And now, a short message from our masters

Check out the list of personalties which Time Magazine either praises or loathes:

 
Their message is clear.  As is their model of what is good or bad.  Just listen to these two morons and what they have to say.  No wonder nobody takes these clowns seriously.  

The Saker

This is definitely not your grandfather's kind of "interference"

Victoria Jane Nuland is the Assistant Secretary of State for European and Eurasian Affairs at the United States Department of State distributing bread to the Ukrainian riot police in central Kiev:

I don't get it - how could anyone possible doubt the kind intentions of the USA?!

;-)

The Saker

PS: on another topic, the BBC just woke up to Putin's interest for the Arctic.  Better late then never, I suppose.

Saker rant: why I believe that Russia should not directly intervene in the Ukrainian conflict

And if thy right eye offend thee, pluck it out, and cast it from thee: for it is profitable for thee that one of thy members should perish, and not that thy whole body should be cast into hell. And if thy right hand offend thee, cut it off, and cast it from thee: for it is profitable for thee that one of thy members should perish, and not that thy whole body should be cast into hell.

Holy Gospel according to Saint Matthew (5:29-30)

When I began this blog, almost seven years ago now, I took two very deliberate and fundamental decisions about it:  first, I would make this an anonymous blog and, second, I would try to write only in a fact-based and logical style.  The first decision was prompted by several considerations, but the key factor was that I wanted this blog to be only about issues and not about me.  As for the second decision, it was prompted by a desire to offer a platform for frank and open discussions which would not be stifled by an overbearing and highly opinionated blog author.  Over the years, of course, a lot of aspects of my personality and values did come out and those of you who took the time and effort to "connect the dots" have a pretty accurate idea of where I "come from".  Still, I continued to try to keep myself out from the discussions as best I could.  Today, however, I will have to break both of my usual principles: I will have to explain why I hold the opinions which I will share with you and I will write in a far more polemical style: at best this will turn out to be an "op-ed" piece, at worst, a rant and a screed.  For me, the topic of the Ukraine is a very painful one but since several of you have raised some key issues, I will have to address them directly in the only way I can: directly and with no holds barred and no pulled punches.  On the topic of the Ukraine, the gloves are now off.

Ready?

Here I go:

My latest piece about the Ukraine concluded with the following paragraph:

As for me, I honestly wonder whether Russia would not be far better off *without* such wonderful "allies", "friends" and "brothers" as the modern Ukrainians and whether it not be a far better option for Russia to let the (already sinking) Ukrainians join the (already sinking) EU and then sit back and relax to watch the ensuing "love fest" between these two russophobic forces.

Several of you have immediately zeroed in on this sentence and asked me a number of direct and crucial questions which I now have to address:

Q: Mark Sleboda:  Give up the East and the South of the country that are Russian-speaking and largely Russian ethnic?!? Never! My wife was born in the Soviet Union, in the Crimea, in what is now considered the Ukraine. I have in-laws in the Crimea, Donetsk, and Kiev. Kiev is the heart of historic Rus. We will never give our families, shared culture and history up to the EU and the Galician ethnic nationalists and neo-nazis in the Western Ukraine.

A: The Saker: I come from a Russian family which has served Russia and the Orthodox Czar for centuries and which has fought many battles to free what is now called "the Ukraine" from Western invaders, form the Papist Teutonic Knights, the Masonic generals of Napoleon,  the Polish Jesuits,  the Swedes of Charles XII and, of course, the Germans while my wife is a direct descended of the Varangian Rurikides who founded the Kievan Rus'.  I assure you that we are acutely aware that the Ukraine is the historical heart of Russia.  However, I do not confuse the historical Ukraine, the "small Russia" in the Greek sense of "central" or "core" Russia, and the disgusting wannabe fake-Ukrainian state which has emerged in 1991 by the will of a few CPSU apparatchiks turned "nationalist" overnight.  That modern Ukraine is built on nothing but a pure and vicious hatred of everything Russian, on a completely fabricated historiography and it is run by a typical Mafia don (Yanukovich) a ape-like boxer (Klichko), a rat-like lawyer (Iatseniuk), a typical Galician Nazi (Tsiagnibok) and a typical Soviet oligarch bitch (Timoshenko).  To think that this scum seriously claims the heritage of Iaroslav The Wise makes me sick.  Modern Ukraine is not the "heart of Russia" - it is the prototypical anti-Russia!

Q: Yakoub Issa:  The problem is not the opposition or the government, both are abject, the issue is that there are about 17 million russians and several millions russian oriented ukrainians that Russia can't abandon to E.U. control, this would be death for them, let alone the major moral,spiritual, and strategic defeat that abandoning russian land like Sevastopol, the Crimea, Kharkov, Donetsk, Odessa...etc would mean for Russia, no Russia is right, the E.U. must absolutely be kept out. 

A: The Saker:  Tell me - what are these 17 million Russians and several million of Russian oriented Ukrainians doing right now?  It's their country which is driven directly over the cliff, and they are doing nothing at all.  How many Russian flags did you see in the demonstrations in the eastern Ukraine, in Donetsk, or in Sevastopol?  That's right - zero!  Even the so-called "Russians" and "pro-Russians" are marching under the yellow-blue flags which are west Ukrainian, Galician colors.  You speak of moral and spiritual issues at stake - have you ever heard the east Ukrainians raise such issues?  Do they ever speak of the thousands of saints which lived in this hallowed land?  Do they ever mention the millions of Russians who died freeing this land from the Poles, the Jesuits and the Jewish overseers which they imposed upon the Orthodox Christians?  No, never.  All the speak about is money, money and money:  "we will be poor with the EU, with Russia our business will flourish" - that is their idea of spirituality.  Pro-Russians in the Ukraine?  Ha!  Let me ask you this: when it became known that Ukrainian volunteers fought on the side of the Chechen Wahabis - did you see any protests in the Ukraine?  Or when the Ukrainian government was arming Saakashvili to the teeth - did you see any protests in the Ukraine?  No, never.  Their version of "pro-Russian" means "we like Russian money".  They are not pro-Russian, they are pro-Ruble!

Q: Sokenekos:  And what is Russia to do when NATO moves in - for which they can't wait?  What to do when anglo-zionists install nukes on the territory of Ukraine? Serbia was attacked for the same reason: to be a US launch pod - assuming that Russians will hesitate to respond in order not to kill its “brothers". Besides, nato ghouls didn’t want to leave any “holes” behind their frontline towards Russia (= Hitler’s school). Could you imagine what will they resort to when they get to Ukraine? It’s gonna be another Iraq with its own version of a perpetual “sectarian violence” fed from abroad to keep it going (= violent neotrotskism).  Ukraine is primarily a military issue.

A: The Saker: The Ukraine has been a de-facto member of NATO since 1991.   Do you know how many military equipment these SOBs destroyed after 1991 even though Russia badly needed them?  I am thinking here of military transport and refueling aircraft, bombers like the Tu-160 or even entire aircraft carriers!  Not only that, but the Ukrainian military has been covertly supporting Chechens and Georgians, with US and Israeli assistance.  They have opened their ports to USN ships and they have basically done everything the Americans told them to do.  Why should NATO give the Ukrainians full membership when they can get 100% collaboration from them anyway without having to extend any guarantees in exchange?  Furthermore, as a result of truly fantastic incompetence, corruption and political indifference, the Ukrainian military today is a joke, as bad as the Russian military was in the early 1990s, but with even more outdated equipment.  It could not fight a war against Monaco in its current state (even if these two states had a common border).  As for NATO, politically it has already "moved in".  Militarily, of course, NATO did not deploy any equipment in the Ukraine, but I honestly don't think that they would want to do that except for the minimum needed to "show the flag" for political purposes.  Why?  Because forward deployment is a bad strategy against a powerful enemy.  If NATO deployed forces inside the Ukraine that would put them in close proximity to far more powerful Russian strike capabilities.  This is, by the way, the mistake made by the Poles and the other in central Europe who, by accepting to deploy US anti-missile systems, have basically painted a crosshair on their heads.  Should a conflict with Russia ever happen - and I don't think it will - they will be the first to know because they will be the first to die.  A very bad strategy.

Q: WizOz: Some people asked why is the "West" so hell bent to "free" the "imprisoned and tortured body" of Yulia Tymoshenko, the braided blond Goddess Berehinya (who was a cute brunette when only a "successful" businesswoman)? And they found an answer: she is a little bit Jewish. Voila. And guess what, her former PM Arsenii Iatseniuk who is now "the leader of the opposition" is Jewish too. So are "some" of the "oligarchs" who financed the erection of the "World Largest Jewish Center" at Dnepropetrovsk.
Is there a push "tsu a Yddish Land" like in the '20s of last century and in the late '40s with the proposal to create a Jewish State in Crimea (which led to the "unsatisfactory" creation of the Birobidzhan Oblast")?   We just find out that "In Ukraine protests, young Jews are marching with ultranationalists". Ukraine is OUR country. Hundreds of thousands Russian Jews emigrated to Israel have returned to where they left.

A: The Saker: it is absolutely sickening and revolting for me to see how Poles, Jews and Ukrainian nationalists always join forces against Russia even though they hate each other with a passion which is hard to conceive for normal people.  Did you know that the Simon Wiesenthal Center placed Oleg Tsiagnibok in its annual list of top 10 anti-Semites on the planet and accused him of calling for the “purges of the 400,000 Jews and other minorities living in Ukraine”?! And yet the Ziomedia does not have anything to say against Klichko and Co. for constantly sharing the podium with this guy and EU politicians express their full support to this opposition!  Can you imagine the planetary oy veh! if Putin had a political ally like this?  The entire Ukrainian opposition is run by Russia-hating Nazis, Jews and Papists, who all also hate each other, but who hate Russia even more.  To make it all even more ridiculous, these folks nowadays have the full support of Germany - another nation famous for its love of Jews, Poles and Ukrainians...

And yet these are the folks for whom the typical Ukrainian citizen votes for!  Anything that the big evil "Moskal" I suppose.   Ok, that is their sovereign right, but you will forgive me if I am rather dubious that Russia has any kind of moral obligation towards these people...

Having answered these question, let me know give you my take on all this.

I have spent most of my life in categorical opposition to the power in the Kremlin.  I volunteered to participate in what was then called "anti-Soviet activities" which included sending banned books into the Soviet Union (authors like Solzhenitsyn, Solonevich, Tikhomirov, Borodin, Ogurtsov and others) and sending money and help to families of political prisoners incarcerated in the Soviet Gulags.  We even managed to successfully sent help inside the Gulag a few times.  I was also a participant in various activities to support the underground "Catacomb Church" in Russia (on the problem of the persecuted True Orthodox Church in the Soviet Union and nowadays please read this).  All this got me blacklisted by the Soviet Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the KGB and a few other agencies as a "antisovetchik" (anti-Soviet activist).  I even once got a direct death threat from a real KGB officer who acted without authorization (only the Politburo could take the decision to kill somebody abroad), illegally and out of frustration and who got in a heap of trouble with his own bosses after that.  But still, even though this was not a "real real" threat, it felt real enough to me at the time (I must have been 19-20 years old).  I am writing all this to explain and illustrate the fact that I am hardly a knee-jerk automatic supporter of Russia, Russian policies or whoever is in the Kremlin.  And yet, to my immense amazement, I find myself not only in almost complete agreement with what Vladimir Putin did since he came to power,  I actually have to admit to myself that I deeply admire this ex-"enemy" of mine (him being in the KGB and me being an anti-Soviet activist, we were on two opposing sides of the Russian ideological barricades for many years).  For me, who used to hate Brezhnev, Eltsin, Chernenko, Shevarnadze, Grachev, Kozyrev, Gromyko and all the other Soviet and Russian leaders which sat in the Kremlin during most of my life, I now enjoy a really bizarre and new feeling: I truly like and admire folks like Lavrov, Shoigu, Ivanov or, especially, Rogozin, and I think that they are a fantastic team who is finally succeeding in pulling Russia out of the constant state of deep crisis which it has lived under for over 100 years now.

It took immense efforts but Russia is finally healing and standing up from the hideous crises which have plagued it for way too long.  Even the years of relative prosperity under Putin were far from being easy and Russia is still very very far from having fully recovered - what will take many decades, I am afraid.  So here is my question to you all:

Is this really the right time for Russia to get involved in the absolutely disgraceful mess taking place in the Ukraine?  Why should Russia make any efforts in helping the Ukrainians when the Ukrainians themselves do nothing but make things worse and worse and worse?

Yes, the Ukraine was the heart of Russia.  I know that.  I will even go much further than that and probably really shock many of you:

I don't even accept the notion that there is such thing as a "Ukrainian" nation or culture.  Yes, there is a Galician Ukraine and whatever that region was, it was never really part of Russia.  But most of what is today's "Ukraine" is no less Russian than "Belarus" (another invented nationality).  Look into a halfway decent history book and you will see that all the famous "Ukrainians" became famous in the Russian empire and as part of the Russian cultural elite.  What kind of music or literature did the "Ukraine" produce under Polish or Lithuanian rule?  Zero!  What about the russophobic nationalist "culture", what kind of great Ukrainians did it ever produce?  Zero, again.    Unless, of course, you count the "great" composer Mykhailo Verbytsky or the "great" author Tomasz Padura...

And yet, when I read the Ukrainian nationalist history books I discover something new every time.  One book tells me that the Ukrainians are the most ancient Aryan race from which all Europeans come from.  Another book tells me that all the ancient cites along the Black Sea cost were founded by, you guessed it, Ukrainians, long before the Greeks ever showed up.  And, just to reassure the Ukrainian Jew-haters, it turns out that Jesus was a Ukrainian too, through His Mother.  What I am still looking for is a book explaining to me that Adam and Eve were also Ukrainians and that the Serpent in the Garden of Eden was a disguised Moskal.

Seriously now - I have absolutely no objections against nations invented overnight.  To me, it makes no difference at all whether a national myth is based on fact or fiction.  Yes, I find it deplorable when people put Belarussians (an invented nation) and Georgians (an ancient nation) into the same category, but that is purely an intellectual objection.  I happen to believe in the self-determination of people.  If tomorrow some folks decide that they are the direct decedents of Atlanteans or of extra-terrestrial visitors of Ancient Egypt - let them create their own country somewhere if they get a majority of people backing them and they do so peacefully.  So for all my contempt for the very notion of a "Ukrainian people" I fully recognize the right of the folks currently living inside the modern Ukraine to decide of their own future.  I see absolutely no reason why a single Russian Ruble, nevermind a single Russian life, should be spent trying to prevent that.

Now, if there was some part of the Ukraine in which a majority of people was truly pro-Russia and not just pro-Ruble, if these folks demonstrated with Russian flags, and if they demanded that Russia refuse to recognize the internal administrative borders of the Ukrainian SSR and Russian SSR as an international border, or if they openly demanded that Crimea be returned to Russia, I might reconsider because what would be at stake would be people, actual real people, not historical concepts, monuments and ideological principles.  For example, I think that Russia did the right thing in 08.08.08 not only when it beat back the Georgian military, but when it recognized South Ossetia.  Why?  Because the Ossetians not only depended on that, they deserved it (if only by their absolutely heroic resistance during the first 24 hours of the war).

But what of the so-called "Russians" and "pro-Russians" in the Ukraine?  What right do they have to hope for Russian assistance?  What have they done in the past decades to deserve any help from Russia?

At least the Neo-Nazis and nationalists are speaking of a civilizational choice.  Somewhere, I have to say that they are right.  There is more to the Ukrainian question than just a choice between the Euro and the Ruble.

To be honest, I am not a big fan of any form of national exceptionalism, and when I sometimes listen to Russian nationalists I cringe.  But I have to say that I agree that there is more to being Russian than just to speak the language or live in the country.  The Russian civilization has always been different and I personally categorically disagree that Russia is a "part of the West" or even the "European culture".  In my opinion, Russia is neither European nor really Asian, but it is far more Asian than it is European.

Think about it, what are the roots of Russia?  I would submit that three key elements have shaped the Russian nation: its original Slavic roots (Kievan Rus'), its succession to Byzantium as an independent Orthodox Empire and the unification of the Russian lands and power by the Mongols.  So yes, Russians are mostly "White" (although the vast majority have plenty of Asian blood - I wish I could post a picture of my grandmother here - with her high cheekbones, slanted eyes, round skull and long black hair!), but the Russian culture has been fundamentally shaped by the Orthodox faith of the Middle-East and by its exposure to the Mongol hordes from the steppes of East Asia.

The sentence "scratch the Russian and you will find a Tatar" is sometimes attributed to Napoleon and it has been often used by russophobes to make the point that, unlike Europeans, Russians are Asian savages.  Well, setting aside the silly notion that Asians are savages, and taking away from it all its anti-Russian connotations, I would argue that this thesis is fundamentally correct.  Culturally, the Russians are far closer to the Kazakhs than to the Poles, and this is no coincidence.

So what about our modern Ukrainians?  Are they aware of that?  Do they even care?  Or are they so submerged in the fairy tales about the (inevitably) "blue eyed" Ukrainians of the antiquity they like to imagine to realize that there is really a civilizational choice at stake here and not just a choice between the Euro and the Ruble?

I would say that the western Ukrainians, the Galicians, the nationalists, the Jews, the Poles, the Lithuanians, the Germans and even the Americans are all, to one degree or another, aware of that.  Except for the so-called "Russians" and "pro-Russians" of east and south Ukraine.  These are topics which they simply never ever raise.

Of course, one can legitimately ask the following question: if I claim that Russians and Ukrainians are essentially one and the same people, how can I also claim that modern Ukrainians and modern Russians are so radically different from each other?

My answer to that is simple: if we compare the history of the people who lived in what is today the Ukraine and what is today Russia, we will see that the history of both groups is often tragic and difficult.  Both groups suffered immensely during their past, but there is one huge difference between the two: in the Ukraine the Russian people were subjugated people and their elites either exiled (mostly to Russia) or killed.  There was no such thing as a "Ukrainian Czar" who could defend Ukrainian national interests.  There never was a stable Ukrainian state - it was either foreign subjugation or chaos.  To make things worse, during the Soviet period the mostly Jewish commissars truly engaged in a bloody orgy as a revenge for what they (correctly) perceived as intense dislike of most Ukrainians for Jews (itself a direct result of the role imported Jews from Poland had during the Papist occupation of the Ukraine).  As soon as the Jewish commissars were more or less done, the German Nazis took over and, assisted by their Galician Nazi allies, engaged in another massive campaign to terrorize, exploit and oppress the Ukrainian people.  Yes, World War II was horrible both of Russia and the Ukraine - but at least the former had the strategic depth to save what possible could be saved.  All of the Ukraine, including millions of its best people, completely destroyed by what is by several orders of magnitude the biggest and most contested war humanity ever witnessed.

Being aware of the true history of the Ukrainian land and the immense suffering of the people which inhabited it makes it even more painful for me to look reality in the eye and accept, however reluctantly, that the folks who live there nowadays really cannot be called "Russians" any more (even they call themselves "Ukrainians").  All I see is a population of more or less Russian speaking people who distrust the west Ukrainians and who believe - correctly - that these rabid nationalists will bankrupt the country.  I am very sorry, but this is not enough of a reason in my opinion for Russia to get involved.

Yes, the historical Ukraine is an integral part of the body of Russia.  But it now suffers from a combined case of infection (nationalism) and a impotent immune system (the cluelessness of the east and south Ukrainians).  Every time I look at the news coming out of the Ukraine, and especially these days from the center of Kiev, I think of the warning in the Gospel: it is profitable for thee that one of thy members should perish, and not that thy whole body should be cast into hell. First and foremost, I want Russia and its real friends - Belarus, Kazakhstan - its allies - South Ossetia, Abkhazia and its partners - Armenia, Kyrgyzstan and Tadjikistan - to continue to collaborate on the road to recovery from the Soviet era.  I also agree with Alexander Solzhenitsyn that the real future of Russia is not in its south-west, but in its north-east.  As for the West, I think that Russia should stick to the foreign policy outlined several times by Sergei Lavrov and Dmitri Rogozin: make neutrals out of enemies, make partners out of neutrals, make friends out of partners and make allies out of friends.  Right now, the Ukrainians - both the opposition and the party in power - do not even qualify as neutrals.  Instead of trying to intervene in the ugly conflict taking place in the Ukraine, I believe that Russia's priority should be to protect itself from the inevitable impact on Russia this conflict will have.  Sooner or later - but probably later than sooner - the Ukrainian people will wake up from their current insanity and realize that they have sold themselves to the ugliest kind of political pimps possible and that as a result of that, they have ruined their country.  If or when that happens, Russia should most definitely sincerely extend a helping hand and do whatever possible to help the slow process of reconstruction and recovery which the people of the Ukraine will have to embark upon.

But until that happens, I hope that Russia stays out of this conflict.

That's it.  I spilled my guts and I have tried to be has honest as possible.  I am sorry if I have offended anybody with what I wrote above.  All I can say is that I am also offended, deeply offended, by what I see taking place today.  There are probably many shortcuts in the narrative above, plenty of logical and even grammatical holes, and you can easily attack much of what I wrote.  I wrote the above in one session, I will not even try to re-read myself, because I decided to write mainly from the heart and not from the brain.  Please ignore the innumerable typos.

One last thing to any Ukrainian nationalist reading the above: please spare me your usual crap about me being an evil Russian imperialist, Asian, Moskal or Mongol.  Except for the "imperialist" part, I plead guilty to all the other charges and, like Blok's Scythian, I make no apologies for it.

The Saker

Latest idiotic move by Yanukovich

The Russian media has announced the Ukrainian President Yanukovich has agreed to participate in a "round table" with former Presidents Kravchuk, Kuchma and Yushchenko and representatives of the opposition, i.e.  Klichko,  Iatseniuk,  Tsiagnibok to find a solution to the current crisis.

It also appears that Catherine Ashton (aka Baroness Ashton of Upholland), Representative of the Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy for the European Union, will also arrive in Kiev tomorrow.  She will probably vehemently denounce Russian interference again.

So, we are going to have Kravchuk, Kuchma, Yushchenko, Klichko,  Iatseniuk, Tsiagnibok and Ashton on one side, and Yanukovich on the other working together to "find a solution".

Right.

If this was not so disgusting and sad, it would be hilarious.

The Saker

Short update on the events in the Ukraine and a better option for Russia

I just wanted to update everybody on a few interesting aspects on the current crisis in the Ukraine.

The opposition:

 Vladimir Klichko, Arsenii Iatseniuk, Oleg Tsiagnibok

 

Yulia Timoshenko

The opposition is currently headed by four people: Vladimir Klichko, Arsenii Iatseniuk, Oleg Tsiagnibok and, of course, Yulia Timoshenko (in jail, of all things, for signing a gas deal with Putin).  There are a number of smaller parties also participating on the opposition movement, but these four politicians are clearly in charge.  Well, by now, all four of them have officially declared that they goal is not to get the government to reverse its decision or to renegotiate anything.  By now all four have openly and officially declared that they goal is to overthrow the current government.  This is now the official goal of the opposition: regime change.

The EU:

Over the past week or so, the center of Kiev has witnessed constant flow of senior EU political figures who came to express their support for the opposition including Carl Bildt (ex Prime and Foreign Minister of Sweden), Loreta Grauziniene (chairwoman of the Lithuanian Parliament), Guido Westerwelle (German Foreign Minister and homosexual activist), Vlad Filat (ex Prime Minister of Moldova), Mikheil Saakashvili (ex Georgian President and loser of the 08.08.08 war), Jerzy Buzek (ex President of the European Parliament), Jaroslaw Kaczynski ( leader of Poland’s opposition party Law and Justice), John Baird (Canada’s Foreign Minister, no EU but still) and many others. All spoke about the *Russian* interference in the Ukraine's internal affairs :-)

The "pro-Russian" government:

In the meantime it became know that President Yanukovich put forth a number of demands which the EU would have to accept before the Ukraine would sign the association agreement including the joint modernization of the Ukrainian gas transport system and the revision of the EU's position "on the construction of economically unsound facilities for the transportation of natural gas to Europe, bypassing Ukraine".  In other words, the EU would have to stop getting gas from Russia by the North Stream and South Stream gas pipelines.  Yes, this "pro-Russian" politician demands that the EU stop directly purchasing Russian gas.  With friends like these...

The Ukraine riding to a bright future, no doubt

Let's summarize it all:

The opposition wants to overthrow the government, EU politicians are actually on the ground supporting the opposition while the putatively pro-Russian government of Yanukovich demands that the EU renege on its agreements with Russia.

As for me, I honestly wonder whether Russia would not be far better off *without* such wonderful "allies", "friends" and "brothers" as the modern Ukrainians and whether it not be a far better option for Russia to let the (already sinking) Ukrainians join the (already sinking) EU and then sit back and relax to watch the ensuing "love fest" between these two russophobic forces.

The Saker

Is a Syrian "domino effect" being used in a power struggle in the US deep state?

written specially for the Asia Times

Following the ratification by all parties of the recent Joint Plan of Action between Iran and the P5+1 countries, it is worth looking again at the official narrative explaining this "sudden breakthrough".  It goes something like that:

"Iran was ruled by President Ahmadinejad, a notorious anti-Semite and Holocaust denier, who did everything in his power to deny the international community the monitoring rights it demanded and to keep the Iranian nuclear program unimpeded in its progress.  Then the people of Iran elected Hassan Rouhani, a moderate, who accepted the terms of the P5+1 countries and a deal was finally signed."

That is pretty much the official version.

Of course, every sentence in the above paragraph is absolute nonsense. 

The new President of Iran

Iran is not ruled by its President, but by its Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who selects the six of the twelve members of the Guardian Council which, in turn, vets all aspiring Presidential candidates before they can run for office and which also can veto any decision of the Iranian Parliament.  The Supreme Leader also appoints all the members of the Expediency Discernment Council which can resolve any disagreements between the Parliament and the Guardian Council.  Hassan Rouhani was appointed as a member of the Expediency Discernment Council by Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and his bid to run for President was also approved by the Guardian Council.  In other words, not only did Mahmoud Ahmadinejad never have the political authority to independently take any crucial political decisions, but his successor has the 100% approval of the Supreme Leader.  Thus, while there is a very clear difference in style between Ahmadinehad and Rouhani, it is ridiculous to suggest that the replacement of the former by the latter is the real cause of the "sudden" breakthrough in the negotiations between the P5+1 and Iran.  The fact is that Rouhani has the full support of the Supreme Leader and that his election, while not trivial, cannot be considered as a real change in Iranian policies, including nuclear ones.

P5+1?

The media speaks of the P5+1 as if it was a body formed of more or less equal partners taking decisions together.  This is also nonsense.  Who are the P5+1?  The five permanent members of the UNSC plus Germany:  China, France, Russia, the United Kingdom, the United States (P5) and Germany (+1; officially added for economic reasons).  P5+1 is really a misnomer as it should be called "1+1(+4)":  Those who matter - the USA and Russia - and those who don't China (which is happy to follow the Russian lead on this issue) France, the UK and Germany  (who will pretend to have an opinion but who will let the USA deal with the serious stuff).  And since Russia under Putin is a strong ally of Iran, this really only leaves the "Big One" i.e, the USA as the negotiating counterpart to Iran.

So why this "sudden" breakthrough in negotiations between the USA and Iran.  Could it be that the big change which made it possible did not occur in Iran but in the United States?

I have a different interpretation to offer.

It is my belief that it all began in September when, following a few dramatic days which almost saw a US attack on Syria,  Barak Obama had to accept "Putin's gambit": the US would not attack Syria in exchange for the full destruction of Syria's chemical weapons arsenal.  I believe that this absolutely tectonic reversal US foreign policy has now triggered what I would call a  "domino effect" which is still ongoing and which might result in  further unexpected changes in US foreign policy.

Let's look at this domino sequence of events one by one:

Domino 1: Barak Obama accepts Putin's gambit

Whether it was really Barak Obama himself or his puppeteers is really irrelevant here.  The President being the official Commander in Chief he is the person who had to announce that an agreement had been reached and that a US attack on Syria would be delayed/scrapped.  Let's set aside for a moment the exact reason(s) why the US took this decision (we will come back to this crucial issue later) and just say that this was a major change for the following reasons.

a) This meant that the US would have to delay and, in all likelihood, give up on its long-standing objective of "regime change" in Syria.
b) This also meant that the US would now have to negotiate with the Syrian government.
c) Since chemical weapons were completely irrelevant to the military dynamic on the ground and since US had committed not to strike government forces, this meant that the USA was essentially giving up on its plan to help the insurgency win the war.
d) This removed the last pretext(s) possible for the US to continue to stall and avoid a Geneva II conference.  From now on, the US had to get serious about Geneva II or lose it all.

Before this development the USA had two possible ways to deal with a Geneva II conference: to try to sabotage it or to try to use this opportunity to achieve something.  As soon as Obama accepted Putin's gambit only the second option remained.  Indeed, since regime change in Syria is clearly not an option any more, and since the US foreign policy in the Middle-East was predicated on regime change in Syria, the US now had to reconsider it all.  This meant that the best possible option for the US was  to try to use Geneva II to actually finally get something done.  However, there is one truism which the US diplomats had to take into account: no solution in Syria will ever be achieved unless Iran approves of it.  In other words, having accepted Putin's gambit, the US was not only committed to negotiations with the Syrians, but also with the Iranians.  This the real causes of the "sudden" breakthrough between the "P5+1 and Iran": the defeat of the US in Syria literally forced the White House to negotiate with Iran, at which point to continue to stonewall at the negotiations over Iran's nuclear program became counter-productive and, frankly, absurd.

Domino 2: the USA and Iran finally agree on the nuclear issue.

As I have written it many times in the past, nobody in the US (or elsewhere), really believes that the Iranians are secretly building a nuclear weapon right under the nose of IAEA inspectors (who are still working in Iran) while remaining a member in good standing of the NPT Treaty (no NTP member has ever developed nuclear weapons).  The real US objective has always been to prevent Iran from becoming a regional economic superpower and, if possible, to find a pretext to isolate and destabilize the Iranian regime.  By accepting to negotiate with Iran, the USA is not "making the world safe from nuclear-armed Mollahs" but accepting the reality that Iran is, and will remain, a regional superpower.  This is really what is at stake here, and all that talk about Iran nuking Israel in a "2nd Holocaust" is just a pious fig-leaf used to hide the real US policy objectives.  Now that the US had given up on the notion of attacking Syria it made no sense to continue to act as if an attack on Iran was still possible.  This left only two possible solutions: let the Iranians do whatever they want and appear to have failed to persuade Iran to take into consideration US objections, or actually find a mutually acceptable compromise which would be to the advantage of both sides.  The US, wisely, chose the second option.

So far, Dominos 1 and 2 have fallen, but let us take a look at what might be happening next if nothing stops the momentum generated by these two dominos.

Domino 3: the two big losers - Saudi Arabia and Israel

It is rather obvious that the Saudis and the Israelis have done literally everything in their power to prevent the fall of Dominoes 1 and 2 from happening and that they are now the big losers.  Both countries hate and fear Iran, both countries were deeply involved in the Syrian war and both countries appear to be outraged by the actions of the White House.   When all the signs indicated that a deal would be struck, the Saudis and the Israelis even sent their top decision-makers (Bandar and Netanyahu) not to Washington, but to Moscow in a (futile) attempt to prevent what they see as an absolute catastrophe from happening. 

Now that a deal has been reached, both Israel and the KSA are now showing all the signs of "loosing it" and are turning to crude forms of terrorism to lash out at their enemies: according to Hezollah, the Saudis are behind the bombing of the Iranian Embassy in Beirut while the Israelis are behind the murder of a Hezbollah commander, also in Beirut.  One can dismiss these Hezbollah accusations as politically motivated, but I personally find them very credible simply because they "fit the picture" perfectly (and Hezbollah does have an excellent record of making only truthful statements).  Whether one chooses to believe Hezbollah or not, nobody denies that there are now real and deep tensions between Israel and the KSA on one side and the USA on the other.  That would also explain the rather amazing "rapprochement" taking place between Israel and the KSA who now have a common problem (the USA) and lots of common enemies (first and foremost Iran, of course).

Considering the huge power of the Israel Lobby and the, more discrete but also very powerful, Saudi Lobby in the USA, it is by no means certain that the new KSA-Israeli alliance shall not eventually prevail over what I would call the "USA-firsters" (in contrast to "Israel-firsters").  I shall also come back to this topic later, but let us assume that the current US policies will not be revered and that the US will sign a long-term agreement with Iran in six months or so.  What could happen next?

Domino 4: goodbye US anti-missile "defense shield" in Europe?

Think about it: if the USA accepts the notion that Iran will not develop nuclear weapons, why insist on deploying an anti nuclear missile defense shield over Europe?  Russian Foreign Minister Lavrov has already clearly said that much and that is likely to remain a Russian policy position for the foreseeable future: now that the putative "threat" from Iran has been dealt with by means of negotiations - why should the US still deploy anti-missile systems in Europe?

Of course, the US could plow ahead with this project as if nothing had changed, but would it not be logical to at least talk to the Russians to see if some modifications could be made to the US anti-missile system which would satisfy the Russian side?  Having agreed to negotiate with Syria and Iran, would it not also make sense to seriously sit down with the Russians and find a mutually acceptable compromise?

After all,  Russia (backed by China, of course) can easily prevent any deal between the US and Iran (by a UNSC veto for example) and that would leave the USA is a very vulnerable negotiating position: to be in a great need of a deal with Iran while Iran would not feel equally interested in negotiating.  And, of course, a breakdown in negotiations between Iran and the USA on the nuclear issue would mean very bad news for the USA in Syria.  The fact is that the USA will desperately need Russian collaboration to hammer out a long term deal with Iran.  And that, in turn, will have major consequences for a host of other issues, including European foreign policy.

Domino 5: an end to the European "Drang nach Osten"?

Not since the days of Hitler has Europe been so hysterically anti-Russian as in the last decade.  Of course, some of that russophobia has been fed by US propaganda needs, but one quick look at the European press and will show anyone that the worst of this Russia-bashing really comes from Europe, especially the UK.  As for the EU and NATO, their offensive to towards the East is really reminiscent of Hitler's, the only difference is that it is pursued with different means.  Of course, West European revanchism is only part of the picture.  There is definitely a desire by many East Europeans to become "true Europeans" combined with a hope that a EU+NATO combination would protect them from Russia.  Nevermind that Russia is not in the least interested in invading them - most east Europeans are generically afraid of what they perceive as a resurgent superpower in the East.  And if getting the "protection" of NATO and the EU means accepting a semi-colonial status in the US empire - so be it.  Better to be a serf of the US empire than a serf in the Russian one.  That is an ideological position which cannot be challenged by facts or logic.  Most east Europeans probably understand that Russia has no interest in invading them, and most of them must be aware that joining the EU has been disastrous in economic terms for countries like Bulgaria or the Baltic States.  Frankly, most people don't care.  They look at German highways, French stores or Dutch airports and want to get a share of that wealth even if that is only a pipe-dream.

As for the west Europeans, they shamelessly feed that illusion, promising much and delivering nothing.  As for NATO, it continues to follow Hitler's example and attempts to push its influence into the Caucasus.  As a result, the EU+NATO offensive now spans a "front" from Estonia in the Baltic to Georgia in the Caucasus - an exact copy of Hitler's strategy for his war on Russia.

Hitler and his promised "1000 year Reich", of course, was defeated in only 12 years and the EU is not doing too well either.  In fact, it is facing a systemic crisis that it has no idea of how to tackle.

The modern Kulturträgers

I am not even referring to the so-called "PIGS" (Portugal, Italy, Greece and Spain), but also to the supposedly "better off" nations of northern Europe.  Did you know that only 3 of the 17 nations of the Eurozone have a AAA credit rating or that while no fewer than seven of the world’s top rated nations are in Europe, most are either not in the Euro (Denmark, Sweden) or not in the EU at all (Norway, Switzerland)?  Anyone doubting the full magnitude of the social and economic crisis which has hit the Eurozone should read the report recently published by the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies entitled "Think differently: humanitarian impacts of the economic crisis in Europe" (makes me wonder if anybody in the Ukraine has read this one!).  Europe is in a deep crisis and this begs the obvious question: can Europe really afford a new Cold War with Russia?  What about the US - does it need a new Cold War in Europe?  Isn't it about time to set aside this crazy Drang nach Osten and accept that a non-imperial Europe would have much more to gain from a partnership with Russia than from another Cold War?

Time will show whether this last domino will also fall.  What matters for our purposes here is not to accurately predict the future, but to look at the opportunities such a different future would offer.  Let's ask a key question: if all the dominoes above did fall, would the USA be better or worse off?  My personal reply is that the USA would be far better off, as would be Europe.  And if that is the case, one can wonder, did the US really stumble into a situation which triggered a domino effect or what this the plan all along?  Could it be that some forces of the USA have decided to use the failure of the US policy in Syria to trigger a much larger change?

A project of the "USA-firsters"?

As I have written in a recent article, I believe that the Presidency of Barak Obama has resulted in a shift of power in the US "deep state" which had the previously almighty Neocons pushed aside from the Executive Branch and replaced with what I call "old Anglo imperialists".  They could also be called "USA-firsters" (as opposed to "Israel-firsters").  As a rule, they are far more sophisticated actors than the Neocons.  Typically, the USA-firsters are better educated, more cautious in their discourse and methods and, unlike the Neocons, they can count on the support of patriotically-inclined Americans in the armed forces, State Department, CIA, and elsewhere.  Finally, they enjoy the big advantage over the Neocons in the fact that they have no need to hide their real agenda: in their foreign policy they care first and foremost about US national interests (internally, of course, both the USA-firsters and the Neocons are the prototypical "one percenters" whose real objective is to defend their class interests while keeping the remaining 99% in serf-like conditions).

So could it be that this "domino sequence" was deliberately initiated by Anglo USA-firsters who seized the opportunity to promote their agenda while pushing the Neocon Israel-firsters aside?

Let's look at "domino 1" again.

I think that there is a preponderance of evidence that Obama accepted Putin's gambit against a background of absolute chaos both in Syria and in the USA.  Iranian forces were covertly entering Syria to fight, a powerful  Russian naval task force was positioned right off the coast of Syria, the British Parliament had refused to support an attack on Syria, demonstrations were taking place all over the USA - and elsewhere - against an attack, and all the signs were that Congress would not approve a military operation.   It is hard to prove a negative, of course, but my sense is that the first domino fell pushed by all these factors and not a result of a deliberate change in US policies.

What about "domino 2" then?

In contrast to domino 1, there is strong evidence that domino 2 clearly "fell" as a direct result of a political decision made in Washington.   If we accept that the only change in the Presidency of Iran was mainly a cosmetic one, then we also have to agree that the USA deliberately decided to open negotiations with Iran.  Could it be that somebody in the White House or in the US deep state realized that the fall of "domino 1" presented real opportunities for the USA and the interests of the USA-firsters and decided to deliberately add momentum to  "domino 1" and also push "domino 2"?

I believe that the sequence of events in Syria and Iran does offer a fantastic opportunity for the USA to finally rid itself from the disastrous legacy of many years of Neocon rule (in my opinion from 1993-2009).  I should immediately stress that I am not saying that the Neocons are "out" as they still control the US corporate media and Congress with an iron hand.  I am only saying that I am detecting the signs of a major change in US foreign policy which appears to be breaking free from the "Wahabi-Zionist alliance" of the combined lobbies of Saudi Arabia and Israel.  Again, the fact that both Netanyahu and Bandar felt the need to travel to Moscow to stop Washington is absolutely unprecedented and amazing and I have to interpret that as a real sign of panic.

How far can the US really go?

A shift in the power equation inside the US does not mean regime change, far from it.  In most circumstances US politicians will continue to mantrically repeat "there is no light between the U.S. and Israel”, the constant verbal genuflection before everything Jewish, Israeli or Holocaust-related will continue and it is quite possible that the next Israeli Prime Minister to address Congress will also get more standing ovations than the US President.  However, it is also quite possible that between closed doors the Israelis and the Saudis will be told to "tone it down or else" and that the US support for these two regimes will become contingent of them not doing anything crazy (such as attacking Iran).

Let's look again at dominos 4 and 5 (basically, a stop in anti-Russian policies) from a non-Zionist and non-Wahabi point of view:  would the USA gain or lose from such a development?  It could lose some money if the European missile defense "shield" was scrapped, but the Russians are offering two alternative solutions: either let the Russian military become full partner in this system (thereby removing the threat to Russia) or move the entire system to western Europe away from the Russian borders (thereby also removing the threat to Russia).  Since the Russian asymmetrical response (special forces, relocation of launchers, special missiles) will defeat the proposed system anyway - why not accept either one of the Russian offers?

Politically, such an agreement would open the doors for far more important collaborative opportunities (in Central Asia and the Middle-East) and it would remove the USA from the "collision course with the rest of the planet" it has been on since 9/11.

Clearly, a deal with Russia would be very beneficial for the USA.

What about Palestine?

Here, unfortunately, I have to remain as pessimistic as ever.  As so many times in their history, the Palestinians have again committed something of a "strategic suicide" when they decided to support the anti-Assad forces in Syria.  Just as with Saddam, the Palestinians are yet again with the losing side and, which is even worse, their only halfway decent resistance movement - Hamas - has now been taken over by Saudi interests which basically puts them under Israeli control no less than Fatah.  The last "real" resistance movement in Palestine is now the Palestinian Islamic Jihad, but it is comparatively small and weak and cannot be a partner in any real negotiations with the USA and Israel.  In this context, it is likely the Israelis will simply impose whatever "solution" they want on the ground without having to negotiate with any Palestinians at all.  This is very sad and this did not have to be, but the Palestinians really did it to themselves and they only have themselves to blame now.

Bottom line: no domino effect in Palestine.

Conclusion: a real window of opportunity

The future is by no means certain and the Israel-firsters and their Saudi allies have many options to reverse this process (just imagine Hillary as President!!).  And yet it is also possible that the USA might shift away from the disastrous course it has been following for the past two decades and return to a more traditional, pragmatic, foreign policy: it will remain an imperial power with global imperialist goals, but at least it will be driven by pragmatic - if cynical - considerations and not foreign ideological interests.  In contrast to what the USA has been doing for the past two decades, it is possible that the developments in the Middle-East will convince the USA that negotiations and compromise are more effective foreign policy tools than threat and military actions.

Historically, Republicans have had a comparatively better foreign policy record than the Democrats and senile psychopaths like McCain are not typical of Republican leaders.  In contrast, US Democrats have often provided the most ideological and arrogant leaders and the very real possibility of Hillary running for the Presidency is a frightening indicator that what appears to be the current phase of pragmatism might be short lived.  The good news is that both parties have an opportunity to seize the moment and nominate halfway sane candidates for the next Presidential election.  Of course, if what we end up with is a Sarah Palin - Hillary Clinton race all bets are off and the world will be in for some very, very bad times.  But if the USA-firsters can give the boot to the Israel-firsters currently controlling the key positions inside both parties (folks in the model of Rahm Israel Emanuel) then there is a real possibility that the US could break free from its current subservience to Zionist and Wahabi interests and resume a more pragmatic, reasonable, foreign policy.

Do these USA-firsters really exist?  Honestly, I don't know.  I hope that they do and I want to believe that the fact that the fall of the Syrian domino was followed so soon by the fall of the Iranian domino might be a sign that somebody inside the US deep state has decided to use this opportunity to try finally rid the USA from the foreign interests which have literally hijacked the country. 

If after six month a permanent deal is agreed upon and signed by the P5+1 and Iran and if more or less at the same time the US begins serious negotiations with Russia such a scenario will become credible.  At this point, it is too early to tell. 

The Saker

CrossTalk: Dividing Ukraine

Yet another excellent CrossTalk show:

War crimes and atrocities in Syria - a common sense approach

According to the BBC, the UN bureaucrats are now trying to implicate Syrian President Assad in war crimes. According to UN Commissioner Navi Pillay "the scale of viciousness of the abuses being perpetrated by elements on both sides almost defies belief" and evidence indicated responsibility "at the highest level of government, including the head of state".  Notice the nuance?  Both sides have perpetrated atrocities, but the evidence only "points to the highest levels of government" and, just in case somebody had any doubts, Mrs Pillay adds "including the head of state".

One might wonder whether this accusation against Assad personally might be based on the so-called doctrine of "command responsibility" but the answer is clearly "no".  After all since Mrs. Pillay referred to "evidence" and it is unlikely that she just meant by that "evidence indicating that Assad was the President of Syria".  So what kind of "evidence" pointing "directly at the head of state" could she have?

Written orders by Assad to commit war crimes?
Radio intercepts of Assad ordering war crimes?
Witnesses testifying that Assad gave criminal orders?
Witnesses testifying that they saw Assad commit war crimes personally?

As soon as we think about that it becomes quite obvious that what Mrs Pillay has is nothing or, more accurately, all she has is the usual mix of rumors, assumptions, and the usual assortment of testimonies amounting to little more than simple hearsay.

Now, there is no doubt in my mind that unspeakable atrocities were, indeed, committed by both sides.  This is not only normal, this is inevitable.  Any civil war will inevitably result in atrocities.  Since I wrote a full article on this topic (entitled "A few basic reminders about wars, civil wars and human right") I will not repeat it all here other than saying that there is no such thing as a civil war without atrocities.  In fact, there is no such thing as war - civil or international - without atrocities.  To deny that, or say that it is possible to have wars without atrocities, is simply not to understand the very nature of war.

I fully agree with the the words of the chief American prosecutor at Nuremberg, Robert H. Jackson, who said the the crime of aggression (to initiate a civil or international war) is the ultimate crime because "it contains within itself the accumulated evil" of all the other war crimes.  I therefore conclude the party most guilty of all the crimes committed during a war is the one starting the war because wars always produce atrocities and because absent such an initiation of war no crimes would have been committed.  In other words, I submit that it is logical to conclude that it is the side which triggered the civil war which is - by definition - most guilty for all the atrocities committed in the course of this war by all the parties, even the "other sides'" atrocities and war crimes.

The other point which I want to make here is this: historically, when orders have been given to commit atrocities there is very rarely any evidence of those orders coming form the top.  For example, in the case of Nazi Germany, the so-called "Wannsee Conference Protocol" is open to many possible interpretations and there is really no hard evidence at all that Hitler ever gave an explicit order to commit any genocide.

[Side note: This actually makes the entire Nuremberg trial a rather bizarre event.  Think about it: the Bolsheviks (especially Lenin and Trotsky) openly and officially gave orders to take hostages, execute civilians and openly defended terrorism, while the Anglos committed atrocities worldwide, invented concentration camps (Boer war), used slavery at a massive scale in the USA, "multi-genocided" an entire continent (Native Americans), used nukes on Japanese cities, deliberately firebombed German civilians, etc. and yet these powers got to judge the Nazis for their (very real) atrocities even though it was impossible to establish the personal responsibility of most Nazi dignitaries.  Still, I think that Nuremberg trials was useful because it raised many important question even if the answers it gave were dubious at best]

Similarly, the recent trials of Saddam Hussein, Slobodan Milosevic, Radovan Karadzic or Nikolae Ceausescu and other "ex-allies turned villain" have always resulted in cases of obvious "victor's justice" in which politically pre-judged individuals are tried by kangaroo courts.  This is not to say that the forces under the command of these men did not commit atrocities - just that there is zero real evidence that these men personally actually gave any such orders.

It is much easier to prosecute actual executioners, those who personally participated in war crimes and atrocities.  But the "big guys" - top officials or heads of state - are usually removed the the actual killers by several layers of command authority.  So at the very best, one can charge them with failure to protect and of criminal negligence (via the doctrine of "command responsibility").

Personally, I very much doubt that head of states actually often give any criminal orders to commit atrocities, at least since 1945.  This is not just a matter of protecting themselves from future prosecutions, but also because this is bad PR and because atrocities are usually counter-productive anyway.

There are, of course, the various cases of mass atrocities in Africa, ranging from the infamous Radio des Mille Collines in Rwanda to the kind of grotesque atrocities the world witnessed in Sierra Leone, where mid to high level leaders did clearly give genocidal orders.  But these are cases of basically psychopathic leaders who cannot be considered typical heads of state.

Keep in mind that the UN does not have its own intelligence service.  It cannot intercept phone-calls, letters, emails or anything else.  Of course, there are a number of powers (global and regional) which could share intelligence with the UN.  The problem is that any government or agency with the capabilities to pass on intelligence to the UN is also - by definition - perfectly capable of severely manipulating the intelligence it shares or even of completely make up non-existing facts and stories (WMD in Iraq anybody?).

So all the UN really can get is the testimony of witnesses and "open source" public information, such as newspaper articles.  Again, at the very best this can yield local anecdotes and the identities of local executioners.  Not real evidence against the the big guys running the state.

So should we dismiss the UN report and just say that both sides have committed atrocities?

No.  Why? 

Because whatever atrocities the government forces have committed they are at least not proud of them, they do not present them as justice, much less so divine justice.  Whereas the Wahabi liver-eaters are not only extremely proud of their atrocities, they also claim to commit them in the name of God, hence the endless streams of beheading and shooting videos on the Internet showing large crowds of people gathered together to witness "Islamic Justice" at the hands of local officials followed by execution against the backdrop of a hysterical mob screaming Allahu Akbar!  Talk about "command responsibility":  these executions are ordered by "Islamic" "courts" presided by "Islamic" "judges" who are all well-know, recognized state officials and not some masked death squad leaders of local commanders acting on their own initiative.

Nobody in his right mind would compare the actions of  Canadian Luka Magnotta (real name:"Eric Clinton Kirk Newman")  who dismembered a student with the regular chopping off limbs and heads which regularly occurs in Saudi Arabia: in the first case we are dealing with the actions of a deranged maniac while in the second case, we are dealing with the medieval barbarity of an official law system, backed by the state and presented as ordained by God.  Likewise, we cannot compare the atrocities committed by the government forces and the insurgency because in the former case they are never upheld as normative while the the second case they are also presented as ordained by God.

But the UN, of course, puts the bulk of the blame on Assad, with no real evidence and against the principles basic common sense.

And yet my beef is not with the UN.  Having personally worked at the UN for several years I know the system and I expect nothing else of it.  The folks that really disgust me are all the academics, politicians, journalists, bloggers and self-righteous armchair strategists who first fully support a violence uprising and then express outrage when government forces commit atrocities even though supporting the former meant accepting the latter.  Likewise, I despise those doubleplusgoodthinkers who always will accuse the government forces of atrocities while systematically looking away from the atrocities committed by the putative "good guys".  These hypocrites are cowards who do not have the basic intellectual courage to accept the fact that there are no good guys in a civil war or, more accurately, that the ratio of good to bad guys very rapidly becomes pretty even in all parties involved as soon as a civil war starts.

The Saker