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The Forum > Article Comments > From Hiroshima to Syria, the enemy whose name we dare not speak > Comments

From Hiroshima to Syria, the enemy whose name we dare not speak : Comments

By John Pilger, published 12/9/2013

With Al-Qaida now among its allies, and US-armed coupmasters secure in Cairo, the US intends to crush the last independent states in the Middle East.

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Some people here on OLO have been accusing the yanks of killing a couple of million people. Now, let's see. After Russia became communist, 30 million kulaks starved to death and God knows how many millions died in the Gulags. When China turned communist, 50 million starved to death during the imbecilic "Great Leap Forward", which is what happens when the politically correct try to run an economy. Add to that a couple of million who got liquidated by the communists in the killing fields of Cambodia, and another million or two who have starved to death in Korea.

Nobody knows how many Fidel Castro had shot.

So, if the yank haters are correct, I would say that the communists killed at least 82 million while the yanks only killed a couple of million trying to stop the world becoming communist, and have the world turn out like Cambodia, the Soviet Union, Communist China, Cuba and North Korea.

That puts the socialists/ communists 80-90 odd million dead in front of the yanks. But where is Arjay and David G on that point?

Oh, and a "socialist" is just a "communist" without a gun
Posted by LEGO, Sunday, 15 September 2013 8:49:25 PM
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LEGO,

After a lifetime as a socialist, I'm coming to the very uncomfortable conclusion that a socialist is just a fascist without a state apparatus. Yes, without a gun, if you like.

Yes, I think that WAS a fascist salute that I saw in Syria on TV.

So, David F, et al., we have now established that no gassing of hundreds of women and kids took place, not by our boy ? It's all American propaganda ? Obama's crazed war-mongering ? So nobody has to get bombed ? I'm glad that's been straightened out then.

On the other hand ....... what should the US do if it happens again ?

Keep your banners ready, to trot them out when your boy tries it again. Oops, no he didn't, that's just US propaganda (have all that ready, folks), and it didn't happen.

Just keep your eyes and ears shut, it's easier to keep your illusions intact that way.

Joe
Posted by Loudmouth, Sunday, 15 September 2013 8:59:40 PM
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Loudmouth wrote:

So, David F, et al., we have now established that no gassing of hundreds of women and kids took place, not by our boy ? It's all American propaganda ? Obama's crazed war-mongering ? So nobody has to get bombed ? I'm glad that's been straightened out then.

Dear Loudmouth,

It certainly is not ok. The unfortunate reality is that bombing just produces more corpses. It does not bring the dead back to life. It will not depose Assad. It will not get rid of Al Qaeda or others opposing Assad. The opposition to Assad is a very mixed bag - 1) the Kurds, always looking for ways of unifying the Kurdish homeland on the Iraqi border, 2) an insurgent Sunni-Islamist group, Jadhat al-Nusra--admiring (if not loyal to) Iraqi Al-Quaeda--and, 3) a (more or less) secular and (more or less) puny Free Syrian Army, the heart of an opposition ("maybe 1200 free floating groups") backed by Qatar, and led ("this month, anyway") by Ahmad Jarba, with ties to Saudi Arabia.

What good will bombing do?

I think Obama is acting wisely. He apparently is also asking himself what good bombing will do. Obama is possibly the best president that the US has had in recent years.

Eisenhower was criticized as a do nothing president. He resisted attempts to get the US more involved in Vietnam. Kennedy and Johnson increased US involvement, and there was great slaughter. Many of the things that Eisenhower didn't do shouldn't have been done. Obama shows the same wisdom.

After bombing Syria then what?
Posted by david f, Sunday, 15 September 2013 11:05:07 PM
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David F.,

What ?! Obama is not a crazed war-monger ? US is not out for world domination, and therefore fabricates this imaginary gassing of women and children ? Thanks for clearing that up.

Yes, I agree that the situation in Syria, and across the entire Moslem world, is incredibly complicated, and of course the US or anybody else, including the Russians, shouldn't be trying to stir the pot, and that Islamo-fascism is a enormous danger and incredibly difficult ideological force to oppose. I feel very sorry for any 'moderate' Muslims, if such exist, in their efforts to critique and oppose those various fascisms. Perhaps their only way out of that ghastly morass is to become non-believers and catch up with the rest of the progressive world. I certainly wish them well.

Almost as horrifying is the likelihood that the upshot of all this is that, away down the track, the US - along with, as you say, the secular but puny groups of a liberal/progressive/secular opposition - join forces for a time with Assad, to oppose and hopefully destroy the worse fascisms of the Islamists. No, there are no fairy-tale endings to this one.

Joe
Posted by Loudmouth, Sunday, 15 September 2013 11:42:30 PM
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Dear Loudmouth,

Islamism, the belief system of certain believers in Islam, which demands fanaticism and violence to spread their beliefs is a danger. Islamo-fascism is merely name calling. It is like calling somebody whose views you don’t like a Nazi.

Fascism was a movement embodying nationalism, violence, belief in a supreme leader, spectacles such as the Nuremberg rally and fancy uniforms, militarism, organised armies etc. Islamism does not have a supreme leader, is not nationalistic, does not have fancy uniforms or mass rallies and lacks other elements of fascism.

One does not fight Islamism the way one fought fascism. Islamism expresses itself in guerrilla warfare and religious indoctrination. Fascism was a modern ideology which worshiped the machine and technology. Islamism seeks to return to an imagined past where life was 'pure' and primitive although Islamism will use modern technology to achieve that end.

It is better to try to understand Islamism for what it is than to conflate it with our enemies of the past.
Posted by david f, Monday, 16 September 2013 5:58:20 AM
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Yes, you're right, David, Islamism lacks many of the outward signs of traditional fascism - it doesn't seem to have any plans to make the trains run on time, for example, and few of them speak German or Italian. So yes, you've really got me there. As for uniforms, can I respectfully suggest that black seems to be the new black for Islamist terrorists. ?

And yes, you're also right that it doesn't have a supreme leader, perhaps because it doesn't need one - it already has the Book, which their less-than-supreme leaders, imams, ayatollahs, etc., can interpret, probably accurately, as supporting the Islamist cause of world domination.

My use of the term 'fascist' was a bit sweeping, referring to the tendency to use force, violence, the rightness of an overriding cause (and therefore, in a ghastly way, Utopian) which was common to the various fascisms of the past, and (my original point) to the various socialism-communisms as well. All of which failed, I would suggest, and certainly degenerated from their initial intentions.

That common longing for certainty, for a reassuringly all-powerful leader, Party or ideology may go some way to explain why sections of the Left - and of course, Right - soft-pedal so easily on their criticisms of the various and diverse forms of fascism , neo-Tsarism in Russia and mandate-of-heaven imperialism in China, for example, as well as Islamist terrorism.

Give me good old US imperialism, with its imperfect Enlightenment values any day.

Joe
Posted by Loudmouth, Monday, 16 September 2013 9:06:10 AM
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