Tag Archives: despotism

FTAC – Comment on Sochi and Syria

28 Friday Feb 2014

Posted by in Eurasia, FTAC - From The Awesome Conversation, Islamic Small Wars, Middle East, Political Psychology, Politics, Regions, Russia

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“If costs are the benchmark for a ‘successful’ Games,” says Janice Forsyth, Director of the International Center for Olympic Studies at the University of Western Ontario, in London, Ontario, Canada, “Sochi is the most unsuccessful games in history, bar none.” http://www.forbes.com/sites/andrewbender/2014/02/23/sochis-long-term-economic-impact-good-or-bad/

Countries invested in the Olympics — an amateur affair where sports are to enjoy contests to the side of politics with national pride second to pride in individual athletic striving and accomplishing.

The international press excoriated Sochi in regard to its encounter with substandard facilities; such as myself have tried keep Sochi and Syria in the same frame with the money front and center — i.e., a Russian pledge of $10 million for Syrian humanitarian aid while Sochi went forward with a $51 billion price tag.

Humanity is not what the Syrian civil war is about. It’s not about God either. It’s about despotism. Humanity would probably (that’s a validated probably, considering the numbers in casualties and refugees) not be in the middle of it. The obscenity of the treatment meted by both sides to the Palestinian Yarmouk Camp underscores the inhumanity displayed between contesting forces.

The world’s getting the message between Chinese and Russian Security Council complicity in relation to the Syrian Civil War.

Neither has interest in voting against a dynastic dictatorship; both have interest in containing or rebuffing Islam, which in the weird way described by Aboud Dandachi in the previous post, has both emphasizing and tacitly supporting the presence of al-Qaeda-type fighters as a demonstration of who is just as bad and promises to be far worse — and would be if they themselves were not there to block them.  In essence, these undemocratic political elite are attempting to curry favor with the global war watching public by keeping before their eyes the atrocious barbaric excesses of a foe that make themselves look the little bit better choice.

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FTAC – Syria – A Note in Which the Psychology Comes Together

27 Friday Dec 2013

Posted by in Conflict - Culture - Language - Psychology, Islamic Small Wars, Politics, Syria

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The will to dominance is compensatory and occluding.

In the Islamic Small Wars that feature deeply cruel and sadistic behavior (all sides), the psychology revolving around willfulness, a facet of power, is hard to escape. This is where things get ugly and tautological with language both expressing and inventing and reinforcing an emotional narrative in the cultural mind. It’s hard getting the little trains (trained minds) to jump their tracks and get out of it.

Here’s the thing to note about the kind of people who carry out assassinations and drive wars: they’re not representative of the humanity of the humanity surrounding themselves — at least not in the Islamic Small Wars where a very few (in Somalia, about 10,000 fighters at one time affiliate with al Shabaab) can drive a very many (in Somalia, about 2.75 million) out of their homes. On the other hand, the few are possessed of potent weapons plus war making knowledge, and they’re “social grammar” is hard to get to as, I believe, they don’t have access to it themselves.

The regional to international war: Russia (cash hungry or cash mad) — > Iran (well oiled arms buyer) — > Special Assad and Shiite Understanding | Sunni Central Expansion “<” — KSA, Qatar, UAE, etc. semi-independent coffers (the west has placed too much reliance on the state concept where it just barely applies, if at all) “<“– U.S. and NATO alliances, which make themselves deeply discomforting.

Basically, imho, Syria is Assad’s war within Putin’s sphere of influence, a part of the wreckage of neglected post-Soviet problems, and Putin, quick to relieve Khodorkovsky of aspirations involving political matters, especially corruption, essentially signaled interest in resurgent kleptocracy, at least for a while, long enough to separate Russia from the west and return Russians to the shadows of some former imperial glory. At that, Putin has succeeded, but we must note that it is neither in NATO’s or Russia’s interest to develop an Islamic island in Syria. I’d say we’re heading into the second of at least three acts in Syria — nowhere near the end of the book.

I’m calling it like a see it, and to hell with it!

🙂

Syria continues to become visible in terms suited to political science.

It’s morphed from an Arab Springy “people’s revolution” into a dynamic geopolitical blast furnace and whatever’s in it is still melting down, the best top layer either killed or siphoned off to soup lines and refugee camps, the next layer sucked in from the global Jihad and melding with whatever’s left into some deeply fractured substance boiling up death, suffering, and wreckage wherever it seeps, and the rest of the container adjusting to so many unpalatable upsets.

While President Putin trades a few political prisoners into freedom for the sake of Peace at Sochi in Time for the Games, it may be what’s happening in and to Syria that dogs him through that event.

Within the Syrian Civil War and a little bit without, the same mentality occupies chairs on either side of the board: it’s the despot Assad vs. the despotic al-Qaeda affiliates (now that they’ve disarmed more moderate forces with the combined powers of the Qur’an and “trust me trust me” wink wink over a couple of warehouses loaded with war materiel).  Everyone has lost that war, partially because vacuous “winning” will turn out about being lost — as lost as the Assads with Maher and the first whiff of atrocities and war crimes to come.

In fairy tale terms, the good child, prince of his kingdom, has had to watch himself become a monster, in name or by assent or by his own orders, and everything he does, everything he tries, only draws the blood from the floor, a little bit at first on the shoes, and that washes off, but then it’s up around the ankles, and every step out of it means another splash into it, then it’s up around his waist, the family is screaming bloody murder, mad at the world, at themselves, at the puppet master with the greater civilization, which is at peace within itself at least, and their hand wringing and remonstrances notwithstanding, the horror continues rising up to the neck and seeping into their mouths, preventing them from talking straight, if ever they could, and up it rises before their eyes.

By now, it’s an everyday matter, the blood dimmed tide a familiar site, the once-thrilling uncertain exigencies of war routinized.

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“The level of human sufferings that I am witnessing with the Syria crisis is indeed without a parallel with anything else I have witnessed in my own life,” says Antonio Guterres, the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR).

Syria: ‘Unparalleled human suffering’ – Inside Syria – Al Jazeera English – 12/1/2013.

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http://youtu.be/k_XxaKF__V4

War in Syria, violence in Syria today: house to house fighting – YouTube – 12/26/2013

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http://youtu.be/Dhk9bxcGQCI

▶ Chaos and Despair in Aleppo – YouTube – 12/26/2013.

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To Be Abandoned and Betrayed by Politics’ Malignant Narcissists

03 Tuesday Dec 2013

Posted by in Conflict - Culture - Language - Psychology, Israel

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“This is how I live, day in, day out, in Gaza. Most of the population is less privileged than I am. When poverty wins out and there is no work and no solution on the horizon, there’s nothing worse than losing hope.”

My sea, my day – Israel Opinion, Ynetnews – by Dr. Mona al-Fara 12/2/2013.

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” . . . . there are 1,200 millionaires in Gaza since Hamas took power… these people took advantage of the tunnels and the commerce of fuel to Gaza and took advantage of the people in Gaza.”

Gaza Strip full of corrupt millionaires, says Palestinian official – Middle East Israel News | Haaretz – 11/16/2013.

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Briefest Observation: for dictators — “malignant narcissists” — political space, locality to state, provides exclusively for their own aggrandizement and comfort through the accumulation of wealth and has otherwise no significance as regards the interests of other constituents in their immediate surrounds.

For such “kleptocrat” personalities and the systems they create around themselves, the achievement of murderous and thieving power would seem the main thing, and whatever holds together to sustain that “thing” — their thing — is the only genuine concern.

As much would seem as true for “Putinistas” investing their wealth and their lives outside of Russia, for the Assads who have decimated their constituent population in Syria — now one-third displaced or refugee, and for Gaza’s “tunnel millionaires” who have essentially forsaken those around them: all have in common the abandonment and growing impoverishment of those who had believed in them and counted on them most.

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FTAC – If Information is Power, How Much Greater Must Be Power Over Information

21 Thursday Nov 2013

Posted by in Anti-Semitism, Conflict - Culture - Language - Psychology, Islamic Small Wars, Israel, Middle East, Philology, Politics, Psychology

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Some settlers may not be perfect 🙂 I don’t know for the paucity of mainstream media or otherwise vetted journalists combing the territory and less weighed down with agenda channeled by a special interest press. The “Pallywood” and issues related involve a stepped concept: the belief that 1) information is power, and if that is so, then 2) power over information must be really powerful. That organizations would arm Palestinians with cameras for their defense but also do so in an environment in which baiting, false flag, and provocation seem a part of the atmosphere may well produce viscerally compelling images without necessarily telling a whole story. Accompanying the idea that “power over information must be really powerful” (let’s ask Putin what he thinks about that — and also what he learned on the way to becoming a colonel) may be the conceit that one is above it and others merely susceptible tools, especially if the information environment is pervasive enough and there’s a little something in the target’s heart (in my world: learned but forgotten messages gleaned during early childhood language uptake) that wants confirmation still of the rule embedded and unconsciously in suspension.

Much of the Islamic Small Wars as well as the ghosts of the Soviet Union persist in informational dark space. Neither Fatah nor Hamas have produced around them anything close to “open democracy”. http://www.cpj.org/tags/fatah-voice For all the bloodshed along the several axis coinciding in these so far small wars — autocratic, criminal (narcotics, arms running, kidnapping, extortion, other trade), and religious — much would abate with growing strength in integrity and perhaps greater insight into the cognitive mechanics of “malignant narcissism”.

The interpretation of the world in language – how one knows how to talk about the experience of life in a place — may be also reflective of language programming in the head.  That programming is powerful, sufficient, certainly, to see in some fashion – or confirm with enthusiasm someone else’s observation — ghosts and witches in one century and to find the experience of either inaccessible in the next.

Autocrat, dictator, or totalitarian monster would wish his constituents (and everyone else) to see things his way.

Perhaps the little monster consign themselves to writing poetry while the larger ones erupt with whole political programs.

In any case, I suspect both grandiose and hateful desires and illusions follow sensibly from the time-hidden tracks of childhood’s social grammar.

What might keep a really bad train boiling down the line?

Absence of resistance linked to concepts not articulated within or otherwise remote from thought suspended generally in the cognitive texture of the culture of interest: one cannot call a man crazy who appears (given the tools at hand) merely inspired and passionate even if he turns out a copy of Charles Manson.  Indeed, there’s a certain malignancy that knows its targets cannot defend themselves from what they cannot — or for love, will not — perceive in the reality that has approached them to engulf, use, and eventually destroy them.

Related

Palestinians Shoot Back With Video Cameras – Video – TIME.com, n.d.

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Syria – Where’s the War? Right Where We Left It.

17 Tuesday Sep 2013

Posted by in Conflict - Culture - Language - Psychology, Syria

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Mahmoud al-Aboud, commander of the eastern front for the Free Syrian Army, told The Daily Beast on Sunday in a Skype interview that the fighting began Saturday with a car bomb. Killed in the attack, said Aboud, was the brother of Saddam al-Gamal, a local commander of Allahu Akbar Brigades, a group aligned with the FSA in al-Bukamal. After the bombing, Gamal’s men launched a counterattack with small arms fire that killed four fighters in the opposing rebel group.

Al Qaeda Clash With Free Syrian Army a New Stage of Opposition Split – The Daily Beast 9/17/2013 (Eli Lake)

Lake goes on to note, “The FSA, which has received some nonlethal aid from the United States as well as weapons from such American allies as Saudi Arabia, has never collaborated with al Qaeda–linked forces in Syria against the Assad regime, Abboud said.”

So there!

Kudos to Eli Lake for the quote-by-Skype, would that there were more breaking coverage of the fighting in Syria by equally vetted professional journalists, the kind who get around some, miraculously.  Instead, what’s going on in there has to filter or sift, if anything, through military intelligence services, and then with those what does the public get that isn’t shaped to suit one national interest or another?

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He left Israel about three weeks ago, probably via Jordan, and reached Syrian rebels, with whom he began fighting, the family said. Muid left with two other companions, who have not been heard from either, the family said.

Report: Israeli Arab Killed in Syria Fighting – Middle East – News – Israel National News 9/17/2013

If Somalia’s Al Shabaab may serve for reference, volunteers to the fight may be treated as cannon fodder.

So goes the politics of small bands and newcomers to them.

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State-approved reporting, informally so, more or less:

“Across northern Syria, there has been an upsurge in crimes and abuses committed by extremist anti-government armed groups along with an influx of rebel foreign fighters,” Pinheiro said. His team was still investigating accounts of killings of captured government soldiers in Khan Al-Asal, he added.

State less-approved reportage, same UN study involved:

An incendiary bomb dropped from a government warplane on a school in the Aleppo countryside on August 26 killed at least eight students, and 50 more suffered horrific burns over up to 80 percent of their bodies, he said, citing survivor accounts.

Rebels, foreign fighters step up crimes in Syria: U.N. | Reuters 9/16/2013.

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Currently, China is Syria’s third largest importer and Russia’s largest at 15.5 percent of Russia’s total imports. As Russia continues to increase arms sales to a desperate Bashar al-Assad government, It has become increasingly clear that what’s good for Bashar al-Assad’s government is also good for Russia and, by extension, China too.

China’s Syria Strategy | Daniel Pena 9/16/2013 (Huffington Post, The Blog)

Verily, The Money has a life all its own.

And these guys at the Too Real Monopoly Table are not playing for Park Place.

As a matter of fact — move over, Mr. Bill — Leonid Bershidsky writing for Bloomberg has just announced “Vladimir Putin, the Richest Man on Earth” (not really, or not necessarily — Bershidsky reviews the sources of the claim).

What’s China’s position on Syria?  Sometimes, the drag-and-drop URL headers just fall into place: China says military strike against Syria would hurt global economy – latimes.com 9/5/2013

One cannot help but feel that for either China and Russia, the suffering beneath the brutal Assad dictatorship, the appearance of chemical WMD in the battlespace, which in the news may be traveling slowly but certainly from loosely “alleged” use by the Syrian military toward toward more firm confirmation (e.g., “Samantha Power, the US ambassador to the United Nations, said that the facts of the report underscore that only the Assad regime could have carried out the sarin attack” – UN report confirms chemical weapons use in Syria – World News 9/17/2013), the bereavement associated with more than 100,000 dead, the trials of millions of displaced and refugee souls, and the destruction of entire cities simply don’t matter, at least not compared to The Money.

Perhaps if people mattered to dictators as other than resources for their own glorification and validation — sources of “narcissistic supply” — the same would not be dictators at all but resemble something closer to decent human beings.

But don’t hold your breath waiting for that epiphany to come to the major powers enjoying the good fight — from the perch of their own privilege — associated with Assad’s Syria.

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Moreover, we know the Assad regime was responsible. In the days leading up to Aug. 21st, we know that Assad’s chemical weapons personnel prepared for an attack near an area they where they mix sarin gas. They distributed gas masks to their troops. Then they fired rockets from a regime-controlled area into 11 neighborhoods that the regime has been trying to wipe clear of opposition forces.

Text of President Obama’s speech on Syria – Las Vegas Sun News 9/17/2013

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Now let’s do China.

Frankly, anyone who spends much time in China knows about the oligarchic nature of the Chinese elite, but the extent and distribution of the Wen family wealth is eye-opening.

Wen Jiabao’s Riches and Political Reform in China | China Power | The Diplomat Elizabeth C. Economy, 10/30/2012.

As eye opening as an espresso double-shot, I’d say.

Gold may be God for some, for the concept of any ethical or moral view of social reality is a thing suspended in the cultural invention of language.  Why not Pharaoh?  Why not virgin sacrifice?  Why not the Sun King?  Or death cults?  With the right poetry, anything may be rendered beautiful, desirable, sublime.

Now the Chinese wanted to set their own boundaries. They refused to discuss allegations they had looked the other way when Sudan’s army forced southerners from their homes in the oil regions, Odwar recalled. And when the delegation brought up new pollution laws, they told them not to set their sights so high. “I thought that was very offensive,” Odwar said.

Special Report: South Sudan’s Chinese oil puzzle | Reuters 11/14/2012

The farmers have moved away. Most of the small brick houses in Xinguang Sancun, huddling close to one another, are going to rack and ruin. In just 10 years the population has dropped from 2,000 to 300 people.

Rare-earth mining in China comes at a heavy cost for local villages | Environment | Guardian Weekly 8/7/2012

I wouldn’t dig up the dirt, pun not intended, just to produce a negative attitude toward China on this blog, but that these stories are available from recent years tells about the attitudes taken by authorities toward other humans and the earth.

During the course of the genocide in Sudan, China seems to have made its trade arrangements with Omar al-Bashir and otherwise kept its mouth shut.  Again, relevant article URL headers just seem to fall into place: Oil interests tie China to Sudan leader Bashir, even as he faces genocide charges – Washington Post:

Oil has for years been the bedrock of China’s warm relations with Bashir, who was first indicted by the ICC in 2008, accused of war crimes and crimes against humanity relating to murder, rape, torture, ethnic cleansing and other actions in Darfur.

What may be at stake for China in relation to Syria is that this dismal retreat from concern for the humanity of others and the cause that is their own hideous glorification continues without challenge or question.

Additional Reference

BBC News – China’s stake in the Syria stand-off 2/24/2012

Islamists dominate Syrian insurgency – Threat Matrix 9/16/2013

Syria’s al-Nusra Front – ruthless, organised and taking control | World news | The Guardian 7/10/2013

Egyptian Janus – From Secular to Theocratic Dictatorship

13 Thursday Dec 2012

Posted by in Egypt, Islamic Small Wars, Middle East, Politics

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Middle East journalist Jeffrey Fleishman’s November 27 header in the Los Angeles Times has a poetry in it for the ages: “Morsi may have misjudged Egypt’s tolerance of authoritarianism.”

A moment’s reflection may remind that all regimes labeled autocratic involve by definition the imposition of power, and while there may be elections, the story will also contain some combination of reports of bribery, intimidation, suppression, theft (of whole businesses, not mere wallets), and murder.

Organizations like the “Muslim Brothers” and leaders like President Morsi waste no time in organizing their challengers and rivals for neutralization even though they may not get all they want all at once.

For Morsi specifically, the distance between inauguration and the sacking of Mubarak’s army chief Field Marshal Hussein Tantawi was one month, mid-June to mid-August, and while overhaul of the military was arguably a first order of business, Morsi would go on to  conduct assaults, essentially, on Egyptian freedom of speech, human rights and rule of law, and, of course, on the courts.

Last week, Al-Monitor reporter Mohamad Jarehi wrote the following in relation to the old Mubarak torture chambers and methods returned to use courtesy of the Muslim Brotherhood:

“The torture process starts once a demonstrator who opposes President Mohammed Morsi is arrested in the clashes or is suspected after the clashes end, and the CSF separate Morsi’s supporters from his opponents. Then, the group members trade off punching, kicking and beating him with a stick on the face and all over his body. They tear off his clothes and take him to the nearest secondary torture chamber, from which CSF personnel, members of the Interior Ministry and the State Security Investigations Services (SSIS) are absent.”

The revelation and publicity may have been developed as a message to intimidate Egyptians who had believed they had a shot at freedom and modernity.

The truth is Egyptians have to find their own way out of the darkness and hell in which despots and thugs keep from them the freedom to inquire and speak broadly and openly about many things, to have recourse to court and security systems that are truly their own and working for them equally, and far more than either of those paths toward freedom and security, to choose for themselves between what is balanced, good, and kind, and what is cruel, dangerous, inhuman, and mad.

About three hours ago, the Associated Press reported that, “Former U.S. President Jimmy Carter’s center said . . . it will not deploy monitors for Egypt’s constitutional referendum.”

If it stinks too much for “Jimmuh” and his outfit, imagine, but one need not leave judgment with notice of the Carter Center’s disinterest in monitoring a state-defining referendum: today, The Algemeiner reported that since early 2011, more than 100,000 Egyptians have sought asylum in the United States.

Reference Update

I’ve gone loosely chronological with this listing as I track but don’t plug stories on a daily basis.  In a way, reading down the headlines tells the story.  This set starts, close enough, with “Morsi may have misjudged Egypt’s tolerance of authoritarianism” and ends (close enough — I revise as I go) with “Al-Masry Al-Youm Reports on Brotherhood Torture Chambers.”  Think about that.

Richter, Paul.  “n U.N. speech, Egypt’s Morsi rejects broad free speech rights.”  Los Angeles, Times, September 26, 2012.

Fleishman, Jeffrey.  “Morsi may have misjudged Egypt’s tolerance of authoritarianism.”  Los Angeles Times, November 27, 2012.  Note to readers: authoritarianism is never tolerated but always imposed.

Engel, Richard.  “Egyptians fear decades of Muslim Brotherhood rule, warn Morsi is no friend to US.”  News analysis.  NBC News, December 1, 2012 and earlier.

Fleishman, Jeffrey and Reem Abdellatif.  “Egypt court postpones ruling as protesters mass at chambers.”  December 2, 2012.

Fleishman, Jeffrey and Reem Abdellatif.  “Egyptian police fire tear gas during rally against President Morsi.”  Los Angeles Times, December 4, 2012.

Blair, Edmund and Marwa Awad.  “Rivals clash as Mursi’s deputy seeks end to Egypt crisis.”  Reuters, December 5, 2012.

Bloomfield, Douglas M.  “Washington Watch: The death of Egyptian democracy.”  The Jerusalem Post, December 5, 2012.

Reuters.  “Slideshow: Protests in Egypt”.

Fox News.  “Clashes between rival protesters in Cairo kill 3, wound hundreds”.  December 6, 2012.

Jarehi, Mohammad.  “Al-Masry Al-Youm Reports on Brotherhood Torture Chambers.”  December 7, 2012.

Fleishman, Jeffrey and Reem Abdellatif.  “Egypt’s Morsi reverses most of decree that expanded his powers.”  Los Angeles Times, December 8, 2012.

Gabbay, Tiffany.  “Egyptian Reporter Given a Disturbing Look Inside The Muslim Brotherhood’s ‘Torture Chambers’.  December 10, 2012.

The Independent.  “Morsi gives Egyptian army right to arrest civilians.”  December 10, 2012.

Friedman, Thomas L.  “Can God Save Egypt?”  The New York Times, December 11, 2012: “What has brought hundreds of thousands of Egyptians back into the streets, many of them first-time protesters, is the fear that autocracy is returning to Egypt under the guise of Islam. The real fight here is about freedom, not religion.

Human Rights Watch.  “Egypt: Investigate Brotherhood’s Abuse of Protesters”.  December 12, 2012.

Michael, Maggie.  “Carter Center won’t monitor Egypt’s vote.”  Associated Press / Connecticut Post, December 13, 2012.

The Algemeiner.  “Amid Egyptian Protests, Coptic Christians Concerned for Their Survival.”  December 13, 2012.

Fahim, Kareem.  “In Cairo Crisis, the Poor Find Dashed Hopes.”  The New York Times, December 13, 2012: “We had high hopes in God, that things would improve,” Fathi Hussein said as he built a desk of dark wood for one of his clients, who are dwindling. “I elected a president to be good for the country. I did not elect him to impose his opinions on me.”

Kirkpatrick, David D.  “Prosecutor Says Morsi Aides Interfered in Inquiry.”  The New York Times, December 13, 2012:

“All 49 captives had been beaten, Mr. Khater wrote, and they said members of the Muslim Brotherhood had tried to coerce them into confessing that they had taken money to commit violence. But prosecutors found no evidence that they had done so.

“Even so, Mr. Morsi declared in a televised speech later that night that prosecutors had obtained confessions.”

Earlier Reference

McElroy and Magdy Samaan.  “Egypt’s new president Mohammad Morsi sacks army chief.”  The Telegraph, August 13, 2012.

Muwafi, Murad.  “Egypt fires spy chief, security leaders in wake of Sinai attack.”  Global Post, August 8, 2012.

Bradley, Matt.  “Egypt’s President Morsi Defies Courts.”  Video report and interview.  Wall Street Journal, July 10, 2012.

Youssef, Nancy A. and Mohannad Sabry.  “Morsi inaugurated in Egypt.”  McClatchy, June 30, 2012.

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