Middle East Insanity
By Alan Caruba
There’s
not much I like about President Obama’s policies, but I am beginning to think
that his resolve to militarily withdraw the U.S. from the Middle East is likely
based on his insights into the Islamic mind.
The last
U.S. troops left Iraq in 2011 and they are scheduled to leave Afghanistan in
2014. The President has been reluctant to send arms to the insurgents fighting
Syria’s regime on the grounds that they are likely al Qaeda or similar jihadist
groups. Makes sense to me.
Using
drones to target al Qaeda leaders wherever they can be found, Pakistan or Yemen
for example, also seems a sensible application of limited force applied with
extreme prejudice.
During the
course of the nearly nine years the U.S. was involved in Iraq, the U.S. lost
almost 4,500 troops there while the cost of Iraqi lives during that period is
estimated to be 100,000.
I have
been thinking about Iraq because the only news from that horrid nation has been
about the constant bombings there. Not that long ago Iraq was front page news
every day, but no longer. Recently two senior Arab journalists wrote about the war in Iraq and their views are quite instructive.
JihadAl-Khazen, a columnist for the London daily Al-Hayat, took the view in March
that U.S. officials, including former President George W. Bush, Vice President
Dick Chaney, and others, should be prosecuted and executed for “fabricating
evidence to justify the war.” To Western eyes, the actions of the former Iraq
dictator, Saddam Hussein, may have had something to do with Bush’s decision
which came after 9/11 and had been preceded by the invasion of Afghanistan.
It was
widely believed at the time that Saddam had stores of poison gas and it is now
believed they were transferred to Syria to avoid detection. According to Al-Khazen,
Bush’s decision was based on the “pro-Israel gang of war” otherwise known as
the neo-cons in the Bush administration.
Also in
March, Abd Al-Bari Atwan, the editor of the London daily, Al-Quds Al Arabi,
took the opportunity of the anniversary of the U.S. invasion to opine that
Arabs are the victims of a series of ongoing conspiracies against them;
conspiracies meant to serve Israel, seize the Arab’s oil, and to sow sectarian
strife between Sunnis and Shiites.
Moreover,
this moonbat suggested that Saddam had been “tricked” into invading Kuwait by
the then U.S. ambassador and several Arab leaders. The notion that Saddam
wanted to get his hands on Kuwait’s oil apparently did not occur to Al-Bara
Atwan.
I cite
these two journalists by way of illustrating the intense level of paranoia and
total lack of logic that permeate the Arab mind throughout the Middle East.
Apparently nothing that occurs there has anything to do with the intense hatred
between Sunnis and Shiites—a hatred that dates back to 632 A.D. when these
Islamic factions were formed over the question of who was to be the caliph following
the death of Mohammed.
The most
recent bombing in Iraq occurred during Ramadan. As the Associated Press
reported on July 15, “The pace of the killings has picked up since the Muslim
holy month Ramadan began Wednesday, with daily mass-casualty attacks marring
what is meant to be a month of charity and peaceful reflections.” What better
way to celebrate Ramadan than to engage in the murder of fellow Muslims?
“Violence
in Iraq has risen to its deadliest level since 2008,” reported the AP, “with
more than 2,800 people killed since the start of April. The spike in bloodshed
is growing increasingly reminiscent of the widespread sectarian killing that
peaked in 2006 and 2007, when the country teetered on the brink of civil war.”
After
being eager to see the U.S. military leave, Ali al-Moussawi, a media advisor to
Iraq’s Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, told the AP in late June that “Baghdad
would welcome increased arms sales and faster weapons deliveries, along with
U.S. training teams to help it confront rising regional instability and
terrorist threats.” Much of the violence
in Iraq is attributed to its Sunnis. The government there is controlled by
Shiites.
“Iraq,”
the AP reported, “is struggling to contain a resurgent al-Qaeda that is one of
the main drivers behind the country’s worst uptick in violence in half a
decade.” Al-Qaeda is a Sunni organization founded by Osama bin Laden. Bin
Laden’s close associate, Ayman al-Zawahiri, got his start in Egypt’s Muslim
Brotherhood and is directing al Qaeda’s present effort to overthrow Syria’s
Basher Al-Assad and take over the entire Middle East and the Maghreb, northern
Africa’s Muslim nations.
President
Obama’s efforts to put some distance between the U.S. and the turmoil in the
Middle East are beginning to look like a good idea. Blood will flow in Iraq, in
Syria, in Egypt, in Afghanistan, and anywhere else on the map of that horrid
Islamic madhouse. It makes one yearn for the good old days of strong dictators
who kept a lid on it.
© Alan
Caruba, 2013
**************************
Alan Caruba's commentaries are posted daily at "Warning Signs" and shared on dozens
of news and opinion websites. His blog recently passed more than 2.7 million page
views. If
you love to read, visit his monthly report on new books at Bookviews. For information on his professional
skills, Caruba Editorial Services is the place to go!
You can find Alan Caruba on both Facebook and Twitter as well.
********************
VISIT J. D. Longstreet's
"INSIGHT on Freedom" Face Book Page!!: (Just click
on the link for more conservative commentary by J. D. Longstreet and other
popular conservative writers!)
No comments:
Post a Comment