The President Decided

The President has decided: given American foreign policy up to now, he couldn't have decided otherwise, because America Leads the Mideast….towards "order."

Oh, it could be worse. If McCain were President, and he always wishes he were, we'd be flying in troops by the thousands and bombing the hell outta the whole Syria-Iraq borderlands.

But order means we're going to bomb the hell outta some of them, and call it a "counter-terrorist" action, not a war. A war would come under the War Powers Act, requiring Congressional approval. Also, Obama wants to be against war, even if he starts one.

Obama asks for some kind of support from Congress; Republicans don't want to stop him, or condemn him; some even may be coming around to support the action. However, one Republican Congressman remarked: they'd applaud if things go well, and say "you should have acted much earlier," if the action fails. Earlier means when they were urging Obama to bomb Syria for its chemical weapons. Most Republicans have wanted every war since WWII, even when there were Democratic Presidents benefiting from wars at the polls.

Wait a minute! Could Obama be doing something similar? ISIL is a horror, but perhaps a convenient horror. Until this crisis, Obama was "embattled" and increasingly unpopular, so much so, that many Democratic candidates welcomed his efforts to raise money for them, but avoided joint appearances.

On the other hand, Obama's proposal embodies the success of ISIL propaganda and strategy. ISIL staged the beheadings of American journalists to accomplish two goals: bolster their image of ruthlessness to recruit western extremists, and goad the US into acting against them, to broaden their anti-western appeal. Baghdadi, after all, speaks of the Califate, meaning world rule, not just swathes of two war-torn nations.

Obama's "decisive action" will rally the troops and neutralize the opposition. Given the tilt towards war in all the "major" media, ISIL is a convenient pretext.

Obama's "decisive action:" means bombing, degrading and destroying ISIL. Sounds like what we did to al Qaeda. Now, the US is leading a regional coalition, to stop ISIL: stopping the flow of money, for example from Saudi Arabia; regaining control of borders, launching incursions from them, and supporting "moderate" militias and the Iraqi army. The US commitment is leadership, air war attack force, training, materiel and Intel.

We started out in Vietnam with less, and we've already been in Iraq two times before. We could be sucked back into the mire of the Middle East, not only in Iraq, but now in Syria, as well.

On the other hand, Obama may get lucky. ISIL is a freak opponent that seems to appeal to the most crazed, even of some American youth, but is hated by the people they've conquered. Hundreds to thousands are slaughtered, many randomly, at first. Then the survivors undergo looting, high taxes and a repressive social order, brutally enforced.

Why does ISIL exist? Because the US and allies were arming Syrian insurgents, and ISIL was adept at getting enough arms to capture more from their competitors in the Syrian civil war, while supposedly fighting to overthrow Assad. They then expanded in eastern Syria, controlling whole provinces, driving out more secular and moderate rebels.

Then, with superior tactics and morale, they took Mosul, Iraq's second largest city, and captured the huge amount of weaponry we had bestowed on the dispirited Iraqi army. Since embittered ex-military (from Saddam's disbanded army) joined ISIL in droves, it had the technical skills to turn those sophisticated weapons south, and expand their domain of control dramatically and suddenly. Massacres, mass rapes and even attempted genocide followed. ISIL's leader openly threatened to annihilate the Tacridis; Shiites were given a choice: convert instantly to Sunni Islam, or die an infidel.

Brute force works for a while, and forced conversions are a tradition in the Mideast going back millennia. However, they aren't a way to gain popular support, nor are the massacres and repression.

ISIL is a mile high and an inch deep.

There is no reason why the US has to step in. The groups and nations of the region are going to have to work it out. The sooner there is no Uncle Sam leading, they'd have to learn to cooperate, and would be forced to see their own mutual interests. Or kill each other: yes, all out Shiite-Sunni war would dwarf all the current conflagrations.

But the US has almost always made things worse since Vietnam, whenever it intervenes, in the region, or elsewhere. The current proposal is even more flawed than usual: if we destroy ISIL, Assad's forces can fill the vacuum. If we don't, we'll probably rally Sunnis to ISIL's side. US enemies will win, either way. What then? War to accomplish "regime change" in Syria, and maybe Iraq, again?

No action except an arms embargo of the whole region makes much sense. ISIL is (our friend) Iraq's enemy and (our enemy) Syria's enemy. It gains its appeal from the ill-treatment of Sunni Muslims by both governments. Until people in the region learn to live together, instead of killing each other, ISIL, or its successors, may be a problem no outside power can solve.

F**k 'Em All!

So saith my soulmate, upon hearing that we might intervene militarily, again, on one side of an ancient Muslim sectarian dispute.

The Syrian civil war is increasingly a war between Shia, including Alawites, and the Sunni majority. The Sunni powers, the Saudis and the Emirates, are supporting the rebels, including al Qaeda affiliates; the Shiite powers, Iran and Hezbollah, and behind them, Russia, are supporting Assad's Alawite-dominated government.

So, since Russia is heavily arming Syria and Hezbollah, shouldn't the US jump in to support the rebels, along with its long-time 'democratic friends,' the Sunni-dominated monarchies of Saudi Arabia and the Persian Gulf? Shiite-controlled Iraq, on which the US squandered almost a trillion dollars, is permitting passage of Russian and Iranian weaponry to Assad and Hezbollah.

So, the US should do it again, in Syria, not just offer small arms? It should go in with massive equipment and training for the rebels, or more, even though prominent numbers of the rebels claim sympathy with, or allegiance to, al Qaeda?

The US helped create al Qaeda, back when Americans were seeking allies to drive the Soviets out of Afghanistan. The US supported and trained Osama bin Laden. Don't Americans ever learn? The US's second adventure in Afghanistan turned out so well that a majority of the US House of Representatives (including conservative Republicans) just demanded the US leave Afghanistan by the end of 2013!

Not only has hot-head McCain insisted America intervene in Syria, on the rebel side, but he was publicly seconded by Bill Clinton, who warned Obama would be a "wuss," if he didn't act forcefully on Syria.

It's true the Syrian rebellion started out as a peaceful, secular protest demanding democracy, and the Assad regime attempted violent suppression. Assad had no compunction attacking Syrian civilians with his military: in 1982, his father, Hafez, murdered at least 10,000 Syrians in Hama, alone. But this time, Sunnis rallied and the protest turned into a rebellion, fueled by money and arms from the Sunni Persian Gulf oil monarchies. Hence, Syrians now fight both civil war and sectarian war.

The US will support the Sunni side, along with al Qaeda, why?

Sunni and Shia have been battling since 661 CE (1,352 years), over who should succeed the Prophet. Why should the US have anything to do with either? Especially, why, since it has already failed twice in its Mideast interventions--Iraq and Afghanistan--and the outcome of its third, Libya, is still uncertain.

The US loses, if it intervenes. As horrendous as the carnage in Syria, the US would make it worse. But Empire is so seductive, especially to the Defense industry. Americans could be bankrupted as the Romans were, but unlike Huns, or Germanic barbarians, US 'enemies' do not threaten America's existence, only each others'.

Let them kill each other until they're exhausted--they will anyway. Or see reason. Let the UN pick up the pieces.

Are We Trapped?

Republicans support the wealthy, the CEO's, the corporations; the worker is chopped liver. But Democrats are afraid: of the wealthy, the CEO's and the corporations--and enough are bought off, too.

Our two party system has been described as a duopoly, and when you look at the Obama/McConnell/Reid/Boehner compromise over "the fiscal cliff," you see that it is.

Remaining on the right, are the angry Tea Partiers, who distrust government in all its forms, though they're not unwilling to rip it off. Remaining on the left are forlorn progressives, who yearn for a government they can trust: they see one that's only protecting the "One Percent."

Both fringes attempt to push government more to their liking, but the duopoly has other plans: it's owned by the corporations: the banks, oil companies, media and more.

The anger among Tea Partiers is genuine, but the billionaire lobby, from astro-turf roots to media campaigns, to think tank creations, contrives its targets.

Anger on the left is at least as real, but its targets are scattered. Their anger focuses on exploitation, of, by and for the corporations, but also on government and military-style repression: they have little money behind them.

We don't have a Fourth Amendment any longer: unlawful search and seizure has been pushed aside by Terrorism and Drugs. All a local prosecutor, or enforcement officer, need do is to record everyone within electronic reach. Soon, I predict, all they'll have to do is apply to the NSA, or whatever Federal entity has become the repository, to access phone, email and Internet files on anyone "of interest." That's why everyone's online (and cloud) records are being recorded in the massive surveillance program initiated by the NSA. The justification: to intercept any terrorists before they act.

Stalin gained power by controlling information about everyone; people need to wrest that power back. And this is an issue where both fringes could/should collaborate. Tea Partiers hate the idea of government surveillance as much as lefties.

Unless "the fringes" can come together in resistance, there is no escape. Republicans and Democrats are equally implicated in the Surveillance State. Democratic Senator Feinstein and President Obama are as much a part of it as Bush II, Cheney and Senator McCain. The renewal--and strengthening--of the NDAA in December demonstrates this.

In the Fifth Century Empire, Roman Senators and German generals collaborated in controlling and repressing the humiliores.

With powers of surveillance and manipulation of information greater than Stalin ever dreamed of, the modern American state soon will leave no room for real dissent. That could be its downfall, just like the Stalinist state before it.

Like the USSR's failed New Lands wheat projects, the US plunges into fracking, oil sands and nuclear, while the rest of the world pushes ahead with solar, wind and bio-fuel alternatives.

We'll decline, driven by government-corporate induced blindness. Others will rise--if there is any livable environment left.