DDGD –
October 11, 2015
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Today’s Post is brought to you by: The Society of Free
Masochists, the largest unofficial civil society network in the Great Middle
East and North Africa Region. The Society of Free Masochists: we know we’re
knee-deep in shit, and we like it.
Editorial Comment
|
While some people might define the term Placebo Politics as an
attempt to provide quick fixes for certain serious political maladies, the way I
use it when it comes to describing Obama’s foreign policies is as a synonym for
the politics of obfuscation: a methodical endeavor to avoid having to review
one’s own policies and reassess one’s worldview even as they clash with reality.
We can also refer to this phenomenon as the “Shirk ‘N’ Shift,” that is, shirk the
responsibility and shift the blame. President Obama has become a master of this
particular art, and his ability to insert an opiate in the mix has been quite
helpful as well.
What is that opiate? Security.
Yes, President Obama himself admits
(see The No-Fly Zone Section below) that the world is growing more and more turbulent
and less and less safe for others, but America is safe, he asserts, and our
interests are protected. So, it seems that we are supposed at this stage to simply
watch the ugliness unfolding around us while wringing our hands and enjoying
the relative safety we are afforded, ignoring any potential long-term
consequences, and our sense of humanity. The Administration is not even developing
any plans for dealing with the humanitarian consequences of this policy!
Articles & Commentary
|
It
doesn't matter who's provoking whom here, mutual recriminations mean
absolutely nothing. It is imperative at this stage, especially for those who
truly care for Palestinian and Palestinian rights, to call for calm, and to
insist that the Palestinian Authority takes the lead in inviting to calm,
avoiding any provocation from its side and responding to any provocations from
the other. This is the absolutely wrong time for an intifada.
The ongoing implosion of the region provides more
opportunity for ending the Palestinian dream of self-determination than for
fulfilling it. Yes, the world is tougher in its reaction to Israeli
aggression, real or perceived, justified or unjustified, than it has been in
regard to the way Arab leaders treat their own people, and each other, but that
hasn’t made a difference so far, and it definitely won’t at this particular
stage.
With Syria, Iraq, Libya and Yemen disintegrating as we watch,
and with other countries put on the waiting list (including Saudi
Arabia and even the much celebrated Tunisia),
regional and world powers are now fighting over the shape of the new borders,
while feeble-minded potentates compete over scraps. But considering the fact
that the Palestinians are dealing with Israel and not some Arab autocrat, there
is no opportunity for them to be had in this case, at least not through an
intifada or even the threat of it.
Any serious confrontation at this stage could pave the way
for major military undertaking by Israelis, and to mass dislocation. Other than
some strong moral condemnation, and shows of sympathy, perhaps some sanctions,
and a sure increase in hate crimes targeting world Jewry, nothing consequential
will happen. And Europe will be no less reluctant when it comes to hosting
Palestinian refugees than it is now in regard to Syrian refugees.
Yes, these may not the things that so-called pro-Arab
pro-Palestinian Western academics and activists will tell their Palestinian
colleagues and friends, but, in my humble opinion, there is nothing pro-Arab
about telling you the things you want to hear, and reinforcing your illusions. It’s
about time we learned to really handle the truth. And the truth is pretty simple
in this case: this is not the right time for an intifada.
*
Who’s
Behind the Horrific Bombing that Hit Ankara? Indeed. The answers are no
longer that obvious.
It has been established by now that Turkey has played an
active role in the rise of Al-Nusra Front as well as Islamic State and other
Islamic groupings, in Syria. In fact the overall Islamization of the Syrian
rebel movement may not have occurred without the willingness of the Erdogan
government to bet heavily on the Islamists, including the Muslim Brotherhood.
Ideological convictions seem to have been behind the initial
phase of this support, then, a creeping fear of Kurds, more specifically, of
the PYD, the Syrian branch of the PKK, and its armed wing, the YPGs, the
People’s Defense Committees, seem to have taken over. The PYD and YPGs have
shown enough sophistication in terms of their organizational capacity, one that
allowed them to provide effective governance structures in areas where the
regime, rebel sympathizers, Assyrians, Chaldeans, and other Kurdish groups were
also active. This must have scared the Turks sufficiently, they backed, if not
even instigated, IS operations against Kurdish areas, before, finally deciding,
when the world began noticing and complaining about their support of IS, to do
the work themselves by carrying out airstrikes against PKK positions inside
Turkey.
In many ways, Erdogan behaved like a mini-Obama, never
committed whole-heartedly to what he knew was the right course from the
beginning: take down Assad, then, he made the situation worse by supporting the
wrong actors, marginalizing the secular and moderate forces, and examined the
overall situation from the wrong perspective, the Kurdish Question (as opposed
to Obama’s focus on terrorist groups), which led him to adopt the kind of
narrow-minded action that made the situation worse. The result, as the
Economist argues, “Turkey
risks descending into a bloodbath.”
This is only meant to explain the complicated context in
which these heinous terrorist attacks took place. Nothing, however, justifies
the killing of civilians.
*** Flash Notice ***
Welcome to The New
Multipolar World: where you'll never know who's bombing the shit out of you, or
why.
*
Putin’s move into Syria might indeed be a sign of weakness,
as Obama argues in this
new interview of his, but autocrats often react to being weakened by
creating more trouble and mayhem for others, rather than biding their time, or
engaging ion reforms. Indeed, this is what Assad has been doing for the last
four years. Letting these autocrats get away with creating trouble is to create
bigger problems down the road, because autocrats don’t clean up after
themselves. Obama might be good at making the right diagnoses, but his
prognostic skills are iffy to say the least, always assuming the worst, always
projecting failure and death as the eventual outcome. No wonder that his
prescribed treatment regime is more often meant to help him shirk responsibility
for the deadly result, rather than attempt to prevent it. Perhaps this is the
expected modus operandi from someone who surrounds
himself with lawyers.
As a doctor, however, Obama leaves much to be desired. He narrows
his own options, and he comes with an established bias for a specific treatment:
inaction or, when pressed, a noncommittal action designed to make him look
responsive, while having minimal impact on the situation– the political
equivalent of placebo. By now, he is a true believer in this approach, and is unlikely
to reverse course.
A Riddle
It’s been established that the Assad regime tortures
children to death, in fact that’s how the Syrian revolution started, while the
Islamic State, as many of its videos reveal, prefers to behead them. So, who’s
the more maniacal? The answer is found at the end of the post.
My America
|
20-City
Anti-Islam Rally Puts Mosques across U.S. on High Alert. The problem with
most Americans who are afraid of the spread of Islam in the United States is
not simply that they are ill-informed, and/or motivated by their own fundamentalist
religious beliefs and political ideologies. Rather than, the problem lies in the
prevalence of so-called pundits and politicians who are willing to pander to
them without fear of censure from their colleagues. Trump’s refusal weeks ago to
criticize and correct the man in his rally who accused Obama of being a Muslim is
a case in point. As many pointed out at the time, Trump should have corrected
the man on two points: first by noting that Obama is not a Muslim, and second,
by reminding the man that there is nothing with being a Muslims or with having
a Muslim president. The unwillingness to challenge the man for fear of losing
votes is exactly why the system seems to be encouraging this kind of dangerous
populism.
Then again, in Trump’s case, the reluctance to respond might
have come as a reflection of the fact that his own views in the matter may not
have been that different from those espoused by his acolyte. Here lies the
bigger problem. Populist politicians and demagogues are becoming part of the mainstream.
But the United States have been through such internal
upheavals before, and have what it takes to climb out of them, but not without
brave and ethical leadership. Unfortunately, both Democrats and Republicans at this
stage seem incapable of providing such leadership.
Quote of the Day
|
“For me, it is far better to grasp the Universe as it really
is than to persist in delusion, however satisfying and reassuring.” Carl
Sagan
Tweets of the Day
|
Folks in #Damascus
tell me #Syria
TV boasts abt #Russia
warplanes violating #Turkey
airspace bc (pro-rebel) Turks "need to learn a
lesson".
— Rasha Elass (@RashaElass) October
10, 2015
For those still speculating about
#Putin's
plan in #Syria:
#Russia's
jets bomb north of Aleppo yesterday; IS takes 8 villages
today..
— Joseph Bahout (@jobahout) October
10, 2015
Saudi Ambassador to UN on alleged
human rights abuses "if it doesn't please someone here or
there thats their problem not ours" #newsnight
—
BBC Newsnight (@BBCNewsnight) October
9, 2015
The Ankara/Suruc bombs feel like
ISIS applying the Iraq 04-05 model to Turkey. No claim, so blame flies
-> tension -> strife -> chaos
— Liz Sly
(@LizSly) October
11, 2015
The No-Fly Zone: Comments, statements & policies that just make no
sense (i.e. they don’t fly)
|
Personally, I cannot think of anyone who has suggested that
the U.S. should send 100,000-200,000 troops into Syria, or back into Iraq. But it
has been a habit for President Obama to juxtapose his position against an extreme
one that no one is advocating, leaving his audience with the impression that his
critics are extremists.
President Obama: … And if in
fact the only measure is for us to send another 100,000 or 200,000 troops into
Syria or back into Iraq, or perhaps into Libya, or perhaps into Yemen, and our
goal somehow is that we are now going to be, not just the police, but the
governors of this region. That would be a bad strategy Steve. And I think that
if we make that mistake again, then shame on us. Steve Kroft: Do you
think the world's a safer place? President Obama: America is a safer
place. I think that there are places, obviously, like Syria that are not safer
than when I came into office. But, in terms of us protecting ourselves against
terrorism, in terms of us making sure that we are strengthening our alliances,
in terms of our reputation around the world, absolutely we're stronger. 60
minutes, October 11, 2015.
Video(s) of the Day
|
Brave New Words! After legitimizing the Russian
intervention in Syria, the Imam of the Umayyad Mosque in Damascus addresses
Putin, “the great leader who destroyed the myth of American power,” and pledges
that Syrians will come to the defense of Russia should it become subject to a
terrorist plot.
Artistic Delirium
|
Cartoons
|
Answer to the above riddle: Those
who support them and those who pretend to fight them but end up strengthening
them.
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