ROLAND VINCENT Special Editor, Ecoanimal & Socialism Questions
Except for token measures, expect no real relief for animals from the GOP.
Animal Rights is ALL about politics!
Just as slavery was all about politics!
The same political, social, religious and economic issues drove slavery as now drive animal exploitation. Slavery was defended as commanded by God from pulpits across the country. It was defended by Conservatives (then the Democrats) in state legislatures in the North and South. Powerful agricultural interests predicted economic collapse is slavery were to be abolished!
It is absurd to suggest that slavery would have been defeated by ignoring politics! It took politics, riots and war —with the clash of massive armies—to bring an end to slavery.
It will require more to establish Animal Rights!
Animal Rights is not compatible with politics as usual. We cannot bring about Animal Rights by supporting this Democrat or that Republican! Ridiculously unimportant issues cannot drive our votes or divert our attention.
Stunned hog on the conveyor of death. Who gave us the right?
Animal Rights will require the end of capitalism as we know it. Hardly a conservative position! You won’t find a single Republican who will agree! Nor will most Democrats. But those that will agree are ALL radicals and liberals!
Both Democrats and Republicans can be sell-outs to corporate lobbyists and their bagmen. The difference between the Democratic and Republican parties is simple: Republicans don’t have Liberals!*
And you don’t think Animal Rights is a political issue? If you vote for a Republican you are placing an enemy of animals in a position of power over them! You may be doing the same voting Democrat, but there is an excellent chance you will not be! Read on.
Democrats Can Be Scumbags, Too
For several years I have made it my mission to expose Conservative legislators for the enemies of animals that they are.
The task is not difficult. Their record of acting as enablers and apologists for the animal exploitation industries is public.
Conservative legislators are the mouthpieces for Big Ag, Big Pharma, and Big Oil, which murder billions of animals each year.
Democrat leadership: not the answer
Curiously, there are animal activists who consider themselves to be Conservatives. They may be Conservatives for any number of reasons: Don’t like to pay taxes? Don’t like people of color? Don’t like gay people? Want to carry their guns around? Don’t like abortion? Etc?
Whatever the reasons, they are more important to them than are the animals, because the party and politicians they support are working to hurt animals and to protect those who hurt animals.
A common retort I hear when pointing out these truths, is that Democrats do it, too. And that is their defense? Others are equally reprehensible?
Democrats can be as heartless as Republicans, true.
But Democrats have Liberals, whereas the Republican Party does not.
And it is Liberals, at least those on the Far Left, the real left, who are most likely to oppose business influence in government, business money in politics, business control of regulatory agencies, and business profiting on the exploitation of, and cruelty to, animals.
The Democratic Party is not the answer for animals.
The Left Wing of the Democratic Party —and the Left, in general—is the answer.
____________
* Broadly understood, meaning people who genuinely abhor conservative positions.
Film Historiography: Living El – The Making of Salvador
The making of Oliver Stone’s brilliant portrayal of journalists amidst a terrifying bloody central American War. Imagine Withnail and I meets Apocalypse Now with not quite so many laughs.
J. Woods as renegade photojournalist Richard Boyle
When Oliver Stone said he wanted to take James Woods, Jim Belushi and acid-fried journalist Richard Boyle to El Salvador to make a film about [a US-suported army and death squads ] fighting a leftist insurgency, few gave him a chance of succeeding. Even fewer gave him a chance of coming back alive.
Who went south of the border to bring you Salvador?
Vietnam vet-turned-maverick filmmaker. Followed screenplay Oscar for Midnight Express with Best Director gongs for semi-autobiographical ‘Nam films Platoon and Born On The Fourth Of July. Likes Indians and conspiracy theories. Dislikes the American government and women.
James Woods (Richard Boyle) – Lean American actor famed for his intensity, massive IQ and infamous affair with Sean Young. Oscar nominated for his remarkable turn as journalist Richard Boyle.
James Belushi (Dr Rock) – Thinner, less funny brother of John Belushi. A Saturday Night Live regular in the early 80s, Belushi blew his considerable Salvador cache on a succession of sickly family movies.
John Savage (John Cassady) – American leading man with an eclectic, eccentric CV (Do The Right Thing, The Deer Hunter, The Godfather Part III). Role in Salvador loosely based on real-life photo-journalist John Hoagland.
Richard Boyle (co-writer) – Respected investigative journalist and Olympic-level loon. Went to El Salvador in 1980 to cover the civil war for CNN. Accused Stone of failing to pay him his Salvador writer’s fee in full. Likes a drink.
Robert Richardson (director of photography) – A regular Stone collaborator, Richardson received Oscar nominations for his work on Platoon and Born On The Fourth Of July.
Gerald Green (producer) – American producer and head of Pasta Productions.
John Daly (producer) – British independent producer and David Hemmings’ partner in Hemdale Films. Helped raise the money for Salvador, Platoon and The Terminator.
people and I love it. Good beer, beautiful women, cheap rent. What more do you want in life?
Oliver Stone: Richard Boyle was a friend of mine. He was always fun for a couple of laughs. He had a manuscript of short stories and incidents that had occurred in El Salvador. He pulled it out of the back seat of his car one day on the way to airport. He said; ‘You never know: there might be something there.’ I read it and I said; ‘This is it: this is the greatest story!’
Elizabeth Stone: Right after [Stone’s eldest son] Sean was born, Oliver put our house in New York on the block to get the money to shoot Salvador.
“El Salvador is a great place with great people and I love it. Good beer, beautiful women, cheap rent. What more do you want in life?”
Oliver Stone: Richard was staying at my house. Elizabeth wanted me to get him out of the house. One morning we woke up and he’d passed out in front of the TV. Elizabeth went to the kitchen and opened the refrigerator and everything was gone, everything had been drunk, even the baby’s formula was missing. She went back and looked at him and he was holding the baby’s formula. He’d drunk the whole fucking thing. He must’ve been blind drunk and just grabbed whatever was in the can.
Richard Boyle: Who doesn’t enjoy a drink?
Oliver Stone: The original idea was to shoot a semi-documentary in El Salvador starring Boyle as himself and Dr Rock as himself and we were going to get the Salvadorians to put up all their military equipment. Boyle took me down to El Salvador and we partied.
Richard Boyle: We met with [Robert] D’Abusisson’s generals. They liked Oliver because they loved Scarface.
Oliver Stone: These guys were slapping us on the back, drinking toasts to [Scarface’s] Tony Montana. They kept talking about their favourite scenes and acting out the killings. They’d go; ‘Tony Montana, mucho cajones [Lots of balls)! Ratta-tat-tat! Kill the fucking communists!’
Richard Boyle: It would have been great to make the movie in El Salvador, spend some hard currency, help the people out. But then people started dying so we had to think again.
Gerald Green: Oliver went to great lengths to explain that the film wasn’t going to be another Year Of Living Dangerously or Under Fire. I think that pleased everybody.
Oliver Stone: The problem with characters like Sidney Schanberg in The Killing Fields is that they were heroic characters. I found it a bit movie-ish that they no personal flaws. They were dignified, they were liberal and they were noble, whereas Richard Boyle is more of a second-rate with many personal flaws. I liked him because he was a gadfly. He’s such an irritating personality, but he does have this ability to get under your skin. And that’s the kind of character I wanted to do.
James Woods: Hollywood wasn’t hot on the idea of Salvador, but Oliver was: red hot.
Oliver Stone: I intended to make the movie by hook or by crook. I knew up front that Salvador was going to be a very hard sell. I felt we would have to do it independently as best we could. But it was worth it to do it that way, because we were free and we shot a script that no American studio would ever have allowed to be shot. And John Daly, a delightful kind of British rascal, made it easier, as did Gerald Green. Daly saw these two scuzzbags, Boyle and Dr Rock, as funny, almost in Monty Python-esque terms. And Gerald had some tax deal where if he could make his movies in Mexico, he could get them financed. Gerald had this Arnold Schwarzenegger project called Outpost, and Schwarezenegger couldn’t fulfil his obligations, so all during shooting we were called Outpost because we had that slot.
James Woods: I’d heard of Oliver as being this crazy, druggy, gifted writer. I liked him right away. His reputation preceded him, bolstered I have to say by Oliver’s own efforts: he was very good at getting himself in the headlines of people’s minds. But he was never afraid to be who he was.
Oliver Stone: I had very good luck with the script. It was easy to cast. I was just amazed by the co-operation I got from the actors, all of them. In any film, that kind of co-operation is always welcome. In Salvador, it was almost a necessity.
Michael Murphy: Originally, Oliver talked about Richard playing himself but I don’t think that was ever a serious consideration. And besides Boyle didn’t play Boyle as well as James Woods played him.
“Richard was staying at my house. One morning we woke up and he’d passed out in front of the TV, everything had been drunk, even the baby’s formula was missing. He must’ve been blind drunk and just grabbed whatever was in the can.”
James Woods: Oliver wanted me to play Dr Rock but when I read the screenplay, I got excited about the idea of playing the lead because it was such a great role.
Oliver Stone: Richard is much worse than Jimmy. Richard’s a very colourful character. Jimmy didn’t want to play him as raggedy and scummy as Richard really is. Jimmy felt he made Richard more attractive to a larger group of people. People say; ‘That’s attractive?!’ But the real Richard is far worse.
Richard Boyle: So much of this movie’s real. I’m real, Dr Rock’s real, my girlfriend’s real. Major Max is real – we changed his name but he’s real. (The real character-bad character at that—was the arch criminal CIA-connected Col. D’Aubuisson.)
John Savage: My character was based on the photo-journalist John Hoagland. I have a line in the film about capturing the nobility of human suffering and death in these tragic situations. That’s what Cassady’s trying to do.
Oliver Stone: Dr Rock, Boyle’s companion in the film, was a real guy, but he never went to Salvador. I said; ‘Let’s take him to Salvador then and see what happens.’ Take this character who’s freaked out by anything and put him there. And that became the key to making the movie work.
James Belushi: Dr Rock’s a wonderful character – a genuine ’60s throwback. To me, it was like creating a totally fictional character. He was ignorant of Central American issues like most of the American public, so I feel like I was a touchstone for the audience. My character discovers El Salvador as the audience does.
Oliver Stone: I had to do this movie fast because I never knew when the money would dry up.
Gerald Green: It was the toughest movie I’ve made in my life. I’ve done pictures far bigger. We were the co-production company for Dune and that movie was easy compared to Salvador.
James Woods: We were all just nuts. I don’t know why we were nuts but I think it was in the nature of the picture. I’m playing this lunatic and we’re riding fucking burros up in the woods. John Savage is a brilliant, unheralded, unappreciated nutcase great actor. Oliver is a fucking lunatic.
James Belushi: I like Jimmy [Woods] and all but he always has to have the last word in a scene. He would improvise things to call attention to himself. There was this scene where I was explaining some things I felt were pretty important and right in the middle of my fucking speech, Jimmy pulls out a switchblade and clicks it open right into the camera. So they have to cut over to him for a close-up during my speech. I told Jimmy; ‘If you pull that knife again in one of my scenes, I’m going to open the goddamn glove compartment and pull out a gun and start waving it around.’
James Woods: With Jim Belushi, I didn’t know him at all beforehand and we took an instant liking to each other.
James Belushi: There’s a scene where we come out of this armoured personnel carrier and get into the back of an open truck. So Oliver says; ‘Jim Belushi, you come out first and walk in front with your hands over your head and get into the truck, and then Jimmy Woods, you come walking right behind him.’ So we get out and start to walk, and Jimmy literally knocks my arm out of the way, and sort of elbows his way in front of me, and we get into he truck and I’m pissed and Jimmy won’t shut up. He’s improvising all these lines because he knows that as long as he’s talking, the camera has to stay on him. And I finally said; ‘Will you shut up!’ Oliver left it in the movie because it fits, but it’s really just me telling Woods to shut the fuck up!
James Woods: Belushi and I would always tease each other. And the same thing with Savage. I remember when the three of us would be in the same scene, Oliver would say; ‘This will be a struggle to see who’s going to steal the scene.’ But, of course, that situation is what makes for great movie making.
“I intended to make the movie by hook or by crook. I knew up front that Salvador was going to be a very hard sell. I felt we would have to do it independently as best we could.”
Robert Richardson: Jimmy Woods made a decision to go at Oliver, deliberately push him. He pushed Oliver hard, and Oliver ended up pushing back. The two of them just came to that end, ego against ego. As a result, his performance is what it is, and that’s one of the reasons I believe it’s so fine.
Oliver Stone: Jimmy’s like the guy you want to punch out at school, He drove everybody crazy. The crew, me, his fellow actors. Everyone wanted to kill him because we had no money and we really had to depend on his mercy. He was the biggest single star in the entire thing. When someone is always reminding you of that, it becomes tiresome.
James Woods: Oliver and I are great friends now, and were then, but there was a lot of tension between us during the making of the film. At one point, I was strapped down to the street with these squibs running up my legs because I was supposed to get shot, and this Mexican pilot was about to fly this old plane real low right over me. Just before the scene starts, I hear Oliver say; ‘God, I miss combat.’ So I think; ‘You get down here and be wired to the damn street with his screwy plane flying over you then! ‘
John Savage: We teased each other, we played practical jokes on one another. A lot of the time, we did it because we were bored or restless. We were never really nasty to each other but we did take it too far sometimes. I remember, one time, we really pissed off Jimmy Woods and he left the set. He just got up and headed to the airport on foot!
James Woods: I’d got so pissed off with Oliver and John, I left the set. So, I’m in the middle of nowhere in Mexico and I’m hitchhiking. None of the trucks are stopping. I’m going; ‘Why the fuck aren’t they stopping?’ What I don’t realise is that Oliver is at the head of the road waving down the cars, saying; ‘There’s a crazy gringo with a .45. Don’t pick him up because he’ll shoot you!’
Michael Murphy: Jimmy Woods is a great, great actor. That incredible confession scene, that whole scene came straight out of his head.
James Woods: I remember the day we were shooting the Romero assassination scene at the church and Oliver said; ‘Maybe you should do a confession.’ And I said; ‘Oh, really?’ So I asked for the lines, but he said; ‘I don’t want to give you lines. I want you to just look into that dark murky soul of yours and come up with whatever you want. And I said; ‘Okay, fair enough.’ We didn’t even do a rehearsal. What you saw was the first time it came out of my mouth. When I got done, Oliver said; ‘It’s frightening the shit that you think of.’
Oliver Stone: We ran out of funds in Mexico. We had to struggle for every dollar.
Robert Richardson: The crew was union and if you didn’t pay them on time each week, they wouldn’t work. There was a feeling that each day would be our last. Perhaps Oliver drew inspiration from the uncertainty.
Oliver Stone: It was a complicated scam, getting the movie finished. It involved acts of high piracy, buccaneering and skulduggery.
James Woods: One time I got a phone call through to my agent and he said; ‘You haven’t been paid for two weeks so come home.’ And I said; ‘I’m not going to do that to Oliver. Tomorrow’s our biggest day.’ He said they were going to fuck me so I should split.
Oliver Stone: We took over this entire town for a week to shoot the battle of Santa Ana. The mayor was great. He loved movies. We redesigned his office and used it as a whorehouse set, with real prostitutes. He liked the decor so much he kept it that way, red walls and all. Later, he said; ‘Go ahead, blow up the whole fucking City Hall,’ and we blew it to pieces.
James Belushi: We were shooting the battle and Oliver got the idea of having these rebel troops riding in on horseback and charging the tanks. There wasn’t any money in the budget. But Oliver wanted that fucking cavalry. Gerald Green’s saying; ‘We don’t have the money.’ And Oliver says; ‘Then take my salary. I’ve got $25,000 coming, take that and get those fucking horses.’ He didn’t care about the money.
Oliver Stone: I always feel like a little bit of me dies when I finish a movie.
JamesWoods: The film was over. Oliver just sat down on the curb. He had this kind of stunned look, amazed that he’d actually managed to finish the picture. I sat down beside him. I said; ‘You know what? I think you made a great film. And all this stuff I fought about was because I really wanted this film to be like no other.’ And he said; ‘Yeah, everything we did made it better.’
Oliver Stone: We had tremendous battles in the editing room. Daly and I fought on everything. There were moments that were really bristly where I felt like he was going to throw me out.
“We were all just nuts. I’m playing this lunatic and we’re riding fucking burros up in the woods. John Savage is a brilliant, unheralded, unappreciated nutcase great actor. Oliver is a fucking lunatic.”
John Daly: Oliver puts 1000% of himself into a film. It’s all up on the screen. For Salvador, he waived his salary and expenses. I think he would have given up his house. I don’t think he goes and directs a film. I think he lives a film. It’s a rare quality.
Oliver Stone: The feeling was that people in America didn’t know how they were supposed to react to the movie which I found kind of sad. Dr Strangelove was a perfect amalgam of humour and seriousness about a subject that is extremely dark. There’s no reason the subject of Salvadoran death squads has to be solemn.
James Woods: I saw the final cut of the film. I watched it with the music for the first time. All of a sudden I thought; ‘My God: I thought it was this little movie. Am I wrong or is this a Great Movie?’ Bob Dylan was there and said; ‘This is the greatest movie I’ve ever seen.’
Oliver Stone: The reviews from the liberal press were often sympathetic, but there was what I call a ‘smothering blanket’ reaction from the conservative press where they don’t take you on, they don’t engage you, they simply ignore you. ‘Time’ completely ignored the movie: it was as if it didn’t exist.
John Savage:Salvador got incredibly mixed reviews. The people that liked it really liked it. But there was a lot of talk about whether Oliver was a communist and whether he loved America and, if he didn’t, why he didn’t just leave and go and live in El Salvador. (The brainwash at work. The idea that our filthy foreign policy represents us.—Eds.)
Oliver Stone: The only reason the picture survived was the video revolution. Salvador did very well on video. People started talking about it and it got nominated for two Oscars, for Best Screenplay and Best Actor. That wouldn’t have happened if it wasn’t for video.
John Daly:Salvador is a great film. If it had come out after Platoon, it would have had a completely different reception.
Oliver Stone: I worked without pay for a year, but it was worth every single moment of it. It was a tough movie to make, but it has an edge, it has a madness and it has an anarchy, which is good.
James Woods: People always see things from their own point-of-view. The reason I like Salvador is because it shows all sides just as they happened.
Oliver Stone: We were against such odds. I had so many roadblocks to make that picture. And I got enough of what I wanted in there. We shot Salvador the way it looks – hand-held, urgent – I love that movie. It was an ugly duckling. It went after American policy in Central America and it said some things Americans didn’t want to hear.
Putin: Syria chemical attack is ‘rebels’ provocation in hope of intervention’
Russia’s President Vladimir Putin gives a press conference at the end of the G20 summit on September 6, 2013 in Saint Petersburg (AFP Photo)
The alleged chemical weapons use in Syria is a provocation carried out by the rebels to attract a foreign-led strike, Russian President Vladimir Putin said at the G20 summit. There was no 50/50 split of opinion on the notion of a military strike against the Syrian President Bashar Assad, Putin stressed refuting earlier assumptions.
Only Turkey, Canada, Saudi Arabia and France joined the US push for intervention, he said, adding that the UK Prime Minister’s position was not supported by his citizens.
Russia, China, India, Indonesia, Argentina, Brazil, South Africa and Italy were among the major world’s economies clearly opposed to military intervention.
President Putin said the G20 nations spent the “entire” Thursday evening discussing the Syrian crisis, which was followed by Putin’s bilateral meeting with UK Prime Minister David Cameron that lasted till 3am Moscow time.
Russia “will help Syria” in the event of a military strike, Putin stressed as he responded to a reporter’s question at the summit.
“Will we help Syria? We will. And we are already helping, we send arms, we cooperate in the economics sphere, we hope to expand our cooperation in the humanitarian sphere, which includes sending humanitarian aid to support those people – the civilians – who have found themselves in a very dire situation in this country,” Putin said.
Russia’s President Vladimir Putin gestures during a press conference at the end of the G20 summit on September 6, 2013 in Saint Petersburg (AFP Photo)
Putin said he sat down with US President Barack Obama on the sidelines of the G20 summit and talked for about half an hour in “a friendly atmosphere”.
Although the Russian and the American leaders maintained different positions regarding the Syrian issue, Putin said they “hear” and understand each other.
Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov and US Secretary of State John Kerry will continue discussing the situation in Syria “in the short run,” Putin said.
Meanwhile, President Obama reiterated in his summit speech that the US government believes Syrian President Bashar Assad’s forces were behind the chemical weapons use.
Obama pledged to make a good case on the issue for both the international community and the American people, saying many nations are already “comfortable” with the US’ opinion.
While admitting “a number of countries” at the summit stressed any military action plan should go through the UN Security Council, Obama said the US is in a different “camp” that questioned the UNSC effectiveness.
“Given the Security Council’s paralysis on this issue, if we are serious about upholding a ban on chemical weapons use, then an international response is required and that will not come through the Security Council action,” Obama said.
‘A dangerous precedent’
Both presidents stressed that the situation in Syria could create a dangerous precedent, but supported their points with contrasting arguments.
Obama stressed his “goal” and US “responsibility” was to maintain international norms on banning chemical weapon use, saying he wanted the enforcement to be “real.”
“When there is a breach this brazen of a norm this important, and the international community is paralyzed and frozen and doesn’t act, then that norm begins to unravel. And if that norm unravels, then other norms and prohibitions start unraveling, and that makes for a more dangerous world,” Obama said.
Putin, on the contrary, stressed that setting precedents of military action outside a UN Security Council resolution would mean the world’s smaller countries can no longer feel safe against the interests of the more powerful ones.
“Small countries in the modern world feel increasingly vulnerable and insecure. One starts getting the impression that a more powerful country can at any time and at its own discretion use force against them,” Putin said, citing the earlier statement made by the South African President.
Such practice would also make it much harder to convince North Korea to give up its nuclear program, Putin pointed out.
The meeting of the leaders of the major world economies – G20 – took place in St. Petersburgh, Russia. The participants of the summit focused on economic issues during round-table talks, including unemployment, the lack of global investment, and better international financial regulation. While on the sidelines the conversation shifted to the issue of the alleged chemical weapons attack in Syria and the possibility of military action in the war-torn country.
OpEds: The entire globe is a battlefield for Pentagon
Forget it; the Global War on Terror (GWOT) is not becoming more “democratic” – or even transparent.
US President Barack Obama now pledges to transfer the responsibility of the shadow ‘Drone Wars’ from the CIA to the Pentagon – so the US Congress is able to monitor it.
Until virtually yesterday the Obama administration did not even recognize in public the existence of the shadow ‘Drone Wars’.
The Joint Special Operations Command (JSOC) at the Pentagon – which would then be in charge of the‘Drone Wars’ – is bound to remain secret.
And the Pentagon is not exactly yearning to retouch its definition of a “militant”, a prime candidate to be‘target-assassinated’; “any military-aged male in a strike zone”. “Muslim” male, it goes without saying.
Obama’s rhetoric is one thing. His administration’s ‘Drone Wars’ are another thing entirely.
The President now insists GWOT is no longer a “boundless global war”.
That’s rhetoric. For the Pentagon, the “entire globe is a battlefield”.
That is the operative concept since the beginning of GWOT, and inbuilt in the Pentagon’s Full Spectrum Dominance doctrine.
And if the entire globe is a battlefield, all its causes and consequences are interconnected.
The rules of the game
What’s the difference between a British soldier (the UK is attached to GWOT via the “special relationship”), stationed at an army barracks, gruesomely hacked to death with a meat cleaver in a London street and a Syrian soldier beheaded/disemboweled/cannibalized in “rebel”-held territory by a mercenary Sunni jihadi?
The difference is that the Nigerian-British killer in London is a terrorist, and the jihadi in Syria is a freedom fighter.
What’s the difference between an alleged – never conclusively – proven Chechen-American principally responsible for the Boston bombing and a little Pashtun girl killed by a US drone in Waziristan?
The difference is that the Chechen-American is a terrorist, and the Pashtun girl is not even acknowledged by the Pentagon (and even if she was, she’d go down as “collateral damage”.)
And what if the “collateral damage” is a US citizen, as in Abdulrahman al-Awlaki, the 16-year-old son of Muslim cleric Anwar al-Awlaki, ‘target-assassinated‘ by a US drone in Yemen in October 2011?
It will take 19 months for the administration to admit he was “terminated” – but still with no justification attached.
GWOT’s rules of the game won’t change – no matter how soaring Obama’s rhetoric.
When the US – or “the West” – kills or ‘target-assassinates’ Muslim civilians, that’s never terrorism.
When Muslims supported by “the West” kill other Muslim civilians – as in Syria – they are not terrorists; they are Reaganesque “freedom fighters”.
When Muslims kill Western soldiers – as in London – they’re terrorists.
When Muslims happen to come from regime-changeable Iran and Syria’s government, not to mention Hezbollah, they are by definition terrorists.
And when Muslims are lingering in Guantanamo just because they were in the wrong place at the wrong time when the US invaded a Muslim country, they remain terrorists – the umpteenth Obama promise to close Guantanamo notwithstanding.
U.S. President Barack Obama listens as Medea Benjamin, an activist from the organization called Code Pink, shouts at him while he speaks at the National Defense University May 23, 2013 in Washington, DC (Win McNamee / Getty Images / AFP)
Pick your favorite blowback
Take a look at the trailer of Dirty Warsfeaturing Jeremy Scahill’s investigation of Washington’s shadow war. Pay attention to what a Pashtun peasant says: “If the Americans do this again, we are ready to shed our blood fighting them”.
That’s blowback. And not only Pashtuns are ready – but pan-Arabs and Muslims born and bred in “the West”.
The new “lone wolf” catchphrase/hysteria barely identifies the future proliferation of Muslim individuals whose anger finally explodes.
They may not be affiliated with any al-Qaeda-style franchise or copycat. What they do embody is the notion that if “the West” can get away with killing Muslim civilians, there will be a price to pay.
That’s 1, 2, 3, one thousand blowbacks.
And reasons for a thousand blowbacks are piling up.
The Bush administration’s ‘Shock and Awe’ over Baghdad 10 years ago was Western terrorism inflicted on Iraq’s civilian population.
The ‘Drone Wars’ are Western terrorism inflicted on civilian populations from Yemen to Pakistan’s tribal areas.
The sanctions packages imposed for years on Iraq and later on Iran are slow-motion Western terrorism inflicted on civilian populations to “prepare” them for regime change.
Meanwhile “the West” simply won’t quit its ability to fabricate more blowbacks.
NATO’s war “liberated” Libya and turned it into a failed state. The result is Sahelistan; northern and western Africa on fire.
Suicide bombers in Niger have just attacked a military camp and a uranium mine operated by French company Areva.
Responsibility was claimed by Mokhtar Belmokhtar, a former leader of al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM) who late last year formed the splinter group Signatories in Blood, then led the attack on a natural gas plant in Ain Amenas in Algeria last January, and later may – or rather may not – have been killed.
The bottom line is that the entire globe will remain a battlefield – a self-fulfilling Pentagon prophecy.
So many Belmokhtars to fight, so many Syrian jihadis to support, so many “al-Qaeda” to target-assassinate, so many Muslim lone wolves to track.
Obama’s rhetoric is just a show. GWOT is bound to remain a serpent biting its own tail, eagerly feeding itself till the end of time.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
By Pepe Escobar is the roving correspondent for Asia Times/Hong Kong, an analyst for RT and TomDispatch, and a frequent contributor to websites and radio shows ranging from the US to East Asia.
The statements, views and opinions expressed in this column are solely those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of RT.
Thousands of US troops arrive near Syrian shore on USS Eisenhower
Chemical weapons, anyone? American military might ready to pounce on Syria, only the final pretext is still missing (or is being manufactured as we write these lines). Trust the American media (and its Western accomplices) to march in lockstep when the signal is given.
The USS Dwight D. Eisenhower aircraft carrier steams in Mediterranean waters south of Italy during recent NATO maneuvers. People forget that aircraft carriers are assault vessels, designed to project power in remote locations, not defend the homeland where they are not needed. They are a classical weapon if imperialists and neocolonialists. [RT-(Reuters / Paul Hanna)]
The USS Eisenhower, an American aircraft carrier that holds eight fighter bomber squadrons and 8,000 men, arrived at the Syrian coast yesterday in the midst of a heavy storm, indicating US preparation for a potential ground intervention.
While the Obama administration has not announced any sort of American-led military intervention in the war-torn country, the US is now ready to launch such action “within days” if Syrian President Bashar al-Assad decides to use chemical weapons against the opposition, the Times reports.
Some have suggested that the Assad regime may use chemical weapons against the opposition fighters in the coming days or weeks.
The arrival of the USS Dwight D. Eisenhower, one of the 11 US Navy aircraft carriers that has the capacity to hold thousands of men, is now stationed at the coast of Syria, DEBKAfile reports. The aircraft carrier joined the USS Iwo Jima Amphibious Ready Group, which holds about 2,500 Marines.
“We have (US) special operations forces at the right posture, they don’t have to be sent,” an unnamed US official told The Australian, which suggested that US military troops are already near Syria and ready to intervene in the conflict, if necessary.
If the US decides to intervene militarily in Syria, it now has at its disposal 10,000 fighting men, 17 warships, 70 fighter-bombers, 10 destroyers and frigates and a guided military cruises. Some of the vessels are also equipped with Aegis missile interceptors to shoot down any missiles Syria might have at hand, according to DEBKAfile.
“The muscle is already there to be flexed,” a US official told the London Times about the US military’s presence outside of Syria. “It’s premature to say what could happen if a decision is made to intervene. That hasn’t taken shape, we’ve not reached that kind of decision. There are a lot of options, but it [military action] could be launched rapidly, within days.”
The move comes after NATO made a significant strategic decision Tuesday to deploy Patriot Air and Missile Defense Systems in Turkey on the border of Syria where opposition groups have the stronghold. The defense would be able to protect Turkey from potential Syrian missiles that could contain chemical weapons, as well as intimidate Syrian Air Force pilots from bombing the northern Syria border towns, which the armed rebels control. Syria is thought to have about 700 missiles.
“The protection from NATO will be three dimensional; one is the short-range Patriots, the second is the middle-range Terminal High Altitude Air Defense [THAD] system and the last is the AEGIS system, which counters missiles that can reach outside the atmosphere,” Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu said.
DEBKAfile’s anonymous military sources claim the THAD and Aegis arrived at the Syrian coast aboard the USS Eisenhower.
“The United States now stands ready for direct military intervention in the Syrian conflict when the weather permits,” the news source wrote.
