We Live in a Breaking Bad World

A little bit behind the wave of people who immersed themselves in Breaking Bad in anticipation of the last year's final season, I am now watching the last few episodes of Season 5, Pt. 2. And what struck me is how consistently gritty, harsh, violent and dark the last season is. Is there a mass population out there for this kind of toxic, harrowing entertainment? Yes. And why is that? Because it accurately reflects the doomed world in which we live.

Last Friday's paper is a perfect illustration of the bizarre incongruities the type of which Breaking Bad dramatizes. On the one hand, you have a story by Mark Landler outlining the possible resumption of U.S. non-lethal aid to the rebels in Syria. The aid was suspended after jihadis took control of Free Syrian Army warehouses where the materiel was stored. Landler's piece is full of quotes from anonymous senior administration officials saying that with a resumption of aid there will be no way to prevent it from falling into the hands of the jihadists.

Then in the same paper on the same day you have a story by Michael Schmidt and Eric Schmitt, "Syria Militants Said to Recruit Visiting Americans to Attack U.S.," telling of efforts by Al Qaeda to use the Syrian civil war as a recruiting platform for attacks against the "Far Enemy":

“We know Al Qaeda is using Syria to identify individuals they can recruit, provide them additional indoctrination so they’re further radicalized, and leverage them into future soldiers, possibly in the U.S.,” said a senior counterterrorism official, who, like half a dozen other top intelligence, law enforcement and diplomatic officials interviewed for this article, spoke on the condition of anonymity because he did not want to be identified discussing delicate national security issues.

So there you have it. Our government is fully aware that it is providing material support to an enemy that is planning to attack us. Yet this same government is going to great lengths to protect its prerogatives to access all our emails and telephone calls. How much more bizarre can it get?

The florescence of Al Qaeda in the Levant is a problem for the United States Government on a number of levels, not the least of which is the damage it does to its image right here in the homeland. The huge outpouring of popular opposition to an attack on Syria was motivated in no small measure by the public recognition that those who would benefit were the same Wahhabi radical Islamic fundamentalists who we have been at war with since 9/11. Hence, the necessity of the canard that has been spun over the last several months that there is bad Qaeda operating in the Levant, Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) and good Qaeda, Nusra Front. Anne Barnard explains in a piece this morning, "Syria Rebels Turn Against Most Radical Group Tied to Al Qaeda," how the canard works:

A decisive victory over ISIS could lift the Syrian opposition ahead of planned peace talks in Switzerland on Jan. 22, if disparate factions show a new unity and coordination that they could use to regain momentum against the government. The timing has prompted speculation that the coalition of rebel leaders in exile, which has steadily been losing influence, or its regional and Western backers have encouraged or supported the fighting. 

The exile coalition hopes the battles will persuade the West that the insurgents, not Mr. Assad, can best stop Al Qaeda from establishing a base in the country. That security threat has made foreign powers, not to mention many Syrians, more open to accommodation with the government. 

Advocates of increased Western aid to the rebels argue that the fighting shows that the Islamic Front, a collection of Islamist Syrian groups now fighting ISIS, is not a Qaeda-like threat. But many of its leaders, and even some in other groups that nominally answer to the exile coalition, say they have no quarrel with the main Qaeda affiliate, the Nusra Front. 

Nusra, indeed, could be the main beneficiary of the scuffling. Taking a more pragmatic approach has helped Nusra recruit many Syrian fighters and could now enable it to cement alliances, rid itself of a rival for Qaeda-inspired donations, absorb foreign fighters fleeing ISIS and embed itself more deeply in society. In trying to mediate the dispute, it has also set itself up as peacemaker and power broker.

But Nusra has come in for its own share of criticism for clashes with rebel groups, killing civilians and branding minority Shiites and Alawites as the enemy. For the West and for secular Syrians, said Michael Hanna, an analyst at the Century Foundation, “Nusra, because they are more pragmatic, are a much more intractable problem.”

The ham-handed ruse of "Good Cop Qaeda" / "Bad Cop Qaeda" is designed to get Western aid flowing to jihadi camps in northern Syria, but more importantly, to get cruise missiles flying to Damascus.

But it is foolish and it can't work. Why? Because it is so obviously a lie.

Here in the homeland trouble is brewing. The political system, the corporate duopoly, is geared entirely toward inaction on the issues of fundamental importance to the people -- peace and prosperity. What the political system is good at is throwing up marginal issues -- guns, legalized dope, rights of the fetus, gay marriage -- to mobilize voters along two-party lines to keep showing up at the polls. An elaborate racket of money laundering, reported on yesterday by Nicholas Confessore, has been built to guarantee that the moribund corporate parties maintain a balance of power while there putative constituents go unrepresented.

We will see, but I think a shift is coming. The junior college professor -- a woman, an Indian immigrant -- who won election as socialist based on her support of a $15/hr. minimum wage is a sign of things to come. The complete unresponsiveness of the two parties to the needs of the people (Obamacare?) -- I think this unresponsiveness is structural due to the way the parties fund their operations -- will lead to change.