Categories
Terrorism

The Rise of Islamic State ISIS and the new Sunni revolution

Patrick Cockburn spotted the emergence of ISIS much earlier than anybody else and wrote about it with a depth of understanding that was in a league of its own.” – Press Gazette Journalist of the Year Judges

The book presents a bigger picture of what is happening in the Middle East than what we are normally allowed to watch in the news. The reader is presented with both sides of several stories and this really helps to get a better understanding of the different conflicts.

Cover of Patrick Cockburn's book "The Rise of Islamic State"
Cover of Patrick Cockburn’s book “The Rise of Islamic State”

Of lies and limited accuracy of the news

The author shows how lies are easily fabricated on a battlefield. He also explains the limited accuracy of news reports, such as when a “chosen” reporter is travelling, protected by an army or when reporters use second-hand information (often not verified) to prepare their news reports. It also seems pretty hard for a news channel to refuse to air a story when there are doubts about it, especially when all the competitors are reporting the same news.

I am including quotes (in italic) from the book as they provide excellent summaries. Some are from the author himself, others are from the sources he found to write his book. The author addresses so many subjects that it impossible to cover everything in a small review like the present one. So I’ll be as succinct as possible to present the reader with a broad idea of the book’s content.

Fear

Fear is the main factor behind many irrational political decisions. Fear leads to radical policies, religions and propaganda. It is often related to the fact that a very small group of people leading a country, a state or a region think that they can lose the political power that gives them undue privileges over the rest of their population. The greater the advantages, the greater the fear.

The political “solutions”, most of the time irrational, create tensions or aggravate the existing problems and only help to increase instability.

Saudi Arabia was initially helping ISIS because of fear of Jihadists operating within Saudi Arabia and fear of Shia powers abroad. As for Turkey, it is more afraid of the Kurds than it is of ISIS. So for a long period of time, it kept its border with Syria open: it helped ISIS to maintain a rear base.

The author says: “There is something hysterical and exaggerated about Saudi fear of Shia expansionism, since the Shia are powerful only in the handful of countries where they are in the majority or are a strong minority. Of fifty-seven Muslim countries, just four have a Shia majority” (p.102)

The demonization of religions other than Wahhabism

In the case of Saudi Arabia, the demonization of religions other than Wahhabism and the spreading of hate through social media have created a fertile ground for ISIS to grow.

The author says: “[…] The Saudis need a serious attempt to reform their educational system which currently demonizes Shias, Sufis, Christians, Jews and other sects and religions. They need to stop the preaching of hate from so many satellite stations, and not allow a free ride for their preachers of hate on the social media.(p.107)

The “Wahhabization” of mainstream Sunni Islam is one of the most dangerous development of our era” (p.108)

Money helps increase the polarization between Sunni and Shia

ISIS could not have risen without the financial help from Saudi Arabia, Qatar, United Arab Emirates and Turkey. Since ISIS thrives on tensions between Sunni and Shia, anything that increase that tension will benefit this terrorist group: “There is no doubt that well-financed Wahhabi propaganda has contributed to the deepening and increasingly violent struggle between Sunni and Shia” (p.99)

A crucial feature in the rise of Wahhabism is the financial and political might of Saudi Arabia. Dr Allawi says that if, for example, a pious Muslim wants to found a seminary in Bangladesh, there are not many places he can obtain £20,000 other than from Saudi Arabia. But if the same person wants to oppose Wahhabism, then he will have “to fight with limited resources”” (p. 108)

This polarization between the two religious groups was only intensified by the hot and cold war between the US and Russia. Proxies were at play here with Saudi Arabia and the Gulf monarchies, backed by the US, facing off against Iran, Syria, and Hezbollah in Lebanon, supported by Russia(p.71)

Back cover of Patrick Cockburn's book: "The Rise of Islamic State"
Back cover of Patrick Cockburn’s book: “The Rise of Islamic State”

Propaganda that made al-Qaeda look stronger and more effective than it actually was, with reference to the 9/11 attacks

There are multiple sections in the book which relate to the September 11th 2001 attacks. Here are some of the author’s observations (in italic). I have also added some personal comments which are clearly identified as such:

The Pearl Harbour moment of the 9/11 attacks

The author says: “The shock of 9/11 provided a Pearl Harbor moment in the US when public revulsion and fear could be manipulated to implement a pre-existing neo-conservative agenda by targeting Saddam Hussein and invading Iraq(p.100).

Note: the following four paragraphs are my personal comments on the “Pearl Harbor moment”:

A “Pearl Harbor” moment means that in order for the American public to approve an attack in a foreign country, it needed to see something terrible happening in the United States. For example, before the very obvious destruction of war ships at Pearl Harbor by the Japanese, the American population refused to be engaged in World War 2.

During the 9/11 attacks and later on, the Pentagon’s eighty cameras have not captured anything close to a Boeing hitting the building. You had to believe that it happened the way the news told you since there were no pictures and no videos of a Boeing close to or in pieces on the Pentagon property.

The Medias showed instead, over and over, the World Trade Center Twin Towers crashing to the ground after being hit by one aircraft, even though the buildings were built to resist multiple impacts, through a “mesh” design, a lesson learned after what happened on the Empire State Building years ago. Some people believed that the buildings crumbled due to the high temperature, but most neglected the FEMA’s report that got out later on stating that the temperature never rose above 300 or 400 degrees in the buildings, hundreds of degrees short from what was needed to melt steel.

The free-falling towers of the World Trade Center were the Pearl Harbor moment needed to instill fear and facilitate the implementation of a pre-existing neo-conservative agenda. The American voters would not have approved a war abroad if the buildings had been standing after a single impact. It’s almost like the world should believe that the World Trade Center was built using the poorest American engineering possible, while not learning from lessons of the past. For more info on this specific subject:

Controversial issues

In 2001, al-Qaeda was an “ineffectual” organization

Mr Cockburn is one of very few reporters who is not afraid to present al-Qaeda as it really was in 2001, an emerging organization that was far from being able to mastermind and execute complex attacks such as the 9/11 attacks. (This also explains why, soon after the attacks, international news reports presented a video of Ben Laden denying responsibility for the attacks. A video that was not shown ever again. But millions of people saw it before it was censored by the main news channels).

At the time of 9/11, al-Qaeda was a small, generally ineffectual organization” (p.59). The term “ineffectual” refers to the inability to produce a desired effect.

The implementation of the neo-conservative agenda

This really means that the pre-existing American neo-conservative agenda could not rely on Al-Qaeda’s experience. Instead, one or more experienced organizations were needed for the financing, planning and execution of the 9/11 attacks. Only after the facts could the blame be put on Al Qaeda since it was, after all the media propaganda, very well-known to the American public. An artificial link was then made with Iraq, allowing for an invasion that sixty percent of the American voters approved.

Sixty percent of the US voters were misled

The name al-Qaeda has always been applied flexibly when identifying an enemy. In 2003 and 2004 in Iraq, as armed Iraqi opposition to the American and British-led occupation mounted, US officials attributed most attacks to Al-Qaeda, though many were carried out by nationalist and Baathist groups. Propaganda like this helped to persuade nearly 60 percent of US voters prior to the Iraq invasion that there was a connection between Saddam Hussein and those responsible for 9/11, despite the absence of any evidence for this. In Iraq itself, indeed throughout the entire Muslim world, these accusations have benefited al-Qaeda by exaggerating its role in the resistance to the US and British occupation (p. 53).

The fall of Mosul

ISIS needed only 6000 fighters to win the Battle of Mosul. Yet, they were facing one million Iraqi soldiers. How was that possible? The author sees three reasons:

  1. The cooperation from the Iraqi Sunnis, who were sensing that they would be better off with ISIS than the Shias.
  2. Corruption at all levels in the Iraqi army. “As one former minister put it “the Iraqi government is an institutionalized kleptocracy”. Another politician who does not want to be named says “[…] People pay money to get into the army [so they can get a salary] – but they are investors not soldiers” (p.77)
  3. The fact that the Iraqi army was no longer a national army since the well-trained Iraqi Sunni soldiers were sidelined.

Syria: President Bachar Assad was not as weak as expected

Both the outside world and opposition viewed President Assad as far weaker than he actually was. They both thought that he would be defeated without an organized air campaign.

A major oversight on the war in Syria

A blind spot for the US and other Western powers has been their failure to see that by supporting the armed uprising in Syria, they would inevitably destabilize Iraq and provoke another round of its sectarian civil war” (p.73)

Five different conflicts within Syria

The Syrian conflict is extremely complicated since there are many different political and religious interests at stake: “The Syrian crisis comprises five different conflicts that cross-infect and exacerbate each other. The war commenced with a genuine popular revolt against a brutal and corrupt dictatorship, but it soon became intertwined between the Sunni against the Alawites, and that fed into the Shia-Sunni conflict in the region as a whole, with a standoff between the US, Saudi Arabia and the Sunni states on the one side, and Iran, Iraq and the Lebanese Shia on the other. In addition to this, there is a revived cold war between Moscow and the West, exacerbated by the conflict in Libya and more recently made even worse by the crisis in the Ukraine” (p.94)

In Syria, it is either Assad or ISIS

ISIS is the strongest opposition force in Syria. If Assad falls, ISIS takes his place:  “Syrians have to choose between a violent dictatorship, in which the power is monopolized by the presidency and brutish security services, or an opposition that shoots children in the face for minor blasphemy and sends pictures of decapitated soldiers to the parents of their victims.” (p.81)

The God-given victories

The appeal of the Islamic State to Sunni Muslims in Syria, Iraq, and across the world comes in part from a sense that its victories are God-given and inevitable, so any failure damages its claim to divine support” (p.159)

The solution to the Syrian conflict will come from outside the country

Many Syrians now see the outcome of their civil war resting largely with the US, Russia, Saudi Arabia, and Iran. In this, they are probably right”.

Side notes

War is never about “combat” only. There is always an underlying political process going on. So, even if a country seems defeated militarily, enormous political efforts will have to be made in order to create a new stable order.

Conviction that a toxic government is the root of all evil is the public position of most oppositions, but it is dangerous to trust one’s own propaganda”.

A government or an army can try to maintain secrecy by banning reporters but they will pay the price as the vacuum of news is filled with information supplied by their enemies”.

Title: The Rise of Islamic State (First published under the title The Jihadis return: ISIS and the failure of the global war on terror by OR Books ©2014)

Author: Patrick Cockburn

Editor: Verso

©2015

ISBN-13: 978-1-78478-040-1

Categories
Environment

The Conundrum

The Conundrum eng

The Conundrum: How Scientific Innovation, Increased Efficiency and Good Intentions can Make Our Energy and Climate Problems Worse. Originally published by Riverhead Books, 2011.

 

This book is certainly a nice surprise. The author, David Owen, adopts a contrarian view on the supposedly positive effects of eco-energetic products on the environment. He develops his subject in a humoristic way, often citing himself as a bad student when it comes to excessive consumption of planetary resources. Owen makes the argument that it is often easier to think at length about a problem than to actually do something about it.

Mr. Owen successfully demonstrates that the only efficient solution to slow down global warming and act against excessive use of planetary resources is to lower general consumption. Instead of supporting the idea that eco-energetic solutions will save the environment, he demonstrates that they have, in fact, a rebound effect.

With science helping to create new and less expensive products, overuse gradually becomes the norm. Because of their low cost, these same products become available to a greater number of new users, thus creating a rebound effect and increasing the consumption and impact on the environment. The idea here is not to forbid the poorest people to have access to products that could improve their quality of life, but to aim for a better distribution of the planetary resources by asking the richest countries of the world to lower their own consumption.

Many forms of transportation are analyzed: the use of the electric car, commuter train and modern aviation. Let’s consider aviation: decades ago, a plane on an intercontinental flight was polluting the air more than today. Technological innovations helped diminish the level of pollution produced for each individual flight. The engines need less fuel and aircrafts are made of lighter components, etc. On a micro-scale effect, we could assume that this is a real success. But on a planetary scale, it is easy to realize that the number of flights have increased tremendously. A growing population, added to lower ticket prices and easier access to new customers help increase the carbon footprint.

When it comes to the impact of consumption on the environment, the micro-scale vision prevails. The responsible consumer tells himself: “I bought an electric car, or a hybrid vehicle, so I did my share for the environment”. The real solution does not reside in the possibility of doing more kilometers for a liter of fuel, but to do less kilometers on a yearly basis and eventually reduce the total number of drivers and vehicles. This looks like a huge proposition. The author explains that the use of a vehicle, whatever it is, requires the development and maintenance of an ever increasing number of kilometers of roads and highways. This also has the indirect effect of facilitating, for an ever larger number of drivers, access to suburbs that are increasingly farther from higher density zones.

David Owen stresses the importance of densification. Not any densification, but a well-planned one, where the citizen does not need to use a vehicle since he has access to all the essential services within a short distance. The site www.walkscore.com has some interesting information on the subject. The author names New-York and Hong-Kong as the two most eco-energetic cities in the world. Easier said than done. Especially when we realize that those cities are becoming environmental examples because they do not have a choice due to the limitation of a small territory that forces massive densification. We cannot deny, though, that a planned densification increases the number and diversity of available services.

But if we densify some areas while widening and extending highways that facilitate access to suburbs and low density areas, we apply opposite policies, thus greatly slowing down the densification process. This is a balance difficult to achieve. In order to solve some traffic problems, many cities have adopted the commuter train when it is clear in advance that the poor density of the population, added to a large territory, will prove ineffective.

The author names Phoenix as an example: this city has a modern commuter train serving a population twice as big as Manhattan but operating on a territory that is two hundred times larger. So the operation is solved by a yearly recurrent deficit.
In the end, the main problem is that it is easier to buy eco-energetic products and preserve a lifestyle, than to diminish our level of general comfort by reducing our consumption of planetary resources. But one must admit that it is not easy for the consumer to change his lifestyle, especially when he is constantly solicited by publicity and propaganda to increase his consumption.

At the end of his book, David Owen quotes Daniel Nocera, who holds the Henry Dreyfuss Chair in Science of Energy, at MIT: [my translation] “…confusion arises when we believe that with our heart we can solve environmental problems while, doing so, we only solve the problems of consciousness”.

Note: David Owen is a regular contributor to the New Yorker. He has written many books, among them Green Metropolis (2009), about the ecological superiority of megalopolis like New-York.