reply to post by neformore
I just got around to listening to episode 160. I found Nick Pope to be refreshingly honest. My respect for him rose. Glad you all had him on again,
and I look forward to his next ATS appearance.
It was the last hour's discussion regarding Syria that got to me, and compels me to reply to Semperfortis/Garth's comments concerning the matter.
He says he's sick and tired of the internal conflict in Syria, and claims that Syria has been responsible for all sorts of terrorism, and that the
best thing to do is just to "drop the bomb on them" -- by this I assume he means a nuclear one. He also went on to say that we (the US and (?)
Britain) should deal with Syria like we "used to deal with countries", claiming that we used to instill fear into the countries we warred on, and
gave Britain's long-term colonial occupation of India as a paradigm of global political/economic virtue, citing what a mess India is now compared to
what it was under British rule.
That's a belly-full to deal with, but I am going to take it on.
First off, Syria is for all intents and purposes in a civil war. Generally countries don't appreciate other countries getting involved in their
civil wars. The US Civil War lasted for 4+ years, which is longer that Syria's? Would Garth have liked England or France to have intervened?
Probably, because from his accent he is from the south and the CSA wanted foreign military intervention to help out their doomed cause against the
Union. However, the majority of Americans at the time were against it.
As for Syria being a problem country in the middle east, supporting terrorism. So has the US. It supported TRUE false-flag operations against the
democratic government of Iran in 1953 coup there. It has recently supported the MLK, an Iranian terrorist organization. The US was also instrumental
in AGAIN TRUE false-flag operations in Europe in the 60's through the 80's, i.e. Operation Gladio, which involved bombing civilian targets including
those in western Europe, which were made to look like communist attacks.
One can of course also argue that the strategic air bombardment campaigns of the US and Britain during WWII, including the dropping of atomic bombs on
primarily civilian targets, were in large part terror campaigns. So the US is responsible for several orders of magnitude more of terrorism than
Syria. But that's just American nationalism/exceptionalism/hypocrisy as usual: the US can wage violent war against anyone anywhere, but woe to those
who do it to the US, and no one should do it against US allies or interests either. Only the US and its allies have a license to commit terrorism.
Other countries should be punished for it.
As for praising Britain's colonial control of India, that is pure bigoted/racist poppycock if I ever heard it. But then I am not surprised that this
comes from a guy who gives a message on air to a black American president and the first lady, in the form of the spinning of a revolver cylinder
followed by the clicking of a firing pin -- yes, I heard this occur on an ATS live show.
If one is so keen on British rule of other peoples, then I must assume that said person was also against the American Revolutionary forces, and would
have been a Tory back then. It was called colonial America for a reason: the proto-states were colonies of Britain. Also I assume Garth would have
liked the British to use their sure-fire brutal, kick-butt tactics that used to win wars for them, against these American colonies.
As for using brutality and fear for winning wars, that is clearly wielding terrorism. Moreover, last time I checked, Nazi Germany, Imperial Japan
during WWI and the Soviet Union during the cold war and then in Afghanistan all used very brutal and terrorizing tactics to control conquered peoples
and look where that got them all.
I am wondering, however, what are considered the "good, old days" of American military might, besides during WWII. Are we talking about the ethnic
cleansing and genocides of native Americans, are we talking about the aggressive, adventurous Mexican-American War, are we talking about the very
brutal and dirty conquering of the Philippines after the Spanish American War? Are we talking about the Korean War/police action in which millions of
Koreans were killed? Certainly we can't be talking about the Viet Nam war, even though the US used very brutal tactics, including chemical warfare
against civilians, but still lost the war.
Also making light of terrorism by the IRA, by making jokes about American financial IRA funds, seems part and parcel of the mentality of a person who
believes nuclear weapons and brutal occupation is the best way to handle countries that are not threatening the US at all, but are only involved in an
internal civil war. Again, its manifest US destiny, exceptionalism and nationalism at work.