Sunday, 14 September 2014

Robert Fisk on Isis campaign: Bingo! Here’s another force of evil to be ‘vanquished

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Thursday 11 September 2014, London Independent

Robert Fisk on Isis

campaign: Bingo! Here’s another

force of evil to be ‘vanquished’

One can see how difficult these lessons in Middle East

history must be for the average American

198

Resurrection, reinvention and linguistics. Barack Obama

did the lot. And now he’s taking America to war in Syria

as well as Iraq. Oh yes, and he’s going to defeat Isis, its

“barbarism”, “genocide”, its “warped ideology” – until

the bad guys are “vanquished from the earth”. What

happened to George W Bush?

But let’s go through this with a linguistic comb. First,

Obama is going to resurrect the Sunni “Awakening Council” militias – a creature invented by a certain General David

Petraeus – who were paid to fight al-Qaeda by the

Americans during the US occupation of Iraq, but who then

got blasted by al-Qaeda and betrayed by the Shia-

dominated Iraqi government. Obama has even invented a

new name for these militias: he called them

“National Guard Units” who will “help Sunni communities

secure their own freedom from Isil”. National Guard indeed!

Then there’s the reinvention of the “moderate” Syrian

opposition which was once called the Free Syrian Army –

a force of deserters corrupted and betrayed by both the West

and its Islamic allies – and which no longer exists. This

ghost army is now going to be called the “Syrian National

Coalition” and be trained – of all places – in Saudi Arabia,

whose citizens have given zillions of dollars to al-Qaeda

in Iraq, Isis, Isil, IS (you decide on the acronym), Jabhat

al-Nusra and sundry other bad guys whom Obama now

wants to “vanquish from the earth”.

In pictures: The rise of Isis

1 of 73

And then the linguistics. Obama “will not hesitate to take

action against Isil in Syria”. But that means that he is going

to “vanquish” the enemies of the Syrian President, Bashar

al-Assad, whom Obama was also going to “vanquish” last

year – until he got cold feet and decided to leave him alone.

So if the enemy of my enemy is my friend – as the Arabs

supposedly tell each other – Assad can regard Washington as

his new ally.

But no. For then came the dodgy little explanations: America “cannot rely on an Assad regime that terrorises its people”,

a regime that “will never regain the legitimacy it has lost”. But the US has never been asked to “rely” on Assad – it’s Assad who

relies for support on Russia. And Assad’s legitimacy is

accepted by China, Iran – with whom the Americans are

having cosy nuclear talks – and Russia, whose armies clearly

do not “hesitate to take action” in Ukraine.

WAR PM TO PUSH FOR UK STRIKES IN IRAQ – BUT NOT SYRIA
EDITORIAL: OBAMA HAS TO WRITE POSTSCRIPT TO WAR HE OPPOSED
COMMENT: OBAMA TRIES TO SELL ANOTHER UNWANTED WAR TO US

All in all, then, a pretty state of affairs. And part of the

problem is America’s non-existent institutional – or national – semantic memory. Obama tells us that America “will hunt

down terrorists who threaten our country”. But I recall

Vice- President George Bush telling his people after the US

Marine bombing in Beirut in 1983 that “we are not going to

let a bunch of insidious terrorist cowards shake the foreign

policy of the United States”. Then the American military fled

Beirut. Three years later, President Ronald Reagan said of Muammar Gaddafi of Libya (“the mad dog of the Middle East”) that “he can run – but he can’t hide”. But Gaddafi did hide – and

was then kissed by Tony Blair after being forgiven for all his “terrorism” – only to be murdered by his enemies when he

became a “terrorist” all over again.

Obama tells us that America “will hunt down terrorists who threaten our country” (EPA)
One can see, of course, how difficult these lessons in Middle

East history must be for the average American. All these

forces of evil being vanquished over and over again, and then – bingo – there’s another force of evil to vanquish. So Obama produces words that are easy to swallow. “genocide”,

“barbarism”, “cancer”.

Only occasionally is there a non-sequitur which Americans

must ignore. There was, for example, Obama’s rather odd

reference to “radical groups” which “exploit grievances for

their own gain”. And what would these “grievances” be, I

wonder? The illegal 2003 invasion of Iraq and its

concomitant bloodbath? Our continued occupation of

Afghanistan? The pulverisation of Gaza by America’s greatest

ally?

Obama mercifully left that ally’s name unspoken, although it

has a very big stake in America’s newly expanded war in the

Middle East – after all, it shares a common border with

Syria. But Saudi Arabia, Qatar and all the other Croesus

leaders of the Arab Sunni Gulf might not like their people

to be reminded that their latest alliance with Washington –

training all those non-existent “moderate” chaps, for

instance – is going to help Israel.

The clunking irony is that the “Islamic State’s” men do

butcher, throat-slit and ethnically cleanse their enemies.

Their claptrap “state” and their sadism have turned them

into a weird combination of Mickey Mouse and Genghis

Khan. Nor, weirdly, has the IS really tried to exploit the

anonymous “grievances” to which Obama referred. So totally introverted is their “ideology” (the quotation marks are

obligatory) that they uttered not a word of sympathy for the Palestinians of Gaza during their latest bloodletting. But

grievances there are. They do exist. Will there be a Kurdistan? Will there ever be a Palestine?

Not a word did Obama utter on these infinitely graver matters. I’m afraid it’s the same old US policy: confronting the greatest

crisis in the Middle East since the last greatest crisis in the

Middle East. And we can depend on the Americans

for that.

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Phyllis Bennis: Six Steps Short of War to Beat ISIS
http://www.commondreams.org/views/2014/09/11/six-steps-short-war-beat-isis

AMPHIKTYON.BLOGSPOT.COM

Sunday, 14 September 2014