I read about the destruction of the Shrine of Jarjis (St. George of Syria Palestine) and the demolition of the tombs of Mar Benham and Mart Sarah, places which were esteemed by Muslims, Yezidis, and Christians of many different sects. The destructions by IS are cosmopolitan in their terror.
The Shrine of Mar Benham and Mart Sarah Recently
The Shrine of Mar Benham and Mart Sarah 1920s
Side View Showing Connecting Gallery Between the Two Tombs
Syriac Catholic Monks at the Neighboring Monastery 1920s
After ISIS
all pictures:
https://gatesofnineveh.wordpress.com/2015/05/12/what-weve-lost-mar-behnam-monastery/
It strikes me that IS is not merely obeying some obscurantist sectarian form of Islam, and devoting themselves to the destruction of graves and shrine lest the faithful pray to human beings and statues, but there is a more rational and cunning goal.
This goal is based on George Orwell's observation in 1984 that whoever controls the Past will control the Present and the Future.
The History of the Middle East is being tortured into a After IS ( A.I.) chronology.
What we see in the Middle East is the long-term workings out of Oligarchical Collectivism, wherein War Is Peace.
We may read about Orwell's 1984, its protagonist, Winston, and its theory of Oligarchical Collectivism:
Wikipedia
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Theory_and_Practice_of_Oligarchical_Collectivism
[...]
Before reading the first chapter, Winston reads the third chapter War is Peace, which explains that slogan-title's meaning, by reviewing how the global super-states were established: The United States merged with the British Empire and Latin America to form Oceania; the USSR absorbed continental Europe to form Eurasia; and Eastasia emerged "after a decade of confused fighting", with China's annexation of Japan, Korea and parts of Mongolia and Tibet. In various alliances, they have warred for twenty-five years. Yet the perpetual war is militarily nonsensical, because "it is a warfare of limited aims between combatants who are unable to destroy one another, have no material cause for fighting and are not divided by any genuine ideological difference", since each is a totalitarian state.[10]
Scientific advance is held carefully in check, as the Party does not want to allow for any unaccounted abundance of goods, which could conceivably raise the quality of life beyond bare subsistence for the Proles. The only technological advances permitted are in mind control and genocide, the twin goals of each of the superstates. Once mind control is perfected, the superstates are free to destroy their counterparts in a theoretical single, decisive strike that precludes retaliation. Technological advancement, even in war, can be counterproductive to the goals of the Party; none of the superstates are a true threat to each other, as they all must exist in a state of permanent limited war to survive. By harnessing the hysteria of war and demand for self-sacrifice, each of the nations declare war not on each other but on their own populace, who are kept ignorant, on the brink of starvation, and overworked.
Permanent limited war also allows for the Party to divert attention away from domestic concerns and their failures. Instead of promises of an "easy, safe life", Slater writes that Orwell believed that the populace requires heroic nationalism. Thus, war becomes a psychological tool to establish a kind of ironic "peace", a stasis where progress is impossible and nothing ever changes, except for the possibility of eventual global conquest...
In this we observe:
Paragraph 1
This geopolitical schema exists already in nascent form, with NATO taking the part of Oceania, China leading the Shanghai Cooperation Alliance, and although the USSR is gone, Russia is currently heading up a Eurasian Economic Union (EEU),
The Moscow Times
May 25, 2015
The Russian government said Monday that it has approved a draft agreement for a free trade zone between Vietnam and the Russia-led Eurasian Economic Union (EEU) as Moscow seeks to boost ties with Asia amid worsening relations with the West over the Ukraine crisis...
Paragraph 2
This part of the scheme is being worked out in the various geopolitical blocs.
Technology supplies us with affordable toys, while it also develops and supplies us with new drugs against cancers and disease which are unaffordable.
Similarly in warfare, the nation of Israel often plays the cat's paw for NATO in the Middle East, yet just as the tail ought not to wag the dog, so the paw does not rule the cat; hence, players like Iran must not be marginalized too greatly, lest there be no balance of power and the state of permanent war falls into a "Peace Trap", with unforeseeable results.
Paragraph 3
This act is being played out in the US Congress, where we see hawks calling for more direct involvement "on the ground". The objectives seem to be the defeat of IS, even though I have seen no analysis that convincingly conclude that such a defeat is the inevitable outcome of "boots on the ground".
It is the same in Russia and in China.
There are no goals, there is no long-term plan, such as might in time lead to a an era of peace and prosperity. Rather there is nothing except shouting and calls to arms, advance and retreat, a vast trenchwork spread across the Middle East where the gods of discord will work out their dark plans in their own good time.
Jarjis or St. George was also associated closely - if not exactly - with Al Khidr, who was The Green, the holy one associated with growth and fertile lands... with olive trees, such as settlers destroy in their war with Palestinian farmers on the West Bank.
St. George and the Dragon
In this icon, the dragon clutches an olive tree, fighting against fertile growth.
The name George is Greek, Georgius, which means farmer, or a man of the land who makes a living by growing things in fertile soil.
Will the Middle East remain the battleground of cultures?
Or will it establish it own union that encourages life, such as symbolized by Jarjis-St.George-Al Kidr instead of death, as symbolized by the wasteland of the ruins of shrines and mummified tears and weeping?
أوه، الإسلام
سوف تكون دائما مجال الحرب؟
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