As the person took to the stage, the crowd let out a thunderous roar of approval. Holding a list in her hand, the woman began to thank those that had helped her in some way, either over the past year, or at some point in her life. Smiling and basking in the warm approval that was emanating from the audience, she launched into a speech describing the hardships that she had faced and how she was able to overcome diversity. Immediately afterwards, the chairman rose to his feet and presented her an award entitled “woman of the year”. Except that the award wasn’t given to a woman. It was given to Bruce Jenner, a past Olympic gold winner, who is in the process of transitioning into a woman called Caitlyn Jenner. That’s right. He is a woman stuck in a man’s body and through the miracles of modern science, this small mistake is being corrected. Of course, pundits immediately criticised the decision, saying — “He still has all of the parts that make a man a man, how can he be considered a woman?”, and — “Is what they are really saying is that even a man is better at being a woman than a woman is?” And what about all of the other natural-born women that have actually contributed to society over the past year? And while we ponder these questions about something that is, but isn’t, much like Schrodinger's cat, let us consider America’s foreign policy in the Middle East.
Over the course of the last week, the West was witness to the latest escapade in Iraq, that of America’s military releasing what they claim to be exclusive footage of a daring raid on one of ISIL’s prisons. Now, taken at face value, the story, as reported by Business Insider is as follows — "Iraqi forces, supported by a US Special Operations team in their advise and assist capacity, conducted a complex and highly-successful operation that resulted in the freeing of approximately 70 hostages held by ISIL in a prison near Hawijah, Iraq.” And that sounds nifty, right? We have all the necessary buzzwords — “Iraqi forces, US special forces, successful, fight against ISIL, etc”. But, let’s take a closer look at what went down.
NBC News, citing unidentified sources, said — “The operation was requested by the Iraqi government and those rescued were Kurdish fighters”. But a US official told Reuters that — “69 hostages were rescued. The hostages were all Arabs, and included 20 members of the ISF, citizens of the local town, and members of ISIL that the militants believed were spies”. So, was it Kurdish fighters that were rescued, or Arabs? That aside, apparently there were some friendly faces, a few people from a local village, and oh, some fighters from the Islamic State. That’s right — terrorists. Now, why would anyone want to rescue terrorists from other terrorists? And what will happen to them now? Will they be sent to Guantanamo Bay? Will they be sent to another jail somewhere in the Middle East? Will they be set free?
Immediately after the raid was announced, a video of that raid was released to the press and the Western press went hog wild, or at least Fox news did. Aside from the fact that the GoPro video really doesn’t show anything interesting, pundits pointed to the video as proof that the United States still had a presence in Iraq and was able to lead daring raids, therefore America’s voice should still be heard. However, commenters on youtube noted that the equipment the soldiers were using was old, and was not standard America SF gear anymore and that most likely, those people in the video were Kurdish soldiers. Other commentators noted that the video looked almost like a soundstage and that it was difficult to determine if indeed, it was actually a real raid, or it was just a training exercise.
Whatever the video did or did not show, and even if the video was real or not, Zerohedge wrote that — “The video was then used as a pretext for Ash Carter to tell the Senate that the US is now prepared to engage directly on the ground in Iraq and Syria.” That’s right. The United States is going to send ground troops into Syria. Although they may or may not have already been there once or twice, it was at least under the cover of darkness. Apparently, the new strategy now tears that veil off and is very clear that American boots will be fighting on the ground in Syria. Of course, no one is calling this an invasion, yet. But how else could it be construed? Country A’s military is going into Country B’s territory without permission? And what about President Obama’s pledge to CBS news to not send in ground troops in the fight against ISIL?
Summing it up, Ron Paul wrote that — “I cannot condemn in strong enough terms this ill-advised US military escalation in the Middle East. Whoever concluded that it is a good idea to send US troops into an area already being bombed by Russian military forces should really be relieved of duty.”
He ended by saying — “This is not our war. US interventionism has already done enough damage in Iraq and Syria, not to mention Libya. It is time to come home. It is time for the American people to rise up and demand that the Obama Administration bring our military home from this increasingly dangerous no-win confrontation. We must speak out now, before it is too late!”
So, what do you think dear listeners, “Will the American people cheer on US soldiers in Syria?”
