Remind Me Why We're Rubbing Elbows with the States Sponsoring ISIS.

Kinsella reminds us today to be very afraid of ISIS, that we're all in the terrorists' gunsights, and he's even got a link to the New York Times to prove it.

Pardon me if I'm somewhat underwhelmed by this imminent danger. Our governments, current and past, didn't and don't much care so why should I worry?

How can I say that? Easy, because while they're always at the ready to slap sanctions on outfits like Iran, branding them as state sponsors of terrorism, they turn a blind eye to the countries that are actually supporting Islamist terrorism - Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, the rest of the Gulf States, and Turkey for starters.

Now the New York Times has its tits in the wringer over the presence of ISIS in the now failed state of Libya. OMG, how did that happen? It happened in part because we allowed it.

In February, 2011, I did an analysis of Libya's deteriorating civil war against Gaddafi. I argued that the US needed to tell Egypt to invade Libya and oust the tyrant, pointing out it would be an easy week's work for the Egyptians with their divisions of modern M-1A1 Abrams tanks and squadrons of late model F-16s. The reason I advocated a quick, decisive invasion was that Sunni Islamists had quite openly announced they intended to move into Libya to establish a toe hold in North Africa. They even blamed themselves for missing the opportunity to get in when Egyptian crowds forced out Mubarak but insisted that was a mistake they wouldn't repeat.

A few weeks later Gwynne Dyer came to the same conclusion, arguing that Egypt was Libya's last chance to avoid becoming a failed state.

So, what did we do? Bugger all or close enough to it. We decided to send the now ubiquitous sixpack of CF-18s to join an allied bombing campaign against Gaddafi forces, an effort that dragged on for eight months and one day before Gaddafi was finally toppled and butchered. By the time the civil war was over, Libya was a true failed state. Islamist forces were deeply entrenched, able to challenge the Libyan opposition forces, and that's where it remains today. The Islamists were even skilful enough to have killed off the one rebel leader who might have formed a post-Gaddafi government.

Today this might not sound too surprising. None of the Sunni states that could have brought the Libyan civil war to a quick end and sealed off the place before Islamist radicals could become entrenched saw fit to intervene. Sounds a bit like Syria, doesn't it? Or Iraq or even, more recently, Afghanistan.

What it comes down to is that it's not ISIS that scares me but Western governments that still coddle the Sunni states that are the lifeline to the Islamist terrorists. They scare me because they're perpetuating this madness by continuing to prop up these ISIS-friendly generals, sheikhs, emirs and princes.

Our Liberal friend recently wrote about his first trip to Israel. It began with this:

So, flying el Al into Israel for the first time, two miles up, I could literally see where Israel started, and where it ended. Israel, from the air, is green and lush. It is an oasis. All the countries arrayed around it mostly aren’t: they are a vastness of parched and barren dirt. They are landfill disguised as countries. Looking down at it all, I said to my traveling companion: “Well, that explains a thing or two.”

I would have left a comment but I'm not welcome on his site so I'll address it here. From the air you don't know where Israel starts and where it ends. Chances are the first lush territory you identify as Israeli is actually part of the West Bank now overrun by illegal settlements.

The Palestinian territory sites atop one of the three largest aquifers in the region, one that Netanyahu has already said is so vital to the future of Israel that it can never be returned. The Israeli army generously pipes water to the settlers. Palestinians have to apply for permission to access their own water resources, permission that isn't approved.  "Landfill disguised as countries." That's no accident. It's anything but. However our Liberal colleague is welcome to take a peek at this pictorial from The Guardian showing how Palestinians get access to water.

Here are a few other links he might be well served to check out:

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/middle-east/israel-accused-of-war-crime-over-bulldozing-of-palestinian-olive-groves-10321936.html

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2001/apr/14/israel

http://www.israelpalestinemissionnetwork.org/main/ipmndocuments/factsheet04.pdf

http://www1.american.edu/ted/ice/olive-tree.htm

http://mondoweiss.net/2013/04/israel-destroys-village

http://stream.aljazeera.com/story/201405212125-0023753

https://www.amnestyusa.org/pdf/mde150272009en.pdf

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Water_supply_and_sanitation_in_the_Palestinian_territories

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/8327188.stm
http://www.haaretz.com/middle-east-news/1.574554