Saturday, February 27, 2016

Once is Tragedy, Twice is Farce



Karl Marx, having in mind the respective coups d'état of Napoleon I (1799) and his nephew Napoleon III (1851), wrote acerbically in 1852: "Hegel remarks somewhere that all facts and personages of great importance in world history occur, as it were, twice. He forgot to add: the first time as tragedy, the second time as farce."

A Peace to End All Peace, David Fromkin

It was true that the Soviets encouraged Persian nationalism, supported Turkish nationalism, and sought to aid rebellion in Iraq; but the Russians had not inspired – and did not direct – any of these movements.

While this might read as something from recent headlines, there are enough hints in the above to conclude otherwise.  Fromkin is writing of the time after World War One, when the British believed every revolt in their various colonies and dependencies was directed by the Bolsheviks. 

In fact there was an outside force linked to every one of the outbreaks of violence in the Middle East, but it was the one force whose presence remained invisible to British officialdom.  It was Britain herself.

They were unable, it seems, to look in the mirror for the common link behind the various rebellions.

From the Middle East correspondent of The Times, published in September 1920:

“My conviction, based on careful study, is that the Arab Bureau at Cairo, the G.H.Q at Cairo, and our Occupied Enemy Territories Administrations in Palestine and last year in Syria, bear a heavy load of responsibility for the present waste of British lives and money in Mesopotamia.”  He charged that “British Pan-Arab propaganda is one of the most serious existing dangers to the world’s peace.”  Putting aside the few British officials who genuinely believed in Arab independence, he denounced the “extremely dangerous officials who have no great belief in the Arabs’ own capacity for government, but an intense belief in our Imperial Mission” to run Arab affairs behind a façade of nominal Arab Independence.

Foreign Secretary Lord Curzon and Permanent Under-Secretary Lord Hardinge argued for a forward British military position in the Middle East, defending Transcaucasia and northern Persia from Russia, claiming that…

…the loss of any one area in the Middle East to Russian aggression would, I turn, lead to the loss of the area behind it, in a domino reaction that might lead eventually to the loss of India.

Within twenty years, Britain would ally with this same Soviet Russia, allowing dominos to fall throughout half of Europe.  Shortly thereafter Britain lost claim over much of her holdings in the Middle East and the sub-continent of Asia.

Americans have been fighting to regain these holdings and more ever since.

6 comments:

  1. Dominos, it is always dominos.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. And it's always for the children that we are admonished to labor to keep the dominoes from falling.

      Delete
  2. So is it nation states that direct the hand of dominion or something else? That something else (open for debate of what that something else is), using the most capable people regardless of political/national affiliation as pawns of their dirty work. Then moving on to the next empire. With the symbiotic relationships of finance, industry, and political being very international especially in the modern world, would it be naive to take this subject at face value as nation against nation?

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. The USG is merely the current tool, replacing the UK from 100 years ago. At least that's my view.

      Delete
    2. Thanks BM....Now who are these people...and is it trans - generational in nature? Was this what was Woodrow Wilson eluded to in one hid famous quotes, (yes I know he was a tool for them too)..but if that quote can be substantiated it has been here for quite some time. Where does propaganda originate from.

      Too me the oligarchs just traded Devine right of kings for democracy or fascism corporatism as a way of lord in it over the masses. A complete perversion of free market business and government was always perverted by its vary nature and not controllable as the people believed through elected representation.

      Keep up the good work as always.!

      Delete
  3. "The real history of the world is a history of competing conspiracies."

    -Ishmael Reed

    ReplyDelete