Nightmare Mid-East Theatre, Empire of Chaos edition

[Xyzzy]

http://www.reuters.com/article/2015/...0SF15120151021

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu provoked controversy on Wednesday, hours before a visit to Germany, by saying the former Muslim elder in Jerusalem convinced Adolf Hitler to exterminate the Jews.

[kladner]

Tom Engelhardt's introduction to Peter Van Buren's article:

Sometimes I imagine the last 14 years of American war policy in the Greater Middle East as a set of dismal Mad Libs. An example might be: The United States has spent [your choice of multiple billions of dollars] building up [fill in name of Greater Middle Eastern country]’s army and equipping it with [range of weaponry of your choosing]. That army was recently routed by the [rebel or terrorist group of your choice] and fled, abandoning [list U.S. weaponry and equipment]. Washington has just sent in more [choose from: trainers/weaponry/equipment/all of the above] and [continue the sentence ad infinitum]. Or here’s another: After [number, and make it large] years and a [choose one or more: war, air war, drone assassination campaign, intervention, counterinsurgency program, counterterror effort, occupation] in [Greater Middle Eastern country of your choice] that seems to be [choose from: failing, unraveling, going nowhere, achieving nothing], the [fill in office of top U.S. official of your choice] has just stated that a U.S. withdrawal would be [choose from: counterproductive, self-defeating, inconceivable, politically unpalatable, dangerous to the homeland, mad] because [leave this blank, since no one knows].


The president recently made just such an announcement about Afghanistan 14 years after the U.S. first invaded. Undoubtedly, his “legacy” would have been at stake if he had withdrawn U.S. forces from that country (as he promised to do in 2013) and the Afghan army and police into which the U.S. has sunk an estimated $65 billion had unraveled, as American officials clearly now fear might happen. This means that a baby born somewhere in the United States on September 12, 2001, who is already 14 years old, will turn 16 with America’s second Afghan War still ongoing and, given the trend in American wars in the Greater Middle East (always in, never out), might at 18 be able to join the U.S. military and continue the fight either there, in Iraq, or perhaps in Syria or elsewhere. It couldn’t be a grimmer tale, one in which, as TomDispatch regular Peter Van Buren suggests today, there is a single injunction when it comes to Washington policy: such wars can never end, even if we no longer have a clue as to why.
Van Buren has been writing a prescient series of pieces for TomDispatch under the rubric: What could possibly go wrong? The predictable answer, of course, is you name it and, increasingly, you -- that is, Washington -- should have expected it. Tom

What If They Gave a War and Everyone Came?
What Could Possibly Go Wrong (October 2015 Edition)
By Peter Van Buren

What if the U.S. had not invaded Iraq in 2003? How would things be different in the Middle East today? Was Iraq, in the words of presidential candidate Bernie Sanders, the "worst foreign policy blunder" in American history? Let's take a big-picture tour of the Middle East and try to answer those questions. But first, a request: after each paragraph that follows, could you make sure to add the question “What could possibly go wrong?”

(emphasis mine. kl)

[ewmayer]

Naked Capitalism featured the Van Buren article a couple of days ago - my one main objection is echoed by the reader (OIFvet, 'OIF' standing for Operation Iraqi Freedom) reader who write "the author treats the 1990’s as though they never happened. The fact is, much of what happened after 2003 had its origins in the 1990’s."

[kladner]

Originally Posted by ewmayer

Naked Capitalism featured the Van Buren article a couple of days ago - my one main objection is echoed by the reader (OIFvet, 'OIF' standing for Operation Iraqi Freedom) reader who write "the author treats the 1990’s as though they never happened. The fact is, much of what happened after 2003 had its origins in the 1990’s."

I just saw it on The Nation site, too, dated 10/22.

EDIT: Regarding the phrase emphasized above, it could well be argued that the origins are much older. The Carter-Reagan years come to mind, just for starters. The history of USUK/Euro exploits in the "Greater Middle East" is many centuries old. Certainly, today's events have to be rooted at least as far back as the colonial powers' partition of the region, support of despots, and subsequent overthrow of at least one democratically chosen government.

[kladner]

First off, is an article by Mike Whitney regarding the differing aims and tactics of the US/Coalition, versus those of Russia. I don't particularly care for the title, "Putin Makes Obama an Offer He Can’t Refuse." It is very risky business to bet on what Great Powers will do, especially in the Greater Middle East. I despise Putin, but he often seems to be a more canny player than the US team. That is the lot who really scare me.

I also did a search on Mike Whitney, whom I remember reading years ago. It turned up his Blogspot site. I include this particularly because I think Ernst will enjoy the links column (Calculated Risk) on the right of the page. There are some very familiar names there.

[ewmayer]

Thanks, Kieren - nice piece, though the site's layout makes its sidebar invisible to me in my default browsing mode. (Which is fine by me - whole point is to limit distractions and focus on content.)

And that might explain why the US decided to bomb Aleppo’s main power plant last week plunging the entire city into darkness; because Obama wants to “rubblize” everything on his way out. Keep in mind, that the local water treatment plants require electrical power, so by blowing up the plant, Obama has condemned tens of thousands of civilians to cholera and other water-born diseases. Apparently, our hospital-nuking president isn’t bothered by such trivial matters as killing women and children.

Fill in the blank: "Based on its actions, the chief 'terroristic threat to world peace' in the area is ________________ ." [Hint: the answer is the same for Libya, and Iraq, and Iran (starting in the 1950s), and Ukraine, &c.]

Re. SecDef Carter's quoted testimony, that's good for another installment of the viral drinking game sweeping college campuses across the US, "spot the mythical moderate Syrian rebels!" It took one reader who generously volunteered for a controlled experiment in our Social Trends, Mass Media and Government Laboratory only a few paragraphs to get sloshed:

"support moderate Syrian forces to go after Raqqa" - chug, chug;

"pursue a new way of equipping the Syrian Arab Coalition" - glug, glug (burrrrrrrrp);

"old approach was to train and equip completely new forces outside of Syria before sending them into the fight" - guzzle, guzzle;

"new approach is to work with vetted leaders of groups that are already fighting ISIL" - tipple, tipple (o man am I shnockered);

"provide equipment and some training to them" - bottoms up! (i can't feel my lips or face anymore)

"and support their operations with airpower" - it appears our volunteer Zecher^† has passed out face down on the table, for which we apologize.

------

(^†= toper, an english word I was unfamiliar with until I looked up the translation of the German term in question.)

[kladner]

Here's a snap of the sidebar from the Blogspot page.

[ewmayer]

Originally Posted by kladner

Here's a snap of the sidebar from the Blogspot page.

They like some sites so much they link to them twice! (including - ugh - ZeroHedge.)

[only_human]

Pentagon spends $43 million to build Afghanistan gas station: watchdog

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The U.S. Department of Defense spent nearly $43 million on a gas station in northern Afghanistan and has been unable to explain why it cost so much, a U.S. special inspector reported on Monday.

The Pentagon “charged the American taxpayers $43 million for what is likely to be the world’s most expensive gas station,” said John Sopko, head of the Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction, a congressionally mandated body. The amount was spent between 2011 and 2014 on construction and initial implementation of the station.

The gas station in Sheberghan, Afghanistan opened in 2012 and was created to show that compressed natural gas could be used in Afghanistan in cars effectively.

However, the task force behind the project closed operations in March and for that reason, according to the report, the Department of Defense said it did not possess “the personnel expertise to address these questions.”

[ewmayer]

U.S., Allies to Boost Aid to Syria Rebels - WSJ

Oh gawd, not with the 'moderate Syrian rebels' BS again ... and select 'certified moderate' JohnnyRebs may receive MANPADs! What could go wrong? [p.s. non-paywalled partial version of article available here.]

[ewmayer]

Some non-flag-wavingly-jingoistic reading this Armistice/Veteran's Day:

How Kissinger Made Bombing the Iron Fist of US 'Diplomacy' | naked capitalism

But hey, they gave him a Nobel Peace Prize for the loving kindness he showed in SE Asia. (The Kissinger-enabled fellow genocidalist Pol Pot was quite miffed a few years later at not being similarly recognized.)