Amazon’s Book Review: “The Management of Savagery tells the story of the parallel rise of international jihadism and Western ultra-nationalism. Since Washington’s secret funding of the Mujahideen following the Russian invasion of Afghanistan in the 1970s, America has supported extremists with money and hardware, including enemies such as Bin Laden. The Pentagon’s willingness to make alliances abroad have seen the war coming home with inevitable consequences: by funding, training, and arming jihadist elements in Afghanistan, Syria, and Libya since the Cold War and waging wars of regime change and interventions that gave birth to the Islamic State. Meanwhile, Trump’s dealings In the Middle East are likely only to exacerbate the situation further. Blumenthal excavates the real story behind America’s dealing with the world and shows how the extremist forces that now threaten peace across the globe are the inevitable flowering of America’s imperial designs of a national security state. And shows how this has ended with the rise of the Trump presidency.”
The US (and collective West) represent the richest and most developed branches of the ruling bourgeoisie. Israel is a White (US) bridgehead in the Middle East – just as the EU represents US domination throughout Europe. Russia is a currently ostracised member of the bourgeoisie that has been “naughty” in the international arena since it betrayed its Socialist Revolution in 1991 (although many believe the writing was on the wall with Khursheed’s betrayal of Joseph Stalin in 1956).
Today, Russia is a nasty nationalistic, racist, misogynistic, and homophobic entity which only appears to propagate its past Soviet relationships simply because it possesses no other options. Indeed, the viewpoints expressed by President Putin are often fascistic in nature and thoroughly inline with the viewpoints of Neo-Nazism. Indeed, although Russia possesses a right to defend its own interests – and is doing so with regard to the US incursion into Neo-Nazi Ukraine – there is no reason why a right-wing Russia cannot come to some kind of understanding with its Hitlerite neighbour(s) – just as it has done with regards to Israel-US policy in Syria.
It is clear that both Russia and Iran have militarily (and politically) betrayed President Assad – a (secular) Socialist leader of Syria. Hillary Clinton’s campaign for the Presidency was scuppered when emails were leaked – stating that she wanted to (joyfully) “destroy” both Iran and Syria “for Israel”! This is an ongoing bourgeois plan developed through a mix and match approach – one that manoeuvres around the self-centred individuals that are “thrown-up” via the democratic process – and the fickle attitudes of the general public (which habitually swing toward and away from Israel – due to the strength of government-generated Islamophobia).
As for Iran and Islam – Muslims possess a love-hate attitude toward Assad. The Muslims love him for standing-up to the West and supporting Palestine – but hate him because he advocates a “secular” society which “tolerates” all religions equally – and does not privilege Islam. Islam is just one of many religions – including atheism – which occupies the socio-economic sphere. Religious fanatics and those living in a pre-modern mind-set – believe that religious beliefs are literally correct and that science (and the secular lifestyle) are aberrations that need to be violently attacked and swept away using a wave of religious violence (jihad).
Within a Socialist society, material science is used in the name of enriching and improving the lives of each citizen (without discrimination) on earth – whilst religious belief – although “pre-modern”, is permitted as a private affair. This means that synagogues, mosques, temples, and churches (and other places) are permitted and protected, whilst adherents are guaranteed the right to worship without hindrance or persecution. Contrarily, those who do not which to profess a religion (atheism) are guaranteed an equal protection – and they cannot be attacked by religionists.
This is the society President Assad was attempting to construct in Syria – but the US (and Israel) have recruited and armed the far-right elements of the religious fanatic community so as to undermine this process and generate instability in the region. The US is attempting exactly the same infiltration process in the Xinjiang region of North-West China. The US has used religion in the past – both for and against – and is a master of a manipulation that benefits no one but the US. ISIS pursues an Islamo-fascist theology sponsored by the US. This evolved out of the Afghanistani Mujahadeen – which America recruited and trained during the 1970s and 1980s (from the illiterate tribal regions) – in an attempt to overthrow the democratically elected “Socialist” government of Afghanistan (and its Soviet Red Army ally).
Israel is a fascist entity which pursues a racial superiority theory as part of its religious belief (see the 1975 UN ruling and resolution). The Zionist theology links racial dominance to to invading, stealing, and forceful occupation of foreign lands. This is exactly what the White Europeans did to the Americas – and as many Zionist Jews originate in the US before stealing land from the Arabs in Palestine – the Israeli policy of endless aggression and death must be viewed as its continuation (hence the recent findings of “Genocide” by the ICC and ICJ). It makes no difference who the masses in the West vote into political power – the bourgeois deep-State will continue to pursue exactly the same policies without end or without mercy! Both Russia and Iran must have been offered self-serving deals by the US government so that each country would let Syria’s legitimate regime die in the dust. Such is the reality of the bourgeois world of back-stabbing politics.
SANGHA KOMMUNE (SSR) 