Timothy Gatto

America is on the verge of another "Crusade". Of course they are not telling us this directly, but the mass media has lined up its "polls" and has concluded that 90% of Americans want to defeat ISIS or ISIL or IS (whatever). The reason for this is because of the beheadings of two Americans and a Brit. Understandable, right?

I guess if you believe what the media tells you, you really can't be faulted for being outraged. When I saw the first video, I too, was incensed. It is pretty hard not to be outraged. Still, the longer I think about it, the more I wonder about some of the things America has done in Iraq and the rest of the area.

Making a video of a person having his head severed is very dramatic. I wonder what IS has to gain from exposing this to the World? I mean when America bombs the crap out of a wedding party in Yemen or Somalia, they don't show the limbless dead babies and severed heads lying around the craters for the World to see. Still, maybe some people, particularly those that have interests in the region because that is where their families are, HAVE seen these video's and photo's. Maybe THIS is the reason so many "Westerners'" have become "self-radicalized".

This is known as "blowback". It is my opinion, and my opinion doesn't count much anymore in America because I have no well-funded PAC or corporate sponsorship, that you can't run willy-nilly around the Middle East, propping up genocidal governments like the one in Israel and repressive ones like in Kuwait, Saudi Arabia and Qatar, bombing Libya back to the stone age and treating your own Muslim citizen's like lepers without having something bad happening to you.

It is also a good time to remind everyone that most of the nations in the Middle East, particularly the ones formed out of the defeated Ottoman Empire after World War I were artificially crafted by Great Britain and France without too much regard for religious and ethnic divisions. They were created to bolster their own "Spheres of Influence". That seemed to me a great recipe for disaster. Of course they were just trying to be "helpful".

So let me ask anyone reading this article a question. What is a third war in Iraq going to do to change the situation besides creating more blowback? Also, how can you trust a government that installs a pro-fascist government in Kiev and then blames the Russians for causing the death and destruction the Ukrainian people are experiencing? All one has to do is look at the situation in Libya to understand that these people in government have absolutely no idea what they are doing. Is everyone going to let them take another shot at getting things right this time?

Why won't we let Iran participate in the coalition? God forbid that we get the Sunni States miffed at us. After all, didn't they take a bunch of Americans hostage a few decades ago after we overthrew their elected government at the UK's request after they nationalized British Petroleum in Iran after they refused to pay a far price for their oil? So we put in the ruthless Shah who tyrannized the Iranian people for 30 years, so what? Again, blowback. We never learn.

The truth is that IS is just the result of arming the Syrian rebels to the teeth through Saudi Arabia, Qatar and other Sunni States in the Middle East. Many are Sunni militias that are Iraqi. This is another way to get into Syria to bomb the crap out of that country, a backdoor so to speak.

If IS is such a threat, the Saudi's and the Egyptians and the Turks among others should be able to take care of the problem. What makes the US the arbiter of the World's problems? Haven't we done enough to fan the flames of war?

This probably will be scoffed at, especially by the Right and Centrist Democrats. Here is the problem, you are the ones that caused this mess and you people never learn, it just goes on and on and on.

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Tim Gatto's new book "Contempt to Outrage" available from Oliver Arts and Open Press.

By Timothy V. Gatto, a retired Army Sergeant and former Chairman of The Liberal Party of America. He can be reached at: timgatto@hotmail.com Read Tim's Book "Complicity to Contempt" and his Novel "Kimchee Days or Stoned Cold Warriors From Oliver Arts and Open Press and available on Amazon and all other online bookstores.