I’ve been following the situation in Syria lately, both the US-Russia “agreement” and the situation on the ground, and here are some of my thoughts.
First of all, America has almost zero control on the ground, among the jihadists. They will take American weapons, but they will use them to shoot the “Christian dogs” immediately afterwards.
Second, there are no moderates in the opposition there. All the moderates are aligned with the government. For quite a while the rallying call among the jihadists was that Assad and similar “dictators” need to be overthrown, because they are not democratic enough, and guess what, “democratic” there means “Islamic radical”.
Third, if you allowed the people there to elect a government, they would put an Islamic caliphate in power, which is what ISIS is. ISIS is the manifestation of the will of the local populace. What’s immensely worrying is that America if arming and financing those idiots, both directly and through their client states in the middle-east, and that’s why they are so difficult to defeat. Essentially, the Muslim Brotherhood and ISIS are what democracy will produce there, in the same way as it produced the current regime in Iran. It was the result of the popular uprising against American meddling in their affairs, and it’s not going anywhere. So, basically, in the middle-east democracy means radical salafism, an Islamic caliphate. That’s what the Muslims would create if you allowed them to pick their own government, and that’s why the only way to introduce some semblance of Western values, progress and technology there was to impose some kind of a secular dictatorship.
Fourth, the main difference between America and Russia at this point is that Russia wants to stabilize the middle-east and avoid the spread of chaos and war, and America wants the opposite, it wants to completely decivilize the middle-east in a state of perpetual war where all the cold-war era client states have been destroyed, and the local Islamists essentially have no financial or industrial capacity for spreading Islam to the west.
Fifth, in the long-term, what America seems to be doing might actually save the Western civilization, if they are actually doing what I think they are. In the short-term, it causes regional chaos, which seems to export itself into Europe and America through the wave of migrants. Those migrants are too stupid to take part in the Western economy and can only serve as drain on our resources and form dens of terrorists and troublemakers. Essentially, they are worth nothing and cost us dearly.
Sixth, I don’t know which troubles me more, that America seems to insult and provoke Russia so blatantly, or that Russia reacts so calmly. Russian calmness most likely means they are simply buying time and forcing America to start the nuclear war, which they accepted as inevitable. Were it not so, they would probably try to avert it with an aggressive posture. This entire thing looks like a game for the public opinion after the war, where America wants to kill all the Russians while portraying them as aggressors and itself as a defender of peace, while Russians seem to say “we know you’re the aggressors, just go ahead with whatever you have planned, but don’t expect us to take part in your games”. The Russians are very careful not to do anything that could be used as an excuse for the start of a nuclear war. However, they are prepared for it.
Interestingly, although a bear is used to symbolize Russia, I think they are acting more like a rattle snake. They are sounding their warning but they remain in a strictly defensive posture. If you ignore the warning and step on them, they will bite you, but they will not attack first, they will not leave their defended zone. Also, I noticed a very interesting thing – Americans seem to be laying traps for the Russians, things like the artificial Ukraine crisis, where they expected Russia to react by invading Ukraine, but Russia evaded the trap and instead opened a completely different theater of action in Syria. America now tries to create a situation in Syria where Russia will have to react in a way conducive to the nuclear war that they desire, but I expect Russia to evade again and open a completely different theater to project its influence. Essentially, what America seems to be doing is provoke the rattle snake to strike, so that it can cut its head off, but the rattle snake sees through it and acts very strategically. America is more powerful, but the Russians are smarter. The entire situation looks like a conflict between an IQ 90 bully and an IQ 130 geek, where America is the bully. The usual development of such conflicts is that the bully keeps beating up the geek, but the geek strategically uses his advantages in such a way that he suffers through the ordeal patiently, finishes school with high grades, creates a tech startup company and earns millions of dollars, and the bully gets to deliver him pizza. Essentially, the geek knows he can’t win the battles, but he can position things so that he survives them just long enough for the strategic situation to shift to his advantage.
The most worrying thing in the entire situation is that America behaves like a bully who thinks he’s invulnerable because all the power in the world is on his side, and nobody will stop him. He will bully whomever he feels like, and he will control the narrative in order to present the victim as the villain. America acts in a way that is consistent with a serious power trip of someone who never had to endure a crushing defeat, and that’s the worrying part, because if that’s true, it means they don’t even understand or care for the warning signs of the rattle snake, and they will simply proceed to attack.
Their problem is that the Russians and the Chinese see through them, they understand what they are dealing with, they have time on their side and they will strike, when it comes to the point of “use it or lose it”. And considering the IQ difference, they have a very good chance of completely surprising the Americans and winning. The Americans are very powerful, but they are overconfident, reckless, internally conflicted and stupid. This is not a winning combination.
I find notion that America is in long term doing all these actions to destroy islam interesting, but somehow I doubt it. Aren’t there better, proper ways? I don’t think we should look at them as saviors of western civilization.
Regarding sixth, what the hell do they think they will accomplish with nuclear war in middle east, they are some fucked up psychopaths if they think this is a good choice. Middle east as a nuclear wasteland… we both know what kind of shit is there, but going nuclear? I shudder at the notion of that.
Russia is definitely buying some time, but what their ultimate goal is? To take place in world as new main honcho or to put America down, make them consider their actions?
I have a very layered, nuanced view on all this. You see, I gather hints from all sorts of reports. For instance, one thing that caught my eye was a complaint by some group of Muslim assholes who whined that American military and intelligence circles, in the process of briefings, education etc., have a very straightforward attitude that Islam is the enemy, it’s the problem, Muslims are the enemy and this enemy needs to be suppressed.
It sounded true.
Now, what does that tell me. First of all, the Youtube commentators are not the smartest people in the world. Usually, they are of average or slightly above average intelligence. The only two who look very sharp are Stephan and Milo. All who seem to have IQ over 120 figured out that Islam is the problem, not “Islamic extremism”. The smarter someone is, the clearer understanding of this he seems to have.
The intelligence community, now, they have some extremely smart and informed people there. I love reading CIA’s analyses, they are usually among the smartest texts you can read. I would estimate their analytical powers to be close to my own, and their sources of information are immensely better than mine. What are the odds of IQ 150+ people not figuring out the shit that is clear to IQ 120 people on Youtube? You tell me.
Now, the next layer is what I keep telling my kids: I want you to know everything, but I also want you to know what to say when and in front of whom. Basically, remember what I’m telling you, but in school just repeat the shit they want you to learn in order to get good grades. Know it’s shit, but that’s what they want to hear so that’s what you need to say.
Essentially, that’s what I think is going on. I think the smart people there know that Islam needs to be rendered powerless in order for it not to present a civilizational problem. It would have vanished already if not for petroleum-based world economy which made those savages incredibly wealthy and consequently powerful. This needs to be countered, because those assholes are exporting their religion across the world and they want it to destroy all the positive things the western civilization produced. It must not be allowed. However, to try to do it outright didn’t work – they tried, and when they tried speaking directly against Islam, there was rebellion from the left side of the political spectrum, which had too much influence. Now they seem to be doing the opposite, let the Muslims in, let them do their shit, let the people beg for you to kill them already, let them vote the leftists out of office, and let the broad public approve strong measures against the Muslims. Then, still do nothing, just don’t allow powerful state actors to interfere on behalf of Muslims. Create chaos that will destroy the wealth and industrial power in the Muslim world, the stuff that is potentially dangerous. Let Muslims perform terrorist acts. Let them show that they really approve of the most extremist spectrum of Islam, that extremism is the true Islam. Let them get a nuclear weapon and kill hundreds of thousands of people in the West in the most horrific terrorist attack of all times. And then wipe them off the face of the Earth, completely, as we did with the Nazis. That’s one interpretation of what might be going on. The other interpretation, which is unfortunately also possible, is that America lost its mind, that basically the fractions within their government and agencies are infighting to such a degree that they no longer have a brain in their head and their policy consists of emotional responses of different interest groups and none of it makes any rational sense whatsoever, and it’s merely lashing out on the foreign policy scene until it steps on some state actor’s toes too hard and he wipes America from the face of the Earth.
There is no doubt that Islam is problem. But both interpretations seems really plausible and I don’t know if and when can we be sure which one of them is what are we dealing with.
Maybe it is a combination of them? Various groups who control US government have realized what kind of problem is Islam but they cannot think of a definitive single action as they are constantly bickering, thus producing current US policy, which as you said will probably step on someones toes too hard.
I am unable to say with any degree of certainty. There’s too much chaos, and I don’t know how much of it is intentional obfuscation of intent and how much is sheer idiocy and mental fog. There are too many mixed signals, too many violent base emotions from high levels of US military and politics. I get occasional hints, but I can’t be sure of my interpretation. For instance, I know for a fact that Dick Cheney knew exactly what would happen if America invaded Iraq. He gave an interview in which he completely accurately described the consequences that we see now, explaining his reasons for deciding against it. And yet, apparently he’s one of the people who decided to still do it. The only explanation is that for some reason they decided that this chaotic outcome was exactly what they wanted to achieve. It’s not an accident. It didn’t happen because they were too stupid to foresee the consequences; as I say, those are Mensa IQ level people with extremely good sources of information and intelligence. I learned from those people. To assume that they did something because they are too stupid to figure out something that Alex Jones figured out, well, not the best idea.
However, some of the people there are clearly very stupid, on a power trip and with a very poor understanding of the basics. Unfortunately, I cannot exclude the possibility that those exact retards are in charge.
Didn’t know that Cheney was against invasion and still decided to do it. What did they hope to accomplish with that chaotic outcome?
I can’t say what was their greatest priority, but I know what must have been on the table. For instance, reduction of the power of local state actors who are not American vassals increases Israel’s security. Also, it is known that Islam is a huge threat to Europe, so, artificially increasing this threat before it is too late to act could perform the same function as vaccination – mobilizing the immune system against the invaders and teaching it how to fight them.
Furthermore, only sophisticated industrial countries can produce sophisticated threats to the West, such as nuclear weapons. If they are all reduced to their normal state of fucking camels and goats in the desert, they can’t be a threat to the Western countries. After 9/11 it became obvious that Islam became a threat, they analysed the situation and decided to deal with it radically, exploiting the opportunities as they presented themselves.