Peter Hitchens writing at the Daily Mail poses a question that most supporters of interventionism — be it of the liberal “humanitarian” variety or the imperialist variety — never ask themselves: What if they did it to us?
In Hitchens scenario, the question is posed to his UK readership, but the scenario could very well be translated to the United States. What if a foreign power or a conspiracy of foreign powers cooked up a scenario to undermine and ultimately to overthrow our society and system of government.
What if the “Syria-scenario” were unfolded onto us?
An excerpt from his excellent article:
Imagine this: Newspapers and broadcasters in China suddenly start to denounce the British government. They call it a ‘regime’. They say that its treatment of its Muslim minority is cruel and unjust.
Soon, their views are echoed by the Chinese Foreign Minister, who in a speech at the United Nations says that Britain’s treatment of its minorities is a disgrace, and calls for sanctions against this country.
The Chinese ambassador turns up as an ‘observer’ at an Islamist demonstration in Birmingham. Some protestors are injured. Carefully-edited footage of the occasion is shown on global TV stations, in which the police are made to look brutal and the provocations against them are not shown.
Soon after this, armed attacks are made on police stations and on army barracks. People begin to notice the presence in British cities of foreign-looking men, sometimes armed.
In a matter of months, the country is plunged into a civil war. A place known for stability, order and prosperity descends with amazing speed into a violent, rubble-strewn chaos, complete with refugees, plumes of oily smoke and soup-kitchens. The bewildered inhabitants shrug with hopeless bafflement when they read foreign accounts of events, encouraging the rebels, even though nobody really knows who they are. They just long for the fighting to be over.
All the time, foreign media report in a wholly one-sided way, credulously trumpeting British government ‘atrocities’ without verification.
And then all the major countries in the world agree to permit the direct supply of weapons to the rebels.
Absurd? Wait and see. Something quite like this actually happened on a small scale in Northern Ireland, where American individuals helped buy guns and bombs for the IRA, and the US government put huge pressure on us to give in to the terrorists.
Read the rest here.
