What exactly do you have a problem with in these articles? Since you very wisely will not answer that question, I can never rebut your attempts at witticisms.
You seem content to ape the warmongering, racebaiting, and fear marketing government and media. You also believe an effective tactic is to smear those with more peaceful dispositions by performing bizarre contortions to suggest someone is a bigot. In other words you are a typical hack. Which is fine, but I hope you’re getting paid for it.
Nobody forced these people to do anything. They could have just as easily thrown in with the Iraqi government and supported stability and democracy. The overthrow of Saddam just created a security vacuum that allowed them to do what they want.
This is my big beef with people who claim the US “created” ISIS. The Sunni/Shia civil war predated US involvement, and the problem of Islamic extremism itself predates America’s entire existence. The US invasion “caused” ISIS only in the most extremely proximal sense.
Hersh was a once-respected reporter who, sometime in the mid-2000s, started publishing wild conspiracy theories. That’s pretty much what he does now. See, for example, his account of the bin Laden raid which has been universally criticized for being simply fiction. I just have no interest in going blow-by-blow to respond to conspiracy theories from someone who is no longer credible.
And I understand that your personal frustration with the world leads you to extreme policy positions and a willingness to accept stories like Hersh writes as fact, mostly because such stories play into a storyline that you are fighting against people who are corrupt or evil, while you struggle for the one truth.
But as far as the debate at hand, I would say I’m actually very well informed on the issue and I feel totally at ease in rejecting nonsense, even if it does claim anonymous sources, which Hersh is so famous for.
Control yourself, WillFarnaby. Any more such and you’ll start earning warnings.
I predicted you would not respond to the article with items you found problematic. Call me Nostradamus.
Hersh names sources in the last article.
I see you are also confused by the word “extreme” while still finding it useful as a smear term. Extreme has real meaning. For example, war is always extreme. Peace is moderate. The fact you share your belief in war propaganda with a vast majority does not make your particular belligerence moderate and thoughtful.
I don’t know that this is true. From the NY Times: What Do We Really Know About Osama bin Laden’s Death?
Fair point. How about “widely criticized” instead of “universally criticized?” And here’s a response to your article:
Let’s face it, the idea that bin Laden was chopped up and thrown into mountains is pretty out there.
So.
Now that Assad’s forces (with help from the Russians) seems to be winning, the culprits come out of the woodwork.
Turkey openly shells Syrian troops and Kurds and the Saudis are sending troops, with an open declaration that Assad will be ousted.
To me it is now abundantly clear that this whole terrible mess was delibaretly created by outside forces. The whole ‘Arab spring’ like protests were engineerd. Probably just like Libya and perhaps even the Ukraine.
Not sure who is pulling the actual strings where, but US and Israeli weapon drops to the terrorists indicate that they are at least ‘involved’. As does the whole anti-Assad propaganda campaign.
But the Saudi plans for an oil pipeline via Jordan and Syria to Turkey seem to be at the heart of this.
Remember that when this started Assad had just refused the plan and announced closer trade with Iran plus plans for an oil pipeline from Iran to the mediterranean.
Oil pipelines have literally nothing to do with this. It’s absurd.
The U.K. did not create the IRA. The great majority of the people of Northern Ireland want to remain a part of the U.K. The IRA decide to go against public opinion and create a reign of terror. The cost of maintaining the right of the majority in Northern Island has cost the U.K. billions of pounds, money that would have been spent on hospitals and schools. The IRA are not folk heroes they are murdering scumbags who have held the people of Northern Ireland to ransom for far to long.
Do go on.
The civil war in Syria started with the Arab Spring and got out of control. Several countries have always had a grudge against Assad, and it all spiraled out of control from there, also with the whole Iraq mess on the side.
Oil pipelines has nothing to do with it. It’s conspiracy theory nonsense, like how some lefties thought Clinton’s war against Serbia was about gaining access to uranium deposits.
So you cannot refute that there was such a pipeline plan.
You can not explain why the Saudies suddenly feel a need to put ground troops in Syria to oust Assad, quite a deviation from normal Saudi politics.
You know the Saudi were incriminated in the claims of gas attacks, blamed on Assad.
There are testimonies of terrorists, sorry ‘moderate rebels’ (payed rebels btw), that they shot at people during the early demonstrations, exactly in order to blame Assad and escalate the situation.
Yet it is all just conspiracy nonsense…
I understand.
Accepting that this horrible war was pre-meditated and you have been fooled, must be hard to wrap your head around. The implications do make you want to look away and forget about it quickly.
How was the superball ?
I’m not disputing there was a pipeline plan. There’s pipeline plans everywhere. That doesn’t automatically mean that all world events revolve around pipelines. There’s a planned pipeline from Turkey to Russia, but that isn’t the reason that Turkey shot down a Russian airplane.
I’m going to say this as gently as I can: if someone doesn’t know anything about Saudi Arabia, such person is not in a good position to judge whether a Saudi policy is unusual or not. ETA: Especially because the Saudis have recently invaded Yemen due to concerns primarily about Iranian influence with the Houthis. Or perhaps there’s a seekrit Yemen-Saudi pipeline that is the real, seekrit reason for the invasion, eh?
Saudi Arabia is a huge opponent of Assad because of his very close relations with Iran (who is Public Enemy Number One is Saudi Arabia) and Iran’s proxy, Hezbollah. The assasination of Rafik Hariri, for example – do you know who he was? – was a huge deal for the Saudis, because Hariri was part Saudi and KSA believed Syria was behind it. And this was a huge deal years before this pipeline you mention was even conceived.
Thank you for your apology. That was all I was asking for.
Ah, ok, so you only disagree with the part that the pipeline is the direct cause.
Sure, there’s plenty of other motive for instigating the civil war.
I don’t think the pipeline had a single thing to do with it, yes. It’s like saying that the reason Republicans don’t want to work with Obama is that he supports high speed rail. Well, yeah, Obama supports high speed rail and Republicans don’t, but that disagreement really has nothing at all to do with Republican policies toward the Administration.
ravenman: “Since Saudis go to war for reasons other than pipelines in Yemen, the Saudis are not going to war over pipelines in Syria”
And
“Brown people only go to war for esoteric reasons, never for money.”
I’m not going to get riled up about charges of racism from someone who has consistently argued that Abraham Lincoln was the worst president of the United States.
What Saudi oil pipeline in your link are you speaking about?