The Age of Despair: Reaping the Whirlwind of Western Support for Extremist Violence
November 13, 2015
The Age of Despair: Reaping the Whirlwind of Western Support for Extremist Violence
by Chris Floyd
We, the West, overthrew Saddam by violence. We overthrew Gaddafi by violence. We are trying to overthrow Assad by violence. Harsh regimes all — but far less draconian than our Saudi allies, and other tyrannies around the world. What has been the result of these interventions? A hell on earth, one that grows wider and more virulent year after year.
Without the American crime of aggressive war against Iraq — which, by the measurements used by Western governments themselves, left more than a million innocent people dead — there would be no ISIS, no “Al Qaeda in Iraq.” Without the Saudi and Western funding and arming of an amalgam of extremist Sunni groups across the Middle East, used as proxies to strike at Iran and its allies, there would be no ISIS. Let’s go back further. Without the direct, extensive and deliberate creation by the United States and its Saudi ally of a world-wide movement of armed Sunni extremists during the Carter and Reagan administrations, there would have been no “War on Terror” — and no terrorist attacks in Paris tonight.
Again, let’s be as clear as possible: the hellish world we live in today is the result of deliberate policies and actions undertaken by the United States and its allies over the past decades. It was Washington that led and/or supported the quashing of secular political resistance across the Middle East, in order to bring recalcitrant leaders like Nasser to heel and to back corrupt and brutal dictators who would advance the US agenda of political domination and resource exploitation.
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I write in despair. Despair of course at the depravity displayed by the murderers of innocents in Paris tonight; but an even deeper despair at the depravity of the egregious murderers who have brought us to this ghastly place in human history: those gilded figures who have strode the halls of power for decades in the high chambers of the West, killing innocent people by the hundreds of thousands, crushing secular opposition to their favored dictators — and again, again and again — supporting, funding and arming some of the most virulent sectarians on earth.
And one further cause of despair: that although this historical record is there in the open, readily available from the most mainstream sources, it is and will continue to be completely ignored, both by the power-gamers and by the public. The latter will continue to support the former as they replicate and regurgitate the same old policies of intervention, the same old agendas of domination and greed, over and over and over again — creating ever-more fresh hells for us all to live in, and poisoning the lives of our children, and of all those who come after us.
http://www.counterpunch.org/2015/11/13/the-age-of-despair-reaping-the-whirlwind-of-western-support-for-extremist-violence/
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Senate Dem calls for stronger military action against ISIS
"I strongly believe we need to further increase our efforts in Syria and Iraq directly and expand our support to partner nations in other countries where ISIL is operating," Feinstein said, using a different acronym for ISIS.
"It has become clear that limited air strikes and support for Iraqi forces and the Syrian opposition are not sufficient to protect our country and our allies," she said in a statement.
"This is a war that affects us all, and it's time we take real action to confront these monsters who target innocent civilians," she added.
“In the last two weeks, ISIL has claimed responsibility for attacks in Paris and Beirut and the bombing of a Russian airliner. The fight is quickly spreading outside Iraq and Syria, and that’s why we must take the battle to them," Feinstein said.
Feinstein's comments are among the first in Congress to call for greater military action against ISIS.
Senate Armed Services Committee Chairman John McCain (R-Ariz.) on Saturday also called for the U.S. to do more, calling the attacks a "wake up call" for America and said there should be "no doubt" ISIS poses a direct threat to the U.S.
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http://thehill.com/policy/defense/260173-senior-democrat-calls-for-more-military-action-against-isis#.VkeXsR-4911.twitter
