---
title: "An Intricate Fabric Of Bad Actors Working Hand-In-Hand: So Is War Inevitable?"
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published: "2024-08-15T13:10:13+00:00"
modified: "2024-08-15T16:40:30+00:00"
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[an oped from Alaister Crooke](https://www.eurasiareview.com/14082024-an-intricate-fabric-of-bad-actors-working-hand-in-hand-so-is-war-inevitable-oped/)

**Long, but, thoughtful and indepth- Worth reading.**

> Walter Kirn, an American novelist and cultural critic, in his 2009 memoir, *Lost in the Meritocracy,* described how, after a sojourn at Oxford, he came to be a member of ‘the class that runs things’ – the one that “*writes the headlines, and the stories under them*”

> Now 61, Kirn has a newsletter on [*Substack* ](https://substack.com/@walterkirn)and co-hosts a lively podcast devoted in large part to critiquing ‘establishment liberalism’. His contrarian drift has made him more vocal about his distrust of élite institutions – as he [wrote](https://twitter.com/walterkirn/status/1502169419501342724) in 2022:

> *“For years now, the answer, in every situation—‘**`Russiagate,’ COVID, Ukraine—has been more censorship, more silencing, more division, more scapegoating`**. **It’s almost as if these are goals in themselves – and the cascade of emergencies mere excuses for them**. **Hate is always the way,”***

> Kirn’s politics, a friend of his [suggested](https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2024/05/walter-kirn/678187/), was “old-school liberal,” underscoring that it was the other ‘so-called liberals’ who had changed: *“****I’ve been told repeatedly in the last year that free speech is a right-wing issue; I wouldn’t call \[Kirn\] Conservative. I would just say he’s a free-thinker, nonconformist, iconoclastic”*,** the friend said.

> To understand Kirn’s contrarian turn – and to make sense of today’s form of American politics – it is necessary to understand one key term. It is not found in standard textbook**s, but is central to the new playbook of power: the “*whole of society*”.**

> ***“The term was*** [***popularised***](https://aaronkheriaty.substack.com/p/our-totalizing-governments-whole?utm_source=post-email-title&publication_id=491610&post_id=147425076&utm_campaign=email-post-title&isFreemail=true&r=8qe6&triedRedirect=true&utm_medium=email) ***roughly a decade ago by the Obama administration, which liked that its bland, technocratic appearance could be used as cover to erect a mechanism for a governance ‘whole-of-society’ approach”** –* one that asserts that as actors – media, NGOs,corporations and philanthropist institutions – interact with public officials to play a critical role not just in setting the public agenda, but in enforcing public decisions.

> Jacob Siegel has explained the historical development of the ‘whole of society’ approach during t**he Obama administration’s attempt to pivot in the ‘war on terror’ to what it called ‘*CVE’* – countering violent extremism. The idea was to surveil the American people’s online behaviour in order to identify those who may, at some unspecified time in the future, ‘commit a crime’.**

**Too many are championing X-Twitter as a bastion of free speech- I don’t believe it for a moment. It seems obvious to me X-Twitter will surveil posters as much as any other social media platform**.

> **Elon Musk** = **[Pied Piper ](https://www.collinsdictionary.com/dictionary/english/pied-piper)** a [leader](https://www.collinsdictionary.com/dictionary/english/leader) whom people willingly follow, often, specif., one who leads others into [danger](https://www.collinsdictionary.com/dictionary/english/danger) or [trouble](https://www.collinsdictionary.com/dictionary/english/trouble) by means of [elaborate](https://www.collinsdictionary.com/dictionary/english/elaborate), [false](https://www.collinsdictionary.com/dictionary/english/false) [promises](https://www.collinsdictionary.com/dictionary/english/promise)

**Hope you do read the article.**

**[You can also catch an interview at this link](https://rumble.com/v5axjz1-war-in-inevitable-alastair-crooke-alexander-mercouris-and-glenn-diesen.html)– War is Inevitable – Alastair Crooke, Alexander Mercouris & Glenn Diesen**