Category Archives: Middle East

UPDATED (2/12): Yemen: Iraq All-Over Again, But Without The Ground Forces

Foreign Aid, Foreign Policy, Middle East, Military, Neoconservatism, Republicans, UN, War

“‘Yemeni Journalist: Saudi Arabia’s Total Blockade on Yemen is Death Sentence for All.'” But, apparently, some lowlifes on my Twitter feed are dancing with joy like the 9/11 rooftop dancers. Yes, maybe it’s Fake News. Seriously, if you wish this on Yemeni kids; I wish this on yours.

Maybe the dumb f-cks of the US government want more refugees pouring into the US, this time Yemeni ones. The Saudi’s, our bosom buddies, are barricading Yemeni ports. No aid gets through. They’re dying.

Veterans, however, seem to demand that we prop-up their warfare state:

UPDATE (2/12):

UPDATED (11/13): Apparently It’s The Saudi-Israeli-American Axis Of Angels

Iran, Islam, Israel, Middle East, War

In Saudi Arabia, a new, more dangerous regime is consolidating regional power, plotting to destabilize Lebanon and blame Iran. Almost overnight has the kingdom shifted from rule by family/dynasty to a more authoritarian style of one-man rule.

Yemenis have dared defend themselves meekly against the Saudi-US coalition of obliteration. So Saudis are now threatening war with/on Iran. Meanwhile, Israel is urging its diplomats to push for international support for the Saudi assaults against Yemen’s Houthi. (Link died mysteriously.)

The Kushner-Trump Administration will likely appreciate Israel’s attempts at an international, diplomatic putsch. Trump has already endorsed the Saudi crackdown to ostensibly “neutralize Iran.” The president now stands with the Clintons and the Bushes along the Saudi-Israeli-American Axis Of Angels, as far as foreign policy goes.  But not everyone in the Old Right, America-First, anti-dumb-wars camp IS THAT PLEASED.

UPDATE (11/13):

NEW COLUMN. Niger: Finally, A War John McCain Doesn’t Love

Africa, Foreign Policy, Iran, John McCain, Middle East, War

NEW COLUMN. No war makes Johnny a sad boy. But finally, “Niger: A War John McCain Doesn’t Love.” It’s on the Mises Wire, standing for Austrian Economics, Freedom and peace. An excerpt:

News first broke about America’s Niger misadventure on October 4. “The real news here is that the US has forces in Niger, where they’re conducting covert operations,” this writer tweeted out. “Hashtag America First.”

Official media ignored the ambush of the American Special Forces, until the story gained anti-Trump traction. No word came from John McCain. Three weeks hence, the senator from Arizona is making history. McCain, who has never encountered a war he wasn’t eager to prosecute, is questioning the folly in Niger.

The senator from Arizona can run but can’t hide from the pollution he has left along his political path. Republicans wisely rejected war in Kosovo; McCain jettisoned party loyalty to call for bombs from above and “more boots on the ground.” At the prospects of war with Iran, McCain burst into song, “Bomb-bomb-bomb, bomb-bomb-Iran.” The possibility still makes this war ghoul smile. Before that, McCain promised a 100-year war in Iraq.

Senator McCain’s jingoism has encompassed Syria, Georgia, Mali, Nigeria, and China. Where the US could not effect regime change, as it did fecklessly in Afghanistan and Libya—McCain would typically call to side with an imagined local “friend of America” against an imagined “foe of America.” McCain has many imaginary friends.

Where his target country was beyond US bullying (Russia), the idea of the resumption of a cold war was an option McCain liked. He is currently fulminating over a slight delay in sanctions against Russia. When all efforts to tame the world militarily fail, McCain is partial to the idea of UN troops acting as his surrogates, say in Sudan.

No war makes Johnny a sad boy. But now he’s considering a subpoena over Niger.

GLOBAL CENTRALIZER

Playing out in Niger are the permanently entrenched, unchanging, American foreign-policy interests. Keen observers will detect a familiar pattern. Once again, the American bias everywhere is toward a powerful, overweening central state. This conceit has put our forces on a collision course with the tribal interests America toils to tame. …

… READ THE REST. The complete column is “Niger: Finally, A War John McCain Doesn’t Love.” It’s on the Mises Wire.

 

 

NEW COLUMN (UPDATE @7/23): Truman Would Have Agreed With Trump On The CIA In Syria

Donald Trump, Foreign Policy, History, Middle East, Russia, The State

“Truman Would Have Agreed With Trump On The CIA In Syria” is the current column, now on Townhall.com. An excerpt:

Said the president: “For some time I have been disturbed by the way CIA has been diverted from its original assignment. It has become an operational and, at times, a policy-making arm of the Government. … [T]his quiet intelligence arm of the President has been so removed from its intended role that it is being interpreted as a symbol of sinister and mysterious foreign intrigue.”

This dire warning about the propensity of the Central Intelligence Agency to go rogue came from Harry S. Truman.

Truman’s call to “limit the CIA role to intelligence” was published in December 22, 1963, by the Washington Post (WaPo). The same newspaper is now decrying Presidents Trump’s decision to “end the CIA’s covert program to arm and train moderate Syrian rebels battling the government of Bashar al-Assad, a move long sought by Russia, according to U.S. officials.”

The move is a good one. The WaPo threw Russia into the reportorial mix purely to sully President Trump (and due to the intellectual deficiencies of correspondents incapable of teasing apart policy from political intrigue).

The 33rd U.S. president, a Democrat before the great deformation of that party, was first to issue the warning against the agency he had established. Not only was the newly founded intelligence arm of President Truman mutating into “a policy-making arm of government,” but it was “a subverting influence in the affairs of other people,” he cautioned.

In 1963, Truman was meditating on restoring the monster he had created “to its original assignment” of intelligence gathering in the raw. The CIA’s sole purpose was to keep the president apprised of information unfiltered, un-politicized.

In 2017, Trump is dealing with a genie too powerful to beat back into the bottle: a mutated swamp creature.

So, is this a screeching U-turn in Trump’s foreign policy? Who know, but in Syria, at least, President Trump is inching closer to delivering on a campaign promise. …

… READ THE REST. “Truman Would Have Agreed With Trump On The CIA In Syria” is now on Townhall.com.

For those who missed the latest column, first on American Thinker; the Mercer Column can be read on Townhall.com, the Unz Review, a little later on Daily Caller, Liberty Conservative, and others. And it’s always posted eventually on IlanaMercer.com.

UPDATE I (Facebook):  “What a superb angle, Ilana! Invoking Truman’s warning about ‘The Company’ is brilliant,” writes author Bill Scott.

UPDATE II (7/23):
John McCain: