US presence does not suppress terrorism, it causes it
Dec 28, 2018 20:32 UTC
The secret to ending the strength of Daesh terrorists in Syria is not the continued presence of American occupation troops. It is high time The US/Saudi/Israeli alliance against Iran stopped both funding Daesh and pretending to fight it; schizophrenia is not a foreign policy stance.
These were the remarks of Craig Murray an author, broadcaster and human rights activist, who has served as British Ambassador to Uzbekistan, in his article, titled: “US Presence Does Not Suppress Terrorism, It Causes It”.
Even the neo-con warmongers’ house journal The Guardian, furious at Trump’s attempts to pull US troops out of Syria, in producing a map to illustrate its point, could only produce one single, uncertain, very short pen stroke to describe the minute strip of territory it claims Daesh still controls on the Iraqi border.
The Guardian produces the argument that continued US military presence is necessary to ensure that Daesh does not spring back to life in Syria. The fallacy of that argument can be easily demonstrated. In Afghanistan, the USA has managed to drag out the long process of humiliating defeat in war even further than it did in Vietnam. It is plain as a pikestaff that the presence of US occupation troops is itself the best recruiting sergeant for resistance.
In my book “Sikunder Burnes – Master of the Great Game” – a biography of Sir Alexander Burnes who was associated with British-Russian tussle for power in Central Asia in the 19th century, the trace how the battle lines of tribal alliances there today are precisely the same ones the British faced in 1841. We just attach labels like Taliban to hide the fact that invaders face national resistance.
It is for US’ ever-close allies in Saudi Arabia and the Persian Gulf states to cut off the major artery of money and arms, which we should never forget in origin and for a long time had a strong US component. It is high time The US/Saudi/Israeli alliance against Iran stopped both funding Daesh and pretending to fight it; schizophrenia is not a foreign policy stance.
Shi’a Muslim groups have posed no terrorist threat to the West. The threat has always been from militants groups sponsored by Saudi Arabia, such as al-Qa’eda, Daesh, an-Nusra, Boko Haram. It is a matter of lunacy that the West has adopted the posture that it is Iran – which has sponsored not one attack on the West in recent memory – which is the threat in the Middle East.
The origin of this stance appears to lie in the fact that Hezbollah proved to have the only military force among Israel’s neighbors capable of halting an Israeli invasion. After the disastrous invasion of Iraq resulted in an Iran friendly government in Baghdad, the US decided to back Saudi regional power plays, only for Saudi Arabia to fall into the hands of the psychopathic warmonger Mohamed Bin Salman who escalated an already flawed policy to the breaking point.
The chaos of this incoherent and counterproductive strategy is, peculiarly enough, what the neocons actually want. Perpetual war and destabilization in the Middle East is their goal.
One of the findings I had not expected to discover in writing Sikunder Burnes was that the British had been deliberately exploiting and exacerbating the Shia/Sunni differences as early as 1836 to the Imperial purpose. Today, by keeping Arab populations poor and politically divided, the neo-cons believe that they enhance the security of Israel, and they certainly do facilitate the access of western companies to the oil and gas of the region, as we see in destabilized Iraq and Libya.
The Clintons, Bill and Hillary, along with Britain’s Tony Blair were the apotheoses of the capture of the mainstream “left” political parties by this neo-con Imperialist agenda in the Middle East.
Bernie Sanders and Jeremy Corbyn were the first politicians with any chance of power for many decades who did not pay lip-service to the neo-con agenda.
On the other hand, Donald Trump’s lack of enthusiasm for Cold War politics has been neutralized from any possible action on his part by the lie that Russia hacked his election. Furthermore, his greed has led to deals with Saudi Arabia which have largely undercut his declared preference for non-interventionism. And now in Syria, the very hint that Trump may not be fully committed to the pursuit of perpetual war has the entire neo-con establishment, political media and NGO, screaming in unison, both sides of the Atlantic.
I have written before that Trump may be a rotten President for Americans, but at least he has not initiated a major war, and I am quite sure Hillary would have done by now – if she had been elected.
For a non-American, the choice between Hillary and Trump ended up in balancing on one side of the scale the evil of millions more killed and maimed in the Middle East and the launching of a full-on, unreserved new Cold War, against on the other side of the scale poorer Americans having very bad healthcare and social provision and America adopting racist immigration policies. I do hope that the neo-con barrage today arguing for more American troops in the Middle East, will help people remember just how very unattractive also is the Hillary side of the equation.
It is also very helpful in revealing the startling unanimity of our bought and paid for political, media and NGO class here in the UK.
AS/SS
