To understand the scope of that machine, one must look at who underwrites and ultimately directs the work Brookings does. By doing so, we can understand the very source of what drives the chaos in Syria, and then go about stopping it.
Brookings’ 2014 annual report (.pdf) reveals among others, the following sponsors from big-finance; JP Morgan Chase & Co., Bank of America, Goldman Sachs, State Farm, MetLife, and GEICO. From big-defense there’s; General Electric, Northrop Grumman, and Raytheon. Big-telecom is represented by; Comcast, Google, Facebook, AT&T, and Verizon. Big-oil; Exxon, Chevron, ConocoPhillips, British Petroleum, and Shell. And even consumer corporations like Pepsi and Coca Cola help underwrite what are essentially policy papers conspiring to commit crimes against humanity that have since been systematically carried out at the cost of hundreds of thousands of innocent lives.
It is the Fortune 500, centered on Wall Street and London, driving the conflict in Syria and the larger arc of chaos consuming the MENA region and beyond. Russian and Syrian efforts aimed at stemming the flow of weapons and cash over Syrian borders alone is not going to “solve Syria.” Clearly the problem is larger than Syria, and even larger than the geopolitical chaos the US has created arcing over the MENA region. It is the unwarranted wealth, power, and influence that drives that chaos that constitutes the ultimate source of the problem. Disrupting or displacing that power will be difficult, and the failure thus far to significantly disrupt or displace it is precisely why this chaos continues.
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