The US government is seeking a coalition in its fight against IS. The US usually prefers coalitions nowadays because they lend legitimacy to operations like Operation Iraqi Freedom and Operation Enduring Freedom. Supporters of the war can point to the number of states involved and say see how many people agree with us? when a) sometimes a states involvement is only for show, perhaps because of some political or economic benefits it receives from the larger coalition members and more importantly b) states only represent a minority of the people in the territory they claim. Indeed, that is the biggest mistake statists make: believing the people that rule them somehow represent them, even though the evidence mostly points in the opposite direction. So they see some new foreign-policy venture as in their personal interest without examining it because they have been told it is in the national interest. That phrase alone can get people to believe blatant war for resources can be justified, as they believe they will somehow benefit, say in lower gas prices, even though war usually raises oil prices. States have common interests. Their main purpose is to maintain the plunder of their populations while creating the ideology that keeps them divided against each other. Many states that get the chance to plunder abroad take it. That is why Iraqs oil fields were auctioned to not only Exxon, BP et al. but also the China National Petroleum Corporation, Japan Petroleum Exploration Co., the Korea Gas Corp, Malaysia’s Petronas, Turkish Petroleum International and Russia’s Lukoil and Gazprom. All states that might have been able to play a role in preventing future wars were bought off. The same part of the world today is at risk of a non-state actor (whatever IS wants to call itself) taking over major oil fields. Any of those countries might join a coalition or covertly provide support for this operation. An additional common interest is states need to maintain their monopoly on law and the application (force) of law, so they deal swiftly with terrorists, rogue states or, in the case of IS pseudostates, who do not comply with the national or international order. That is why even supposed enemies like the US and Syria or Iran or Russia or China all work together when it suits them. They become enemies again later when the elites have another reason to distract the people. Coalitions are really just the official collaboration of plunderers. Few of us have representation at the warmaking table and few of us benefit from any of these wars.
Posted on: Sun, 14 Sep 2014 14:10:29 +0000
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