Although implemented as a means of countering terrorism, Valentine shows how the Phoenix Program was in practice a CIA-controlled campaign of terror in Vietnam. Hidden behind terms like pacification and neutralization, Phoenix implemented a program of terror and psychological warfare against the civilian population. Under the guise of counterterrorism, tens of thousands of civilians were kidnapped, tortured, and murdered.
The mainstream media cover bits and pieces of the destruction as pumped-up entertainment, with the Iraqis and everyone else trapped in the planet’s various International Hot Spots remaining abstractions and curiosities. This is journalistic malfeasance of the highest order. And it couldn’t be more at odds with the natural intelligence of the universe.
Food shortages and the fossil fuel climate crisis with its droughts, floods and other destructions are among the ways people experience the downside of capitalism in daily life. Both are the result of the rich having too much control of the wealth produced by society and the large majority having too little. The rich are so deeply invested—directly and indirectly—in fossil fuels that they will cling to its use to the bitter end. Economic systems controlled by and for the few at the top cannot and will not make the changes needed to meet the needs of all, or even provide a soft landing for the many caught in the various crises.
So yes, the rich have much to worry about when they steal the food, heat, jobs, shelter, income and other survival basics—not to mention human dignity.
War profits have soared with the series of military interventions in the Middle East, Africa and South Asia. The arms industry lobbyists pressure Congressional and Pentagon decision-makers to link up with the pro-Israel lobby as it promotes even deeper direct US military involvement in Syria, Iraq and Iran. The growing ties between Israeli and US military industries reinforce their political leverage in Washington by working with liberal interventionists and neo-conservatives. They attack Obama for not bombing Syria and for his withdrawal of troops from Iraq and Afghanistan. They now clamor for sending US troops back to Iraq and call for intervention in Ukraine.
Although the majority of Iraqis reject balkanization, Sunnis will keep accusing Shi’ites of being Iranian pawns, and Shi’ites will keep accusing Sunnis of being the House of Saud’s fifth column. ISIS will keep getting loads of cash from wealthy Saudi “donors”. The US government will keep weaponizing Sunnis in Syria against Shi’ites and (perhaps) conducting soft “targeted military strikes” for Shi’ites against Sunnis in Iraq. Welcome to Divide and Rule run amok.
“I think we have to understand first how we got here. We have been arming ISIS (the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria) in Syria. ISIS, an al Qaeda offshoot, has been collaborating with the Syrian rebels whom the Obama administration has been arming in their efforts to overthrow Syrian President Bashar al-Assad.”
What is surprising is the position of the European countries, which are tailing the U.S. and doing nothing to prevent a further escalation of the crisis. They should understand better than anybody, that Nazis can only be stopped with force. The sooner this is done, the fewer victims and less destruction there will be in Europe.
While the Western media portray the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant as a group of jihadists reciting the Qur’an, the ISIL has started the oil war in Iraq. With the help of Israel, it has cut off Syria’s supply and guaranteed the theft of oil from Kirkuk by the local government of Kurdistan. The sale will be assured by Aramco who will camouflage this diversion as increased “Saudi” production.
The hundreds of thousands of Iraqis killed or wounded during the politically motivated “surge” and in the carnage both before and afterwards can remain, for folks like the neocons at the Post, “something of an abstraction.” And the media can avoid mention of the 1,000 U.S. troops killed in 2007 protecting what often amounted to sectarian Shia militias ethnically cleansing Baghdad of much of its Sunni population — as well as defending the Bush/Cheney legacy.
The black-clad fighters of the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant, sweeping a collapsing army and terrified Iraqis before them as they advance toward Baghdad, reflect back to us the ghoulish face of American empire. They are the specters of the hundreds of thousands of people we murdered in our deluded quest to remake the Middle East. They are ghosts from the innumerable roadsides and villages where U.S. soldiers and Marines, jolted by explosions of improvised explosive devices, responded with indiscriminate fire. They are the risen remains of the dismembered Iraqis left behind by blasts of Hellfire and cruise missiles, howitzers, grenade launchers and drone strikes. They are the avengers of the gruesome torture and the sexual debasement that often came with being detained by American troops. They are the final answer to the collective humiliation of an occupied country, the logical outcome of Shock and Awe, the Frankenstein monster stitched together from the body parts we left scattered on the ground. They are what we get for the $4 trillion we wasted on the Iraq War.
If the 0.1% who own and control most of our economy want to keep their power they will act as capitalists have always acted. They will grab as much profit for themselves as they can and pass the environmental costs onto the rest of us while doing so. They will try to reduce wages to increase their profits. They will manipulate democracy to get their way. They will attempt to overthrow democracy if it threatens their existence. They have no choice. Greed, self-interest and a relentless drive to increase profits are the foundations upon which the capitalist economic system is built.
The American people want no new war, and Congress does not want to be forced to vote on such a war.
Our foreign policy elites are split half a dozen ways — on whether to bomb or not to bomb, on who our real enemies are in Syria and Iraq, on whose support we should and should not accept, on what our strategic goals are, and what are the prospects for success.
