JOHN LAUGHLAND—The dangers of using legislatures to write history are even greater when, as in this case, the purpose of the resolution is polemical. The general idea of the text is that Europeans must remember their dreadful past in order not to repeat it in the future: everyone knows that the European project was born in the ruins of the Second World War. But the goal of this resolution is to recalibrate the usual memory of the Nazis and the Holocaust to put the memory of Communist totalitarianism on an equal footing with Nazism. Communism, the resolution says, was Nazism’s ideological twin, and the USSR shares equal guilt with Germany for starting the war.
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MoA—The air defenses surrounding Abqaiq proved to be ineffective. That may have been because they were shut off. But it is doubtful that the systems, even if they had been on alert, would have made any difference. The U.S. made Patriot system in question was built as an air defense system against fighter jets. It was later upgraded to give it some capability against ballistic missiles. But even its latest iteration is not capable of defeating smaller drones or low flying cruise missiles.
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The Saudis were hoping this threat would serve to rally the international ruling class behind them against Iran. But they risk the opposite. Seeing the weakness and instability of Saudi Arabia, it is more likely that the western ruling classes will hedge their bets by increasingly supporting other powers, such as Iran and Turkey, as forces of stability in the region. Thus, whatever happens, in one way or another, every social, military or political earthquake in the region will only serve to bring forth the contradictions that have been maturing underneath the surface – amongst which is the terminal crisis facing Saudi Arabia.
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JON HELLEVIG—Now, whether this system will come crashing down or just slowly die as it trundles downhill will not matter all that much. It will eventually die either way. Most people would prefer the slow motion option, but only with the crash would a cure come. Whatever, it has become increasingly difficult to stave off the crash and this time around, the financial markets would take the real economy down with them big time.
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MIKE SIEGEL—The proposed bill would create a broad definition of “domestic terrorism” to include any attempt to “affect” or “influence” government policy or actions. And it would include property damage—even attempted property damage—as a terrorist act subject to a 25-year prison sentence. In other words, if you opposed the Dakota Access pipeline at Standing Rock and wanted the government to revoke the pipeline permit, you might be considered a terrorist. If you painted “Black Lives Matter” on a wall to advocate against police violence, that could be terrorism, too.
