69 million page views

America's jihadist friends from the 80-ies and 90-ies are welcomed back

Reader comment on item: Libyan Blues

Submitted by Ianus (Poland), Aug 25, 2011 at 08:45

Dr. Pipes wrote :

" The NATO intervention in March 2011 was done without due diligence as to who it is in Benghazi that it was helping. To this day, their identity is a mystery. Chances are good that Islamist forces are hiding behind more benign elements, waiting for the right moment to pounce... I fear that a dead-end despotism will be replaced by the agents of a worldwide ideological movement. I fear that Western forces will have brought civilization's worst enemies to power."

I can't agree with the tacit presumption of Dr. Pipes' analysis, namely that the rebels' identity was unknown. That it wasn't revealed to the public doesn't mean at all that those who decided to help them didn't know who was going to use their weapons and money. If anything, it rather means that they someone didn't want us to know too much which begs for the obvious question "Why ?".

To my mind the CIA and all other western secret services cooperating with the CIA are competent enough and well informed about who has rebelled in Eastern Libya, what their plans and ideas are.What is more , I think it is exactly because of this that they are being assisted.

How could one explain otherwise the fact that e.g. the 'rebels' in Bahrain were abandoned to the hangmen of the local tyrant and his Pakistani mercenaries while in Libya the "rebels" were given protection from the air and the whole Western apparatus of propaganda is working for them? So again it is more than natural to suggest that only after learning who they are the decision to help them militarily and financially was made in Washington. With two unfinished wars on hand one doesn't rush to get engaged in a third war without compelling reasons.

So contrary to Dr. Pipes I think that those in the inner circle of power in the West know perfectly well the identities of the so called 'rebels' as they did know the identities of the members of the Moslem Brotherhood in Egypt whom they supported. I wouldn't even be surprised if I learned one day that many names of the Libyan "rebels" had been on the Western record and payroll since the time of the jihadist wars in the Balkans, Chechnya and Afghanistan.

But to understand why America supports them one has to bear in mind a number of unpleasant circumstances.

Some time ago the International Monetary Fund issued a report which predicts that in just 5 years , i.e. in 2016 China's economy will surpass US economy which has huge budget and trade deficits. So what we are witnessing is an unprecedented revolution in the world power structure comparable only to that of c. 1890 when the US had overtaken the UK's economy thus ushering in the age of America's world mastery.

Now China with its incredible economic growth rates has one very weak spot. It's a giant that stands and falls with oil imports. It is in search for oil in Africa and elsewhere. It had major oil investments in Eastern Libya , i.e. exactly where the rebellion started and where the Chinese investments are now ruined. E.g. "the termination of the six projects run by Great Wall Drilling Co., is estimated to cause 1.2 billion yuan (US$187.51 million) in losses for the company, higher than losses incurred during the 2009 financial crisis" True, the Western investments were damaged too , but as one "rebel" spokesman said :

"We don't have a problem with Western countries like the Italians, French and UK companies. But we may have some political issues with Russia, China and Brazil".

But damaging the Chinese in Libya by fomenting a rebellion there is just one aspect of a bigger global game the US is playing.The game has one strategic objective – to secure US hegemony in the world at any cost. And as the US can't do it with its own limited forces and weakening economy burdened with $ 14 trillion foreign debt , of which $ 1 trillion alone belongs to the Chinese government, it has willingly concluded a strategic alliance with regressive jihadist forces to achieve that goal with their help. We are dealing here with the same major strategy of having an alliance with jihadism as in the 1980-ies which secured the victory over the USSR in Afghanistan and afterwards disrupted and paralyzed the post-Soviet republics of Central Asia and the Caucasus.

The father of the then US-jihadist axis was Zbigniev Brzezinski who is so proud of his past actions which has made jihad such a formidable force in today's world. Brzezinski himself of course can't see any connection between his activities and the rise of global jihad. Why should he denounce his tool after achieving his goal with it ?

Now this man has been appointed a top foreign policy adviser in the Obama administration. The demand for his ideas remains apparently tremendous and his ideas are clear, unsentimental and brutally simple. In his memorable interview to "Le Nouvel Observateur" he declared :

"What is more important to the history of the world? The Taliban or the collapse of the Soviet empire? Some stirred-up Moslems or the liberation of Central Europe and the end of the cold war?"

If we replace "the Soviet empire" with "Communist China" , "the Taliban" with, say, "the Libyan or Uyghur Taliban" or "the Moslem Brotherhood" , "the liberation of Central Europe" with "partition of China and Russia" , "the end of the cold war" with "the end of China's challenge to world hegemony", then I guess we will have a fairly valid model to explain what is going on behind the scenes.

Destabilizing China and partitioning Russia through global US-backed jihadism has two extra negative aspects worth noting. Wherever what Dr. Pipes calls 'civilization's worst enemies" prevail, there is regress, primitivism, decline in life expectancy, rise in poverty, massacres, the new Middle Ages. And this side effect of empowering jihadism to promote regress seems to be quite intended, given the global scarcity of resources. The earth can't support the extraordinarily high living standards of all mankind, so one can use "civilization's worst enemies" to reduce them wherever possible preventing in the process a billion Chinese or a hundred million Russians to consume the scarce resources which are needed elsewhere. Regress can be a potent tool of policy-making and control in world affairs.

Second, the new global game has disastrous consequences for Israel which becomes a liability and a hindrance for the US's new policy. Israel can't be used to partition Russia, to undermine China, to foment Uyghur uprisings in Sing Kiang, to make the Libyan jihadists enthusiastic.It is a thorn in the flesh of the dar al-Islam. It must fall victim to the policy which sets in motion regressive Moslem forces on a global scale. In short, in this new political situation Israel has all to lose and nothing to gain while America by pursuing its egoistic global goals can achieve its main goal by sacrificing Israel.

There are signs galore that America is slowly changing its previous policy towards Israel, more or less openly siding with its enemies. In many of his articles Dr. Pipes has enumerated the instances of this shifting attitude of the US official elite towards Israel. If the above is true, then these are no casual disconnected accidents but symptoms of a larger and very dangerous systematic change.

Now the above is not only my invention. There is a very interesting book by Russian political scientist S. E. Kurginyan ("The Political Tsunami. The analysis of the events in North Africa and the Near East" Moscow 2011 ) who after detailed analyses comes to very sad conclusions. He writes on p.91 : "Disparity of economic growth and power is fraught with conflicts between the US and China after the example provided by the conflict between Germany and Great Britain which escalated in 1914. But a conflict between the two nuclear powers is too expensive. And although the possibility of such a conflict has been extensively debated (…) , its alternatives can't but be as extensively debated. For example, the strategy of controllable chaos. The Greater South is being heated up and set in motion. An alliance with this Greater South is concluded exactly as it was the case in Afghanistan against the USSR. The aggressive energy of the Greater South is directed against the Greater Far East - first of all, but not exclusively, against China. The danger lurking in the disparties of growth and power is thus diminished and the hegemon gets a respite.

We do know that such plans have been discussed by many, including Brzezinski himself. We do know that such plans were implemented on many an occasion in the past. Why not make a conjecture (…) to the effect that all the strange facts that stand in such a glaring contrast to the previous US policy somehow are correlated ( although admitedly not in absolute terms) to the schemes which have already been experimented with in the past and not without success ?"

Dislike
Submitting....

Note: Opinions expressed in comments are those of the authors alone and not necessarily those of Daniel Pipes. Original writing only, please. Comments are screened and in some cases edited before posting. Reasoned disagreement is welcome but not comments that are scurrilous, off-topic, commercial, disparaging religions, or otherwise inappropriate. For complete regulations, see the "Guidelines for Reader Comments".

Submit a comment on this item

<< Previous Comment      Next Comment >>

Reader comments (51) on this item

Title Commenter Date Thread
1Libyan post Qaddafi [84 words]ZeenaOct 24, 2011 11:07190333
6Those rebels are diverse [94 words]Michael Hanni MorcosOct 21, 2011 17:20190257
2I sadly agree [100 words]William EastAug 30, 2011 22:01188980
1Europe,Libya and Nato. [109 words]donvanAug 29, 2011 11:40188936
2Libyan Blues Comment [124 words]Shirley Ann AddyAug 27, 2011 14:40188900
1And I fear ... [14 words]W. ZimmermannAug 25, 2011 17:41188850
1Take The Oil [41 words]morris wiseAug 25, 2011 12:20188840
1America's jihadist friends from the 80-ies and 90-ies are welcomed back [1517 words]IanusAug 25, 2011 08:45188838
1Nostalgic for Gomulka? [324 words]Kepha HorAug 26, 2011 18:12188838
1Nostalgic for better memory [1712 words]IanusAug 29, 2011 08:17188838
Thanks for the reply [650 words]Kepha HorAug 30, 2011 17:35188838
3New Poland and global jihad - Zbigniew Brzezinski instead of Jan Sobieski ! [2791 words]IanusSep 2, 2011 10:03188838
The More Things Seem to Change-the More They Stay the Same [755 words]M. ToveySep 7, 2011 15:45188838
5Libyan Greens [99 words]PHILIORAug 23, 2011 19:05188791
1Libya [77 words]REXAug 23, 2011 14:35188788
1Islam is Marching Again [285 words]Arlinda DeAngelisAug 23, 2011 14:05188784
2Deliver me from Pessimism, Please! [190 words]john w. mcginleyAug 23, 2011 12:02188731
principles of interventionism [576 words]lucretiusAug 23, 2011 03:57188679
2Empowering Islamists and its lethal blow back....... [125 words]Adina Kutnicki, IsraelAug 23, 2011 03:40188677
Good Comment [133 words]Peter HerzAug 28, 2011 16:12188677
Who are those guys? [21 words]StephenAug 23, 2011 02:43188676
1Shout "Allahu Akbar" and America will help you. [68 words]IanusAug 26, 2011 17:37188676
The rebels in Libya [178 words]PrashantAug 23, 2011 02:34188675
2"Freeing" Bosnia [135 words]IanusAug 26, 2011 15:14188675
"Freed" was probably a wrong choice of words [17 words]PrashantAug 27, 2011 01:28188675
2I'm Astounded - NB [92 words]helen porathAug 23, 2011 01:47188674
3I'm astounded [141 words]helen porathAug 23, 2011 01:19188673
2"Though this be madness yet there is method in it". [108 words]IanusAug 29, 2011 08:59188673
1Happy about Libya. [136 words]Bob StrubleAug 22, 2011 22:37188663
A valid concern [79 words]Ralph WhaleyAug 22, 2011 22:13188661
1Good Analysis [22 words]Salomon s MizrahiAug 22, 2011 21:13188653
qaddafi [33 words]jerome HenenAug 22, 2011 21:11188652
Time to rejoice or repent? [241 words]Ghulam Muhammed, MumbaiAug 22, 2011 20:24188648
Ghulam Muhammed lacks knowledge [94 words]Salomon MizrahiAug 23, 2011 22:32188648
Repentence Required of Both the West and the East [311 words]M. ToveyAug 25, 2011 11:35188648
1Pipes's Libya Blues [277 words]Dan RusenAug 22, 2011 20:11188645
1Libyas Colors [13 words]Jay1Aug 22, 2011 20:02188643
3"Western forces will have brought civilization's worst enemies to power" -- no surprise there; part of a pattern [36 words]MarkAug 22, 2011 20:01188642
The World According to Islamic Terrorists. [84 words]Tom DundeeAug 22, 2011 19:56188641
2The world according to Zbigniev Brzezinski [796 words]IanusAug 26, 2011 17:12188641
1Realpolitik / Realislamik [61 words]HesperadoAug 31, 2011 00:23188641
Partition still an option? [62 words]John in Michigan, USAAug 22, 2011 19:35188636
Requiem for the Middle East Status Quo [586 words]M. ToveyAug 22, 2011 19:30188634
LIBYAN REBELS TAKING POWER [173 words]JACQUES HADIDAAug 22, 2011 19:28188633
Correct on Libya [52 words]Sidney KavinAug 22, 2011 19:22188632
1Libyan mistake [51 words]HenkAug 22, 2011 18:20188626
1No mistake but purposeful policy-making [134 words]IanusAug 26, 2011 17:52188626
1Shia not Sunni [44 words]George M Weinert VAug 22, 2011 18:02188625
1Situation in Libya; who'se going to be in charge? [58 words]William A. Caro, M.D.Aug 22, 2011 17:54188623
To Lates Vee Gets Too Schmart [28 words]Barry BlackAug 22, 2011 19:47188623
The problem worsens [20 words]aspaciaAug 22, 2011 23:34188623

Follow Daniel Pipes

Facebook   Twitter   RSS   Join Mailing List

All materials by Daniel Pipes on this site: © 1968-2024 Daniel Pipes. daniel.pipes@gmail.com and @DanielPipes

Support Daniel Pipes' work with a tax-deductible donation to the Middle East Forum.Daniel J. Pipes

(The MEF is a publicly supported, nonprofit organization under section 501(c)3 of the Internal Revenue Code.

Contributions are tax deductible to the full extent allowed by law. Tax-ID 23-774-9796, approved Apr. 27, 1998.

For more information, view our IRS letter of determination.)