donderdag 19 juni 2014

De Mainstream Pers 238


 In plaats van almaar de westerse propaganda te herhalen zou het verstandig zijn als ook de Nederlandse journalisten zich eens verdiepen in de vraag waarom een aanzienlijk aantal islamitische jongeren in de Derde Wereld sympathiseert met de jihadi's. Hoe denkt de 'vijand,' en waarom denkt hij op die manier? De 'vijand' komt niet van Mars. Er zijn oorzaken en gevolgen. Leg die uit. 


Hans Jaap Melissen @HansJMelissen
Morgenochtend weer artikel in Trouw. Over soennitisch #Bagdad

Hans Jaap Melissen @HansJMelissen 
Niet stiekem in de winkel alleen de voorpagina lezen, koop die hele krant. @Trouw #Bagdad

De gelauwerde 'oorlogsjournalist' Melissen is op twitter meer met zichzelf bezig dan met de gebeurtenissen in Irak. Dat is het onvermijdelijke resultaat van het medium. The medium is the message. Doordat elke flard van een gedachte wordt opgetikt, krijgt de lezer de indruk dat hij bovenop de actualiteit zit; het medium beïnvloedt de wijze waarop de boodschap wordt ervaren. Perception Management. Zelfs het volstrekt zinloze lijkt dan ineens zinvol. 

Perception management is a term originated by the US military. The US Department of Defense (DOD) gives this definition:
Actions to convey and/or deny selected information and indicators to foreign audiences to influence their emotions, motives, and objective reasoning as well as to intelligence systems and leaders at all to influence official estimates, ultimately resulting in foreign behaviors and official actions favorable to the originator's objectives. In various ways, perception management combines truth projection, operations security, cover and deception, and psychological operations.
'Perception' is defined as the 'process by which individuals select, organize, and interpret the input from their senses to give meaning and order to the world around them' Components of perception include the perceiver, target of perception, and the situation. Factors that influence the perceiver:
Schema: organization and interpretation of information based on past experiences and knowledge
Motivational state: needs, values, and desires of a perceiver at the time of perception
Mood: emotions of the perceiver at the time of perception
Factors that influence the target:
Ambiguity: a lack of clarity. If ambiguity increases, the perceiver may find it harder to form an accurate perception
Social status: a person's real or perceived position in society or in an organization
Impression management: an attempt to control the perceptions or impressions of others. Targets are likely to use impression management tactics when interacting with perceivers who have power over them. Several impression management tactics include behavioral matching between the target of perception and the perceiver, self-promotion (presenting one's self in a positive light), conforming to situational norms, appreciating others, or being consistent.

Het gaat daarbij niet om de inhoud van hetgeen wordt medegedeeld, maar om de wijze 
waarop de consument de boodschap ervaart. Twitter is in dit opzicht het medium van de 
egotripper die meent dat alles wat hij te melden heeft de moeite waard is, hoe triviaal ook. 
Dus ook als men de twitteraar bekritiseert dan is wordt dit door hem/haar als belangrijk
ervaren, want aandacht, en dan krijgt men dit:

Hans Jaap Melissen
@HansJMelissen
Goed zo! Eindelijk iemand die mijn twitteraccount serieus neemt! RT @hoterminus: Hamsters in Bagdad 

De mainstream pers meent altijd in een win-win situatie te verkeren, aangezien ze elke reactie als een vorm van aandacht beschouwt, hoe negatief ook. Een ander aspect van de berichtgeving uit oorlogsgebied is dat ik uit ervaring weet dat buitenlandse mainstream-journalisten die ineens ingevlogen worden te weinig weten van de historische context van het gebied waarin ze zich bevinden. Ze worden doorgaans door één partij op sleeptouw genomen. Daarom zijn ze afhankelijk van zogenaamde stringers, locale bewoners, die natuurlijk ook partijdig zijn, maar wel meer weten dan de westerse journalisten. Omdat die laatsten doorgaans het front mijden, wachten ze op wat hen wordt aangeboden, en 's avonds in de hotelbar vertellen ze elkaar wat ze gehoord hebben. Het zal duidelijk zijn dat dit soort journalistiek ernstige beperkingen kent en over het algemeen propagandistisch is. Toen ik in 1995 voor de VPRO in Irak was ging ik daarom mijn eigen weg, werd weliswaar de eerste avond staande gehouden door de geheime dienst van Saddam, maar beschikte over een toestemming van het 'ministerie van informatie' en kon mijn weg vervolgen. De volgende dag werd ik vergezeld door iemand van het ministerie, met wie ik al snel goed kon opschieten. Ik legde hem mijn eigen programma voor, zei dat ik niet geïnteresseerd was in politici, maar in 'gewone mensen.' Ik verzocht hem mij te brengen naar het grootste kinderziekenhuis van Bagdad, waar ik ontdekte dat daar een opvallend hoog percentage patiëntjes met kanker lag. Veelal in het Westen opgeleide Iraakse artsen vertelden mij dat die kinderen uit gebieden kwamen die door de Amerikaanse en Britse strijdkrachten met verarmd uranium wapens waren gebombardeerd. Dat was nieuws, maar werd bij mijn terugkeer niet overgenomen door mijn mainstream-collega's. 


Tijdens een reportage in de buurt van het Iraakse Basra, in maart 2003, was Wouter Kurpershoek, de 'crisisverslaggever' van de NOS, verbijsterd over het feit dat de Amerikaanse/Britse ‘bevrijders’ in het zuiden van Irak niet door de sjiitische bevolking met gejuich werden ontvangen, maar dat men zelfs ‘negatief’ op hun komst reageerde. Omdat het NOS-Journaal geen eigen correspondent ter plaatse had, was de immer hard werkende, multi-inzetbare Kurpershoek met te weinig achtergrondinformatie afgereisd om het grote wantrouwen en zelfs haat van de locale bevolking te kunnen snappen. Ik e-mailde Kurpershoek dat de bevolking die hij zag al tien jaar lang door de Amerikanen en Britten waren gebombardeerd als strafmaatregel tegen het Saddam-regime. Het was dezelfde sjiitische bevolking die zwaar had geleden door toedoen van wat H.J.A. Hofland 'het vredestichtende Westen' noemt. Hoewel destijds de tv-kijker thuis het beeld kreeg voorgeschoteld van een technologisch geavanceerde oorlog, uitgevoerd met 'surgical strikes,' bestond slechts zeven procent uit zogenaamde 'smart bombs,' waarvan bovendien, volgens de Amerikaanse strijdkrachten zelf, twintig procent zijn doel mistte. De rest was een bommentapijt van tien kilometer hoogte, nagenoeg blindelings afgeworpen, waarbij onvermijdelijk bevolkingscentra werden getroffen. Jaren later, op 23 juni 1999 meldde de Washington Post dat bovendien, volgens hoog geplaatste Amerikaanse militairen, 'burgers het zwaarst getroffen werden niet door bommen die hun doel mistten, maar door geleide precisiewapens die precies terechtkwamen op hun plaats van bestemming.' De Amerikaanse arts David Levinson die Irak direct na de oorlog bezocht vertelde een onderzoekscommissie in San Francisco: 'Het was duidelijk dat de bombardementen op Irak een oorlog zijn geweest tegen de burgerbevolking door het massaal vernietigen van de infrastructuur van het land.' Op 5 februari 1991 berichtte de Los Angeles Times over de situatie in de zuidelijke havenstad Basra: 

een gruwelijke nachtmerrie van vlammen en rook zo dicht dat getuigen vertellen dat de zon enkele dagen lang niet duidelijk zichtbaar was… [De bombardementen] maken sommige huizenblokken in de stad in zijn geheel met de grond gelijk… [en er zijn] bomkraters ter grootte van voetbalvelden en een onbekend aantal doden en gewonden.

Hoeveel burgers precies om het leven kwamen door deze oorlogsmisdaden blijft gissen. Wel is bekend dat door de gevolgen van de oorlog en de economische boycot, volgens de Verenigde Naties, meer dan een miljoen Irakezen, het merendeel kinderen, om het leven zijn gekomen. Tijdens de Golfoorlog, die in feite geen oorlog was maar een bloedbad, deed president Bush senior een oproep, gericht aan 'de Iraakse militairen en het Iraakse volk om de zaken in eigen hand te nemen en om Saddam Hoessein te dwingen op te stappen.' Maar toen de sjiitische bevolking in Zuid-Irak in maart 1991 in opstand kwam, weigerden de Amerikaanse troepen de rebellen toegang te verlenen tot de militaire wapendepots van Irak. Ondertussen liet 'het vredestichtende Westen' Saddam's Republikeinse Garde zijn linies passeren om de opstandelingen te kunnen aanvallen, waarbij vanuit Irakese helikopters kerosine werd gesproeid over grote groepen vluchtende burgers en vervolgens met lichtspoor-kogels tot ontbranding werd gebracht, terwijl 'ik met mijn eigen ogen de Amerikaanse helikopters zag die boven de [Irakese] helikopters vlogen... Ze namen foto's en ze wisten precies wat er gebeurde,' aldus een rebellerende Iraakse brigadier. Ook in het noorden, waar de Koerden in opstand waren gekomen, mocht de Republikeinse Garde, die door Generaal Schwartzkopf's troepen was gespaard, haar gang gaan. Volgens de Australische onderzoeksjournalist John Pilger was de reden de volgende: 

Wat de Amerikanen vrezen is dat de Koerden hun eigen staat zouden vestigen, misschien zelfs een socialistische en democratische, en dat de sjiieten een 'islamitische alliantie' met Iran zouden vormen.

En dat zou de oliebelangen, oftewel de 'National Security' van 'de vrije Wereld' in gevaar brengen. De achterliggende gedachte was: liever een hulpeloze despoot aan de macht dan een krachtig democratisch bewind. Met een dictator valt makkelijker te onderhandelen dan met een pluriforme groep democraten, zeker wanneer het gaat om een onbelemmerde stroom olie die voor het voortbestaan van de rijke wereld van levensbelang is. De belangrijkste Amerikaanse spreekbuis van de politieke en economische elite, Thomas Friedman van de New York Times, schreef dan ook op 7 juli 1991:

Sooner or later, Mr. Bush argued, sanctions would force Mr. Hussein's generals to bring him down, and then Washington would have the best of all worlds: an iron-fisted Iraqi junta without Saddam Hussein.


Het is ook niet verwonderlijk dat Geert Mak, na het verschijnen van zijn 'Amerika-boek' in 2012 verklaarde

Ik vind Friedman altijd wel leuk om te lezen, lekker upbeat, hij is zo’n man die altijd wel een gat ziet om een probleem op te lossen.

Hoe ‘lekker upbeat’ is Thomas Friedman, de bekendste en best betaalde Amerikaanse columnist van de New York Times, die door de polderpers tot beste Nederlandse journalist van de twintigste eeuw uitgeroepen Henk Hofland, als onafhankelijke bron wordt opgevoerd? Laten we hem allereerst zelf kort aan het woord. In A Manifesto for the Fast World vatte Friedman nog eens kort maar krachtig waar het in het neoliberalisme om draait toen hij op 28 maart 1999 in zijn krant schreef: 

The hidden hand of the market will never work without a hidden fist. McDonald's cannot flourish without McDonnell Douglas, the designer of the F-15. And the hidden fist that keeps the world safe for Silicon Valley's technologies to flourish is called the US Army, Air Force, Navy and Marine Corps.

In The Lexus and the Olive Tree: Understanding Globalization benadrukte voor degene die nog mocht twijfelen dat:

The historical debate is over. The answer is free-market capitalism.

Hoewel de gewelddadige inval in Irak een grove schending van het internationaal recht betekende, was de 'upbeat' Friedman een fervent voorstander van deze oorlogsmisdaad die hij op 30 mei 2003 als volgt 'rechtvaardigde':

We needed to go over there, basically, and take out a very big stick right in the heart of that world and burst that bubble.… What they [Muslims] needed to see was American boys and girls going house to house from Basra to Baghdad and basically saying ‘Which part of this sentence don't you understand? You don't think we care about our open society? You think this bubble fantasy, we're just going to let it grow? Well, suck on this!’ That, Charlie, is what this war was about. We could have hit Saudi Arabia! It was part of that bubble. We could have hit Pakistan. We hit Iraq because we could.

Tot zover Friedman's 'upbeat' argumentatie. De vraag is nu: waarom vindt ‘Amerika-deskundige’ Geert Mak juist deze Friedman zo ‘upbeat,’ of in gewoon Nederlandse vertaalt: ‘vrolijk, optimistisch’? Mak zelf geeft als verklaring dat Friedman zo’n man [is] die altijd wel een gat ziet om een probleem op te lossen.’ Maar wat is zo ‘vrolijk’ aan Friedman’s opmerking dat de Iraakse dictator vervangen moest worden door an iron-fisted Iraqi junta without Saddam Hussein’? Wat voor 'gat' is dit voor voor welk 'probleem'? Wat is zo ‘optimistisch’ aan Friedman’s opvatting dat The hidden hand of the market will never work without a hidden fist’? In het algemeen gesproken: waarom vindt Mak Friedman altijd wel leuk om te lezen,’ wanneer we weten dat deze opiniemaker alom beschouwd wordt als de officiële spreekbuis van de neoliberale en neoconservatieve gevestigde wanorde en als zodanig een kritiekloze pleitbezorger is van de belangen van de Amerikaanse elite? Bovendien waait Friedman telkens met de wind mee, zoals zijn critici keer op keer aantonen. De Amerikaanse political journalist, best-selling author and syndicated newspaper columnist,’ David Sirota schreef in 2009 over hem onder kop: An Idiot's Guide to Tom Friedman's Idiocyhet volgende:
                                     
Tom Friedman may be the single stupidest figure in American public life, and certainly is the stupidest writer with such a large platform. I don't mean that he's wrong on everything (although he is substantively wrong on a lot of things) - I mean that he's actually an extremely dim bulb in that he displays a stunning lack of basic cognitive function. Specifically, he shows almost zero ability to realize that the arguments made by Tom Friedman often undermine the arguments made by Tom Friedman.



Kennelijk valt het Mak en Hofland niet opthat the arguments made by Tom Friedman often undermine the arguments made by Tom Friedman.’ En toch is het algemeen bekend dat Friedman een opportunistische conformist is. In 2011 verscheen zelfs een heel boek hierover, geschreven door Belén Fernández, ‘editor and feature writer.’ Fernández las al zijn werk en gaf een haarscherpe analyse ervan in haar boek The Imperial Messenger. Thomas Friedman At Work. Deze in Washington geboren politieke wetenschapper kwam tot de ontdekking dat Friedman’s geschreven teksten wemelden van de

Factual errors, ham-fisted analysis, and contradictory assertions—compounded by a penchant for mixed metaphors and name-dropping—distinguish the work of Pulitzer Prize–winning New York Times columnist and author Thomas Friedman. The Imperial Messenger reveals the true value of this media darling, a risible writer whose success tells us much about the failures of contemporary journalism. Belén Fernández dissects the Friedman corpus with wit and journalistic savvy to expose newsroom practices that favor macho rhetoric over serious inquiry, a pacified readership over an empowered one, and reductionist analysis over integrity.

Ik blijf wat langer stilstaan bij Friedman als vooraanstaande Amerikaanse opiniemaker, omdat niet alleen Mak in zijn boek, waarin hij claimt 'op zoek naar Amerika' te zijn,  Friedman regelmatig citeert. De polderpers, die de buitenlandse politiek van de VS becommentarieert, schrijft de meningen van Friedman klakkeloos over, zoals Henk Hofland weer eens deed toen hij in de Groene Amsterdammer van 18 juni 2014 Friedman als volgt citeerde: 

De premier van Irak, El Maliki, die zijn functie mede aan de Amerikanen te danken heeft, wordt door Thomas Friedman in The New York Times ‘een zak’ genoemd. Hij regeert op een puinhoop waarmee niemand in het Westen raad weet.


Friedman's adviezen komen met de regelmaat van de klok neer op de inzet van zoveel mogelijk geweld tegen elk volk dat weigert de Amerikaanse economische en geopolitieke belangen onvoorwaardelijk te steunen. Hier enkele voorbeelden van het Friedman niveau:

No two countries that both had McDonald's had fought a war against each other since each got its McDonald's.

En ook de volgende inzicht kenmerkt een hoog 'optimistisch' gehalte:

the striking thing about greenhouse gases is the diversity of sources that emit them. A herd of cattle belching can be worse than highway full of hummers.

Het vergelijk tussen vee en Hummers wekt bij zijn publiek geen verbazing. Maar welk Makkiaans 'gat' moeten serieuze lezers in al deze waanzin ontdekken? Hoe dan ook, als spreekbuis van het establishment wordt Friedman niet voor niets ‘the imperial messenger’ genoemd, die voor het grote publiek functioneert als een ‘apologist for American empire.’ Belén Fernández schrijft naar aanleiding van Friedman’s

pronouncements like the following on behalf of humanity: ‘Three United States are better than one, and five would be better than three.’ Not surprisingly, Friedman does not respond favorably when elements of humanity fail to internalize the aspirations he has assigned them, resulting in anthropological revelations such as that one of the impediments to freedom in the Arab world is ‘the wall in the Arab mind.’ Friedman explains in 2003 that ‘I hit my head against that wall’ while conversing with Egyptian journalists who ‘could see nothing good coming from the U.S. 'occupation' of Iraq and who are thus written off as proponents of ‘Saddamism.’

Vele jaren lang maakte Friedman het geschoolde Amerikaanse publiek rijp voor een illegale aanval op Irak, zoals Fernández laat zien:

As for Friedman’s speculation in a 1997 column that ‘Saddam Hussein is the reason God created cruise missiles,’ this is not entirely reconcilable with his suggestion in the very same article that Saddam be eliminated via ‘a head shot’ – not generally a setting on such weaponry.

Desalniettemin doet deze mainstream voorstelling van zaken het nog steeds goed, getuige Mak’s opmerking dat ‘Friedman altijd wel leuk om te lezen’ is ‘lekker upbeat, hij is zo’n man die altijd wel een gat ziet om een probleem op te lossen.’ En dat komt omdat, net als met het simplisme van de polderpers, ‘Friedman’s writing is characterized by a reduction of complex international phenomena to simplistic rhetoric and theorems that rarely withstand the test of reality.’ Bovendien storen de westerse commerciële massamedia zich ook niet aan Friedman’s

blatantly racist generalization, such as that suicide bombing in Israel indicates a ‘collective madness’ on the part of the Palestinians, who Friedman has determined it is permissible to refer to collectively as ‘Ahmed.

'Hét cadeauboek' voor de gemakzuchtige consument. Mak schrijft sneller dan hij leest en denkt.

Dat Mak desondanks Friedman’s voorstelling van zaken ‘lekker upbeat’ vindt en Hofland deze racist zonder enige terughoudendheid citeert, is illustrerend. Hoewel de mainstream pers pretendeert dat de westerse waarden en normen als democratie en mensenrechten universeel zijn, dus niet beperkt blijven tot wat tegenwoordig zo trendy de judeo-christelijke beschaving heet, rechtvaardigt zij in de praktijk van alle dag  de westerse schendingen van de democratie en de mensenrechten. Waarom vindt de mainstream Friedman’s woorden ‘altijd wel leuk om te lezen’? Deels vanwege het simplisme, voor een ander deel omdat zijn journalistieke werk propaganda is voor het neoliberale model dat met geweld wereldwijd wordt afgedwongen. En hoe komen de mainstream opiniemakers aan hun mening? Friedman himself:


Academische studies leest Friedman niet. Boeken ook niet, net als Mak scharrelt hij zijn informatie hap snap bij elkaar. Er geldt in de commerciële journalistiek boven alles één vuistregel, namelijk:

No policy is sustainable without a public that broadly understands why it's necessary and sees the world the way you do,


En dus mag geen enkele opiniemaker in de mainstream een dissidente weergave van de realiteit geven, als hij/zij dit überhaupt al zou willen. Dat wil niet zeggen dat een opiniemaker als Friedman niet over de grens van het betamelijke mag gaan. Geen sprake van zelfs, zoals Belén Fernández tegen het einde van haar boek beschrijft:

That Friedman may also view the world in terms of excess demographics is implied by his conviction that the Israeli slaughter of 1,200 people in Lebanon constitutes ‘the education of Hezbollah,’ his hope  for a similar ‘education of Hamas’ in Gaza, and his infinite justifications for the mutilation of Iraq, such as this post-invasion pronouncement: ‘America sliced right through Iraq. It did so because we are a free-market democracy that is capable of amassing huge amounts of technical power.’

En ook deze extremistische zienswijze is in de ogen van Mak cum suis ‘lekker upbeat’ voor de mainstream in de polder:

As much as I believe we did good and right in toppling Saddam, I will whoop it up only when the Iraqi people are really free – not free just to loot or to protest against us, but free to praise us out loud, free to speak their minds in any direction.

Het gruwelijke is dat achter alle dwaasheid die de Makkianen gedachteloos lezen en overnemen, een werkelijkheid schuilgaat die mensonwaardig en meedogenloos is. De Amerikaanse freelance journalist Nir Rosen beschreef in 2011 over de 'Western media fraud in the Middle East’ en hoe ‘too many journalists report official narratives of the powerful, missing the stories of working class people.’  Rosen waarschuwde:

American reporting is problematic throughout the third world, but because the American military/industrial/financial/academic/media complex is so directly implicated in the Middle East, the consequences of such bad reporting are more significant. Journalists end up serving as propagandists [who] justify the killing of innocent people instead of [a] voice for those innocent people.

Thomas Friedman van de toonaangevende New York Times is daarvan een kenmerkend voorbeeld. Ook in Nederland zijn talloze voorbeelden te geven van mainstream opiniemakers die als propagandisten werken. Een willekeurige greep: vrijdag 11 januari 2012 opende de Volkskrant over de volle breedte van de voorpagina met  een 'analyse' van Arie Elshout, VK-correspondent in de VS. Elshout laat zijn lezers weten: ‘Obama’s militaire strategie wordt duidelijk. VS worden supermogendheid met afstandsbediening,’ en dat Obama

‘als aan ingrijpen niet valt te ontkomen, hij dat bij voorkeur [doet] vanuit de relatief veilige lucht of met grondoperaties door Special Forces, snel erin en snel eruit. Zijn favoriete wapen is de drone, het onbemande vliegtuig waarmee vijanden vanachter de computer kunnen worden uitgeschakeld.’

Wat onmiddellijk opvalt is het eufemistische taalgebruik: als aan ingrijpen niet valt te ontkomen,’ alsof hier sprake is van een onveranderlijke natuurwet en niet een menselijk besluit. En ‘worden uitgeschakeld,’ alsof de mens kan in- en uitschakelen, terwijl bedoeld wordt het doden van individuen, het vaak ten koste van vrouwen, kinderen, bejaarden standrechtelijk 'uitschakelen' van een mens. Degene die wordt ‘uitgeschakeld’ heeft in dit misdadige taalgebruik net zo min als bij de ‘collateral damage’ geen gezicht, en geen geschiedenis. Hij/zij is en blijft anoniem. Voor ons, niet voor zijn/haar naasten, de mensen die van hem of haar houden. Tekenend voor het mainstream denken is de vanzelfsprekendheid waarmee geschreven wordt over het Amerikaanse geweld tegen soevereine landen. Geweld dat door specialisten in het internationaal recht gezien wordt als in strijd met de rechtsregels. Maar in plaats van dat ‘de vrije pers’ dit meldt, schrijft Elshout: ‘als aan ingrijpen niet valt te ontkomen.’ Op die manier vloeien feiten en meningen op de voorpagina van de mainstream organisch in elkaar over. Volgens Elshout, die zijn mening heeft opgepikt van de  Amerikaanse commerciële media,  kan de VS 

niet verstrikt raken in oerwouden, meegezogen worden in moerassen of vastlopen in heet woestijnzand. Bovendien is het goedkoper, zodat de defensiebegroting kan worden ingekrompen en er geld overblijft voor Amerika’s gezondheidszorg, sociale voorzieningen, infrastructuur en scholen.

Hoe weet Elshout zo zeker dat het geld niet naar de aflossing van de gigantische buitenlandse schuld van de VS gaat in plaats van naar de dingen die hij oplepelt? Wel, dat weet hij niet, dat heeft Elshout overgeschreven van vooraanstaande mainstream journalisten als bijvoorbeeld Thomas Friedman. En hoe weten zij het dan? Simpel, die hebben het weer overgeschreven van de perscommuniqués die ze van de politieke machthebbers hebben gekregen om vrijelijk uit te citeren. Ik heb deze werkwijze decennialang van nabij kunnen aanschouwen.

'Zaterdag in Vonk, het achtergrond- en opiniekatern van De Volkskrant, een stuk van correspondent Arie Elshout over de Amerikaanse neoconservatieven. In 2002 was hij nog columnist en werd hij veel bekritiseerd omdat hij, net als de neoconservatieven, voorstander was van ingrijpen in Irak.' Maar na honderdduizenden dode Iraakse burgers en biljoenen dollars concludeert nu ook opiniemaker Elshout: 'ik denk inmiddels wel anders over interventies en nationbuilding. Irak was eens, maar nooit meer.'

De formulering ‘als aan ingrijpen niet valt te ontkomen,’ is nu zo’n treffend voorbeeld van ambtelijk en politiek taalgebruik, eufemistisch, geruststellend en bovendien vormelijk, alsof men het recht aan zijn kant heeft. De vraag blijft evenwel wie bepaalt nu wanneer  het moment van geweld is aangebroken en op grond waarvan? Ook dat is niet ingewikkeld te beantwoorden: op het moment dat degene who carries the biggest stick’ van mening is dat zijn belangen geschaad worden. De mainstream trekt zich niets aan van het recht, zodra het om onze NAVO-bondgenoot gaat. En ook de veel geroemde ‘democratische normen en waarden’ spelen voor de commerciële massamedia geen doorslaggevende rol. Van de mainstream mag een kleine politieke elite in het Witte Huis en het Pentagon zonder tussenkomst van het democratisch gekozen Congres, laat staan het publiek, besluiten welke bevolkingsgroepen moeten worden aangevallen met ‘Special Forces’ en wie vermoord moet worden door Obama’s ‘favoriete wapen… de drone.’ Ook de mensenrechten mogen van de opiniemakers terzijde worden geschoven. 'Collateral Damage' is, het woord zegt het al, ‘bijkomende schade,’ en waar gehakt wordt vallen spaanders, dat weet zelfs de grootste sukkel. Bovendien is die terreur juist bedoeld voor onze veiligheid. En welk zinnig mens kan daar nou tegen zijn? Dus interesseren onze mainstream zich niet voor de protesten van zowel de slachtoffers als de mensenrechtenorganisaties, en ook niet voor de onvermijdelijke ‘blowback.’ Op hun eigen specifieke wijze zorgen de massamedia en bestseller-auteurs als Mak voor de verspreiding van ‘an ahistorical and counterfactual reality according to which, for example, corporate globalization constitutes the panacea for the very ills it creates,’ aldus de conclusie van Belén Fernández in haar rijkelijk gedocumenteerde studie.

De mainstream bewering dat Obama ‘beter voor Nederland en de internationale gemeenschap’ zou zijn, berust op propaganda zoals een kritische Amerikaanse academicus als professor Eugene McCarraher aantoont in The Heavenly City of Business wanneer hij over Obama schrijft:

His ideological strategy appears to be that of selective admission of fault can strengthen imperial moral authority -- if the business of America remains business acknowledging occasional missteps can repair and even enhance the company’s reputation. If Obama’s confession of American sins can charm international opinion – witness the starstruck and credulous silence of dignitaries at Oslo – then the present imperial structures can persist under cover of a promise to be wiser. Thus President Obama can speak, with a pride born of historical amnesia, of ‘an architecture of institutions – from the United Nations to NATO to the World Bank – that provide for the common security and prosperity of human beings.’ And thus does Obama’s American Century end in a Civilization of Business.

Obama’s fulsome homilies enable Americans to postpone an inevitable disenchantment with their ‘blessed way of life,’ for the decline of imperial hegemony will be the pivotal episode of the twenty-first century. The horsemen of this apocalypse are already visible and galloping at an accelerating speed, with mounting levels of personal, corporate, and government debt; military overextension that cannot be sustained without unpopular conscription, further fiscal indenture, and greater damage to an already disfigured world image; ecological destruction whose repair is routinely subordinated to the imperatives of business; and an economy whose injustice and indignity become ever more glaring and pernicious. Still profoundly enchanted by empire as a way of life, Americans and their leaders may try – with pecuniary ingenuity and perhaps with great violence – to prolong the imperium of consumption. Yet even if they appear to succeed their victory will be brief an pyrrhic, for they will have purchased their triumph in the currency of fear, denial, and death. In the end, other peoples – perhaps even many Americans themselves – will not abide the expenditure in money and lives required to extend the American Century. With a degree of rudeness directly proportional to the level of our evasion, we will discover that our way of life is neither charmed nor nonnegotiable.

Maar dit niveau, deze scherpzinnigheid kan de Nederlandse mainstream nooit bereiken en in wezen zelfs niet eens begrijpen. Het poldermodel verhindert dit. Alleen een cultuur dat een imperium kan opbouwen, kan de imperiale macht daadwerkelijk tot op het bot doorgronden. Dat vermogen bezit de polderintelligentsia niet, Hoflands 'politiek-literaire elite' komt niet verder dan Geert Mak’s houding die hijzelf zo treffend verwoordde met de volgende opmerking tegenover het Vlaamse weekblad Humo:

Nu zitten we in een sombere periode, je speurt de horizon af naar hoopvolle tekenen.

Ondertussen schrijft Vicki Divoll, 'a former general counsel to the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence' onder de kop 'Who says you can kill Americans, Mr. President?' in de International Herald Tribune van vrijdag 18 januari 2013:

It is not just the most recent president, this one and the next whom we need to worry about when it comes to improper exercise of power. It is every president. Mr. Obama should declassify and release, to Congress, the press and the public, documents that set forth the detailed constitutional and statutory analysis he relies on for targeting and killing American citizens.


En terwijl Mak en de zijnen de horizon afspeuren naar een sprankje 'hoop' gaat de dagelijkse realiteit van roven en moorden gewoon door, waardoor 'crisisverslaggever' Wouter Kurpershoek zich verbijsterd moet afvragen waarom 'het vredestichtende Westen' niet met gejuich wordt binnengehaald. Ik probeerde hem in het kort het bovenstaande uit te leggen. Ik voegde eraan toe dat het Iraakse volk onmogelijk blij kon zijn met de komst van een genocidaal westers regime dat publiekelijk had laten weten dat het de dood van een half miljoen Iraakse kinderen onder de vijf jaar 'de prijs waard,' vond om de Amerikaanse politieke doelen te verwezenlijken.

On May 12, 1996… defended UN sanctions against Iraq on a 60 Minutes segment in which Lesley Stahl asked her ‘We have heard that half a million children have died. I mean, that's more children than died in Hiroshima. And, you know, is the price worth it?’ and Albright replied ‘we think the price is worth it.’


Geschrokken e-mailde Wouter Kurpershoek mij terug met de opmerking dat ik hem wel een slechte journalist zou vinden. Maar dat was niet zozeer mijn punt, veel belangrijker is dat ook goedwillende journalisten bij gebrek aan kennis en contacten niet naar gebieden moeten gaan om daar dagelijks verslag te doen van een oorlog of een ernstige crisis. Dat kan nooit iets zinnigs opleveren. Laat de verslaggeving over aan professionals. Hetzelfde gaat op voor Mak. In plaats van zich te laten introduceren als een ter zake kundige historicus, zou hij als journalist eerlijkheidshalve moeten toegeven dat hij van veel waarover hij schreef te weinig afweet. Het foutief informeren van het publiek is wel de grootste zonde van een journalist. Erger is ondenkbaar. 

 · 
Van slapen komt nog even niets-veel geschiet vlakbij #Bagdad

Het zal allemaal best. Het klinkt allemaal reuze spannend. Kuifje in Syldavië. De vraag is alleen: wie schiet en waarom? Dat Melissen niet kan slapen en de kleur van zijn kogelvrij vest zijn trivialiteiten. In Nederland krijg ik via internet vanuit Irak en de VS de hele tijd relevante informatie die inzicht verschaft. Lees mijn weblog maar. Waarom zit een 'oorlogsjournalist' in Irak of Washington? Om te melden dat hij niet kan slapen? Of dat u Trouw moet kopen omdat een verhaal van hem erin staat? Of dat ze in Bagdad geen Albert Heijn Hamsters verkopen? En dat allemaal omdat ze zelf niet achter het nieuws aan durven gaan. Het allerergste daarbij is de verpletterende naïviteit, dat wil zeggen: het onvermogen om achter de facade te kijken. Ze beseffen niet dat ze naar een virtuele werkelijkheid kijken. Ze onderschatten de doortraptheid van een imperium.


The ISIS Fiasco: It's Really an Attack on Iran
By Mike Whitney (about the author)     Permalink       (Page 1 of 4 pages)

Headlined to H1 6/18/14
Cross-posted from Counterpunch

For Once, Not a CIA Plot?


There's something that doesn't ring true about the coverage of the crisis in Iraq. Maybe it's the way the media reiterates the same, tedious storyline over and over again with only the slightest changes in the narrative. For example, I was reading an article in the Financial Times by Council on Foreign Relations president, Richard Haass, where he says that Maliki's military forces in Mosul 'melted away.'

Interestingly, the Haass op-ed was followed by a piece by David Gardener who used almost the very same language. He said the 'army melts away.' So, I decided to thumb through the news a bit and see how many other journalists were stung by the 'melted away' bug. And, as it happens, there were quite a few, including Politico, NBC News, News Sentinel, Global Post, the National Interest, ABC News etc.

Now, the only way an unusual expression like that would pop up with such frequency would be if the authors were getting their talking points from a central authority (which they probably do). But the effect, of course, is the exact opposite than what the authors intend, that is, these cookie-cutter stories leave readers scratching their heads and feeling like something fishy is going on.

And something fishy IS going on. The whole fable about 1,500 jihadis scaring the pants off 30,000 Iraqi security guards to the point where they threw away their rifles, changed their clothes and headed for the hills, is just not believable. I don't know what happened in Mosul, but, I'll tell you one thing, it wasn't that. That story just doesn't pass the smell test.

And what happened in Mosul matters too, because nearly every journalist and pundit in the MSM is using the story to discredit Maliki and suggest that maybe Iraq would be better off without him. Haass says that it shows that the army's 'allegiance to the government is paper thin.' Gardener says its a sign of 'a fast failing state.' Other op-ed writers like Nicolas Kristof attack Maliki for other reasons, like being too sectarian. Here's Kristof:

'The debacle in Iraq isn't President Obama's fault. It's not the Republicans' fault. Both bear some responsibility, but, overwhelmingly, it's the fault of the Iraqi prime minister, Nouri Kamal al-Maliki.'

Of course, Kristof is no match for the imperial mouthpiece, Tom Friedman. When it comes to pure boneheaded bluster, Friedman is still numero uno. Here's how the jowly pundit summed it up in an article in the Sunday Times titled 'Five Principles for Iraq' [...]

'Iraq's Shiite prime minister, Nuri Kamal al-Maliki, has proved himself not to be a friend of a democratic, pluralistic Iraq either. From Day 1, he has used his office to install Shiites in key security posts, drive out Sunni politicians and generals and direct money to Shiite communities. In a word, Maliki has been a total jerk. Besides being prime minister, he made himself acting minister of defense, minister of the interior and national security adviser, and his cronies also control the Central Bank and the Finance Ministry. 

Maliki had a choice -- to rule in a sectarian way or in an inclusive way -- and he chose sectarianism. We owe him nothing.' (Five Principles for Iraq, Tom Friedman, New York Times)

Leave it to Friedman, eh? In other words, the reason Iraq is such a mess, has nothing to do with the invasion, the occupation, the death squads, Abu Ghraib, the Salvador Option, the decimated infrastructure, the polluted environment, or the vicious sectarian war the US ignited with its demented counterinsurgency program. Oh, no. The reason Iraq is a basketcase is because Maliki is a jerk. Maliki is sectarian. Bad Maliki.

Sound familiar? Putin last week. Maliki this week. Who's next?

In any event, there is a rational explanation for what happened in Mosul although I cannot verify its authenticity. Check out this post at Syria Perspectives blog:

'...the Iraqi Ba'ath Party's primary theoretician and Saddam's right-hand man, ''Izzaat Ibraaheem Al-Douri,'' himself a native of Mosul...was searching out allies in a very hostile post-Saddam Iraq ... Still on the run and wanted for execution by the Al-Maliki government, Al-Douri still controlled a vast network of Iraqi Sunni Ba'athists who operated in a manner similar to the old Odessa organization that helped escaped Nazis after WWII ... he did not have the support structure needed to oust Al-Maliki, so, he found an odd alliance in ISIS through the offices of Erdoghan and Bandar. Our readers should note that the taking of Mosul was accomplished by former Iraqi Ba'athist officers suspiciously abandoning their posts and leaving a 52,000 man military force without any leadership thereby forcing a complete collapse of the city's defenses. The planning and collaboration cannot be coincidental.'

(THE INNER CORE OF ISIS -- THE INVASIVE SPECIES, Ziad Fadel, Syrian Perspectives)

I've read variations of this same explanation on other blogs, but I have no way of knowing whether they're true or not. But what I do know, is that it's a heckuva a lot more believable than the other explanation, mainly because it provides enough background and detail to make the scenario seem plausible. The official version -- the "melts away" version -- doesn't do that at all. It just lays out this big bogus story expecting people to believe it on faith alone. Why? Because it appeared in all the papers?
That seems like a particularly bad reason for believing anything.
And the "army melting away" story is just one of many inconsistencies in the official media version of events. Another puzzler is why Obama allowed the jihadis to rampage across Iraq without lifting a finger to help. Does that strike anyone else as a bit odd?
When was the last time an acting president failed to respond immediately and forcefully to a similar act of aggression?

Never. The US always responds. And the pattern is always the same. 'Stop what you are doing now or we're going to bomb you to smithereens.' Isn't that the typical response?

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US-Sponsored Terrorism in Iraq and “Constructive Chaos” in the Middle East

Global Research, June 19, 2014


Iraq is once again front page news. And once again the picture that is presented to us in the Western mainstream media is a mixture of half truths, falsehoods, disinformation and propaganda. The mainstream media will not tell you that the US is supporting both sides in the Iraqi conflict. Washington is overtly supporting the Iraqi Shiite government, while covertly training, arming and funding the Sunni Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS). Supporting the influx of terrorist brigades in Iraq is an act of aggression. But the mainstream media will tell you that the Obama administration is “concerned” by the actions committed by the terrorists.
The preferred narrative in the U.S. and most Western mainstream media is that the current situation is due to the U.S “withdrawal” which ended in December 2011 (more than 200 U.S. troops and military advisors remained in Iraq). This portrait of events in which the US withdrawal is to blame for the insurgency does not draw any connection between the U.S. invasion of 2003 and the occupation that ensued. It also ignores the death squads trained by U.S advisors in Iraq in the wake of the invasion and which are at the heart of the current turmoil.
As usual, the mainstream media does not want you to understand what’s going on. Its goal is to shape perceptions and opinions by crafting a view of the world which serves powerful interests. For that matter, they will tell you it’s a civil war.
What is unfolding is a process of “constructive chaos”, engineered by the West. The destabilization of Iraq and its fragmentation has been planned long ago and is part of the ”Anglo-American-Israeli ‘military road map’ in the Middle East”, as explained in 2006 in the following article:
“This project, which has been in the planning stages for several years, consists in creating an arc of instability, chaos, and violence extending from Lebanon, Palestine, and Syria to Iraq, the Persian Gulf, Iran, and the borders of NATO-garrisoned Afghanistan.
The ‘New Middle East’ project was introduced publicly by Washington and Tel Aviv with the expectation that Lebanon would be the pressure point for realigning the whole Middle East and thereby unleashing the forces of “constructive chaos.” This “constructive chaos” –which generates conditions of violence and warfare throughout the region– would in turn be used so that the United States, Britain, and Israel could redraw the map of the Middle East in accordance with their geo-strategic needs and objectives. ...
The redrawing and partition of the Middle East from the Eastern Mediterranean shores of Lebanon and Syria to Anatolia (Asia Minor), Arabia, the Persian Gulf, and the Iranian Plateau responds to broad economic, strategic and military objectives, which are part of a longstanding Anglo-American and Israeli agenda in the region…
A wider war in the Middle East could result in redrawn borders that are strategically advantageous to Anglo-American interests and Israel…
Attempts at intentionally creating animosity between the different ethno-cultural and religious groups of the Middle East have been systematic. In fact, they are part of a carefully designed covert intelligence agenda.
Even more ominous, many Middle Eastern governments, such as that of Saudi Arabia, are assisting Washington in fomenting divisions between Middle Eastern populations. The ultimate objective is to weaken the resistance movement against foreign occupation through a “divide and conquer strategy” which serves Anglo-American and Israeli interests in the broader region.” (Mahdi Darius Nazemroaya, Plans for Redrawing the Middle East: The Project for a “New Middle East”, November 2006)
Although the divide and conquer strategy is not new, it still works thanks to the media smoke screens and mirrors.

Engineering a civil war is the best way to divide a country into several territories. It worked in the Balkans and it is well documented that ethnic tensions were used and abused in order to destroy Yugoslavia and divide it into seven separate entities.
Today we are clearly witnessing the balkanization of Iraq with the help of the favorite imperial tool, namely armed militias, referred to as pro-democracy opposition or terrorists depending on the context and the role they have to play in the collective psyche.
Western media and government officials define them not by who they are, but by who they fight against. In Syria they constitute a “legitimate opposition, “freedom fighters” fighting for democracy against a brutal dictatorship”, whereas in Iraq, they are “terrorists fighting a democratically elected U.S.-supported government”:
“Known and documented, Al Qaeda affiliated entities have been used by US-NATO in numerous conflicts as ‘intelligence assets’ since the heyday of the Soviet-Afghan war. In Syria, the Al Nusrah and ISIS rebels are the foot-soldiers of the Western military alliance, which oversees and controls the recruitment and training of paramilitary forces.
The decision was taken by Washington to channel its support (covertly) in favor of a terrorist entity which operates in both Syria and Iraq and which has logistical bases in both countries. The Islamic State of Iraq and al-Sham’s Sunni caliphate project coincides with a longstanding US agenda to carve up both Iraq and Syria into three separate territories: A Sunni Islamist Caliphate, an Arab Shia Republic, and a Republic of Kurdistan.
Whereas the (US proxy) government in Baghdad purchases advanced weapons systems from the US including F16 fighter jets from Lockheed Martin, the Islamic State of Iraq and al-Sham –which is fighting Iraqi government forces– is supported covertly by Western intelligence. The objective is to engineer a civil war in Iraq, in which both sides are controlled indirectly by US-NATO.
The scenario is to arm and equip them, on both sides, finance them with advanced weapons systems and then ‘let them fight’…
Under the banner of a civil war, an undercover war of aggression is being fought which essentially contributes to further destroying an entire country, its institutions, its economy. The undercover operation is part of an intelligence agenda, an engineered process which consists in transforming Iraq into an open territory.
Meanwhile, public opinion is led to believe that what is at stake is confrontation between Shia and Sunni.” (Michel Chossudovsky, The Engineered Destruction and Political Fragmentation of Iraq. Towards the Creation of a US Sponsored Islamist Caliphate, June 14, 2014)
We knew well before the beginning of the war on terror that Saudi Arabia was a major supporter of Islamic terrorism. But being a staunch U.S. ally Saudi Arabia is the exception to the rule proclaimed by George W. Bush after the 9/11 terrorist attacks: ”We will make no distinction between those who committed these acts and those who harbor them.”
The fact of the matter is they always do make a distinction, especially when it comes to Saudi Arabia. But while its support for terrorism is acknowledged by the mainstream media, the latter ignores that the fact that the U.S. is (indirectly) supporting terrorist entities. In addition, mainstream journalists never address the reason why the U.S is not reacting to Saudi support for terrorists. The facts are clear: the US is supporting terrorism through allies like Saudi Arabia and Qatar. If those who shape the discourse in the mainstream media fail to connect the dots, it is only because they don’t want to.
In the Middle East, Saudi Arabia has been serving US interests as well as its own. The US alliance with Saudi Arabia shows the contempt the US actually has for democracy. This alliance alone clearly indicates that the goal of the US invasion of Iraq was not to bring democracy and freedom to Iraqis. For Saudi Arabia, a democratic Iraq would be a nightmare and a threat to its repressive monarchic rule:
“Ever since the overthrow of Saddam’s regime in 2003, the Saudi regime has been emphatically hostile towards Iraq. This has been largely due to its deeply entrenched fear that the success of democracy in Iraq would undoubtedly inspire its own people. Another reason is the deeply rooted hatred – by Saudi Arabia’s extremist Wahhabi Salafi religious establishment – towards the Shia. The Saudi regime also accuses Maliki, of giving Iran a freehand to dramatically intensify its influence in Iraq. The Saudi regime has made no secret that its overriding priority is to severely undermine what it perceives as highly perilous and yet growing Iranian influence.
Even though the Saudi regime vehemently opposed U.S. pull out from Iraq, nevertheless in Dec. 2011, Syria rather than Iraq became Saudi Arabia’s principal target for regime change. The Saudi regime has consistently considered the Syrian regime of Bashar Al Assad, an irreplaceable strategic ally to its primary foe Iran. The Saudis moved swiftly to shore up the armed insurgents by deploying its intelligence services, whose instrumental role in establishing Jabhat Al Nusra JN was highlighted in an intelligence review released in Paris in January 2013. The Saudi regime also used its huge influence and leverage on not only Sunni tribal leaders in western Iraq, but also on Saudi members of AQI, convincing it that its principal battlefield must be Syria and that its ultimate goal should be deposing Bashar Al Assad’s Alawite regime, since its overthrow would break the back-bone of the Iraqi Shia-led government and inevitably loosen Iran’s grip on Iraq.” (Zayd Alisa Resurgence of Al Qaeda in Iraq, Fuelled by Saudi Arabia, March 3, 2014)

From Paul Bremer to John Negroponte
But the most important piece of the Iraqi puzzle is the Washington’s covert support of the terrorists. To better understand the sectarian violence plaguing the country today, we need to understand what the US has done during the occupation. Paul Bremer, author of “My year in Iraq, the Struggle to Build a Future of Hope”, played an important role while he was Civil Governor of Iraq in 2003-2004. Hopeful future for whom, one might ask when looking back at what he has done during that year. Certainly not for the Iraqis:
“When Paul Bremer dissolved the Iraqi National Security and Police Forces, he formed another one from mercenaries and sectarian militias who were backing and supporting the occupation. In reality, the nature of hideous crimes committed by these forces was the major motivation behind the sectarian violence killing of 2006-2007.
According to Geneva Convention Protocols, the occupation represented by Bremer, not only failed its duty to protect the population of the country under occupation, they officially formed militias and armed gangs to help them control the country.
Paul Bremer committed crimes against humanity and an act of cleansing and Genocide in Iraq by targeting thousands of innocent civilians through Interior Minister and Special Commandos Forces.” (Prof Souad N. Al-Azzawi, US Sponsored Commandos Responsible for Abducting, Torturing and Killing Iraqis. The Role of Paul Bremer, January 4, 2014)
In 2004-2005, US Ambassador John Negroponte continued Bremer’s work. With his experience in crushing dissent in Central America with the help of bloodthirsty death squads during the 80′s, Negroponte was “the man for the job” in Iraq:
“US sponsored death squads were recruited in Iraq starting in 2004-2005 in an initiative launched under the helm of the US Ambassador John Negroponte, who was dispatched to Baghdad by the US State Department in June 2004…
Negroponte was the ‘man for the job’. As US Ambassador to Honduras from 1981 to 1985. Negroponte played a key role in supporting and supervising the Nicaraguan Contras based in Honduras as well as overseeing the activities of the Honduran military death squads.
In January 2005, the Pentagon, confirmed that it was considering:
‘forming hit squads of Kurdish and Shia fighters to target leaders of the Iraqi insurgency [Resistance] in a strategic shift borrowed from the American struggle against left-wing guerrillas in Central America 20 years ago’.
Under the so-called ‘El Salvador option’, Iraqi and American forces would be sent to kill or kidnap insurgency leaders, even in Syria, where some are thought to shelter. ...
Hit squads would be controversial and would probably be kept secret.
While the stated objective of the ‘Iraq Salvador Option’ was to ‘take out the insurgency’, in practice the US sponsored terror brigades were involved in routine killings of civilians with a view to fomenting sectarian violence. In turn, the CIA and MI6 were overseeing ‘Al Qaeda in Iraq’ units involved in targeted assassinations directed against the Shiite population. Of significance, the death squads were integrated and advised by undercover US Special Forces.” (Prof Michel Chossudovsky, Terrorism with a “Human Face”: The History of America’s Death Squads, January 04, 2013)
Now we are being told that ISIS has managed to put its hands on US-made sophisticated weapons. Make no mistakes. These weapons did not get there accidentally. The US knew exactly what it was doing when it armed and funded the “opposition” in Libya and Syria. What they did was not stupid. They knew what was going to happen and that is what they wanted. Some in the progressive media talk about blowback, when an intelligence asset goes against its sponsors. Forget about blowback. If that’s what it is, it was a very carefully planned “blowback”.
US Foreign Policy. Failed, Stupid or Diabolical
Some will argue that US foreign policy in the Middle East is a “failure”, that policymakers are “stupid”. It’s not a failure and they’re not stupid. That’s what they want you to think because they think you’re stupid.
What is happening now was planned long ago. The truth is that US foreign policy in the Middle East is diabolical, brutally repressive, criminal and undemocratic. And the only way out of this bloody mess is “a return to the law”:
“There is only a single antidote to the “civil war” that is now breaking Iraq apart – and that is a return to law and a convening of justice. The war launched by government leaders in 2003 against the people of Iraq was not a mistake: it was a crime. And those leaders should be held to account, under law, for their decisions.” (Inder Comar, Iraq: The US Sponsored Sectarian “Civil War” is a “War of Aggression”, The “Supreme International Crime”, June 18, 2014)
SELECTED ARTICLES
The following GR articles provide a detailed assessment of recent developments in Iraq.
We also refer our readers to Global Research’s Iraq Report, which contains an extensive archive of articles of more than a thousand articles.
The Truth About US Troops “Sent to Iraq”Tony Cartalucci
American Imperialism and Non-Conventional Warfare in Iraq: Premeditated Covert Operations and the ISIS Insurgency, Phil Greaves
Iraq: ISIS Terrorists Target Native Assyrian Christians in Nineveh, The Assyrian American Association
ISIS “Made in USA”. Iraq “Geopolitical Arsonists” Seek to Burn Region, ISIS “Made in USA”. Iraq “Geopolitical Arsonists” Seek to Burn Region
The Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIS): An Instrument of the Western Military AllianceMichel Chossudovsky
Al Qaeda: The Database, Pierre-Henri Bunel




Obama at a Crossroad of War or Peace


Exclusive: The dramatic spread of Sunni extremism into the heart of Iraq may force President Obama to finally make a choice between simply extending a slightly less violent Bush Doctrine and charting his own innovative course in the name of peace, Robert Parry writes.
By Robert Parry
Barack Obama is at a crossroads of his presidency: one path leads to heightened conflicts favored by Official Washington’s neoconservatives and liberal interventionists; the other requires cooperation with past adversaries, such as Russia and Iran, in the cause of peace.
For the first five-plus years of his administration, Obama has sought to straddle this divide, maintaining traditional U.S. alliances that have pushed for Washington’s violent interference in the affairs of other countries, particularly in the Middle East, but also collaborating behind the scenes with Russia to ease some tensions.
But the days of such splitting the difference are ending. Obama will soon have to decide to either stand up to the still influential neocons as well as hawks in his own administration and seek help from Russia and Iran to resolve conflicts in Syria, Iraq, Palestine and elsewhere — or join the neocon warpath against Russia, Iran and Syria.
President Barack Obama uncomfortably accepting the Nobel Peace Prize from Committee Chairman Thorbjorn Jagland in Oslo, Norway, Dec. 10, 2009. (White House photo)
President Barack Obama uncomfortably accepting the Nobel Peace Prize from Committee Chairman Thorbjorn Jagland in Oslo, Norway, Dec. 10, 2009. (White House photo)
The first option would mean breaking with old allies, including the Saudi monarchy and Israel’s Likud government, and rejecting their view that Iran and the so-called “Shiite crescent” from Tehran through Baghdad and Damascus to Beirut represent the greatest threat to U.S. and their own interests in the Middle East.
This departure from the old ways would require realistic negotiations over the Syrian civil war, accepting the continued rule of President Bashar al-Assad at least for the near future; reaching an agreement over Iran’s nuclear program; and resolving the Ukraine crisis in a way that addresses Russia’s security concerns, including accepting Crimea’s decision to rejoin Russia, agreeing to a federated structure for Ukraine and keeping Ukraine out of NATO.
Sticking to the other route would follow the interests of Saudi Arabia and Israel into new conflicts: deeper intervention in Syria’s civil war with the goal of overthrowing Assad; rejection of Iran’s offers to compromise on its nuclear program; and intensified confrontation with Russia over Ukraine.
This “tough-guy-ism” would surely make Official Washington’s pundits and pols happy. They could boast about American resolve in support of “freedom” and “human rights” — even if it led to worse tyranny, mass killings and economic pain.
For instance, the worsening crisis in Ukraine could be expected to make life even more miserable for Ukrainians while also possibly disrupting gas supplies to Europe, throwing the Continent back into recession and likely stunting U.S. economic growth, too.
Plus, stepped-up U.S. intervention in Syria, such as sending more sophisticated weapons to the supposedly “moderate opposition” and possibly conducting American airstrikes to degrade Assad’s military, might instead tip the balance toward victory by Sunni extremists allied with al-Qaeda, which might force a direct U.S. military intervention.
Feeding the flames of the region’s Sunni-Shiite sectarian conflicts also would likely increase the death and destruction in Iraq, worsening that tragic country’s agony while also disrupting oil production which would further damage the world’s economy.
By rejecting Iran’s proposals for constraining but not eliminating its nuclear program, the Obama administration would please Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Saudi King Abdullah, especially if it were followed by U.S. airstrikes on Iran’s nuclear facilities.
But most likely a new war in Iran would just get lots of Iranians killed and further enflame the hatreds across the Middle East, including at the United States through new acts of international terrorism. Any acts of terrorism would, naturally, strengthen American “resolve” to kill more Middle Easterners.
Beyond the human misery in the region from all this violence, there would be an extreme economic cost on the West comparable to the damage done by George W. Bush’s Iraq War, which deepened the U.S. debt by $1 trillion or more and contributed to the financial crisis of 2008 which cost millions of Americans and Europeans their jobs and homes.
More of these economic dislocations could be expected if Obama pursues the neocon-preferred course of ever-wider confrontations. [See Consortiumnews.com’s “Why Neocons Seek to Destabilize Russia.”]
Weakening America
So, the path of heightened confrontations might inspire a sense of moral righteousness as the United States mows down “enemies” across the Middle East and gives a “bloody nose” to Russia over Ukraine. But it also might accelerate the overall decline in America’s world standing by bringing more ruin on the U.S. economy, the country’s greatest strength.
Taking this “tough-guy” route also would likely not resolve anything in the long term anymore than Bush’s invasion did in Iraq or Obama’s bombing campaign did in Libya. Those operations removed dictators – Saddam Hussein in Iraq and Muammar Gaddafi in Libya – but they also unleashed sectarian and political havoc inside those two countries.
Neocon “regime change” in Syria or Iran – even if “successful” – would surely have devastating consequences for those two societies beyond even their current unpleasant circumstances.
So far, the limited U.S. intervention in Syria – supplying the alleged “moderates” with light weapons and Obama’s demand that “Assad must go” — has only exacerbated the civil war and created more opportunities to be exploited by the radical jihadists in al-Nusra Front (al-Qaeda’s affiliate) and the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (a group so extreme that even al-Qaeda renounced it).
The neocon solution to the Syrian crisis has been to demand that Obama supply the “moderates” with more advanced weapons and undertake an aerial bombing campaign to destroy Assad’s military capabilities. The most likely outcome of that approach, however, would be either an outright extremist victory or bloody anarchy.
Regarding Russia, the neocons seek growing tensions between Moscow and Washington, with the Ukraine crisis serving as the biggest irritant and with follow-on plans for destabilizing Russia politically and economically, eventually to get rid of President Vladimir Putin in favor of a compliant leader like Boris Yeltsin who let “free-market” experts plunder Russia’s economy in the decade after the Soviet Union’s collapse.
As neocon National Endowment for Democracy President Carl Gershman wrote last September in a Washington Post op-ed, Ukraine has become “the biggest prize.” But Gershman added that Ukraine was really only an interim step to an even bigger prize, the removal of Putin, who, Gershman added, “may find himself on the losing end not just in the near abroad [i.e. Ukraine] but within Russia itself.”
Of course, Gershman and other neocons ignore the risks of creating violent disorder in nuclear-armed Russia, transforming it into something like a giant-sized Ukraine. The end result of that “regime change” could be thermo-nuclear war.
The Peaceful Path
Without doubt, Official Washington would find the more peaceful path less gratifying, with its pursuit of imperfect compromises reached with adversaries who have been thoroughly vilified in the mainstream U.S. media. Indeed, there would be much moral outrage over any suggestion that these “enemies” have their own legitimate concerns or that they can make significant contributions toward a less violent world.
But that is the choice facing Obama: Can he get off his moral high horse and recognize that Putin is not entirely in the wrong about Ukraine, that the European Union and the U.S. State Department helped provoke a political crisis in Kiev which led to the violent overthrow of elected President Viktor Yanukovych; that most residents of Crimea did want to secede from the ensuing chaos and rejoin Russia; that Moscow has reasonable fears about NATO pressed against its borders; that Russian-speaking Ukrainians should have rights, too, and not just be slaughtered as “terrorists” for resisting the right-wing overthrow of Yanukovych whose political base was in their eastern territories.
Theoretically, a compromise solution to the Ukraine crisis would be relatively easy: a second referendum on Crimea’s secession to verify that the earlier vote reflected the popular will (with plenty of international observers); a federalized system to grant significant self-rule to eastern Ukraine; an agreement to stop further expansion of NATO; and resumed economic ties between Ukraine and Russia.
Once the Ukraine crisis is in the past, Obama could shift from ostracizing Putin to enlisting him as a partner in reaching a reasonable settlement with Iran to guarantee that its nuclear program is for peaceful purposes only and in finding a political solution to the Syrian civil war.
Based on the recent Syrian election, Assad appears to retain the allegiance of many Alawites, Shiites, Christians and other sects, including some Sunnis. If Obama backs off his insistence that “Assad must go,” then a power-sharing arrangement could be within reach with Assad staying through some transition period.
A political settlement would allow the Syrian government to concentrate on driving foreign jihadists and other violent extremists out of its territory. If the jihadists could be defeated in Syria, the stability of neighboring Iraq would be enhanced.
Pressure on the Saudis
However, ultimately the defeat of Sunni radicals – whether al-Nusra or ISIS or al-Qaeda – will require cracking down on Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Kuwait and other Persian Gulf states that have poured fortunes into financing and arming these extremists.
The Saudis, in particular, have backed the jihadists swarming into Syria with the goal of overthrowing Assad, an Alawite, a Shiite-related sect. The Saudis see Assad as an important ally of Shiite-ruled Iran and thus their geopolitical enemy. But only the United States and the West can apply the necessary financial pressure to get Saudi Arabia and the other Gulf states to relent in their strategy of supporting Sunni terrorism.
For Obama to challenge Saudi Arabia would require true political courage since Official Washington has long embraced the reactionary Saudi monarchy as “moderates” who have provided a steady supply of oil in exchange for U.S. protection. But the Saudis have abused their “untouchable” status by funding extremists either directly from government coffers or through various princes.
As the Washington Post reported on June 13, “citizens in Saudi Arabia and Kuwait have quietly funneled vast sums of money to and joined the ranks of ISIS and other jihadist groups fighting Bashar al-Assad’s regime in Syria over the past two years, analysts and U.S. officials have said.”
In recent weeks, ISIS – facing pressure from the Syrian army and jihadist rivals in al-Nusra – marched back into Iraq, where the group was founded as a reaction to Bush’s 2003 invasion, and routed several divisions of the Iraqi army. ISIS captured a number of major cities and moved to within some 30 miles of Baghdad before encountering stiffer resistance from the Shiite-dominated army and Shiite militias.
The ISIS offensive prompted Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, a Shiite, to publicly denounce Saudi and Qatari leaders and accuse them of supporting “genocide” by unleashing terror groups to kill Shiites and to destroy Shiite religious sites.
“They are attacking Iraq, through Syria and in a direct way, and they announced war on Iraq, as they announced it on Syria, and unfortunately it is on a sectarian and political basis,” Maliki said. “These two countries are primarily responsible for the sectarian and terrorist and security crisis of Iraq.”
Though the Obama administration and many U.S. journalists are aware of the accuracy of Maliki’s claims, the reporting on it in the New York Times is instructive about the obstacles that Obama faces both within the U.S. news media and his own administration.
On Wednesday, at the end of a long article on the Iraq crisis, the Times mocked Maliki’s complaint as an attempt to shift blame, an attitude echoed by the U.S. State Department:
“The Iraqi government issued a statement accusing Saudi Arabia of funding the Sunni extremists, as Mr. Maliki continued to offer explanations for the stunning success of the Sunni extremists that do not focus on his leadership. The statement drew almost immediate criticism from the United States, with Jen Psaki, the State Department spokeswoman, describing it as inaccurate and ‘offensive.’”
So, rather than put pressure on Saudi Arabia and other Gulf states about their terrorist funding, a spokesperson for the Obama administration pretended that this reality didn’t exist. (I’m told the Iraqi government recently captured an ISIS militant who has given details about the sources of Saudi funding and that information has been passed on to the CIA.)
Israeli Obstruction
Yet, as touchy as it is for the U.S. government to face down the oil-rich Saudis, it is even harder to confront the other end of the anti-Iran axis, the Israeli government.
If Obama were to venture down the road toward realigning U.S. diplomacy in the Middle East, he might find that he has little choice but to finally demand that Israel resolve its longstanding conflict with the Palestinians.
Indeed, with Putin’s cooperation, Obama could threaten to seek a United Nations protection force for the Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza if Israel doesn’t agree to either accept a viable Palestinian state or transform Israel and Palestine into a single state in which all citizens have equal rights under a constitution.
Such pressure would infuriate Prime Minister Netanyahu and Israel’s powerful lobby in Washington – not to mention the neocons – but it would lance a long-festering boil and remove a principal recruiting tool for Islamic extremism. A unified Israeli/Palestinian state – with equal rights for all – could also open the way for Muslim states to extend full recognition to this new entity while protecting the rights of Jews, Muslims and Christians.
If Barack Obama could find the political courage to take on these daunting challenges in a realistic and imaginative way, he might finally earn that Nobel Peace Prize that he received at the start of his presidency.
Investigative reporter Robert Parry broke many of the Iran-Contra stories for The Associated Press and Newsweek in the 1980s. You can buy his new book, America’s Stolen Narrative, either in print here or as an e-book (from Amazon and barnesandnoble.com). For a limited time, you also can order Robert Parry’s trilogy on the Bush Family and its connections to various right-wing operatives for only $34. The trilogy includes America’s Stolen Narrative. For details on this offer, click here.


4 opmerkingen:

Anoniem zei

Niets ten nadele van de enkele uitzondering, maar wel meestal: journalisten zijn hoeren of werkeloos.

Groeten, Ben

Anoniem zei

Welke journalist met enig fatsoen kan dit nog negeren?:
"Alexander Zhilin, a journalist born and raised in Ukraine, appeal to the entire international journalistic community, to every honest journalist alone to organize under the auspices of the international journalistic organizations, and to come to the South-East of Ukraine, to see the result of the activities of the Ukrainian fascist government, managed by Washington. Coming here you will understand what the hell! You'll see how people are being killed on a daily basis from two months old to deep helpless old people. You will see that porošenkovskij much scarier Hitler's fascism.

Why are you here, my dear foreign colleagues? Because if we meet here, in the South-East of čmslennost′û, at least 50, but 100 people under the auspices of our international journalistic organizations, Poroshenko and other leaders of the Ukrainian fascist regime will frighten the general public and will stop the total extermination of the people! Leaders of the EU and will frighten the people, seeing who they support in Ukraine, throws them on the political dustbin.

The situation is such that only we, journalists, his fair position can stop the carnage!"

Groeten, Ben

Anoniem zei

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YlfF1Dscixg

roots zei

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MutZoNkk3Yw

Peter Flik en Chuck Berry-Promised Land

mijn unieke collega Peter Flik, die de vrijzinnig protestantse radio omroep de VPRO maakte is niet meer. ik koester duizenden herinneringen ...