Strypey"Israel Defense Forces (IDF) fired on UN peacekeepers in Lebanon early Thursday morning, according to UNIFIL, the mission operating along the Security Council-mandated “Blue Line” of separation between the two countries which they patrol."
"Also last week; the Government of Israel issued a statement notifying the United Nations Secretary General that he was now banned from Israel and was persona non grata. Within a day of that statement, IDF troops had fired on UN peacekeeping positions in Southern Lebanon."
October 14, 2024
https://eveningreport.nz/2024/10/14/podcast-state-of-israel-goes-rogue-attacks-un-peacekeepers/
When authoritarians in control of a state are being challenged internally, one of their go-to moves is to start a war. This distracts the population from their policies, and helps them marginalise their political opposition, by accusing them of working in the interests of the enemy.
The classic example is the Nazis starting WW2, *and* opening up the Russian front. The Russian invasion of Ukraine is a more contemporary example. This is what's behind Likud and the IDF's attacks on Lebanon IMHO.
Manning and Buchanan are talking about the states in the "West" relying on Mossad (the Israeli equivalent of the CIA) to spy on the Middle East.
I suspect that historians will look back in a century and talk about a Second Cold War. Which began on 9/11 in 2001, and is still going on. Conflicts between Israel and its neighbours being yet another set of proxy wars.
EDIT: To anyone outside my head, it may not be obvious how these two paragraphs connect. See the subsequent post.
Ever since the predominant fuel source for modern militaries switched from coal to oil, Middle East oil reserves have been of interest to anyone with a military to maintain;
https://peertube.nz/w/qynACuj7cwUZS7iGFRKGYF
So the Cold War included a number of proxy wars in Middle East territories. Notably Afghanistan, in which US-sponsored and CIA-trained fighters from various countries formed a Mujahedeen to help Afghanis repel the USSR.
(1/?)
Robert Newman's The History of Oil
Until 1991, governments of Middle East states could switch their loyalties between US and USSR. Overall, or issue by issue. Depending on what they thought served their interests.
Then the Soviet Union collapsed. Only two years after the end of their failed invasion of Afghanistan. Leaving a power vacuum only partially filled by an uneasy trading truce between the Russian Federation and the EU.
(2/?)
Side note: Middle East militants are often referred to as "Islamic". But Islamists represent the average Muslim about as well as the Anglo-Saxon Christian Congregation (Aryan Nations) represent the average Christian.
Like the Aryan Nations, and Likud, they are fascist groups that use religious dogma and iconography as it suits them. Like all fascists, their focus is on taking control of a perceived national "homeland". So it can be subject to thorough "ethnic cleansing" (genocide).
(3/?)
Like all fascists, Middle East militant groups have both a heightened sense of being threatened by The Other. As well as a heavily inflated sense of their own importance.
The first explains why their take on Islam is so aggressively fundamentalist and xenophobic. Because of the second, they figured it was their role in the defence of Afghanistan that had defeated one of the world's great empires.
If they could bring down one, why not the other?
(4/?)
But the US had cleared what its strategists thought was its last barrier to becoming the first global empire. So for a while it mostly turned to economic conquest. The so-called "globalization" and "Structural Adjustment" of the 1990s.
This economic expansion of empire was challenged by a global network of civil society groups labeled by news media as the "antiglobalization" movement. After the 'Battle of Seattle' closed down the WTO meeting in Nov 1999, imperial progress halted.
(5/?)
Meanwhile the Islamist groups had been increasing their influence in the Middle East. Especially in states threatened by Israel's periodic wars of expansion. Or weakened by decades of proxy wars, like Afghanistan, where the Islamist Taliban ruled.
Islamist groups have been known in the anglophone media by many names, including Al-Qaeda and IS/IS/IL. But among their leaders were veterans of that CIA-trained Mujahedeen, including a younger son of a Saudi oligarch, one Osama Bin Laden.
(6/?)
The second Cold War could be said to have begun on 9/11, 2001.
Regardless of what you believe about the events of that day, what we do know is that US warhawks used it as an excuse to begin boot on the ground invasions of Middle East territories. Since a number of them share borders with Russia, it was inevitable that some of them would become proxy wars, notably Syria.
(7/?)
9/11 was also used as an excuse for a growth in state-corporate surveillance networks, both domestic and global. With Israel acting as a Middle East proxy, their spies have become increasingly essential to the US, and other anglophone and EU powers. Which brings us back to the jumping off point.
Phew!
(8/?)
It's worth noting that Afghanistan also shares a border with Xinjiang in northwest China, on the ancient Silk Road. Also that Islamists calling themselves Al-Qaeda were used as proxy troops in Syria.
So there's a good chance that during the US occupation of Afghanistan, Islamists were being armed and trained by the US - Mujahedeen style - and sent into northwest China. If for no other reason than to get them out of the way. But also perhaps, to get the CCP onboard with Cold War II.
(9/?)
Which seems to have worked a little too well. The CCP having declared their own US-style "War on Terror".
I support calls to respect human rights in China, including for Uighurs in Xinjiang, and other Islamic minorities in northwest China. But it's a bit rich when the US tries to occupy the moral high ground on that issue. Given that they and their allies have spent decades doing the same sorts of things in the Middle East (remember Abu Grahib, and the casual killing of journalists?).
(10/?)
The US have no right to condemn what the CCP are doing to Muslims while they continue to make excuses for what the IDF have done to Muslim civilians, and continue to do. Not to mention continuing to send them US weapons with which to do it, and treating Mossad propaganda as "intelligence" about the Middle East.
Isn't there a biblical saying about taking the log out of your own eye before commenting on the twig in someone else's?
(11/11)
If anyone was wondering when I was going to explain how my crawlwise thinking connected ...
> the "West" relying on Mossad (the Israeli equivalent of the CIA) to spy on the Middle East
... with ...
> historians will look back in a century and talk about a Second Cold War
I just tried;
https://mastodon.nzoss.nz/@strypey/113421917634731518
Hopefully this shows the stepping stones that got me from one to the other. Historical corrections and interpretations welcome.
Strypey (@[email protected])
Ever since the predominant fuel source for modern militaries switched from coal to oil, Middle East oil reserves have been of interest to anyone with a military to maintain; https://peertube.nz/w/qynACuj7cwUZS7iGFRKGYF So the Cold War included a number of proxy wars in Middle East territories. Notably Afghanistan, in which US-sponsored and CIA-trained fighters from various countries formed a Mujahedeen to help Afghanis repel the USSR. (1/?)
Tzafrir@strypey
And you bring to have to dig up this story from almost a month ago because on last Tuesday, 8 UNIFIL people were injured in a Hezbollah rocket attack:
https://www.reuters.com/world/middle-east/austria-says-eight-its-unifil-troops-lebanon-injured-rocket-attack-2024-10-29/
And you bring to have to dig up this story from almost a month ago because on last Tuesday, 8 UNIFIL people were injured in a Hezbollah rocket attack:
https://www.reuters.com/world/middle-east/austria-says-eight-its-unifil-troops-lebanon-injured-rocket-attack-2024-10-29/
(1/?)
@tzafrir
> you bring to have to dig up this story from almost a month ago because
... it was the first I'd heard of it. I posted the link because I thought it was notable that Likud and the IDF are now effectively at war with the UN, as well as with their neighbours.
(2/?)
I condemn all attacks on civilians, civilians targets, aid workers and UN personnel. Regardless of which of the many groups of armed religious fascists in the region was responsible for them.
But it's pretty clear to me that
a) the IDF pose a much more serious threat, to all four, than any of the Islamist militias
b) The violence of any one group, against any of the four, is no excuse for another group to do more of the same.
As the old saying goes, two wrongs don't make a right.
(3/3)
The article you link to says;
"UNIFIL said earlier this month it had come under several 'deliberate' attacks by Israeli forces and efforts to help civilians in villages in the war zone were being hampered by Israeli shelling."
Yet the best you can offer as a covering excuse for these multiple confirmed IDF attacks on UN Peacekeepers is to handwave at a rocket attack that UNFIL thinks was ...
"... likely by Hizbullah or an affiliated group ..."
... although this is unconfirmed.