When We The People decide to go to war, it can be an excellent thing; to wit, many a revolution, including those which gave rise to the USA, the French Republic, the Republic of China (OK, OK… There were two…). However, when an oligarchy, or a plutocracy, decides to go to war, it is rarely a good thing. Most often, it is an atrocious thing. The war the USA launched in Mesopotamia, as one of its principals, if not the principal actor, one way or another, has not been a good thing for the Middle-East (although, lo and behold, it has been an excellent thing for the domestic oil industry of the USA. Any rapprochement between these facts is sheer coincidence, and no animals were hurt during the making of this movie).
So the so-called “Islamist State” captured Ramadi, a large city just west of Baghdad. The next day, it captured Palmyra, in Syria, 200 kilometers from Damascus.
Mine Is Bigger Than Yours. Islamic State/Daesh Captured Thousands Of Tanks
What does that have to do with Direct Democracy? Everything. You see, the Iraq War is a family affair. It was essentially started by one family. No, not the Hussein family. Those were just a convenient excuse. The war was started by one American family, or, at least, under its watch. The Bush family. It was convoluted enough a story, and the Main Stream Media was so embedded in it, that the reality of what happened has escaped the befuddled crowds.
The picture above was taken after the capture of Mosul. Within hours of that joyous event, the Islamic State was flying combat helicopters, meaning that it employed Sunni elements of Saddam Hussein’s old army. In other words, lo and behold, the “Mission” was not accomplished. Saddam, or rather his punching power, was back. The same topo was reproduced after the capture of Ramadi. Columns of tanks flying the Black Flag could be seen on IS videos. (Yes, I have strange pastimes…)
War has a life of its own. Once started, it is hard to stop. All the more since it is quickly sympathetic to the worst actors. Thus, even making peace with war does not work. One cannot just rise the white flag, and surrender. Just giving up on war, surrendering to those who lead the war successfully, once it has risen its ugly snout, often means giving up to very bad guys.
The day after capturing Palmyra, Daesh (the Arabic insult France and Arab states hurl at the IS) dashed out of Mosul, ten kilometers towards the Iraqi capital. France and the USA have officially a few thousands soldiers on the ground in Iraq, not enough to stop Daesh. Air strikes have been hindered by a laudable effort to limit strikes to military targets. In most French or American sorties, bombs are not released.
It seems as if the Franco-American led strategy in the Middle-East is not working (in spite of more than 5,300 air strikes, and president Hollande of France attending the Gulf Defense Council in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia). How come? Or, more exactly, what is going on?
Well, it’s called the Iraq War, and it was started under Bush Senior, long ago (if not even earlier, when Iraq was encouraged to attack Iran, with the same Western actors, well represented).
What would we do without Bushes? Would we even have had “enjoyed” Hitler (who called Prescott Bush his “most important” collaborator, at some point).
And this brings the big question: would the People of the USA have authorized the attack on Iraq, in a referendum?
No.
There would have been a debate, and undisputed example of Iraqi Weapons of Mass Destruction would have had to be produced. First.
Some are sure to sneer that I am naïve, and that the We The People of The USA would have been manipulated into war. OK, let’s suppose that. Then what? The We The People of The USA would have egg all over its silly face, and, at least, would have learned something, namely to check its sources more carefully. For next time.
In a referendum, there is no doubt that an attack on Afghanistan, after 9/11, and an ultimatum, would have been authorized. Thus it’s probable, actually, that, once it had been exposed that Saddam Hussein’s secular regime was an enemy of Islam Fundamentalism in general, and Al Qaeda in particular, the We The People of the USA would have disagreed to attack a, de facto, ally.
Right, the Athenian Direct Democracy took lousy decisions during the war between Imperial Athens, and other rather oligarchic, if not fascist Greek city-states, led by a degenerating Sparta, financed by the giant Persian plutocracy.
Yes. This was then. A tough learning experience we can learn from now.
The fact is, one family got us in the Iraq War, for the last 25 years, and We The People of the USA, or We the People of Europe, did not vote for it.
Although at first sight it does not look like it, I have documented the causal chains between the mess in the Middle East and Western plutocracy, and the institutions it created. The Great Bitter Lake conspiracy, initially a manoeuver to push France and Britain out, and the USA in, is a case in point.
Kuwait itself was a conspiracy (it’s only natural that Mesopotamia would have access to the sea! Always had, before the British messed up with it).
The USA Ambassador to Iraq, April Glaspie was accused of having given tacit approval for the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait (August 2, 1990). Glaspie’s statements that “We have no opinion on your Arab-Arab conflicts” and that “the Kuwait issue is not associated with America” were interpreted by Mr. Hussein as giving him freedom to solve the problem of Kuwait (which he alleged was using horizontal pumping in Iraq’s oil fields. Saddam would not have invaded Kuwait had he been given an explicit warning that such an invasion would be met with a United Nations Security Council resolution.
University professors specializing in the question concluded that:”…The U.S. State Department had earlier told Saddam that Washington had ‘no special defense or security commitments to Kuwait.’ The United States may not have intended to give Iraq a green light, but that is effectively what it did.”[ ^ John Mearsheimer and Stephen Walt (Jan–Feb 2003). “An unnecessary war”. Foreign Policy (134): 54.]
Some don’t believe in Conspiracy Theories. However, beside the law of unintended consequences, history is mostly made with these. (To know this, one has to study history beyond the headlines.)
It is easy for one family, such as the Bush family, to conspire. When only a few men take all the decisions, their wildest dreams and most secret perversions can be enacted, and enabled.
Yes, conspiracies are impossible to organize in Direct Democracy. Thus, those who heap spite on “conspiracy theories” are actually asserting that We the People control our destinies. Evidence to the contrary is in plain sight. A few thousands individuals control most of the world’s wealth, and even fewer, most of the world’s power.
To remedy this, a few conspiring to kill millions, just one way: Direct Democracy, as much as possible.
Patrice Ayme’
Tags: Bush, Daesh, Iraq, Islamic State, war
Patrice Ayme's Thoughts 
May 21, 2015 at 11:11 pm |
I am not to sure that the Bushes conspired – that would involve thinking, and I am far from convinced that happened. I agree that Glaspie was at best incompetent, but since what she said became known, shouldn’t someone have put Saddam right? My guess is Bush was just aching for a chance to “get at Saddam”.
For my money, though, the worst crime of all was having invaded and killed all those Iraqis, Bush had no idea what to do with Iraq, other than to ensure that Haliburton spin-offs got plenty of taxpayers’ dollars. Criminal, and criminal incompetence at the same time, more or less.
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May 21, 2015 at 11:42 pm |
Con-spirare means together-breathe (etymology is my forte). Thus, by definition, any oligarchy where the principals physically meet, is a conspiracy.
I agree that the hypothesis that Bushes think is bold, and unsupported by evidence. However, how do crocodiles think? Do they think about it? No, they just do it. I see something juicy, and they all rush. Sharks do the same. They go into a cooperative frenzy, ever more excited, during around sometimes for several minutes, and then attack.
Do sharks think? They do not think about the thinking, but they think, and, while not breathing in our way, surely excite each others. “Getting at Saddam” was what I mean by conspiracy: a mood, a conspiring mood. Fact is Glaspie’s statements was completely in accord with state department policy at the time (as I pointed out in the essay).
The war against Iraq, through the embargo, was pursued in the 1990s, under big little boy Clinton. All together, USA action has killed, or contributed to the death, let’s say, of at least a million Iraqis (some will say much more).
The worst of course is not even the death of all these innocent people. The worst is that there has been NO prosecution. That makes the whole USA collectively responsible, and when a nation goes down that road, of collective criminality, supported by collective denial, we know what happens… It does it again.
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May 22, 2015 at 2:44 am |
OK, I am clearly etymologically challenged! Still, I think just having a group moan does not qualify, and i think the word might have changed meaning a little. I like the idea that the Bush conspiracy was like crocodiles smelling juicy want though. That sounds about right by me.
The worst, for me, is the depleted uranium oxide floating around in the dust. With a half-life of about 4 billion years, that is not good news for those who have to live there.
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May 22, 2015 at 4:35 am |
Yes, using radioactive tipped shells, after whining Saddam was nuking around, anytime, soon, was a new height of cretinism, and unfathomable immorality. But of these things high standards Americans do not speak. It’s more about the iPhone 6…
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May 23, 2015 at 10:34 pm |
So, when is WWIII due? I’m not (quite) being a wise-ass here (long comment about daesh, Ukraine and all deleted); it all boils down to : the USA are playing with fire IMHO, vying for chaos and scorched earth, but the worrying question is, are they in control? Or are they played in turn by regional actors who are normally supposed to be kind of local satraps and client States to them, but have agendas of their own, incompatible among each others and unsustainable over time.
The Masters of the Universe have apparently chosen la politique du pire as their best option, if only because it paid so much dividends in earlier such schemes.
Problem is, since WWII, the UK may have learned it couldn’t play its usual meddling game, and retreat to its insular safety if foiled, no harm, no fool, at least not as before, BUT, the USA, OTOH, certainly still can – or think they can, at the very least. That they’re right, or intoxicated by their own hubris and hype is an another matter altogether.
If they indeed are not as much in control as they think themselves to be, plus, if they think they are safe, then, un accident est si vite arrivé, n’est-ce pas?
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May 23, 2015 at 11:17 pm |
It seems clear to me that, under Obama First & Last, the USA has been withdrawing. OK, things may have changed in the last few weeks, as Obama’s administration made some threatening sounds against China, the PRC. About the Spratly islands (where China is creating islands, although it’s much further than Vietnam, Philippines, Malaysia, etc…
Withdrawing is actually aggressive, because it gives free rein to bad actors. Same as in the 1920s, 1930s, and early 1940s. USA distanciation of France, at the time, only encouraged the fascists imperialists.
The plutocrats themselves don’t worry much. What they worry about is internal propaganda. I sent two well thought-out, sedate comments to the New York Times today. Both were censored. They fear my comments, they don’t fear Daesh. As far as the NYT is concerned, I am Public Enemy Numero Uno.
The UK is playing such a selfish game, it’s becoming self-destructive in a blatant way. All what would happen if it pulled out of the EU would be self-destruction. The USA at this point, is the impervious one. All together the USA controls, exerts sovereignty over, 20 million square kilometers (half of them, at sea). That’s nearly as large as Putin’s Reich.
Control is two-faced: there is the problem of plutocracy, and then there is the national problem. During a global war (in which we possibly are already) plutocracy could well lose control, as it did in the USA in the 1930s-1940s. American socialism of sorts happened from FDR to Eisenhower, propped by the military situation…
PA
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May 23, 2015 at 10:41 pm |
I mean, there’s a sense of urgency, somehow, one can “feel” it through the push toward the free trade treaties, for example (tying down the war booties, while it’s still possible, before they go away), or the increasing recklessness toward the “competitors” (squash the Shiites/Russia/the BRICS/whatever while there still is a window of opportunity). A ‘if we go down, the world goes down with us’ kind of risk.
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May 24, 2015 at 2:12 am |
I do not feel that the USA is pushing towards war. If anything, it’s the opposite… But that’s not really reassuring. Like in the 1930s. Before a great tsunami comes, often the ocean recesses. In this case, as in the 1930s, it becomes causative. In the 1930s, Hitler, Stalin, Mussolini were all persuaded the USA supported them, so they had nothing to fear.
Dunkirk changed all this, because, thanks to the French First Army, the British Army escaped. Then the Nazis could not just cross over. They were done.
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May 23, 2015 at 10:48 pm |
Ce n’est pas “est-ce qu’ils sont dangereux?” (c’est le cas, on le savait déja), mais plutôt, “est-ce qu’ils savent ce qu’ils font?”, voire, “est-ce que ce sont des nuls?”
Et là, on peut s’interroger et s’inquièter, récente prestation iraquienne en tête – “plus qu’un crime, une erreur”, etc, etc…
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May 23, 2015 at 11:23 pm |
As I said many times, for the domestic oil industry of the USA, destroying Iraq, and letting destroy Syria, plus embargoing Iran, was a great move. It allowed to deploy fracking (which had long existed) at a huge industrial scale (and that was new).
The more the Middle East self-destroy, the more USA plutocracy advances… Or then, one can open up with Iran, and replace French car buying (as before) by USA car buying (the deal in the works, which is sabotaged by… France, hmmm…)
Distinguishing circus from reality is important in politics: for example many of the superficial ones feel France and Israel have been opposed. But it’s not the case. In the fullness of time, France is arguably Israel’s greatest ally, ahead of the USA.
PA
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May 22, 2015 at 12:19 am |
Another post to make you popular! Americans have nothing to with the Middle East, they just avenged Bin Laden, I mean 9/11, or Bush whatever, it”s very sad what happened, what ever happened, happened but we need hummongous SUVs to be safe and stylish..
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May 22, 2015 at 1:08 am |
The more enemies, the merrier!
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May 22, 2015 at 12:52 am |
Bush, Cheney and Rumsfeld are the Fall Guys (Goys) for the Jewish Elite.
http://forward.com/news/308582/who-the-jewish-billionaires-are-backing-in-2016/
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May 22, 2015 at 1:10 am |
Depicting plutocrats as “Fall Guys” is a bit stretched… BTW, I was talking three Bushes… Was Prescott a “Fall Guy”, administering companies profiting from Auschwitz?
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May 22, 2015 at 1:24 am |
So there are a few billionaires of Jewish descent, as one would expect… Especially considering the higher density of Jews in finance and New York… One does expect less billionaires in the boondocks… Anyway, what’s a Jew? Was not Madonna a Jew of some sort, at some point, Like A Virgin? Will some children of Madonna Jews, then, or whatever? I think it’s better not to make Hitler’s mistake and confuse Jews and plutocrats…
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May 22, 2015 at 4:44 pm |
Are Jews going to destroy Palmyra? No. So please focus on what matters. Jews are not important in history, except as victims
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May 22, 2015 at 2:43 pm |
[Sent to Krugman, 22 May.]
So now we can all share ideas, without going through a few powers
that be. Yet some Main Stream Media still practice censorship (I can’t even name them).
Sharing ideas, debating them is good. Why do we need a handful of “representatives” representing us to vote laws? Why could not we vote directly through the Internet?
Athens’ Direct Democracy often required more than 6,000 Athenians to vote in person. That was difficult logistically (many voters, especially farmers, needed to spend days away from home). Thanks to the Internet, we could debate, and vote, from home, or work.
In the last two decades, Switzerland has been increasingly voting directly, and the results are excellent. Public Opinion generally changes massively as the debate progresses and the vote nears: one can see We The People of Switzerland thinking, and then deciding. And the Swiss don’t use the Internet yet (France has been trying to, for overseas French).
The Internet is changing society extensively. It has the potential to allow us to switch from the Representative Oligarchy we call “democracy”, to real Direct Democracy, the way the Athenians had it, 25 centuries ago.
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May 22, 2015 at 3:08 pm |
An idea whose time has come! (And quickly, please!)
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May 22, 2015 at 4:41 pm |
To bring it quick, more people need to push for it, besides Patrice!
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May 26, 2015 at 3:04 am |
[Sent to fb philo gp.]
Funny to see people completely ignorant of history (that is, a bunch of facts) plan to force the Nazis into submission, through carpet bombing with flowers. Also the Brits were leaving India anyway, all what Gandhi the Hitler “friend” did, was to antagonize the Muslims. So, the day nuclear war happens in South Asia, let’s thank Gandhi!
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November 19, 2015 at 9:15 am |
“Air strikes have been hindered by a laudable effort to limit strikes to military targets.”
That limit is entirely reasonable, as unlimited strikes killing civilians create more terrorists than they eliminate. However, fact is that – outside few hundred US A-10s – NATO has no aircraft capable of carrying out reliable precision strikes.
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November 19, 2015 at 3:03 pm |
Dear Picard:
My understanding was that Rafales and Mirages are capable of extreme precision bombing (differently from Typhoons, which need assistance). The Russian air force itself announce it would target trucks. Jihadi John was killed by a tiny strike from a mini missile fired by a drone, after weeks of tracking (by other drones, and maybe spies).
The real problem has been to make sure about targets. The French spent weeks determining where was the foreign/French terrorist training center, before sending an obliterating strike, once they were sure.
Thus at least 90% of sorties are about intelligence, not strikes (Rafales have a sophisticated intelligence device they use).
I myself have long advocated that it is better NOT to strike than strike civilians, and that is why I was stridently against the drone campaign the way Obama did it in Afghanistan-Pakistan-Yemen for years. The “Signature Strikes” obliterated all too many innocent gatherings.
PA
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November 19, 2015 at 11:59 pm |
[…] https://patriceayme.wordpress.com/2015/05/21/war-versus-direct-democracy/ […]
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November 8, 2016 at 5:45 am |
Reblogged this on Defense Issues and commented:
United States are a feudal society. There is little social mobility. Rich families can afford to send their kids to private schools, while everybody else has to rely on underfunded, low-quality public schools. This means that even people who may have the ability to do something, to climb social ladder, do not get to do so because they do not get the education. Starting conditions are inequal, and rich get all the advantages. This leads to social stratification and setup not dissimilar to social classes of feudalism – peasant could and can become a noble, but it happens extremely rarely. And because of this stratification, it is impossible for democracy to develop and function. Bush and Clinton dynasties are just some of the dynastic families that have huge influence in US economy and politics – Samuel Prescott Bush established the family fortune in 1908, and the family became politically prominent in 1918. His son, Prescott Sheldon Bush, was a friend of Nelson Rockefeller and financed Adolph Hitler. The Mellon family an Irish immigrant family from Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, are known for the Bank of New York Mellon, Chevron, Aluminum Company of America (ALCOA), and New York Shipbuilding, among a number of other companies. The Murdoch family are media moguls, starting from early 1900s. The Rockefellers are a banking and industry superpower from 1870, when John D. Rockefeller founded Standard Oil. The Koch family are another oil-based dynasty, but with a shorter history, starting in early-to-mid 20th century. The Sulzberger family controls The New York Times at least since mid-1900s. The Kennedy family has been in US politics since late 1900s. These are just the most prominent examples, but such social immobility is normal for the US society as a whole, because rich get all the advantages in the start. It is these families that started the Iraqi War, which in turn indirectly caused the ongoing islamic invasion of Europe. Why? Because they – all of them – own businesses (oil and weapons) which directly profited from the war. Thus conspiracies are born, since the very rich elite comprised of very few people has both the ability and the opportunity to conspire behind the backs of the publica, and Res Publici thus becomes Res Secreti.
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November 11, 2016 at 7:09 am |
Thanks for reblogging me Picard!
The USA’s first billionairte was Carnegie (late 1800’s). And Carnegie was a bit to the left of Bernie Sanders: he famously wrote about it in detail (heavy taxes on the hyper rich). Teddy Roosevelt (practical father of FDR) then passed the anti-monopoly laws. Then those were circumvented with great US investment in Germany, 1914-1945 in its first phase (not a typo). So here we see plutocratic globalocracy was tied in with fascism and war.
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November 8, 2016 at 8:23 am |
Excellent post!
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November 8, 2016 at 2:46 pm |
Thanks. Now your comments will come in immediately, because they are so good! (;-)!)
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