Patrick Cockburn, How to Ensure a Thriving Caliphate

[Sam1]

Think of the new “caliphate” of the Islamic State, formerly the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS), as George W. Bush and Dick Cheney's gift to the world (with a helping hand from the Saudis and other financiers of extremism in the Persian Gulf). How strange that they get so little credit for its rise, for the fact that the outlines of the Middle East, as set up by Europe’s colonial powers in the wake of World War I, are being swept aside in a tide of blood.

Had George and Dick not decided on their “cakewalk” in Iraq, had they not raised the specter of nuclear destruction and claimed that Saddam Hussein’s regime was somehow linked to al-Qaeda and so to the 9/11 attacks, had they not sent tens of thousands of American troops into a burning, looted Baghdad (“stuff happens”), disbanded the Iraqi army, built military bases all over that country, and generally indulged their geopolitical fantasies about dominating the oil heartlands of the planet for eternity, ISIS would have been an unlikely possibility, no matter the ethnic and religious tensions in the region. They essentially launched the drive that broke state power there and created the kind of vacuum that a movement like ISIS was so horrifically well suited to fill.


http://www.tomdispatch.com/blog/175884/tomgram%3A_patrick_cockburn%2C_how_to_ensure_a_thriving_caliphate/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+tomdispatch%2FesUU+%28TomDispatch%3A+The+latest+Tomgram%29


This has an interesting slant in that the author thinks the U.S. is both opposing and supporting ISIS. That we are opposing them in Iraq and at the same time supporting them in Syria by supporting the opposition a large part of which, according to the author, is ISIS.

[brer cat]

1. Your comments at the end

are why I oppose intervention in civil wars in other countries...how do we know exactly who we are supporting. That said, I do generally support intervention to stop genocide...if we are going to pay for the biggest, baddest military in the world, then at least use it to save innocent people from slaughter. The tricky part is how to do that without boots on the ground and collateral damage. I am not sure we can stop ISIS without both of them.

Thank you for the post, Sam.

[Sam1]

2. Actually the Kurds can be the "boots on the ground."

They are well organized, and have a clear aim of being left alone and have not given any indication over the years of wanting to control other peoples country.

There will always be collateral damage because "shit happens at the sharp end of the stick."

As far as the biggest, baddest military in the world I will grand you the most expensive. I don't think we have had a successful outcome since Korea.

[Cartoonist]

3. Bosnia

And we did it without a single combat fatality. I'm still waiting for McCain to apologize to Clinton. Grandpa said Bill's strategy was all wrong.