discipline posted:"mass death and instability above and beyond military/economic intention is the actual purpose?"
yeah. obviously. it's not "beyond military economic intention" but it is the intention. because countries that are destroyed and in constant chaos can never become independent. The people are enslaved. What the US does not want is for Iraq to emerge from the ashes like Japan. The US empire wants most of the world to be like Haiti. The US empire does not actually believe its colonial mythology, that it could rule over client states of relatively prosperous people in a relatively stable world forever because they are childish. This was the basis of the fables about Iraq - the US wants the "cake walk" and to leave an elected puppet, a little formal democracy it can control with subtle financial and diplomatic pressures. (We knew when the Bush regime pushed early for debt amnesty for Iraq that this was not the idea). Because you can't control and exploit people that way forever - this is the fantasy of genuine white supremacists, but the actual policy makers know better from their long genocidal experience and from the history of the core. They know what was required to maintain empire (at home and abroad, i would reexpropriate that word from negrihardtism) and they know that now that there is no rival superpower, their surest thing is permanent chaos and de-civilisation, destruction of basic infrastructure, attacks on the population's physical and mental health, etc.. The US imperial managers know that they can only maintain empire over people by force and terror. The idea that the situation in Iraq and Afghanistan and Haiti is all a mistake is really silly. If it were incompetence, then there would be a greater diversity of results - sometimes something would go "right"; some policy would tend in the other direction.
i feel like the clearest proving ground for this method of control is gaza. the post-9/11 world especially has shown just how important spectacle remains in attempting to remind populaces of empire's ability to project force, a way to counteract that great Event. of course such theatricality can be exploited when attempting to shape public opinion back around to the oppressed.
Edited by HenryKrinkle ()
HenryKrinkle posted:we need to be able to have a reasonable debate over whether or not the US is intentionally backing the ISIS.
The Covert Origins of ISIS
source: http://scgnews.com/the-covert-origins-of-isis
"Two hermits lived together for many years without a quarrel. One said to the other, 'Let's have a quarrel with each other, as is the way of men.' The other answered, 'I don't know how a quarrel happens.' The first said, 'Look here, I put a brick between us, and I say, That's mine. Then you say, No, it's mine. That is how you begin a quarrel.' So they put a brick between them, and one of them said, 'That's mine.' The other said, 'No; it's mine.' He answered, 'Yes, it's yours. Take it away.' They were unable to argue with each other."
- The Desert Fathers: Sayings of the Early Christian Monks.
HenryKrinkle posted:we need to be able to have a reasonable debate over whether or not the US is intentionally backing the ISIS. however, it generally is the anti-conspiracists who shut down any such debate w/ "lol that's crazy have you been listening to alex jones" instead of using concrete arguments.
I've long suspected Alex Jones is a (probably not unwitting) tool of power for this exact reason. A classic disinformation technique is to mix nuggets of truth with a whole load of bullshit. It's literally impossible to repress all accounts of covert state action these days. Better that it all get an airing alongside screeching about how you need to buy automatic weapons and footage of Chucklefuck Jones scrabbling around in some bushes outside bohemian grove. Surely it's at least curious that a man like that appears in Richard Linklater films and gets to bark at Piers Morgan on CNN.
As for the question of whether ISIS is a creature of the US. Well, let's see now.
- As everyone is aware, the "mujahideen" - a rag-tag Islamist guerrilla force composed of foreigners - was supported & trained by the CIA in the 1980s to fight the Soviets in Afghanistan
- MI6, CIA and NATO continued this strategy in 1990s Bosnia to seize control of Yugoslavia
- And in Libya in 2011.
Libya is a particularly damning example, since it is clearly documented that the CIA installed one of their own operatives, a Libyan emigre, as rebel commander. Now, strangely, al Qaeda has taken over the former US Special Forces base near Tripoli, and recently claimed to have created a caliphate in Benghazi.
The propaganda effort around ISIS has been immense. One of the bigger stories prior to the James Foley video was the plight of Yazidi Christians trapped on Mt Sinjar. Most media reports told of humanitarian aid airdrops to the Yazidis, but neglected to mention the joint USAID/DOD team deployed to "assess" the situation. In fact, that crew was part of a 130 member "humanitarian assessment team" composed primarily of US Marines and Spec Ops forces. That was in the second week of August, almost a week before the Foley video was released.
The troops are based in Erbil. Around the start of July, hundreds of Spec Ops troops had already arrived in Erbil. They were there to set up a Joint Operations Command (JOC) by expanding an existing CIA base. The CIA base in Erbil was already practically an institution.
Enormous quantities of humanitarian aid (ostensibly food and water) were airdropped to Sinjar in early August, based on a wild estimate of 40,000 Yazidis trapped in the mountains. On 14 August the Pentagon admitted there were, at most, 4-5,000 Yazidis in the mountains, half of whom didn't want to leave because it's their home.
Still, the humanitarian mission continues, although the definition has now somehow been stretched to include overt arms deliveries - "escorted" by Special Ops troops - and even flying Peshmerga to Europe for training. This is all happening on the basis that the Peshmerga have been valiantly fighting off ISIS and just need a helping hand. Curious, then, that the "Sinjar massacre" that kicked off the Yazidi crisis was the result of the withdrawl of Peshmerga troops who had only just received a substantial shipment of western arms.
It might be worth noting also that expectations are already being lowered about even being able to find any IS fighters now that the overt mission is kicking into gear.
Remember, this is all happening practically next door to a newly-refreshed Joint Operations Command Center. JSOC has become infamous in recent years thanks especially to Jeremy Scahill's "Dirty Wars", but it's been officially authorised to undertake covert psychological warfare missions in this region since at least 2003. Seymour Hersh was referring to JSOC as an "executive assassination ring" as early as 2009. However, it's really the official rebirth of a long tradition of CIA-Special Forces coordination with its roots in the Korean and Vietnam wars. US Special Forces carried out assassinations then, too, but a primary role was actually equipping & training local militias.
The US-allied countries in the region coordinated propaganda and clandestine activities under the banner of the Asian Peoples' Anti Communist League. From its earliest days in the 1950s, it maintained close ties with other similar groups, notably the Anti-Bolshevik Bloc of Nations. The two organisations formally merged in 1967 to become the World Anti Communist League. The WACL story has many implications in current day events, including those in Ukraine, but regarding the rise of Islamic terrorism, the salient points are:
- The involvement of Ustashi (Croatian Nazis) in ABN/WACL (re Bosnian conflict)
- The formation of the Middle East Security Conference (MESC) in 1975 as a subgroup of WACL, leading directly to the coordination of Saudi funding and recruitment for the mujahideen in Afghanistan
- Chairing of WACL at the time by General John Singlaub, infamous for his starring role in the Iran-Contra affair. Singlaub now heads the OSS Society, an organisation of former intel & spec ops officers suspected of serious behind the scenes influence. It certainly inspires reverence in the highest levels of current US military leadership. The society last year presented an award to JSOC head William McRaven, who lavished Singlaub with praise and spoke about how JSOC as a combination of intel & spec ops was essentially a rebirth of OSS. He was introduced by a special video message from President Obama.
- John McCain was also involved, though when this came out during his 2008 presidential bid, Singlaub was happy to talk down his involvement. McCain visited Syrian "rebel leaders" in May last year. ISIS "spiritual leader" al-Baghdadi was present.
I've tried to keep this short but yeah I'd say there's a case to be made...?????
Edited by Flying_horse_in_saudi_arabia ()
but no, those nerds were uncool, and particularly emotionally troublesome for the NYC media class. no one ever addressed them as holders of an ideology, but only as intrinsically awful antitheses for one to define oneself against
Petrol posted:outside bohemian grove.
also, while the old warmed over anti-masonism is pretty irrelevant, doesn't mean its not true. pretty much every male member of the elite was in a fraternity in college, which means its a fact that they put on a dorky masonic play, with the robes and the candles and everything, on the reg. generally took it very seriously. large numbers of them continue to do so as actual masons. it's nerdy and bizarre as fuck, but not as nerdy and bizarre as the people who point it out, funny how that works
thirdplace posted:Petrol posted:outside bohemian grove.
also, while the old warmed over anti-masonism is pretty irrelevant, doesn't mean its not true. pretty much every male member of the elite was in a fraternity in college...
Yeah look, that's absolutely true, it's precisely the old warmed over anti-masonism explanation that's the problem. Jones' illuminati NWO hysteria is presented as a big reveal. Something's been bugging you, the world doesn't quite add up ever since you watched The Matrix and you can't put your finger on it? Alex Jones has The Truth!!
Maybe I should check out some of those DVDs he sells. Well, this looks good - Agenda: America Grinding Down. Sounds like a warmed-over rehash of None Dare Call It Conspiracy. Funny that, because it's actually a John Birch Society production.
http://watch.pair.com/jbs-cnp.html posted:The first American League Chapter of the WACL was the American Council for World Freedom (ACWF), founded in 1970 by Lee Edwards, former director of Young Americans for Freedom, the youth organization of the John Birch Society. Edwards attracted many members of the New Right, such as Reed Irvine and Richard Viguerie, also Unification Church president, Neil Salonen...
Larry McDonald, John Rees, and Sherman Unkefer were members of the John Birch Society... Sherman Unkefer served as an adviser to Chile's regime under Augusto Pinochet. Unkefer reportedly worked closely with Chile's secret police organization, DINA...
Funding for the U.S. branch of the World Anti-Communist League has come from beer baron Joseph Coors and Texas oil billionaires Nelson Bunker Hunt and William Herbert Hunt... Funding for the Western Goals Foundation was provided by corporations and wealthy John Birch Society members, a primary benefactor being Nelson Bunker Hunt. Another major funder of Western Goals was industrialist, Roger Milliken, a member of JBS and of the Board of Directors of W.R. Grace Co. Deering-Milliken and Deering-Milliken Research Corporations also funded Western Goals...
A diagram found in Oliver North's safe showed Linda Guell's name written above the words "Western Goals." The note on the diagram said that Guell worked with CAUSA (a political arm of the Unification Church) and its head, Bo Hi Pak, and made trips to Germany and South Korea. The word "money" was written over Guell's name, with an arrow pointing to Rob Owen, North's courier to the contras. Arrows were also drawn from Owen's name to Guell's and from Andy Messing -- a private contra supporter and head of the National Defense Council Foundation -- to Western Goals. The diagram was drawn at the bottom of a letter from Fawn Hall to "Phil and Randy," dated April 18, 1985. Guell is now working with John Singlaub at the Singlaub Freedom Foundation...
The point here is not to trump an old Unified Conspiracy Theory with another, but to understand that just as there is good reason not to disregard simple explanations for inconsistencies and absurdities in official narratives, there are also explanations that are too simple, and it's not always too hard to find interested parties pushing them.
You mention how "the big tent of the rightist anti-Obama contingent" seems to have absorbed the truthers and their ilk. That's how. It's also exactly how Benghazi has become a hipper-than-thou lefty twitter punchline. Whoever came up with the notion that the scandal should be that Hillary Clinton let a "terrorist attack" happen on innocent Americans, and not that the base of a CIA gun-running-and-god-knows-what-else operation got owned, is a fucking genius
take the FEMA camps thing. it is a historical fact that under Reagan the director of FEMA previously wrote a US Army War College paper advocating the roundup and detention of 21 million "American Negroes" and that plans were subsequently drawn up by the agency for implementing martial law and detaining leftist dissidents in the event of civil unrest relating to Central America.
now it's just a joke among the left thanks to its embrace by disinfo agents like Jones and flirtation with by more mainstream conservatives like Glenn Beck.
Rex 84 was written by Lieutenant Colonel Oliver North,
haha wow
Speaking of FEMA, someone mentioned Katrina earlier right The main "conspiracy theory" I'd heard was that the levees were blown up in order to flood the black areas and grab the land. But I had an interesting conversation recently about the idea that the levees were simply designed, if not to fail outright, but at least with insufficient care. Plausibly deniable incompetence, if you will. I also gather many black houses ended up being condemned even though they were structurally quite sound. These were the houses originally built for whites, turned into public housing following the white exodus to the suburbs. Anyway, whatever the details, the priorities of the state were on show during Katrina, and the results are plain to see.
it refers to "the elite" as being more informed than us. and certainly, they do have the same access to chomsky, marx, fanon, said - probably more, actually, as they go to better universities and have more opportunities for leisure time than the average man. but just because they have access to them doesn't mean they read them, and even if they read them that doesn't mean they read them with anything other than the most sneering prejudice. most people in mainstream opinion regard books of radical leftism the kind of way you'd regard something like a betamax repair manual or the grimoire of an evil wizard: knowledge that is either useless and boring or likely to corrupt the weak-minded. it's not that difficult a phenonmenon to comprehend; why do you not spend your time reading the Turner Diaries or the latest book by Bill O'Reilly?
but to quote the Bard, "who ARE these people??" you watched them grow up. they are evilweasel, komissar staev, vilerat. little white turds who struggle with even the capacity to view the world in anything other than a warped, nationalist utilitarian calculus and never challenge the prevailing assumptions of power. they go to good schools, get DC jobs, become apparatchicks, maybe if they play the game well enough they climb the ladder.
in fact, they're mild examples of the model, because despite their best efforts they were presented with divergent opinions and real criticism. most of them aren't. the end of the article mentions Glenn Greenwald:
every one of these things, unless printed by the most sober white man in the most sober pub (say, Greenwald) sets off the shrieks of conspiracy theory! conspiracy theory!
it's actually because greenwald presents evidence to support his claims. it's one thing to say that the NSA spies on everybody, it's another to prove it. glenn greenwald is a white man, but he's hardly the most "sober," nor has he written for the most sober publications. i mention him specifically because if you follow his twitter page you'll see the truth of my argument. far from the "most sober," glenn greenwald is a snarky dick to his critics. his critics are largely the Big Serious Opinion People. they are not masterminds playing the double-agent long con. they are staev with a suit and a beard. they are morons barfing out the most inane cliches that would get you laughed out of the politics section of a videogame webcomics messageboard. it's tempting to think that this is because they are spouting low truths for the low. it's not. it's because that's all they got.
NoamTrotsky posted:most people in mainstream opinion regard books of radical leftism the kind of way you'd regard something like a betamax repair manual
lollin'
NoamTrotsky posted:the notion that they're all conspiring toward some deliberate, sinister end is an easy one to make, and one i might have believed in too if i had not seen these creatures form and develop in the little plexiglass crysalys of the internet.
it refers to "the elite" as being more informed than us. and certainly, they do have the same access to chomsky, marx, fanon, said - probably more, actually, as they go to better universities and have more opportunities for leisure time than the average man. but just because they have access to them doesn't mean they read them, and even if they read them that doesn't mean they read them with anything other than the most sneering prejudice. most people in mainstream opinion regard books of radical leftism the kind of way you'd regard something like a betamax repair manual or the grimoire of an evil wizard: knowledge that is either useless and boring or likely to corrupt the weak-minded. it's not that difficult a phenonmenon to comprehend; why do you not spend your time reading the Turner Diaries or the latest book by Bill O'Reilly?
"I’m suggesting that we take the successful Alinsky rules, we update them and apply them to new social networking technology, and we execute them in the Judeo-Christian tradition."
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littlegreenpills posted:whats wrong with the notion that the cia was funnelling a ton of money and arms via proxies to the Syrian opposition and ended up funding ISIS by accident. the question of whether it was an intentional conspiracy seems a bit pointless
this. intentionality is very tricky to determine and a lot of they're-so-powerful-and smart and therefore always get what they want is both defeatist and unrealistic. many proposed conspiracies that are true are plausible to execute and well-documented (great streetcar conspiracy for ex.) but many rely on unrealistically complex forward-planning about events that are too unpredictable for the people involved to be sure they would happen.
also thinking the us military is always competent and gets what they want is as bad as thinking they are always bumbling fools.
NoFreeWill posted:this. intentionality is very tricky to determine and a lot of they're-so-powerful-and smart and therefore always get what they want is both defeatist and unrealistic. many proposed conspiracies that are true are plausible to execute and well-documented (great streetcar conspiracy for ex.) but many rely on unrealistically complex forward-planning about events that are too unpredictable for the people involved to be sure they would happen.
Big Data is literally Asmovian Psychohistory
http://www.kropfpolisci.com/foreign.policy.parenti.pdf
c_man posted:
Who will be the next Saddam? Ghaddafi? Hafez Assad?
There is no Grand Conspiracy because pundits/propagandists are actually pretty thick and they really believe what they're saying
I'm not for a moment suggesting that a Thomas Friedman or, indeed, an Alex Jones is a genius, and I'm definitely not suggesting that they meet with heads of state & business in shadowy back rooms and coordinate how best to fool the unwashed masses.
The point is precisely what you suggest - there are people who find success and a platform simply because of the stories they choose to tell. They fit a certain mold and they find opportunities for advancement through appropriate channels, be that the New York Times or Salon or talkback radio. All these form parts of a capitalist system that rejects anything which threatens its own existence. I am not sure if there is anything truly controversial about this idea.
Beyond that, the boundaries of acceptable discourse have further been sculpted in clandestine ways, deliberately, and verifiably. The extreme right has been influenced by the likes of the Birchers. The bourgeois left has been influenced by the CIA's Congress for Cultural Freedom. These are just two examples of means by which power has secretly sponsored ideas in some way favorable to their own interests.
Incidentally, this is precisely why one must be wary of someone like Glenn Greenwald. NSFW/Pando have their own issues, but they're absolutely right that Greenwald's acceptance of both Cato and Omidyar sponsorship is cause for his admirers to approach his work with a little more scepticism.
If ISIS is a result of US actions, it's just as likely to be an accident.
I think there would be something wrong with anyone westerner who, considering the points I've laid out in earlier posts, did not have this initial reaction. However, I argue that intention DOES matter, and there is very good reason to believe ISIS is part of a deliberate strategy. Naturally, it's difficult to provide much hard evidence of a clandestine operation while it's in progress. It's vital, then, to confront the documented history of similar actions.
In my earlier posts I have already touched on a history of western programs to employ Islamist militias composed mostly of foreigners in covert imperialist wars going back to the late 1970s, and that these efforts involved training in extremely brutal methods. I've also touched on the history of similar work with extreme right-wing anti-communist militias in Asia. I'm sure we're all aware, too, of identical programs in South America.
One thing I haven't raised so far in this thread is the history of similar programs in Western Europe. I'm sure some of you are familiar with the NATO "stay behind" forces. They tended to take slightly different forms in each of the NATO countries, but all were extremely right wing and all have been involved in horrific terrorist attacks. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gladio_in_Italy The Italian network, "Gladio", is the classic example, and it's particularly instructive here, because not only did they carry out a deliberate program of assassinations and terrorism, they verifiably did so under cover of communist groups which they'd infiltrated for that precise purpose. As a starting point for study, I strongly recommend Daniele Ganser's book on this topic, and also this book about Gladio operative Stefano Delle Chiaie. There's also a couple of documentaries on YouTube that are worth checking out.
Given this background, and the usefulness of ISIS in pursuit of major military intervention which would otherwise be unacceptable, I ask not even whether it's likely that ISIS is a deliberate creation of the west, but rather if there is good reason to believe otherwise.
Does intention even matter?
I appreciate the point - that the outcome is the same either way. But if we are concerned at all with understanding how western power works, can we really avoid discussing these matters? Is it productive to wave all this away, or simply less uncomfortable?