
In Syria, militias armed by the Pentagon fight those armed by the CIA - dismal2
http://www.latimes.com/world/middleeast/la-fg-cia-pentagon-isis-20160327-story.html
======
cm2187
I wonder how much of the mess in the middle east is cause by the erratic
western diplomacy and how much would have happened anyway.

Clearly the US invasion of Iraq, and the chaos that followed has been a
catalyst for islamism in the region. The US+European backed revolution in
Libya, Syria and Egypt only added to the chaos. It is tempting to think that
had we just stayed away from all that, the region would be under the control
of ruthless dictators but at least would be in peace, and islamists would be
in jail. When we think that half of the population of Syria are now refugees,
of which half had to emigrate, is overthrowing Al Assad really worth that, and
is overthrowing Al Assad worth creating ISIS? I must say that for how much I
dislike Putin, he has a point when he tells Western diplomacy: look at the
mess in Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, Syria, and now you are telling me you want
to invade another country in the middle east?

On the other side when we look at most of these conflicts, they are really
ethnic conflicts. Sunnis vs Shia vs Kurds vs Alawites vs etc... Both Saddam
Hussein and Qaddafi were old and were bound to die in the next 10-20 years (as
of 2002). And the rise of Islamism is a global phenomenon that spans from
Indonesia to Morocco, through Turkey or Pakistan, from the muslim suburbs of
Paris and Brussels to the desert in Mali. Perhaps all of this would have
happened anyway. Like it is foreseeable that when Saudi Arabia will run out of
oil money, it will descent in a state of complete chaos.

I think of Islamism as a kind of a repeat of communism, it's an ideology which
time has come, which will find a broad adhesion in the muslim world, and will
likely disappear the same way communism did, through its own disastrous
results when in power and inability to compete with the West, both
economically and in term of values. The most anti-communist populations are
the populations that have been ruled by communism (Eastern Europe).

As for ethnic conflicts, there are no good solutions. If two populations hate
each others, grand speeches at the UN headquarters in NYC will not change
anything. I'd be incline to think we should stay away from ethnic conflicts.
We should keep in mind that whoever we decide to back in Syria, once that side
wins, they will start a terrible ethnic cleansing. Do we really want to
sponsor that?

~~~
foxhedgehog
I used to work in Middle East affairs.

There is a tendency for Westerners to overstate their own importance in the
Middle East, which are also informed by inter-state, intra-state and extra-
regional groups and actors that are neither European nor American.

The real regional meta-story that is playing out right now, in my opinion, is
the inevitable collapse of the post-imperial order. It was caused not by any
grand state actors (or by Twitter) but by a single Tunisian street vendor. He
upended the unsustainable patterns of rule that have characterized the region
since the withdrawal of the European powers after World War II. Nobody knows
what comes next, and there is no good model, yet, of American statecraft to
inform a regional posture.

The story made me shake my head, but not because of anything to do with of any
sinister implications that it raised about the military-industrial complex,
but because it looks like Keystone Kops. The Syrian civil war is a proxy
conflict between the (Sunni) Gulf States and (Shia) Iranians with the Russians
alongside the latter. It takes the form of members of ISIS killing Quds Force
commanders, and it ignited without much help from the West. Which side would
you pick?

~~~
simonh
All good points. 'The West' didn't instigate the uprisings in Tunisia, Libya,
Egypt and Syria. They were started by local people for local reasons, often
with westerners cheering on from the side lines or occasionally providing a
bit of air support as in Libya, but mainly keeping out of it.

For goodness sake, we'd been trying to topple Gaddafi and the Syrian regime
for half a century and getting exactly nowhere, then as you say one Tunisian
street vendor makes a desperate gesture and in the chain reaction from that
the whole region falls into chaos. That's history for you.

As for IS, the reason they're such a nuisance isn't so much due to the
invasion of Iraq, it's due to the power vacuum in north western Iraq caused by
the withdrawal of US forces in 2011. The fact is the surge worked, but all of
that was willingly thrown away.

~~~
astazangasta
>They were started by local people for local reasons, often with westerners
cheering on from the side lines or occasionally providing a bit of air support
as in Libya, but mainly keeping out of it.

"A bit of air support" is a strange characterization for destroying the Libyan
government's entire tank fleet in the middle of an Islamist uprising. "Mainly
keeping out of it" is a strange characterization for supporting a coup in
Egypt that toppled a democratically elected government. Also, we never, ever,
ever, ever talk about Bahrain, where the US supplied arms through Saudi Arabia
against the uprisings and: >By 2014, 5,000 Saudi and Emirati forces and almost
7000 American forces were positioned "less than 10 miles from the Pearl
Roundabout, the center of the country’s protest movement."

We have surrounded the middle east with armies for more than a generation and
armed the worst governments in the area. "Mainly keeping out of it" is a gross
mischaracterization of what we do there.

~~~
jacobush
Only occasionally carpet bombing capitals in the area?

------
lsb
This war is a tragedy and an outrage, and its devastation of our World
Heritage should make us all ashamed.

While politics is often seen as off-topic, this has applicable lessons to
those of us building distributed systems.

1\. Any large enough system will eventually generate exceedingly surprising
side-effects.

2\. Hot-patching routing of resources in response to run-time surprises
(backpressure, etc) is essential for correction of error.

3\. Monitoring of resource allocation can help raise awareness and prevent
problems before they get big enough to be a national newspaper headline.

Very few of us will work on systems that impact human life (manned space
travel, driverless cars, etc) and it is a privilege to not have a day job
building systems that have lethal failure modes.

~~~
pdkl95
> politics is often seen as off-topic

That attitude is a huge problem. _Everything_ is political, because politics
is simply the way we solve problems, negotiate details, and make decisions in
a society.

> lethal failure modes

Non-lethal failure modes can still be just as much of a problem, and small
problems are _still problems_.

> Very few of us will work on systems that impact human life

 _Everybody_ that makes a product is impacting human life. You may not be
making something with _immediately obvious_ lethal failure modes, but it still
has an impact. At ever step in the building process decisions are made that
affect people. Many of these are _probably_ small and inconsequential, but
prediction is hard and sometimes supposedly-trivial things have large,
widespread effects.

Hiding from politics and claiming that something is "apolitical" cedes the
decisions to others, and technology is rapidly magnifying the impact even
trivial things can have. So please, consider the surrounding politics before
working on something, and at least try to consider the greater context of how
people will be affected - both good and bad ways - by the work you do.

Why? Because there is "no neutral ground, in a burning world"[1].

\--

[1] Which is the title of Eleanor Saitta and Quinn Norton's 30C3 talk[2],
which explains these ideas better than I can.

[2] [https://media.ccc.de/v/30C3_-_5491_-_en_-
_saal_1_-_201312272...](https://media.ccc.de/v/30C3_-_5491_-_en_-
_saal_1_-_201312272300_-_no_neutral_ground_in_a_burning_world_-_quinn_norton_-
_eleanor_saitta) [http://opentranscripts.org/transcript/no-neutral-ground-
burn...](http://opentranscripts.org/transcript/no-neutral-ground-burning-
world/)

------
yaacov
This isn't quite true. The Pentagon's only supporting SDF fighters from the
cantons of Jazera and Kobane. These guys were from Afrin, which is separated
from the other two cantons by a pretty big strip of IS-controlled territory.

[http://warontherocks.com/2016/03/are-cia-backed-syrian-
rebel...](http://warontherocks.com/2016/03/are-cia-backed-syrian-rebels-
really-fighting-pentagon-backed-syrian-rebels/)

------
fiatmoney
This makes some amount of sense under a model of the US government as a
collection of usually-feuding groups that have different constituencies and
control different levers of power, often exporting their internal conflicts
overseas.

[http://unqualified-
reservations.blogspot.com/2007/08/secret-...](http://unqualified-
reservations.blogspot.com/2007/08/secret-of-anti-americanism.html)

(The phrases to look at are "red empire" and "blue empire").

~~~
nyolfen
if you think that predisposed ideologies are conflicting cia and state
department sponsorships categories, i have a militia in syria to sell you

------
0xFFC
I am from middle east and I am atheist (because so many people will accuse me
of being Muslim).I want to touch on topic which is a little bit off topic. But
for people who wants to see big picture it is essential.

I can only say one thing to your politician's : Get the fuck out of middle
East.

There is one way to change middle East and it is to change culture by
improving your own society.

When I read news about USA domestic issuse my mind blows up, how these fuckers
(politicians) can bring us democracy?when they don't even care about their own
people. Looks what's going on in Flint Michigan.

At the otherhand when people go and see what is going on in countries like
Norway/Finland(which didn't invade any country in middle East in recent
years.didn't intervene and overthrow government in middle East) then they
really start to think there is something wrong about us culturally (middle
East) and we should start to change , and bring to ourselves what these
country's have already, like democracy, freedom of speech.(this is when real
change start to happen, not when some moron like bush spend billions and
billions without achieving single goal and for just making enemy's)

At the other hand by USA presense in middle East they (usa)are basically
undermine our (liberal people in middle East) argument for common people in
middle East.Believe it or not hardliners will say we are traitor and West's
puppets, and believe me people believe it when West's does actually occupy or
intervene in their country politics.

I can't understand, what is hard to get? Get the fuck out of middle East.

Overthrowing Mossadegh(democratically elected).

Backing Saudi Arabia (one of the worst human rights record, maybe a little bit
better than ISIS itself) for many years.

Backing Egyptian dictator (mobarak) for many years.

Backing Saddam against Iran , while Saddam did use chemical weapon.

Backing mujahedeen (basically Tliban) against Soviet Union.

And list goes on.

You cannot keep snake in your backyard and expect them to only bite your
neighbor.

honestly asking ? What the fuck do you want from us?

~~~
sdoering
I can follow lots of your arguments. And I do believe that a lot of
interventions does in the end lead to disaster.

That one point of view. What would have happened on the other hand, if some
countries did not intervene in Bosnia? Could we have watched one ethnic group
genociding another? Should we have stood by the sidelines doing nothing?

I have no final opinion on my last point, as I as pacifist do not believe in
military interventions at all. On the other hand I am a realist and have to
calculate the possible costs for every alternative. And in some cases the
costs of inaction might outweigh the cost intervention.

As said not really sure myself, still evaluating this thought.

And I also try to look at the reasons behind these actions. Why did some
countries (US and others) do what they did, what was to gain, what to loose.
What are the economic implications - and so on.

~~~
trhway
>What would have happened on the other hand, if some countries did not
intervene in Bosnia?

Bosnian Serbs having their own country? Unfortunately for them Bosnia is ally
with Turkey, a NATO member. So the intervention was on behalf of Bosnia.
Nobody cares though when it is allies who commit the same atrocities - like
Turkey does to Kurds and what Saudi Arabia does today in Yemen (for fun
consider a story - "rebels oust government, and a neighbor supporting the
ousted government intervenes military" \- in the last 2 years that happened in
Ukraine/Russia and Yemen/Saudi Arabia - and compare which side Western
countries have supported :).

~~~
0xFFC
Exactly.

Side note, [https://theintercept.com/](https://theintercept.com/)

One of the best sources for news.I have such respect for Greenwald, I would
work for the guy for free. I think in this climate ,Greenwald and people like
him are true hero's.

------
emblem21
> “It is an enormous challenge,” said Rep. Adam Schiff (D-Burbank), the top
> Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee, who described the clashes
> between U.S.-supported groups as “a fairly new phenomenon.”

> “It is part of the three-dimensional chess that is the Syrian battlefield,”
> he said.

Corrupt congressmen explaining the supreme unaccountability associated with
this type of unofficial warfare as something too complex and mysterious for
the average observer to comprehend should be classified as a radicalizer by
the FBI.

~~~
rdtsc
Yeah that is a fairly standard PR technique. "We are dealing with something
very new and very complex".

------
chvid
Syria really examplifies the terrible incoherent state of Western (American,
secondly EU) foreign policy.

There is really a need for change; unfortunately it is a bit hard to see where
that will be coming from at the moment.

~~~
AlwaysBCoding
For better or worse a Trump presidency would almost certainly be a fundamental
rewrite of the way the U.S. government functions in the world.

~~~
spriggan3
The truth is no one knows what Trump will actually do. Trump can say whatever
he wants during its campaign it doesn't matter. No one knows what he will do
if he ever gets elected. All people know is that he is a business man with a
big ego, he isn't even a conservative at all, he is the pure product of the
New York upper class culture.

Hillary on the other is as hawkish as they come, this was demonstrated through
her emails. She is a neo-con.

~~~
goldfeld
Isn't "when it comes to foreign policy" about the only way to be a neocon as
opposed to just conservative? That was my impression at least.

------
known
"If there is a country that has committed unspeakable atrocities in the world,
it is the USA. They don't care." \--Nelson Mandela
[http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/mehdi-hasan/nelson-
mandela-i...](http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/mehdi-hasan/nelson-mandela-iraq-
israel_b_4396638.html)

~~~
supremeanger
Thats rich coming from Mandela, a terrorist

~~~
known
A terrorist is a freedom fighter who is not on your side;

------
retrogradeorbit
It's a very old strategy.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Divide_and_rule](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Divide_and_rule)

------
davnn
When you trust George Friedman, and he should know better, then funding of
both sides actually is a strategy not a mistake. People often think that there
is moral involved in those decisions, but there isn't, not at all.

~~~
binarray2000
I assume, you are reffering to this:

[https://youtu.be/QeLu_yyz3tc](https://youtu.be/QeLu_yyz3tc)

Chilling insight into foreign policy of a superpower (an euphemism for
"empire"). Not that he says something new (if you've read Carroll Quigley),
but still... it's a fresh proof from the founder of the "Shadow CIA".

~~~
selimthegrim
Friedman is a tool, and the email dumps exposed that. Better to read Kennan if
you want insight into American imperialism.

~~~
davnn
Would you recommend a specific book?

~~~
selimthegrim
His letters and telegrams on Korea from the 1950s as well as his late in life
writings. I'm not sure if there's a book.

------
partycoder
They just want perpetual conflict. Because perpetual conflict means perpetual
war, and perpetual war means cash supply for the military industrial complex.

~~~
RobertoG
I have problems believing that narrative. I think that it's too simplistic to
forget strategic goals.

For instance, perpetual conflict also means that no strong power can appear in
the area.

~~~
partycoder
Before WW1, that was the Ottoman empire. The arab provinces of the empire were
unhappy, and contacted the entente. The agreed to revolt against the turks in
exchange for control over all that area. The arabs fought against the turks,
with the help of the entente, however as soon as the war ended, the entente
revealed their actual plan: the sykes-picot agreement. Basically they got
backstabbed.

In this agreement they would divide the area, give it new names, put it under
foreign control. Since then the area is a constant mess. By design.

Then every other year they finance some rebel group or army here and there so
there's never peace.

------
ingsoc79
Can't help but be reminded of this scene in Woody Allen's _Bananas_ :
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2q-NL3R8wm0](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2q-NL3R8wm0)

------
musha68k
This reads like out of one of Hideo Kojima's computer games, war as a
"business model"?

"War has changed. It's no longer about nations, ideologies, or ethnicity.

It's an endless series of proxy battles fought by mercenaries and machines.
War - and its consumption of life - has become a well-oiled machine. War has
changed. ID-tagged soldiers carry ID-tagged weapons, use ID-tagged gear.
Nanomachines inside their bodies enhance and regulate their abilities. Genetic
control. Information control. Emotion control. Battlefiled control. Everything
is monitored and kept under control.

War has changed. The age of deterrence has become the age of control, all in
the name of averting catastrophe from weapons of mass destruction. And he who
controls the battlefield, controls history. War has changed. When the
battlefield is under total control, war becomes routine."

– Solid Snake, Metal Gear Solid 4

------
cm3
Haven't the CIA (and DEA to some extent) always been operating in J. Edgar
Hoover style crooked, hypocritical, mobster mode, under the belief that laws
are for everyone else but them? They seem to follow long-term agendas with
zero consideration for material, human, and societal losses.

------
andrewvijay
Such an open evidence and yet no country accuses the US.

------
mikelyons
Destabilize another area, and you have a constant source of "world-news" to
fearmonger with in order to take away the rights and enslave the population of
your own country under the guise of democratic security.

------
pknerd
"We like war because we are good at it" \- Carlin

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N9MnJqhcZvw](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N9MnJqhcZvw)

------
pknerd
Not something new. US backed Iraq in past, supplied emos, later fought against
it.

US aided Mujahideen of Afghanistan in past later become Talibans. US aided
Pakistan Army and Afghan government to fight against them.

Since it's Hackernews, the best analogy would be funding by VCs to different
startups to compete with each other. Here CIA and Pentagon are VCs providing
Emos to "Startups" to test their weapons for other wars.

------
teekert
Why do the EU and US dislike Assad? He has been saying for years that the Free
Syrian Army are a bunch of crazies who Barbecue heads etc. There could well be
IS-ers among them. Why are we (EU/US) not working with the Russians and Assad?
Remember that those chemical weapons, after a lot of accusations were fired by
the rebels, not by Assad.

~~~
acqq
> Why do the EU and US dislike Assad?

It's a long and old (decades!) story, per US embassy cables published by
WikiLeaks. The news story:

[http://www.activistpost.com/2015/09/julian-assange-
reveals-a...](http://www.activistpost.com/2015/09/julian-assange-reveals-
another-2006-western-plan-to-destroy-syria.html)

The US ambassador 2006 leaked cable itself:

[https://wikileaks.org/plusd/cables/06DAMASCUS5399_a.html](https://wikileaks.org/plusd/cables/06DAMASCUS5399_a.html)

So it's not by accident that Chelsea Manning was treated as he was for leaking
these cables. And that Assange still can't leave the embassy in London.

------
INTPenis
This article sure expects much from the intelligence community. I don't think
anyone can claim to have "control" over groups so diverse and distanced from
themselves.

------
titzer
The only way to always win at war is to fight on both sides.

~~~
contingencies
... or not to play.

By contrast, Sun Zi's _The Art of War_ , being more a manual of practical
statesmanship and less an ethical or philosophical sounding board, states that
one should only go to war when in a position of strength and certain victory.
Further, actual warfare is a last option: "the skillful leader subdues the
enemy's troops without any fighting; he captures their cities without laying
siege to them; he overthrows their kingdom without lengthy operations in the
field."

------
jacobush
Divide and conquer.

------
DannoHung
Well, you gotta grow the next generation of terrorists, don't you?

------
brooklyndude
The word now is you can spend for sponsorship. Both CIA and Pentagon rebels.
For $100 you get a shoulder patch, for $25 they'll put a logo on a boot. For
$50 you get your internet startup company name on a hat. Heard ad space is
going quick.

America, are we the greatest or what. USA rocks. :-)

