Kissinger and other Americans along with many other people from many other countries on our side have committed crimes for which they will not be brought to justice. However, that does not justify what ISIS is doing nor lessen the danger that ISIS presents to people in the area. Two questions remain. Should we do anything about ISIS? If we should do something what should we do?

Kissinger, Nixon and others involved in the bombing of Cambodia are war criminals who should be brought to justice, but they will not be. There was no force at the time that could have been available and motivated to stop their crimes. That is no reason to accept what ISIS is doing even if the crimes are a reaction to actions of the USA.

There is only one answer, DavidF. Bomb everything that moves until there is nothing left that lives. It's the American Way!

Yeah, that's what our 'boys' are doing in the Middle East at the moment: firing missiles and dropping bombs on strangely clad people who are called TERRORWRISTS.

They are called this because hacking off heads requires a strong wrist whereas pushing a button to send a guided missile on its way is easy even for Americans.

Of course, hacking off a head is messy and takes some time whereas a missile asks no question but, in seconds, just blows whole buildings to Kingdom Come and all those poor souls within them.

The Western Allies, filled with a love of killing, have gathered together lots of bombs, missiles, etc and can drop them 24 hours a day without being in any danger. It's all rather one-sided!

John, thanks for your article. There are some decent people left in the world after all!

Great article John. I am sorry to say, you are back to what made you great.

Your point about ISIS being the product of earlier western foreign policy interventions is well made.

Yes it is horrible watching the criminal stupidity just keep unfolding.

And great comment david f.

Yes ISIS is a real issue. On the one hand it is very difficult for the west to restrain its impulses to intervene faced with such atrocities. On the other hand, it is definitely true that the current extremism is the legacy of past western interventions; and we have every reason to fear that current interventions will make the end result worse not better.

The other day someone was telling me of a photo of Syria in the 1970s they saw recently. The women were uncovered and wearing bikinis swimming, people were drinking alcohol, I mean basically it seemed a picture of pretty normal modern society. Now look at it.

"there is nothing either good or bad, but thinking makes it so"
Shakespeare

The search must be for the *principle* that will enable people to live in peace. Obviously the pronouncements of the western states have low credibility on that score.

I find an inconsistency between the left's correctly recognising the state as an engine of aggression and oppression when it comes to foreign policy, but then treating the state as the fountain of all moral and economic good when it comes to domestic policy. Even John Pilger is guilty of this double standard. The same people who denounce aggression-based interventions abroad, call for endless aggression-based interventions at home, without apparently recognising the inconsistency.

But while ever sufficient people promote the state as the fix-all and the cure-all at home, it will continue to be used as the instrument of these interventions [translation: gross crimes] abroad. The question is, why don't "we" (as the statists say) recognise the systematic aggression of government's "social" interventions as gross crimes at home? Only look at the double standard!

So there is this kind of schizophrenia in the worldview of statists of both left and right, the “progressives” and the neocons, who thus have far more in common with each other than either of them has with a libertarian. That's why both the Republicans and Democrats in the USA, Labour and Conservatives in the UK, and Labor and Liberal in Australia, keep making war criminals of themselves. Their foreign policy is indistinguishable because their view of the state is indistinguishable for all relevant purposes.
The missing piece of the puzzle is for its proponents to recognise that even at home, all the state's actions are based on the same monopoly of aggression and threats of aggression. There is no moral difference.

Rather than trying to hammer and smash foreign states and societies into the shape "we" [translation: the western states] would like them to be in, I think we need to re-think our views.

Perhaps a better question would be: if the western states were to follow the principle of non-aggression, what would the result look like?

And arguably, anybody that disagrees with your version of reality John.
It must be such a comfort to know you're always right!
Rhrosty

Such a pithy and accurate comment Rhrosty.