Britain's Foreign Policy on IS: Building Towards Military Intervention.

'As Washington seeks to build a multi-national coalition to support an expansion of air strikes against the jihadists....the prime minister returned to work in Downing Street to intensify plans for an emergency action plan to be agreed at the Nato summit'. The Guardian

'We have been putting in humanitarian aid. I can confirm that last night I authorised two Hercules to participate in the big aid drop on Amerli, a town that has been under siege for nearly two months. The RAF dropped 14 tonnes of food and water there for a population that has been completely besieged'-Michael Fallon, British Defence Minister.

Since the US bombing of IS positions commenced a couple of weeks ago, there has been a growing feeling that Britain too could be dragged back into involvement in Iraq at a level beyond RAF Hercules aircraft dropping food supplies to Iraqis in need and surrounded by IS foot soldiers.

The emphasis has been, therefore, upon humanitarian intervention once more, something invariably leading to the suspicion of yet another 'western war' being planned or else that IS is a creation of the CIA acting in tangent with Israel and with the Caliph himself a Mossad plant.

Certainly, there is not much evidence of public support for any military intervention. Had there been, it is far more likely Cameron could have taken a Blair-style 'shoulder to shoulder' stance. If anything, Cameron was playing for time throughout August 2014, not wanting to be seen as rushing into another conflict.

Cameron claimed Britain's 'military prowess' and 'assets' would be deployed, that 'boots on the ground' were not an 'option on the table' nor air strikes-unless requested. The language of Cameron and his ministers is standard fare and so yawn inducingly banal that many people would feel like switching off the TV.

It looks likely that the British government does not know what could be done or else, far more likely,  it does but is putting out constant spin and managing the media to try and play down the imminent threat of military intervention until some sort of trump card, yet to be played, could be produced.

The task of Britain's politicians seems to consist in trying to anticipate what Washington is going to require its 'first ally' to do the better to position themselves and Britain's 'military assets' at the service of the US should they be requested and so pose as independent 'global players'.

The attempt by the government to ramp up the rhetoric about IS is about softening up public opinion ready for military intervention. Bombing IS positions is not going to defeat it, however, and there is not much sign of any shift away from the failed foreign policy towards Syria. So a 'generational struggle' is on.

This is known as 'public diplomacy'. The basic fact is that the military intervention in northern Iraq is primarily about protecting the Kurdistan region and the oil producing regions from IS and to prevent the Iraqi state collapsing. This would trigger off a potential surge in global oil prices. 

The international development minister Alan Duncan "This is such a complicated conflict that any response needs to be a well co-ordinated international effort." John Kerry went on in a speech later to claim there was a need for a 'world coalition' to defeat a 'genocidal ISIS'.

By 'international', that means 'the west' taking action to ensure energy security as some 20% of Iraqi oil is exported to Europe. But more oil goes to East Asia which is heavily dependent upon imported oil. Higher oil prices would mean higher production costs in China and the cost passed on to Western consumers.

It is partly because the US and Britain back in 2003 caused the havoc in Iraq, still unfolding to such an extreme degree in 2014, that military intervention of some sort of a continued basis appears inevitable. But it also underlines the way the global economies have become dangerously overdependent upon oil.

This is a fact many in the West refuse to confront. It is one thing blaming the politicians as bungling and pursuing a contradictory strategy in Syria and Iraq. But, at a deeper level, the hyper-consumerism that those citizens enjoy requires that this sort of military intervention becomes more frequent.

So, in this sense, political double standards are necessary whereby the most obvious facts about British foreign policy, such as the energy interests ( i.e oil and gas ) are seldom talked about sensibly and reduced to cynical sneers by 'anti-war' activists about military intervention being 'all about the oil'.

This, in turn, means that the very serious problem of the most advanced global economies being fragile and dependent upon oil prices, and the continued access to easily available supples, is impossible to discuss without the accusation of peddling conspiracy theories being made by the defenders of the foreign policy.

Isis and Crisis in Iraq: Plots, Paranoia and Radical Conspiracies.

As I write this, the US is launching air strikes against the Islamic State group in northern Iraq and dropping humanitarian relief parcels to the Yezidis who have been foreced from their villages and towns by the militant group who regard them as "Devil worshippers' fit for conversion or extermination.

ISIS have killed and slaughtered civilans in their attempt to carve out their Caliphate in Syria and Iraq, decapitating Iraqi state soldiers and policemen, crucifying Christians, and surging deep into Iraq to within striking distance of the capital, Baghdad.

They have attracted Sunni allies and even jihadists from the West to join in attacking a fragile state created by the US and Britain after the invasion 2003 and prone to sectarian and ethnic conflicts ever since, a consequence Blair was warned about prior to the invasion but ignored because 'Saddam is evil'.

No matter whether one was opposed to the invasion, not even the most ferocious 'anti-imperialist' could regard ISIS as anything other than barbaric and as a force that had better be defeated. The question, of course, is how and for some, more importantly, by whom.

Even so, despite the need for scepticism about whether air strikes could actually prove to make a bad situation worse, the usual and predictable armchair 'anti-war' ideologues have been out in force trying to oppose anything that could be termed 'intervention', even of a non-military sort.

The worst example comes from Sami Ramadai, an 'anti-war' sociologist based in London, who claims the intervention is neither humanitarian nor would it protect 'the people of Iraq'. The fact that the air strikes are specifically mean to protect some Iraqis such as the Yezidis and the Christians is considered largely unimportant,

Ramadani bats off with this weary set of claims about how hypocritical US foreign policy appears to be,

'Here we go again, the US is using a humanitarian catastrophe to implement imperialist objectives and pour petrol on fire.

It is sickening to see Obama and the Western media shedding crocodile tears for the Iraqi people, after the US-led occupation pulverised Iraq as a society and killed a million of its people. It is obscene to now suggest that the US will fight terrorism and protect the Iraqi people, when the rise of terrorism was the direct result of the US-led invasion of the country. 

Emergency humanitarian help to Yezidi, Christian, Shia communities and all victims of ISIS is essential. But this has to be done through genuine humanitarian organisations and the UN (like in Gaza)'

The first thing to notice about the propaganda is that it does not even start off with mentioning the fact there is a humanitarian crisis. Ramadani's main gripe, put forth in sulky adolescent language, is that the effort, even in fact as regards dropping humanitarian supplies by aircraft , is that it is 'imperialist'.

In fact the entire polemic and many others like it could be translated according to the following translation:

'The first thing to remember in any situation where the US is involved is to hate the US unconditionally while affecting decent scepticism about previous interventions. However, no matter what case could ever be made and for whatever reasons for humanitarian intervention, we would oppose it anyway. 

So this intervention is not humanitarian but, just in case it could be intended as such, it won't be effective ( just in case you had illusions about that ).In order to pretend I care about those Yezidi, Christian, Shia communities who could be slaughtered by ISIS, I need to make windy comments about the UN intervening in a 'genuine' humanitarian way. 

Then , I will explain why the Kurds are stupid to accept US help because of their the superpower's sinister imperial motives. Then, in the safety of my cocoon here in Western Europe I can feel satisfied I have taken the correct line. The important thing is to use the crisis to ramp up the resistance to imperialism. Nothing much else matters.'

It is difficult to think how dropping humanitarian parcels, as the British RAF is doing at present, could make things worse. How the UN would be able to get near the conflict zone without being themselves exterminated is not something Ramadani has given much thought to and for a simple reason: he does not care.

Instead, Ramadani is not even prepared to accept that the Kurdish region is autonomous because the Pashmerga have decided to cooperate with the US in order to drive ISIS back and accept US arms and assistance. As a consequence, they are in league with the imperialists and that's more damning that fighting ISIS.

'The actions of the Kurdish leaders run against the interests of the Kurdish people.' Says Ramadani. Why ? Because he says so. Note he wants to tell the Kurdish leaders what they should do while criticising 'imperialism'.If the Kurdish leaders are prepared to align with the US for whatever tactical reasons they are mere 'tools'.

The actions of the Kurdish leaders run against the interests of the Kurdish people. A similar policy was followed by the Kurdish leaders in the 1960's and 1970's. They, like today, relied heavily on US and Israeli backing. They became so dependent on the US, and its ally the Shah of Iran, that they had to abandon the Kurdish people when the US decided to ditch them. 

Only this is not the 1960s and 1970s. Back then there was a strong state, albeit one lead by the tyrant Saddam Hussein by the 1970s. No doubt there are realpolitik strategies at work with the US. But the Kurdish region is strong, relatively safe and autonomous at present and would have an interest in checking ISIS.

But ISIS is also serving Israel and US interests, apparently. Only this genius has the visionary ability to glean patterns and trends not nearly always associated with other more humble mortals,

'It is clear to me that ISIS is serving Israeli and US economic, political and military objectives in the region. The US is also using ISIS terrorism as a stick to impose conditions on Baghdad, i.e. to cut links with Iran and Syria'.

So not only the Kurdish leaders but also ISIS are 'objectively' in the grand scheme of things 'tools of imperial dominance'. Evidently, that Washington aims at defeating and rolling back ISIS as a means to save the Iraqi state ( the one Ramadani wants preserved ) and trying to put pressure on Baghdad to create a 'unity government'.

Ramadani, however, then put foward the paranoid idea that ISIS serves both the US and Israeli interests. This is despite the fact Israel and the US have been at odds over Israel having wanted to see Kurdistan as an independent republic and the US insistence that the Iraqi state should stay together and not fragment. He opines,

It was noticeable that the ISIS "Caliph" and Israeli war criminal Netanyahu declared the death of Sykes-Picot borders between Iraq and Syria on almost the same day. The Caliph did not mention Israel or its war crimes in Palestine and the region, while Netanyahu declared that the Jordan river will be where Israel will "defend" itself. He also declared his support for an independent Kurdish state. 

There is no 'plot'. Ramadani is paranoid. The fact that the Sykes-Picot borders are breaking down is simply a standard observation of fact with regards northern Syria and Iraq, not some sort of sinister statement of the intent to 'detabilise' the region. Moreover, it is flat out untrue that the Caliph has not condemned Israel.

On July 31st 2014, some eight days before Ramadani's miserable and feeble polemic appeared on the 'Stop the War Coalition' site, it was reported that the Caliph declared it was "only a matter of time" before they got to Palestine to join the fight against "barbaric Jews".

"As for the massacres taking place in Gaza against the Muslim men, women and children, then the Islamic State will do everything within its means to continue striking down every apostate who stands as an obstacle on its paths towards Palestine".

This sort of statement would tend to deflate Ramadani's assertion-'It is clear to me that ISIS is serving Israeli and US economic, political and military objectives in the region.' By aiming to murder everyone in the Middle East, including the Jews, it is difficult to see how that advances Israeli strategy.

In fact, Israel under PM Netanyahu was again at odds with President Obama because he supported Assad in Syria as a lesser evil than having a Muslim Brotherhood government backed by Turkey and Qatar in its place or, perhaps, even more radical Sunni fundamentalists in power in Damascus.

That makes Ramadani's next claim even more bizarre,

 'Similarly, the US is using ISIS terrorism to make Iran halt supplies to the Palestinian and Lebanese resistance movements and to cut its aid to Syria. Generally, the aim is to make Iran more amenable to US objectives in the region.'...

That is why ISIS started fighting the Free Syria Army backed by Qatar and Turkey-and the West and against Assad, Iran's main ally in Syria along with the Shi'ite Lebanese Hizbollah. If this is a plot, then it would be a plot by the the US and Western powers against themelves for some bizarre reason yet to be revealed.

And this is what is supposed to be 'cutting edge' commentary revealing the true yet 'concealed' reasons for US intervention in northern Iraq.

Syria: William Hague is Dissembling.

The facts are not out yet and UN inspectors have not yet had a chance to get to the site, presuming that they are going to be able to. This has not stopped William Hague coming out with similar innuendos used about Saddam Hussein before 2003 having 'something to hide' and his 'non-compliance'.

Likewise, Hague airily dismissed the notion put forth by Russian Foreign Ministry that the attack could have been a deliberate 'planned provocation' by 'the opposition',

"I know that some people in the world would like to say that this is some kind of conspiracy brought about by the opposition in Syria. I think the chances of that are vanishingly small and so we do believe that this is a chemical attack by the Assad regime."

Evidently, the conspiracy theories are often in force in times such as these, whether the supposed Daily Mail clippings that have suddenly resurfaced now about US intentions to supply Al Qaida with chemical weapons or George Galloway's Press TV rant about his 'theory' that it was Israel that 'gave' them to Al Qaida

Yet TV film footage, most of children suffering the effects of some gas or their dead corpses, is guaranteed to get the Western media and politicians spinning the line of 'something must be done' when the nature of the attacks and who did it is actually very far from clear.

Experts on chemical weapons such as Gwyn Winfield at CBRNe have made it quite plain that it is important to know, 'what percentage of those died from exposure to an unknown chemical' and that the facts are, in reality, rather 'difficult to pin down'. Winfield states ( Reflections on Ghouta 22 August 2013 ),

'The spread of these casualties/fatalities is important, without this information we are forced into the conclusion that the spread of attacks was at the maximum reported - which then presupposes a significant, organised force behind it

If this isn’t the case, and all the chemical casualties come from a single area (and it’s downwind path) then it makes it more likely that a smaller, potentially rogue faction, was behind it. This is certainly the Russian view, as espoused by RT and it is interesting that their comments about a rocket ties in exactly with the suggested analysis from Brown Moses on the munition used (though he makes no claims as to how many devices or who fired them).

Large amounts of munitions, many different sites, makes it more likely that it was a large, organised agency behind the firing; an isolated, small exposure (with a big ol’ ATP45 track behind it) would make it more likely that it is a splinter force.'

The idea that the there no questions as to whether Assad has launched a large chemical weapon attack on one area is pure propaganda. The situation is complicated in East Ghouta with the al Nusra Front being defeated there in early August.

William Hague's attempt to blame the attacks squarely on the Assad regime and to preempt any findings by UN inspectors is in continuity with the ploy used to justify the Iraq War in 2003 and was later found to be based on a tissue of lies and fabrications.

So, apart from which chemicals were used, the other question remains as open as it did when the story first broke on Wednesday-'Who gains?'

A Few Thoughts on Conspiracy Theories.

The conspiracy theorists were bound to come out quickly after the Boston Bombings. Britain's globe trotting leading conspiracy theorist David Icke seems to have "the reality" behind the attacks revealed already as a False Flag Cover Up.

The reason people believe conspiracy theories is that they provide an all encompassing "explanation" for catastrophes and terrible events that has to be pinned on "them" as opposed to "us". Traditional conspiracy theories were often to do with anti-Semitic ideas.

In recent times, conspiracy theories have tended to emphasise that the real enemies within are "our" own governments. That's not completely new ( as with Hitler's idea Germany was "stabbed in the back" by Jews, socialists etc ) and so lost the First World War.

The difference today is that politicians are not blamed for losing wars so much as for starting them ( not a bad thing, of course ) and that a war such as Iraq is "all about oil" , when it was actually not just about that but also other factors.

The more absurd conspiracy theories can easily be laughed off, even if some weirdly want to believe them , even though they must know they are insane.

For example, the idea that the Moon is actually a Death Star jamming out cosmic signals that would emancipate consciousness, as David Icke states forthrightly, and that the world is dominated by descendants of Annunuki lizard people who intermingled with human to create the dominant classes.

The dangerous conspiracy theories are those that have a superficial basis in reality, such as the idea Zionists were directly responsible for the Iraq War and that can be backed up by the language used by "alternative" journalists such as John Pilger ( " the Bush Gang", "The Bush Cabal" etc etc ).

Apart from tending to stir up atavistic hatreds, conspiracy theories play into the hands of those politicians and commentators and "experts" who want to deny that oil had any thing to do with the Iraq War. Which then reinforces the idea that "they" are all involved in a "cover up".

The same is true of Afghanistan. The TAPI Pipeline is a central geopolitical war objective of NATO. But because Michael Moore mentioned it , and others in relation to Halliburton, profiteers and cliques, the role of the pipeline and the importance of energy politics is downgraded.

This is important because the Afghanistan War is really about the New Great Game for the resources of Central Asia. By making out that "our" own governments rigged the Twin Towers to get 9/11 or even allowed it to happen to have the pretext to invade overshadows the real role of resources.

And this is the central point. By making out that all evil comes from "Them" , the members of the public can absolve themselves from responsibility for what our governments do. Iraq becomes only that which "they" do: no mention of how "our" energy intensive high octane lifestyles make these wars possible.

Ultimately, conspiracy theories dovetail with simplistic left wing explanations that wars and terrorism is all "caused" by "our governments". Which means only is "we" could "stop" them" the world would miraculously become a better place. It's an assertion of "our innocence" and "their guilt".

Update. 20th April

Naturally, those inclined towards conspiracy theories have on the Guardian "Blether is Free" blogsite accused me of deliberately failing to notice that conpiracies do happen and that people who believe the lies that were fed to the media before the invasion of Iraq were all part of it. Which means, of course, it was not a conpiracy but, at most, part of a system of mass manipulation or indoctrination.

A typical objection was this one,

I'd say it's more apt that anybody who instantly dismisses any suggestion of conspiracy sounds rather fundamentalist. It indicates a willingness to blindly follow what they're told without applying any critical thought. It's certainly more apt than painting everybody who doesn't trust their government with the same brush, as you're doing here.

Plenty of conspiracy theories have turned out to be true. Of course there are people who will blindly believe a theory without any thought, but the same can be said of people who believe what the news and the government tell them, even in the face of the truth that's come out regarding the build-up to the war in Iraq, to state just one example.

I think most people are fairly level headed, and that doesn't just mean being wary of conspiracy theories. It also means being wary of what the government and the media are telling them. Having an open mind is healthy.

Response

I'd say it's more apt that anybody who instantly dismisses any suggestion of conspiracy sounds rather fundamentalist.

I'd say you look up the word "fundamentalist" then. Are you seriously suggesting that a somebody who rejects "any suggestion" of a conspiracy is a fundamentalist ? He is not. He is waiting for and evaluating the evidence.

This does not mean conspiracies do not happen. I was ( and if you had read my post properly before reacting ) you'd know I was rejecting all encompassing conspiracy theories. And say that they benefit governments that lie or mislead us into wars

Of course there are people who will blindly believe a theory without any thought, but the same can be said of people who believe what the news and the government tell them, even in the face of the truth that's come out regarding the build-up to the war in Iraq,

Blair was dishonest but there was no conspiracy. He, and a few others around him, concocted a pissue of half truth based on unreliable evidence because Blair "believed" that invading Iraq was the "right thing to do".
It can be said that Blair conspired to twist the evidence. But he did so in plain view of the British public who, if it is to be remembered were not, as you suggest, somehow mostly brainwashed into believing Blair's fictional "case" for war.

The reason so many people might have been prepared to trust Blair initially, was that, as with those who follow conspiracy theories, they wanted, as much as Blair, to willingly believe in his pseudo-reality. Blair's entire period in office depended on a pseudo-reality.

I think most people are fairly level headed, and that doesn't just mean being wary of conspiracy theories. It also means being wary of what the government and the media are telling them. Having an open mind is healthy.

No, being "wary of conspiracy theories" is precisely to remain open minded as much as being sceptical of the claims being made by government in an instant media age. It means not being credulous and facing reality. The "power of facing" as Orwell called it.