THE DUST OF THE ARM-CHAIR GENERAL CHAIR RISES III

The report by The New York Times

G.I.'s and Syrians in Tense Clashes on Iraqi Border

October 15, 2005


of action between U.S. and Syrian forces on the border and what this means, is farcical. The border has been permeable for 2 1/2 years! I have been writing about the need to deal with Syria to stabilise Iraq since this weblog was first started.

The mention, here, of the fear of who would replace Assad if he was deposed is a clue to this. If a coterie of Ba'ath generals took over it would surely be easiler for America to deal with Syria because there would in essence be an overt war footing. Apart from the fact that Syria has serviceable WMD, the only strategy Syria has had is the region is the historical one of Greater Syria. This in effect means Syria's belief that Lebanon is part of Syria. All that is left is the sort of covert trouble-making against Israel that all Arab states engage in, which demonstrates their political weakness.

Iran has been behind much of the conflict in the region for decades. So the argument that Iran is too strong to tackle is nonsense. If Iran had been strong it would not have needed to resort to decades of systemmatic disruption in places such as Lebanon and Israel/Palestine.

....curbing the number of foreign Arab fighters moving through Syria, ...[America].... has not yet restricted former senior members of Saddam Hussein's government from using Syria as a haven from which to provide money and coordination to the Sunni-based insurgency in Iraq.

Is that a form of lunacy or a form of lunacy? Would not the immediate demand for Syria to kick out the remnants of the Iraqi leadership - and to freeze its bank accounts - have been the most effective way to prevent the insurgency? And yet several years have passed with Iraq descending itnto chaos.

  ¶ Saturday, October 15, 2005 0 Comments

 

We need to be told

Newstatesman, John Pilger, Monday 17th October 2005

The Indonesian Massacres and the CIA by Ralph McGeheeCovert Action Quarterly, Fall 1990


JFK, Indonesia, CIA & Freeport Sulphur
by Lisa Pease

The homepage of this source is:

Real History Archives


http://www.snopes.com/quotes/goering.htm

Hermann Goering proclaimed that although "the people don't want war," they "can always be brought to the bidding of their leaders."

Google search on "CIA Indonesian Suharto"

96,500 results





  ¶ Saturday, October 15, 2005 0 Comments

 


The Assyrians surviving genocide arfter World War I

Prof. Anahit Khosroyeva, Armenia

Specialist in the Assyrian genocide studies and has published a book on this topic. The following is the complete text of Prof. Khosroyeva's speech at the Assyrian National Convention, held in September 2005 in Boston.

This is not as well known as the Armenian Massacre.




  ¶ Saturday, October 15, 2005 0 Comments

 

Moral Luck & the Iraq War - Iraq books reviewed

Lets face it not many of us are going to go out to buy this set of books no matter how interesting. But this review is a help to understanding certain aspects of the war and peace.

it coccured to me only a few hours ago that the invasion and occupation of Iraq did not bring the expected peace, but there do exist forms of freedom such as the freedom from having your privates electrocuted, knecked stretched and your whole family wiped out if you say something derogatory about the Maximum Leader as was. Though no amount of claiming this can actually make for real freedom, which is being undermined by the insurgency and outside trouble makers. To say, as someone did, the Iraqis do not respect the American great power because it has not put the electricity back in Baghdad - that is it has proved impotent - is pointless since it soon became obvious the Americans were not geared up for getting utilities up and running again, and are stil not. If the electricity was working full times and the toilets flushed would the Americans be respected?

It is not much consolation to know one can say pretty much what one likes now in Iraq, when the downside is you seem to be able to do pretty much what you like too, which leads to all the abuses of human rights amongst a people who were educated and modern in outlook despite living in a gangster state. The experts of various stripes did warn of the ways release from the grip of a nasty dictatorship would manifest themselves: though shooting barbers and university professors and forcing women students to cover up to get into their university lectures was not part of the analysis we can be sure.

The Iraqis will overcome the desire of certain Shi'tes to turn the clock back. It will just take time. This is all a bit like a rather heated section of Andrzej Wajda's film "Danton" with some wanting to go too far in their revolutionary fervour. There are bound, eventually, to be a few Iraqi leaders in the next few years feeling not unlike like the Robespierre depicted in the film, sweating with fear under his sheets, having comitted himself to killing off the first wave of revolutionaries as with the orginal Bolesheviks of the Russian revolution.



  ¶ Tuesday, October 11, 2005 0 Comments

 

Muslims, Islam, and Iraq
Prof. Alan Godlas, University of Georgia

This seems like a very useful resource which comes from:

Islam -- Islamic Studies

also produced by Dr. Godlas

Iraq and the Failures of Democracy

February 24, 2003

By Richard Falk and David Krieger,

is one to put in the background material for when this all over and we are looking at the think from hindsight.



  ¶ Monday, October 10, 2005 0 Comments

 

SPOTLIGHT ON IRAN


Should the focus be on Iran and not Iraq?

When the policy of the British government or the manadarins in the Foreign Office is to pursuade the world and, more importantly British citizens, that one thing is true when the opposite is the case, the quickly dumped ethical foreign policy is sorely needed.

It seems Iran and its role in the world is of greater significance than Iraq.

Now we know the truth about Iran, we must act

By Con Coughlin The Sunday Telegraph, 9 October 2005


Only threat of force will tame Tehran
by Michael Rubin, The Observer, October 9, 2005

This might persuagde some people, but when you know that Iraan is a country of 60 million, whichwas prepared to send its very young to the battlefioed in the war with Iraq, you know that this is not the solution.

But the answer in bringing international pressure to bear - through politcal isolation and economic measures - is equally unlikelybecause of the crooked games many who should know better, like the French, play in order to ensure contracts and the weakness of the United Nations which as to be completely reformed root and branch in order to make it serve the purpose it was set up for.

The result will be fine words and no action. Yet, if Iran was brought to heal, and its long-term sponsorship of international terrorism - a sort of Islamic version of the Third Internationale - curtailed, the world would be a better, more peaceful place.



  ¶ Sunday, October 09, 2005 0 Comments