Tuesday, 17 September 2013
There is No Hope: Why There is No Chance of Making U.S. Democracy Less Corrupt.
A society can be made less corrupt, a democracy cannot. The U.S. democracy, as any democracy, is corrupt because corruption lies at the basis of any democratic process as such. It is very difficult to provide a theoretical account of the concept of corruption and give its analytical-style definition. The fact that modern human society has even raised the issue of corruption is remarkable, as the concept of corruption has never received much attention. Not surprisingly, existing conceptual work on corruption consists in little more than the presentation of brief definitions of corruption as a preliminary to extended accounts of the causes and effects of corruption and the ways to combat it.
Since most of the definitions of corruption are unsatisfactory, let us look once more at the etymology of the word corruption. The base word “corrupt” comes from Middle English (Anglo-French), which in turn is based on Latin word “corruptus” (broken in pieces), past participle of “corrumpere” (to abuse or destroy). Here the “co-“ part is intensive prefix and “rumpere” means “to break”. Therefore, corrupt literally means "utterly broken" and corruption, as a state of being corrupt, means the relationship between two or more entities, which have been corrupted, i.e. completely broken.
When we are talking about something broken into pieces, we imply that the integrity of that object has been destroyed. In corruption’s case, the object, which integrity has been destroyed, happens to be the personality as the sum total of the physical, mental, emotional, and social characteristics of an individual as well as the organized pattern of behavioral characteristics of that individual. We are talking about personal identity and the essential character of a particular person.
The broken part in corruption issue happens to be the most intimate and vulnerable part of human society, it is the integrity of one’s mental, emotional characteristics, and the very quality of being a person, and his or her existence as a human being.
The concept of corruption has not been dealt with diligently enough in the modern society because tackling this problem entails dealing with much more profound and fundamental issues of integrity of human personality in today’s world. That is a tricky issue, in a world that is engulfed in incessant political and social reforms of epic proportions. The world that we live in has been in constant turmoil of political, social, and cultural upheavals for the past four hundred years. The defining agenda of this ongoing trepidation is unremitting struggle for power on the part of a certain faction of human society occupying the highest ladders of the social order.
That relentless struggle for power involves redesigning the behavioral characteristics of individuals and various social groups. The fundamental principle of power politics is “divide and rule”. The same principle is applied in sociology and social psychology as a way to gain and maintain power over individuals or groups of people. By breaking up larger concentrations of power – social, political, mental, emotional, or psychological - into pieces that individually have less power than the one implementing the strategy, the usurpers use their advantageous position to gain more power and create conditions necessary to forever keep that power.
By breaking up the integrity of personal identity and the essential character of a particular person or large groups of people, the one applying such concept intentionally breaks up existing structures of individual characteristics as an entity thus perpetrating a crime against a particular personality or social group. In essence, such activity constitutes a crime as severe as murder. Undermining or destroying the integrity of human character, as well as that of a society in general, is tantamount to crime against humanity and usually that is how it ends up.
Democracy, despite the current normative democratic theory, which deals with the moral foundations of democracy and democratic institutions, presupposes corruption. That is why the most popular of the definitions of corruption is: “Corruption is the abuse of power by a public official for private gain.” The abuse of public offices for private gain is paradigmatic of corruption in all forms of government, but the so-called Western parliamentary democracy has only highlighted the dubiousness of the idea of equal participation in politics.
Moreover, political process in the Western-style democracies has become possible thanks to the processes, which had been present in Europe before they became carried across to North America, that have nothing to do with integrity of character or intactness of personal identity. The U.S. political system has been predicated by corruption. It is mistaken to think that the U.S. democracy has become corrupt in eventuality. Given the analytical definition of corruption, the formation of the political system in the United States of America has become the result of relatively recent disintegration of physical, mental, emotional, and social characteristics of those individuals, who happened to be at the forefront of the political struggle there about two hundred years ago. The changes that took place in behavioral characteristics of people, who were most actively involved in that nation building process turned out to be characteristic of the future society in general.
There were notable exceptions, of course, the giants, which, like all exceptions, stand out the more obtrusively the more mediocre the dominant landscape is.
This is not the case of moral decadence per se, for there are deeper and more profound underlying factors that have contributed to the economic, social, and political problems of the U.S. and Western Europe of today. It is a systemic problem of the capitalist society in general. The issue of corruption cannot be solved from inside such a society. The patient cannot make himself whole! Because he has never been one. That is why the ideas of incentivizing non-corruption - you corrupt people with non-corruption – arise in the first place. Set up a fund that, if you serve for five years or ten years with distinction for the people, there is money waiting for you that you do not have to take from lobbyists, etc. That would not work that way!
Since corruption is the foundation of the building, which is the U.S., and not recently added upper floors that make the whole building look ugly, the only way to resolve this issue is to move forward according to the laws of nature and social development that have demonstrated their unescapable efficacy for centuries and millennia of human history before. After a corrupt society have evolved into the developed democracy, which allowed some of its most active citizens to accumulate enough wealth and power to forgo any democratic processes to retain that power, it is time for that society to grow into a valid dictatorship!
A valid political system does not have to be a democracy only. Besides, capitalist democracy has more alternatives than just pure socialism, let alone Communism. God forbid! There are options that are more genuine in their approach to solving social problems. One of them is Enlightened Dictatorship, which has been practiced already but not explicitly. Efficiency-wise, the Western democratic capitalism has already come to that stage, when more unambiguous social policy would not undermine, but significantly strengthen, the position of the omnipotent elite.
Saturday, 14 September 2013
War in Syria: Another Stage in Preparations for U.S. Boots on the Ground
The destruction of Syria as an independent nation is imminent. Like Libya, the Arab Syrian Republic is doomed to undergo forced disintegration and subjugation by the hordes of CIA-controlled Islamist groups, including Jabhat al Nusra, Islamic State of Iraq, and al-Sham, that have already occupied large swaths of the territory in the north of Syria. At present, motley crews of jihadists in the south of the country are being increasingly empowered by the renewed influx of arms and money from Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Turkey, Lebanon, Jordan and other allied countries, most notably the U.S. and France. Meanwhile, the Al-Qaeda-affiliated Islamic Fundamentalists from groups like Jabhat al Nusra, the Islamic State of Iraq and al-Sham, which have gained a foothold in the north of Syria, get a tighter grip on power as they have come to dominate local authorities there, including by hastily imposing the so-called Shariah law.
The thing is Al-Qaeda affiliates already have better resources and considerable foreign support to establish their Islamist dictatorship upon local population, even if there is an evident lack of local support. Where they have failed to overpower the local population militarily so far, they have resorted to do so through the distribution of foreign humanitarian aid to assail temporarily any popular uprising against the draconian rules of the Shariah law, immediately introduced as the signature mark of their rule by the Islamists.
There are pockets of more or less intensive Islamist dictatorship present in the Al-Qaeda-occupied areas. The majority of the Syrian population have pushed back against the hardline measures imposed on them by the extremists groups and massive protests by thousands of citizens against the Islamic State of Iraq and al-Sham in areas like Aleppo are taking place every day, now. The so-called Shariah law, forcibly imposed there by the extremists have virtually disrupted whatever normal economic and cultural activity remained in the north of the country. Large portions of Syrian population there, where the Islamists have taken control of local authorities, have been immediately plunged in terror-stricken stupor.
The U.S. aim is to significantly degrade Bashar Assad’s government position in Syria by implementing additional sanctions and tying his hands with U.N.-related resolutions and initiatives, while preparing for a major strike, which would topple the incumbent regime and make room for the Islamists to take over the control of the whole nation. That can be possible if there is no weapons of mass destruction in the possession of Assad’s government and if the significant portion of Assad’s army is already occupied, fighting off the insurgents inside the country.
With large areas in the north already occupied and firmly controlled by the rebels, the major efforts to draw Syrian army into a quagmire of incessant combat fighting will be taken in the south of the country. The U.S., that are actively pushing the Assad’s government into disarmament process, have already admitted that they are going to continue to support the rebels, who are fighting in the south of Syria, both politically and militarily. Even though they have admitted that ongoing fighting in Syria will make it very difficult and virtually impossible to make sure that Syria’s arsenal of chemical weapons is removed or destroyed by the middle of 2014, the U.S. administration have made it a matter of fact that CIA will continue to fuel up the war there.
As Amy E. Smithson, an expert on chemical weapons at the James Martin Center for Nonproliferation Studies said: “This situation has no precedent. They are cramming what would probably be five or six years’ worth of work into a period of several months, and they are undertaking this in an extremely difficult security environment due to the ongoing civil war.”
Thus, what the Americans have proposed as a Russian and American framework agreement on chemical weapons disarmament of the Syrian government is in fact a not accomplishable task. And, given their approach to this “starting point”, which Britain’s Foreign Secretary, William Hague, welcomed, describing it as a “a significant step forward”, the U.S. does not really count on having Syria’s chemical weapons stockpiles destroyed. That is not the true objective!
As if to prove the point, the CIA-backed rebels have made it clear that they are not going to let U.N. inspectors work in Syria. Qassim Saadeddine, a Supreme Military Council commander in northern Syria, told Reuters: “Let the Kerry-Lavrov plan go to hell. We reject it and we will not protect the inspectors or let them enter Syria.” There will be no ceasefire so the inspectors can carry out their work.
As in the case of Iraq war of 2003, having U.N. inspectors on Syrian soil inventory and remove weapons of mass destruction there is just another ploy by the U.S. planners to initiate another phase in their preparations for a final stage of the military campaign in Syria. The U.N. will play its usual role. The framework agreement and the annexes are to be incorporated in a United Nations Security Council resolution that is to be adopted in New York. Not surprisingly, speaking at a joint news conference with his Russian counterpart, Secretary of State John Kerry said if Mr. Assad fails to comply with the agreement, the issue would be referred to the United Nations Security Council, where the violations would be taken up under Chapter 7 of the United Nations Charter, which authorizes punitive action.
Unlike Iraq, Syria has staunch allies, or at least it appears so. Syria’s chemical weapons agreement has been presented to the world as Russia’s initiative, whereas the initial agreement to make Bashar Assad agree to U.N. chemical weapons inspections was reached earlier. During their G20 summit meeting in St. Petersburg, Barack Obama and Russian President Vladimir Putin had again privately discussed certain details regarding the issue of Syria’s chemical weapons framework agreement, long before Mr. Kerry played his part in Europe by mentioning possible handover and destruction of Syria’s chemical stockpiles by Bashar Assad.
Thereby, Russia has played its part in the destruction of Syria already! Without Russian participation, Syrian government perhaps would have not agreed to follow such a brilliant initiative, if it had been presented to Bashar Assad directly by the U.S.
Saddam Hussein’s experience regarding such a cooperation with U.N. inspectors has proven that such initiatives in fact will mean another stage in U.S. preparation for a large-scale ground campaign, which will serve as the final stage in U.S.-led military efforts against Syria. Russia has helped to make it look like a victory for Moscow-backed Bashar Assad. Whereas, in fact, it was just a little trick of U.S.-Russia joint diplomatic maneuvering, which has brought about another step forward in a pre planned sequence of events that precede the final decisive blow to Syrian government.
It will be easier to do so when Syria is mired not only militarily but diplomatically as well, with U.N. inspectors on the ground and U.S. clandestine operations inside Syria providing additional support to the rebels. Given the real chances of Syria’s chemical weapons agreement, U.S military attack on Syria is just a matter of time. It should come as no surprise then that George Little, the Pentagon press secretary, was all too happy to emphasize the possibility of unilateral American military force. “We haven’t made any changes to our force posture to this point,” Mr. Little said. “The credible threat of military force has been key to driving diplomatic progress, and it’s important that the Assad regime lives up to its obligations under the framework agreement.”
The thing is Al-Qaeda affiliates already have better resources and considerable foreign support to establish their Islamist dictatorship upon local population, even if there is an evident lack of local support. Where they have failed to overpower the local population militarily so far, they have resorted to do so through the distribution of foreign humanitarian aid to assail temporarily any popular uprising against the draconian rules of the Shariah law, immediately introduced as the signature mark of their rule by the Islamists.
There are pockets of more or less intensive Islamist dictatorship present in the Al-Qaeda-occupied areas. The majority of the Syrian population have pushed back against the hardline measures imposed on them by the extremists groups and massive protests by thousands of citizens against the Islamic State of Iraq and al-Sham in areas like Aleppo are taking place every day, now. The so-called Shariah law, forcibly imposed there by the extremists have virtually disrupted whatever normal economic and cultural activity remained in the north of the country. Large portions of Syrian population there, where the Islamists have taken control of local authorities, have been immediately plunged in terror-stricken stupor.
The U.S. aim is to significantly degrade Bashar Assad’s government position in Syria by implementing additional sanctions and tying his hands with U.N.-related resolutions and initiatives, while preparing for a major strike, which would topple the incumbent regime and make room for the Islamists to take over the control of the whole nation. That can be possible if there is no weapons of mass destruction in the possession of Assad’s government and if the significant portion of Assad’s army is already occupied, fighting off the insurgents inside the country.
With large areas in the north already occupied and firmly controlled by the rebels, the major efforts to draw Syrian army into a quagmire of incessant combat fighting will be taken in the south of the country. The U.S., that are actively pushing the Assad’s government into disarmament process, have already admitted that they are going to continue to support the rebels, who are fighting in the south of Syria, both politically and militarily. Even though they have admitted that ongoing fighting in Syria will make it very difficult and virtually impossible to make sure that Syria’s arsenal of chemical weapons is removed or destroyed by the middle of 2014, the U.S. administration have made it a matter of fact that CIA will continue to fuel up the war there.
As Amy E. Smithson, an expert on chemical weapons at the James Martin Center for Nonproliferation Studies said: “This situation has no precedent. They are cramming what would probably be five or six years’ worth of work into a period of several months, and they are undertaking this in an extremely difficult security environment due to the ongoing civil war.”
Thus, what the Americans have proposed as a Russian and American framework agreement on chemical weapons disarmament of the Syrian government is in fact a not accomplishable task. And, given their approach to this “starting point”, which Britain’s Foreign Secretary, William Hague, welcomed, describing it as a “a significant step forward”, the U.S. does not really count on having Syria’s chemical weapons stockpiles destroyed. That is not the true objective!
As if to prove the point, the CIA-backed rebels have made it clear that they are not going to let U.N. inspectors work in Syria. Qassim Saadeddine, a Supreme Military Council commander in northern Syria, told Reuters: “Let the Kerry-Lavrov plan go to hell. We reject it and we will not protect the inspectors or let them enter Syria.” There will be no ceasefire so the inspectors can carry out their work.
As in the case of Iraq war of 2003, having U.N. inspectors on Syrian soil inventory and remove weapons of mass destruction there is just another ploy by the U.S. planners to initiate another phase in their preparations for a final stage of the military campaign in Syria. The U.N. will play its usual role. The framework agreement and the annexes are to be incorporated in a United Nations Security Council resolution that is to be adopted in New York. Not surprisingly, speaking at a joint news conference with his Russian counterpart, Secretary of State John Kerry said if Mr. Assad fails to comply with the agreement, the issue would be referred to the United Nations Security Council, where the violations would be taken up under Chapter 7 of the United Nations Charter, which authorizes punitive action.
Unlike Iraq, Syria has staunch allies, or at least it appears so. Syria’s chemical weapons agreement has been presented to the world as Russia’s initiative, whereas the initial agreement to make Bashar Assad agree to U.N. chemical weapons inspections was reached earlier. During their G20 summit meeting in St. Petersburg, Barack Obama and Russian President Vladimir Putin had again privately discussed certain details regarding the issue of Syria’s chemical weapons framework agreement, long before Mr. Kerry played his part in Europe by mentioning possible handover and destruction of Syria’s chemical stockpiles by Bashar Assad.
Thereby, Russia has played its part in the destruction of Syria already! Without Russian participation, Syrian government perhaps would have not agreed to follow such a brilliant initiative, if it had been presented to Bashar Assad directly by the U.S.
Saddam Hussein’s experience regarding such a cooperation with U.N. inspectors has proven that such initiatives in fact will mean another stage in U.S. preparation for a large-scale ground campaign, which will serve as the final stage in U.S.-led military efforts against Syria. Russia has helped to make it look like a victory for Moscow-backed Bashar Assad. Whereas, in fact, it was just a little trick of U.S.-Russia joint diplomatic maneuvering, which has brought about another step forward in a pre planned sequence of events that precede the final decisive blow to Syrian government.
It will be easier to do so when Syria is mired not only militarily but diplomatically as well, with U.N. inspectors on the ground and U.S. clandestine operations inside Syria providing additional support to the rebels. Given the real chances of Syria’s chemical weapons agreement, U.S military attack on Syria is just a matter of time. It should come as no surprise then that George Little, the Pentagon press secretary, was all too happy to emphasize the possibility of unilateral American military force. “We haven’t made any changes to our force posture to this point,” Mr. Little said. “The credible threat of military force has been key to driving diplomatic progress, and it’s important that the Assad regime lives up to its obligations under the framework agreement.”
Thursday, 12 September 2013
Syria Is Poised to Repeat the Fate of Iraq
The current situation around Syria eerily resembles the situation Iraq ended up in shortly before the war of 2003. The first Gulf war ended on 28 February 1991 with a cease-fire negotiated between the UN Coalition and Iraq. In October 1998, removing the Hussein regime became official U.S. foreign policy with enactment of the Iraq Liberation Act, which followed the expulsion of UN weapons inspectors the preceding August (after some had been accused of spying for the U.S.). The Iraq Liberation Act provided $97 million for Iraqi "democratic opposition organizations" to "establish a program to support a transition to democracy in Iraq."
However, it would take a full-scale military ground operation to remove Saddam Hussein from power. Moreover, the plans included protracted stay in Iraq as well as a long going campaign against a number of other countries in the Middle East, South Africa, and Central Asia. That effectively meant a prolonged military campaign, or a series of military campaigns, against several Arab nations. Such a drastic development in American foreign policy required a special pushing factor to justify the U.S. going into war against half of the Arab World. Such a Pearl Harbor event took place on 11 September 2001.
Shortly after 11 September 2001 (on 20 September), President Bush addressed a joint session of Congress and announced his new "War on Terror". The subsequent diplomatic and military campaign against Iraq was unleashed later on within the framework of the global war on terror. Political preparations for the war began during the period of weapons inspections in Iraq over the winter of 2002–2003, carried out by a team of inspectors led by Hans Blix with the authority of United Nations Security Council Resolution 1441.
Resolution 1441 gave Iraq "a final opportunity to comply with its disarmament obligations" and set up inspections by the United Nations Monitoring, Verification and Inspection Commission (UNMOVIC) and the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA). Hussein accepted the resolution on 13 November 2001 and inspectors returned to Iraq under the direction of UNMOVIC chairman Hans Blix and IAEA Director General Mohamed ElBaradei.
By February 2003, the IAEA "found no evidence or plausible indication of the revival of a nuclear weapons program in Iraq". UNMOVIC "did not find evidence of the continuation or resumption of programs of weapons of mass destruction" or significant quantities of proscribed items. Shortly before the invasion, which lasted from 19 March 2003 to 1 May 2003 and signaled the start of the conflict that later came to be known as the Iraq War, UNMOVIC stated that it would take "months" to verify Iraqi compliance with resolution 1441.
There was also the so-called "second resolution", which was drafted and presented to the UN Security Council. It was a tough resolution, calling for immediate compliance with the previous resolutions requiring disarmament, and setting a 10-day deadline for compliance. It was an unrealistic ultimatum designed to provide the U.S. with a cause for war, and it met considerable opposition in the UN Security Council, with opponents including France, China, and Germany.
After a period of “intense diplomacy”, President Bush met with his British, Spanish and Portuguese counterparts, Prime Minister Tony Blair, Prime Minister José María Aznar and Prime Minister José Manuel Barroso in the Azores, Portugal on March 15 and 16 2003. They declared that "diplomacy had failed" and announced the intention to drop the proposed resolution. Lacking the "second resolution", the U.S. announced its intention to attack Iraq regardless if Saddam Hussein did not abdicate.
In the meantime, U.S. was busy preparing for a large-scale ground operation in Iraq. Besides mundane intelligence gathering in Iraq during the inspections by UNMOVIC and IAEA, the Central Intelligence Agency's Special Activities Division (SAD) teams, consisting of the 2/504 PIR and the 7th special forces group carried out clandestine operations inside the country. They happened to be the first U.S. forces to enter Iraq, in July 2002, before the main invasion.
The CIA's secret mission, codenamed “Operation Hotel California”, was carried out inside Iraq by a group of eight Paramilitary Operations Officers from SAD and the Army's 10th Special Forces Group. On 10 July 2002, they crossed the Harburr River from Turkey into Kurdistan. Once on the ground, they linked with the local Kurdish Resistance and prepared for the subsequent arrival of U.S. Army Special Forces. That joint team (called the Northern Iraq Liaison Element (NILE)) had taken control of the territory previously occupied by local militia groups and secured the area before the main invasion took place. The battle resulted in the capture of a chemical weapons facility at Sargat. Sargat was the only facility of its type discovered in the Iraq war.
Thus, any U.S. “political” and “diplomatic” initiatives regarding the “inspections”, “disarmament”, and “search” of weapons of mass destruction in Iraq prior to the war turned out to be nothing but another stage in preparations for the military attack by the U.S. at the time. The current conflict in Syria has already entered its “diplomatic” phase, leading to the imminent “inspections” and “search” for the chemical weapons in Syria, amid impatient calls to Bashar Al-Assad for “disarmament” and “compliance”.
The U.N. has already stated that it would take months to inventory and stockpile the caches of Syrian chemical weapons, while some experts have expressed doubts that it would be virtually impossible to carry out such an operation during ongoing civil war. Meanwhile, the U.S. has announced that it has begun supplying high tech military equipment, weaponry and ammunitions to the Syrian opposition forces, fighting inside Syria.
The White House displays dogged determination to topple Syrian government and allow Syrian opposition forces, largely made up of CIA-controlled groups of Islamic fundamentalists, take control of the country. It is just a matter of time before U.S. president Barack Obama and his warmongering Secretary of State John Kerry announced that “diplomacy has failed” and set Bashar Al-Assad an unrealistic ultimatum to “comply” or abdicate. Such scenario is most realistic, as new shipments of the above-mentioned weaponry have already been delivered to Al-Qaeda fighters inside Syria.
It means that the fighting in Syria will continue as U.N. inspectors are trying to inventory and destroy Syrian chemical weapons. That arouses a lot questions concerning the issues of security and working conditions of the U.N. inspectors. Possible disruptions in the disarmament process caused by the opposition, whose leaders have already publicly rejected Russia’s proposal to hand over Syrian chemical weapons, might lead to failure to meet any deadlines with this respect and spell increasingly tougher measures against Syrian government. Meanwhile, Syrian opposition would only win from any delays in the diplomatic process.
Secretary of State John Kerry has stated yesterday that the turnover of weapons must be complete, verifiable and timely - “and finally, there ought to consequences if it doesn't take place.” It would be difficult for Syria to turn over its chemical arsenals “in strict compliance with the rules that are established by the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons”, as promised by Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov. Especially so, if the U.S. will continue to treat Syria as an exceptional case and require that Syria should face tougher standards than other countries.
If Syrian opposition continues to receive military and logistical support from the U.S., the conditions on the ground will be almost impossible to make any diplomacy work. Most certainly Islamic fighters on the ground will do everything possible to disrupt Russian plans. Kerry, who met earlier Thursday with Lakhdar Brahimi, the U.N.-Arab League envoy for Syria, has reiterated, “President Obama has been clear that should diplomacy fail, force might be necessary to deter and degrade Assad's capacity to deliver these weapons,” he said. “It won't get rid of them, but it could change his willingness to use them.”
Meanwhile, White House National Security Council spokeswoman Bernadette Meehan said the administration could not “detail every single type of support that we are providing to the opposition or discuss timelines for delivery, but it's important to note that both the political and the military opposition are and will be receiving this assistance.”
There is already a sign of the Syrian conflict entering another stage of military, rather than diplomatic, preparations on the part of the U.S. for a larger ground attack against Syria. Current and former U.S. intelligence officials said the CIA has arranged for the Syrian opposition forces to receive additional anti-tank weaponry such as rocket-propelled grenades through a third party, presumably one of the Gulf countries that have been arming the Arab mercenaries and numerous Al-Qaeda-affiliated combatants in Syria.
However, it would take a full-scale military ground operation to remove Saddam Hussein from power. Moreover, the plans included protracted stay in Iraq as well as a long going campaign against a number of other countries in the Middle East, South Africa, and Central Asia. That effectively meant a prolonged military campaign, or a series of military campaigns, against several Arab nations. Such a drastic development in American foreign policy required a special pushing factor to justify the U.S. going into war against half of the Arab World. Such a Pearl Harbor event took place on 11 September 2001.
Shortly after 11 September 2001 (on 20 September), President Bush addressed a joint session of Congress and announced his new "War on Terror". The subsequent diplomatic and military campaign against Iraq was unleashed later on within the framework of the global war on terror. Political preparations for the war began during the period of weapons inspections in Iraq over the winter of 2002–2003, carried out by a team of inspectors led by Hans Blix with the authority of United Nations Security Council Resolution 1441.
Resolution 1441 gave Iraq "a final opportunity to comply with its disarmament obligations" and set up inspections by the United Nations Monitoring, Verification and Inspection Commission (UNMOVIC) and the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA). Hussein accepted the resolution on 13 November 2001 and inspectors returned to Iraq under the direction of UNMOVIC chairman Hans Blix and IAEA Director General Mohamed ElBaradei.
By February 2003, the IAEA "found no evidence or plausible indication of the revival of a nuclear weapons program in Iraq". UNMOVIC "did not find evidence of the continuation or resumption of programs of weapons of mass destruction" or significant quantities of proscribed items. Shortly before the invasion, which lasted from 19 March 2003 to 1 May 2003 and signaled the start of the conflict that later came to be known as the Iraq War, UNMOVIC stated that it would take "months" to verify Iraqi compliance with resolution 1441.
There was also the so-called "second resolution", which was drafted and presented to the UN Security Council. It was a tough resolution, calling for immediate compliance with the previous resolutions requiring disarmament, and setting a 10-day deadline for compliance. It was an unrealistic ultimatum designed to provide the U.S. with a cause for war, and it met considerable opposition in the UN Security Council, with opponents including France, China, and Germany.
After a period of “intense diplomacy”, President Bush met with his British, Spanish and Portuguese counterparts, Prime Minister Tony Blair, Prime Minister José María Aznar and Prime Minister José Manuel Barroso in the Azores, Portugal on March 15 and 16 2003. They declared that "diplomacy had failed" and announced the intention to drop the proposed resolution. Lacking the "second resolution", the U.S. announced its intention to attack Iraq regardless if Saddam Hussein did not abdicate.
In the meantime, U.S. was busy preparing for a large-scale ground operation in Iraq. Besides mundane intelligence gathering in Iraq during the inspections by UNMOVIC and IAEA, the Central Intelligence Agency's Special Activities Division (SAD) teams, consisting of the 2/504 PIR and the 7th special forces group carried out clandestine operations inside the country. They happened to be the first U.S. forces to enter Iraq, in July 2002, before the main invasion.
The CIA's secret mission, codenamed “Operation Hotel California”, was carried out inside Iraq by a group of eight Paramilitary Operations Officers from SAD and the Army's 10th Special Forces Group. On 10 July 2002, they crossed the Harburr River from Turkey into Kurdistan. Once on the ground, they linked with the local Kurdish Resistance and prepared for the subsequent arrival of U.S. Army Special Forces. That joint team (called the Northern Iraq Liaison Element (NILE)) had taken control of the territory previously occupied by local militia groups and secured the area before the main invasion took place. The battle resulted in the capture of a chemical weapons facility at Sargat. Sargat was the only facility of its type discovered in the Iraq war.
Thus, any U.S. “political” and “diplomatic” initiatives regarding the “inspections”, “disarmament”, and “search” of weapons of mass destruction in Iraq prior to the war turned out to be nothing but another stage in preparations for the military attack by the U.S. at the time. The current conflict in Syria has already entered its “diplomatic” phase, leading to the imminent “inspections” and “search” for the chemical weapons in Syria, amid impatient calls to Bashar Al-Assad for “disarmament” and “compliance”.
The U.N. has already stated that it would take months to inventory and stockpile the caches of Syrian chemical weapons, while some experts have expressed doubts that it would be virtually impossible to carry out such an operation during ongoing civil war. Meanwhile, the U.S. has announced that it has begun supplying high tech military equipment, weaponry and ammunitions to the Syrian opposition forces, fighting inside Syria.
The White House displays dogged determination to topple Syrian government and allow Syrian opposition forces, largely made up of CIA-controlled groups of Islamic fundamentalists, take control of the country. It is just a matter of time before U.S. president Barack Obama and his warmongering Secretary of State John Kerry announced that “diplomacy has failed” and set Bashar Al-Assad an unrealistic ultimatum to “comply” or abdicate. Such scenario is most realistic, as new shipments of the above-mentioned weaponry have already been delivered to Al-Qaeda fighters inside Syria.
It means that the fighting in Syria will continue as U.N. inspectors are trying to inventory and destroy Syrian chemical weapons. That arouses a lot questions concerning the issues of security and working conditions of the U.N. inspectors. Possible disruptions in the disarmament process caused by the opposition, whose leaders have already publicly rejected Russia’s proposal to hand over Syrian chemical weapons, might lead to failure to meet any deadlines with this respect and spell increasingly tougher measures against Syrian government. Meanwhile, Syrian opposition would only win from any delays in the diplomatic process.
Secretary of State John Kerry has stated yesterday that the turnover of weapons must be complete, verifiable and timely - “and finally, there ought to consequences if it doesn't take place.” It would be difficult for Syria to turn over its chemical arsenals “in strict compliance with the rules that are established by the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons”, as promised by Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov. Especially so, if the U.S. will continue to treat Syria as an exceptional case and require that Syria should face tougher standards than other countries.
If Syrian opposition continues to receive military and logistical support from the U.S., the conditions on the ground will be almost impossible to make any diplomacy work. Most certainly Islamic fighters on the ground will do everything possible to disrupt Russian plans. Kerry, who met earlier Thursday with Lakhdar Brahimi, the U.N.-Arab League envoy for Syria, has reiterated, “President Obama has been clear that should diplomacy fail, force might be necessary to deter and degrade Assad's capacity to deliver these weapons,” he said. “It won't get rid of them, but it could change his willingness to use them.”
Meanwhile, White House National Security Council spokeswoman Bernadette Meehan said the administration could not “detail every single type of support that we are providing to the opposition or discuss timelines for delivery, but it's important to note that both the political and the military opposition are and will be receiving this assistance.”
There is already a sign of the Syrian conflict entering another stage of military, rather than diplomatic, preparations on the part of the U.S. for a larger ground attack against Syria. Current and former U.S. intelligence officials said the CIA has arranged for the Syrian opposition forces to receive additional anti-tank weaponry such as rocket-propelled grenades through a third party, presumably one of the Gulf countries that have been arming the Arab mercenaries and numerous Al-Qaeda-affiliated combatants in Syria.
Wednesday, 11 September 2013
“Just the Tip”: Securing the Zionist “Reich” in the Fertile Crescent
Syria-related conflict has drawn the naval fleets of the two most powerful nations in the world into the Mediterranean where Russian and U.S. warships and submarines are prowling waters off the Syrian coast poised to start action in case of a military scenario, which might easily turn into another major regional conflict.
The world is on the brink of another big war! Meanwhile, the U.S. mainstream media is busy pushing U.S. president Barack Obama to unleash missile strikes against Syrian defenses under a false pretext of retaliating the alleged use of chemical weapons by the Syrian forces. It becomes increasingly obvious that Syria did not use chemical weapons against the predominantly foreign led groups of Islamic extremists and mercenaries, who had infiltrated into Syria from Iraq, Turkey, Lebanon, Israel, and Jordan, and are fighting against the government forces in Syria. Neither did the Syrian government use those weapons against its own citizens, including children. However, the more obvious it gets the more the Western media outlets become hysterical in their advocacy of a unilateral military strike against Syria by the United States and its allies.
The avid lack of rationality on the part of certain U.S. governmental officials borders on outright cynicism and devil-like possession when they even begin to rationalize on the possible use of force against Syria. They act like drones, programed to destroy their target regardless, refusing to listen to any arguments, when it comes to possibly attacking Syria. Those few leading politicians, who have started the White House vocal campaign against independent Syrian Arab Republic, display no common sense and no regard for the intrinsic national interests of the American people. They want war with Syria, regardless the U.S. national interests, the facts on the ground, or rational reasoning!
Why is that fanatical and even paranormal obsession with destroying Syria that we observe in the U.S. and France these days? That strange obsession on the part of a number of U.S. politicians with shredding the Middle East, Central Asia, and North Africa into a handful of smaller and easily governable territories, which would be allowed no semblance of their own independent national policies or a chance to national unity, has been noticed long before the onset of the current Syrian conflict.
The answer is Zionism. Zionists are one of the major factors that play an important role in shaping the West’s policies towards the Middle East today. The Fertile Crescent area has long been an arena of historic battles between rivaling regional superpowers, including the four major ancient kingdoms that had striven for world dominance for thousands of years before. The main culprits are Assyria, Babylonia, Persia, and Israel.
The Assyria-Babylonian and Persian kingdoms had been generally more successful in their strife for dominance than Israel, which first had permanently disintegrated into two separate kingdoms and later was captured and annexed by successive imperial rulers in the region. Initially as province of Assyria-Babylonian kingdoms and later on as a province of Persian Empire, the remnants of once ambitious Kingdom of Israel ended up as a province (Judea) of the Roman Empire until it was finally dissolved and its population scattered all around the Mediterranean and the Middle East, and Europe.
The latest empire ruling the Middle East was the Ottoman Empire, which held Syria as one of its provinces until it was dissolved in the aftermath of the WWI by the British Empire. By that time, Israel as a nation had long been nonexistent but certain circles within the British Empire and the Unites States of America, as well as elsewhere in Europe, were eager to reinstate Israel as a geostrategic entity in the region. Combined with the corporate interests of the U.K., France, and the U.S., the Zionists have managed to pull through their project, thanks in great part to the WWII.
The two wars, WWI and WWII, were largely guided by the British imperial interests in the region as well as the world over and aimed at destroying their three major competitors, namely, the U.S., Germany, and Russia. The German aspirations to create its own Realm (Reich) were thwarted effectively in WWI. After the WWII, Germany was effectively put under the U.S. and U.K. control. The U.S. was effectively put under British control through the Federal Reserve banking system back in 1913. Russia, even after the political and social upheavals of the WWI, Revolution of 1917, and WWII, was remaining the only power capable of becoming a fully-fledged rival of the Brits in other parts of the world including the Middle East. The Soviet Union and Great Britain saw Israel as a way to project their own policies in the Middle East all along. However, eventually Israel has become a solid ally of the U.S. in the region and an increasingly dominant geopolitical player.
Zionists still view Israel as a potential regional superpower, the Middle East as their natural realm of influence, and look upon former regional empires, i.e. Egypt, Syria, Iraq, and Iran, as their major rivals. The state of Israel as a Zionist idea became possible because of confluence of a number of factors. The interests of the American nationalists, the British imperialists, and European Zionists were combined together to bring forward out of nowhere the Israeli nation shortly after the end of the WWII. Potential threat from the Soviet Union both to the U.S. national interests and to the British financial-corporate global aspirations made Zionist agenda viable at that time. It guaranteed that the position of Israel in the Middle East would be firmly secured by financial support from the U.K. and other European nations on one hand and by the U.S. military and economic assistance, on the other.
In today’s world, Israel is getting increasingly isolated. The absence of the Soviet threat, among other things, has rendered Zionist project redundant from the point of interests of the U.S. nationalists and British and European corporate circles. That is why Israel is trying to use whatever clout it still has in the U.S. and Europe to bring about changes that would secure Israel’s position in the Middle East for the remainder of the 21st century. So far, Israel has had a unique opportunity to use the military might of the U.S. and financial support of the U.K. to redefine the Middle East and reshape ones again the map of the greater Fertile Crescent so that no other nation state would be able to pursue its imperial ambitions in the region except Israel.
The 20th century geopolitical structure of global politics has retained its momentum like a gigantic military and political machine, which had initially been constructed to oppose and wage war on the Soviet Union. In the absence of the latter, Israel employed its influence in the U.S. and Europe to make final and decisive use of that global political and military machine to procure Israel’s regional dominance at the expense of American and European taxpayers. Perhaps, the starting point of the active phase of the Israeli project to create a “New Middle East” falls on September 11, 2001. Allied with the rogue elements within the U.S. government, Zionists have managed to pull through a Perl Harbor event, which had been designed to draw America into another World War to propel the interests of the Zionists in the Middle East in exchange for a number of bonuses for those most closely participating in that operation on the American side.
Because of the 9/11, under the guise of global war on terror Zionists in the U.S. and U.K. initiated a series of events, which would make it look legal and necessary for the major NATO member-states to deploy their armed forces to nations of the Greater Middle East, occupying the area of the Fertile Crescent in its maximum extension. The main objective of this so-called war on terror is to subdivide all regional powers and nation-states there into separate smaller tribal territories and put them under control of the CIA-sponsored followers of the most extreme fundamentalist doctrine of Islam thus putting a cap on any further cultural, political, and technological development of those tribes.
By turning every single nation in the region into a patchwork of tribal territories, controlled by local Islamic extremists, competing for humanitarian aid, mining contracts, and financial support from their foreign overlords, Israel hopes to solidify its own position as the sole superpower in the so-called New Middle East. Such novel geopolitical situation in the region is supposed to secure the position of Zionists, hoping to extend their influence and control all over the region effectively making Israel a territorial superpower on par with Russia and China. The Greater Middle East Project is nothing less than a Zionist strategy of turning Israel into a newly empowered geopolitical player with its own global imperial ambitions that could rival those of the U.K., U.S., Russia, and China.
Outdated Rationality
Do you remember the most standing out false-flag attacks by the U.S. warmongers? The Gulf of Tonkin incident, which had led to the Vietnam War, the Kuwaiti incubators, which had been used as an excuse to go into the first Gulf War, the Racak massacre and the war in Kosovo, Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction and the second Gulf War and, most recently, the notorious threats to Benghazi and the Libyan war? The recent chemical weapons attacks in Syria are just another instance of the U.S. government's political and U.S. intelligence officers' operational rationality in their approach to solving problems in the Middle East!
The alleged gassing of civilians in Ghouta, Syria is not just another false-flag attack performed by the U.S. special operations forces in the country aimed at creating a pretext to start the bombing of Syria. It is far more ghastly crime against humanity by the U.S. Obama regime, which has all but admitted that the fascist-minded politicians in Washington are bent on using the Islamist fighters’ death squads as military vanguard of ground operation against the independent Syrian Arab Republic.
The Obama regime, largely controlled by a bunch of delusional psychopaths of political and military leaders, stuck in the 18-th century colonial mindset, intends to use military might to subjugate the Middle Eastern region under the false pretext of humanitarian intervention. They intend to destroy the republic of Syria by the hands of the death squads, made up of jihadists, most of whom have been brought to Syrian from neighboring countries like Iraq, Turkey, Jordan, Afghanistan, Saudi Arabia, and Qatar. They want to turn independent nation of Syria into a 19-th century colonial territory dominated by rivalries and incessant clashes between local tribal entities, under immediate control of the terrorist groups like Al-Qaeda.
The final result could be an increasingly destabilized region with potential threat to peace and stability not only in the rest of the Middle East and Central Asia but in all the Mediterranean and Southern Europe as well, as Turkey and other European nation would become involved in the ongoing conflict. Russia, Iran, and China would step up their measures to make sure the stability in the region is restored. Any military option including missile strikes by the U.S. against Syria would only aggravate the situation there leading to a more serious response from Syria’s allies.
Warmongering rhetoric by the Obama and his government members and their irresponsible accusations need to be stopped as they lead only to further destabilizing the situation in the Middle East as a whole. Their claims that Syrian government troops used chemical weapons are ungrounded, utterly cynical, and completely baseless. According to numerous reliable sources, backed by real evidence, the wide distribution of satellite channel images of victims allowed Alawite families near Latakia to recognize their children who had been abducted two weeks prior by the "rebels." This identification was long in coming because there are few survivors of the massacre by the allies of the United States, the United Kingdom and France in loyalist villages where more than a thousand bodies of civilians were discovered in mass graves.
The jihadist rebels, mostly of non-Syrian origin, who had infiltrated into Syria from neighboring countries, are killing the Syrian civilians, including children. The so called rebels have been supported and armed by the Americans, British and French intelligence agencies, which have recently agreed that the victims were killed by nerve gas that could be sarin or contain sarin. Though it is clear that the children died of chemical poisoning, it is not at all certain that they were gassed. The videos show that the dying produce a white foam while sarin causes yellow emissions.
Some of the revelations of the U.S., British and French services are corroborated by a telephone interception. According to this narrative, a senior official of Syrian defense would have made a panicked call to the head of the chemical gases unit about the massacre. However, the interception was not made by the Americans, British or French, but was provided by Unit 8200 of the Israeli Mossad.
Israel plays an important role in this unfolding conflict, which is aimed at restoring the colonial preferences of France and the U.S. on Syria, which has become independent republic after the WWII. Both the United States and France are busy preparing to bomb Syria, although such an action corresponds to no officially stated strategic objective for either state. Russia, Iran, and China, as well as the other members of the Axis of Resistance are preparing for an adequate response.
The blinding pursuit of outdated political aims by military means embraced by the U.S. and France in their fit of the 19-th century-like colonialism might easily transform their ill predicated aggression against a sovereign nation into a regional war leading all the way to the Third, (and final?) World War. Whatever happens next, if power blinded Obama engages in another war in the Middle East, the United States will have to deal with a long and wide-ranging conflict like nothing they’ve experienced since Vietnam.
The alleged gassing of civilians in Ghouta, Syria is not just another false-flag attack performed by the U.S. special operations forces in the country aimed at creating a pretext to start the bombing of Syria. It is far more ghastly crime against humanity by the U.S. Obama regime, which has all but admitted that the fascist-minded politicians in Washington are bent on using the Islamist fighters’ death squads as military vanguard of ground operation against the independent Syrian Arab Republic.
The Obama regime, largely controlled by a bunch of delusional psychopaths of political and military leaders, stuck in the 18-th century colonial mindset, intends to use military might to subjugate the Middle Eastern region under the false pretext of humanitarian intervention. They intend to destroy the republic of Syria by the hands of the death squads, made up of jihadists, most of whom have been brought to Syrian from neighboring countries like Iraq, Turkey, Jordan, Afghanistan, Saudi Arabia, and Qatar. They want to turn independent nation of Syria into a 19-th century colonial territory dominated by rivalries and incessant clashes between local tribal entities, under immediate control of the terrorist groups like Al-Qaeda.
The final result could be an increasingly destabilized region with potential threat to peace and stability not only in the rest of the Middle East and Central Asia but in all the Mediterranean and Southern Europe as well, as Turkey and other European nation would become involved in the ongoing conflict. Russia, Iran, and China would step up their measures to make sure the stability in the region is restored. Any military option including missile strikes by the U.S. against Syria would only aggravate the situation there leading to a more serious response from Syria’s allies.
Warmongering rhetoric by the Obama and his government members and their irresponsible accusations need to be stopped as they lead only to further destabilizing the situation in the Middle East as a whole. Their claims that Syrian government troops used chemical weapons are ungrounded, utterly cynical, and completely baseless. According to numerous reliable sources, backed by real evidence, the wide distribution of satellite channel images of victims allowed Alawite families near Latakia to recognize their children who had been abducted two weeks prior by the "rebels." This identification was long in coming because there are few survivors of the massacre by the allies of the United States, the United Kingdom and France in loyalist villages where more than a thousand bodies of civilians were discovered in mass graves.
The jihadist rebels, mostly of non-Syrian origin, who had infiltrated into Syria from neighboring countries, are killing the Syrian civilians, including children. The so called rebels have been supported and armed by the Americans, British and French intelligence agencies, which have recently agreed that the victims were killed by nerve gas that could be sarin or contain sarin. Though it is clear that the children died of chemical poisoning, it is not at all certain that they were gassed. The videos show that the dying produce a white foam while sarin causes yellow emissions.
Some of the revelations of the U.S., British and French services are corroborated by a telephone interception. According to this narrative, a senior official of Syrian defense would have made a panicked call to the head of the chemical gases unit about the massacre. However, the interception was not made by the Americans, British or French, but was provided by Unit 8200 of the Israeli Mossad.
Israel plays an important role in this unfolding conflict, which is aimed at restoring the colonial preferences of France and the U.S. on Syria, which has become independent republic after the WWII. Both the United States and France are busy preparing to bomb Syria, although such an action corresponds to no officially stated strategic objective for either state. Russia, Iran, and China, as well as the other members of the Axis of Resistance are preparing for an adequate response.
The blinding pursuit of outdated political aims by military means embraced by the U.S. and France in their fit of the 19-th century-like colonialism might easily transform their ill predicated aggression against a sovereign nation into a regional war leading all the way to the Third, (and final?) World War. Whatever happens next, if power blinded Obama engages in another war in the Middle East, the United States will have to deal with a long and wide-ranging conflict like nothing they’ve experienced since Vietnam.
Thursday, 5 September 2013
The Syrian Mandate
Syrian Arab Republic, a country in Western Asia bordering Lebanon and the Mediterranean Sea to the West, Turkey to the north, Iraq to the east, Jordan to the south, and Israel to the southwest, is headed by its President Bashar al-Assad. The President of Syria is historically a leader attached to the independence of his own country, even at the cost of his life if necessary.
The legitimacy of one’s leadership compels any leader to seek justice in the foundations of his or her political base. Whether it is Hereditary, i.e. Agnatic (or semi-Salic), or Matrilineal, or Lateral, any formalized order of succession in the sequence of those entitled to hold a high office such as head of state must be officially recognized, and that internationally.
Syria is a unitary republic. As a unitary state it is governed as one single unit, with its central government being a supreme political organ. The great majority of states in the world have a unitary system of government. The executive branch of the government in Syria consists of the president, two vice presidents, the prime minister, and the Council of Ministers (cabinet). Syrian citizens elect the head of state in Syria in direct election. The constitution requires the president to be a Muslim but does not make Islam the state religion.
As a republic, Syria constitutes a sovereign state and an independent nation of peoples, invested with their constitutional rights, including the right to self-protection as in case of a foreign aggression or war. Although political power in Syria as a unitary state may be delegated through devolution to local governments by statutes, the central government remains supreme. It may abrogate the acts of devolved governments or curtail their powers.
The legitimacy of the incumbent President of Syrian Arab Republic is absolutely unquestionable. His current policies are directed at preventing the country from forceful devolution by the Al-Qaeda-affiliated internal paramilitary groups of insurgents, who act in violation of the constitution carrying out atrocities against their own fellow citizens. Moreover, the insurgents are acting in tight consort with foreign troops of various terrorist organizations and military units that act as foreign invaders on Syrian soil.
Those groups of poorly trained militants are equipped and supported by a number of foreign governments that pursue the goal of destroying Syrian Republic. The so-called idea of “regime change” is a gimmick, which is employed to misguide the misinformed global community and to dress a classic foreign-aided coup in a better-looking political attire. Unfortunately, on the ground it looks just as ugly as any civil war does, especially when foreign invaders support local illegitimate paramilitary groups.
False-flag provocations and ungrounded accusations of use of weapons of mass destruction against Syrian government cannot make foreign attacks look legitimate. There is no justification for supporting the ongoing conflict in Syria, now. The legitimacy of the Syrian government can not be questioned because it has the mandate of the Syrian people, who fight alongside their political and military leaders to preserve peace and stability in the Syrian Republic.
Perhaps in a fit of colonialism, the president of the United States, in violation of the will of the majority of the Americans, intends to unilaterally carry out a missile attack on Syria. That would not be the first time when Barack Obama betrays his fellow citizens and disregards their will, as well as their constitutional rights. Perhaps, he intends to project his lawless approach upon the Syrian people, too, by usurping the mandate of power they have given to their own government. However, that would be an act in clear violation of international law.
The Syrian Arab Republic is secure behind the mandate of power, given to its government and President Bashar al-Assad by the people of Syria.
The Syrian Arab Republic has allies to help its people stand up against any arbitrary, opportunistic attempts on the part of misguided and disoriented Barack Obama to violate their constitutional rights the way he has been violating the rights of his own people.
Tuesday, 3 September 2013
Так было или нет?
Как-то Иисус
Христос рассказал своим ученикам притчу о «блудном сыне» (Лука глава 15, стих
11 – 32), желая показать им силу Божьей милости, чтобы они поняли, как Бог
любит своих детей и готов простить им их предательство по отношению к Себе,
если те искренне покаются в содеянном и вернутся к своему Отцу в отчий дом,
чтобы быть с Ним.
С тех пор эта
притча стала одной из наиболее популярных в христианских народах. В России, как
и в других странах, образ «блудного сына» стал воплощением идеи о пресловутых
«ошибках молодости», которые молодые люди совершают по глупости или по причине
страстной увлечённости, свойственных юному возрасту. Впрочем, и в более зрелом
возрасте люди бывает уклоняются от правильного пути.
Помимо обычной
расточительности и соблазна жить «на широкую ногу», существует другой грех,
наиболее популярный. Это – прелюбодеяние. Притча о «блудном сыне» получила
особую известность, прежде всего, потому что многие христиане, хотя и не могли
всерьёз надеяться на то, чтобы именоваться примерными, не говоря уже о том,
чтобы святыми, но в сердце своём, как язычники, мыслями своими осуждали себя за
этот грех и, будучи в той или иной степени уверенными в неизбежности Судного
дня, втайне уповали на милость Божию, что простит Господь им их прегрешения, из
коих блуд, то есть прелюбодеяние, которое почиталось у многих как зло для
человека неизбежное, было одним из самых популярных.
Иисус Христос
вкладывал многозначный смысл в свои притчи. Почти ни одна из его поучительных
историй, которые Иисус Христос рассказывал своим ученикам, не имела целью
этическое воспитание слушателей. Христос призывал воспринимать его притчи не
буквально, а искать в них более глубокий смысл, подчас скрытый от
неподготовленного слушателя и требующий дополнительных разъяснений со стороны
учителя. Многие образы, использовавшиеся Иисусом в притчах, относятся к более
масштабным духовным, в том числе историческим, проблемам, событиям и явлениям.
Иисус Христос
мыслил контекстно, учитывая социальную, политическую, культурную,
демографическую обстановку своей эпохи и выстраивал свою деятельность таким
образом, чтобы его слова и поступки доносили до слушателей смысл его послания в
соответствии с запросами времени. Именно поэтому его притчи актуальны сегодня
так же, как две тысячи лет назад. Но для правильного восприятия смысла того,
что Иисус Христос хочет сказать нам сегодня, требуется контекстный подход.
Прежде всего,
необходимо определиться с символами. В притче о «блудном сыне» фигурируют три
основных персонажа: отец, старший сын и младший сын. Отец – это Бог (Иегова),
старший сын – это Иудея (Южное царство), а младший - Северное Израильское
царство. Согласно притче, младший сын «пошёл в дальнюю сторону и там расточил
имение своё, живя распутно». Когда он всё потратил и был на грани окончательной
погибели, то одумался и вернулся домой к отцу, но брат его, всё это время
остававшийся рядом с отцом, как только узнал, что отец простил своего младшего
сына и принял его, оказывая почести, на которые старший сын не мог и надеяться,
неожиданно проявил себя не с лучшей стороны. Старший сын воспротивился воле
своего отца, обвинил своего младшего брата в блуде, хотя достоверной информации
у него на этот счёт не было, и отказался входить в дом отца своего.
В притче о
«блудном сыне» Иисус, рассказывая о милости нашего Небесного Отца, использует
данные образы, чтобы напомнить своим ученикам о главной трагедии еврейского
народа, ради спасения которого в первую очередь пришёл Иисус Христос. В Ветхом
завете (Книги Царств) подробно описано, как после смерти Соломона древнее
еврейское царство (Царство Израиль) разделилось на Северное (Израиль) и Южное
(Иудея) царства. Десять колен отделились от древнего царства и основали своё
отдельное, Северное царство. Цари северно-израильского государства отступили от
монотеистического служения Единому Богу Израилеву, то есть Иегове, и начали
поклоняться и воздвигать храмы и алтари другим божествам, в том числе таким
божествам как Ваал (Мардук, божество Вавилона) и Асират (богиня Ассирийского
царства).
В Северном
Израильском царстве в течении практически всех 200 лет его существования
правящие династии неоднократно менялись в результате государственных
переворотов. Почти никто не поклонялся Иегове, зато в почёте были божества
наиболее могущественных царств того времени – Ассирии и Вавилона. Последние,
почти точно так же, как в сегодняшнем мире США и Великобритания, задавали общий
тон культурного и общественного развития древнего мира, постепенно подминая по
себя другие царства. Слава об ассиро-вавилонских богатствах, мощи и могуществе
их правителей, а соответственно и божеств им покровительствовавших,
распространялась по всему древнему миру.
Вслед за жителями
Северного Израильского царства, поклонятся Ваалу и другим языческим божествам
стали многие жители Южного царства. В 722 году до н. э. Северное Израильское
царство было аннексировано Ассирией. Все десять колен, населявшие Северное
Израильское царство, были уведены в плен и дальнейшая судьба их мало известна.
Южное царство (Иудея), в свою очередь, просуществовало около 300 лет и примерно
в 586 году было завоёвано Вавилоном. Значительная часть элитных слоёв
иудейского общества была уведена в вавилонский плен.
Вскоре после
присоединения Северного царства к Ассирии и рассеянии значительной части его
населения среди просторов Ассирийской империи иудейский царь Езекия пытался
воссоединить остатки еврейского народа и укрепить традиционную веру и культ
Иеговы. В период его правления Иудея временно также попала в вассальную
зависимость от Ассирии. Тем не менее, Езекия провёл существенные реформы.
Идолослужение было искоренено, в храме восстановлено богослужение и, как бы в
знак восстановления завета с Богом, торжественно отпразднован был
общеизраильский Песах. Однако, не все евреи пришли на этот праздник. Большая
часть жителей бывшего Северного царства, которым удалось избежать ассирийского
плена, смеялась в лицо посланникам царя Езекии, разносившим весть о приглашении
всех евреев на празднество в иерусалимский храм.
Главную причину в
раздроблении и ослаблении Израильского царства ветхозаветные пророки видели в
предательстве еврейского народа по отношению к своему Богу - Иегове. Это
предательство, как правило, описывалось в терминах супружеской неверности и
прелюбодеяния.
Вот как пишет об
этом пророк Иеремия (Иеремия, глава 3, стих 6 – 25; глава 4, стих 1):
«Господь сказал
мне во дни Иосии царя: видел ли ты, что делала отступница, дочь Израиля? Она
ходила на всякую высокую гору и под всякое ветвистое дерево и там
блудодействовала.
И после того, как
она все это делала, Я говорил: «возвратись ко Мне»; но она не возвратилась; и
видела это вероломная сестра ее Иудея.
И Я видел, что,
когда за все прелюбодейные действия отступницы, дочери Израиля, Я отпустил ее и
дал ей разводное письмо, вероломная сестра ее Иудея не убоялась, а пошла и сама
блудодействовала.
И явным
блудодейством она осквернила землю, и прелюбодействовала с камнем и деревом.
Но при всем этом
вероломная сестра ее Иудея не обратилась ко Мне всем сердцем своим, а только
притворно, говорит Господь.
И сказал мне
Господь: отступница, дочь Израилева, оказалась правее, нежели вероломная Иудея.
Иди и провозгласи
слова сии к северу, и скажи: возвратись, отступница, дочь Израилева, говорит
Господь. Я не изолью на вас гнева Моего; ибо Я милостив, говорит Господь, — не
вечно буду негодовать.
Признай только
вину твою: ибо ты отступила от Господа Бога твоего и распутствовала с чужими
под всяким ветвистым деревом, а гласа Моего вы не слушали, говорит Господь.
Возвратитесь,
дети-отступники, говорит Господь, потому что Я сочетался с вами, и возьму вас
по одному из города, по два из племени, и приведу вас на Сион.
И дам вам
пастырей по сердцу Моему, которые будут пасти вас с знанием и благоразумием
И будет, когда вы
размножитесь и сделаетесь многоплодными на земле, в те дни, говорит Господь, не
будут говорить более: «ковчег завета Господня»; он и на ум не придет, и не
вспомнят о нем, и не будут приходить к нему, и его уже не будет.
В то время
назовут Иерусалим престолом Господа; и все народы ради имени Господа соберутся
в Иерусалим и не будут более поступать по упорству злого сердца своего.
В те дни придет
дом Иудин к дому Израилеву, и пойдут вместе из земли северной в землю, которую
Я дал в наследие отцам вашим.
И говорил Я: как
поставлю тебя в число детей и дам тебе вожделенную землю, прекраснейшее
наследие множества народов? И сказал: ты будешь называть Меня отцом твоим и не
отступишь от Меня.
Но поистине, как
жена вероломно изменяет другу своему, так вероломно поступили со Мною вы, дом
Израилев, говорит Господь.
Голос слышен на
высотах, жалобный плач сынов Израиля о том, что они извратили путь свой, забыли
Господа Бога своего.
Возвратитесь,
мятежные дети: Я исцелю вашу непокорность. — Вот, мы идем к Тебе, ибо Ты —
Господь Бог наш.
Поистине,
напрасно надеялись мы на холмы и на множество гор; поистине, в Господе Боге
нашем спасение Израилево!
От юности нашей
эта мерзость пожирала труды отцов наших, овец их и волов их, сыновей их и
дочерей их.
Мы лежим в стыде
своем, и срам наш покрывает нас, потому что мы грешили пред Господом Богом
нашим, — мы и отцы наши, от юности нашей и до сего дня, и не слушались голоса
Господа Бога нашего.
Если хочешь
обратиться, Израиль, говорит Господь, ко Мне обратись; и если удалишь мерзости
твои от лица Моего, то не будешь скитаться».
После
ассирийского и вавилонского пленений, разбросанные по всему древнему миру, от
Египта до Междуречья, евреи не очень торопились возвращаться домой. Физическое
рассеяние древних евреев было в значительной степени предварено их духовным
рассеянием и лишь окончательно закрепило его, лишив этих детей Иеговы не только
возможности совершать традиционные культовые обряды, но всякой искренней
заинтересованности в поддержании какого-либо интимного диалога со своим Богом.
Те, кто остался бродить по просторам царств и империй, растрачивали последние
крупицы благочестия, дарованные им Иеговой, а те, кто остался при храме,
погрязли в лицемерии и ханжестве, думая только о собственном обогащении.
В таком состоянии
застал Иисус Христос свою родину и свой народ. Каково же было возмущение
фарисеев и саддукеев, книжников и законников, уверенных в своей исключительной
духовности и праведности, когда Иисус показал им, что Богу ближе раскаявшийся
грешник, чем самодовольный, лицемерный и упрямый сын.
В притче о
«блудном сыне» старший брат настолько обуреваем ненавистью к своему младшему
заблудшему брату, что ради своей гордыни готов отказаться войти в отчий дом.
Иными словами, Иисус Христос показал, что ради своей наживы и по причине
ненависти, иудейские священнослужители готовы отказаться войти в дом Бога
своего. Иисус указывает на необходимость возвращения всех евреев рассеяния в
дом Божий, то есть к вере в единого Бога и обращает внимание слушателей на то,
что Бог так любит своих детей, что готов в любой момент простить и принять всех
искренне раскаявшихся.
Примечательно,
что старший брат (иудеи храма) акцентирует внимание отца (Бога) на том, что
младший сын (Израиль Северного царства, то есть все евреи рассеяния, потерянные
в веках) промотал отцовские деньги (Божью благодать и спасение) «с блудницами»,
то есть в прелюбодеянии (в поклонении другим божествам). Поскольку, согласно
притче, старший брат не мог знать наверняка, что его младший брат общался с «блудницами»,
из этого можно сделать вывод, что старший брат проецировал своё собственное
возможное поведение в данной ситуации. Тем самым Иисус показывает, что жители
Иудеи, его современники, (прежде всего служители храма, фарисеи-идеологи и
саддукеи-администраторы) сами являются тайными предателями своего Бога-Отца.
На вопрос о том,
прелюбодействовал ли младший брат в действительности или только расточал
богатства своего Отца, принимая во внимание историю Северного царства (Израиля)
и Южного царства (Иудеи) и чем закончилось их существование, можно смело
сказать, что прелюбодействовали они оба: один – в «дальней стороне», открыто
«расточая» и живя «распутно», а второй – в доме отца своего, делая это тайно
всё то время, в которое он «служил» отцу.
Данная притча –
не о растратчике или прелюбодее, а о предательстве по отношению к Богу, который
любит и прощает предавших его детей, когда они искренне того желают и
раскаиваются в своих греховных поступках. Эта притча изначально предназначалась
для иудеев, считавших, что они более, чем кто-либо заслужили звание «детей
Божьих» и свысока поглядывавших на самаритян и всяких вероотступников, а не для
тех, кто «заблудился» и ищет себе оправдания.
Предательство
тяжело прощать, но Бог так нас любит, что прощает нам все наши ошибки, если мы
раскаиваемся и возвращаемся к Нему. Так, пожалуй, и следует объяснять эту
притчу детям. Не имеет смысла рассказывать её вне религиозно-исторического
контекста, а для того, чтобы донести духовный смысл слов «распутно» и
«блудницы», придётся мыслить контекстно и уйти от знакомого житейского
материала.
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