“Because we want the peace with half a heart and half a life and will, the war, of course, continues, because the waging of war, by its nature, is total — but the waging of peace, by our own cowardice, is partial.” – Dan Berrigan.
The United States is engaging in unconventional wars in the Middle East. This is not ‘total war’ nor is it cold war. Currently, engagement is against Iran and Russia. There is also a trade war against China.
The protagonists are not fighting these unconventional wars on home soil. In the Middle East they are being fought in Iraq, Syria, Afghanistan and the Gulf. The US proxy, Israel, is fighting a war in Gaza against defenceless Palestinians. They have repeatedly bombed military targets in Syria and Iran. They want escalations of the conflict. But the US has said no, so far.
These conflicts appear to have no end in sight.
The US-Iran crisis has been reigned in. Or so they say.
Even if it has, who knows for how long?
Both sides are planning their next move.
It is as if a contract has been agreed to.
But all the signatories are mad.
The contract contains known unknowns.
Here is the scenario between the parties:
If we kill Iran’s Major-General Soliemani, then you can bomb US bases in Iraq.
Ok, we’re square.
Oh, you shot down a Ukrainian passenger airliner with 176 people on board.
You say it was an accident?
Here’s the deal.
We will reign in Trump’s war powers if you will allow oil to pass through the Gulf and allow Israel to have Jerusalem and the settlers to have the West Bank.
All of this is confused by leading Iraqi cleric Muqtada al-Sadr going to Iran to meet with Iraqi Shia groups to “to unite and coordinate forces to fully liberate Iraq from US forces.”
What do you reckon?
Questions
Is Trump the main instigator to this contract on the US side?
Who are the war-hawks are whispering in Trump’s ear?
What would Hillary Clinton’s mob have done?
Will there be any less likelihood or more likelihood of overt world war with a different US president?
War is not total
Ah, so Trump wants the war to be overt that’s why he authorised the drone to kill Iran’s Major-General Soleimani?
And Trump did sign the Jerusalem agreement with Netanyahu.
Who will go along with that?
The world was doomed with Hilary Clinton at the helm.
With Trump it’s just unpredictable.
What’s to be done?
There are no simple answers. Australia is a backwater and will continue to be one while it serves US interests. We have 300 troops in Iraq and a frigate. If war breaks out all will be lost. Why? Because we lack an independent foreign policy.
There are already uprisings going in Baghdad and Iran against their own governments. And in Gaza against their jailors, the Israelis.
What do we do when the war is not total?
And the waging of peace is partial.
Where war is a sideline to bigger national questions like bushfires, drought, custodianship of the land or global questions like climate change?
Yes, maybe everything is linked.
Perhaps climate change did drive the civil war in Syria? But how is there a link between bushfires with an escalation in conflict between Iran and the US? I can see none. Yes, people wish to have the peace movement here grow but to piggy-back on the environmental crisis here is wrong.
Trust in politicians is at a low ebb. So is trust in all institutions like the banks, religion, marriage, and so on.
But we do have a history of struggle to guide us and some pretty good ones at that. The aboriginal struggle against colonisation, a rebirth of their languages and culture. The democratic rights struggle in Queensland that fought for and won our right to rally and march without a permit system. Women’s liberation struggles. Anti-Vietnam war movement. Anti-uranium and anti-nuclear movements. Bringing down the Berlin wall and stopping the cold war. Anti-conscription campaign in Australia during WWI. Cuba’s struggle against the US economic blockade. To name a few.
And, of course, the international struggle of workers everywhere.
We have to invent new ways to conduct these struggles and to avoid focussing on just replacing one President or Prime Mnister with another who is just as bad or worse. The world was doomed with Hilary Clinton at the helm. With Trump it’s just unpredictable.
Workers of all countries unite!
Please Note I have received this message from
Independent and Peaceful Australia Network
| m. +61 431 597 256 | a. PO Box 573, Coorparoo QLD 4151
“This coming Thursday 16th January 2020
6:00 pm at Qld Council of Unions
TLC Building, 2nd Floor at 16 Peel Street, South Brisbane
A meeting to help organise a rally for the following Saturday 25th January on the theme “No War on Iran“. This will be part of a global day of protests against war on Iran.“
Ian Curr
16 Jan 2020
Hillary Clinton’s mob would have found a psychopath contractor with a sharp knife to undertake assassinations of uncooperative stake-holders.
http://ray2wbt.wordpress.com
British to the rescue, hailing “peace and stability”: A few days ago Kurdistan Prime Minister Barzani received a UK government delegation led by Defense Senior Adviser on the Middle East, Lieutenant General Sir John Lorimer, and a statement on the Kurdish leader’s website read:
“Both sides stressed the need to preserve peace and stability in the region and de-escalate tensions through dialogue,” it added, referring to the escalation of developments between the United States and Iran. Prime Minister Barzani and Lieutenant General Lorimer “agreed that ISIS poses an ongoing and serious security threat and that the international community should continue to support efforts by the Kurdistan Region and Iraq to combat terrorism.”
http://ray2wbt.wordpress.com
President Barzani underlined “that terror and the resurgence of ISIS is a genuine danger that poses a threat to the stability of Iraq and the region,” a statement on the Kurdistan Regional Government’s (KRG) presidency website read:
“The president also emphasized that Iraq and [the] Kurdistan Region still need the cooperation and support from the global coalition in confronting ISIS,” the statement added. In the wake of escalating developments between the United States and Iran, the US-led Coalition against the Islamic State announced it was suspending operations against the terrorist group to focus on ensuring the security of the military bases in Iraq from which its troops operate.
See https://www.thebaghdadpost.com/en/Story/45500/Security-regional-developments-lead-talks-with-senior-Kurdistan-leaders-UK-military-delegation
Very interesting and comprehensive view of the world’s dilemnas!
“All of this is confused by leading Iraqi cleric Muqtada al-Sadr going to Iran to meet with Iraqi Shia groups to “to unite and coordinate forces to fully liberate Iraq from US forces.”
And confused even further by Iraqi Shia cleric Muqtada al-Sadr* going to Sunni Wahabi Saudi Arabia to secure funds for …???
OK then, what do the Saudi expect from this investment?
Probably for the country of Saudi Arabia to continue to exist with the Saudi family at the head even in some case where the U.S troops and diplomats in the Green Zone really end up evacuating from Iraq at some stage!!
I say “OFFICIAL American occupation of Iraq” because the present state of U.S. control is one of hostage holding, since all of the Iraqi money received from oil production and sales is under safekeeping in U.S. banks, to be drip-fed back to Iraq only if the corrupt government begins to behave as the U.S. demands.
While there are foreign-inspired colour revolutions on-going in Iraq and Iran, there is also a genuine unarmed uprising of young unemployed Iraqis in all major cities, with frequent over-reactions by the Iraqi army and riot-police, and then Muqtada al-Sadr is negotiating with various other armed militias for an armed uprising aimed at getting both the U.S. and Iran to grant and acknowledge Iraq’s right to have real independence.
* Muqtada al-Sadr is an Iraqi leader of Saraya al-Salam, a Shia militia that is a reformation of the previous militia he led during the OFFICIAL American occupation of Iraq, the Mahdi Army.
http://ray2wbt.wordpress.com