Monday, February 16, 2015

You Don't Have To Watch Fox News To Call Bullshit On This.

Norm Chomsky is a very intelligent, very left-wing professor / writer / political analyst / stacking-horse of the right.  He is very smart, but often makes inane comments which serve to verify the worst things Fox News says.
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This head-line "America paved the way for ISIS" is just such and inane comment.
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His argument is, basically, that once America and Britain invaded Bagdad, THEN we let loose the Sunni vs. Shi'a armageddon.
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Which is both true, and bullshit.  Bullshit because leaving Saddam Hussien in power was a slow moving ISIS (torture, public executions and violence against the regime) only Saddam had the good sense not to broadcast all of it.
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This is particularly bullshit given that much of the current ISIS landscape was created in Syria during the Spring Uprisings, which we were (thankfully) absent.  ISIS is a variant of the local Syria / Iraqi / Shi'a Al Queda.  Regardless of our breaking Iraq, Syria was set to explode during the Arab Spring along these particular fault lines.
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Had we sent arms to the rebels, ISIS would now have those weapons.  Had we support Syria's dictator - we would be accused of helping a murderer.  And a Russian backed murderer at that.
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The Middle East can neither be broken or fixed by America, except around the fringes.  We can still remove leaders of state, but we can't prop up ones we like.  ISIS would have come about with or without our support.
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ISIS is, at core, a local response to a local problem (Shi'a - Sunni hatred).  The sooner we learn that trying to fix this (or assign blame) is like peeing into a windstorm, the better for all involved