https://youtu.be/dmKpm_9BtHc
Australian newsreader Waleed Aly deconstructs ISIS on Channel Ten – The Project.
Hat tip to David Llewellyn-Smith at Macrobusiness.com.au.
“We should be ashamed”…Isis could have been ‘nipped in the bud’ four years ago
The rise of extremist terror group Islamic State (Isis) could have been avoided if the UK began attacks on Syrian President Bashar al-Assad in 2013, according to two former defence chiefs.
“It’s a great shame, something that we should be ashamed of, that we could have nipped this problem in the bud four years ago, but failed to do so,” said Lord David Richards, a former general and the UK’s chief of defence staff from 2011 to 2013 under Prime Minister David Cameron.
“….if anything encouraged Isis at that point, it was that decision,” said Lord George Robertson, Nato secretary general from 1999 to 2004, and UK defence secretary from 1997 to 1999. “It was that fact of a failure of will on the part of the Western powers,” he added, that also encouraged Russian President Vladimir Putin to invade Crimea in 2013.
….”We are our own worst enemy. We simply ignore problems,” said Robertson, who urged the UK’s politicians to do more to convince the public why the government needs to take military action. “Unless people are convinced there are things worth fighting for, then we’ll be in trouble….”
Reminds me of:
“All that is necessary for evil to triumph is for good men to do nothing.” ~ from the film adaptation of Tolstoy’s War and Peace.
Often misattributed to Edmund Burke who wrote: “When bad men combine, the good must associate; else they will fall one by one, an unpitied sacrifice in a contemptible struggle.”
Read more at Isis could have been 'nipped in the bud' with attack on Assad in 2013 say ex UK defence chiefs.
Iran Didn’t Create ISIS. We Did | The Diplomat
From Ben Reynolds:
….No one is innocent in the Iraqi and Syrian civil wars, but Iran is not primarily responsible for the current state of affairs. The U.S. and its allies destabilized Iraq and Syria in turn, creating safe havens for extremists that previously did not exist. U.S. allies provided the material support that allowed ISIS and groups like it to become threats to the entire region, despite lacking any substantial popular base in Syria and Iraq. It is not unreasonable for Iran and Hezbollah to fight against these groups, which murder and enslave Shia and other religious minorities. Their actions conceivably fall under one of the West’s favorite principles of international law: the duty to protect.
Read more at Iran Didn’t Create ISIS; We Did | The Diplomat.
Desperately seeking moderate Syrian rebels | Threat Matrix
By Lisa Lundquist:
Following the news that the Obama administration, in a sudden about-face, is asking Congress for $500 million to train and equip “vetted” members of the “moderate” Syrian opposition, The Associated Press yesterday published a list, headlined “Syrian rebels likely to receive US aid.” The list raises more questions than it answers — two of the listed groups have been designated by the US as terrorist organizations….
Read more at Desperately seeking moderate Syrian rebels – Threat Matrix.
Why US hard power failed in Iraq and elsewhere | Bill Moyers
Outstanding. Military historian Andrew Bacevich sums up the stupidity of US foreign policy and how repeated failures could be rectified. He exposes the “duplicity of ideologues” on calls for intervention in Iraq and discusses the moral responsibility to the people of Iraq. What can be done to alleviate the suffering of the people in Iraq? “There is remarkably little discussion as to cost if you want to bomb someone, but we suddenly become acutely cost-conscious if there is a proposal to assist them.”
Dick Cheney [at 06:00] in 1993, answering a question on the first Gulf war, predicted what would happen if Iraq was invaded: “…Once you take down Saddam Hussein’s government in Iraq, then what are you going to put in its place? If you take down the central government in Iraq, you could easily see pieces of Iraq fly off…..it’s a quagmire.”
Projection of hard power by the US has not solved global problems over the last 50 years. In fact it has exacerbated problems in the Middle East. Soft power is far more effective. But it needs a change of mind-set on the part of the US. Don’t get me wrong. You still need Teddy Roosevelt’s “big stick” as a deterrent, but soft power — engineers, doctors and school teachers — are far more effective at winning people over to your world-view than B52s and unmanned drones.