I read back through the posts
with scorn
but then
found that I wasn't entirely
embarrassed about what I had written
wasn't entirely embarrassed about
the topics
the language
but maybe only embarrassed
about never posting more.
I came here to delete this blog.
I read back and read
that I had Iran and Syria
and Libya
warring in my heart.
I still do.
But it's different now.
I've read more now.
Re-read more now.
Read too much now.
Seen too many things.
The wrong kind of things.
Syria and Libya are
different now for me.
 |
| Whose flags are those? |
Libya -
I'm sure about this -
is not what we've been told.
Libya -
I hope I'm wrong about this -
is no local uprising
but an imposed clamping down
is no spontaneous upheaval
but an engineered regime-change
is no people's movement
but is an Al-Qaeda power play.
Libya -
was always a problem
for certain other powers:
a problem
for US and European investments
in Africa
because of Libya's nationalism;
a problem
for the colonial order
because of Gaddafi's heresy -
the heresy of liberating
African economics
from foreign controls.
But now
Gaddafi is dead -
brutalised, you watched it -
and Strauss-Kahn,
stepped-down from IMF,
and the heresy of
African self-interest
and economic autonomy
is squashed.
An Al-Qaeda flag
was caught flying above
Benghazi. Nice.
Syria -
I'm not as sure about this -
could be a parallel.
Syria -
I hope I'm wrong about this -
is no local uprising
but an imposed clamping down
is no spontaneous upheaval
but an engineered regime-change
is no people's movement
but is an Al-Qaeda power play.
Syria -
is currently a problem
for certain other powers:
for US pushes against Syria's
ally, Iran,
which should be
isolated -
and thus Syria is to be
crushed;
for Saudi Arabia
who also push against
Iran, Syria's ally;
and for Israel
who also push against
Iran, and against
Iranian funding of militancy
in Syria and Lebanon,
militancy which threatens
Israel.
Syria is important
important to certain others,
other powers,
whose interests contravert
those of the US
and Saudi Arabia
and Israel;
Russian interests
Russian bases in Syria
Russian bases in Syria
Russian desires to dominate
the region
pitted against American
desires;
Russian allegiances to Iran
pitted against American
allegiances to Israel
and the Gulf States;
and Syria gets crushed in the middle
by Al-Qaeda mercenaries
who see something in it for them
and Syrian government forces
who are not innocent
and are pitting brutally against
the mercenaries;
both sides using civilians
and crushing civilians
in an orchestrated turf war.
Perhaps these were,
at one moment,
real uprisings.
Perhaps,
for one moment,
but then they were taken
and turned
into something else
taken and run with
in a different direction,
given a different kind of life
bent on different aims:
and one wonders whether
democracy and freedom
could possibly come from
the wreckage
could come after the militants
the "freedom fighters"
take over.
Hardly anyone I know
who knows about these things
believes Libya has been real.
Hardly anyone I know
who knows about these things
believes Syria has been fake.
But I've been convinced -
no, half-convinced -
maybe, not convinced at all -
that both Libya and Syria
are Western-Gulf State-backed
mercenary assaults,
strategic and staged.
Either way,
the prospect for peace
in Libya is...
with that Al Qaeda flag
with the new allegations of
abuse against Gaddafi-loyalists
Gaddafi loyalists in hospitals
tortured, interrogated, no tortured
for being loyal or for being African
(and not Arab?) Tortured, for being
the old oppressors?
For representing a monster?
Or because there are
new monsters
radicalist opportunist Al-Qaeda
mercenaries in power?
Either way,
the prospect for peace
in Libya is ...
new flags and more torture?
The speculations,
the guesses I have,
are controversial,
but the flags and the torture
are common knowledge.
I guess it's all a matter
of how you
join together the information
and what picture you make.
