Syria as a liberal Utopia

I was thinking about what happened in Syria, and what lessons can be taken from this.

Basically, what’s happening is jihadists killing, looting and pillaging, the Western propagandists lying and whitewashing their crimes and producing fake material in order to blame the Assad regime, and the neighbouring states capturing territory unopposed. Essentially, it looks similar to the collapse of a bee hive or an ant colony, and the first lesson, I think, is about the purpose of the state. Unlike what the liberal idealists imagine, if you remove the state you don’t get a Utopia. You get post-collapse Syria and Libya, or, in other words, you get hell on Earth. You get criminals in power instead of in prison, you get rule of the strongest, you get murder as a possible answer to absolutely every question, you get a division of society into warlords and slaves, you get unlimited slave trade and you get neighbouring states taking over the territory. Nobody gives a damn about “human rights” or similar nonexistent bullshit. You get violence, misery and suffering, and the only thing that limits human depravity is religious fanaticism, which in case of Islam is hardly a limitation.

You get a zombie horde with automatic weapons, pickups and motorcycles, and you get victims. Soon thereafter, you get starvation, sickness and everything else that leads to a dramatic population drop. Then the dust settles and the survivors make rules that are meant to avoid the depravities that led to this outcome, and the cycle of civilisation slowly repeats. Alternatively, the aggressive neighbours who split the territory between themselves and introduce the rule of law limit the bad outcomes before it comes to that point. Unfortunately, history shows that this is actually not a likely outcome; the territory formerly known as Libya, for instance, was left to the warring fractions of fanatics there, and slave markets are a normal thing for years already. Early years of the Soviet reign after the fall of the Russian Empire saw widespread famine and cannibalism, murder, persecution and all kinds of depravity. After the fall of Rome, during plagues and wars of the early dark ages, Europe was a hell on Earth.

So, this is what the state is for. The purpose of the state is not to distribute wealth to the poor, indoctrinate people or legislate “carbon credits”. The purpose of the state is to keep the savages in prison and afraid. The purpose of the state is to keep the borders controlled so that the people inside can be protected in their culture, beliefs and customs. The purpose of the state is to keep the normal people safe, and enemies afraid. What happens when the state collapses is unlimited human freedom, which translates as unlimited human depravity, and lack of civilised options that would create the playing field for freedom to practice non-depraved things in safety. The only thing that stops unlimited depravity is the controlled savagery of religious zealotry.

Heaven isn’t good because people there are free. It’s good because people there are good. The concept of freedom defined as the ability to do whatever you want is inherently flawed, because if evil people can do whatever they want, you get the hell that is Libya and Syria, where their freedom negates all options for others; basically, you no longer have the option to do normal civilised things because you’ll be killed. On the other hand, in heaven everything is limited by not wanting to do anything depraved, and by the fact that those who would want to automatically teleport into hell. As a result, not having certain “freedoms” creates all kinds of beauty and possibility – you can create art without jihadists raping and murdering you, for instance, because they are not allowed to. You can have things without being robbed and murdered. You can study science without being recruited into some army’s cannon fodder. You can live a long time because nobody’s trying to murder you, which in itself opens up all kinds of options. It’s interesting how Satanists keep harping about freedom from authority. Please, do everyone a favour and go live in Syria. See how you like freedom from all authority. Yeah, it’s hell, in ways I cannot even begin to describe, because freedom from authority doesn’t mean that you are free to do whatever you want. It means that both you and the most savage criminal who rapes, pillages and murders for fun can do whatever you both feel like doing. So, you like to listen to music, and he likes to flay people alive and listen to them scream. In a place with freedom from all authority, that guy forms an armed gang, and you get to be a victim. You don’t get to live in an autistic Utopia where you get to do your thing unopposed. You get to be a slave and a victim, or you learn to be so savage and murderous that even the warlords fear you. Freedom from authority causes reduction of the pool of available options to almost nothing, and freedom thus cancels itself. If everything is allowed, almost nothing is possible. Where evil is not allowed, almost everything becomes possible.

Syria

I haven’t been commenting on the events in Syria because I don’t actually know what’s going on there. Initially, it appeared that a bunch of jihadists trained by the West broke into Syrian government controlled territory, and they looked like the typical IS characters on Toyota pickup trucks, armed with light weapons; they should have been easily stopped. However, that’s not what happened. Instead, the Syrian government forces retreated and crumbled away without actually opposing the invaders. Whether that is because of incompetence, cowardice, corruption or treason, I don’t know, but militarily speaking they were a non-entity. The terrorists took over the capital, Assad fled and Syria is no more. The Russians did some damage to the terrorists from the air, but since they had absolutely no ground forces to rely on, that did nothing, and they did the right thing by letting go of Syria altogether, because if its own people won’t defend it, why would they?

Israel is already taking advantage and entering border towns.

This entire thing smells of very good intelligence work from Israel and the West – bribe the key people in the Syrian military, spread discontent, use the fact that the Americans captured Syrian oil which made the Syrian government unable to finance the country etc., and then introduce the jihadis they trained in Idlib and other places to take the whole thing over in what, less than a week? That must be a record of some kind, even for the notoriously incompetent Arab armies. The Russians will now likely cut the losses, withdraw from the base they have there, and sigh in collective relief because they are no longer trying to push that rock uphill.

However, this doesn’t look over. Iran now lost a major ally in the region, and I don’t think they will just take it. Without Syria under control, Hezbollah would be exposed and their supply lines compromised, and the position of Israel greatly strengthened. Also, everybody blames Turkey for this, but they now betrayed Iran and Russia and thus lost the BRICS option that would allow them to gain independence from America and NATO. Basically, I don’t see Turkey as a winner here, despite the appearance. The only winners are Israel, America and presumably the UK; Turkey lost the option of strategic independence, Iran lost a strategically important ally, Russia lost its only foothold in the Middle East, but for Russia this was merely an unsustainable adventure with strained supply lines, that tried to fight fate and keep the incompetent Assad government and his rotten and cowardly army in place. This was a major win for America – they basically financed the destruction of Syria with profits from Syrian oil alone, they had no losses, they helped Israel, strategically harmed Iran, and made Russia look foolish.

Of all the aforementioned players, I think Iran is the least likely to just take the loss and shrug. Unlike the Russians, they have a very important stake in the region and they might decide that it’s worth it to go all-in and try to bring things back under control. In any case, this doesn’t look over. We now have multiple Arab countries without normal governments and unable to control their own territory, which makes them non-countries, I guess. Israel, as a major beneficiary of this, will feel encouraged, and will probably want to add Iran to this list.

Ukraine didn’t benefit from this at all, since the Russians refused to take the focus from what matters the most, and were not really distracted from destroying them. Their front line is crumbling and we’re approaching the point where the Russians decide how much of Ukraine they want to take, or, in other words, how much of Ukraine will they allow to become a hornet’s nest in their back yard, since the NATO countries are already talking about who will send how many occupying forces (aka. “peace keepers”) there. The Russians are not likely to allow this, but on the other hand they like the option of escalating the war even less, and they have to stop somewhere.

Misunderstood signals

I just finished watching Tucker Carlson’s interview with Sergei Lavrov.

The impression I’m getting is similar to that of a cat or a bear “talking” to a dog. The way Lavrov is talking will communicate nothing to the Americans. They are adrenaline addicts, brought up on fast and hysterical ads and movies. Lavrov’s calm and intellectual approach will make them fall asleep. They are unable to think in full sentences, let alone paragraphs or pages of condensed text. They need it summarised into an emotion-charged sound-bite.

What Lavrov said was that the American belief in the possibility of a limited nuclear war that’s taking place in Europe and not involving America is dangerous and invites catastrophe.

What the Americans will hear is “the Russians are boring, they just talk and don’t have the guts to do anything”.

Lavrov speaks reasonably good English, but he doesn’t speak American. Translated to American, what he said should sound like: “If the nukes start flying, we will make absolutely sure that everything we’ve got hits America first, in order to ensure there’s no America left. We will make absolutely certain that they don’t survive this. Only after all of them are either dead or wishing they were, will we deal with their European poodles. There is absolutely no option where this goes nuclear and America survives in any shape or form”.

Discrepancy

Biden allows American missiles to be launched into Russia proper and thus meets the conditions for war with Russia.

Trump is completely silent.

Biden pardons his money laundering son.

Trump immediately protests.

I don’t know about you, but I would take this as a sign that one of those was pre-arranged between the two.