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Radio War Nerd EP #12—Hidden History of Amnesty International (Patreon)

Published:
2015-12-27 01:51:33
Imported:
2023-06

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Dateline: London — Extra-long 2-hour Radio War Nerd episode in two parts: Part I lasts until we get cut off at 47 minute mark, we talk about weird agendas at Amnesty International . . . Seymour Hersh's new bombshell article on Syria War and military brass working around strategically absent Obama Admin. Comms drop — then Part II we learn why the War Nerd was incommunicado for 3 days . . . Russian jets take out leader of Saudi-backed Army of Islam in Damascus suburb . . . "tamed jihadis" vs the real thing . . . back to Seymour Hersh's article, Putin's strategic thinking vs Obama's . . .

Link to episode mp3: http://exiledonline.com/wnradio/WN%20Podcast12.mp3 

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Anonymous

So, my impression of the Star Wars political situation (which is still pretty rough)...to start from the beginning: Eps I-III start off with a pre-existing Republic fighting a group of separatists and ends with that Republic turning into The Empire. IV-VI feature the Rebellion (different coalition than the Separatists from I-III) fighting The Empire. In VII, The New Republic has control over some worlds, and The Empire still maintains control of other worlds...but there's a kind of cold war/truce between the New Republic and the former Empire. The Resistance is pro-Republic resistance within the areas still under The Empire's sphere of influence. The First Order are a group of fascists on the outer edges of the galaxy...and they're distinct from the old Empire's government (who, I think, are basically abiding by the terms of the truce while trying to recover economically from the blow). The First Order are basically a bunch of lost causers and blame the old empire's lack of commitment to the Empire's ideals for the failures of The Empire. At the top of the First Order are some Sith mystics and some Vader-worshipping war orphans called The Knights of Ren (Kylo Ren's namesake).

Anonymous

This probably says more about me than about the question -- definitely more than the movie did, it just used the terms "resistance" and "republic" and didn't explain the distinction at all -- but my first thought was the Spanish Civil War. The baddies are Franco, the resistance is the various Loyalist/Republican forces. The republic is the form of government associated with the resistance (once upon a time the Rebel Alliance) and the bad guys, the Empire types, want it, and the resistance, gone. The republic itself is an empty shell -- maybe in the years in between Return of the Jedi and this new movie, liberal types within the rebellion tried to appease empire-supporters by bringing them into the government, which the latter proceeded to sabotage... And after years of war, who knows what the Jedi/romantic/vaguely monarchist types who make up the resistance to the form of the republic should they succeed... Somewhat less of a leap, the Republic might be the government against which the baddies are rebelling, and the Resistance might be the Republic's armed forces, even as it's now a government. Kind of like how various post-revolutionary regimes call their armies "national liberation armies" or whatever even after the nation was already liberated. The core is still made up of old rebel alliance formations. In all likelihood it'll be something that makes more screenwriter-sense than either, but that's not my logic.

Anonymous

Liked the show. But more and more I begin to think the West needs to separate any western ideals from the thought of the middle east. Not one real group in the entire middle east seems to be ready for any kind of western government structure. And the US government attempting to impose our western ideas of political systems on the underlying ethnic hatreds in Syria is well exposed in this discussion. The failure of that understanding is leaving us without real options, especially as the Saudi pawns are bombed out of existence by the Russians. Lol, the cold war overlay panders to all the old folks in the US.

Anonymous

Great episode, thanks for putting it together. Quite disturbing info on Amnesty; I was not aware of the extent of the weirdness.

Anonymous

Maybe this is a good analogy of rebels vs empire: Yemeni Houthis causing havoc in KSA's south-western border town of Najran youtu.be/KKOOlik4pEk

Anonymous

Personally didn't read so much "Obama" into the article. What I saw everywhere was "CIA" - with Obama playing the part of the clueless civilian sitting between the spooks and the generals, with no idea or interest about what's going on. It's a great plot, by the way. The CIA and JCS playing a sort of inter-American proxy wars against each other in the Middle East! Loved the idea that the CIA strategy seems to have been based on the fact that the Gulfies are buyable. They completely underestimated Turkey. Turkey's willingness to play it's own game, giving up on the idea of being American lapdogs, have completely altered the balance in the ME. Now the Saudis and Qataris have a powerful ally that understands them. They're not as controllable, from an American perspective. What Islamic State is doing is for kids. The "real Sunni awakening" is happening through Turkey. With Erdogan, Sunni islamists have an actual, powerful and independent state on their side. --- Have to say something about the Israeli thing as well... Since there's not much else to do, we might as well play the game of guessing how Assad might be important for Israel? I think it makes a lot of sense, actually. What Israel fears is obviously Iran. The only reason to fear the Baathist Syrians is that they are allies of Iran. Yet this is not some sort of "special relationship", but rather a result of both regimes lacking other allies in the region. I think Israel has reasons to believe that the Assads are actually a sort of brake block on Iranian influence in Syria. With them gone, their supporters could easily be fully absorbed by Iran - considering they would have no where else to go. I've been thinking about this a lot, seeing what the Iranian have actually been up to in Syria during the last years. What they've been doing is sponsoring and training non-SAA militias. In other words - creating the groundwork for a non-Assadist faction among the non-Sunnis of Syria. The Assadi bandits are potentially useful for Israel (they understand money) - a full-fledged Syrian Hezbollah would be their nightmare. Support for the jihadis is probably very much about messing with Hezbollah's immediate turf. Giving medicine to a couple of rebels in the South doesn't have to be the "grand strategy" itself, but rather a part of something more limited. With the Russians at his side, Assad is also looking more like a good "non-Iranian" alternative in Syria. Interesting deals have been struck between Israel and Russia, stating for example that Russia will not intervene if Israel strikes nothing but Hezbollah targets. Hezbollah and Iran are useful allies, but they're not clients - and they're most definately not reliable as long-term partners. Iran probably has more far-reaching goals in Syria than simply supporting Assad.

ClockworkOuroborous

Threw me right out of it when I heard "reading" railroad; it's pronounced 'redding'. Blame the Germans.