A few years back, I wrote a piece about the Syrian Civil War titled "The West v ISIS: Air strikes just means endless war minus victory". That now seems, in hindsight, not only trite but embarrassingly off the mark. Some could say that I failed utterly as an analyst because look what the Russians did in Syria with a few planes and some Spetsnaz forward observers. They literally wiped the rebel forces arrayed against Assad (termed by Western media as ISIS) off the map. And they did it with so few aircraft, many of them aging, some third and fourth generation planes but nothing compared to NATO's overpriced "fifth generation" stealth fleet; all of which makes you wonder if it was NATO's or the Western powers intention to ever defeat ISIS at all?
And here we come to what I'll call "the darkness".
The darkness you will never see on any news channel or media outlet in any country under the umbrella of the post WWII globalist order. And by that I mean every English speaking country's news channels, including mainland Europe's, Israel's, South Korea's and Japan's. Whatever language is spoken, this post WWII order has held on but is now descending into a kind of darkness. This darkness is first and foremost the idea and the fact that the corporate media and the entire political establishment is lying to you.
That's fact one and certainly dark. But the darkness I am positing rocks the foundations of my belief in the post WWII Western order I grew up in which primarily meant that the victors of WWII were the "good guys". Maybe I was that naive. Or more likely a kid. But twenty year old me could be forgiven for that. Because how many twenty year olds know much about anything other than mating rituals and having a laugh?
The question I find myself asking today, twenty years on as I note the state of the darkness, is a question idealistic 12 year old me asks from his dreams...
"Are we in the West the bad guys now?"
"Are we in the West the bad guys now?"
For anyone who reads this blog, this may not be new information. But let's indulge in a game. Let's talk about the Syrian Civil War now. Now that it is almost over, let's uncover from the rubble and the darkness some truth that war makes the first casualty of. The average person in Western OECD countries is busy making a living and feeding their family. It's difficult to be too much concerned with what your tax money is paying for. For instance, a Tomahawk missile costs 1.2 million dollars. And 300 million worth were launched against Syria because of some bullshit gas story pushed by the media in April. Gas is indiscriminate and horrible but it also has some especially evil connotation in the minds of the public who have never been near a war zone.
Gas in war drives foreign civilian populations insane. It's a trigger word. And the media knows this. If your child in a war zone dies by air burst artillery (a common occurrence in Aleppo or Damascus or Gaza) that means such munitions pepper your child with ball bearings travelling at Mach 3. Fucking horrible and unthinkable. You'd think. But let an enemy open a barrel (allegedly) that spreads some weaponized chlorine/sarin for at best a square block and now you've got an international casus belli on your hands. But any soldier will tell you artillery is far worse and more terrifying then some dissipating cloud you have a small but possible fighting chance at running from. What's worse is the media pushing the public into outrage using gaseous fear and demanding intervention in a desert war thousands of miles away from the average taxpayer doing his best to feed his family.
The famous Churchill quote "Nothing in life is so exhilarating as to be shot at to no result." is probably true. How about gassing people? He would know. How about bombing people and killing them via kinetic blast energy? Is that more evil then gas? In 2001, as we all know, 19 Saudis flew two planes and took down three buildings in New York, wrecked a wing of the Pentagon with another plane and nose dived a fourth into a field because of the heroism of the passengers. Officially. That was quite a feat in a country with a military larger than the next ten country's military's combined. Try anything like that today near Damascus and your plane isn't even going to make it over land from the Mediterranean. We're talking about a city with the 4th most sophisticated anti aircraft defense network on the planet. That's why the Israelis launch their AGMs at Syria from F-16s from their airspace or Jordanian airspace. The Syrians could take a shot at them but they don't exactly need another next door neighbor flinging more shit over the garden fence at them right now.
The point being?
Syrian airspace became impregnable and that was the beginning of the turning of the tide in favor of Assad. Russian intervention we'll talk about in Part II but for now let's stick to how we got to where we are today. How did we get to the Syrian Civil War?
The Russians like their naval base at Tartus. And why wouldn't they? Geopolitics is a chessboard, why give up a square? |
How did we get to a place where bombing wins a war.
I mean this figuratively of course, bombing wins wars but only as a component of a combined ground strategy and other factors. The Syrian Civil War is unique in the sense that never have so few aircraft done so much to change a major war. There's a Churchill Battle of Britain quote in there but I'm not using it because it's just too obvious.
To begin talking about Syria, we're going to have to go all the way back to 2010. Remember that thing called the "Arab Spring"? Western media touted it on your TV screen. Maybe you do, maybe you don't but let's do a quick primer.
It's possible it was a genius destabilizing operation run by Western intelligence agencies but there was an organic nature to it too. Since all Western media is a propaganda operation {and not just the news), I mean all of it. From the Kardashians to the Walking Dead and all the commercials in between, it's all a kind of mind control telling you what to aspire to, what to fear, what is good or bad in life and in our case, who the bad guys are. It's all controlled opposition aimed at priming the public. The Arab Spring story went something like this. Some Tunisian bazaar merchant set himself on fire due to some injustice. A local authority figure made him buy a permit to continue selling whatever bullshit a street vendor in Tunisia would sell to tourists. Who knows why? But some local official took away his livelihood and he lost his mind. That I can understand. Any man can. But setting yourself on fire to make a point is a drastic maneuver and does tend toward making the man with the match a martyr for a cause. And that's exactly what happened.
For many reasons, this act of self-immolation led to a wave of popular uprisings that destabilized every country in North Africa but especially Egypt. That was the biggest domino to fall but surely an unintended target. Israel and the US liked Mubarak but not his people, the Egyptians. Sinai is a hard, calcine forbidden desert but it is a point of contention. The Americans were paying Mubarak a billion a year to keep his population under control and not cause trouble for the Israelis. The most important thing for them was his zealous efforts to police the border with Gaza and make sure other Arab nations or shady arms dealers could not funnel weapons into Gaza, especially not shoulder mounted AA weapons that could challenge Israeli air superiority every time they bombed a hospital they claimed had a bottle rocket in the basement.
Nobody expected the Arab Spring to get out of the control. Sure the CIA, Mossad, MI5 and whatever the French call their intelligence agencies took advantage. Maybe they poured fuel on the fire. The point being, the Arab Spring spiraled out of control. It wasn't exactly engineered but it wasn't organic either. Egypt got destabilized simply by the fact that every house in North Africa and the Middle East by 2010 had a satellite dish on their roof. And the population were not swallowing the local line of bullshit their media propaganda were pumping out. They could see the world outside and realize they were getting fucked over big time. So there were riots. Tanks on the streets did nothing, not even bullets could quell the uprising in Cairo.
The Arab Spring. |
Mubarak, the man on the Western payroll had nowhere to run and had to stand trial. Suddenly he got sick. Seriously, this shit reads like a bad novel. The revolutionaries put him on trial and first fined him 33 million dollars and locked him up in a jail cell where he suddenly had a heart attack (who wouldn't)? It's possible that a bunch a hard hitting Bedouin motherfuckers went medieval on his ass, but either way, Egyptian prison didn't agree with him.
Interestingly, the Israeli's offered him asylum (he was, after all, on their payroll via the US anyway) but the Egyptian courts put him on trial again anyway and grabbed another 22 million from his bank accounts before things started going to absolute shit on the streets of Cairo again. This was almost certainly funded by foreign money (the usual suspects), but even so, it turned out that just because the Muslim Brotherhood might be good at praising Allah and fooling some of the people all of the time didn't mean they were any good at running a bus line to the Pyramids never mind running a whole fucking country. Egypt went to shit and Mubarak got free, ran for the hills and is still alive somewhere living far better than you or me.
But lets slow this story down a bit.
The Arab Spring was getting out of hand. With Mubarak gone and the Muslim Brotherhood taking control of Egypt that made Israel's strategic position precarious. Every AIPAC activist was funneling millions to every US Congressman and Senator's re election campaign. Something had to be done to stop this threat to Israel's southern border and the Gazan/Egyptian tunnel network infiltration points
And so Western nations arrived at the usual answer when tact is difficult and bombs are cheap.
"They started blowing the shit out of everything in North Africa."
But especially Libya because they were the target in the cross hairs of Western avarice.
The second richest country in Africa, run by a dictator and strongman, Gaddafi. (go ahead and tell me a Middle East country that isn't run by a strongman) and for that matter, go ahead and tell me any country not run by a person with a motivation that Nietzsche called the "will-to-power.". Democracy these days is just something to make you feel good; like you have some say in the ways of the world as you deposit your voting slip. Meanwhile, we're all run by strongmen or these days, strong women. Who cares who fronts the organization, man or woman, what matters is the power behind the person in the suit they push in front of the TV cameras.
But I've digressed.
Libya.
Here's who attacked. For no reason other than to destroy an oil rich success story on the Mediterranean. This is your tax money at work.
These are the nations with blood on their hands. |
What did Libya do to deserve this international coalition of death via air power?
Now we must enter more darkness and things they'll never tell you on TV.
Libya, committed the crime of going against the international system. They hoarded gold and exported oil. Sure, Gaddafi got rich and let's face the man was no saint. But every Libyan newlywed got a house. Gaddafi used Libya's oil wealth to pipe aquifers and turn the desert into farmland. Libya had the highest literacy rate in Africa and free education; free education to the point that any gifted Libyan could get their university fees paid even in foreign universities like Oxford or Harvard. Think about that while you're paying off your student loan for the next 20 years.
Gaddafi was even floating the idea of an African investment bank, and a gold backed currency, that meant oil sales for gold instead of paper and that's the kind of talk that gets you killed real quick.
What is Libya today?
A nightmarescape worse then South Chicago with open air slave markets and rival rebel factions roaming the streets in pick-up trucks brandishing heavy machine guns and battling rival gangs for local control from Tripoli to Benghazi. Meanwhile the population hide in their houses. Thanks Obama. Thanks Hillary Clinton. Thanks Sarkozy. International criminality hide behind these leaders they fund, dress in suits and have their bought and paid for media industrial complex friends paint these leaders as "nice people" projected into the public consciousness via TV camera reading bullshit off a teleprompter.
That's the absolute state of modern "democracy".
Far, far from the ideals of the ancient Athenians.
That's the absolute state of modern "democracy".
Far, far from the ideals of the ancient Athenians.
The Syrian Civil War started out as an opportunistic attempt by Western powers to get rid of Assad. Since Libya went down so easily, foreign think-tanks and NGOs got high on the idea that if you pump enough bullshit into a satellite dish and funnel enough arms to a hired local militia, (ISIS, AL Nusra, Al-Qaida) whatever; and then feed your home population a series of gruesome beheading vids just to make sure they know who the bad guys are; you can take over a whole country for less cash than the daily profits of Google or Apple.
With total media control, you've got an enemy your domestic population hates while at the same time a private army you can use to run roughshod all over the Middle East. Also, you've got a bunch of crazies who'll eviscerate and mow down hundreds in Paris, stab their way across London, mow down hundreds with trucks in France and Germany and generally keep the public focused on who the bad guys are before they wheel out the piano guy who sings "Imagine" at the candlelit vigil while the citizenry holds flowers and gets misty eyed while doing absolutely fucking nothing about their own government causing all this mayhem in the first place.
If only human nature could be this simple... then perhaps John and Yoko would be right. If you want it. |
That's what chaos is.
No authority.
And chaos was coming to Syria...
Part II coming soon if anyone even cares anymore. I've been gone so long it'll be amazing if anyone even finds this blog anymore.
ReplyDeleteI found it. Impressive! Please give us more.
DeleteGreat fucking summary of these events. Thank you for your efforts in spreading the truth. Keep up the good work!
DeleteChecking and clicked out of a sense of duty, pleasantly suprprised to see an update. Will click again. Onya Wartard!
DeleteAlso anyone that watches commercial TV deserves what they get.
Welcome back! Almost deleted you from my bookmarks. Maybe War Nerd will come back too!
DeleteWhy, because you resurrected a couple of years later than John Snow? Welcome back, we missed you!
DeleteThank god you're still investigating
DeleteJust got around to reading this. Love your work man - everything makes so much sense after reading your analysis and insights. Thanks for doing this. If you want to start a Patreon or something to sponsor more regular updates I'm down for the cause.
DeleteWelcome back War Tard.
DeleteI like this piece much better than the last one. In the other you had hints of orientalism which I pointed out in a comment. This is one is much more aligned with your normal wit, deep knowledge and great oration. Keep up the good work. Looking forward to reading the next piece.
Excellent blog. Keep 'em coming
Deletewe are here, give us more.
ReplyDeleteAs I mentioned earlier what a fucked up world we live in ...
ReplyDeleteGreat stuff!
ReplyDeleteHe's back with a vengeance and he got angry in his 3 year absence and isn't taking prisoners. I find myself laughing less and worrying more. I'm still not sure which is best. But I'll read Part 2 no matter what.
ReplyDeleteLooking forward to pt.2!
ReplyDeletethank you for coming back from retirement, love your work
ReplyDeleteAwesome post, great to see that you're writing on this blog again. Can't wait for part two!
ReplyDeleteGreat stuff brother. Keep it coming...
ReplyDeleteVery interesting post. Bookmarked and would love to see more.
ReplyDeleteYou have made this Irishman's day! Great to have you back, looking forward to part 2 and hopefully more. All the best mo chara!
ReplyDeleteBlistering read. Such a weapon!! Cannot wait for more WT posts.
ReplyDeleteGlad to see you’re back - looking forward to round II. Want to hear you describe Trump geopolitics.
ReplyDeleteThanks for the new post! Your insight is needed now more than ever.
ReplyDeleteInteresting:
ReplyDeletehttp://ens-newswire.com/2014/02/28/assad-regimes-drought-response-triggered-syrian-war/
Great stuff bro, looking forward to part two. Maybe don't wait 3 years to post it? ;)
ReplyDeleteGreat stuff - welcome back! I like to think people are wising up to the lies and propaganda spread by MSM etc.. but in reality it's not as much fun as instagramming on my new iPhone while all this shit is just exists on a TV screen ...
ReplyDeleteReady for part 2. Keep up the good work.
ReplyDeleteThis is the truth people need to hear. Please keep it up.
ReplyDeleteMissed ya War Tard. Small suggestion for part 2: the 400 pound gorilla of Russia/Syria/Iran actually fighting and actually winning this war is a small sliver of hope that humans may be made less retarded by war. Perhaps even, very wishful thinking, those humans responsible for conducting America's wars.
ReplyDeleteWartard is back!! I follow you on Twitter and couldn't believe when you tweeted it out yesterday. You'll always have an audience if you keep writing. I was one of those who checked in on the blog every few months just to see. Good luck and thank you for the writeup!
ReplyDeleteAh finally. Was looking forward to more content here.
ReplyDeleteGreat post. Always look forward to your perspective.
ReplyDeleteLook into the Stratfor leaks. There are files in there that mention how they compromised conflict resolution NGOs and co-opted them to start color revolutions. Otpor/CANVAS is involved. Look into Srdja Popovic. CANVAS is one of the NGOs receiving money from Soros through his group, Open Society Foundations. It's the same exact thing that happened in Kosovo, only The Powers That Be have figured out that you don't need to train your own agents-provocateurs to start riots; you can just pay private intelligence agencies to convert activists into agents.
ReplyDeleteWe created the refugee crisis. We, as in NATO, made millions of innocent Arabs homeless when we bombed their houses into dust. That was all part of the plan. The architects of the NWO wanted a mass exodus of poor, downtrodden folk to Western countries because they thought it would help them implement social democratic reforms more easily and turn Europe into a melting pot full of serfs that serve the oligarchs. The elites also engage in human trafficking, and many of the refugees find themselves ensnared in a web that forces them into prostitution and selling their organs. The wars in the Middle East since the Arab Spring have served mainly to herd these poor people like cattle so they could be "processed", like a product, by the elites and their machinations.
You speak of the Darkness. God, if only you knew how deep and dark this went. If people knew what ghouls our leaders and their shadowy oligarch masters were, there would be a revolution.
Brilliant analysis and perfect distillation of what I was trying to say. Thank you for your insight.
DeleteWork it.
ReplyDeleteOutstanding and very on point. You are not alone, keep speaking the truth.
ReplyDeleteFight the good fight.
He lives! I was convinced the CIA had you. Maybe they do...
ReplyDeleteNot yet my friend ;)
DeleteYour writing is on fire. You should be syndicated but who'd have the balls to print you. Someone might get offended because you said "fuck" and that's obscene. Meanwhile 10 kids died in a war zone today and nobody complains because it's far away in a desert. Your concept of "the darkness" really hits home. Bring on part 2 and don't keep me waiting.
ReplyDeleteContent is great, polish is rough. If you'd like, I'll give it an edit for free. If you're interested let me know and I'll get in touch.
ReplyDeleteFinally! I've been checking weekly forever and thought maybe the Mossad whisked you away or something.
ReplyDeleteSay, who's the lady who keeps bagging on you over drinking/a wasted talent/etc?
She's hot though ;)
DeleteWell, I sure am glad that there is THAT. Tallyho, then!
DeleteThis whole drinking thing got really out of hand. I was just jabbing at the lad to post more. If anything I need to stop. I am hot though.
DeleteWell, thank God your hotness, my good woman. I'm happy your prodding got results!
DeleteWhatever. Please please please don't make us ("your small, deeply disturbed following") wait too awfly long for Part Two.
ReplyDeleteWe missed you!
ReplyDeleteGreat read man. Looking forward to part deux.
ReplyDeleteWelcome back!
ReplyDelete3 years and you couldn't run a spellcheck? Glad to have you back in any case, bring on part two!
ReplyDeleteCan't wait for the next article! Welcome back!
ReplyDeleteHe's back! Speaking the truth - can't wait for the next one
ReplyDeleteBloody Hell, he's back! I've been checking your page for two years!
ReplyDeleteCan you write Part II before chaos doesn't exist in Syria anymore? I love your stuff but you could be faster? Set up a Paypal and I'll give you money if it means I get an article every week.
ReplyDeleteDon't worry. Idlib will take time. And part II isn't just about Syria, it's about the whole goddamn geopolitical mess. Syria is just a proxy for slow burn WWIII that's been happening since 2001.
ReplyDeleteAfter checking your site 100+ times since January 2016, I am beyond ecstatic to see that you're back at it. Looking forward to part deux.
ReplyDeleteLooking forward to part 2 and happy to see you back, thanks.
ReplyDeleteYou are back :)
ReplyDeleteAwesome text as always. I checked your blog at least once day since your last post two years ago. It's so great you are back.
Please write part 2
ReplyDeleteHe lives! I checked again on a lark and was pleasantly surprised.
ReplyDeleteWould love to hear your tale on the south China sea and Taiwan. Old pooh bear wants cement his place as emperor with a conquest on guessing.
You should be looking for a publishing deal, Wartard.
ReplyDeleteYou have a crappy Blogger.com website and no fucker uses Blogger anymore. BUT. BUT. You've got this massive following! They're not a bunch of arseholes either. You get at least 50 comments per post and it grows on every post. Even though you rarely post, people are literally waiting years for content. FFS, mate:
Move your blog somewhere else - Wordpress should be a easy shift - and put some shitty adverts on it and make few bucks. There are people coming here for updates with years of nothing. Fifty comments, fuck knows how many reads.
The work you've done on equipment would make an amazing collection, a book, a comic? Your new blog will promote. You already know this, right?
Finally, a new post! You have to look into setting up a Patreon page or at least some adverts as Liam pointed out. There are many readers, including me, who would be up for a monthly contribution for more regular posts. Peace!
ReplyDeleteEvery so often I cross my fingers and click the bookmark to visit your page. Today is a good day. I haven't even read the post yet, I'm just excited that you are alive and have shared something with all of us :) Thank you!
ReplyDeleteHow did I miss this back in September! Been checking every few months but it was all worth the wait. Welcome back, WT!
ReplyDeleteby her royal majesty order you are ORDERED to write a new blog - go for the 2011 rate. If you knock off the vodka 2x a month you can do it war tard. We love you
ReplyDeletepart 2 please! was 100% sure you were dead man, made my day!
ReplyDeleteThanks for this piece. Fuck the world order. Please tell us what Trumps foreign policy looks like from your POV.
ReplyDeleteThanks man. Keep writing. I check back on this blog every few months for updates. Good to have you back.
Hate to be late to the party. But a serious question:
ReplyDeleteWhat happens when smaller sovereigns and even separatist groups are suddenly able to respond against western countries by inflicting real, direct violence and costs to the west? The present paradigm is entirely dependent on being able to maintain astronomically asymmetrical violence and consequences. What will happen once this lever tips back in the other direction and becomes astoundingly expensive in violence and cost to maintain?
New to the blog. It was recommended to me by a friend. I just spent 4 hours reading all of the back posts. It was a great afternoon. I am majoring in pol sci and now I don't know how to face my professor. Reading you is like fresh air.
ReplyDelete"Anyway, the Syrian Civil War started out as a foreign funded protest movement in Deraa. And by foreign funded I mean container loads of weapons shipped from the newly failed state of Libya. That's the fun thing about chaos and failed states.. Anyone can do anything and not only avoid scrutiny but straight up commit every crime imaginable and have no authority bat an eyelid. Because there is no authority."
ReplyDeleteProve it.
Really?
DeletePlease do write more. I check every couple months. You are the best commentator on world events.
ReplyDeleteWar Tard, you just made my day! After two years, I had given up on checking back. But today, my URL line auto-completed to your site name. What the hell, why not? Bingo! Thank you for the usual great insights with the required sarcasm. I hope you will be back with more. Your fans miss you...
ReplyDeleteI hope you are well. Your posts remain a shining light on the inadequacies of our world and it's loose grasp on civilisation, as a working hypothesis. Sorry to do the normal but I speak for many when I say, pis or encore or mas or bloomin more please and hurry. This world is burning and it needs a decent writer. So I say 'Tag', you, imho, are it.
ReplyDeleteStill waiting...
ReplyDeleteWow, like others I've been checking back every now and again for the fabulous insight that you provide in this turbulent world. A sobering read with not as much 'popcorn' but compelling nonetheless. Looking forward to the follow up. Thanks WT
ReplyDeleteStill waiting for part two...:-(. I still check back now and again to see if you've posted. If you notice a spike I just posted part one to the Radio War Nerd Facebook group.
ReplyDeleteThe new post is coming next week. Sometimes things in the world get so bad that they pull you out of complacency and you just have to say something even if it is just a piss in the wind.
ReplyDeleteYea baby (news of your post, not the FUBAR state of the world)!!!!!
DeleteThe suspense is killing me...
ReplyDeleteWartard, bring us your post. I don't always agree on every last detail of your analysis of our oncoming apocalypse but my value for what you have to say is beyond measure. We have so few avenues for rational discourse these days and your views on geopolitics have always been an odd bastion of hope in the murk of this twenty first century mess.
ReplyDeleteAunt Linda is about t o take a switch to your butt. Make a post, have a toast. I know grandma said lay off the booze, but don't let that boomer stop you from your getting your creative juices flowing. smack smack
ReplyDeleteI'm hanging out with H.Finn, I've white washed the fence and N word Jim has a raft ready. We're going sailing and the new post is done. Stay tuned :)
DeleteGive it to us!!
Deletewasn't that a song by kansas? "all we are is piss in the wind..."
ReplyDelete