You Will Anyway: Pot, Meet Kettle

Tuesday, October 6, 2015

Pot, Meet Kettle

President Obama on Friday pledged not to turn Syria into an arena for a proxy war between the US and the Russian Federation. But he went on to criticize president Vladimir Putin for attempting to prop up Syrian ruler Bashar al-Assad and predicted that Syria under these circumstances will turn into a “quagmire” for Moscow.

Juan Cole

I know. Seriously. You're already laughing. What else can you do? Hard to believe these people never embarrass themselves into silence.

Despite the squawking from the likes of Sen. John McCain, Russia mainly hit al-Qaeda in Syria and groups closely allied with it such as Ahrar al-Sham (Freemen of Syria) and Suqour al-Jabal (Mountain Eagles)–which allied with al-Qaeda in an Aleppo campaign this last summer. Russia also may have hit some small independent groups left over from the old, collapsed Free Syrian Army along with these bigger targets. If they had "smart" bombs, they could just go direct for the hospitals.

Because THEY have "dumb" bombs, right?

[Radio Free Europe] says “The U.S.-based think tank the Institute for the Study of War (ISW) reported that the rebel-held town of Talbisah is controlled by the Nusra Front, Ahrar al-Sham, and a number of other local rebel groups.” In other words, the Russians hit the Nusra Front/ al-Qaeda and its allies.

The fact is that the United States has bombed the Support Front/ al-Qaeda on several occasions, itself, so it is odd to criticize Russia for that. As for the others, if they are al-Qaeda allies sitting with al-Qaeda operatives they seem fair game for bombing. The United States has droned to death lots of people in northern Pakistan and Yemen for allying with al-Qaeda.

Juan Cole

Yes. But that's the US. And that was with "smart" bombs. See the difference?

...the Cheney Administration did in the Iraq War. It's a pure "we have always been at war with Eastasia/Eurasia" moment. Important 2 remember this moment (Winston: "It does exist! I remember it! You remember it!) next time a neoliberalcon gasbag invokes 9/11.

Billmon

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

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"Terrorism is the willingness to kill large numbers of people for some presumably good cause.” -- Howard Zinn

"What we have is a foreign policy which is essentially a marketing strategy for selling weapons." -- Jill Stein

"We should always remember that the danger to societies from security services is not that they will spontaneously decide to embrace [Stasi style] mustache twirling and jackboots to bear us bodily into dark places, but that the slowly shifting foundation of policy will make it such that mustaches and jackboots are discovered to prove an operational advantage toward a necessary purpose.” ~ Edward Snowden

"America: just a nation of two hundred million used car salesmen with all the money we need to buy guns and no qualms about killing anybody else in the world who tries to make us uncomfortable." ~ Hunter S. Thompson

"Let me issue and control a nation's money and I care not who writes the laws." ~ Mayer Rothschild

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"What matters in journalism isn't politics, which are as universal and inescapable as breathing. What matters -- along with a fundamentally adversarial attitude toward government, without which "journalism" is simply public relations -- is integrity, transparency, evidence, coherence, and principle. These are the principles on which we should evaluate the quality of journalism, and their absence is why some journalists are so desperate to get you to focus on something else." ~ Barry Eisler

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Life, as Explained in "Rosencrantz & Guildenstern Are Dead"

GUILDENSTERN: What a fine persecution---to be kept intrigued without ever quite being enlightened.

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ROSENCRANTZ : The only thing that makes it bearable is the irrational belief that somebody interesting will come on in a minute.

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GUILDENSTERN: But for God's sake what are we supposed to do?!

PLAYER: Relax. Respond. That's what people do. You can't go through life questioning your situation at every turn.

GUILDENSTERN: But we don't know what's going on, or what to do with ourselves. We don't know how to act.

PLAYER: Act natural. You know why you're here at least.

GUILDENSTERN: We only know what we're told, and that's little enough. And for all we know it isn't even true.

PLAYER: For all anyone knows, nothing is. Everything has to be taken on trust; truth is only that which is taken to be true. It's the currency of living. There may be nothing behind it, but it doesn't make any difference so long as it is honoured. One acts on assumptions.

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GUILDENSTERN : We act on scraps of information... sifting half-remembered directions that we can hardly separate from instinct.

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PLAYER: Life is a gamble, at terrible odds-if it was a bet you wouldn't take it.