Over the weekend, the news brought word that someone calling himself Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi had been killed by special forces in Syria. According to President Trump, “He died after running into a dead-end tunnel, whimpering and crying and screaming all the way.” He apparently blew himself up using a suicide vest. Presumably, real men are boastful and arrogant as they deploy their dynamite vests. Or maybe real men simply allow themselves to be captured and sent off to Guantanamo Bay.
Of course, we cannot even be sure this actually happened. The Russians are telling the world they doubt this thing happened. They point to various factors that would seem to contradict Trump’s story. This is a bit ironic, in that the people accused in the biggest hoax in American history are now claiming this is a hoax. You get the feeling that maybe the three-year long Russian hoax has caused the Russians to suspect that American politicians are not the most honest people in the world.
All that stuff aside, this news event is another example of the incoherence of modern American politics. Two weeks ago, Trump was boldly and proudly saying he was pulling troops out of the quagmire of Syria. This was confirmed by the Left, which claimed his decision was resulting in a genocide. The pols owned and operated by the Israeli lobby, which is the Republican party and most of the Democrat party, were kvetching about how this was all very bad because of something about whatever.
Now we have Trump out crowing about those troops that were supposed to be out of Syria, conducting an operation in Syria to kill some guy. Even nuttier, this guy he had not mentioned until this event, was literally Hitler. Of course, the Left, who regularly tells us Trump is literally Hitler, is now less than enthusiastic that Trump is doing what they demanded he do last week. In effect, the man they say is literally Hitler, went ahead and killed the guy he says is literally Hitler, so that makes Trump literally Hitler.
This whole story reveals that democracy in the current age is just a sham. At every point, the various camps pick a side, which could very well be the opposite of what they said last week. It’s as if each of these events is a play put on by the political class, where the actors draw lots to see who plays which role. Today one party is anti-war, while tomorrow the other party will play that role. Like actors boasting of their versatility, our politicians are proud that they can take any side on every issue.
Further, why in the hell is America in Syria? You’ll note there was never a debate about this or resolutions passed authorizing the use of the troops in Syria. According to available timelines, it was under the Obama administration that America started to get entangled in the Syria mess. In 2011 he authorized aid and intelligence support to irregulars battling the Syrian army. Presumably, this came from American troops in Northern Iraq, a place he claimed to have withdrawn all US troops.
By 2012, the Obama administration was openly supplying weapons to various groups of irregulars going under names no one in his administration understood. Now, in 2012 there was this thing called an election going on in America, in which this stuff is supposed to be debated. Mitt Romney, the alleged opponent of Obama and leader of the opposition party, proposed doing exactly the same things Obama was doing in Syria, but promising to use different rhetoric to justify it to the public.
This is, of course, why the public is slowly beginning to sour on the ruling class of America and democratic politics in general. If democracy was a real thing, someone in politics would have proposed not getting tangled up in the Syria mess. Instead, everyone agreed to angrily disagree with one another about the right way to agree with one another on a plan none of them understood, a plan put forth by the military-intelligence complex that runs American foreign policy. It was just a show.
For his part, Trump, who is pretty much a naive civic nationalist, is saying sensible things about these endless conflicts. Despite his faults, his instincts on this stuff are correct most of the time. He wants out of the whole region. As he said, the biggest mistake the country made was getting involved in the Middle East. The trouble is, he is not actually in charge of anything. Two times now he has ordered troops out of Syria and we still have troops in Syria. Now we have new raids in Syria.
Clearly, the people really in charge of American foreign policy decided to let Trump know who is really in charge, so they conducted this raid. That leaves Trump little choice but to act like it was his idea. Despite his good instincts, he is slowly being turned into another organ grinder’s monkey for the military-industrial complex. It is another example of how voting makes little difference in a democracy, because the people in charge simply ignore the results of the elections.
The fact is, until the Israel lobby decides they no longer need us in Syria, America will be involved in the Syrian conflict. The army of lobbyists, crawling over Washington like aphids, paid for by foreign interests and the military-industrial complex, will never stop bleeding the nation dry. Only when the American middle-class collapses and there is no more cash to be stolen from them, will the endless wars come to an end. That’s the beauty of democracy. It completely consumes the fools who support it most.
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A very succinct summary of the situation…Civic nationalism is a disaster at all times, but it’s worse when it’s Israeli nationalism….
The whole thing has a “we’ve always been at war with Eastasia” quality.
Most people had never even heard of “Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi” until his death was announced. And yet we’re supposed to re-write our memories in order to think of him as the most evil man of the century, Our Most Desperate Enemy.
This sort of “epistemological viciousness”–wherein the ruling class expects us to pretend to see things we don’t see, pretend not to see things that we see, and pretend to rewrite our own memories every day on a moment’s notice–show just how despicable, really just evil, they are.
Keep in mind that EVERY indigenous player in the Middle East is simply a tribe competing with all the others in the only way they know how, through brutal acts of butchery and alliances of convenience. It is all-against-all over there, a fight between tribes of people all related to each other in history, with feuds and memories that last forever.
Why would we ever want to get in the middle of any of that, and fer gawd’s sake, why allow any of those tribes to live over here and export their problems to our neighborhood?
German chancellor Otto von Bismarck famously said that the Balkans were “not worth the bones of a single Pomeranian grenadier.” The same is true for the United States in the Middle East.
Amen.
“…..Clearly, the people really in charge of American foreign policy decided to let Trump know who is really in charge, so they conducted this raid. That leaves Trump little choice but to act like it was his idea…….” So ZMAN is suggesting that Trump has absolutely no idea that the raid was going to happen. What absolute rubbish. Where is ZMANS evidence? Where are any facts that support his thesis? I suppose that Zman also believes that Trump is Putin’s “boy.” The deep state/media/Hollywood/academia HATES Trump precisely because his policies are anathema to the global world order / socialist /… Read more »
I was tempted, but never actually did post on some conservative sites that I didn’t understand exactly why I am supposed to care about Al-Baghdadi. I mean, yes, I have heard all the normie-com rationalizations “fight them over there so we don’t have to fight them here,” “sponsors terrorism,” “inpires domestic terrorism,” it is just that none of that is particularly convincing. His death isn’t going to be a deterrence to people like the San Bernardino shooters. It’s really just regional tribal conflicts. Wars of conquest. Up until WW 2 nobody except the conquered thought wars of conquest were illegitimate.… Read more »
Conveniently, Al-Baghdadi’s body has disappeared, like Osama bin Laden’s did. God forbid that we should take these guys alive, give them the Assange-treatment and having them weep in court and renounce Mohammed, after they’d given up their command network. You’d almost think someone was afraid to have them cross-examined in a court of law.
My take is that Osama and Baghdadi are hanging out with Jeffrey Epstein in some Israeli compound stocked with booze, drugs and child sex slaves.
And I’m not even kidding that much.
On another subject…how did you drop that photo into your comment in the previous posting?
I just google and pick a photo where the url in the link ends with an image format like .jpg or .gif and hey, presto! It’s embedded!
Considering that traitorous coup advocate McRaven* was in command of the SEALs during the last high-profile trophy hunt, a good deal of skepticism is in order. Once again I effectively find myself on the same side as the alleged monster Putin. Ever since Vlad the Thot-Nailer made his famous UN speech skewering U.S. pretensions of exceptionalism, he’s felt more like one of Our Guys than any U.S. military honcho or political (((stooge))). Putin is a Russian patriot who acts to protect his people’s interests (albeit while skimming phat rubles for his circle). Contra our Ashkepath expats from Ukraine (aka “Russia… Read more »
I agree Exile. It is hard to blame Putin for things the US did. 1. The CIA arranges to overthrow the government of the Ukraine and install one hostile to Russia. Putin moves to secure the Crimea and thereby the Black Sea Fleet naval base and he is accused of aggression? 2. Obama and the CIA move to overthrow Assad in Syria. Syria is a long time ally of Russia and Russia has at least two military bases of consequence in Syria. Putin moves in to keep Assad in power and thereby secure his Naval and air force bases and… Read more »
The US cries out as it strikes you.
And they get away with it because they understand the power of the collective and use it to their advantage…A small tribal people can subvert thousands of individuals…
“…our politicians are proud that they can take any side on every issue.”
Well, most politicians were trained as lawyers. And lawyers are trained to take any side. The corruption potential is built-in.
There’s a professional debater’s conceit in this as well. Not only is it profitable to be able to play both sides but many esquires take pride in their alleged ability to win either side of an argument. It helps them sleep at night. That said, legal training is mostly just a skill set. The double-dealing sociopathy is usually ready-baked before they leave K-12.
Yes! Yes! to all of this. DC is rotten to the core and the presumption of democratic governance is a lie sold to the naive for the purpose of keeping the plebs from getting ornery. Syria is about unexploited oil fields that Israel wants to access and is using the US military as its proxy mercenaries to accomplish the deed. Powerful DC politicians have been bribed in service to this end and Trump is the fly in the ointment. Observe, analyze, predict, & prepare. Bumpy road ahead.
I know almost nothing about what’s going on in Syria (like most people), but I did read that this guy had been operating in U.S.-backed zones with immunity for a long time. I think it’s possible this was Obama’s “guy” over there. Hasn’t the left been siding with the enemies of civilization since the Russian Revolution if not before? Who knows what is going on — there is simply no transparency as to what our objectives are.
What was Hillary’s private spook Blumenthal doing with assets all over Benghazi the night they torched our embassy? My money’s on “running guns and other contraband to Baghdadi’s boys.”
Miles of Wall = 14 in 3 years.
Swamps drained = 0.
Hers locked up = 0.
I think we could have taken this guy out at anytime and doing so now was a big F U to some faction in the West. Also, could have been a wag the dog thing, but Trump’s colorful language suggests that he is flipping the bird to someone powerful.
The Deep State originally referred to bureaucracies that carried out the interests of the state despite who was elected to office. The Kemalist military of Turkey was the best known example. This was before 2015-2016 when infowars turned into another meaningless boogeyman.
The Yankee Empire has a vested interest in Syria. The foreign mercenaries that the empire imported into the heartland have an interest in Syria. Americans do not. That realization is an important red pill for our side. Secede in your mind.
Not Israel. Saudi.
Whiskey always deflects
Consume assassination; get excited for next assassination
I’ve grown tired of the habit of these guys to paint every guy they kill as a craven cowards. I even found myself agreeing, uncomfortably, with Bill Mayer when Bush called the pilots of 9/11 cowards. Flying jets into towers. Not sure what they were, but cowards doesn’t seem to fit.
The business of America is business, and the business of business is war.
I don’t think that’s what Cal had in mind.
Like Ron Paul said: The empire will end like all empires end. When they can no longer pay their armies.
Organ grinders monkey? Sounds like a good political cartoon with the organ having a big star of David on it.
Our enemies are always simpering cowards, not like the bold, intrepid men and women that lead us. Nothing obviously will change until inexorable events force it upon us. Change may not be good either.
Hey, another extension for Brexit now, see how it goes?
All true. But. But sometimes, Z, The Big Picture is not where it’s at. Years ago I stumbled across a site of someone chronicling the atrocities of ISIS. Apparently they went through one neighbourhood and beheaded toddlers. And lest ye doubt… there were pics. Too many. That’s what those mutts do. That’s how they roll. Those people are fuggin animals. You kvetch about ‘endless war’. Those mutts have petty blood feuds that go back centuries. You’re right, America has no place in any of that and needs to think about how to avoid getting drawn into it. Geopolitics being what… Read more »
If it was just an isolated team of special ops guys sneaking into Syria or wherever and killing a jihadi or the occasional drone strike on a wedding (it’s always a wedding), I wouldn’t lose any sleep over putting a few of these savages six feet under because they’re all bad. Instead the US is always deeply and permanently involved in every corner of the Middle East (and even Africa). It’s always an intervention on behalf of one group against another. There aren’t a bunch of Washingtons and Jeffersons in Syria setting up a nation with liberty and justice for… Read more »
“Former Israeli Defense Minister Confirms Israeli Collaboration with ISIS in Syria” https://bit.ly/2WlYn2v
“UN REPORT REVEALS COLLABORATION BETWEEN ISRAEL AND SYRIAN REBELS” https://bit.ly/2qRjfmB
“Israel buys most oil smuggled from ISIS territory” https://bit.ly/2ot7HoM
This seems like Israel’s problem, not ours.
But… the odd hunting trip like this is just fine by me. If they killed some stinky moslem mutt that needed killing… I’m good with it.
Buy your own damn plane ticket over there and do it instead of encouraging vile Washington scum to send other peoples’ sons.
Amen, brother.
But… the odd hunting trip like this is just fine by me. If they killed some stinky moslem mutt that needed killing… I’m good with it.
Then don’t be surprised, and don’t blame Islam, when they truck bomb a school near you.
Absolutely. But they will do it anyways, Felix. To them, the difference between you and a Jew is purely conversational. They will be killing our kids for decades because of this and other slights and crimes – some real, some imagined.
This is essentially the next Crusade in the making. The moslems got spanked during the crusades because of their endless raids on Christendom and one day, the Christians had had enough of it. You are watching history in the making. It may not repeat… but it will rhyme.
But they will do it anyways, Felix.
On a small scale, certainly. They’ll always hate us, they’ll always harass, rob, rape and kill white people on a petty – if extensive – scale.
But the forever-war against Moslem nations is the primary driver of terrorism, and it fuels the hate in the Eurostans. Devout Moslems don’t care about nation states, they only care about the Umma. And at the moment, we’re killing their brothers left and right and they have a holy duty to kill us back.
I don’t care about any atrocities committed in the non-white world enough to put our soldiers at risk.
All our efforts to police the world should be redirected to policing our borders and ports of entry.
“We’ve got to fight them over there so that we don’t have to fight them here.” Not if they can’t get in here.
How many Chinese troops are in the Middle East? How many Middle East Muslims are committing terrorist attacks in China? Same questions for Japan or South Korea or Taiwan or Vietnam?
The level of brainwashing out there is astounding. The missionary gene in us whites is strong.
China will eventually have to establish a sphere of influence there. Japan and South Korea can do it through their allies in Europe and the US. Wherever moslems go, you will find violence, hatred and conflict. They are exactly like blacks in that regard, only they are a lot smarter about it. They will kill Japanese and Koreans or anyone else if they think there is a dime in it.
Yeah, that works just fine until the Deep State decides that dissidents like you are next “moslem mud flaps” that require some instant justice. Just sayin.
Sorry, Glenfilthie. But there wouldn’t be an ISIS if the US (under Obama, but Trump is proving to be no better) hadn’t fanned the flames of the civil war and poured arms and money into the region in a bungled attempt at regime-change, much of those goodies ended up in the hands of ISIS, either deliberately or inadvertently. As for beheadings, well, the Saudis (the good guys… cough,.cough) behead more people annually than even ISIS, though I’m not sure what kind of toddler body-count the Saudis can claim, though they’ve sure killed lots of babies in Yemen. And the Booby’s… Read more »
Yes there would have. What you don’t understand is that betrayal, deceit, and treachery are art forms to the savages. This behaviour is entrenched in their religion and sanctioned by it. That is why they fight like dogs and curs, attacking innocents and then retreating to hide behind their own. Until we work up the courage and strength of purpose to counter that tactic… they will continue to beat us with it. There was a time when the right understood this and used it to keep the moslems divided and focused on tearing each other up instead of us. How… Read more »
The only threat Islam presents to America is in its importation, which has only accelerated since the alleged jihadi strike of 9/11. The “terror exporters” dancing on top of a van before, during and after that event weren’t Muslims. Pat Buchanan was right from the start on this. The whole “they hate us for muh freedums” schtick was goy-feed. I don’t care to live under Islam but I’ve come to see the whole “clash of civilizations” as a psy-op. Keep them over there, keep our troops on our borders where they’re needed, and I won’t have to give a camel-fart… Read more »
No it’s not goyfeed. Feminists and queers scare the shit out of moslems and rightfully so. That is why they mob up and throw queers from the roof tops and stone otherwise defenseless women. Anyone that thinks that if the US withdraws, the moslems will return to peace and live quietly in their own lands… is deluding themselves and has no idea of who they are dealing with. They breed like flies while our women kill their own babies in cold blood and castrate their sons. They are willing to use tactics in warfare that would make us cringe. They… Read more »
Exactly as Exile said, “The only threat Islam presents to America is in its importation.” It’s not like terror attacks in the U.S. are carried out by commandos who swim ashore in scuba gear under the cover of darkness. We let them in.
That is the dirty little secret Exile. A lot of our problems could have been easily avoided by securing our borders and limiting immigration. But that would have been way too easy.
Maybe ISIS is as bad as they say. After all, the same people who peddled the Russia hoax and too many other hoaxes to count would never lie about something like this.
My default on all reports by our media is that they are lying. The truth is always something other than what they are reporting.
Nobody in media can be trusted and maybe Trump can’t either but their sputtering, fomenting, visceral rage towards him will always be a mark in his favor
Yep. No matter what happens, Trump did usher in the age of no-confidence in the media. That will pay dividends for a long time.
This is the thing with Trump. He has an ability to get his opponents to undermine themselves and to show their open contempt of the people they rule over. During the 2016 campaign, he got the media to show what partisans they were. We always suspected the media of being progressive Democrat partisans, but it was never so clear as it was in 2016 and since. He has exposed the uniparty, the press, the swamp and the international cabal.
In this way, Trump has greatly exceeded my expectations.
The media will lie like sidewalks. Wasn’t it the WaPo that ran an obit portraying the “victim” as a gentle moslem theological scholar?
But I don’t think Trump would lie about something like this. He is too cagey to go off half cocked on something like this. I suspect the proof of the deceased will come in the form of explosive media revelations that Abu-Al-Fuknuk-Al is actually alive, and sharing a cave with Oslama bin Laden and possibly Elvis.
FOX news had one of the MIC spokesman on. The general said we need to be in Syria to protect the oilfields from ISIS. I thought ISIS had been decimated and is no longer a strategic threat. So why are we in Syria protecting the oilfields from ISIS? Can’t Syria protect it’s own oilfields from ISIS?
We took over the oilfirelds for one reason, to starve Syria of oil and topple the Assad regime. And that oil is now going to Turkey.
Remember we still have full on embargo against Syria. Our Navy even threatened to sink a oil tanker bound for Syria not too long ago.
Sometimes I think the Middle East is just a hampster wheel our rulers use to keep high testosterone white guys engaged in anything but domestic politics. The elite units are stacked chock full of young intelligent leaders wholly consumed by foreign events, while their own country is destroyed behind them.
Within a decade of the frontier being closed (1890) we began our first foreign adventures and have been at it constantly. This probably has something to do with democracy. It’s volatile and needs expansive external conflicts to keep that volatility focused elsewhere. Instead of an aristocracy of statesmen we end up being ruled by manipulative profiteers who develop a domestic mercenary army of obfuscating bureaucrats, ubiquitous yes-men and freaks to counter those who should be the nation’s natural leaders – for when those natural leaders are not engaged in the frontier or with the latest foreign demon.
I think it’s more a question of the size of a country leading it to imperialist adventures than the form of government. Switzerland is democratic but not expansionist. Russia in the 18th and 19th Centuries was autocratic and expansionist. (I admit China may be an exception.) Once a country achieves a certain size the temptation for the elites to play at empire becomes almost overwhelming. George Kennan, in his book Around the Cragged Hill, advocated dissolving the present United States and forming about eight autonomous republics and perhaps three city states. All of these would have a robust self-defense capacity… Read more »
Anciently, high-level Chinese officials were stationed outside of their home province, because at home they might work together with their own local people to decentralize power away from the empire.
Stationed far away from home, they ruled over people with whom they had little affinity, and proceeded to run riot, mistreating and looting the local people.
Parallels!
It is not unreasonable. The Saudis used to send their most enthusiastic religionists off to fight jihad against the Soviets in Afghanistan for the same reason. It’s how we go Osama bib Laden. The fact that most of our guys come out of the service cynical about multiculturalism and skeptical of democracy will eventually become a serious problem for our rulers. They have already been hinting around about it.
As with everything our rotten elites do, their solutions always create new problems.