[Peace] News from Neptune on UPTV, Fri. 29 Aug.

[C. G. Estabrook via Peace]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RXRtY4rvErM


On Aug 29, 2014, at 7:35 PM, C. G. Estabrook <carl at newsfromneptune.com> wrote:

> A Diplomatic Revolution Edition.
> 
> ~ Good evening, & welcome to NEWS FROM NEPTUNE for the 35th week of 2014 (August 29) 
> 
> ~For more than twenty years, this program has been "a spontaneous & unrehearsed discussion of the news of the week and its coverage by the media" - first on a so-called "community radio station" - and, when censored & locked out of there - welcomed, I'm happy to say, by the good people at Urbana Public Television.
> 
> ~ I’m Carl Estabrook. My discussants tonight are David Green & Ron Szoke.
> 
> ~ Our program's name, News from Neptune, was chosen to honor Noam Chomsky, who has been talking sense about American politics for twice the quarter-century we've been on the air.  
> 
> Chomsky has said that in the American media, “either you repeat the same conventional doctrines everybody is saying, or else you say something true, and it will sound like it’s from Neptune.”
> 
> Our format is to take turns suggesting stories that have been ignored or misreported (occasionally even innocently) and then having our colleagues comment on them. 
> 
> Previous programs are archived on YouTube and posted to the facebook page for News from Neptune, where you’ll also find comments from viewers (not all unadulterated praise) and some answers from us.  I also can be reached at <carl at newsfromneptune.com>; I'm happy to receive your comments.
> 
> Today is August 29, 2014. On this day in 1756, Frederick II of Prussia invaded Saxony, beginning the Seven Years' War. 
> 	
> The war has been described as the first "world war" - the organized murder included N. America and S. Asia -  It followed the "Diplomatic Revolution of 1756" = the reversal of longstanding alliances in Europe; the shift has also been known as "the great change of partners". The essence of the revolution was that Britain and Austria versus France and Prussia became France and Austria versus Britain and Prussia. Despite this reversal of alliances, however, the basic antagonisms remained: Prussia versus Austria and Britain versus France. Britain emerged from the Seven Years' War as the world's leading colonial power; British global hegemony was the outcome of that struggle.
> 
> I want to suggest that we may be on the verge of diplomatic revolution in 2014, involving the world’s leading neo-colonial power, the greatest purveyor of violence in the world today (MLKing), our own government. The Obama administration continues to try to play the Sunni-Shia division (which is not just about religion) for its own purposes (or more accurately the purposes of the one-percent). The great fear of the Sunni alignment (Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Qatar, Jordan, Lebanon, Israel, and the Caliphate and perhaps Turkey) is that the US will abandon them for an effective alliance with the Shia association (Iran, Syria, Iraq, Hezbollah, and Hamas - with Russia and China in the background).
> 
> It is not a matter of the US vs. Islam, nor Arabs vs. Israel: rather of blowback and betrayal:
> 
> ~ The US created modern jihadism - and hence al-Qaeda - in the Carter administration, when the most expensive CIA operation in history rounded up the most fanatical Islamicists it could find, armed them (often via Saudi Arabia), and sent them into Afghanistan "to give the Russians a Vietnam of their own," as US Nat. Sec. Advisor Brzezinski said. 
> 
> ~ The blowback was 9-11. ("A few stirred-up Muslims...," allowed Brzezinski.)
> 
> ~ Israel created Hamas in the 1980s to provide opposition to secular Fatah - classic 'divide and rule.'
> 
> ~ The blowback was Hamas' triumph in a free election in the Occupied Territories in 2006, after which the US/Israel had to organize a coup against them (which failed in Gaza, which is why Hamas rules there.)
> 
> ~ The US labored mightily to poison relations between Sunni and Shia in Iraq - 'divide and rule' again. Petraeus particularly did all he could to buy up the Sunni. The success of the US "surge" in Iraq was primarily the result of a vicious civil war (2006-7) between communities that formerly lived together amicably - and the US produced it. 
> 
> ~ The blowback is ISIS, the reaction to the Shia government (an ally of Iran) that the US established in Baghdad. 
> 
> On the one side are US clients: Saudi Arabia, Israel, Qatar, Jordan, Lebanon, Egypt, Kurdistan and (the US hopes) Turkey; on the other side are official US enemies - notably Iran, Syria and Iraq (at the moment), with Russian (and Chinese) support (which is one of the reasons the US is provoking Russia in Ukraine). 
> 
> IS is a relatively independent creation of the clients (who, as Escobar and others suggest, may suffer its blowback). Hence it is opposed by the official enemies. (Obama's airstrikes are undertaken in effective alliance with Syria and Iran: you have to have a heart of stone not to laugh at the White House Murderer and his allies here.) 
> 
> The great fear of the US clients (esp. SA and Israel) is that the US will switch sides - make nice with the official enemies in order to take the clients down a peg or two. 
> 
> The US has done it before, most famously after WWII, when it abandoned the victor, the USSR, in order to make clients of the defeated, Germany and Japan. US adminstrations follow the rule set out by Lord Palmerston in 1848: "We have no eternal allies, and we have no perpetual enemies. Our interests are eternal and perpetual, and those interests it is our duty to follow..." And those interests today are the interests of the American one-percent in controlling the world economy - for their benefit.
> 
> At the dawn of modern capitalist politics in the US, Lincoln's Secretary of War enunciated an abiding principle of US politics: "An honest politician is one who, when he is bought, will stay bought." The US insists on the principle for its clients, but exempts itself... 
> 
> As Falstaff says, "A plague upon it when thieves cannot be true one to another!" 
> 
> Nor is it a matter of "little Israel in a sea of Arabs (or Muslims)." The following is from <https://www.jacobinmag.com/2014/08/stopping-israel/>:
> 
> 	“The biggest supporter of Israel in the region remains Saudi Arabia. Locked into an alliance with the United States, Saudi Arabia sees Israel as an asset in its regional struggle not only against Arab nationalism (of the radical Nasser variety, as in 1967), but also against current Iranian and Shiite empowerment in the region. Ex-head of Saudi Arabian Intelligence Turki al-Faisal’s support for Israel was blatant when he blamed Hamas for the current Israeli invasion of Gaza.
> 
> 	“Even King Abdullah’s belated statement barely mentioning Gaza had far too many warnings and attacks against “terrorists” that Islamic Jihad felt it was directed against the Palestinian resistance itself. If a popular regime change in Saudi Arabia seems unlikely today, a weakening of any link in the Saudi-Israeli-Egyptian-Jordanian-American chain is not out of the question, especially as the Arab revolutionary spirit re-organizes and coalesces again.
> 
> 	“Many states in the region are complicit in Israel’s occupation. By buying $11 billion in arms from the US and hosting the biggest US military camp in the region, Qatar contributes to US power in the Middle East, even as it gives diplomatic and political support and refuge to Hamas. Supporting the end of the siege while empowering Israel’s main backer in the region (not to mention suppressing democracy and human rights in its own backyard, while funneling monies to fundamentalists in Egypt and Syria) only conveys the peculiarities of the Qatari monarchy, not its commitment to Arab freedom. If Qatar is not as big a problem as Saudi Arabia, it still is a problem, and plays an active part in the anti-democratic Gulf regional bloc (the GCC).”
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