Oh, the hypocrisy of it. The ignoble aims. The distraction. The outrageous lies and excuses. I’m not talking about America’s tweet-from-the-hip preside
A weekly review of world politics by one of the world’s sharpest and most outspoken political analysts. Tariq Ali is the author of numerous books, both ficti... Tariq Ali and Patrick Coburn talk about ISIS in Sept 2014; ca 30 min.
This essay is excerpted from the first chapter of Patrick Cockburn’s new book, The Jihadis Return: ISIS and the New Sunni Uprising, with special thanks to his publisher, OR Books. The first section is a new introduction written for TomDispatch "The Underrated Saudi Connection " (underrubrik) "The “war on terror” has failed because it did not target the jihadi movement as a whole and, above all, was not aimed at Saudi Arabia and Pakistan, the two countries that fostered jihadism as a creed and a movement. The U.S. did not do so because these countries were important American allies whom it did not want to offend. Saudi Arabia is an enormous market for American arms, and the Saudis have cultivated, and on occasion purchased, influential members of the American political establishment. Pakistan is a nuclear power with a population of 180 million and a military with close links to the Pentagon."
Gen Wesley Clark, interviewd by Amy Goodman, March 2, 2007: "You see, essentially, you cannot win the war on terror by military force. It is first and foremost a battle of ideas. It is secondly a law enforcement effort and a cooperative effort among nations. And only as a last resort do you use military force."