{"id":18914,"date":"2016-03-16T13:35:14","date_gmt":"2016-03-16T18:35:14","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/olduvai.ca\/?p=18914"},"modified":"2016-03-16T13:35:14","modified_gmt":"2016-03-16T18:35:14","slug":"profits-of-death-disaster-capitalists-fan-flames-of-war-in-syria","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/?p=18914","title":{"rendered":"Profits of death: disaster capitalists fan flames of war in Syria"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Syrian refugee prays after arriving on shores of Greece<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n
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Profits of death: disaster capitalists fan flames of war in Syria<\/a><\/span><\/h3>\n

American, European and Russian corporations are the only ones winning from humanitarian disasters of their own making<\/strong><\/p>\n

As a tentative ceasefire\u00a0continues<\/a>\u00a0to hold in Syria, with the next\u00a0round<\/a>\u00a0of peace talks having resumed this week, you\u2019d be forgiven for thinking that there might be an end in sight to a conflict that has raged for nearly five years.<\/p>\n

But as with every war in the Middle East, nothing is quite as it seems.<\/p>\n

According to\u00a0Naomi Klein<\/a>\u00a0in her book\u00a0The Shock Doctrine<\/em>, corporatist (a more pertinent term for what many of us consider \u201cneoliberal<\/a>\u201d) policymakers\u200a\u2014\u200athose that are inherently intertwined with both Government and multinational companies\u200a\u2014\u200atake advantage of catastrophes such as economic collapse, hurricanes, terrorist attacks and even war, to further what she describes as their \u201cpolicy trinity\u201d: the elimination of the public sphere, total liberation for corporations and skeletal social spending.<\/p>\n

In short, disaster capitalism is premised on a simple philosophy: where there\u2019s chaos, there\u2019s money to be made.<\/p>\n

From Pinochet\u2019s Chilean coup and subsequent reforms in the 70s, via Thatcher, to the Falklands conflict and the miner\u2019s strike; from 9\/11 to the second invasion of Iraq, Klein argues that the economist Milton Friedman was the spiritual leader of this \u201cshock doctrine\u201d:<\/p>\n

\u201cThe falling bombs, the bursts of terror, the pounding winds serve to soften up whole societies much as the blaring music and blows in the torture cells soften up prisoners. Like the terrorised prisoner who gives up the names of his comrades and renounces his faith, shocked societies often give up things they would otherwise fiercely protect.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Syrian refugee prays after arriving on shores of Greece Profits of death: disaster capitalists fan flames of war in Syria American, European and Russian corporations are the only ones winning from humanitarian disasters of their own making As a tentative ceasefire\u00a0continues\u00a0to hold in Syria, with the next\u00a0round\u00a0of peace talks having resumed this week, you\u2019d be […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[2,5],"tags":[12979,6113,522,2092,1228,12978,776,12980,862],"class_list":["post-18914","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-economics","category-geopolitics","tag-disaster-capitalists","tag-insurge-intelligence","tag-middle-east","tag-nafeez-ahmed","tag-naomi-klein","tag-steve-topple","tag-syria","tag-the-shock-doctrine","tag-war"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18914","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=18914"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18914\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":18915,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18914\/revisions\/18915"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=18914"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=18914"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=18914"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}