it does appear to be the case that isis was essentially created by nato to justify an invasion of syria with the intent to topple assad. i've offered little dissent on the point; i haven't challenged that narrative - isis is a construction of the west.

and, with the destruction of isis (mostly by russia), it's starting to look like they're just trying the same thing again, with groups located closer to the turkish border. the turks will need to invade syria to kill al qaeda. this is your ground force to topple assad.

now, i need to point out that a turkish invasion of western syria is not the same thing as air raids in eastern syria, and supporting the latter does not imply support for the former. i don't operate on black and white moral principles; i adjust to facts on the ground, and take things on a case-by-case basis. i could support a temporary alliance with imperial forces to blow up isis; i can't support another actual nato-led invasion of a former soviet satellite. the granular details here are important.

but, there is an underlying question that really needs to be asked out loud by more people - if you understand that the islamicists are created by the same people that are bombing them, how can you support bombing them? how can you deconstruct the lie, and then still support it's purpose? doesn't deconstructing the means mean abolishing the ends? what doublethink is this?

unfortunately. this is not a logical position, and in some sense i wish that it was. i wish it was as easy as just calling out the truth of the matter and washing my hands of it. but, if you want to be logical, you need to analyze the outcomes of all possibilities and pick a least bad option, not just the outcome of intervention contrasted to a utopian vision. and, sadly, it still makes sense to attack established islamicist groups in pretty much any kind of scenario, regardless of who is funding or creating them: action more or less dominates inaction under just about all cases. and, the reason is that the islamicists are going to kill a large proportion of the people you're trying to avoid killing, anyways.

it's always dangerous to be utilitarian about war casualties. but, if your argument is that we shouldn't bomb because we're killing innocents, then this is not a rational position, in context, because the islamicist groups are going to slaughter innocents whether we bomb them or not. this is the variable that complicates the scenario, and that the pseudo-left seems so intent on ignoring: inaction will lead to a comparable level of slaughter as action. so, you can't avoid the slaughter by disengaging. it's difficult, but it is what it is: ending the killing isn't a good reason to stop bombing. if we bomb, people die. if we don't bomb, people die. so it goes.

the left used to understand the centrality of religion in all of this, and the importance of undermining faith to eliminate war. but, this has been discarded recently by a post-colonialist theory that is essentially a conservative revivalism. we've been conditioned to stop asking the right questions, and have ended up with all of the wrong answers.

stamping out the religion is a hard problem and, yes, there is a role for wealth redistribution within it. but, there is no way around the basic reality on the ground - so long as there are fundamentalists going around killing people, you have to support a resistance against them as a first step. it doesn't matter who is funding them, or why; you can't ignore them - that's just a formula for blowback.

give a hand of applause for the machiavellians in washington, if you must. but don't tell me to turn a blind eye to religious extremism....