What is there in Syria? Apocalypse

"Mesopotamia . . . yes . . . oil . . . irrigation . . . we must have Mesopotamia; Palestine . . . yes . . . the Holy Land . . . Zionism . . . we must have Palestine; Syria . . . h'm . . . what is there in Syria? Let the French have that." — Lloyd George during the 1919 Peace Conference, thinking aloud in the presence of Arnold Toynbee [Margaret MacMillan, Paris 1919, page 381]

What is there is Syria? Not Lebanon or Palestine. Both were traditionally part of Syria, but were partitioned off by the Great Powers (the old French Empire and British Empire) in the early 20th century.

How many people are left in Syria? Maybe 18 million. Note that Greece has a smaller population, about 11 million. So why are we so worried about a debt default in Greece, when the Apocalypse has already come to Syria? Because the Greeks owe the rest of Europe so much money. Syrians made the mistake of not borrowing vast sums of money from America and Europe.

Of course, to borrow vast sums of money from Europe and America, the Syrians would have had to give up much of their autonomy. They would have to undertake a pro-American and pro-Israeli foreign policy. And they would have to use the loans to make profits for the lenders, which was a little hitch the Greeks forgot about.

After the French Empire finished mismanaging Syria in 1945, it was left to the locals to mismanage their country. The French apparently trained the locals well.

At one point, when the two empires were dividing up what bits of the world they had not grabbed already before World War I, the city of Mosul and the area around it was supposed to be part of Syria. Mosul was already known to have oil. The French and British argued. They decided Mosul would be part of British Iraq, but that French oil companies would share the profits from Mosul oil, and would allow a pipeline to be built through Syria so the oil could be picked up on the Mediterranean coast.

Syria may not have much, but people want it all the same. It was building up a respectable tourist industry before the current civil war began. So of course President Bashar Assad and the political and economic elite wanted to hold on. It's not like they were in the position to grab anything else. They could not even grab the Golan Heights back from Israel.

Every system, no matter how democratic or how authoritarian, has its outsiders who would like to become a new part of the old elite, or a new elite. Assad and friends had made enemies, and for all I know some of their complaints might have been justified. In any case protest turned to civil war in 2011.

Civil war is usually a bad choice. Maybe the legally elected regime could have compromised more and averted the war, but I doubt it. The Syrian civil war was always about Islamic radicalism. Sunni Arabs account for about 60% of the population, yet Assad is Shia and the government is dominated by the Shia minority. Politically the government is dominated by the Baath party and its allies in the National Progressive Front, which includes many Sunni Arabs.

Some people just never modernize. They think religious platitudes are actually fact-based. They don't want to tolerate anyone who does not believe in the same fairy-tales as themselves. Apparently there were plenty of these people in Syria, because they flocked to the rebellion. Then the I-am-more Islamic than you game got some momentum. Al Qaeda became prominent, then its even-more-radical offshoot the Islamic State.

Syria may not have anything the British Empire wanted after World War I, but when you have nothing, even Syria may be attractive. The Islamic State wants Syria, and since the U.S. has an irrational hatred of Assad and the Baath Party, it won't be a big surprise if the Islamic State gets what it wants.

Wither then? Turkey? More likely Jordan. The difference is that Jordan has long been a U.S. client state. Whoever is President (of the U.S.) at that point will probably try to get Saudi Arabia or Israel to defend Jordan. But likely at that point, if they are not needed somewhere else in the world, U.S. troops will be deployed in earnest.

Even when you are better armed and better trained, fighting fanatics is not a job any sane person wants. They just keep coming at you. You begin to feel like you are a minor character in the Walking Dead series. You can't let your guard down for a moment. Ask any Vietnam Veteran.

It kind of makes me wish we had just let the old U.S.S.R. have Afghanistan and a free hand to convert the lot of them to atheism.

Shabaab: Monsters Made by the U.S.A.

Most people don't pay much attention to political news, most of the time. So they just think whatever the news story they happen to see (or hear) tells them to think. So they see there are monsters in our world, but they are often mistaken about how monsters are made.

There was a massacre of civilians, most of them students, in Kenya this last week. A few members of the Somali organization, Shabaab, killed nearly 150 people at the Garissa University College in Kenya on April 2, 2015.

It was a crime, a war crime, and a crime against humanity. It was about as terrible of behavior as humans can conduct, at that scale.

To understand what happened, how some men born as innocent (and potentially deadly) as anyone else ended up assigned to kill these innocent students, and accepted the assignment, and carried it out, it helps to know a little history.

I started paying attention to Somalia around the time of the Black Hawk Down incident (aka Battle of Mogadishu) in 1993. So let me refresh your memory.

When the Cold War ended the leaders of the U.S. concluded that they might as well run the world. Somalia in 1993 was not run by anyone. It was a chaotic landscape of rival clans and their war lords. Largely devoid of resources that could be exploited by industrialists and the corporate security state, Somalia nevertheless was and is geographically important. The U.S. and allies tried to take over Somalia in 1993, but were defeated by the most powerful of the warlords, Mohamed Farrah Aidid. Despite that victory, General Aidid was unable to unite Somalia under his command.

A tiny group of men eager to take money from the U.S. declared themselves the national government in Mogadishu, but war lords continued to rule in reality.

In response to the rather unpleasant situation, at the grass-roots level Somalis started setting up local courts to try to cut down on rampant levels of crime. These were based on traditional local courts, which in Somalia, a mainly Islamic area, were Sharia courts. They were popular, spread, grew in strength, and became known as the Union of Islamic Courts. By 2000 they were the closest thing to an effective government Somalia had. By 2006 they had defeated most of the war lords.

At least a couple of the warlords had been on the U.S. payroll. Recall that in 2006 the U.S. was still fighing both in Afghanistan and Iraq, and Al Qaeda was Public Enemy Number One. Al Qaeda had sent emmisaries to the Islamic Courts. But they were not in positions of power. Their attitude was contrary to the Courts goal. The Courts were working for peace and unity in Somalia. As to Sharia law, they were quite moderate in their use of punishment. They varied locally, but mainly practiced a civilized, somewhat modern form of Islam.

Nevertheless, the U.S. security state (then with George W. Bush as a figurehead) reacted very negatively to the words "Islamic" and "Sharia." The Union of Islamic Courts was declared to be a terrorist organization, a bunch of rebels against the U.S.'s hand picked government in Mogadishu. The U.S. bombed them and paid Ethiopia to invade Somalia in 2007.

At first the Ethiopians, who were much better equiped than the Somali people, did quite well on the battlefield. But they were hated, and so was the U.S. puppet government they protected in Mogadishu.

Within the Islamic Courts movement, suddenly the main goal became kicking foreign troops out of Somalia. That requires a different type of leadership and operations than trying to bring peace and justice to a country. Who new how to fight Ethiopians? Why, the Al Qaeda operatives. Quickly training young, enthusiastic volunteers in their brand of Islam and mayhem, Shabaab was born (naturally, this description is a simplification of complex infighting).

The original Shabaab was also different than today's Shabaab. Despite its authoritatianism and religious orthodoxy, it was reasonably popular and became the de facto government of most of Somalia. Ethiopia was unable to control the countryside, and eventually could not even hang onto Mogadishu.

So eventually the U.S. paid a whole bunch of nations to invade Somalia. Troops poured in from all over: Uganda, Rwanda, Kenya, the Ethiopeans again. Meanwhile U.S. battleships shelled coastal towns, drones assassinated whoever they could find, and U.S. Special Forces unleashed their own kind of mayhem on the countryside.

Shabaab no longer controls much territory. It is a guerilla group now. Only the most fanatical members remain. Only those who love to kill remain. It's like a whole organization of special forces guys.

It is sad that ordinary Kenyan students had to pay the price for the government of Kenya's decision to invade Somalia. It is also bad strategy on Shabaab's part. Had they assassinated Uhuru Kenyatta much of Kenya would have not minded. But indiscriminate killing is uniting Kenyans against Somalis, just as the invasion united Somalis against Kenya.

If the U.S. had not paid for the destruction of the Islamic Courts, there would have been no Garissa University College massacre. Maybe the Bush/Obama team had some sort of grand plan I am not seeing. But it looks like the plan never amounted to more than giving stupid people too much money, too much power, and too many weapons.

Note: Shabaab is also spelled out as Shabab and Al-Shabaab