Check out the series "Counter Terrorism" on Youtube.

People don't like war, states have to scare or alarm us to enlist our support for war. It is astonishing how often lies have been used to get popular support for war.
Just google: The Gleiwitz incident - the pretext for Nazi Germany to go to start WW2
(sorry the rest are US/Brit egs but I'm more familiar with their history - I'm sure there are other examples from other countries.)
Lusitania for WW1
Pearl Harbour for WW2 (maybe)
Gulf of Tonkin for Vietnam
Babies in humidicribs in Kuwait for Gulf war 1
911 - Afghanistan and Gulf War 2 Patriot Act
(see Youtube about 911 families who fought to have an investigation into 911 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qZEBlTtBdiU )
WMD in Gulf War 2 (did anyone get fired for that mistake?)

All eg's of "letting things happen", making up stuff, or even worse, atrocities set up by states themselves to enable that state to go to war. All disappeared down the memory hole!

ISIS terrorism is real, but ask yourself - how did they get so powerful so quickly? The US has a huge multi-trillion dollar military intelligence industry, and they didn't see this coming? Why did the MSM show such gruesome wall to wall coverage against the wishes of the family of the first US victim, James Foley? Why are we in the Middle east? (Hint Brendan Nelson as Minister for Defence in the 2nd Gulf war said it - it's the oil!)

Our governments don't give two hoots for human rights. They use that talk because we do. Our governments support vile dictators with horrendous human rights violations, but who also give their multinational companies access to resources. How come we trade so easily with China (massive human violations just think iPhones, sweatshops, prison labour) but we turn a blind eye because of economic interests. Saudi Arabia was implicated in 911 and violates women's human and civil righs, and beheads people for sorcery etc, but we aren't invading them anytime soon.

Sorry, forgot to add this interview from Gen Wesley Clarke on how 911 used as pretext for war in Iraq, and a list of other nations that US intended to invade. He also comments about why West don't intervene in places like Africa.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r8FhZnFZ6TY

LEGO

For someone so gung-ho about accusing people of 'blithering stupidity', you seem to have a lot of difficulty understanding an argument.

I said nothing about it being the West's 'fault' for all the genocides and massacres I listed (although there is a mountain of evidence that implicates the West in all of them). My argument was that the West is HIGHLY SELECTIVE about which genocides and massacres it chooses to 'do something' about. When genocides and massacres suit Western interests, the West has a well-trodden history of looking the other way.

As you seem to flounder badly when faced with things like nuance and complexity, no wonder you didn't last long on the left.

Rhrosty/Hasbeen/LEGO/JoM et al

Your febrile and ignorant posts make me think of the saying: When you think you're a hammer, every problem becomes a nail.

Unfortunately, too many people with your mindset are attracted to military careers. It is the military whom we misguidedly entrust to defend world peace, when the military is really its greatest enemy.

The only "argument" that you submitted in your last post, Killarney, was that the west was the personification of evil, because it was responsible for every bad thing in the world. Such tripe is hardly going to win you any converts outside of ISIS and morons who think like that.

I am glad that you have realised that your last post was so over the top that you are embarrassed about it, and now claim a position that is more moderate. You say that the only time the west gets involved in massacres is when it is in it's interest. That is not correct. Somalia was a situation where millions of people were starving to death but the Somali leaders were more interested in fighting their civil war than feeding their own people. All tribal leaders used starvation as a weapon against their tribal enemies, and they all robbed UN food convoys and even killed UN aid personnel. The UN appealed to the USA for help. Got that? The UN appealed to the USA for help. Nobody else would do the job.

But the yanks found out that gratitude is not a strong point among Muslim people. When the Somali people were asked to choose between their own tribal leaders who were starving them all to death, and the UN and it's US protectors who were trying to feed them, they chose their own leaders. Over 100 UN personnel were slaughtered by the very people they were trying to save, some in the most gruesome way. UN personnel called Mogadishu "the city of the insane", and one US general said "all we are doing is feeding them so that they can fight us."

Get it through your head that some people are not worth saving, and not worth feeding. Why have your people murdered for helping ingrates?

Every situation is different. And of course the west mainly acts in it's own interest. Everybody does that. Don't you do the same thing yourself? Or are you so altruistic that you have a halo and a chorus of angels singing behind you?

I think LEGO is a paid troll.
Bill is right and should know as he is ex intelligence.Bill must also be aware of Susan Lindauer the author of Extreme Prejudice.Susan w as the ex CIA agent who dealt directly with the Iraqi Govt. she was the first non Arab to be arrested under the Patriot Act.You can friend her on Facebook .

Ray McGovern is another ex CIA ,a senior analyst who know.s the truth about the fascists who currently control the system.

LEGO

‘Killarney/ I am glad that you have realised that your last post was so over the top, that you are embarrassed about it and now claim a position that is more moderate.’

What?? Huh??

Either, as Arjay speculates, you are a paid troll … or you have an overly vivid imagination. Get a grip.

As for the famine and civil war in Somalia – this, along with the Rwandan Patriotic Front invasion of Rwanda and DRC, the partition of Sudan and the overthrow of the Jamahariya government in Libya, to name a few, are all part of the ongoing US AfriCOM proxy wars of the last couple of decades to wrest control of Africa from established Chinese and Russian oil and mining interests and to nip any kind of independent African political union in the bud.

The fact that approximately 5-8 million people have died as a direct result of these proxy wars is all grist for the US-NATO ‘genocide’ propaganda mill.

I suggest that you and others here read up on the Hegelian Dialect and principle of Problem – Reaction – Solution, which forms the basis of the US-NATO proxy wars in Africa, Latin America, the Middle East and eastern Europe (and all imperial wars throughout history).

First, manufacture a crisis (problem).

Second, whip up public reaction, whereby the public demands a solution.

Third, implement the solution, which had been pre-determined from the beginning.