It is a vision of unimaginable desolation: a crowd of men, women and children stretching as far as the eye can see into the war-devastated landscape of Yarmouk refugee camp in Damascus.
A photograph released on Wednesday by the UN agency for Palestinian refugees, UNRWA, shows the scene when thousands of desperate Palestinians trapped inside the camp on the edge of the Syrian capital emerged to besiege aid workers attempting to distribute food parcels.
More than 18,000 people are existing under blockade inside Yarmouk, enduring acute shortages of food, medicines and other essentials. Much of the camp has been destroyed by shelling, and attempts to deliver aid to those inside have been hampered by continued fighting in Syria’s three-year-old civil war.
SAN FRANCISCO — Drought was a key factor contributing to unrest and civil war in Syria, and the severity of the drought was probably a result of human-caused climate change, new research presented here Monday (Dec. 9) at the annual meeting of the American Geophysical Union suggests.
The study analysis suggests that the drought was too severe to be simply a result of natural variability in precipitation.
“We don’t have any observed evidence to support a 100-year trend in precipitation that we would prescribe as being natural,” said study co-author Colin Kelley, a postdoctoral fellow at the University of California at Santa Barbara. “We can only assume that the trend is anthropogenic.”
Kelley and his colleagues got started on their work because of an op-ed by New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman about the Arab Spring uprising in several Middle Eastern countries.
“He was making the case that in each case there was an overlooked environmental stress that was important,” Kelley told LiveScience.
Past reports had suggested that Syria’s breadbasket had experienced a severe three- to five-year drought in the years preceding the Syrian civil war. To assess the drought’s severity, Kelley and his colleagues looked at rainfall patterns for the region going back 100 years. They found that in the years leading up to the civil war, the region had a historically rare three-year drought. From 2002 to 2008, about 1.5 million rural farmers escaping the countryside flooded the cities. [5 Surprising Cultural Facts About Syria]
“There was already considerable water instability even before this drought happened,” Kelley said. “We think of it as the straw that broke the camel’s back.”
Human-caused climate change?
The team also used a statistical analysis to see whether the drought could be explained by natural climate variability. The researchers looked at more than 100 years of changes in rainfall and sea level pressure in the Eastern Mediterranean Sea — high air pressure over the body of water is a measure of potential drought because most of Syria’s rainfall comes from that area, and the higher sea level pressure prevents precipitation from forming over the water.
The team found that it was highly unlikely that natural variations in climate could have caused severe drought for so many years in a row, but that human-caused climate change made it much more likely.
If that’s the case, then the Syrian civil war may have at least been partly precipitated by human- caused climate changes (though many other factors contributed as well). And climate models suggest that drought will worsen in the Middle East in the years to come.
Assessments conducted by the intelligence community indicate that climate change could have significant geopolitical impacts around the world, contributing to poverty, environmental degradation, and the further weakening of fragile governments. Climate change will contribute to food and water scarcity, will increase the spread of disease, and may spur or exacerbate mass migration.
While climate change alone does not cause conflict, it may act as an accelerant of instability or conflict, placing a burden to respond on civilian institutions and militaries around the world. In addition, extreme weather events may lead to increased demands for defense support to civil authorities for humanitarian assistance or disaster response both within the United States and overseas. In some nations, the military is the only institution with the capacity to respond to a large-scale natural disaster.
Los Angeles, in the year 2154, as depicted in the Cli-Fi movie Elysium.
Your headline begs the question. Just what is driving the chaos in the Middle East?
I’d much rather read the CIA/GCC (Gulf Cooperation Council) screenplay for Syria than that for Hollywood’s “Elysium”. 🙂
The list of Arab countries with left leaning governments crushed into chaos by our policies seems to keep growing. Iraq, Libya, Syria, etc. Pretty soon the region is going to resemble the feudal 14th Century with kingdoms and emirates galore, all in the name of “spreading democracy to the Middle East.”
There’s a glimpse of the hit list in the 1996 publication “A Clean Break”:
Viewed as a battle of water, the current Syrian conflict may be regarded as among the first of what Professor Michael Klare sees as an ongoing series of “Resource Wars” of the 21st Century.
Sometimes I get the feeling that Ray is so far left that he has gone ’round the circle and has a few toes amongst the Libertarians. Or is it the other way around?
I have a few quibbling issues with how Ray worded that, but I think it’s mostly on point.
On the political spectrum, it’s bad analysis to think the scale goes simply left to right in a straight line (or that it hooks up as a circle). One of the better tools is a quadrant test: http://www.politicalcompass.org/
Social leftists actually have a lot in common with libertarians on the government’s role in our personal lives – although virtually nothing in common with them economically.
One of my quibbles with Ray’s comment is calling these countries “left leaning”, because although technically they have had many leftist policies, the authoritarian governments of the Middle East are a very different version of what a Westerner would classically consider to be leftist, and because it’s not really accurate to think the U.S. (or Israel) have meddled in these countries because of these countries’ leftist policies – they’ve been for our own selfish economic and national security issues (driven primarily by the neocons, but followed without question by the rest of the politicians in power).
But he’s not wrong about what is happening. Different types of governments are forming in the shattered remains of these former states – ones that we didn’t intend to happen and that are far from stable.
I’m also not completely behind that U.S./Israeli meddling led to the Syrian civil war. I have no doubt that it existed or that it contributed to it, but we actually have many reasons to want Assad in power (and this probably goes a way in explaining why we haven’t instituted a no-fly zone like we did in Libya).
But I think Ray is also on point about asking what are the root causes on the conflict. It’s never so simple as to say one thing alone caused it. I found this article today that was written just before the conflict exploded: http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Middle_East/MC30Ak03.html
It’s obviously wrong in its short-term projections, but I think it’s very informative about the long-term implications of regional water conflicts, poor management and regulation policies, and population growth. If you add another factor on top of an already brittle system, like extended drought, then yes the drought triggers the conflict, but it’s not its sole cause.
Syria should inform many of what is coming due to faltering water supply, rising populations, and climate change.
It was a pleasure to read your comment. You’re remarkably astute. But I still can quibble. 🙂
Re: “the authoritarian governments of the Middle East are a very different version of what a Westerner would classically consider to be leftist, and because it’s not really accurate to think the U.S. (or Israel) have meddled in these countries because of these countries’ leftist policies – they’ve been for our own selfish economic and national security issues (driven primarily by the neocons”
Jim, do keep in mind that the conflicts official Washington has with the Ba’ath Party and Qaddafi’s Green Book governance solutions goes back to Cold War Days.
[Aside: If I can digress for a second, let me recommend a fine read, Stephen Kinzer’s “The Brothers”, a biography of John Foster and Allen Dulles who pretty much set up “American” attitudes” toward foreign affairs (from a U.S. perspective) during the Eisenhower Administration. This is when communism supplanted Nazism/Japanese Imperialism as the driving force for creating our monstrous military-industrial complex. These brothers were so venal and self-dealing that they repeatedly used the CIA and the U.S. military for their own personal gain. Cf.: Arbenz/Guatamala/United Fruit, etc.]
The alignment in the Middle East post 1967 had Egypt, Syria, Libya and Iraq clearly aligned with the USSR and in opposition to the US/UK/Israel nexus. Saudi Arabia, the gas station of the planet was kept in the US club by the rankest of hypocrisy on the part of Washington, allowing a stinking, festering, lunatic royal family to have their way with a nation and a region because it was mutually financially beneficial to all involved. And besides which, no one could stop the Washington Consensus with its superior wealth and military might. But the Ba’ath Parties led nation states that had the potential, a la Nasser, to unite large Arab populations in an anti-Western pro-Arab caliphate. This was utterly anathema to the Dulles boys and their brethren.
If you’ve read Robert D. Kaplan’s “The Revenge of Geography” you’ve come to realize that the neocons have never given up on the Halfonrd Mackinder view of the world. Mackinder, in 1919 viewed the world thus: “Who rules East Europe commands the Heartland; Who rules the Heartland commands the World Island; Who rules the World Island commands the World.” Basically, Kaplan extends this view toward Southwest Asia and seeks to find the way for the US (from half a planet away) to dominate. It all seems rather far-fetched when looked at this way. But until the US goes broke, this is the world we live in.
Oh, did Mackinder mention East Europe.? Well, of course, NATO is keenly interested in its latest conquest in Kiev. Stay tuned. Putin may or may not be keen to have NATO take over Sevastapol. A new Crimean War? We’ll just have to wait and see. It seems as though the Great Game has never ended.
***
Re: “Different types of governments are forming in the shattered remains of these former states – ones that we didn’t intend to happen and that are far from stable.”
Jim, perhaps I am more conspiratorially minded than you. Starting with my basic premise that one of the major goals if not the main goal of US foreign policy vis-a-vis the Middle East is to prevent the rise of a caliphate which could rival the Anglo-American corporate empire globally, then the creation of weak, chaotic, mis-ruled states throughout the Middle East IS the goal. Recall the expression “divide-and-conquer”. Keeping the Middle East in disarray may be cruel. But then world domination isn’t a game of pattycakes, now is it? Bluntly, we intended to create unstable states, and so far we are doing exceeding well at achieving that goal. Too bad about the collateral damage.
Keep in mind we are in Year 919 of the Great Crusades. We’ll get this right, soon! [/sarc]
***
Re: Asia Times
Thanks for Kotsev article. It was informative and well-written. Among the many fine writers at Asia Times, I’m particularly enamored of Pepe Escobar’s lively style and great wit. He also keeps a pretty close eye on developments in Syria, among other beats.
The Political Compass which jimbills has provided the link for is a highly intelligent website and a useful tool. And I completely agree with you. I consider myself a left-libertarian and at the same time I can agree wholeheartedly with a lot of Tea Party populist positions. For example, I found myself in nearly complete agreement with then Rep. Ron Paul speaking out in 2002-3 in opposition to George Bush’s folly in Iraq. As it turned out, the major goal, preventing Arabs from uniting as a counterforce to Anglo-American world dominance was achieved. What was left was a nearly failed state. Which the rulers in D.C. and London are perfectly content to have achieved. Peace is made unachievable, chaos and misery will last for decades if not centuries throughout the Middle East, but the Yanks will still be on top! That’s a win, baby. 🙂
Excellent job of slinging the BS, Ray. “I consider myself a left-libertarian and at the same time I can agree wholeheartedly with a lot of Tea Party populist positions” is a good one, especially as it leads into coziness with Paul on opposing Bush on Iraq. I say WHOA to that. A lot of folks opposed Bush on Iraq, including me. I agree with the general descriptions of libertarians as “hopeless romantics who long for the 19th. century but aren’t willing to really live there” and Tea Partiers as “morans who have let themselves be coopted as foot soldiers for the very people they despise”—-somehow I don’t see you as fitting in in either place.
One of the most disheartening events I attended locally was a few years back when MoveOn organized some reason for us lefties to go camp out in the offices of our Congressman, a moderate right wing corporate prostitute with a clean record. No STDs for this guy.
What so disappointed me as I was the first of the MoveOn crowd to arrive, ten minutes early, was that the tri-county Tea Party already had a dozen and a half of their ilk, mostly seniors on Soclal Security and Medicare, already in front of the Congressman’s office waving signs supporting him.
Eventually the crowd evened out. Half supporting Walden, half waving incomprehensible hand made signs protesting something or other, god knows what.
For the casual passer-by or car driver, it was a pro-Walden rally.
So, it turned out that the Tea Party people were pretty darn smart. They’d figured out they could sign up on line and get MoveOn action announcements. And then bada bing, they called their phone tree and out-manned MoveOn evermore. Pretty smart, in a cunning sort of way.
I tried to engage one old codger on that picket line about why he might be with the Tea Party. I mentioned the Koch Brothers funding the Tea Party. He flat out said it couldn’t be. They were self-funded he said.I forget the exact preposterous nature of what he had to say, but it amounted to six days, Noah’s Ark, God is Good and Lefties are mean to pick at theological nonsense. It was, to say the least, disheartening to realize that there was no brain attached to that voice in the wilderness. I’ve come to worry he might just be an advance guard of the rising American zombie movement. With god on his side, and keep government hands off his medicare.
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Ray, you need to learn,that us old folks don’t sleep all that well,and wake up earlier,and crankier than the young’uns.
That gives us the edge on getting up and getting out there early. 😉
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You should have been here for the Tea Party and Glenn Beck rallies in DC. Google “New Left Media Tea Party Coverage” and prepare to have your mind blown. There are several good clips there. The folks you met at your congressman’s office were the JV compared to the heavy hitters that invaded DC. The actually quite heavy lady in the pic for the one clip is really special. There’s even an interview with Breitbart in there.
A far different crowd than attended the Stewart-Colbert “Sanity” rally. I was there with my tinfoil-covered hat, with tea bags hanging from the brim and signs on it saying “They can’t make me think!”
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I do believe the biggest geopolitical conflicts are still in store in Asia where the rivers feeding China, India and Pakistan are slowly being reduced as the mountains don’t carry the snow pack they used to have. It only takes a few cases of “securing ones own water” to wreck havoc just like any damming upriver will have on the people living below. These countries are already straining their water supply immensely and emptying their fossil waters faster than any place.
You will all have to google translate this one I am afraid. 🙂
It has been unusually mild, no doubt caused by the same pattern that has given USA the hard winter and the British islands a beating and tons of rain. No doubt this anomaly has had an effect in Russia too, but we aren’t exactly spoiled with news from that part of the world, even when they had major floods and forest fires last year.
Warming could cause desertification of some areas – fool consent.
(www.ipcc-wg2.gov/SREX/images/uploads/SREX-SPMbrochure_FINAL.pdf:
“There is medium confidence that some regions of the world have experienced more intense and longer droughts, in particular in southern Europe and West Africa, but in some regions droughts have become less frequent, less intense, or shorter …”)
But rather not in this region. In this region, the former warming caused an increase in the amount of precipitation – decrease in the desert areas.
Catastrophic drought 2007-10 has here various reasons:
(http://www.pnas.org/content/109/10/3862.full ) Kaniewski et al., 2012:Drought is a recurring challenge in the Middle East: “An abrupt shift to drier conditions at ca. AD 1400 is contemporaneous with a change from sedentary village life to regional desertion and nomadization (sheep/camel pastoralists) [but also beginning appropriate LIA – http://www.oxfordscholarship.com/view/10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199768677.001.0001/acprof-9780199768677-chapter-3 – The Little Ice Age Crisis of the Ottoman Empire, 2012; extreme – more than hundred-year, drought in Anatolia] during the preindustrial era in formerly Ottoman realms, and thereby adds climate change to the multiple causes for Ottoman Empire “decline.”
Chenoweth et al. 2011: Impact of climate change on the water resources of the eastern Mediterranean and Middle East region: Modeled 21st century changes and implications: “The simulations show about a 10% decline in precipitation across the region by both the middle and the end of the century, with considerable variation between countries and international river basins.”
Eg. during the Roman Maximum – Period; was warmer and “wetter” – growing bushes Tamarix at the point where today it is a … desert …
(http://linkinghub.elsevier.com/retrieve/pii/0016703796001664) Climatic effects on the δ 18 O and δ 13 C of cellulose in the desert tree Tamarix jordanis, Lipp et al., 1996.:
“Since the Roman period, RH at Masada decreased by about 17%, while the δ 18 O value of local groundwater remained similar to present-day values, suggesting that changing atmospheric circulation has played a role in climate change in the Middle East over the past two millennia.”
(http://linkinghub.elsevier.com/retrieve/pii/S0033589409000064)Stable isotopes of a subfossil Tamarix tree from the Dead Sea region, Israel, and their implications for the Intermediate Bronze Age, Frumkin, 2009.:
“The Sedom Tamarix demonstrates a few hundred years of 13 C and 15 N isotopic enrichment, culminating in extremely high δ 13 C and δ 15 N values. Calibration using modern Tamarix stable isotopes in various climatic settings in Israel shows direct relationship between isotopic enrichment and climate deterioration, particularly rainfall decrease.” “This was apparently the most severe long-term historical drought that affected the region in the mid-late Holocene [cool period].”
(http://www.clim-past.net/8/637/2012/cp-8-637-2012.html) A seesaw in Mediterranean precipitation during the Roman Period linked to millennial-scale changes in the North Atlantic, Dermody et al., 2012: “…changes in climatic humidity over the Mediterranean during the Roman Period were primarily caused by a modification of the jet stream […] linked to sea surface temperature change in the North Atlantic. “
That’s a really apt metaphor, although there probably are larger and smaller straw diameters. We are each incredibly limited in our abilities to perceive the totality of the whole.
40 years ago,I wrote a paper about this,and upset many of my classmates who were jarred by the idea,and thought that I meant to undermine personal action because the world is just too overwhelmingly complex.
I think they missed the point entirely,which is that we all need to dig deeper into what the true nature of reality is,rather than just accept our comfortable,provincial ideas about the world and society at large.
Human conceit – we think we are more than we are, and it leads to all sorts of problems. Socrates knew he knew nothing, and as a result he knew slightly more than his peers.
But it’s a mixed bag, because there are truly those who know quite a lot less than others (they have smaller straws) and to let them run roughshod over others seems unjust. But while doing so we have to constantly guard against assuming we know everything (or at least more than we do).
Yes, that’s indeed true, but it’s also a dangerous metaphor to be using in mixed company.
Remember that we have OmLiteralogos with us and we wouldn’t want him to injure his eye while trying to figure out how to look through a straw.
How about instead suggesting “looking through the wrong end of a telescope” or “viewing the world through a small hole in a fence”? Omno might be able to do that without hurting himself (metaphorically speaking, of course).
“We Are Now One Year Away From Global Riots, Complex Systems Theorists Say”
My late grandmother used to say “Joe Satan’s walking about again” when watching violence like riots on her T.V news. I’m not particularly religious or superstitious and I often wonder about human nature – but maybe she has a point.
Sigh. I have been telling everyone in my family to enjoy the next 16 years, because after that comes a Cormac MacCarthy novel. Maybe I was too optimistic!
Excellent links to follow, and one leads to Satan’s disciple, Joe Speculator, otherwise known as the greedy rich who want to profit off other people’s misfortune. The free market rules!
PS I forgot to mention that one of the “greedy rich” lost her head when food became scarce. Although Marie Antoinette probably didn’t say “let them eat cake” when she heard of the starving peasants, she paid the price for all those who let them starve.
As dumboldguy points out, the French Revolution of 1789 was precipitated by and based on food shortages thoughout France after three years of meager harvests.
Another marker I like to keep an eye on is something I call the “Happy Meal Index”. In my version, I calculate that there will never be a poor people’s uprising in the U.S. as long as the poor can afford the equivalent of one Happy Meal per family member per day. Thus, there is some reason to wonder at the wisdom of right wing meanies in Congress who keep picking at SNAP (food stamps) and other commodity food distribution systems. What are they thinking? If they want to foment social unrest, surely this is how to do it.
***
Another historical marker is the rise of the Bolsheviks in Russia. For over a decade they could get no traction in Russian politics. Even at the start of 1917 they represented less than 1/8th of 1% of the organized populace in Russia. How did they end up ruling the country by the end of 1917?
Russia suffered terrible harvests during WW I. In 1916 the food ration was set to the equivalent of one pound of black bread per proletarian. The people did not riot. In early 1917, the czar decreed the bread ration to be cut to 1/4 of a pound of black bread per person. That was the tipping point. When the poor could no longer count on living under the existing regime, they rioted. And three hundred years of Romanov rule ended.
Don’t forget the potato famine, although there wasn’t a huge climate factor involved there. The Irish died by the millions, and a lot of those deaths could have been averted except for the behavior of the British colonial overlords that valued profit over the lives of Irishmen. That is still remembered by Irishmen today, some 165-170 years later. Movements like the mass migration that took place then (and was more easily accomplished because countries like the U.S. welcomed immigrants) will happen again.
There has been upheaval in the past when food has run short—without looking it up, the Peasant’s Revolt in the middle ages, the Les Miserable we have both referenced, and Poland in the ’70’s all come to mind in addition to the more contemporary happenings.
We are between a rock and a hard place with the combination of climate change, water issues, run amok capitalism, and too many humans all leading to unsustainability, conflict, and collapse in too many places.
She speaks for many. Ireland is still recovering. Many of the Irish-Americans whose families have been here for generations still feel the pain and suffer the aftereffects as well.
It seems so.
Unfortunately, it also seems Syria is spreading to Ukraine, neighbour of my home country, Slovakia:
“Russia troops on alert; alarm in Ukraine”
http://main.omanobserver.om/?p=60321
Alex
Echoes of this in South Sudan too, where there has been terrible droughts, terrible consequences.
http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/features/2014/02/run-south-sudan-2014225115912195160.html
http://www.ifad.org/climate/regions/nen/drought.htm
The photograph displayed in this article of Peter’s is beyond belief and beyond comment.
Hi Peter,
Your headline begs the question. Just what is driving the chaos in the Middle East?
I’d much rather read the CIA/GCC (Gulf Cooperation Council) screenplay for Syria than that for Hollywood’s “Elysium”. 🙂
The list of Arab countries with left leaning governments crushed into chaos by our policies seems to keep growing. Iraq, Libya, Syria, etc. Pretty soon the region is going to resemble the feudal 14th Century with kingdoms and emirates galore, all in the name of “spreading democracy to the Middle East.”
There’s a glimpse of the hit list in the 1996 publication “A Clean Break”:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Clean_Break:_A_New_Strategy_for_Securing_the_Realm
Adding to Syrian difficulties in agriculture has got to be the Turkish dam building program of which the Ataturk Dam is a centerpiece.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Southeastern_Anatolia_Project
Viewed as a battle of water, the current Syrian conflict may be regarded as among the first of what Professor Michael Klare sees as an ongoing series of “Resource Wars” of the 21st Century.
Sometimes I get the feeling that Ray is so far left that he has gone ’round the circle and has a few toes amongst the Libertarians. Or is it the other way around?
I have a few quibbling issues with how Ray worded that, but I think it’s mostly on point.
On the political spectrum, it’s bad analysis to think the scale goes simply left to right in a straight line (or that it hooks up as a circle). One of the better tools is a quadrant test:
http://www.politicalcompass.org/
Social leftists actually have a lot in common with libertarians on the government’s role in our personal lives – although virtually nothing in common with them economically.
One of my quibbles with Ray’s comment is calling these countries “left leaning”, because although technically they have had many leftist policies, the authoritarian governments of the Middle East are a very different version of what a Westerner would classically consider to be leftist, and because it’s not really accurate to think the U.S. (or Israel) have meddled in these countries because of these countries’ leftist policies – they’ve been for our own selfish economic and national security issues (driven primarily by the neocons, but followed without question by the rest of the politicians in power).
But he’s not wrong about what is happening. Different types of governments are forming in the shattered remains of these former states – ones that we didn’t intend to happen and that are far from stable.
I’m also not completely behind that U.S./Israeli meddling led to the Syrian civil war. I have no doubt that it existed or that it contributed to it, but we actually have many reasons to want Assad in power (and this probably goes a way in explaining why we haven’t instituted a no-fly zone like we did in Libya).
But I think Ray is also on point about asking what are the root causes on the conflict. It’s never so simple as to say one thing alone caused it. I found this article today that was written just before the conflict exploded:
http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Middle_East/MC30Ak03.html
It’s obviously wrong in its short-term projections, but I think it’s very informative about the long-term implications of regional water conflicts, poor management and regulation policies, and population growth. If you add another factor on top of an already brittle system, like extended drought, then yes the drought triggers the conflict, but it’s not its sole cause.
Syria should inform many of what is coming due to faltering water supply, rising populations, and climate change.
jimbills,
It was a pleasure to read your comment. You’re remarkably astute. But I still can quibble. 🙂
Re: “the authoritarian governments of the Middle East are a very different version of what a Westerner would classically consider to be leftist, and because it’s not really accurate to think the U.S. (or Israel) have meddled in these countries because of these countries’ leftist policies – they’ve been for our own selfish economic and national security issues (driven primarily by the neocons”
Jim, do keep in mind that the conflicts official Washington has with the Ba’ath Party and Qaddafi’s Green Book governance solutions goes back to Cold War Days.
[Aside: If I can digress for a second, let me recommend a fine read, Stephen Kinzer’s “The Brothers”, a biography of John Foster and Allen Dulles who pretty much set up “American” attitudes” toward foreign affairs (from a U.S. perspective) during the Eisenhower Administration. This is when communism supplanted Nazism/Japanese Imperialism as the driving force for creating our monstrous military-industrial complex. These brothers were so venal and self-dealing that they repeatedly used the CIA and the U.S. military for their own personal gain. Cf.: Arbenz/Guatamala/United Fruit, etc.]
The alignment in the Middle East post 1967 had Egypt, Syria, Libya and Iraq clearly aligned with the USSR and in opposition to the US/UK/Israel nexus. Saudi Arabia, the gas station of the planet was kept in the US club by the rankest of hypocrisy on the part of Washington, allowing a stinking, festering, lunatic royal family to have their way with a nation and a region because it was mutually financially beneficial to all involved. And besides which, no one could stop the Washington Consensus with its superior wealth and military might. But the Ba’ath Parties led nation states that had the potential, a la Nasser, to unite large Arab populations in an anti-Western pro-Arab caliphate. This was utterly anathema to the Dulles boys and their brethren.
If you’ve read Robert D. Kaplan’s “The Revenge of Geography” you’ve come to realize that the neocons have never given up on the Halfonrd Mackinder view of the world. Mackinder, in 1919 viewed the world thus: “Who rules East Europe commands the Heartland; Who rules the Heartland commands the World Island; Who rules the World Island commands the World.” Basically, Kaplan extends this view toward Southwest Asia and seeks to find the way for the US (from half a planet away) to dominate. It all seems rather far-fetched when looked at this way. But until the US goes broke, this is the world we live in.
Oh, did Mackinder mention East Europe.? Well, of course, NATO is keenly interested in its latest conquest in Kiev. Stay tuned. Putin may or may not be keen to have NATO take over Sevastapol. A new Crimean War? We’ll just have to wait and see. It seems as though the Great Game has never ended.
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Re: “Different types of governments are forming in the shattered remains of these former states – ones that we didn’t intend to happen and that are far from stable.”
Jim, perhaps I am more conspiratorially minded than you. Starting with my basic premise that one of the major goals if not the main goal of US foreign policy vis-a-vis the Middle East is to prevent the rise of a caliphate which could rival the Anglo-American corporate empire globally, then the creation of weak, chaotic, mis-ruled states throughout the Middle East IS the goal. Recall the expression “divide-and-conquer”. Keeping the Middle East in disarray may be cruel. But then world domination isn’t a game of pattycakes, now is it? Bluntly, we intended to create unstable states, and so far we are doing exceeding well at achieving that goal. Too bad about the collateral damage.
Keep in mind we are in Year 919 of the Great Crusades. We’ll get this right, soon! [/sarc]
***
Re: Asia Times
Thanks for Kotsev article. It was informative and well-written. Among the many fine writers at Asia Times, I’m particularly enamored of Pepe Escobar’s lively style and great wit. He also keeps a pretty close eye on developments in Syria, among other beats.
Cheerio!
guy,
The Political Compass which jimbills has provided the link for is a highly intelligent website and a useful tool. And I completely agree with you. I consider myself a left-libertarian and at the same time I can agree wholeheartedly with a lot of Tea Party populist positions. For example, I found myself in nearly complete agreement with then Rep. Ron Paul speaking out in 2002-3 in opposition to George Bush’s folly in Iraq. As it turned out, the major goal, preventing Arabs from uniting as a counterforce to Anglo-American world dominance was achieved. What was left was a nearly failed state. Which the rulers in D.C. and London are perfectly content to have achieved. Peace is made unachievable, chaos and misery will last for decades if not centuries throughout the Middle East, but the Yanks will still be on top! That’s a win, baby. 🙂
Excellent job of slinging the BS, Ray. “I consider myself a left-libertarian and at the same time I can agree wholeheartedly with a lot of Tea Party populist positions” is a good one, especially as it leads into coziness with Paul on opposing Bush on Iraq. I say WHOA to that. A lot of folks opposed Bush on Iraq, including me. I agree with the general descriptions of libertarians as “hopeless romantics who long for the 19th. century but aren’t willing to really live there” and Tea Partiers as “morans who have let themselves be coopted as foot soldiers for the very people they despise”—-somehow I don’t see you as fitting in in either place.
Re: “Excellent job of slinging the BS, Ray.
Quoting Elvis, “thank you, thank you very much.”
One of the most disheartening events I attended locally was a few years back when MoveOn organized some reason for us lefties to go camp out in the offices of our Congressman, a moderate right wing corporate prostitute with a clean record. No STDs for this guy.
What so disappointed me as I was the first of the MoveOn crowd to arrive, ten minutes early, was that the tri-county Tea Party already had a dozen and a half of their ilk, mostly seniors on Soclal Security and Medicare, already in front of the Congressman’s office waving signs supporting him.
Eventually the crowd evened out. Half supporting Walden, half waving incomprehensible hand made signs protesting something or other, god knows what.
For the casual passer-by or car driver, it was a pro-Walden rally.
So, it turned out that the Tea Party people were pretty darn smart. They’d figured out they could sign up on line and get MoveOn action announcements. And then bada bing, they called their phone tree and out-manned MoveOn evermore. Pretty smart, in a cunning sort of way.
I tried to engage one old codger on that picket line about why he might be with the Tea Party. I mentioned the Koch Brothers funding the Tea Party. He flat out said it couldn’t be. They were self-funded he said.I forget the exact preposterous nature of what he had to say, but it amounted to six days, Noah’s Ark, God is Good and Lefties are mean to pick at theological nonsense. It was, to say the least, disheartening to realize that there was no brain attached to that voice in the wilderness. I’ve come to worry he might just be an advance guard of the rising American zombie movement. With god on his side, and keep government hands off his medicare.
Ray, you need to learn,that us old folks don’t sleep all that well,and wake up earlier,and crankier than the young’uns.
That gives us the edge on getting up and getting out there early. 😉
You should have been here for the Tea Party and Glenn Beck rallies in DC. Google “New Left Media Tea Party Coverage” and prepare to have your mind blown. There are several good clips there. The folks you met at your congressman’s office were the JV compared to the heavy hitters that invaded DC. The actually quite heavy lady in the pic for the one clip is really special. There’s even an interview with Breitbart in there.
A far different crowd than attended the Stewart-Colbert “Sanity” rally. I was there with my tinfoil-covered hat, with tea bags hanging from the brim and signs on it saying “They can’t make me think!”
I do believe the biggest geopolitical conflicts are still in store in Asia where the rivers feeding China, India and Pakistan are slowly being reduced as the mountains don’t carry the snow pack they used to have. It only takes a few cases of “securing ones own water” to wreck havoc just like any damming upriver will have on the people living below. These countries are already straining their water supply immensely and emptying their fossil waters faster than any place.
Hi John,
You might find this video about the rivers of Tibet to be of interest.
http://meltdownintibet.com/sf_12min.htm
Some news from Norway – west-Norway, Bergen – has had it’s warmest winter ever since the records started:
http://www.nrk.no/hordaland/varmeste-vinteren-pa-153-ar-1.11572697
You will all have to google translate this one I am afraid. 🙂
It has been unusually mild, no doubt caused by the same pattern that has given USA the hard winter and the British islands a beating and tons of rain. No doubt this anomaly has had an effect in Russia too, but we aren’t exactly spoiled with news from that part of the world, even when they had major floods and forest fires last year.
Brings to mind a takeoff on the title of a recent post on Crock.
“Climate change induced drought and political upheaval: Coming to a country near you”
Warming could cause desertification of some areas – fool consent.
(www.ipcc-wg2.gov/SREX/images/uploads/SREX-SPMbrochure_FINAL.pdf:
“There is medium confidence that some regions of the world have experienced more intense and longer droughts, in particular in southern Europe and West Africa, but in some regions droughts have become less frequent, less intense, or shorter …”)
But rather not in this region. In this region, the former warming caused an increase in the amount of precipitation – decrease in the desert areas.
Catastrophic drought 2007-10 has here various reasons:
(http://www.pnas.org/content/109/10/3862.full ) Kaniewski et al., 2012:Drought is a recurring challenge in the Middle East: “An abrupt shift to drier conditions at ca. AD 1400 is contemporaneous with a change from sedentary village life to regional desertion and nomadization (sheep/camel pastoralists) [but also beginning appropriate LIA – http://www.oxfordscholarship.com/view/10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199768677.001.0001/acprof-9780199768677-chapter-3 – The Little Ice Age Crisis of the Ottoman Empire, 2012; extreme – more than hundred-year, drought in Anatolia] during the preindustrial era in formerly Ottoman realms, and thereby adds climate change to the multiple causes for Ottoman Empire “decline.”
Chenoweth et al. 2011: Impact of climate change on the water resources of the eastern Mediterranean and Middle East region: Modeled 21st century changes and implications: “The simulations show about a 10% decline in precipitation across the region by both the middle and the end of the century, with considerable variation between countries and international river basins.”
Eg. during the Roman Maximum – Period; was warmer and “wetter” – growing bushes Tamarix at the point where today it is a … desert …
(http://linkinghub.elsevier.com/retrieve/pii/0016703796001664) Climatic effects on the δ 18 O and δ 13 C of cellulose in the desert tree Tamarix jordanis, Lipp et al., 1996.:
“Since the Roman period, RH at Masada decreased by about 17%, while the δ 18 O value of local groundwater remained similar to present-day values, suggesting that changing atmospheric circulation has played a role in climate change in the Middle East over the past two millennia.”
(http://linkinghub.elsevier.com/retrieve/pii/S0033589409000064)Stable isotopes of a subfossil Tamarix tree from the Dead Sea region, Israel, and their implications for the Intermediate Bronze Age, Frumkin, 2009.:
“The Sedom Tamarix demonstrates a few hundred years of 13 C and 15 N isotopic enrichment, culminating in extremely high δ 13 C and δ 15 N values. Calibration using modern Tamarix stable isotopes in various climatic settings in Israel shows direct relationship between isotopic enrichment and climate deterioration, particularly rainfall decrease.” “This was apparently the most severe long-term historical drought that affected the region in the mid-late Holocene [cool period].”
(http://www.clim-past.net/8/637/2012/cp-8-637-2012.html) A seesaw in Mediterranean precipitation during the Roman Period linked to millennial-scale changes in the North Atlantic, Dermody et al., 2012: “…changes in climatic humidity over the Mediterranean during the Roman Period were primarily caused by a modification of the jet stream […] linked to sea surface temperature change in the North Atlantic. “
Do you ever get the feeling that no matter how much you try,that you are always only seeing our world through a soda straw (metaphorically of course)?
That’s a really apt metaphor, although there probably are larger and smaller straw diameters. We are each incredibly limited in our abilities to perceive the totality of the whole.
40 years ago,I wrote a paper about this,and upset many of my classmates who were jarred by the idea,and thought that I meant to undermine personal action because the world is just too overwhelmingly complex.
I think they missed the point entirely,which is that we all need to dig deeper into what the true nature of reality is,rather than just accept our comfortable,provincial ideas about the world and society at large.
Human conceit – we think we are more than we are, and it leads to all sorts of problems. Socrates knew he knew nothing, and as a result he knew slightly more than his peers.
But it’s a mixed bag, because there are truly those who know quite a lot less than others (they have smaller straws) and to let them run roughshod over others seems unjust. But while doing so we have to constantly guard against assuming we know everything (or at least more than we do).
I couldn’t agree more Jim. Well said.
Yes, that’s indeed true, but it’s also a dangerous metaphor to be using in mixed company.
Remember that we have OmLiteralogos with us and we wouldn’t want him to injure his eye while trying to figure out how to look through a straw.
How about instead suggesting “looking through the wrong end of a telescope” or “viewing the world through a small hole in a fence”? Omno might be able to do that without hurting himself (metaphorically speaking, of course).
“We Are Now One Year Away From Global Riots, Complex Systems Theorists Say”
My late grandmother used to say “Joe Satan’s walking about again” when watching violence like riots on her T.V news. I’m not particularly religious or superstitious and I often wonder about human nature – but maybe she has a point.
http://motherboard.vice.com/blog/we-are-now-one-year-and-counting-from-global-riots-complex-systems-theorists-say–2
Sigh. I have been telling everyone in my family to enjoy the next 16 years, because after that comes a Cormac MacCarthy novel. Maybe I was too optimistic!
Excellent links to follow, and one leads to Satan’s disciple, Joe Speculator, otherwise known as the greedy rich who want to profit off other people’s misfortune. The free market rules!
PS I forgot to mention that one of the “greedy rich” lost her head when food became scarce. Although Marie Antoinette probably didn’t say “let them eat cake” when she heard of the starving peasants, she paid the price for all those who let them starve.
As dumboldguy points out, the French Revolution of 1789 was precipitated by and based on food shortages thoughout France after three years of meager harvests.
Another marker I like to keep an eye on is something I call the “Happy Meal Index”. In my version, I calculate that there will never be a poor people’s uprising in the U.S. as long as the poor can afford the equivalent of one Happy Meal per family member per day. Thus, there is some reason to wonder at the wisdom of right wing meanies in Congress who keep picking at SNAP (food stamps) and other commodity food distribution systems. What are they thinking? If they want to foment social unrest, surely this is how to do it.
***
Another historical marker is the rise of the Bolsheviks in Russia. For over a decade they could get no traction in Russian politics. Even at the start of 1917 they represented less than 1/8th of 1% of the organized populace in Russia. How did they end up ruling the country by the end of 1917?
Russia suffered terrible harvests during WW I. In 1916 the food ration was set to the equivalent of one pound of black bread per proletarian. The people did not riot. In early 1917, the czar decreed the bread ration to be cut to 1/4 of a pound of black bread per person. That was the tipping point. When the poor could no longer count on living under the existing regime, they rioted. And three hundred years of Romanov rule ended.
Congress might want to take note.
Don’t forget the potato famine, although there wasn’t a huge climate factor involved there. The Irish died by the millions, and a lot of those deaths could have been averted except for the behavior of the British colonial overlords that valued profit over the lives of Irishmen. That is still remembered by Irishmen today, some 165-170 years later. Movements like the mass migration that took place then (and was more easily accomplished because countries like the U.S. welcomed immigrants) will happen again.
There has been upheaval in the past when food has run short—without looking it up, the Peasant’s Revolt in the middle ages, the Les Miserable we have both referenced, and Poland in the ’70’s all come to mind in addition to the more contemporary happenings.
We are between a rock and a hard place with the combination of climate change, water issues, run amok capitalism, and too many humans all leading to unsustainability, conflict, and collapse in too many places.
She speaks for many. Ireland is still recovering. Many of the Irish-Americans whose families have been here for generations still feel the pain and suffer the aftereffects as well.
Excellent link. Thanks for that. Bookmarked. 🙂