On The Parliamentary Front Against The American Middle East Wars

NEW WARS / OLD WARS – What Could Possibly Go Wrong?

 

THE BIPARTISAN WAR CONSENSUS

Why do elected officials give credence to the myth that U.S. military power is somehow fettered, when our troop presence looms large, even to the point of appearing overextended? Why does there seem to be a consensus in Washington that assumes a broad, expensive and invasive U.S. military presence to be a panacea?  The answer lies in distinguishing the superficial differences in foreign policy debates from the actual policies favored by both parties. The reality is that U.S. foreign policy isn’t nearly as democratic as it should be and the elites forming it tend to pretty much agree on everything. This elite consensus then gets further constrained by the insatiable budget appetites of defense bureaucracy. These are the reasons intervention is so often presented by the defense and foreign policy establishment as entirely obvious and completely inevitable. It begins with a total disregard for public opinion when defense strategy is formulated. Exempting extreme situations, what the American people want just doesn’t matter all that much.  More

 

The Tragedy of the American Military

Ours is the best-equipped fighting force in history, and it is incomparably the most expensive. By all measures, today’s professionalized military is also better trained, motivated, and disciplined than during the draft-army years. No decent person who is exposed to today’s troops can be anything but respectful of them and grateful for what they do.  Yet repeatedly this force has been defeated by less modern, worse-equipped, barely funded foes. Or it has won skirmishes and battles only to lose or get bogged down in a larger war. Although no one can agree on an exact figure, our dozen years of war in Iraq, Afghanistan, and neighboring countries have cost at least $1.5 trillion; Linda J. Bilmes, of the Harvard Kennedy School, recently estimated that the total cost could be three to four times that much…   “We are vulnerable,” the author William Greider wrote during the debate last summer on how to fight ISIS, “because our presumption of unconquerable superiority leads us deeper and deeper into unwinnable military conflicts.” And the separation of the military from the public disrupts the process of learning from these defeats.    More

 

Political Islam and US Policy in 2015

Arab political Islam generally includes the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt and Jordan, Hamas in Palestine, Hezbollah in Lebanon, al-Nahda in Tunisia, and al-Wefaq in Bahrain. The term “political Islam” does not include radical and terrorist groups such as the Islamic State (ISIS, ISIL or IS), al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, North Africa, Iraq, and Syria, or armed opposition groups in Iraq, Syria, Yemen, and Libya. Nor does it apply to terrorist groups in Africa such as Boko Haram, al-Shabab, and others.Unfortunately, in the past three years, many policy makers in the West, and curiously in several Arab countries, have equated mainstream political Islam with radical and terrorist groups. This erroneous and self-serving linkage has provided Washington with a fig leaf to justify its cozy relations with Arab autocrats and tolerance of their bloody repression of their citizens… Much as one might disagree with Islamic political ideology, it’s the height of folly to think that long-term domestic stability and economic security in Egypt, Bahrain, Palestine, or Lebanon could be achieved without including the Muslim Brotherhood, al-Wefaq, Hamas, and Hezbollah in governance. Coddling autocrats is a short-term strategy that will not succeed in the long run. The longer the cozy relationship lasts, the more Muslims will revert to the earlier belief that America’s war on terrorism is a war on Islam.  More

 

Doubling Down on Dictatorship in the Middle East

When the Egyptian military — led by now-president Abdel-Fattah al-Sisi — deposed the democratically elected president Mohamed Morsi in July 2013, the Obama administration wavered about whether it would suspend military aid to Egypt, which U.S. law requires in the case of a coup. Yet despite some partial and temporary suspensions, the U.S. government continued to send military hardware. Now that Sisi heads a nominally civilian government — installed in a sham election by a small minority of voters — all restrictions on U.S. aid have been lifted, including for military helicopters that are used to intimidate and attack protesters. As Secretary of State John Kerry promised a month after Sisi's election, "The Apaches will come, and they will come very, very soon." In the tiny kingdom of Bahrain, meanwhile, the demonstrations for constitutional reform that began in February 2011 continue, despite the government's attempts to silence the opposition with everything at its disposal — from bird shot to life imprisonment. Throughout it all, Washington has treated Bahrain like a respectable ally.  More

 

AMERICA’S TOXIC MIDDLE EAST ALLIES

The 9/11 Commission Report acknowledged that charities based in Saudi Arabia provided funds to Al-Qaeda but “found no evidence that the Saudi government” was directly involved. However, the Bush administration excised 28 pages of findings on the subject of possible Saudi involvement in the 9/11 attacks, citing national security concerns. Current and former members of Congress say those 28 pages contain direct evidence of complicity on the part of certain Saudi officials and entities… Attempts to pressure the Arab Gulf states to cut off the flow of support to terrorist groups have proven largely ineffective… The Gulf states receive tangible benefits from their alliance with the U.S. in the form of advanced military equipment, extensive training programs, protection of their vital natural resources, and the tacit guarantee that Washington will come to their defense if they are threatened or attacked… Washington’s client states in the Persian Gulf engage in behavior that contradicts U.S. interests. Outdated and misguided ideas about the importance of our Persian Gulf allies, driven by an imprudent and expansive grand strategy, continue to incentivize policymakers to overlook the substantial costs associated with them.  More

 

Also see this two-part article:

You Can't Understand ISIS If You Don't Know the History of Wahhabism in Saudi Arabia

With the advent of the oil bonanza -- as the French scholar, Giles Kepel writes, Saudi goals were to "reach out and spread Wahhabism across the Muslim world ... to "Wahhabise" Islam, thereby reducing the "multitude of voices within the religion" to a "single creed" -- a movement which would transcend national divisions. Billions of dollars were -- and continue to be -- invested in this manifestation of soft power.  It was this heady mix of billion dollar soft power projection -- and the Saudi willingness to manage Sunni Islam both to further America's interests, as it concomitantly embedded Wahhabism educationally, socially and culturally throughout the lands of Islam -- that brought into being a western policy dependency on Saudi Arabia  More

 

Are There Nazis in Ukraine? A Visit to Lviv

When Russian President Vladimir Putin spoke about fascists in Ukraine, many greeted his words with scorn… In fact, Right Sector gangs were integrated into the National Guard and sent to fight in East Ukraine while the Ukrainian Azov Battalion, accused of committing war crimes in the East, has attracted many Nazis. It has become undeniable that neo-Nazi units are operating in Ukraine with full governmental support… The fact that neo-Nazis now form part of army units sent to fight in East Ukraine and that Ukraine has been experiencing a wave of extreme nationalism as marches have recently been held in Kiev marking the 106th birthday of Bandera, means that it may be difficult to place the demons unleashed by the US back into the bottle… As the US continues to support Ukrainian fascists and delivers tanks to the wider region, the demons of the past have returned. The same fascist slogans of "Death to the Enemies" are being voiced in Kiev, with Ukrainian soldiers calling for "purification of the nation."  More