As
ISIS terror erupts across the globe, Western governments are busy
making plans to establish a rapid reaction force in Eastern Europe to
‘contain Russia’, thus qualifying them for an annual ‘you couldn’t make
it up’ award.
It
calls to mind one of Britain’s worst military defeats, suffered at the
hands of the Japanese, when 100,000 troops and sailors were marched into
captivity after the fall of Singapore on February 15, 1942. Winston
Churchill called it “the largest capitulation in British history.” Many
of the British troops never even fired a shot before surrendering, thus
adding to the humiliation and ignominy of their defeat at the hands of a
much smaller force. The British commander responsible for the
surrender, Lieutenant General Arthur Percival, earned himself a cold
place in history as a consequence.
A
major reason for the defeat and surrender of an island that was
considered a key and strategically vital part of the British Empire was
that the guns of the British defenders were pointed in the wrong
direction; they’d been expecting the Japanese attack to come from the
sea rather than through the jungle and swamps of the Malay Peninsula
behind them.
Today,
in 2015, British guns are not only pointed in the wrong direction they
are pointed at the wrong enemy. The most recent terrorist atrocity,
carried out last week against tourists in Tunisia, has resulted in the
most British victims since the 7/7 attacks in London which ended in the
deaths of 52 innocent civilians. On the same day as the Tunisian attack,
a terrorist atrocity was carried out in France, while in Kuwait a
suicide bomber attacked a Shia mosque.
Meanwhile,
in Iraq and Syria, the so-called Islamic State (formerly known as
ISIS/ISIL) and other Salafist terror groups continue to kill, slaughter,
and butcher men, women, and children. All this is happening while the
West continues to make a virtue of impotence, more concerned with
directing its ire against a country, Russia that has been at the
forefront of resisting terrorism at home and abroad.
Yes, without doubt, you couldn’t make it up.
Every
day that IS exists it grows stronger; its vile ideology becomes more
entrenched and grows more attractive to ever more young disaffected
Muslim men across the world. They are not attracted to the group’s
religious doctrine so much as the opportunity to join a cause that
allows them to feel powerful as opposed to the powerlessness of their
current predicament in a world underpinned by the anarchy of a free
market that breeds poverty, despair, and injustice.
As
such, the West is both the handmaiden and victim of radicalization.
Every terrorist attack confirms the collapse of Western foreign policy
and its alignment with some of the most reactionary states on the planet
– Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Kuwait, etc. – not to mention ultra nationalists
in Kiev and across Eastern Europe. It constitutes unimpeachable
evidence of the sham that is Western democracy, and how it rests upon
foundations of hypocrisy and mendacity.
The
crisis and chaos that has engulfed the Middle East as a direct result
of the West’s role in the region increasingly threatens civilians
everywhere, including Russia, which is why it remains unconscionable
that the West remains intent on treating Moscow as an enemy rather than a
partner in a struggle against one of the gravest threats to modernity
and civilization the world has faced. Furthermore, this cognitive
dissonance, this departure from reality, informs an air campaign that
has failed utterly in its stated objective of degrading the power of IS
and stemming its advance. When it suffers a reverse in one part of Syria
or Iraq, it advances in another, butchering civilians wherever it
appears.
The
question needs to be asked: Where is the 30-40,000 strong rapid
reaction force to counter the barbarism of ISIS? Where is the
determination to contain a state – the so-called Islamic State – that
violates every moral and ethical principle of humanity in its treatment
of minorities, women, children, and natural justice?
There
is no more grievous indictment of the policy being undertaken by the
West than the fact that a large swathe of the world is now a no-go area
for tourists and visitors. The impact of the attack in Tunisia, for
example, will be measured in a loss of a tourism industry that is vital
to that country’s ability to maintain a nascent democracy that is
balanced precariously on the edge of sustainability, thus making the
growth of extremism and terrorism there more rather than less likely.
This
lamentable state of affairs is even more grotesque when we consider
that this year marks the 70th anniversary of the end of the Second World
War. This was a war that saw the West and the Soviet Union unite
against a common enemy, fascism, in the interests of humanity. Those who
fought and sacrificed and suffered immeasurably in that war would be
well within their rights to judge the current generation of leaders
harshly over their lack of statesmanship and foresight in understanding
who and what the real enemy is, and where the real threat to global
peace and stability resides.
The barbarians are at the gates and it’s time to wake up, else we’re going to have a bloody disaster on our hands.
Uprooted Palestinian 
The views expressed in this article are the sole responsibility of the author and do not necessarily reflect those of the Blog!
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