremendously – though not as much as it by all rights should have – and stay there.” http://readersupportednews.org/opinion2/277-75/24415-focus-will-isis-control-iraqs-oil
Apparently, The M-IC’s money-making scheme in the Middle East was that various U.S. and Israeli neo-cons would be constantly stirring up the pot there, turning Arab against Arab until they all freaking started to butcher each other like so many crabs in a barrel. And then the U.S. and Israeli neo-cons would steal everything that wasn’t nailed down while no one over there was looking. It sounded like a good plan. Until the rest of us Americans and Israelis finally began to realize that there was nothing in this witches’ brew for the rest of us except danger to ourselves.
According to me, ISIS is nothing but a bunch of pirates, the Taliban are murdering wife-beaters, the idiots in charge of Egypt, Saudi Arabia, the Gulf states and Iraq are dictators and Libya is overrun by barbarians. And who created all these proto-zombies? Neo-cons in Israel and the U.S. Of course.
According to Franklin Lamb, who seems to be legendary in Damascus for fabricating stories and mooching off of the Syrian government, ISIS, Syria’s arch enemy, is practically a freaking benevolent organization who succors the poor, has nukes of its own and whose goal is to unite all the downtrodden Arabs in the Middle East into one coherent version of the freaking Red Cross and then liberate Palestine and wash Israel into the sea. http://www.counterpunch.org/2014/06/20/will-isis-create-al-sham-caliphate-liberate-palestine/.
However, Palestinians in Syria did not support ISIS’s brutality and refused to be drawn in — so ISIS bombed the crap out of them instead. And the Palestinians in Israel already have neo-cons killing their kids — and don’t need any more neo-con-backed pirates adding even more “creative chaos” to the mix.
Huh? No. Forget about the sparkling clean Red Cross wannabe image. These ISIS guys are down and dirty pirates. And that’s “all she wrote” about that. And apparently we American taxpayers are paying for all of ISIS’s new Toyotas, rocket-launchers and Nikes as well.
“You talk as though the military-industrial complex may finally be starting to get its comeuppance for generating such a devious plot — but, frankly, it is not,” you might comment at this point.
No, it is not. Not yet. But if Wall Street and War Street continue to play their cutesy little “Divide and Conquer” games in the Middle East, keep on messing with its political eco-system, breaking down its civil society in this bad way, and creating and financing even more Al Qaedas, Talibans and ISISs and driving world gas prices sky-high, then eventually it will suck to be you! http://www.veteranstoday.com/2014/06/19/my-dinner-in-homs-on-election-day/
Even against all odds and proof, I still have faith that the rest of us Americans, us average decent salt-of-the-earth types, will finally put a stop to all these nefarious neo-con schemes and finally start bringing our money and our troops home from the Middle East instead — and stop picking on all these poor Arabs before they end up going completely freaking nuts as they see their parents, wives and children constantly being blown to bits before their very eyes by these neo-con monsters.
Not sure why I keep holding out hope that this will happen. But do I really have any other choice?
PS: Another thing that has made me hopeful is to just observing what 50 years of fighting for justice and civil rights has done in the American South.
“But, Jane,” you might say, “50 years of fighting for justice and civil rights has done nothing.” No, there really have been some big changes there — even despite so many neo-con efforts to stop that change. But just imagine how much better the South would be now if the neo-cons had just kept their mouths shut. Schools, factories, integration, far less hatred and division, a better quality of life for all.
And this same thing could have happened in the Middle East too.
PPS: I just heard that Pope Francis has excommunicated the Mafia. Good for him. “But the Mafia has changed,” you might say. “They are legitimate businessmen now.” Not even close. They are just getting better and better at laundering money.
And speaking of laundering money, I finally figured out how those all those ISIS pirates and barbarians in the Middle East can afford to pay for all their new Toyotas, rocket-launchers and sneakers. Saudi Arabia pays for them! http://www.counterpunch.org/2014/06/24/the-rise-of-isis/
“But where do the Saudis get all that money,” you might ask. “Brand new Nikes are expensive.” No problem. The U.S. military-industrial complex gives the money to the Saudis. The Saudis buy the Nikes. That’s called “money-laundering” too.
Perhaps Pope Francis will excommunicate Wall Street and War Street as well!
We can only hope.
“Attack, attack, attack, never defend”
When Richard M. Nixon ran for Congress after WWII, he ran in the district being served by Jerry Voorhis, who had received a high liberal rating. Nixon ran on a campaign that charged that the incumbent’s support of labor groups was a subtle circumstantial indication that the incumbent was pro Communist.
U. S. Senator Max Cleland was a triple amputee because of wounds received in combat in Vietnam and was awarded a Silver Star and a Bronze Star. When Saxby Chambliss decided to run for that seat in the Senate, he attacked Cleland charging that some of his votes in the era immediately after the attack on the World Trade Center indicated a lack of patriotism on Cleland’s part. Chambliss, who graduated from college during the Vietnam conflict, was exempt from military duty because of bad knees due to a football injury. Chambliss beat Cleland.
In his book “The Strange Case of Richard Milhous Nixon,” former Congressman Voorhis states that Nixon’s political advisor Murray Chotner’s strategy playbook included: “Third – attack, attack, attack, never defend.”
When John Kerry suddenly was anointed the “front runner” after the leading candidate, Howard Dean, suffered what all the best known pundits diagnosed as a complete emotional meltdown, the Republicans just happened to have (wink, wink, nudge, nudge) done the paperwork for a group of veterans who had military records similar to Kerry’s and who were relentless in attacking Kerry’s combat record, which was supposed to be the centerpiece of his campaign.
With these past campaigns in mind, it seems quite likely that if Hilary Clinton wins the Democratic Party’s nomination and becomes a Candidate for President (technically she won’t be “the first”), then the Republicans will foil her quest to become the first woman President of the USA by saying that is precisely the reason citizens shouldn’t vote for her. The cultural atmosphere will be saturated with misogyny until Election Day.
The Democrats will be left to defend the idea that it is time for the USA to have its first woman President and the Republicans will feel like the good old days are back as they attack, attack, attack.
They will spice things up and avoid a Johnny one note aspect for the proceedings by manufacturing skirmishes that revive the Vince Foster, Monica Lewinski, and Benghazi issues.
Jon Stewart ran a segment titled “the Broads Must Be Crazy,” which seems to be an attempt to defuse the expected tsunami of misogyny that the Republicans will unleash. The Republicans are very adept at shrugging off any logical responses to their headline grabbing antics.
Any pundit, who dares to suggest that the Democrats should make a preemptive strike and start now attacking the Republican front runner, would be subjected to a smear campaign that would be a career ending grand finale no matter who that victim might be. If you don’t believe that just ask Dan Rather.
The news media seems completely oblivious to the implications for democracy of the fact that JEB Bush went from political pariah to front runner without participating in a single primary election campaign. That doesn’t affect the fact that bringing democracy to foreign soil is always considered a valid reason for waging war in a remote location.
Richard Nixon became a U. S. Senator in a political battle with Helen Gahagan Douglas, who, as an actress had played the role of Hash-a-Motep of Kor in the 1935 movie “She,” was the Congressional representative from California’s 14th District. As an actress, Ms. Douglas is credited as being the first to deliver the line: “She who must be obeyed!” Nixon hinted that her voting record in the House of Representatives was similar to that of another well known pro Communist Congressional representative and that the implication was obvious.
Online, there are differing accounts as to who was the first woman police officer in the USA. Whoever it was is reported to have drawn men from all over the country to be arrested by the law enforcement pioneer.
The Sioux exemplified the Native American variation of the Republican philosophy of “keep ’em pregnant in summer and barefoot in winter” while another tribe (the Cheyenne?) had women warriors.
Uncle Rushbo has always nurtured a good old boy in the locker room condescending attitude towards women. Didn’t Frank Sinatra use the terms “frail, skirt, and mouse” to designate a woman? Weren’t his most ardent fans of the female persuasion?
Liberals tend to project their values on their opponents and so the Democrats will not want to hear any predictions along those lines regarding what the Republican strategy will be to win the election. We have read some books that advise trial lawyers to neutralize the other side’s case before it is presented but the Democratic Party seems reluctant to use that methodology in National politics.
Journalists who are always anxious to project an “I’m just as cool as Frank Sinatra” image will probably go along with a Sexist campaign against Hillary because what’s not to like about a metaphorical chance to be a member of the rat pack? Also the conservative owners of the media that employs them will give them certain “do you like your job” hints that they should go along to get along.
If the Republicans go the complete ring-a-ding-ding route and attack Hillary for being a woman, what effective response can the liberal citizen journalist use? The fact that she is a woman can’t be denied and if the Democratic response starts on a defensive note, well then Jerry Voorhis would say that they are off to a bad start.
Conservative talk show hostess Laura Ingraham has said that a woman politician should not emphasize a point by shouting it because if she does, invariably she will sound shrill.
We have (many moons ago) heard a news story that asserts that an infant girl will pay more attention to a the voice of an unknown man than she will to the voice of her own mother.
Feminists have pointed out that Ginger Rogers did everything Fred Astair was doing and she did it backwards while wearing high heeled shoes. The Republican response will be: “Yeah, backwards . . . that sounds like how a woman would do it!”
Republicans might go as far as having Uncle Rushbo revive the old Laurel and Hardy shtick that included the line “You can never hit a woman, Oliver . . . you have to kick them!”?
L. A. Clippers owner Donald Sterling’s girlfriend, V. (Vivian) Stiviano announced this week that she expects to be a successful Presidential nominee sometime in the future.
In a speech to the League of Women voters, on April 16, 1969, President Richard M. Nixon said: “Certainly in the next fifty years we shall see a woman president, perhaps sooner than you think. A woman can and should be able to do any political job that a man can do.” There is only one more election left which can render this prediction as accurate.
Now the disk jockey will play Nancy Sinatra’s “These boots are made for walking,” the Jefferson Airplane’s “Plastic fantastic lover,” and Wagner’s “Ride of the Valkyries.” We have to get back to reading Amanda Vaill’s new book “Hotel Florida (Truth, Love and Death in the Spanish Civil War).” Have an “For no good reason” type week. Enjoy National Free Comic Book day and the Kentucky Derby on Saturday and Cinco de Mayo on Monday.