The Middle East Is Always At War Because The West Keeps Pushing It That Way: Notes From The Edge Of The Narrative Matrix

I hate when people say “Bah the middle east has always been at war, it’s just how they are.” No you asshole, it’s been at war because of western interventionism and Israel. Sure it was at war before Israel, but so was the entirety of Europe throughout its entire history. The only reason the rest of the world got to cool down a bit after the world wars while the middle east remained embroiled in violence and chaos was because the west inserted this alien splinter of settler-colonialism into the region while constantly deliberately fomenting war and unrest.

There’s nothing freakish or unusual about the middle east or Islam that makes its people violent, it just happens to be where a lot of the oil is, so the west keeps poking and prodding it to ensure that it’s always divided against itself and dominated by western-friendly dictators. That’s all we’ve been looking at there.

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My favorite Israel apologist line is “Well what did they THINK was gonna happen when they attacked Israel?” As though going “Yeah obviously Israel is gonna butcher a bunch of civilians if you try to resist it, duh” is a complete defense of Israel’s criminality.

It’s like, yes, Israel commits horrifying massacres against populations which oppose it whenever it can find an excuse to do so. That is the problem that people are trying to point to. Going “Of course Israel killed thousands of kids, it’s Israel!” is supportive of MY position, not yours.

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Funny how hard western narrative managers are thumping this “Hezbollah is a terrorist organization” doctrine, considering the empire just spent years calling Al Qaeda affiliates in Syria “moderate rebels” and is currently arming Nazi militias in Ukraine.

Imagine being such a groveling, bootlicking cuck that you’d call an organization a “terrorist” group just because your government told you that’s what you should call them.

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OMG nobody in the world can imagine what that must be like! https://t.co/V3qkXTT3au

— Caitlin Johnstone (@caitoz) October 1, 2024

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Americans: hurricane relief please

Washington: Sorry did you say send thousands more troops to the middle east to support Israeli warmongering?

Americans: no, hurricane relief

Washington: Okay you drive a hard bargain but those troops are on their way to the middle east right now.

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Think about all the evil deeds the next US president is going to have to sign their name to in the coming months, and then think about what kind of sick fuck would want to do such a thing, and you immediately understand why both candidates are such colossal pieces of shit.

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On Tuesday Julian Assange had his first public speaking event since his release from prison this past June, and it was as excellent as anyone could have possibly hoped. I highly recommend watching it.

And even more delightful than what Assange had to say was the fact that he’s still as sharp as a tack. One of my many concerns during Assange’s imprisonment was that they would break his powerful analytical mind. They didn’t. He’s all there. He kept that flame burning. I don’t know how he did it, but he did.

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If four years of Trump didn’t prove to you that the “MAGA movement” is completely worthless at opposing US warmongering, this past year should have. MAGA doesn’t oppose war, it just impotently questions those few wars it views as belonging to the Democratic Party. They’ve been all aboard with the destruction of Gaza and the assault on Lebanon, the US airstrikes on Yemen and the brewing war with Iran.

Apparently there was a rally the other day that billed itself as anti-war and opposed to the military-industrial complex, but from what I gather it was mostly just a MAGA rally with pro-Israel, pro-Trump speakers like RFK Jr and Tulsi Gabbard saying nothing about the mass atrocities we’re seeing unfold in the middle east. I saw someone say Israel’s warmongering was criticized one single time and it was six hours into the event, spoken by Jimmy Dore. Everyone else was all aboard the genocide train.

Rightists like to pretend Trump has ushered in a dramatic restructuring of US politics where the Republican Party is now the party which opposes war and sticks up for the little guy, but in practice it’s still very much George W Bush’s Republican Party. Trump spent four years rolling out warmongering agendas with a cabinet staffed by some of the worst war sluts in Washington, and his supporters spent four years in my comments section defending him against my criticisms of this. They’ve also spent the last year either ignoring or outright defending Israel’s atrocities.

On the American right there’s a small faction of libertarians who oppose all wars and despise both parties as much as I do, but other than that the US right wing is pretty much as gung ho about war and militarism as ever, in the same way the Democrats are. Just like the Democrats they pretend to want peace with their words but support war with their actions. All the most meaningful opposition to the US war machine this past year has been coming from the leftmost end of the spectrum.

It’s very common in my experience to see American right wingers who view themselves as “anti-interventionist” saying they don’t care what Israel does because they only care what their own country is doing, which is a nonsensical position to have when your country is the one making Israel’s atrocities possible. These are just as much Washington’s wars as they are Israel’s, but the same people who will tell you the MAGA movement is going to end the wars are nowhere to be found on this issue.

They’re warmongers just like the Democrats are. They’re Democrats with red hats.

Listen to a reading of this article (reading by Tim Foley):

https://www.caitlinjohnst.one/p/the-middle-east-is-always-at-war