Can’t Make This Up – U.S. Providing Aid in Fight Against ISIS in Iraq Alongside Iranian Troops

The war, therefore, if we judge it by the standards of previous wars, is merely an imposture. It is like the battles between certain ruminant animals whose horns are set at such an angle that they are incapable of hurting one another. But though it is unreal it is not meaningless. It eats up the surplus of consumable goods, and it helps to preserve the special mental atmosphere that a hierarchical society needs. War, it will be seen, is now a purely internal affair. In the past, the ruling groups of all countries, although they might recognize their common interest and therefore limit the destructiveness of war, did fight against one another, and the victor always plundered the vanquished. In our own day they are not fighting against one another at all. The war is waged by each ruling group against its own subjects, and the object of the war is not to make or prevent conquests of territory, but to keep the structure of society intact. The very word ‘war’, therefore, has become misleading. It would probably be accurate to say that by becoming continuous war has ceased to exist. The peculiar pressure that it exerted on human beings between the Neolithic Age and the early twentieth century has disappeared and been replaced by something quite different. The effect would be much the same if the three super-states, instead of fighting one another, should agree to live in perpetual peace, each inviolate within its own boundaries. For in that case each would still be a self-contained universe, freed for ever from the sobering influence of external danger. A peace that was truly permanent would be the same as a permanent war. This — although the vast majority of Party members understand it only in a shallower sense — is the inner meaning of the Party slogan: WAR IS PEACE.

– George Orwell, 1984

While the incompetence and idiocy of U.S. foreign policy remains on clear display across the globe, nowhere is it more embarrassingly evident than within Iraq. Ironically, nowhere is it playing out more tragically within Iraq itself than in the birthplace of deposed dictator Saddam Hussein, Tikrit.

Naturally, there is another explanation for the insanity of it all besides incompetence. That is the 1984 explanation from the quote at the top, which is that endless war represents a deliberate strategy of the oligarchy in order to to crack down on dissent at home and keep enemies divided abroad.

As I outlined in the post, The Forgotten War – Understanding the Incredible Debacle Left Behind by NATO in Libya, there are only two logical conclusions that can be reached about American foreign policy leadership in the 21st century.

Read more

Like this post?
Donate bitcoins: 35DBUbbAQHTqbDaAc5mAaN6BqwA2AxuE7G


Follow me on Twitter.