{"id":63390,"date":"2015-09-07T18:45:17","date_gmt":"2015-09-07T17:45:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/?p=63390"},"modified":"2015-09-07T18:45:17","modified_gmt":"2015-09-07T17:45:17","slug":"blowback-on-a-nato-beach","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/2015\/09\/blowback-on-a-nato-beach\/","title":{"rendered":"Blowback on a NATO Beach"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Pepe<\/a>

Pepe Escobar<\/p><\/div>\n

5 Sep 2015 – <\/em>We\u2019ve had it coming. And when it came, virtually the whole planet reacted with stunned silence. Sometimes it takes just a photograph to put a noxiously complex version of hell in perspective.<\/p>\n

A man holds a poster with a drawing depicting drowned Syrian toddlers during a demonstration for refugee rights in Istanbul, Turkey, September 3, 2015. \u00a9 Osman Orsal \/ Reuters<\/p>\n

Little did Nilufer Demir, 29, the female photojournalist of the Turkish Dogan News agency know that the moment she saw little Aylan Kurdi, 3, washed ashore at the Ali Hoca Burnu beach near Bodrum, she would be making history.<\/p>\n

Aylan is alone, as if suspended by the immense solitude of death, just as his family\u2019s dream of offering him a new life in a new continent away from death and destruction was about to be fulfilled. It\u2019s as if his lone lifeless body at the shores of a NATO beach was also about to prefigure the death of Europe \u2013 or the death of a once pan-European dream of solidarity and compassion.<\/p>\n

\"A<\/a>

A man holds a poster with a drawing depicting drowned Syrian toddlers during a demonstration for refugee rights in Istanbul, Turkey, September 3, 2015.<\/p><\/div>\n

Hannah Arendt once wrote movingly about the banality of evil, referring to the mechanism of fascism and Nazism. Aylan\u2019s lifeless body now illustrates the banality of an evil he was trying to flee: the \u201carc of instability\u201d<\/em>, a Pentagon self-fulfilling prophecy.<\/p>\n

So to put hell in perspective we must retrace some steps of the arc.<\/p>\n

\"A<\/a>

A Syrian family takes shelter at a playground in the resort town of Bodrum, Turkey, September 4, 2015. \u00a9 Murad Sezer \/ Reuters<\/p><\/div>\n

Back to Shock and Awe<\/strong><\/p>\n

We\u2019ve had it coming when the\u00a0\u201cwe\u2019re the new OPEC\u201d<\/em>\u00a0Bush administration invaded, occupied and destroyed Iraq \u2013 creating the set-up for the establishment of Al-Qaeda in Iraq.<\/p>\n

We\u2019ve had it coming when the Petraeus surge bribed Sunnis to half-heartedly fight Al-Qaeda in Iraq \u2013 which then took its time to reorganize in the heart of the desert, change its name to Islamic State and plot a comeback.<\/p>\n

We\u2019ve had it coming when NATO, enthusiastically\u00a0\u201cled\u201d<\/em>\u00a0by London and Paris, and allied with hardcore Salafi-jihadis, set out to duly\u00a0\u201cliberate\u201d<\/em>\u00a0Libya into a failed state run by militias.<\/p>\n

We’ve had it coming when the Obama administration, allied with the usual Persian Gulf monarchical lackeys, sold an Arab Spring myth to the world by encouraging\u00a0\u201cmoderate\u201d<\/em>\u00a0rebels to\u00a0\u201cliberate\u201d<\/em>\u00a0Syria into a wasteland.<\/p>\n

We\u2019ve had it coming when US intelligence supported or at best\u00a0\u201cignored\u201d<\/em>\u00a0the jihadi free flow between Libya and Syria.<\/p>\n

We’ve had it coming when the most powerful satellite surveillance system ever simply failed to detect a gleaming white Toyota column of the rebranded ISIS\/ISIL\/Daesh crossing the Syrian desert into Iraq to take over Mosul.
\nWe\u2019ve had it coming when ISIS\/ISIL\/Daesh \u2013 following a\u00a0willful decision<\/a>\u00a0taken in Washington – was allowed to tear Sykes-Picot to shreds, taking over large swathes of both Syria and Iraq by guile and terror tactics.<\/p>\n

We’ve had it coming when ISIS\/ISIL\/Daesh took Kobani, in Syrian Kurdistan, just to be dislodged essentially by PKK\/YPG Kurd militias, not by US bombing raids.<\/p>\n

We\u2019ve had it coming when ISIS\/ISIL\/Daesh gloated over its prowess by profiting not only from oil smuggling and a micromanaged theatre of cruelty – videotaped beheadings, the destruction of archeological pearls – but also wreaking havoc enough to vastly increase the numbers of an uncontainable refugee crisis.<\/p>\n

Aylan was a Syrian Kurd fleeing from ISIS\/ISIL\/Daesh.<\/p>\n

Aylan was also one refugee among millions fleeing\u00a0\u201cliberation\u201d<\/em>\u00a0bombing and the convoluted ramifications\/unintended consequences of GWOT \u2013 the global war on terror \u2013 in the\u00a0\u201carc of instability\u201d<\/em>, from Afghanistan and the tribal areas of Pakistan to Yemen, Somalia, Iraq, Syria, Libya, Mali.<\/p>\n

These refugees are poor but they are also middle-class, like Aylan\u2019s family. Thousands of them die in the Mediterranean, the Mare Nostrum of Roman times now converted into Cemetery Nostrum; 3,500 dead in 2014, over 2,000 since early 2015.<\/p>\n

UNHCR detailed fifteen ongoing wars since 2010; eight in Africa (including Libya, Mali, northern Nigeria and South Sudan); three in the Middle East (Syria, Iraq and Yemen); one in Europe (Ukraine \u2013 with refugees absorbed by Russia); and three in Asia (Kyrgyzstan, Myanmar and Pakistan).<\/p>\n

The absolute majority of refugees are from Syria. By early 2015, UNHCR was already cataloguing no less than an astounding 11.7 million displaced Syrians \u2013 from an initial population of 23 million. The situation that European public opinion now seems to be awakening to is so dramatic that UNHCR automatically recognizes as a\u00a0\u201crefugee\u201d<\/em>\u00a0every single person fleeing Syria.<\/p>\n

The\u00a0\u201cWest\u201d<\/em>\u00a0also seems to have forgotten, but still 4.1 million refugees are Iraqis; 1.5 million of them are internally displaced.<\/p>\n

European solidarity oscillates wildly. France has 46 refugees\/asylum seekers for every 100,000 people. Germany has slightly more, 56 for every 100,000. Compare it with Sweden \u2013 233 for every 100,000 \u2013 or Norway \u2013 109 for every 100,000.<\/p>\n

At least Germany, to its credit, is showing political will; Berlin expects to welcome at least 800,000 refugees by the end of 2015.<\/p>\n

\"A<\/a>

A man walks along a damaged street in the al-Katerji district in Aleppo, Syria July 29, 2015. \u00a9 Abdalrhman Ismail \/ Reuters<\/p><\/div>\n

Welcome to the Bombing King<\/strong><\/p>\n

Yet across Europe, it\u2019s mostly ugly. Denmark wants to pay Turkey to halt Syrian refugees behind its borders. The Netherlands wants to cut off food and shelter for people who fail to qualify as refugees. Britain opposes the European Commission\u2019s refugee quotas. Hungary is building a barbed wire wall of shame along the border with Serbia.<\/p>\n

Already four million Syrian refugees are living in Turkey, Lebanon and Jordan.
\nAbsolutely none of these refugees, especially from Syria, Iraq and Libya is seeking asylum \u2013 or is being offered asylum \u2013 by the immensely wealthy Persian Gulf petromonarchies, whose ideological matrix is Wahhabism\/Salafi-jihadism.<\/p>\n

Oh, no. No\u00a0\u201cswarm\u201d<\/em>\u00a0(David Cameron\u2019s expression) of refugees disturbing King Salman, responsible for the illegal bombing \u2013 with American weapons and profiting from US satellite intelligence \u2013 of\u00a0Yemen<\/a>, with accompanying humanitarian crisis, and duly received with pomp and circumstance by US President Barack\u00a0\u201cDrill, baby, drill\u201d<\/em>\u00a0Obama this Friday.<\/p>\n

No refugees for Qatar, which would rather sponsor global crowd pleaser Barcelona and buy every building in sight from Madeleine to Opera in Paris while actively involved in the total destruction of Syria.<\/p>\n

The Pentagon\/NATO\u00a0\u201cliberation by bombing\u201d<\/em>\u00a0campaign all across the\u00a0\u201carc of instability\u201d<\/em>\u00a0shows no sign of losing steam, helped by wealthy Wahhabis and dodgy players such as the government in Ankara. Still, for millions of people, refuge inside an increasingly fearful, intolerant, xenophobic and austerity-devastated eurozone is still a better option than death and destruction.<\/p>\n

We\u2019ve had it coming from the beginning. There will be more blowback. An immensely sad, solitary form of blowback – washing ashore, in silence, on a NATO beach.<\/p>\n

_____________________________<\/p>\n

Pepe Escobar, from Brazil, is the roving correspondent for Asia Times\/Hong Kong, an analyst for RT and a frequent contributor to websites and radio shows ranging from the US to East Asia. He is the author of <\/em><\/em>Globalistan: How the Globalized World is Dissolving into Liquid War<\/a> (Nimble Books, 2007), <\/em>Red Zone Blues: a snapshot of Baghdad during the surge<\/a> (Nimble Books, 2007), and <\/em>Obama does Globalistan<\/a> (Nimble Books, 2009). His new <\/em>book is Empire of Chaos<\/a>.<\/em> He may be reached at pepeasia@yahoo.com.<\/em><\/em><\/p>\n

Go to Original \u2013 rt.com<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Hannah Arendt once wrote movingly about the banality of evil, referring to the mechanism of fascism and Nazism. Aylan\u2019s lifeless body now illustrates the banality of an evil he was trying to flee: the \u201carc of instability\u201d, a Pentagon self-fulfilling prophecy. So to put hell in perspective we must retrace some steps of the arc.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[48],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-63390","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-in-focus"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/63390","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=63390"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/63390\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=63390"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=63390"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=63390"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}