Re: Seymour M. Hersh · Military to Military: US intelligence sharing in the Syrian war · LRB 7 January 2016
Kai Frederik Lorentzen
lorentzen at hotmail.de
Tue Dec 22 06:03:19 CST 2015
*> How do you explain the fascination that a completely barbaric and
savage organization like the Islamic State holds for many young Muslim
people living in Europe?*
There has been a good deal of careful study of the phenomenon, by Scott
Atran among others. The appeal seems to be primarily among young people
who live under conditions of repression and humiliation, with little
hope and little opportunity, and who seek some goal in life that offers
dignity and self-realization; in this case, establishing a utopian
Islamic state rising in opposition to centuries of subjugation and
destruction by Western imperial power. In addition, there appears to be
a good deal of peer pressure - members of the same soccer club, and so
on. The sharply sectarian nature of the regional conflicts no doubt is
also a factor - not just "defending Islam" but defending it from Shiite
apostates. It's a very ugly and dangerous scene. <
This is not wrong but incomplete. For many young Muslim people living in
Europe, among them also converts, fundamentalism is a powerful pop
culture. Jihad is the new cool! And that's a big problem.
On 22.12.2015 12:23, ish mailian wrote:
>
>
> The Empire of Chaos: An Interview With Noam Chomsky
>
> http://www.truth-out.org/news/item/33519-the-empire-of-chaos-an-interview-with-noam-chomsky
>
> On Tue, Dec 22, 2015 at 6:18 AM, ish mailian <ishmailian at gmail.com
> <mailto:ishmailian at gmail.com>> wrote:
>
> Complicated that America is, so many competing interests, so many
> people with power, with a card to play. In The Consequentialist
> essay we can see how competing ideas clash in the white house, how
> differences may be set up along factional lines that run deep into
> who and what people are, that, for example, members of the
> decision making staff even take gendered political stances that,
> while seemingly stereotypical, and therefore, easily dismissed as
> such, are factional factors that we need to understand if we are
> to understand how the politics operates.
>
> In the Cole book, Charles Wilson, merely a congressmen, is shown
> to have a big impact. The film has brought this to the public. But
> read Cole and you learn of hundreds of players, minor players by
> most measures, but significant policy drivers, movers and shakers.
> And we never hear of them because they are never made the subject
> of a Hollywood film and because they were never elected to any
> office.
>
> There are people in the US government that supported the Arab
> Spring. Some are significant voices in the Obama Administrations.
> Some have left the Administration and are still working on that
> project, others are still there. Some have been working with and
> for several US Presidents to promote democracy in the Middle East
> and elsewhere. Some are zealots. Some are realists. There are
> others that think them fools, idiots, or bit players.
>
> This is America. It's a messy system, not so easily described by
> terms like plutocracy or oligarchy or democracy or whatever.
>
> But Joseph has a goof point. And obvious one to anyone who has
> studied America's policies abroad and at home, and the two are
> linked in significant ways: the US is fearful of democracy, as
> Chomsky points out, at home and abroad.
>
> But this is not news. Democracy is frightening to those who have
> an interest in maintaining and increasing power, the
> multinationals, as Chomsky says, for example, but far more
> important elements are fear democracy, the establishment, the
> democractic party, the republicans....the list in long (want a
> list?).
>
> On Tue, Dec 22, 2015 at 4:03 AM, Mark Kohut <mark.kohut at gmail.com>
> wrote:
>
> well, the truth is ultimately credible no matter how much we
> disbelieve it.
>
> Sent from my iPad
>
> > On Dec 21, 2015, at 9:07 PM, Joseph Tracy <brook7 at sover.net
> <mailto:brook7 at sover.net>> wrote:
> >
> > It is not credible to me that Obama has supported the Arab
> spring. His support for the military in Egypt seems to bring
> that into question along with the silence about the crackdowns
> in Turkey, the general behavior of Saudi Arabia, Indonesia,
> India etc.. Please, Ishmalian, no long lectures about
> realpolitik and how naive I am to think that leaders can
> exhibit humane and democratic values.
> >
> > The
> >> On Dec 21, 2015, at 3:57 PM, Mark Kohut
> <mark.kohut at gmail.com <mailto:mark.kohut at gmail.com>> wrote:
> >>
> >> Obama himself seemed to place (too much) hope in the
> unfolding of the
> >> spirit of the Arab Spring in Syria....
> >>
> >> On Mon, Dec 21, 2015 at 11:49 AM, Peter M. Fitzpatrick
> >> <petopoet at gmail.com <mailto:petopoet at gmail.com>> wrote:
> >>> Excellent, if not alarming, reporting on the quagmire.
> There are times,
> >>> (Tito, Saddam Hussein, and yes, Assad) seem to be
> "acceptable" dictators
> >>> that hold back the forces of civil war and massive
> bloodshed that follows
> >>> their removal. Always a deal with the devil, I guess, just
> a question of
> >>> which is worse, removal or letting them be. I think most
> Americans had vague
> >>> notions of another manifestation of the "Arab Spring"
> taking place in Syria
> >>> a few years ago, unaware of the Isil and other terroristic
> forces waiting to
> >>> fill in the vacuum and re-instate oppression with Wahhabi
> and worse
> >>> Islamism. Everything I read here only solidifies my
> opposition to what
> >>> Republican candidates are touting as the solution to Isil.
> We have been
> >>> drawn into these third world conflicts before, i.e. Viet
> Nam, only to pay a
> >>> high cost for little result.
> >>>
> >>> -Pete
> >>>
> >>>> On Sun, Dec 20, 2015 at 8:17 PM, Mark Kohut
> <mark.kohut at gmail.com <mailto:mark.kohut at gmail.com>> wrote:
> >>>>
> >>>> He's back.
> >>>>
> >>>>
> http://www.lrb.co.uk/v38/n01/seymour-m-hersh/military-to-military
> >>>>
> >>>>
> >>>> Sent from my iPad
> >>>> -
> >>>> Pynchon-l / http://www.waste.org/mail/?list=pynchon-l
> >>>
> >>>
> >> -
> >> Pynchon-l / http://www.waste.org/mail/?list=pynchon-l
> >
> > -
> > Pynchon-l / http://www.waste.org/mail/?list=pynchon-l
> -
> Pynchon-l / http://www.waste.org/mail/?listpynchon-l
>
>
>
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