More on Biden/Afghanistan
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wrote on 20 Sept 2021, 13:13 last edited by
http://www.williamengdahl.com/englishNEO6Sept2021.php
"The ignominious US withdrawal from Afghanistan has blown a global hole in the post-1945 American Century system of elaborate world domination, a power vacuum that likely will lead to irreversible consequences. The immediate case in point is whether Biden’s Washington strategists—as he clearly makes no policy—have already managed to lose the support of its largest arms buyer and regional strategic ally, The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. Since the first days of Biden’s inauguration in late January, US policies are driving the Saudi monarchy to pursue a dramatic shift in foreign policy. The longer-term consequences could be enormous.
"Within their first week in office the Biden Administration indicated a dramatic shift in US-Saudi relations. It announced a freeze in arms sales to the Kingdom as it reviewed the Trump arms deals. Then in late February US intelligence issued a report condemning the Saudi government for the killing of Saudi Washington Post journalist Adnan Khashoggi in Istanbul in October, 2018, something the Trump Administration refused to do. That was joined by Washington’s lifting the anti-Saudi Yemeni Houthi leadership from the US terrorist list while ending US military support to Saudi Arabia in its Yemen war with Iran-backed Houthi forces, a move that emboldened the Houthis to pursue missile and drone attacks on Saudi targets.
"While Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman has so far been careful to avoid a rupture with Washington, the motion of his feet since the Biden regime shift in January has been significant. At the center is a series of secret negotiations with former arch-enemy Iran, and its new President. Talks began in April in Baghdad between Riyadh and Teheran to explore a possible rapprochement.
<snip> Then some interesting history which for me anyway adds clarification:
"Washington geopolitical strategy for the past two decades has been to fire up the conflicts and bring the entire Middle East into chaos as part of a doctrine first endorsed by Cheney and Rumsfeld after September 11, 2001 . . .
"[A man identified in the article wrote in his book that] the entire national boundaries of the post-Ottoman Middle East carved out by the Europeans after World War I, including Afghanistan were to be dissolved, and present states balkanized into Sunni, Kurd, Shiite, and other ethnic or religious entities to ensure decades of chaos and instability requiring a “strong” US military presence to control. That became the two decades of US catastrophic occupation in Afghanistan and Iraq and beyond. It was deliberate chaos. Secretary of State Condi Rice said in 2006 that the Greater Middle East aka New Middle East would be achieved through ‘constructive chaos’."
^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^
I'm still reading, but this is interesting -- and worrisome -- for gaining understanding. -
wrote on 20 Sept 2021, 13:40 last edited by
It's very simple - keep them at each others' throats and they'll stay off mine.
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wrote on 20 Sept 2021, 13:50 last edited by
Its a very shopworn strategy. It's being used in this country today to great effect by both sides. And, idiots that we are, we're buying it.
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wrote on 20 Sept 2021, 13:54 last edited by
I would treat anything by Engdahl with a high degree of scepticism. He has a rather dodgey reputation. Also, New Eastern Outlook is published by Institute of Oriental Studies a think tank connected to the Russian Academy of Sciences. It is very much a mouthpiece of the Kremlin. The late Evgenny Primakov, former Russian Prime Minister and diplomat and KGB operative was closely associated with the Institute.
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I would treat anything by Engdahl with a high degree of scepticism. He has a rather dodgey reputation. Also, New Eastern Outlook is published by Institute of Oriental Studies a think tank connected to the Russian Academy of Sciences. It is very much a mouthpiece of the Kremlin. The late Evgenny Primakov, former Russian Prime Minister and diplomat and KGB operative was closely associated with the Institute.
wrote on 20 Sept 2021, 14:18 last edited by Catseye3@renauda said in More on Biden/Afghanistan:
Thanks, Renauda.
I would treat anything by Engdahl with a high degree of scepticism.
Well, hell.
Is this your polite Canadian way of saying, don't believe a thing he says? More seriously, can you elaborate on why you have trust issues with him? I assume you don't mean that a Russian bias automatically means he's inaccurate? Or is it that he's a propagandist?
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wrote on 20 Sept 2021, 19:56 last edited by Renauda
Engdahl was at one time associated with LaRouche publications and more recently with dubious conspiracy theorists such as Alexandr Dugin and Michel Chossudovsky.
He is also a hack. That Balkanization of the Middle East he refers to has nothing to do with US foreign policy. Nor has it ever. T. E. Lawrence had suggested a redrawing of the Arab borders, with the support of Gertrude Bell and other Arabists, in the early 1920's to the British Foreign Office. Their recommendation was essentially borders that recognized major sectarian and linguistic differences. Everyone, except the French and to a lesser extent, the US - which by then was losing interest because Wilson was dead and a policy of isolationism was setting in- had come to the realization that the borders that arose from the Sykes Picot Treaty and Peace of Versailles were arbitrary and solely in the interests of the Allied victors. Lawrence drew up a map of the Middle East with redefined borders. I would argue that Engdahl has usurped the facts and twisted them into his own odd narrative, which coincidentally, meshes conveniently with current Russian foreign policy in the region.
Otherwise, I have no problem with him writing for a recognized Russian foreign policy journal.
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Engdahl was at one time associated with LaRouche publications and more recently with dubious conspiracy theorists such as Alexandr Dugin and Michel Chossudovsky.
He is also a hack. That Balkanization of the Middle East he refers to has nothing to do with US foreign policy. Nor has it ever. T. E. Lawrence had suggested a redrawing of the Arab borders, with the support of Gertrude Bell and other Arabists, in the early 1920's to the British Foreign Office. Their recommendation was essentially borders that recognized major sectarian and linguistic differences. Everyone, except the French and to a lesser extent, the US - which by then was losing interest because Wilson was dead and a policy of isolationism was setting in- had come to the realization that the borders that arose from the Sykes Picot Treaty and Peace of Versailles were arbitrary and solely in the interests of the Allied victors. Lawrence drew up a map of the Middle East with redefined borders. I would argue that Engdahl has usurped the facts and twisted them into his own odd narrative, which coincidentally, meshes conveniently with current Russian foreign policy in the region.
Otherwise, I have no problem with him writing for a recognized Russian foreign policy journal.
wrote on 20 Sept 2021, 20:46 last edited by Catseye3@renauda said in More on Biden/Afghanistan:
Thanks very much for this clarification. It's much appreciated.
I would argue that Engdahl has usurped the facts and twisted it into his own odd narrative, which coincidentally, meshes conveniently with current Russian foreign policy in the region.
The question of whether this is in fact what he was doing was forming in my head as I redd your words: Whether he laid down the facts accurately but misapplied motives, influences and consequences to the world, so that the reader is convinced as Engdahl desires him to be convinced.
Of course, this usurpation renders his work useless.
Thinkers/writers like this are so dangerous to the uninformed mind. He seemed so plausible!
Thanks again, Renauda.
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wrote on 20 Sept 2021, 21:23 last edited by
It's READ, dammit!! "REDD" Is not a word!! READ!!!
Jesus.
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wrote on 20 Sept 2021, 21:43 last edited by
@larry said in More on Biden/Afghanistan:
It's READ, dammit!! "REDD" Is not a word!! READ!!!
Jesus.
It's a Cat's-ism for the forum.
Like "Hay (sic), Larry!" in thread titles.
You have bigger things to worry about, man.
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@larry said in More on Biden/Afghanistan:
It's READ, dammit!! "REDD" Is not a word!! READ!!!
Jesus.
It's a Cat's-ism for the forum.
Like "Hay (sic), Larry!" in thread titles.
You have bigger things to worry about, man.
wrote on 21 Sept 2021, 01:04 last edited by@george-k said in More on Biden/Afghanistan:
@larry said in More on Biden/Afghanistan:
It's READ, dammit!! "REDD" Is not a word!! READ!!!
Jesus.
You have bigger things to worry about, man.
Like what
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@george-k said in More on Biden/Afghanistan:
@larry said in More on Biden/Afghanistan:
It's READ, dammit!! "REDD" Is not a word!! READ!!!
Jesus.
You have bigger things to worry about, man.
Like what
wrote on 21 Sept 2021, 01:16 last edited by -
@renauda said in More on Biden/Afghanistan:
Thanks very much for this clarification. It's much appreciated.
I would argue that Engdahl has usurped the facts and twisted it into his own odd narrative, which coincidentally, meshes conveniently with current Russian foreign policy in the region.
The question of whether this is in fact what he was doing was forming in my head as I redd your words: Whether he laid down the facts accurately but misapplied motives, influences and consequences to the world, so that the reader is convinced as Engdahl desires him to be convinced.
Of course, this usurpation renders his work useless.
Thinkers/writers like this are so dangerous to the uninformed mind. He seemed so plausible!
Thanks again, Renauda.
wrote on 21 Sept 2021, 15:56 last edited by@catseye3 said in More on Biden/Afghanistan:
Thinkers/writers like this are so dangerous to the uninformed mind. He seemed so plausible!
Of course but Russian foreign policy countering and offseting US influence in the Middle East is not implausible but very real.
