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"The Butler!" Syndrome in Middle-East Politics

In times of civil and/or multi-national war, where everyone is a potential enemy to everyone else, crying "The Butler did it!" may be helping YOUR real enemy!

By Deniz Galip OygürPublished 7 years ago 5 min read
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Before I was able to finish this piece on Middle-East politics, the US (or, to be more precise, the Trump administration cornered by the unveiled Russian ties) decided to shower the Syrian Regime with Tomahawks.

After gathering every piece of "evidence" that can be accessed online, it was clear to me that the sole reason and excuse of the US attack, and the following international support, boils down to the following assumption deduced by the application of Aristotle's logic into the witch's cauldron that is the Syrian Civil War :

"The laboratories, equipment, and storage facilities to produce and/or store Sarin, a deadly chemical warfare agent, are of high-and-expensive maintenance; ergo, Syrian regime's possession of Sarin is more likely than that of the Rebels". (Well, of course, we all love Star Wars, but don't get mind-tricked by the word "Rebels" here. I'll be explaining why in due course).

This is sort of singling out the butler for having the means, opportunity, and motive for being the murderer in a mansion of at least twenty other employees with the exact same means, opportunity, and motive...

For the international community to act upon a mere probability - because that is what it is, embellished statements aside - their reasoning and deduction must be iron-clad, right?

Let's take a closer look...

If Aristotle's logic was applicable to Middle-East, it would be very easy to blame the Syrian regime forces, and therefore, their supporters, the Russians, about the recent alleged chemical attack.

The Butler did it...or did he?

However, if Aristotle's logic was really applicable into this witch's cauldron, for instance, Israel wouldn't be trying to undermine the secular Syrian regime and its forces, for if the secular despotism in Syria is toppled, there are very strong indications that (well, since the so-called Rebel forces, the "Free" Syrian Army and its off-shoots, do consist of one fanatic Islamic sect or another) it would evolve into another fundamentalist Islamic state, or break down into smaller such states for that matter. Another Iran, or many "Irans" so to speak.

So, how is it possible that Israel is directly playing into the hands of fundamentalist groups, who have more or less (probably much, much more) the same Islamic fundamentalist theocracy in mind as Israel's formidable nemesis, Iran?

Still have some faith left in Aristotle's logic in the Middle East?

How about this line of thought, then, this time about Iran. If Aristotle's logic was applicable, Iran would already have stopped backing up the Syrian Regime and its leader Bashar Assad. Iran is one of the Islamic countries in the world that pushes the fundamentalism line into a despotic theocracy. Not a monarchy like Saudi Arabia, but a, say, "People's Theocracy of Iran". Deep-rooted, heavily-indoctrinated, and as hypocritical as any People's Republic.

Therefore, applying Aristotle's logic, Iran would not be fighting in the trenches for the survival of a powerful secular regime in the Middle-East, since secularism is the single most powerful detriment to you when your ultimate goal is to force the masses into submission for a fundamentalist despotism.

Not yet convinced that Aristotle's logic is fallible when applied to the Middle-East?

Let's check Turkey's position, then. As the only, more-or-less secular democracy in the Middle-East, what is expected about the Turkish government is to try and help stabilize another secular country, however tyrannic it may seem, right next to its borders, for if secularism is got rid of in a country right under the Turkish nose, then the like-minded anti-secularists (see, another fancy way of saying fundamentalist despots... I mean... Rebels) could be encouraged to export their religious despotism into Turkey.

So, please, do try and explain how it is even conceivable for the Turkish government to actively support those Rebels (or, to sound more sympathetic to their cause, Resistance Fighters)and what-not, reminding, for instance, the words of the former Prime Minister of Turkey on one of the groups within the Islamic Rebel Alliance (!) back in the day: "... [ISIS]...is just a group of angry, young men who demand justice for the past atrocities committed against them..."

The inconceivable alliances are pretty mind-boggling so far, don't you think?

Aristotle's Logic is no match for Islamic Sects

Well, as long as the history of the Middle-East is read with regard to Islamic Sects and their first contact with the Western Crusades, no mind can ever be boggled.

Suffice it to say, within the limits of this article, that from the First Crusade (1095–1099 CE) until the Syrian Civil War, there has been many Islamic Sects working in tandem with the Western infidels, so to speak, to crush the other sects in their vicinity.

Islamic sects, even today, differ a lot from their Christian counterparts so much so that each sect, or sub-sect, automatically defines itself as one and true embodiment of the realization of Islam, and denounce the rest as infidels, to be dealt with even before infidels from other religions (for there is still a chance to save those poor souls by converting them into the target Islamic sect without killing them).

It is hard to conceive, but there is a "hierarchy of infidels" in Islamic sects which puts other Islamic sects, first and foremost, into their line of fire. Their deduction is that once the real Islamic union can be accomplished under their own sect, then the rest of the world would be open to a true Islamic conquer. No wonder the Muslims have been killing more Muslims than any fundamentalist zealots from other religions were ever able to throughout the history of the world.

Enough said from within a Muslim country to put my soul in the ever-burning line of fire.

Now, it is time to return back to Aristotle's Butler...

The Butler actually hid it!

by Phil Hirschkorn and Peter Bergen, CNN

If you are still under the illusion that the logic of Aristotle can be applied into any equation in the Middle-East, I have one last remaining deduction of my own to blow that line of thought from your mind.

The red-bearded man on the right in the picture above, posing with Osama bin Laden back in Laden's days in the Afghan mountains, is one of the co-founders of one of the Rebel groups in Syria, Ahrar al-Sham, which the West, Israel, and some Muslim and/or secular countries have been backing up in the Syrian Civil War.

Here is a better description of his life and accomplishments compiled by the Stanford University:

Abu Khalid al-Suri (Unknown to February 23, 2014): Suri, also known as Abu Omeir al-Shami, was one of Ahrar al-Sham’s co-founders. He also acted as Al Qaeda’s (AQ) representative in Syria and was charged with facilitating reconciliation among regional Islamist militants. Suri was killed in an alleged IS suicide bombing against Ahrar al-Sham’s headquarters in February 2014. Following his death, AQ published a eulogy for the fallen Ahrar al-Sham leader. It also posted a video documenting his participation in Al Farouq training camp in Afghanistan, including photos of him with Osama bin Laden and Ayman al-Zawahiri. Ahrar al-Sham is not designated a terrorist organization by the U.S. State Department, the United Nations, or the European Union. Since December 2015, the UN Security Council has been trying to assemble a list of terrorist groups in Syria. Russia, Lebanon, Iraq, Egypt, and the UAE support classifying Ahrar al-Sham as a terrorist group, but they have not been able to achieve a unanimous consensus.

What seems to be missing from the quotation above can be found on Peter Bergen's web-site:

Al-Suri was close to bin Laden, which explains his comfortable presence in the 1996 photos of Tora Bora, seated next to al Qaeda’s leader in his cave or hiking with him, carrying his own cameras. (Al-Suri also accompanied Bergen and Arnett on their visit to bin Laden in 1997.) The United States has since accused al-Suri of training recruits at al Qaeda’s pre-9/11 al-Ghuraba and Derunta camps in Afghanistan, where operatives such as Ahmed Ressam, who planned to bomb Los Angeles International Airport in December 1999, learned how to kill with poisons and chemicals. Al-Suri summarized his philosophy in his 1,600-page treatise, “The Call for Global Islamic Resistance,” which he published on the Internet in 2004. He coined the Arabic slogan nizam, la tanzim, meaning “a system, not an organization,” to describe his belief that there should be no organizational bonds between “resistance fighters.” Al-Suri advocated terrorist cells of no more than 10 men and envisioned more “lone-wolf” attacks, such as the Fort Hood, Texas, massacre carried out in 2009 by rogue U.S. Army Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan, who was inspired by the radical Yemeni-American cleric Anwar al-Awlaki, himself an al-Suri disciple. Strategically, al-Suri argued, a less centralized jihadist network would make operatives who were arrested less likely to expose fellow militants to intelligence or law enforcement agencies, because the fighters would not know who else was part of the movement. Al-Suri was forward thinking about al Qaeda evolving into an international ideology more than a centrally controlled organization. After 9/11, al-Suri appeared on the U.S. Most Wanted Terrorists list with a $5 million reward for information leading to his capture.

It is understandable that since the US sees Russia and Iran as its enemies in the international arena, and since both countries are backing up Bashar Assad's Syrian dictatorship, the US may have a tendency to form up alliances with the enemies of its enemies.

However, the crucial factor in Middle-Eastern politics is that the enemy of your enemy can also be yet another enemy of notions such as the human rights, secularism etc. which the free-world is claimed to thrive upon (to some relative extent, of course).

And, when it comes to Aristotle's logic, it must be borne in mind that until "black swans" were discovered, everything that had wings, a beautiful neck, and a body able to swim and fly, was filed under the irrefutable category of "White Helmets"... I mean "white swans".

controversieshistorypoliticsnew world order
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About the Creator

Deniz Galip Oygür

Language teacher, innovator in language learning, and the founder of Cafe 4 Kids Playshop, the D.U.Y. approach, and the Linguasophia method. Poet in soul, philosopher in mind, and Foundationer at heart.

www.linguasophia.wordpress.com

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