Foreign Affairs
Related: About this forumWar with IsIs: As the militant threat grows, so does the West's self-deception
Patrick Cockburn
Sunday 7 June 2015
World View: Chinese mandarins used to claim rhubarb was a war-winning weapon. Our leaders also fantasise
In the declining years of the Chinese empire, high officials developed a handy way of dealing with military setbacks and defeats by foreign powers. They simply announced that the heroic forces of the emperor had won yet another victory against the barbarian enemy.
To do those officials credit, they saw that serial mendacity was only a short-term solution to their problems and the news about Chinas calamitous defeats could not be permanently suppressed. But they believed that by the time this became apparent, one of their countrys hidden strengths would have kicked in which would give them a tremendous advantage in any drawn-out conflict.
Chinas secret war winner officials had been told by their expert advisers was that China was the worlds leading producer of rhubarb. This was much used in traditional Chinese medicine and was deemed the only effective cure for constipation. These experts confidently advised the policy-makers of the day that all they needed to do was to cut off the West from its rhubarb supplies and its leaders would ultimately be forced to grovel for peace.
Of course, it is easy enough to deride the ludicrous wishful thinking of those long forgotten mandarins, explaining away defeat and vainly seeking to stem the barbarian advance. But their self-delusions have much in common with those of Western and Middle Eastern politicians, soldiers and diplomats seeking to halt the seemingly unstoppable progress of Islamic State (Isis) in Iraq and Syria in the 12 months since Isis captured Mosul on 10 June 2014.
in full: http://www.independent.co.uk/voices/war-with-isis-as-the-militant-threat-grows-so-does-the-wests-selfdeception-10302380.html
guillaumeb
(42,641 posts)Also from the article:
"How did Western policy-makers react to these stunning defeats? Sadly, their response was very similar to those Chinese officials a couple of centuries back. They denied the extent of the military disasters and pretended that it is Isis which is on the retreat. The US Deputy Secretary of State Antony Blinken claimed that the territory Isis controls is getting smaller and more than 10,000 Isis fighters have been killed in US airstrikes.
Just as in the war with Vietnam, body counts and territory captured are paraded as "proof" that we are making progress in the war. And our media will dutifully accept this US government propaganda and disseminate it to the US audience.
bemildred
(90,061 posts)We cling to our illusions.
I think he is even more pessimistic than I am, and that worries me, because I think he is better informed.
Jefferson23
(30,099 posts)audience. After reading this, I thought..oh, shit.
newfie11
(8,159 posts)We no longer have real news except for maybe what surfaces on Free Speech
TV.