A Bomb and ISIS Show

Despite the ongoing air attacks of the Empire and its Gulf Vassals, it appears the ISIS Caliphate forces are advancing on Baghdad. Meanwhile, Iraqi helicopter pilots "mistakenly" directed food and ammo drops to ISIS forces, rather than their own. These supposedly inept and inexperienced pilots were trained by the Empire. Draw your own conclusions...

Cartoon by Jeff Danziger (source)

There is a thick fog of disinformation out there concerning this "Islamic State", ISIS, ISIL, Caliphate, or whatever it is. A week ago, we had to suffer through the Emperor personally chairing the UN Security Council meeting on the greatest-ever-threat of Islamic-but-unrelated-to-Islam terrorism, complete with calls for criminalizing volunteers who fight in foreign wars - so long as they fight against the Empire, anyway. Empire's proxies, clients and quislings are obviously exempt.

Yet it should be intuitively obvious to the casual observer that ISIS arose from the fertile soil of Imperial support for a rebellion in Syria against the Assad government, launched back in 2011. For all the talk of "moderates" and "democrats for human rights," it was the jihadists who had the will and skill to use those planeloads of arms the Empire provided via Croatia and Jordan.

There are even some who claim that the Imperial government created ISIS deliberately. If true, it wouldn't be the first time: Zbigniew Brzezinski boasted of setting off the Afghan jihad in order to provoke a Soviet intervention. But I am loath to give the Imperial government any more credit than it actually deserves. Having witnesses its appalling incompetence in a range of affairs on a daily basis, why would anyone believe it is somehow a genius international manipulator?

More likely, this is all perception management again. ISIS arose from the idiotic policy of backing the jihadists in Syria (and in general), but hey - we can spin it as a retroactive justification of the Iraq invasion, and a fresh new terrorist threat that will justify new strip-searches and snooping while making Barack the Blessed look more presidential. A win-win!

Spin, that's how all of this works. On one hand, acts of puppetry like the Kiev coup or the Hong Kong protests are presented as "spontaneous", while on the other hand, genuine disasters, blowbacks and fiascoes stemming from Empire's ignorant belligerence are spun as parts of some brilliant grand strategy - thus furthering the illusion that the Atlantic Empire is all-powerful, all-knowing and all-competent, though in reality it is none of those things.

Together... For the Peace to Come

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Failure to Communicate

I attended the US-Russia Forum in Washington, DC earlier this week, and came away with mixed impressions. On one hand, almost everyone involved was trying to improve relations between Russia and the U.S. On the other, entirely too many Americans involved continue to believe that the problem here isn't the Atlantic Empire's abuse, but some phantom Russian intransigence, "revisionism" or "retrenchment."

(inspired by commenter "bearspaw" below; as seen on Facebook)

I've offered up my overview of the conference in a column over at Antiwar.com. To sum it up here, the presenters had a very real diversity of opinion, rather than being "Putin apologists" as presstwats predictably claimed. Leonid Gozman, for example, openly backed the Kiev junta, illustrating the typical position of what passes for "liberals" in Russia (and explaining why their support runs into low single digits). There were speakers blaming the EU (which has shown its utter inability to do anything but obey Washington), or even asserted that Russia's reaction in the Crimea endangered nuclear nonproliferation talks - without stopping to think it's the Imperial pattern of aggression that's compelling countries to seek nuclear insurance in the first place.

For their part, I don't think the Russians fully understand this, either. It's only normal for everyone to interpret the behavior of others through the prism of their own; so Americans always see others as aggressors, invaders, liars, murderers and terrorists. The latest example of this "flipping the script" is a New Republic feature comparing Putin to Milosevic. In reality, it is the West acting towards Russia the same way they acted towards the Serbs two decades ago. I've argued before that Putin is aware of this, though the Russian public and media in general may not be. The Russians tend to see Americans as rational actors, playing the game of politics by the rules. Perhaps they ought to watch (or better yet, read) some Game of Thrones, lest they end up like the Starks to the Anglo Lannisters.

To borrow a movie quote, what we have here is a failure to communicate. And that's not just depressing, but in the present situation, downright dangerous.

"Kosovian" Suicide Bomber Behind Baghdad Attack

Serbian national television RTS reported earlier today that the March 25 suicide bombing in Baghdad was the work of Blerim Heta, a "Kosovian" Albanian. This, they say, is the first confirmed instance of any Balkans jihadist taking part in a suicide attack; there have been reports of Bosnian Muslims doing so in Iraq, but none could be corroborated.

Screenshot of the RTS report

Heta is a native of Uroševac (called Ferizaj by Albanians), and his family believed he was fighting in Syria. They confirmed his death, with Blerim's father Remzi denouncing religion and claiming his family followed "European values", while his son was "seduced".

RTS further cites a report on the website of the jihadist outfit ISIL, confirming Heta's death and referring to him as "Abu Habbab al-Kosowi".

Yet the most interesting detail of Heta's biography - that he worked for the U.S. military at Camp Bondsteel, the major military base right outside of Uroševac - is mentioned only in passing. When did he work there? What was he doing? Was he fired and then turned to jihad, or the other way around? Or was he recruited there to go to Syria? Questions about, yet RTS offers no answers. Maybe someone else will.

From Belgrade to Baghdad

Amidst all the activity concerning the Ukraine, I barely managed to set aside some time to commemorate the anniversaries of NATO's 1999 war of aggression and the 2004 pogrom it produced. And somehow I missed March 19, the anniversary of the invasion of Iraq - one of those invasions "on completely trumped up pretext" that, according to John Kerry, no one does anymore.

Except, you know, the Empire.

Just before the invasion began, I wrote about the complete moral bankruptcy of invoking the Balkans precedent, and all the ghastly, appalling "arguments" proffered by both advocates and "critics" of the invasion.

Here was Richard Holbrooke, for example: "one should never underestimate the persuasive power of power itself." And here was Veton Surroi, a "moderate" ethnic Albanian demanding that Iraqis die to justify the American murder of Serbs four years prior: "Change will only come when the bombs begin to fall."

All the "debate" in the West, then as now, has focused on appearances of Imperial interventions. With a handful of notable exceptions such as Ron Paul, few have ever questioned their validity. Until it is recognized that the Empire had no right to initiate the use of force, whether in Serbia in 1999, or in Iraq 2003, comparisons between the different acts of aggression will be mere exercises in justification.

Considering the number of falsehoods per sentence in yesterday's statement by Mr. Obama, however, I wouldn't wager on that recognition coming any time soon.