We’ve lived so long under the spell of hierarchy—from god-kings to feudal lords to party bosses—that only recently have we awakened to see not only that “regular” citizens have the capacity for self-governance, but that without their engagement our huge global crises cannot be addressed. The changes needed for human society simply to survive, let alone thrive, are so profound that the only way we will move toward them is if we ourselves, regular citizens, feel meaningful ownership of solutions through direct engagement. Our problems are too big, interrelated, and pervasive to yield to directives from on high.
—Frances Moore Lappé, excerpt from Time for Progressives to Grow Up

Wednesday, March 23, 2016

US is Offering False Hope to Syria's Kurds

Click here to access article by Ulson Gunnar from New Eastern Outlook.

I've been amazed at the support of the Syrian Kurds by both Russia and the United States with Turkey, a NATO ally of the latter, on the other side attacking the Kurds both in Syria and Iraq. The US has even gone to the extent of establishing an airbase in the Kurdish area of Syria which, of course, is illegal without the Syrian government's consent. I've wondered how the US rationalizes their support of Syrian Kurds to the Erdogan government in Turkey. And what about the Syrian Kurds who espouse a political ideology that is incompatible with the ideology of the Empire? Thus I've been waiting for independent experts on the Middle East to explain all these mysteries to me. Gunnar is the first I've discovered to attempt to do this, and he does shed a convincing light on some of these mysteries.

It is well known that the US's plan B, although usually regarded as a secondary solution to the destruction of ISIS and related terrorist armies, has been widely supported among US think tanks and government offices. Plan B also is very characteristic of a more general hegemonic orientation of the Empire whose British roots have long practiced this type of divide and rule strategy.
As the British did before them, the United States is an expert in Balkanizing regions, and nations within regions. What is touted as "revolution," "freedom" and "independence" often ends up becoming decades of instability, internal conflict and dependence on the US who had sold the idea of nation-making in the first place.

And while the US promises the Kurds a utopian future state, they have simultaneously promised overlapping spheres within the region to other allies, including Turkey, Saudi Arabia and even Israel. The diabolical brilliance of this arrangement allows the US to create future conflicts, divisions and weakness among all players in the region, between friends and foes alike, ensuring it alone maintains hegemony over a collection of infighting subordinates.
In my mind this begs questions about the political thinking of the Syrian Kurds whose political ideology holds so much promise. Are they naive about this strategy and will end up like so many other balkanized states dependent on the Empire or do they think that they can use the US for the purposes of protecting them from the terrorist armies (sponsored directly and indirectly by the Empire) and Turkey, and then kick them out when those purposes are accomplished? Doesn't such a strategy cause considerable discord with US allies in Saudi Arabia and Turkey? Such questions remain to be answered.

In any case what is coming into glaring focus is the astounding duplicitous nature of the Empire's role in the Syrian conflict and nearby areas. Of course duplicity has been in the nature of all imperial regimes throughout history, but Empire directors seem to have taken this to a whole new level. 

"Meanwhile back at the US ranch", the Empire's corporate media continue to manage all these discrepancies and contradictions with sufficient skill to keep my fellow Americans either totally misinformed or confused or both.