Sunday 21 September 2014

Richard Falk

ISIS, Militarism, and the Violent Imagination

Richard Falk can't tell the difference between those rebelling against oppression, and the gangs of cut-throats the US has traditionally employed to prevent revolutions.
"What Obama is proposing to do repeats the old formula of failure: air strikes; training, arming, and advising friendly forces (Iraqi Kurds, moderate Syrians, Iraqi military units), disrupting ISIS overseas recruiting and funding. Obama’s program is a pale version of post-Vietnam counter-insurgency doctrine where risks of American casualties must be minimized while air power, including drones, plus native ground forces with their own political agendas are relied upon to carry out the dirty work."
All three negative effects he cites are due to the failure to overthrow Assad, not because the attempt was made.
"Three negative political effects also followed: neighboring countries were destabilized, the unresolved Syrian struggle gave rise to various forms of Islamic extremism within Syria and in the region, and the atrocities of Assad gave license to others in the region (such as Sisi) to commit crimes against humanity with the prospect of impunity."

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