Met Philip letter about Syria

I posted the letter to facebook.

Some of the comments were despicable, foremost being this one:

"We shouldn't intervene. Just let them kill each other off."

Cogent said:

Honestly I either want to fight both or neither. I don't support Assad (although Dot has an interesting point - that in the Near East a dictatorship may be a "necessary evil") and I don't want to support al-Qaeda, the Taliban, Hamas or any other radical elements that might be in Syria by this point.

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I think there's no real way of fighting both off when realizing that there are parties involved outside of both that'd benefit from fighting one or the other - and that is said in regards to others OUTSIDE of the U.S

• Strange Bedfellows - The Economist
• Iran-Contra Redux? Prince Bandar Heads Secret Saudi-CIA Effort to Aid Syrian Rebels, Topple Assad - Democracy Now!!

Follow who benefits from the OIL - and you quickly see who benefits the most from Syria being taken out.

When seeing the money trail, it always makes sense to see the ways many in Saudi Arabia is connected to a lot of the problems in the Middle East with destabilization - as people tend to forget there are always others on all sides outside of the factions that are holding hands even as they claim to be a part of groups opposed to other sides which have people they shake hands with outside of the drama.

Although I'm generally not for things such as Arab conspiracy theories that tend to demonize Arabs as the worst people or always behind horrible plans, I do think there's something to be said on the ways that many Arab groups often do things against their own people...and no one would suspect it. Some have said what's going on is really a false flag to get us off-topic and distracted from the controversy of NSA domestic snooping many were upset about - as well as several of the scandals that seemed to come up earlier this year for President Obama. There's no way for anyone being intellectual honest on the events of our time to forget the ways that political provocation for advantage (even to the extent of provoking war) has long been a part of what humans engage in at a State Scale. In fact, even the Byzantines excelled at this - for although loathe to engage in war, their well developed foreign policy arsenal included turning enemies/states against one another to the Byzantine's advantage - as seen in the work by E. Luttwack entitled The Grand Strategy of the Byzantine Empire

• Syria And Byzantine Strategy - Forbes
• In Syria, America Loses if Either Side Wins - NYTimes.com
• Leave Bad Enough Alone - By Edward Luttwak | Foreign Policy
• 5 Rules for Arming Rebels - By Edward Luttwak | Foreign Policy

Gxg (G²);64102362 said:

I think there's no real way of fighting both off when realizing that there are parties involved outside of both that'd benefit from fighting one or the other - and that is said in regards to others OUTSIDE of the U.S

• Iran-Contra Redux? Prince Bandar Heads Secret Saudi-CIA Effort to Aid Syrian Rebels, Topple Assad - Democracy Now!!

Follow who benefits from the OIL - and you quickly see who benefits the most from Syria being taken out.

When seeing the money trail, it always makes sense to see the ways many in Saudi Arabia is connected to a lot of the problems in the Middle East with destabilization - as people tend to forget there are always others on all sides outside of the factions that are holding hands even as they claim to be a part of groups opposed to other sides which have people they shake hands with outside of the drama.

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Yeah I don't doubt there are a number of governments and conglomerates that would profit from turning Syria into an international war zone. The arms trafficking alone could turn billions, and that's not accounting for any WMD's that could potentially be sent their way.

The sad fact is that you can't really fight organizations like al-Qaeda, Hamas or the Taliban because there's no head to cut off. They're decentralized, and that structure allows them to attack like a virus from multiple directions. Removing Assad wouldn't be much of a challenge, just like removing Hussein didn't take too long (about nine months after the invasion of Iraq if I remember correctly) but trying to contend with insurgency in Syria would be an entirely different, disorganized and long-winded issue.

Cogent said:

Yeah I don't doubt there are a number of governments and conglomerates that would profit from turning Syria into an international war zone. The arms trafficking alone could turn billions, and that's not accounting for any WMD's that could potentially be sent their way.

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Indeed..

As mentioned last year in August when there was intervention in Syria, it's hard to avoid the fact that there is an aspect of FINANCIAL benefit that so happens to be in favor of those wishing to either further the military industrial complex - or the arms dealing world (including black market arms dealing) throughout the globe ....in the event that many other nations get involved....and of course, coalitions/corporations in the Middle Eastern world and African world who would benefit from the Oil trade that would develop - not many are aware of the pipeline that was intending to be made if Syria was out of the way and that would directly subvert Russia's influence since new markets would open up.

Syria has always been a STRATEGIC area others wanted control of - and in the event that others wanted to take out Iran and the enemies of Israel, you'd HAVE to get Syria out of the way. Without mentioning that was the goal, of course, as on the surface you make it out as if you HAVE to intervene when it's the case that you already set up a situation a negative situation that seemed to be a crisis.

• Syria « Voices from Russia
• Russia And Syria: More Than Meets The Eye
• Global Politician - The U.S., Russia and Syria
• The U.S. Should Steer Clear of Syria - Reason.com
• BBC News - Syria crisis: The 800 year history lesson
• Expert: Peace for Syria will not come from the outside | National

And if that's not bad enough, you can already see where other nations have now gotten set in place for a GLOBAL conflict. As said before:

Cogent said:

The sad fact is that you can't really fight organizations like al-Qaeda, Hamas or the Taliban because there's no head to cut off. They're decentralized, and that structure allows them to attack like a virus from multiple directions. Removing Assad wouldn't be much of a challenge, just like removing Hussein didn't take too long (about nine months after the invasion of Iraq if I remember correctly) but trying to contend with insurgency in Syria would be an entirely different, disorganized and long-winded issue.

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What you note is something that many military individuals have long noted when it comes to the ways that wars are fought in distinctly different manners than what we in the U.S are used to. There's no central monster in the Middle East - and in that world, the motivation is radically different...as well as the strategy, to get you to be like a kid who wants to get rid of a wasp nest and then thinks he is doing the right thing by putting his hand on it to "crush"/intimidate it - and yet all he does is either cause the wasps to go elsewhere/spread out aggressively in making new nests or attacking you even more ...with your hands STUCK holding the nest and the wasps going into more of a survival mode.

And even with others saying that the goal is to remove Assad, there needs to be a realization of how much we already were responsible for ARMING the wrong sides - and not seeing the ways that we are now officially (and ironically) in bed with the same people we said we were against (Al Queda) - which isn't really surprising when seeing how all the talk of being against them since 9/11 is backward in light of how we had TRAINED them to begin with before 9/11 even happened (as we created Al Qaeda to Fight the Soviets in Afghanistan ) and at every intervention, we were the ones who went into other nations - wrecked the place and left open power vaccums to be occupied by others who made it even worse and yet gave more of a reason for us to "be there" to stop things..


For me, our being present and working again with Al-queda is not really a surprise - but something that probably should've been expected when it came to the ways we distance ourselves (if it suits a goal) from the people we helped to create - and then connect together again for another issue we need (in the hopes that people forget the history of development).....and then place them back into the role of the enemy - with them agreeing to it, as if it's one big perverse play.

• Arab conspiracy theories: Strange bedfellows | The Economist
• Sleeping With the Devil: How U.S. and Saudi Backing of Al Qaeda

If a parent keeps raising their child on Gangsta rap - then unleashes that child when they're grown up into the community and they do damage....only for the parent (who happens to be a police man) to call for more police intervention/control ....and then others keep complaining about peace not occurring with police violence or feeling like they're being controlled, it'd be dumb for them to not ask "Why is it that the same thugs harming us come from you - the people who say you're here to stop it and you have nothing to do with thugs - and yet you trained them to be like they are?!" ....and then they ignore where those thugs are provoked even further by the police claiming to the community that the thugs just want to be aggressive/need to be stopped..

It'd eventually feel like a big game...


A self-fulfilling prophecy - or perhaps it's something more. But as said before, there will never be any changing of the bottom line fact that we already have ignored in the U.S the many ways in which we helped to create the problems that exist in Syria - and sad to say, we've chosen to ignore those who are suffering because of the sides we're choosing to fund - Just like with Korea when it came to manufacturing a crisis and making ourselves look like the hero ...and the same with what occurred in Vietnam and Laos when WE in the U.S enabled the Drug Trade to increase by fueling it in order to give funding for the war we were waging ( #52 #74 ), never mind many of the facts that got ignored in the process.

And on top of that, when people say we have to intervene to stop inhumane methods of killing such as chemical weapons, that has never made logical sense when we already allow for devastating weapons on OUR side to be used like mines and guns.....

For more:

• Hypocrisy Of War Over Chemical Weapon Use (VIDEO)

Cogent said:

Honestly I either want to fight both or neither. I don't support Assad (although Dot has an interesting point - that in the Near East a dictatorship may be a "necessary evil") and I don't want to support al-Qaeda, the Taliban, Hamas or any other radical elements that might be in Syria by this point.

I hadn't heard that a chemical attack was conducted by the rebels, was it reported in many sources?

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Cogent, are you OK with other countries bombingyour home region because of evils done their? It's bad enough when it's your own government; how about foreign governments? Or do you think the US has a special imperial right over others that other nations ought not have over it?

You hear what the owners of mass media want you to hear. They own many, and even most sources.

rusmeister said:

Cogent, are you OK with other countries bombingyour home region because of evils done their? It's bad enough when it's your own government; how about foreign governments? Or do you think the US has a special imperial right over others that other nations ought not have over it?

You hear what the owners of mass media want you to hear. They own many, and even most sources.

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No, of course not.

Perhaps you should read my other posts? I'm not in favor of U.S. imperialism, and I realize the U.S. acting in Syria would more than likely make things worse, especially in the case that removing Assad would create a power vacuum that would most certainly be filled with extremists of one stripe or another.

Do you think the world shouldn't respond at all to even a claim that chemical weapons were used? Be it a response via the U.N., INTERPOL, or some other agency...

As I've said before, I'm not really advocating action nor inaction at this point. I just wonder what kind of message is sent to the larger global community IF it turns out chemical weapons indeed have been used and nothing was done about it.

Gxg (G²);64102362 said:

Some have said what's going on is really a false flag to get us off-topic and distracted from the controversy of NSA domestic snooping many were upset about - as well as several of the scandals that seemed to come up earlier this year for President Obama. There's no way for anyone being intellectual honest on the events of our time to forget the ways that political provocation for advantage (even to the extent of provoking war) has long been a part of what humans engage in at a State Scale. In fact, even the Byzantines excelled at this - for although loathe to engage in war, their well developed foreign policy arsenal included turning enemies/states against one another to the Byzantine's advantage - as seen in the work by E. Luttwack entitled The Grand Strategy of the Byzantine Empire

• Syria And Byzantine Strategy - Forbes

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• 
  
  I read Kaplan's article. It's Machiavellian sounding, and I don't like it. He basically promotes having other countries fight eachother as if it's a good thing, pointing out that the Byzantine empire did it. Sorry, but the Byzantine empire? He is relying on a stereotype of Byzantium as a corrupt power that specialized in intrigues, and even if this model is correct, it is still not praiseworthy. At the end of the day Byzantium did fall, and it fell harder than Rome, since Italy stayed Christian. Byzantium is now Istanbul.
  
  He loves the Iraq-Iran war, and thinks it's genius for policymakers, but guess what, at the end of the day, neither one liked the U.S. government. Another fine example is backing the Taliban against the USSR in Afghanistan. Yeah, how did that turn out?
  
  This is praising a Machiavellian policy that sends a brigade into quicksand.

If anything the rebels used the chemical weapons. Werent they responsible for a smalker attack earlier on?

Isnt there an arab league? They will have to figure this out on their own.

rakovsky said:

I read Kaplan's article. It's Machiavellian sounding, and I don't like it. He basically promotes having other countries fight eachother as if it's a good thing, pointing out that the Byzantine empire did it. Sorry, but the Byzantine empire? He is relying on a stereotype of Byzantium as a corrupt power that specialized in intrigues, and even if this model is correct, it is still not praiseworthy. At the end of the day Byzantium did fall, and it fell harder than Rome, since Italy stayed Christian. Byzantium is now Istanbul.

He loves the Iraq-Iran war, and thinks it's genius for policymakers, but guess what, at the end of the day, neither one liked the U.S. government. Another fine example is backing the Taliban against the USSR in Afghanistan. Yeah, how did that turn out?

This is praising a Machiavellian policy that sends a brigade into quicksand
.

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Truthfully,

Doesn't really take liking something in order to address it for what it was - nor was the article by Kaplan put up by myself as a means of noting issues to admire. It is simply a reminder of what other empires have done in history (as well as things others realize) -as well as what the U.S has done (when it comes to fighting wars via proxy) - in order to promote their own goals in the long-term while making it seem like they're not involved. I may not like the idea of a Machiavellian policy being in place - but I don't wish to live in a fantasy world that acts as if such events are somehow not even on the table for others or act as if they haven't already been put in place.....

Even in media, this has been discussed (if remembering what occurred with the Dominion War in Star Trek: Deep Space 9 when the Changelings infiltrated governments/initiated wars by subterfuge and misdirection in turning others against each other....and creating enough havoc to later enter in/gain footholds rather than fighting powers at their strongest ).

But as said before, there's no escaping the actual practices of the Byzantine Empire and what it did when it came to turning enemies against one another - defeating an enemy before they faced them. And as said in the post you quoted, Professor Edward Luttwak did an excellent job of documenting their history/background in the ways they went about issues.....as well as noting the ways many events in the Middle East have shaped and why they go that way...


The actions of pitting enemies against each others happened to serve them well, with the Empire lasting much longer than the Roman Empire (as well as not suffering nearly as much ) - as Italy was apostasized and suffered much from Barbarian culture invading/taking over (even though there were problems the Byzantine Empire suffered in their final days) - and although it is not a policy I praise, it's not something I put past any government with the means of doing so from engaging. An action may be despicable - and yet still brilliant as it concerns the pragmatic aspect of how it gets a job done that one wants...

As said earlier in #26 , there are several cases of this occurring in U.S history - and many times, it's forgotten...as I mentioned with al-Queda being people the U.S trained up...and thus, in the entire Syria scenario, I don't put the concept of false flags past what may be going on. Staging conflicts.....and what people don't take the time to realize is that it's really NOT about whether or not something works out for you and I in the populace. The brilliance of an action accomplishing a goal is more so focused on those in power who ultimately benefit from it economically - at the top - and couldn't care less on what happens to the people on the bottom. When you understand the ways that Democracy is essentially a privately owned industry and it's really an illusion of choice while those behind the scenes with financial power are the people who benefit from actions that harm many below, a lot of things make sense....

Cogent is one of the most passionate people I know where Palestinian rights are concerned and he hates American encroachment and imperialistic junk. He's quite vocal in most posts about the fact that American foreign policy has been pure idiocy in the last century in the Middle East.

he's definitely not a media zombie either

rusmeister said:

Cogent, are you OK with other countries bombingyour home region because of evils done their? It's bad enough when it's your own government; how about foreign governments? Or do you think the US has a special imperial right over others that other nations ought not have over it?

You hear what the owners of mass media want you to hear. They own many, and even most sources.

Click to expand...

Cogent said:

No, of course not.

Perhaps you should read my other posts? I'm not in favor of U.S. imperialism, and I realize the U.S. acting in Syria would more than likely make things worse, especially in the case that removing Assad would create a power vacuum that would most certainly be filled with extremists of one stripe or another.

Do you think the world shouldn't respond at all to even a claim that chemical weapons were used? Be it a response via the U.N., INTERPOL, or some other agency...

As I've said before, I'm not really advocating action nor inaction at this point. I just wonder what kind of message is sent to the larger global community IF it turns out chemical weapons indeed have been used and nothing was done about it.

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I think most modern claims are heavily engineered and manipulated to achieve other ends. We're supposed to try to be not only as harmless as doves, but wise as serpents.

I don't believe in "global communities". I believe in nations, which are divided by borders and philosophies. If their "good" is my evil, we can hardly be members of a common community. We cannot build a civilzed civilization based on common understandings of morality and truth. Look at how the West is falling apart under its loss of sexual morality. If our own neighbor no longer means what we mean by the word "marriage", how can we build anything at all together?

Good fences make for good neighbors.

Small is beautiful. I think the 50 states would be better off as fifty divided nations, that they take the word "state" literally again.

Nations are a good thing, empires are a bad thing. Today, what used to be called "imperialism" is now called "globalism", and speaks in terms of global "communities" or "villages", when what the real effect is is the imposition of a foreign and distant philosophy by force, first economic, and then military.

gurneyhalleck1 said:

Cogent is one of the most passionate people I know where Palestinian rights are concerned and he hates American encroachment and imperialistic junk. He's quite vocal in most posts about the fact that American foreign policy has been pure idiocy in the last century in the Middle East.

he's definitely not a media zombie either

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I totally take your word for it.

I know you do, Rus. Thanks. It's unfortunate, but few people these days do much to dig very deep for the truth out there. The media does spoon feed us and we gladly open our mouths for a big bite...

rusmeister said:

I totally take your word for it.

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Amen!

People are shouted down by opposition. The pro-gay lobby doesn't prefer to debate or discuss the issue, just shout us down. The warmongers are the same way as are the abortion fans and other loons.

This country has lost its critical thinking harddrive, that's for sure!

ArmyMatt said:

yep, we are a country that is too often told what to think, not how to think. if we knew how to think, I believe a lot of these problems would go away.

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rusmeister said:

Cogent, are you OK with other countries bombingyour home region because of evils done their? It's bad enough when it's your own government; how about foreign governments? Or do you think the US has a special imperial right over others that other nations ought not have over it?

You hear what the owners of mass media want you to hear. They own many, and even most sources.

Click to expand...

Yes, the countries of the world have ruled no use of chemical weapons, but the US seems to be the exception. It's not like it's never used any. It's blatant double standard, arrogance, and hypocrisy.

Here's a good interview from a retired Army officer for everyone:

What Are We Doing in Syria? | Moyers & Company | BillMoyers.com

And we need some George Galloway's in our country. The man is spot on:

George Galloway: Dogs of War Slaver over Syria, Powder keg for Disaster - YouTube