Re: Seymour M. Hersh · Military to Military: US intelligence sharing in the Syrian war · LRB 7 January 2016

Tue Dec 22 07:36:17 CST 2015

The Int'l Spectator ‏@intlspectator  5m5 minutes ago

Military spending growth, 2000-2013 US: 56% China: 362% Russia: 170%
Saudi: 133% France: 1% UK: 17% Germany: -3%

On Tue, Dec 22, 2015 at 7:59 AM, Perry Noid <coolwithdoc at gmail.com> wrote:
> Heard this the other day that talks about just that
> http://www.npr.org/2015/12/15/459697926/the-psychology-of-radicalization-how-terrorist-groups-attract-young-followers
>
> On Tuesday, December 22, 2015, Kai Frederik Lorentzen <lorentzen at hotmail.de>
> wrote:
>>
>>
>> > 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> 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> 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> 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> 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>
>>>> >>>> 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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