I was just listening to Lavrov's reaction to the latest grandstanding nonsense spewed yesterday by Obama. Lavrov mentioned that it is rather clear that the USA refuse to be even the "first amongst equals". I had to smile.
Lavrov was referring to the notion of primus inter pares which means just that, "first amongst equals", and which was the primacy of honor the entire Christian world was willing to grant Patriarch of Rome because, at the time, Rome was the capital of the Empire. But then, just as now, being just the "first amongst equals" was not good enough for the leader of the West which already wanted to subjugate all the other Patriarchates (Alexandria, Antioch, Jerusalem and Constantinople), soon thereafter, the entire planet (spiritually via the Dictatus papae and secularly via the Treaty of Tordesillas). Apparently nothing has changed in over 1000 years. The leader of the "Western World" still wants to be the Pontifex Maximus of the entire planet and the leaders of the East as still resisting him.
The Saker
PS: I forgot to add: and the Latins still want us, people from the East, to shut up, stop reminding them of their historical record - now they want to pretend like we are brothers. Yeah, brothers like Cain and Abel I suppose - Russia today sure "feels the love", no doubt here. You are only kidding yourselves...
Showing posts with label Saker musings. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Saker musings. Show all posts
Wednesday, January 21, 2015
Sunday, August 31, 2014
The EU's ugly kindergarten of intellectually challenged clowns
In my previous post, I mentioned that western leaders are going through a clear phase of self-delusion and panic. I want to add a short comment about the self-delusion part.
I am amazed, absolutely amazed, at the fact that EU politicians, and the MSM which serves them, are still seriously discussing the adoption of even more sanctions against Russia when it is absolutely, totally and undeniably obvious that:
a) there is no proof of a Russian intervention, nevermind invasion, of the Ukraine.
b) that there is exactly zero chance that EU sanction will even marginally impact the Kremlin's decision making.
c) that the EU simply cannot afford the inevitable counter-sanctions which Russia will retaliate with.
It is generally accepted that "politics is the art of the possible" and yet the EU leaders are clearly engaged in the art of the absolutely impossible. The fact that they are all pretending like this is going to have some useful impact is truly a sign of how much the EU leadership has degenerated over the years. Can you imagine Helmut Schmidt, Charles de Gaulle, Margaret Thatcher, François Mitterrand or Francisco Franco engaging in that kind of infantile nonsense? All these leaders had their bad aspects, but at least none of them were clowns, whereas when I look at the current EU leadership, especially Van Rumpey, Adners Fogh Rasmussen or José Manuel Barroso I get the feeling that I am looking at some ugly kindergarten of intellectually challenged clowns and, frankly, I can understand Mrs Nuland's feelings.
Truly the EU has degenerated to a point of no return. Hollande can play Mitterrand, but he is no better at that than Quayle was at playing Kennedy. Why in the world the folks in east-central Europe would want to join such a terminally pathetic community is truly beyond me.
I often wonder - has everybody just gone blind?
Why doesn't everybody see that which is so obvious?
Don't they realize that the men in the Kremlin are real, tough and principled men who will only feel disgust and amusement when challenged by such non-entities whom the Mayor of London so aptly referred to as the "great supine protoplasmic invertebrate jellies".
There is a saying in Russian: "to try to scare a hedgehog with a naked butt". This is what the EU is doing now. They are trying to scare Russia with sanctions which will painfully end up hurting the EU.
There is another saying in Russian:"to love the courageous/brave man in the Tatar". It means that you can love/admire courage/bravery even in your mortal enemy. To the Russian people the *culture of empty threats* coming out of the EU is simply not worthy of respect. And the fact that the one cause the Europeans love to get most vocal and indignant about is the one "gay" "rights" most certainly does not help.
In the past, the western enemies of Russia - the Papacy, the Masons, the Empires and even the Nazis - all were formidable in their own way. Maybe the Russians did not fear them, but they often sincerely admired them (the French) or, at least, admired their courage (the Germans). These were worthy enemies.
But now Russia looks at the EU with a total sense of disgust and I would even argue that the Russians have far more respect for the USA than for the EU. For example, Russian commentators often make the point that the western sanctions against Russian only hurt Europe, not the USA. And while they like to make fun of individual US politicians, they also admit that the US has superbly manipulated the EU and the Ukrainian elites. And NATO can now threaten to create a rapid deployment force of 10'000 men, but you can be sure that the priority of the GRU will be to keep an eye on US forces, not on the EU clowns in combat fatigues.
I have left Europe 12 years ago so I really don't know, but I often wonder: do the Europeans realize how utterly pathetic their leaders are? Do they see that they are lead by non-entities, "office plankton in suits", pathetic intellectually challenged clowns?
On another note, I often speak of the Ukie "freaks". But there is one guy which I personally find very likable on a personal, human level. I might shock you, but regardless of his crazy ideas, as a person Dmitri Iarosh seems to be a very nice guy. I have recently watched an hour long interview of him (here, but it is in Ukrainian) and I could not help finding him very likable. He has a very charming and a little bit shy smile and he is not pretentious at all. He does not even seem to be hateful in the way that, say, Tymoshenko or Poroshenko are. I certainly would welcome the opportunity to talk to him, even if after our conversation I end up slitting his throat. But when I see Van Rumpey or Rasmussen I think of yet another Russian expression: "this face begs for a brick". To them I have nothing to say at all.
Anyway, I just felt like sharing these most subjective musings with you.
Good night and have a wonderful Sunday!
The Saker
I am amazed, absolutely amazed, at the fact that EU politicians, and the MSM which serves them, are still seriously discussing the adoption of even more sanctions against Russia when it is absolutely, totally and undeniably obvious that:
a) there is no proof of a Russian intervention, nevermind invasion, of the Ukraine.
b) that there is exactly zero chance that EU sanction will even marginally impact the Kremlin's decision making.
c) that the EU simply cannot afford the inevitable counter-sanctions which Russia will retaliate with.
It is generally accepted that "politics is the art of the possible" and yet the EU leaders are clearly engaged in the art of the absolutely impossible. The fact that they are all pretending like this is going to have some useful impact is truly a sign of how much the EU leadership has degenerated over the years. Can you imagine Helmut Schmidt, Charles de Gaulle, Margaret Thatcher, François Mitterrand or Francisco Franco engaging in that kind of infantile nonsense? All these leaders had their bad aspects, but at least none of them were clowns, whereas when I look at the current EU leadership, especially Van Rumpey, Adners Fogh Rasmussen or José Manuel Barroso I get the feeling that I am looking at some ugly kindergarten of intellectually challenged clowns and, frankly, I can understand Mrs Nuland's feelings.
Truly the EU has degenerated to a point of no return. Hollande can play Mitterrand, but he is no better at that than Quayle was at playing Kennedy. Why in the world the folks in east-central Europe would want to join such a terminally pathetic community is truly beyond me.
I often wonder - has everybody just gone blind?
Why doesn't everybody see that which is so obvious?
Don't they realize that the men in the Kremlin are real, tough and principled men who will only feel disgust and amusement when challenged by such non-entities whom the Mayor of London so aptly referred to as the "great supine protoplasmic invertebrate jellies".
There is a saying in Russian: "to try to scare a hedgehog with a naked butt". This is what the EU is doing now. They are trying to scare Russia with sanctions which will painfully end up hurting the EU.
There is another saying in Russian:"to love the courageous/brave man in the Tatar". It means that you can love/admire courage/bravery even in your mortal enemy. To the Russian people the *culture of empty threats* coming out of the EU is simply not worthy of respect. And the fact that the one cause the Europeans love to get most vocal and indignant about is the one "gay" "rights" most certainly does not help.
In the past, the western enemies of Russia - the Papacy, the Masons, the Empires and even the Nazis - all were formidable in their own way. Maybe the Russians did not fear them, but they often sincerely admired them (the French) or, at least, admired their courage (the Germans). These were worthy enemies.
But now Russia looks at the EU with a total sense of disgust and I would even argue that the Russians have far more respect for the USA than for the EU. For example, Russian commentators often make the point that the western sanctions against Russian only hurt Europe, not the USA. And while they like to make fun of individual US politicians, they also admit that the US has superbly manipulated the EU and the Ukrainian elites. And NATO can now threaten to create a rapid deployment force of 10'000 men, but you can be sure that the priority of the GRU will be to keep an eye on US forces, not on the EU clowns in combat fatigues.
I have left Europe 12 years ago so I really don't know, but I often wonder: do the Europeans realize how utterly pathetic their leaders are? Do they see that they are lead by non-entities, "office plankton in suits", pathetic intellectually challenged clowns?
On another note, I often speak of the Ukie "freaks". But there is one guy which I personally find very likable on a personal, human level. I might shock you, but regardless of his crazy ideas, as a person Dmitri Iarosh seems to be a very nice guy. I have recently watched an hour long interview of him (here, but it is in Ukrainian) and I could not help finding him very likable. He has a very charming and a little bit shy smile and he is not pretentious at all. He does not even seem to be hateful in the way that, say, Tymoshenko or Poroshenko are. I certainly would welcome the opportunity to talk to him, even if after our conversation I end up slitting his throat. But when I see Van Rumpey or Rasmussen I think of yet another Russian expression: "this face begs for a brick". To them I have nothing to say at all.
Anyway, I just felt like sharing these most subjective musings with you.
Good night and have a wonderful Sunday!
The Saker
Monday, July 21, 2014
Just a thought, not even a hypothesis
A number of bloggers and media outlets have suggested that maybe the Ukies had tried to down President Putin's Il-96-300PU which externally looks like a Malaysian Airlines Boeing 777. I am frankly dubious. Yes, the junta in Kiev is evil and crazy, but not suicidal and such an attack is an act of war which would trigger an absolutely devastating retaliation from Russia. Besides, even though their liveries look similar, the Il-96-300PU is a four engine aircraft whereas the Boeing 777 has two engines. See for yourself:
Liveries don't make much of a difference on radar anyway, but engines are a very strong radar signal reflector.
A far more likely hypothesis would be that the Ukies wanted to shoot down just any Russian civilian airliner not necessarily Putin's. Shooting down a Russian airliner would be consistent with the pattern of systematic provocation which the junta has been engaged in since months already and which included the kidnapping and beating up of Russian journalists, the assault of the Russian embassy in Kiev, the regular artillery strikes across the border and even one instance of a Ukie Air Force Su-25 straying into Russian air space. It so happens that Russia does operate a number of Boeing 777-300ER every similar to the Malaysian one.
I am personally inclined to think that this was no error and that the Ukies knew exactly what aircraft they were shooting down. But if we assume a case of mistaken identity, then I say that their real target was not Putin's presidential l-96-300PU which, according to the FSO has not overflown the Ukraine in a very long time anyway, but a Russian civilian airliner like the Aeroflot Boeing shown above.
There is also the very real possibility that MH17 was not shot by a BukM1 at all, but by a Ukrainian SU-27, at least this is what the pattern of damage on the debris seems to be showing. Of course, we will have to wait to see if this information is correct. The Russian military has declared that Russian signal intelligence had detected the radar associated with a BukM1 operating in the "track" mode right at the time when the Malaysian Boeing was hit. Is that compatible with the notion of a Ukie interceptor shooting down MH17? Yes, absolutely, in fact, it would have to be part of the plan. Think of it - the Resistance has no fighters or interceptors, only one single Su-25 close air support aircraft. But it does seem to have at least some BukM1s (though whether they are operational or not is unknown). If the Ukies did use a Su-27 to shoot down MH17 it would make sense for them to switch on the engagement radar of the BukM1 just to be able to point the finger to a BukM1 battery as the source of the attack.
Right now I have the feeling that the Russians are hoping for the international community and the various investigating teams to come to the correct conclusions without any Russian input. I am not at all sure that this is the right approach, but then I have been frustrated to tears with the Kremlin's communication policy for a long time already. Just listen to Putin's latest statement about MH17:
I don't know about you, but to me Putin looks nervous and even sick. Does he not act as if he was guilty or afraid of being caught? I know, I know, there is zero chance of Russia being guilty of this crime, but to many, especially in the West, appearances matter more than facts and this latest appearance is, in my opinion, a total disaster.
I always "marvel" at how incompetent Russians are in public communications and how they systematically fail to appreciate how important appearances can be. In contrast, the USA, which Chris Hedges correctly calls the Empire of Illusion, has a superb appreciation for the importance of the superficial and uses it against its enemies with devastating effectiveness.
In conclusion of these musings, I will like to repeat here: the tragedy of MH17 is being used by the Kiev junta not only to conceal its recent defeats, but to also conceal the murderous attacks against civilians all across the frontlines. Right now, as the world discusses the fate of MH17 the Ukies have open fire with barrages of heavy artillery on Luganks and Donetsk and in every town and village and they are murdering scores of civilians in an apparent retaliation for their recent setbacks. This is the big story, not MH17. This is why I want to suggest to you all that we wait until some hard facts come out about what really happened, and that we refrain from discussions ad nauseam of every hypothesis or rumor. Since what I posted above is exactly that, then let's keep the topic of MH17 to the comments section below and let us keep the other posts MH17-free at least until we have some hard facts to discuss, okay?
I wish you all a great week, kind regards,
The Saker
 |
| President Putin's Il-96-300PU |
 |
| Malaysian Airlines Boeing 777-200ER |
Liveries don't make much of a difference on radar anyway, but engines are a very strong radar signal reflector.
A far more likely hypothesis would be that the Ukies wanted to shoot down just any Russian civilian airliner not necessarily Putin's. Shooting down a Russian airliner would be consistent with the pattern of systematic provocation which the junta has been engaged in since months already and which included the kidnapping and beating up of Russian journalists, the assault of the Russian embassy in Kiev, the regular artillery strikes across the border and even one instance of a Ukie Air Force Su-25 straying into Russian air space. It so happens that Russia does operate a number of Boeing 777-300ER every similar to the Malaysian one.
 | |||
| Aeroflot Boeing 777-300ER |
There is also the very real possibility that MH17 was not shot by a BukM1 at all, but by a Ukrainian SU-27, at least this is what the pattern of damage on the debris seems to be showing. Of course, we will have to wait to see if this information is correct. The Russian military has declared that Russian signal intelligence had detected the radar associated with a BukM1 operating in the "track" mode right at the time when the Malaysian Boeing was hit. Is that compatible with the notion of a Ukie interceptor shooting down MH17? Yes, absolutely, in fact, it would have to be part of the plan. Think of it - the Resistance has no fighters or interceptors, only one single Su-25 close air support aircraft. But it does seem to have at least some BukM1s (though whether they are operational or not is unknown). If the Ukies did use a Su-27 to shoot down MH17 it would make sense for them to switch on the engagement radar of the BukM1 just to be able to point the finger to a BukM1 battery as the source of the attack.
Right now I have the feeling that the Russians are hoping for the international community and the various investigating teams to come to the correct conclusions without any Russian input. I am not at all sure that this is the right approach, but then I have been frustrated to tears with the Kremlin's communication policy for a long time already. Just listen to Putin's latest statement about MH17:
I don't know about you, but to me Putin looks nervous and even sick. Does he not act as if he was guilty or afraid of being caught? I know, I know, there is zero chance of Russia being guilty of this crime, but to many, especially in the West, appearances matter more than facts and this latest appearance is, in my opinion, a total disaster.
I always "marvel" at how incompetent Russians are in public communications and how they systematically fail to appreciate how important appearances can be. In contrast, the USA, which Chris Hedges correctly calls the Empire of Illusion, has a superb appreciation for the importance of the superficial and uses it against its enemies with devastating effectiveness.
In conclusion of these musings, I will like to repeat here: the tragedy of MH17 is being used by the Kiev junta not only to conceal its recent defeats, but to also conceal the murderous attacks against civilians all across the frontlines. Right now, as the world discusses the fate of MH17 the Ukies have open fire with barrages of heavy artillery on Luganks and Donetsk and in every town and village and they are murdering scores of civilians in an apparent retaliation for their recent setbacks. This is the big story, not MH17. This is why I want to suggest to you all that we wait until some hard facts come out about what really happened, and that we refrain from discussions ad nauseam of every hypothesis or rumor. Since what I posted above is exactly that, then let's keep the topic of MH17 to the comments section below and let us keep the other posts MH17-free at least until we have some hard facts to discuss, okay?
I wish you all a great week, kind regards,
The Saker
Thursday, January 23, 2014
Some confused musings about the legitimate use of violence by the state
In the recent weeks I have been struggling with very unpleasant thoughts which I want to share with you in the hope that you will help me make sense of the doubts and dilemmas I am dealing with. To explain what I am referring to, I will use a few of the examples which elicited these thoughts in me:
Syria:
Readers of this blog might remember that when the first demonstrations against Assad in Syria began I was supportive of them. My reasons were basic and, frankly, primitive:
1) I don't like Baathism, Baathists and Arab secularism generally.
2) I knew for a fact, from contacts with Syrians, that Hafez al-Assad rule was a brutal one: his Mukhabarat(s) was universally feared, his officials corrupt and I was aware of the fact that he had crushed an Islamist uprising in 1982 at a cost of anywhere between 10'000-40'000 deaths (depending on sources).
3) As for the son, Bashar al-Assad, my beef with him was that he had tortured CIA detainees for the USA and that he had allowed the Israelis to murder Imad Mughniyeh in a high-security neighborhood of Damascus.
I don't want to go into a polemic here over whether my reasons were valid or not. For one thing, at this point in time, this is irrelevant. I will just summarize my personal evolution by saying that while I did not like Assad or, while I actually disliked the Assad regime, and while I mistakenly assumed that the demonstrations were in support of democracy, human rights, free speech and political pluralism, I soon came to realize that I was completely mistaken. What was taking place was not an expression of popular demands, but a CIA backed, KSA financed and Wahabi executed attempt at regime change and that Syria was at the edge of becoming a hybrid of the so-called "Islamic state of the Caucasus Emirate", Somalia and Afghanistan. I also understood that for better or for worse, but the person of Bashar al-Assad, the Baathist regime, the Syrian state and the Syrian nation were, de-facto, one and the same and in the context of a foreign intervention it was simply unreal to defend one without defending the other. Yes, at a future date, I would love to see these categories become separate again. But at this moment in time they are one and the same, they are "Syria".
But my topic today is not Syria, but the most disturbing thoughts I have been struggling with ever since the war on Syria (not in Syria, but on Syria) began. By various estimates, the war on Syria has already caused something in the range of 100'000-150'000 deaths. For a total population in the range of 22 million, that is very big. But what really hit me is this thought:
Was Hafez al-Assad wrong to crush the Islamic uprising in 1982 at the cost of up to 10'000-40'000 deaths and within one month or was he wise? On one hand 10-000-40'000 deaths in one month and on the other 100'000-150'000 deaths in over two years.
Of course, one could say that the 1982 "Hama massacre" eventually resulted in today's civil war. But what if that 1982 massacre gave the Syrians 20+ years of relative peace instead and what if Bashar al-Hassad had crushed the current uprising as rapidly and brutally as his father did in early 2011?
In hindsight - if I had a time travel machine and if I could travel back to 1982 and speak with Hafez al-Assad about the Islamic uprising taking place, would I really advise him to refrain from the use of force, or would I tell him "go ahead and crush this monster before it fully materializes!"?
The Ukraine:
I am looking at the footage coming out of Kiev and I can't help wonder what I would recommend to Yanukovich if I was his advisor. Something interesting happened two days ago: the regime told the riot cops to push back the demonstrators by a few hundred yards and to tear down the catapult they had build. Well, the riot cops did that very easily, even without using any kind of lethal weapons, they pushed back the "elite" combat teams of the so-called "Right Sector" (Ukie neo-Nazis) in minutes. Everybody was amazed at how easily the riot cops tore through what appeared to be well prepared defenses and how rapidly the order to clear a section of the Grushevsky street was executed. I mention that because this probably indicates that the riot police could probably clear up all of central Kiev overnight if given the order. Yes, such an operation would almost certainly result in fatalities, but there is no reason to suspect that their numbers would be large.
So, should the regime use violent force and simply clean up central Kiev?
From Maidan to Tiananmen to Moscow:
Maidan square brings back memories of another square, Tiananmen square in China.
Now please consider this: I was brought up in a rabidly anti-Communist family and I had been deeply involved in what the Soviets used to called "anti-Soviet activities" for many years. In 1989 I was still more or less believing all the crap which I had been fed in my youth and I was studying in Washington DC towards a MA in Strategic Studies where most of my teaches were either from the White House, or the Pentagon, or the CIA or some branch of the US military. Worst of all, I was still under the delusion that you could get information from the mass media. All this is to say that when the Tiananmen demonstrations began I was jubilant - to me this was yet again an example of "the people" overthrowing "Communism". Sure, when the Chinese students put their ridiculous "Goddess of Democracy" even I got a little suspicious. Something just did not look right. But then the crackdown happened and the iconic picture of that historical moment, Tank Man, really blew my mind in its political perfection, or so I thought at the time: one simply man stops a column of tanks with his unprotected body. What can be more noble, more inspiring, more touching than this amazing symbol of humanity?
Three years alter, in 1991, the Soviet Union "was collapsed" (let's not go into "who really did it" and "how" right now) and I rushed to my first trip to Russia ever. I landed in Moscow and immediately went to the center of the city were the barricades were still standing. My lifelong dream of seeing the Bolsheviks bite the dust had finally happened, and I was standing in the capital of a new, free Russia. Or so I thought. I spent a lot of time in Moscow between 1991 and 1993, and I saw it all: the complete collapse of the economy, the astronomic rise in crime, the ugly way in which ex-CPSU re-branded themselves as "democrats" only to steal away the wealth of the nation, the total breakdown in public services and the criminalization of the economy. By 1992 my imbecilic enthusiasm had already been very much toned down and my outlook on things was beginning to get more sober, more cynical and more disillusioned. The process of disillusionment reached its peak with in 1993 I witnessed with my own eyes the bloody orgy of violence unleashed by the Eltsin regime in Moscow. Just before it all began I had spent many hours with all the parties involved in a struggle and I knew one thing for sure: both sides were ex-Communists, both sides were accusing the other of Fascism, and both sides were claiming to act in defense of democracy. In fact - both sides were extremely similar and I was disgusted by all of them. Eventually, the USA backed ex-Commies turned "democrats" won by using tanks to shoot at the Parliament building and Russia sank even deeper into another 7 years of "democratic nightmare".
Now playing the "what if" game - I wondered what if Gorbatchev had done in 1991 what the Chinese had done in 1989? What was worse - the Tiananmen square "massacre" or 9 years of "democracy" in Russia?
I think that any sane and rational person who would compare the fantastic economic boom China saw in the 1990s compared to the complete collapse of Russia over the same time period has to admit that Deng Xiaoping was a much wiser statesman than Gorbachev. Keep in mind that Deng Xiaoping himself once said that the Tiananmen crackdown had prevented a civil war in China.
Looking back in time:
By 1993 I had very few illusions left, my career had not taken the fatal plunge yet (that would happen by 1997), but my eyes were slowly opening to a far more complex reality than I had assumed. Still, the fate of Russia was still very much on my mind and I was avidly reading all the books I could get my hand on about the Bolshevik revolution and the reign of Czar Nicholas II. The mountain of lies written about these two topics must be something of a historical "Mount Everest" mainly because almost all the parties involved had a stake in spreading and maintaining the same pack of lies. It goes something like this:
Under Nicholas II Russia was a poor authoritarian country ruled by a weak and incompetent Czar, who was eventually overthrown in 1917 in a popular uprising which brought the Communist to power.
In that sentence above literally every word is a lie. Now, I don't want to write an analysis of the causes, mechanism and nature of the so-called "October Revolution", but I have to share with you some of what had found out:
1) 1917 Russia was wealthy and the economy was booming
2) 1917 Russia was economically socialist and politically pluralist
3) Nicholas II was neither weak nor incompetent
4) The real regime change happened in February of 1917
5) All the Bolsheviks did is to boot the liberals out of power after 8 months of utter chaos
I know that many of you will disagree, but I ask you to ignore my reasons and just look at my conclusion as it is the only thing pertinent to my current dilemma:
There is no doubt in my mind that Czar Nicholas II could have *easily* crushed the February 1917 Revolution had he wanted to. His reasons for not doing so are complex (he was a complex person), but the bottom line was this: he did not want to maintain himself in power by violence. On a human level, I understand him completely. On a religious level (Nicholas II was very deeply religious) I also can understand him. My question is this:
But for the future of Russia, was his decision the correct one?
I am personally convinced that if Nicholas II had ordered the arrest of no more than 50 key personalities and if he had also ordered a few trustworthy generals to clear the streets of Saint Petersburg from the rampaging mobs (by shooting on sight if needed) there would have been no February Revolution, no October Revolution, no Civil War and, possibly no World War II or even no Cold War. I know, "shoulda, coulda, woulda" and to-rewrite history is always easy. But still, think of it: the lives of, say, a few hundred of the worst scum of Russia in 1917 or the lives of many tens of millions of innocent people?
The counter-example: Argentina 1976
In 1976 I was still a 13 year old kid, but I had two cousins in the Argentinian military and I was spending all my winter holidays in Buenos-Aires. I remember the daily bombings and terrorist attacks of 1975-1976 when the country was torn up by rampaging guerrillas from the Montoneros and the even more frightening ERP on one hand, and a totally clueless and corrupt police on the other. Bombings, kidnappings, shootings everywhere, every day. Police barricades all over the city. Regular riots and demonstrations by students, unions, political parties. Semi-official rightwing death squads - called AAA - lead by, I kid you not, the "Minister of Social Welfare" - Jose Lopez Rega - also known as "the sorcerer" because he was deeply involved in black magic. And to top it all off, an entire province of central Argentina - Tucuman - totally under the control of the ERP guerrillas who simply executed all the government officials and basically declared their own state. Scary stuff, I can tell you, not only for a 13 year old boy.
So when the Argentinian military lead by General Jorge Rafael Videla took power, I promise you that most Argentinians were extremely relieved and had high hopes for the restoration of law and order. Well, we all know what happened, from then on it was all downhill and the military dictatorship's rule of incompetence and violence ended in the absolutely stupid and mis-managed invasion of the Malvinas (yes, I do consider that these islands should belong to Argentina, but no, I don't think that invading them made sense). Looking back at the rule of the military in Argentina it was a disaster.
I recently spoke to my old cousin, who retired from the Argentine military with the rank of Lt-Colonel, and he told me: "you know, we did win the military war, but we lost the ideological one". I think that he is right. They did crush the guerrillas, rather fast really, but they did so at the cost of alienating the vast majority of the Argentinian people. Which brings me full circle to my original dilemma.
The legitimate use of violence by the state
Clearly, and by definition, there is a general consensus amongst most people that the state can, and should, use violence in defense of its people. This is, at least in theory, why we have a police and a military. In theory, the police is supposed to use violence when needed inside the country, while the military is supposed to deal with foreign threats.
Now, since I know that I have a lot of readers in the USA, and since I know that amongst them there will be those who define themselves as anarchists or libertarians, let me immediately deal with their objections to the above.
Anarcho-libertarians are basically opposed to the very existence of the state. At best, they want the least possible amount of state, at worst, they want no state at all. It is not my purpose today to debunk one by one all the fundamentally mistaken assumptions (political, historical, sociological or economic) which anarcho-libertarians make, but I will just say that the ideal anarcho-libertarian society is even more impossible than the ideal Communist society of Marx. I know, that will not convince anybody who believes in the state-less myth, but I would ask them to set aside their own preferences and accept, for argument's sake, the following three postulates:
1) If the function of a state is to maintain law and order, its purpose is to defend the weak. Why? Because the powerful do not need a state to defend themselves. A rich man does not need the police - he can hire his own bodyguards, investigators or enforcers. A rich man does not need universal heath care - he can pay for his medical costs. A rich man does not need regulated highways - he will chase the poor off the roads no problem. And if the rich man every needs a military, its only because he does not have enough hired guns for himself, because he is comparatively weak alone.
2) Only a state can uphold the rule of law. All non-state entities are regulated by the rule of the ruler, not the rule of law. Remove the state and, by definition, you will have lawlessness.
3) History is replete with examples of very, very bad states. History is also replete with examples of very, very bad medecine. Yet we do not want to live without medicine. To reject the state on principle is "throwing the baby out with the water". The solution to "bad state" is "good state", not "no state".
I hope that this takes care of any accusations of "statism" and other such naive accusations. Anyway, back to the topic at hand:
In theory a state is entitled to use violence. The problem with that is that a state which relies on violence to impose law and order becomes a violent state and that is, I think we can all agree, a very bad and most undesirable thing.
Alexander Solzhenitsyn once developed a very interesting concept. He said that regimes can all be placed on a conceptual continuum ranging from "regimes whose power is based on authority" to "regimes whose authority is based on power". He is right. And in an ideal world, all regimes would be enjoying the support of its people because the latter would feel well represented, heard, taken care of, etc. In the real world, of course, this is rarely so, especially at a time when the capitalist nature of the international economy is running the entire planet into the ground and when the top 1% rule more and more overtly by violence only. It is no wonder that the anarcho-libertarian ideas are so strong in the USA where most people have not seen an European-style state taking care of weak, sick, poor or needed and where the state is really fully an instrument in the hands of US corporations, special-interests groups and various lobbies. And, to nobody's surprise, the US state is amazingly violent with 16+ intelligence agencies, cops everywhere and on all levels, uniformed hire-a-cops everywhere too, TSA goons, 2 million Americans in jail, daily police shootings, taserings, beating, etc, etc, etc. You spend enough time in the US will will become anti-state too!
But what happens when a state which does have authority based on more than just power is challenged by a minority of very aggressive people who do not recognize any authority to the state and who actually want to use power to overthrow the state? That is what we see in the Ukraine today, that is also what is taking place in Syria and that is what was happening in the streets of Saint-Petersburg in the first months on 1917. What should the state do to defend the people? Do like Nicholas II and refuse to stay in power by violence, or do like Hafez al-Assad who deliberately killed many thousand of Syrians thereby protecting many millions more? What the "Tiananmen massacre" a way for the "Chinese commies to just stay in power and resist reforms" as the corporate media would have us think, or was the the only way to save democracy in China and avoid a civil war? And what if Gorbachev had categorically ordered his forces to arrest Eltsin, Kravchuk and Shushkevich - would that have been better or much worse?
My doubts and fears
Frankly, I think that Yanukovich should send in the riot police to clear the street of the city of Kiev from the nationalist scum rioting there. I would also arrest the top opposition leaders for sedition, armed insurrection, conspiracy to overthrow the government, treason, etc. etc. etc. - whatever the Ukrainian penal code offers. Let them all join Iulia Timoshenko in jail or, better, let them replace her in jail as I really don't see at all what she deserves being put in jail for.
But then what?
Yanukovich clearly has little to no authority in Solzhenitsyn's terms.
I suppose that Hafez al-Assad did.
As for Videla, I think that he had it, but lost it pretty soon.
So if Yanukovich uses his cops, would he gain or lose authority for doing so?
I think that showing some spine and being a statesman is better than being a jellyfish. But that's me.
Keep in mind that the famous Ukrainian "Berkut" is no Spetsnaz at all, even if the moronic media says so. They are just riot cops, something like the French CRS or the Russian OMON. Using them to clear the city center is not like "sending in the tanks". Right now these poor guys are told to get burned, beat up, shot at and abused and just stand there and take it. I really feel sorry for them. And Yanikovich is a scumbag to denounce them every time he sends them in to do something. I wish they could turn their batons on him and beat the crap of of his fat body, but that is not going to happen either, alas. But if he sends them in, they are probably going to delight in beating the ever-living shit of the neo-Nazi punks which have been abusing and assaulting them for weeks now. To ask them to gently and kindly escort these armed nationalist thugs out of the city center is also unreal. So if they go in to really clear not only Grushevski street but also Maidan square, there are going to be many casualties and even fatalities. Right now, about 100 of these Berkut cops are already in hospitals with various injuries and more are sent there every day. Finally, I strongly suspect that the combatants of the "Right Block" have stores of firearms hidden in Kiev and the surrounding areas and that they will use them should the government send in the cops to clear the city center. At that point, the Berkut guys will have no other choice than to shoot back and which point even more blood will be shed, and the western Ziomedia will go in hyperdrive with indignation at the "gross human rights violations" of a "discredited regime" which has "turned against his own people" who "peacefully demonstrated" for "reforms and democracy".
So should Yanukovich sit tight and wait?
I honestly don't know but I have a strong feeling that a Tiananmen square like outcome (remember - they even had to use soldiers, armored assault vehicles and tanks!) is the best the Ukraine can hope for at this time.
What do you think? Please let us know!
Kind regards and many thanks!
The Saker
Syria:
Readers of this blog might remember that when the first demonstrations against Assad in Syria began I was supportive of them. My reasons were basic and, frankly, primitive:
1) I don't like Baathism, Baathists and Arab secularism generally.
2) I knew for a fact, from contacts with Syrians, that Hafez al-Assad rule was a brutal one: his Mukhabarat(s) was universally feared, his officials corrupt and I was aware of the fact that he had crushed an Islamist uprising in 1982 at a cost of anywhere between 10'000-40'000 deaths (depending on sources).
3) As for the son, Bashar al-Assad, my beef with him was that he had tortured CIA detainees for the USA and that he had allowed the Israelis to murder Imad Mughniyeh in a high-security neighborhood of Damascus.
I don't want to go into a polemic here over whether my reasons were valid or not. For one thing, at this point in time, this is irrelevant. I will just summarize my personal evolution by saying that while I did not like Assad or, while I actually disliked the Assad regime, and while I mistakenly assumed that the demonstrations were in support of democracy, human rights, free speech and political pluralism, I soon came to realize that I was completely mistaken. What was taking place was not an expression of popular demands, but a CIA backed, KSA financed and Wahabi executed attempt at regime change and that Syria was at the edge of becoming a hybrid of the so-called "Islamic state of the Caucasus Emirate", Somalia and Afghanistan. I also understood that for better or for worse, but the person of Bashar al-Assad, the Baathist regime, the Syrian state and the Syrian nation were, de-facto, one and the same and in the context of a foreign intervention it was simply unreal to defend one without defending the other. Yes, at a future date, I would love to see these categories become separate again. But at this moment in time they are one and the same, they are "Syria".
But my topic today is not Syria, but the most disturbing thoughts I have been struggling with ever since the war on Syria (not in Syria, but on Syria) began. By various estimates, the war on Syria has already caused something in the range of 100'000-150'000 deaths. For a total population in the range of 22 million, that is very big. But what really hit me is this thought:
Was Hafez al-Assad wrong to crush the Islamic uprising in 1982 at the cost of up to 10'000-40'000 deaths and within one month or was he wise? On one hand 10-000-40'000 deaths in one month and on the other 100'000-150'000 deaths in over two years.
Of course, one could say that the 1982 "Hama massacre" eventually resulted in today's civil war. But what if that 1982 massacre gave the Syrians 20+ years of relative peace instead and what if Bashar al-Hassad had crushed the current uprising as rapidly and brutally as his father did in early 2011?
In hindsight - if I had a time travel machine and if I could travel back to 1982 and speak with Hafez al-Assad about the Islamic uprising taking place, would I really advise him to refrain from the use of force, or would I tell him "go ahead and crush this monster before it fully materializes!"?
The Ukraine:
I am looking at the footage coming out of Kiev and I can't help wonder what I would recommend to Yanukovich if I was his advisor. Something interesting happened two days ago: the regime told the riot cops to push back the demonstrators by a few hundred yards and to tear down the catapult they had build. Well, the riot cops did that very easily, even without using any kind of lethal weapons, they pushed back the "elite" combat teams of the so-called "Right Sector" (Ukie neo-Nazis) in minutes. Everybody was amazed at how easily the riot cops tore through what appeared to be well prepared defenses and how rapidly the order to clear a section of the Grushevsky street was executed. I mention that because this probably indicates that the riot police could probably clear up all of central Kiev overnight if given the order. Yes, such an operation would almost certainly result in fatalities, but there is no reason to suspect that their numbers would be large.
So, should the regime use violent force and simply clean up central Kiev?
From Maidan to Tiananmen to Moscow:
Maidan square brings back memories of another square, Tiananmen square in China.
Now please consider this: I was brought up in a rabidly anti-Communist family and I had been deeply involved in what the Soviets used to called "anti-Soviet activities" for many years. In 1989 I was still more or less believing all the crap which I had been fed in my youth and I was studying in Washington DC towards a MA in Strategic Studies where most of my teaches were either from the White House, or the Pentagon, or the CIA or some branch of the US military. Worst of all, I was still under the delusion that you could get information from the mass media. All this is to say that when the Tiananmen demonstrations began I was jubilant - to me this was yet again an example of "the people" overthrowing "Communism". Sure, when the Chinese students put their ridiculous "Goddess of Democracy" even I got a little suspicious. Something just did not look right. But then the crackdown happened and the iconic picture of that historical moment, Tank Man, really blew my mind in its political perfection, or so I thought at the time: one simply man stops a column of tanks with his unprotected body. What can be more noble, more inspiring, more touching than this amazing symbol of humanity?
Three years alter, in 1991, the Soviet Union "was collapsed" (let's not go into "who really did it" and "how" right now) and I rushed to my first trip to Russia ever. I landed in Moscow and immediately went to the center of the city were the barricades were still standing. My lifelong dream of seeing the Bolsheviks bite the dust had finally happened, and I was standing in the capital of a new, free Russia. Or so I thought. I spent a lot of time in Moscow between 1991 and 1993, and I saw it all: the complete collapse of the economy, the astronomic rise in crime, the ugly way in which ex-CPSU re-branded themselves as "democrats" only to steal away the wealth of the nation, the total breakdown in public services and the criminalization of the economy. By 1992 my imbecilic enthusiasm had already been very much toned down and my outlook on things was beginning to get more sober, more cynical and more disillusioned. The process of disillusionment reached its peak with in 1993 I witnessed with my own eyes the bloody orgy of violence unleashed by the Eltsin regime in Moscow. Just before it all began I had spent many hours with all the parties involved in a struggle and I knew one thing for sure: both sides were ex-Communists, both sides were accusing the other of Fascism, and both sides were claiming to act in defense of democracy. In fact - both sides were extremely similar and I was disgusted by all of them. Eventually, the USA backed ex-Commies turned "democrats" won by using tanks to shoot at the Parliament building and Russia sank even deeper into another 7 years of "democratic nightmare".
Now playing the "what if" game - I wondered what if Gorbatchev had done in 1991 what the Chinese had done in 1989? What was worse - the Tiananmen square "massacre" or 9 years of "democracy" in Russia?
I think that any sane and rational person who would compare the fantastic economic boom China saw in the 1990s compared to the complete collapse of Russia over the same time period has to admit that Deng Xiaoping was a much wiser statesman than Gorbachev. Keep in mind that Deng Xiaoping himself once said that the Tiananmen crackdown had prevented a civil war in China.
Looking back in time:
By 1993 I had very few illusions left, my career had not taken the fatal plunge yet (that would happen by 1997), but my eyes were slowly opening to a far more complex reality than I had assumed. Still, the fate of Russia was still very much on my mind and I was avidly reading all the books I could get my hand on about the Bolshevik revolution and the reign of Czar Nicholas II. The mountain of lies written about these two topics must be something of a historical "Mount Everest" mainly because almost all the parties involved had a stake in spreading and maintaining the same pack of lies. It goes something like this:
Under Nicholas II Russia was a poor authoritarian country ruled by a weak and incompetent Czar, who was eventually overthrown in 1917 in a popular uprising which brought the Communist to power.
In that sentence above literally every word is a lie. Now, I don't want to write an analysis of the causes, mechanism and nature of the so-called "October Revolution", but I have to share with you some of what had found out:
1) 1917 Russia was wealthy and the economy was booming
2) 1917 Russia was economically socialist and politically pluralist
3) Nicholas II was neither weak nor incompetent
4) The real regime change happened in February of 1917
5) All the Bolsheviks did is to boot the liberals out of power after 8 months of utter chaos
I know that many of you will disagree, but I ask you to ignore my reasons and just look at my conclusion as it is the only thing pertinent to my current dilemma:
There is no doubt in my mind that Czar Nicholas II could have *easily* crushed the February 1917 Revolution had he wanted to. His reasons for not doing so are complex (he was a complex person), but the bottom line was this: he did not want to maintain himself in power by violence. On a human level, I understand him completely. On a religious level (Nicholas II was very deeply religious) I also can understand him. My question is this:
But for the future of Russia, was his decision the correct one?
I am personally convinced that if Nicholas II had ordered the arrest of no more than 50 key personalities and if he had also ordered a few trustworthy generals to clear the streets of Saint Petersburg from the rampaging mobs (by shooting on sight if needed) there would have been no February Revolution, no October Revolution, no Civil War and, possibly no World War II or even no Cold War. I know, "shoulda, coulda, woulda" and to-rewrite history is always easy. But still, think of it: the lives of, say, a few hundred of the worst scum of Russia in 1917 or the lives of many tens of millions of innocent people?
The counter-example: Argentina 1976
In 1976 I was still a 13 year old kid, but I had two cousins in the Argentinian military and I was spending all my winter holidays in Buenos-Aires. I remember the daily bombings and terrorist attacks of 1975-1976 when the country was torn up by rampaging guerrillas from the Montoneros and the even more frightening ERP on one hand, and a totally clueless and corrupt police on the other. Bombings, kidnappings, shootings everywhere, every day. Police barricades all over the city. Regular riots and demonstrations by students, unions, political parties. Semi-official rightwing death squads - called AAA - lead by, I kid you not, the "Minister of Social Welfare" - Jose Lopez Rega - also known as "the sorcerer" because he was deeply involved in black magic. And to top it all off, an entire province of central Argentina - Tucuman - totally under the control of the ERP guerrillas who simply executed all the government officials and basically declared their own state. Scary stuff, I can tell you, not only for a 13 year old boy.
So when the Argentinian military lead by General Jorge Rafael Videla took power, I promise you that most Argentinians were extremely relieved and had high hopes for the restoration of law and order. Well, we all know what happened, from then on it was all downhill and the military dictatorship's rule of incompetence and violence ended in the absolutely stupid and mis-managed invasion of the Malvinas (yes, I do consider that these islands should belong to Argentina, but no, I don't think that invading them made sense). Looking back at the rule of the military in Argentina it was a disaster.
I recently spoke to my old cousin, who retired from the Argentine military with the rank of Lt-Colonel, and he told me: "you know, we did win the military war, but we lost the ideological one". I think that he is right. They did crush the guerrillas, rather fast really, but they did so at the cost of alienating the vast majority of the Argentinian people. Which brings me full circle to my original dilemma.
The legitimate use of violence by the state
Clearly, and by definition, there is a general consensus amongst most people that the state can, and should, use violence in defense of its people. This is, at least in theory, why we have a police and a military. In theory, the police is supposed to use violence when needed inside the country, while the military is supposed to deal with foreign threats.
Now, since I know that I have a lot of readers in the USA, and since I know that amongst them there will be those who define themselves as anarchists or libertarians, let me immediately deal with their objections to the above.
Anarcho-libertarians are basically opposed to the very existence of the state. At best, they want the least possible amount of state, at worst, they want no state at all. It is not my purpose today to debunk one by one all the fundamentally mistaken assumptions (political, historical, sociological or economic) which anarcho-libertarians make, but I will just say that the ideal anarcho-libertarian society is even more impossible than the ideal Communist society of Marx. I know, that will not convince anybody who believes in the state-less myth, but I would ask them to set aside their own preferences and accept, for argument's sake, the following three postulates:
1) If the function of a state is to maintain law and order, its purpose is to defend the weak. Why? Because the powerful do not need a state to defend themselves. A rich man does not need the police - he can hire his own bodyguards, investigators or enforcers. A rich man does not need universal heath care - he can pay for his medical costs. A rich man does not need regulated highways - he will chase the poor off the roads no problem. And if the rich man every needs a military, its only because he does not have enough hired guns for himself, because he is comparatively weak alone.
2) Only a state can uphold the rule of law. All non-state entities are regulated by the rule of the ruler, not the rule of law. Remove the state and, by definition, you will have lawlessness.
3) History is replete with examples of very, very bad states. History is also replete with examples of very, very bad medecine. Yet we do not want to live without medicine. To reject the state on principle is "throwing the baby out with the water". The solution to "bad state" is "good state", not "no state".
I hope that this takes care of any accusations of "statism" and other such naive accusations. Anyway, back to the topic at hand:
In theory a state is entitled to use violence. The problem with that is that a state which relies on violence to impose law and order becomes a violent state and that is, I think we can all agree, a very bad and most undesirable thing.
Alexander Solzhenitsyn once developed a very interesting concept. He said that regimes can all be placed on a conceptual continuum ranging from "regimes whose power is based on authority" to "regimes whose authority is based on power". He is right. And in an ideal world, all regimes would be enjoying the support of its people because the latter would feel well represented, heard, taken care of, etc. In the real world, of course, this is rarely so, especially at a time when the capitalist nature of the international economy is running the entire planet into the ground and when the top 1% rule more and more overtly by violence only. It is no wonder that the anarcho-libertarian ideas are so strong in the USA where most people have not seen an European-style state taking care of weak, sick, poor or needed and where the state is really fully an instrument in the hands of US corporations, special-interests groups and various lobbies. And, to nobody's surprise, the US state is amazingly violent with 16+ intelligence agencies, cops everywhere and on all levels, uniformed hire-a-cops everywhere too, TSA goons, 2 million Americans in jail, daily police shootings, taserings, beating, etc, etc, etc. You spend enough time in the US will will become anti-state too!
But what happens when a state which does have authority based on more than just power is challenged by a minority of very aggressive people who do not recognize any authority to the state and who actually want to use power to overthrow the state? That is what we see in the Ukraine today, that is also what is taking place in Syria and that is what was happening in the streets of Saint-Petersburg in the first months on 1917. What should the state do to defend the people? Do like Nicholas II and refuse to stay in power by violence, or do like Hafez al-Assad who deliberately killed many thousand of Syrians thereby protecting many millions more? What the "Tiananmen massacre" a way for the "Chinese commies to just stay in power and resist reforms" as the corporate media would have us think, or was the the only way to save democracy in China and avoid a civil war? And what if Gorbachev had categorically ordered his forces to arrest Eltsin, Kravchuk and Shushkevich - would that have been better or much worse?
My doubts and fears
Frankly, I think that Yanukovich should send in the riot police to clear the street of the city of Kiev from the nationalist scum rioting there. I would also arrest the top opposition leaders for sedition, armed insurrection, conspiracy to overthrow the government, treason, etc. etc. etc. - whatever the Ukrainian penal code offers. Let them all join Iulia Timoshenko in jail or, better, let them replace her in jail as I really don't see at all what she deserves being put in jail for.
But then what?
Yanukovich clearly has little to no authority in Solzhenitsyn's terms.
I suppose that Hafez al-Assad did.
As for Videla, I think that he had it, but lost it pretty soon.
So if Yanukovich uses his cops, would he gain or lose authority for doing so?
I think that showing some spine and being a statesman is better than being a jellyfish. But that's me.
Keep in mind that the famous Ukrainian "Berkut" is no Spetsnaz at all, even if the moronic media says so. They are just riot cops, something like the French CRS or the Russian OMON. Using them to clear the city center is not like "sending in the tanks". Right now these poor guys are told to get burned, beat up, shot at and abused and just stand there and take it. I really feel sorry for them. And Yanikovich is a scumbag to denounce them every time he sends them in to do something. I wish they could turn their batons on him and beat the crap of of his fat body, but that is not going to happen either, alas. But if he sends them in, they are probably going to delight in beating the ever-living shit of the neo-Nazi punks which have been abusing and assaulting them for weeks now. To ask them to gently and kindly escort these armed nationalist thugs out of the city center is also unreal. So if they go in to really clear not only Grushevski street but also Maidan square, there are going to be many casualties and even fatalities. Right now, about 100 of these Berkut cops are already in hospitals with various injuries and more are sent there every day. Finally, I strongly suspect that the combatants of the "Right Block" have stores of firearms hidden in Kiev and the surrounding areas and that they will use them should the government send in the cops to clear the city center. At that point, the Berkut guys will have no other choice than to shoot back and which point even more blood will be shed, and the western Ziomedia will go in hyperdrive with indignation at the "gross human rights violations" of a "discredited regime" which has "turned against his own people" who "peacefully demonstrated" for "reforms and democracy".
So should Yanukovich sit tight and wait?
I honestly don't know but I have a strong feeling that a Tiananmen square like outcome (remember - they even had to use soldiers, armored assault vehicles and tanks!) is the best the Ukraine can hope for at this time.
What do you think? Please let us know!
Kind regards and many thanks!
The Saker
Wednesday, July 18, 2012
A false fag operation in Damascus?
WOW! That was my first thought when I heard the news of the bombing in Syria. So far, the details are sketchy, and I don't trust the anglo corporate media one bit, but I do follow the news on Russian TV - unlike most Western news outlets - which has correspondents in Damascus and what they report is absolutely mind-boggling. According to the Russian TV, an individual associated with the Syrian military managed to bring a bomb not only inside a State Security building, but actually inside the room in which a meeting of all senior Syrian security official was taking place. The results are devastating:
- Minister of Defense: dead
- Minister of the Interior: dead
- Head of Military Intelligence: dead
- Minister of Foreign Affairs: critical condition
- Head of Internal Security: critical condition
And while various Islamists organizations have immediately claimed credit for this operation, I don't buy it quiet yet.
My problem is the same one I had with the murder of Imad Mugniyeh: access.
I have worked in highly secured buildings and I know that it is for all practical purpose impossible to bring a bomb inside such a facility. We are told that the individual who brought the bomb and detonated it must have been very well-known to the services in charge of securing the building. Maybe. But how did he get past the last circle of body-guards?! Surely he was not expected to participate to the meeting, right? So how did he get passed this last, but very powerful, line of defense?
So let me, for a second, indulge in a possibly sterile exercise and ask the following: besides the Islamists, who else might have been interesting in decapitating the entire state security apparatus of Syria?
Israel and/or the US? Maybe, but how could they possibly have that kind of access? For all the propaganda, the US and Israeli intelligences services are rather mediocre and are not nearly as well connected as they like to have people believe.
Maybe Hezbollah, Iran or Russia got really fed with the the dimwits who are clearly unable to handle the insurgency and they decided to "suggest" or even "help" Assad to get rid of all of them? Much more likely, but only if they used local Syrian assets to make their own "regime change" in Syria and only if they had strong assurances from Assad that he agreed with such a dramatic action and that more competent successors would be appointed.
Now what do we know about the people which were killed. They were all critical regime security officials, that is sure, but I would also add that considering what has happened in Syria over the past 18 months, these people were amazingly incompetent. Now, depending on who is appointed to replace them, might today's bombing not be to the regime's advantage? Think of it: get rid of these bloody, corrupt and incompetant thugs and then blame it on al-Qaeda or some other band of crazies and replace them by (hopefully) more competency successors...
Could it be that Assad is the real organizer of today's bombing? Is it so unlikely that Russia or Iran might have quietly indicated to him that one effective way to painlessly appoint halfway competent people to key positions would be to get rid of the incompetent ones without letting them do like Brig. Gen. Manaf Tlass and run away to France?
The above are only musings, guesses and disjointed thoughts, nothing more, and if I am wrong it is probably because no matter how clueless, hapless and dumb Baathists have proven to be everywhere, I just cannot fathom them to be so totally stupid as to let some guy linked to Islamists get inside a security cabinet meeting with a bomb. That just seems incredible to me. But maybe I am under estimating the level of incompetence of the Syrian Mukhabarat agencies.
It will be most interesting to see whom Assad will appoint to succeed those who were killed today. If we have "more of the same" probably followed by a rapid regime collapse I will reluctantly have to admit that the US/Israel/al-Qaeda did somehow succeed in a truly masterful decapitation operation. But if young and competent successors are appointed and if they take proactive action to gently ease Assad out of power while keeping the Wahabi crazies at bay, I will continue to suspect that some real "friend of Syria" masterminded the entire thing.
What do you think? Do you buy the "lone bomber" theory?
The Saker
Monday, May 30, 2011
Some random musings on the American soldier on Memorial Day
Usually, when the USA is commemorating Memorial Day, I try to write something about the many hundred of millions of people which were murdered by US military forces during this country's short history. Sometimes I like to post a list of US wars/interventions. If you are interested in this topic, click here, here, here or here. Today, I wanted to do something a little different. I wanted to share with all of you, but mainly with those outside the US, my own experience of US military personnel, the people whose deaths are being commemorated today.
It so happens that I have had the opportunity to meet and work with rather wide spectrum of US soldiers including armored cavalry officers, F-18 Navy pilots, Air Force Colonels working on the YF-23 program, a former Deputy Commander of the so-called "Delta Force", NCOs of the 82nd and 101st Airborne, and even a retired Chairman of the JCS. Though these were very different people, with different skill-sets and personalities, studying and working with them did make me come to some overall conclusion about the US military. These are highly subjective, of course, and I share then with you only as personal impression and not as any type of systematic or representative observation.
Regular readers of this blog, who know my views on US imperial policies, will probably be surprised to hear that the first word which comes to my mind when I think of the US soldiers which I met is "decency". Yes, all the folks which I meant were decent, honorable people. Some of them did have misgivings about the wars they fought, others did not. But none of them were the kind of flag-waving racist morons which so many outside the USA associate with US soldiers. Sure, there are folks like that out there - in places like the Green Zone in Baghdad for sure - but I did not personally meet that type.
The second word which comes to my mind is "professionals". The folks I met were all competent professionals. They were not only well trained, but they were also professional in their attitude towards their mission and their possible enemies. I personally heard none of that "we are number one!!!" crap which are always associated with the military when shown on the Idiot Box. The folks I met were competent and they knew that, but they also knew that the other guy could be very good too, possibly better than them. Now, any well-trained solider should think that he is well-trained and that he can (and probably will) win. But that confidence should not turn into a jingoistic arrogance which simply assumes that by showing up on the battlefield "we" will easily win. I would say that at least the US soldiers which I met had a healthy balance between confidence and caution.
One the bad side, ALL of the US soldiers I met were "culturally parochial" (and that is putting it kindly). They had no understanding or knowledge of their areas of deployment or the kind of people they would be likely to fight. While this might not matter a great deal for a submarine commander or a fighter pilot, this is absolutely devastating for a special operations or intelligence officer. I think that this sorry state of affairs is not so much a result of arrogance or imperial hubris, as it is the inevitable consequence of a deficient educational system which does not teach foreign languages properly, combined with the pernicious effects of the US corporate media which is designed people stupid and ignorant and which solely focused on the USA. As a result, most US soldiers can be split into two equally mistaken categories: those who think that the US is superior to other countries/nations/cultures and those who believe that the other guys are "just like us". In fact, of course, neither is true. The "others" are neither "like us" nor are they in any way inferior. Just very very different. Again, that weakness is particularly devastating for the special operations and intelligence forces.
The other big weakness of the US military its pathological over-reliance on technology which sometimes borders on idol worship. I would say that all of the US soldiers I met were pretty much convinced that better technology can win wars. This is, of course, absolutely wrong for a long list of reasons which I will not list here (that would be a topic in itself). Add to this that US military gear is vastly over-rated and that a lot of US military equipment is designed primarily by engineers and not by fighting soldiers, and you will easily understand why over and over again the US military as been stunned by the realization that the "other guy's" weapons outperform the US-made ones.
Keeping all this in mind, how good a fighting force is the US military?
I would say that the answer to this question depends on the kind of war we are talking about. There is what I call an "American type of war" out there, the kind which the US loves to fight and the kind which it will always win. It combines the features of the so-called AirLand Battle and Network Centric Operations. This type of war is inevitably expensive, technology-heavy and geared towards the destruction of classical military forces. Only a major military power with advanced technology of its own (including a survivable nuclear weapons force) could hope to prevail such a war against the USA (currently that means Russia; in the not too distant future possibly China). Everybody else would be rather effortlessly defeated by the USA in such a war. That arrogant idiot Saddam learned that at his own expense when, following the invasion of Kuwait, he deployed his entire military *exactly* as US strategists would want him to. We all know what happened then: one of the fastest and most comprehensive military defeat in history for Iraq, and one of the shortest and easiest military triumphs for the USA.
The way to defeat the US military is to impose upon it a type of war which it loathes to fight. One in which technology does not play a crucial war, one which negates the US advantage in advanced technologies, one in which targets are difficult to identify or acquire. Mountains, jungles, forests, swamps and urban areas are all ideally suited for this kind of operations. Another important aspect of anti-US operations is to feed the US intelligence network with false information to the point of saturating it. US "human intelligence" has always been very weak and desperate thus for sources. It is therefore rather easy to bait it and to feed it exactly what it wants to hear. Present the US intelligence community with putative "hardliners" and "moderates" in need of support, add in a couple of "corrupt" agents willing to betray their side for money or a visa to the USA, throw in a couple of carefully staged telephone calls (designed to be intercepted) and you get the perfect brew which will give the US intelligence community a massive headache.
The good news for those who resist the US Empire is that anti-US operations are cheap. They require more brains than hardware, and they can be organized in a local, decentralized, manner. The bad news is, of course, that such efforts cannot shoot down bombers or sink aircraft carriers. So the key goal must not be to destroy US hard power, only to make it irrelevant.
There is one more aspect of the "US kind of war" which needs to be addressed here. But I want to stress that this aspect is not a product of the US soldier's culture itself but the product of the US political class which gives its orders to the US military: what the US does when it fails to achieve a rapid military victory.
The US military has a very ugly and consistent record of going after civilian targets if it fails to achieve its military objectives. From the bombing of Germany, to Vietnam, to the invasion of Kosovo to today's war against Libya, the US always turns to a massive campaign of atrocities against civilians when it fails to achieve its objectives in a "clean" "TV-compatible" "precision" campaign. Any force attempting to oppose the USA needs to accept that as an integral part of the US warfighting doctrine and prepare for such a development. The US will always begin its campaigns by targeted attacks against military objectives, which it will rapidly "expand" the target list to "regime" targets. But if that fails, the US military will always attack the entire infrastructure of the society which hosts the force the US cannot defeat. To better mask the murderous nature of such a campaign deliberately targeted at the civilian population, the US propaganda machine will churn out a flow of reports about some alleged "atrocities" committed by the side resisting the US Empire. Conversely, the US will always "deplore" any case of its own atrocities if the general public becomes aware of them. It will then lay the blame on the other side "using civilians as human shields" or "hiding amongst civilians". Again, any force opposing the US Empire has to expect such an anti-civilian campaign as absolutely inevitable and carefully plan for it.
In conclusion, I want to turn back to the US solider. I always have mixed feelings on Memorial Day. I hate it's "patriotic" nature. I hate the fact that nobody seems to ask the obvious question of why a country which was never attacked since Pearl Harbor waged so many wars. I hate the way 99.9999% of Americans seem unable to question their own imperial past, nevermind their current imperial wars. On Memorial Day my thoughts are always first and foremost with those who were killed by the very people who are commemorated as heroes and patriots today. I have never seen a statistic of how many people the USA has murdered worldwide since its creation, but I am confident that the correct figure is in the hundred of millions range (just think of the Native Americans or the Blacks slaves). And yet, I always have a desire to separate these ugly facts of history from the US soldiers I have personally met in my life. Somehow, meeting them face to face did not connect them to the policies of their country, at least in my mind. I suppose that it would be possible to say that they too are victims of the US Empire.
It's not an either-or thing. I think that we can feel sorry for both the victims of US imperialism and those who were used by the US Empire to fight wars all over the planet. I know, this is hardly an original thought, but it is mine today. For all my total opposition to US imperialism, I personally harbor no hostility towards US veterans. And I think that I will always have a warm spot in my heart for these US soldiers I studied and worked with. I sincerely wish them well. But more then anything else, I wish them peace.
The Saker
Sunday, February 6, 2011
Some quick thoughts about the situation in Egypt
(Please consider the following as the superficial musings and impressions of an interested observer who openly admits that he does not know Egypt and does not pretend to understand what is happening there - me. The Saker)
Wow! The folks at Tahrir square have been there for two weeks, and yet judging by live shots from al-Jazeera the square is still full of people, and that is at night. I have to say that the people at Tahrir square are showing immense resilience. I cannot recall the last time when anti-government demonstrators showed such standing power.
The other thing amazing me is that there is exactly zero evidence so far that the revolt in Egypt is anything but totally spontaneous. Yeah, I know, some folks (Webster Tarpley) see the hand of the CIA in all that, but the problem with their theories is that they have exactly zero evidence supporting them. They also make little logical sense, IMHO.
Not only that, but 2 weeks after the beginning of the Egyptian revolt, there is absolutely nobody out there capable of truly explaining what is going on, much less so predicting where all this will end. In fact, the most knowledgeable folks openly admit that they have no idea where all this is heading.
The events in Egypt seem to be specially made to illustrate the old proverb that "those who speak don't know, and those who know, don't speak".
In a world in which 99.999% of "spontaneous" events are carefully staged and manufactured it is quite amazing to look the developments in Egypt.
The so-called 'negotiations' between the regime and the opposition are, so far, totally empty window-dressing - on this the entire opposition agrees.
Another thing which I saw on al-Jazeera is that Copts were clearly present on Tahrir square. Unlike other, I am not so surprised. Not only has the MB declared many times that is supports democracy and condemns violence, but this is the country where Muslims surrounded Christians churches as human shields to make it possible for Christians to safely celebrate Christmas according to the Orthodox Church calendar. Add to this the way the Mubarak regime systematically discriminated against Copts in a lame attempt to bolster its "Islamic" credentials and it is no surprise that Copts were standing side by side with Muslims on Tahrir square. Egyptian Christians have excellent reasons to fear the al-Qaeda type and equally good reasons to fear the Mubarak regime, but I see no evidence that they have any reasons to fear the mainstream MB.
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