“Going After” the Islamic State. Guess Who is Behind the Caliphate Project?
Global Research, September 12, 2014
Region: Middle East & North Africa
259
With the support of America’s indefectible British ally, President Barack Obama has ordered a series of US bombing raids on Iraq allegedly with a view to defeating the rebel army of the Islamic State (IS).
“We will not waver in our determination to confront the Islamic State … If terrorists think we will weaken in the face of their threats they could not be more wrong.” (Barack Obama and David Cameron, Strengthening the NATO alliance, op ed published in the London Times, September 4, 2014, emphasis added)
But Who is behind the Islamic State Project?
In a bitter irony, until recently the rebels of the Islamic State, formerly known as the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) were heralded as Syria’s “opposition freedom fighters” committed to “restoring democracy” and unseating the secular government of Bashar al Assad.
And who was behind the jihadist insurgency in Syria?
Those who ordered the bombing campaign are those who are behind the Caliphate Project.
The Islamic State (IS) militia, which is currently the alleged target of a US-NATO bombing campaign under a “counter-terrorism” mandate, was and continues to be supported covertly by the United States and its allies.
In other words, the Islamic State (IS) is a creation of US intelligence with the support of Britain’s MI6, Israel’s Mossad, Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) and Saudi Arabia’s General Intelligence Presidency (GIP), Ri’āsat Al-Istikhbārāt Al-’Āmah ( رئاسة الاستخبارات العامة). Moreover, according to Israeli intelligence sources (Debka) NATO in liaison with the Turkish High Command has been involved in the recruitment of jihadist mercenaries from the outset of the Syrian crisis in March 2011.
In relation to the Syrian insurgency, the Islamic State fighters together with the Al Qaeda affiliated jihadist forces of the Al Nusrah Front are the foot soldiers of the Western military alliance. They are covertly supported by US-NATO-Israel. Their mandate is to wage a terrorist insurgency against the government of Bashar al-Assad. The atrocities committed by Islamic State fighters in Iraq are similar to those committed in Syria.
As a result of media disinformation, Western public opinion is unaware that the Islamic State terrorists have from the very outset been supported by the United States and its allies.
The killings of innocent civilians by the Islamic State terrorists in Iraq are used to create a pretext and a justification for US military intervention on humanitarian grounds. The bombing raids ordered by Obama, however, are not intended to eliminate the Islamic State, which constitutes a US “intelligence asset”. Quite the opposite, the US is targeting the civilian population as well as the Iraqi resistance movement.
The Role of Saudi Arabia and Qatar
Amply documented, US-NATO support to the Islamic State is channeled covertly through America’s staunchest allies: Qatar and Saudi Arabia. Acknowledged by the Western media, both Riyadh and Doha acting in liaison and on behalf of Washington have played (and continue to play) a central role in the financing the Islamic State (IS) as well as the recruitment, training and religious indoctrination of terrorist mercenary forces deployed in Syria.
According to London’s Daily Express “They [the Islamic State terrorists] had money and arms supplied by Qatar and Saudi Arabia.”
“The most important source of ISIS financing to date has been support coming out of the Gulf states, primarily Saudi Arabia but also Qatar, Kuwait and the United Arab Emirates,” (According to Dr. Günter Meyer, Director of the Center for Research into the Arabic World at University of Mainz, Germany, Deutsche Welle)
This money was channeled to ISIS terrorists fighting against government forces in Syria:
“Through allies such as Saudi Arabia and Qatar, the West [has] supported militant rebel groups which have since mutated into ISIS and other al‑Qaeda connected militias. ( Daily Telegraph, June 12, 2014)
According to Robert Fisk, the IS caliphate project “has been bankrolled by Saudi Arabia”:
…[M]eet Saudi Arabia’s latest monstrous contribution to world history: the Islamist Sunni caliphate of Iraq and the Levant, conquerors of Mosul and Tikrit – and Raqqa in Syria – and possibly Baghdad, and the ultimate humiliators of Bush and Obama.
From Aleppo in northern Syria almost to the Iraqi-Iranian border, the jihadists of Isis and sundry other groupuscules paid by the Saudi Wahhabis – and by Kuwaiti oligarchs – now rule thousands of square miles. (Robert Fisk, The Independent, June 12, 2014
In 2013, as part of its recruitment of terrorists, Saudi Arabia took the initiative of releasing prisoners on death row in Saudi jails.
A secret memo revealed that the prisoners were being “recruited” to join jihadist militia (including Al Nusrah and ISIS) to fight against government forces in Syria.
Saudi prison
The prisoners had reportedly been offered a deal — stay and be executed or fight against Assad in Syria. As part of the deal the prisoners were offered a “pardon and a monthly stipend for their families, who were allowed to stay in the Sunni Arab kingdom”.
Saudi officials apparently gave them a choice: decapitation or jihad? In total, inmates from Yemen, Palestine, Saudi Arabia, Sudan, Syria, Jordan, Somalia, Afghanistan, Egypt, Pakistan, Iraq, and Kuwait chose to go and fight in Syria.(See Global Research, September 11, 2013)
“Volte Face”: About Turn
On September 11, 2014, coinciding with the commemoration of 9/11, the King of Saudi Arabia together with the Monarchs of the Gulf States announced their unbending commitment to support Obama’s holy war against the Islamic State (IS), which has and continues to be funded by Qatari and Saudi money as part of a carefully engineered intelligence operation.
Saudi Arabia and the Gulf States which actively contributed to the financing of the Islamic State, not to mention the recruitment, training of terrorists on behalf of Washington, pledged their unbending support for Obama’s military campaign to “degrade and ultimately destroy” the Islamic State.
The statement of support contained in the communiqué, commits the “leading Arab states to working with the U.S. to cut off the flow of foreign fighters and funds to the Islamic State.” It also confirms that members discussed “a strategy to destroy the ISIL wherever it is, including in both Iraq and Syria.”
Saudi Arabia has come to understand the Islamic State group is a serious threat to their country as well– that it isn’t a mainstream Sunni movement.One element of Obama’s IS plan seeks to undermine the ideological and religious claims that the Islamic State militants make to Islam.
The administration hopes Riyadh will use its influence among Islamic religious leaders. (Voice of America, September 11, 2014)
Recruiting “Moderate Terrorists”
As part of the agreement, the House of Saud is to “host a training facility for thousands of Syrian rebel fighters who are combating both the Islamic State and President Bashar al-Assad’s regime.” An absurd and fake proposition. Until September 9th, “officially” Saudi Arabia had been supporting the Islamic State against the government of Bashar al Assad and now it has been entrusted in recruiting jihadists to fight the Islamic State. An absurd and fake proposition. But the media has failed to connect the dots and uncover the big lie.
We are dealing with a diabolical project: The architects of the Islamic State have informed the World that they are “going after” their own terrorists as part of a counter-terrorism operation.
While these actions are undertaken under the banner of the “Global War on Terrorism”, the US has no intention to target its IS own terror brigades which are integrated by Western special forces and intelligence operatives. In fact the only meaningful and effective campaign against Islamic State terrorists is being waged by Syrian government forces.
Needless to say, US, NATO, Saudi and Qatari support and funding to the Islamic State will continue. The objective is not to destroy the Islamic State as promised by Obama. What we are dealing with is a US sponsored process of destabilizing and destroying both Iraq and Syria. The campaign against the Islamic State is being used as a justification to bomb both countries, largely targeting civilians.
The endgame is to destabilize Iraq as a nation state and trigger its partition into three separate entities.
The broader US-NATO strategic objective is to destabilize the entire Middle East- North Africa -Central Asia -South Asia region, including Iran, Pakistan and India.
I don’t buy the conclusion of the article but much of it is obviously true.
ReplyDeleteI am really perplexed that Michelle Obama is allowing Barack Obama to get involved with this.
ReplyDeleteIn an age where imagery takes the place of text – and of rational thought – the ISIS public relations department certainly knows its business. If the whole point of using social media to transmit horrific images of their deeds is to lure us into re-invading Iraq, then they succeeded beyond their wildest dreams.
ReplyDeleteWhile it seems like only yesterday that the President disdained ISIS as "junior varsity," today he is mobilizing a mighty worldwide "coalition" to wipe out a group he claims is capable of attacking the United States.
And it must be said that if this President is employing FDR’s old methods, he has none of the old boy’s charm. Addressing the American people like a rather testy teacher who, one can plainly see, would rather be almost anywhere else, Obama launched into his dreary peroration exuding a skunk-like aura of insincerity. No flowery, inspiring introduction: no soaring rhetoric to thrill the slavering masses, already pumped up by our war-mad media, just the matter-of-fact bare-bones edict of the master of the world:
"My fellow Americans, tonight I want to speak to you about what the United States will do with our friends and allies to degrade and ultimately destroy the terrorist group known as ISIL."
Note the use of the future tense, and the certainty with which the President asserts it: "… I want to speak to you about what the United States will do"!
Although the Constitution forbids it, American presidents have been taking us into war without congressional consent ever since Harry Truman bypassed the Republican "isolationists" and sent US troops to Korea. This President, like any Roman Caesar, claims the power to take us into war by a simple act of will. Some in Congress are questioning this, on both sides of the aisle, but we’ll see how far that gets: not very far, I suspect.
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DeleteThe President segues easily into a campaign commercial extolling his achievements in the war on terrorism: we got bin Laden, we sewed up Yemen, and we knocked off that dude in Somalia. And all these shiny presents come packaged in the rhetoric of war-weary "isolationism":
"We’ve done so while bringing more than 140,000 American troops home from Iraq, and drawing down our forces in Afghanistan, where our combat mission will end later this year. Thanks to our military and counterterrorism professionals, America is safer."
Obama’s makeup as a quintessentially political creature is here on full display: he knows perfectly well the American people, in their present mood, won’t tolerate talk of new wars unless it’s framed by the promise of some respite.
Oh yes, and "America is safer." Gee, that’s funny, but Americans don’t feel any safer. Could that be due to the panic-mongering of government officials, and their media megaphones, who are ginning up fear of a bunch of savages situated somewhere out in the no-man’s-land between Iraq and Syria?
Amid all the requisite condemnations of the Islamic State’s supposedly unique brutality, Obama blandly says of them: "They kill children." Can he really not be aware of the alarming proportion of children among Gaza’s dead?
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DeleteMustering all his capacity for professorial disdain, Obama declaims:
"Now let’s make two things clear: ISIL is not ‘Islamic.’ No religion condones the killing of innocents… And ISIL is certainly not a state."
Two gigantic lies – or, rather, self-delusions – packed into very few sentences. This is the only sort of frugality practiced by government officials.
Of course practically every religion has condoned the killing of innocents at one time or another: al-Qaeda and like-minded folk don’t call us the "Crusaders" for nothing. And it all depends on how one defines "innocents": the idea that there are no innocents among the residents of Gaza has recently gained an alarming popularity in Israel.
And as for his claim that the Islamic State "is certainly not a state," the President’s tone is rather too defensive. He says "it is recognized by no government, nor by the people it subjugates," but none of these factors are relevant in determining what constitutes a state – which is nothing more or less than a monopoly on the use of force in a given territory. The horror that is ISIL is merely the process of state formation looked at up close: the terror they employ is simply an exaggerated rendition of how every state gains its "legitimacy" – by definitively establishing its coercive monopoly. While ISIL is doing so in a particularly graphic manner, in principle it is acting no differently than any other embryonic state in history, benign creation myths to the contrary notwithstanding.
So much for theory: now we get down to the actual practice. So what is the Grand Strategy behind Iraq War III? For starters, who are the other members of this allegedly "broad coalition"? “This is not our fight alone," says Obama: but who else is going to be doing the fighting?
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DeleteSo much for theory: now we get down to the actual practice. So what is the Grand Strategy behind Iraq War III? For starters, who are the other members of this allegedly "broad coalition"? “This is not our fight alone,” says Obama: but who else is going to be doing the fighting?
The President is vague on this front. The only specifics we get are brief mentions of the new Iraqi government and our arming of the Kurds. Yes, there will be air strikes, and some 475 more troops will go to Iraq but "these American forces will not have a combat mission – we will not get dragged into another ground war in Iraq" and by the way this isn’t really a war, it’s a "comprehensive and sustained counter-terrorism strategy."
But of course it’s a war when our pilots are flying over enemy territory dropping bombs, and this is apparently the linchpin of our strategy: air strikes, which Obama vows will occur not only in Iraq but also in Syria. And therein lies the key to understanding this latest bout of war hysterics.
"Across the border, in Syria," the President announced
"We have ramped up our military assistance to the Syrian opposition. Tonight, I call on Congress again to give us additional authorities and resources to train and equip these fighters. In the fight against ISIL, we cannot rely on an Assad regime that terrorizes its own people – a regime that will never regain the legitimacy it has lost. Instead, we must strengthen the opposition as the best counterweight to extremists like ISIL, while pursuing the political solution necessary to solve Syria’s crisis once and for all."
This is the real crux of the matter, and the actual reason for this intensive barrage of war propaganda: it’s a back door way to carry out regime-change in Syria. Stopped from bombing Syria in direct support of the Islamist rebels by an upsurge of antiwar sentiment, the President is using the execution of two American journalists as a pretext to intervene in the Syrian civil war in a big way.
The fact that Sotloff – and quite possibly Foley – was kidnapped by the very rebel group we’ve been supporting with arms and money all along, the "Free Syrian Army" – doesn’t enter into the equation. That’s because Washington’s contempt for the American people collectively is no less virulent than it is in the case of individuals, such as the family of Steven Sotloff, whose sources have confirmed the treachery of the US-supported “moderates," and whose treatment at the hands of this administration has been shameful.
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DeleteJust as Roosevelt took the "back door to war" in 1941, inching ever closer to full engagement with the enemy but not so fast as to startle the American people, so Obama is taking the back door to regime change in Syria, easing us into it slowly – until the next "traumatic" event catalyzes a new wave of war hysteria that will take us up to the next level.
This is what Hillary Clinton fought for during her tenure at the State Department: together with David Petraeus, the two of them plotted and schemed to use the Syrian rebels as a battering ram against Bashar al-Assad – and, standing behind him, Iran.
So they’re getting their Syrian war anyway: the War Party, always a sore loser, never takes a defeat lying down.
In undertaking this new military adventure – which will no doubt be given some pretentious moniker: might I suggest "Operation Doubletalk"? – President Obama is laying the groundwork for his presumed successor, who will pursue it with far more alacrity than he has shown.
The Islamic State is merely a pretext: the real objective of Operation Doubletalk is regime change in Syria and minimizing Iranian influence in the region. As ISIL seeks to fill the power vacuum left by the destruction of the Iraqi Ba’athist regime, America’s re-entry into the region marks the beginning of Iraq War III – which looks to be an expanded version of the first two conflicts.
Now the matter goes to Congress – or does it? They don’t seem too eager to put their imprimatur on this war, for reasons that are perfectly understandable. And that should tell you all you need to know about this latest US crusade for truth, justice, and the American Way.
The whole project stinks to high heaven; it literally reeks with the overripe aroma of failure, and no one in Congress wants to touch it with a ten-foot pole. Our war birds may be crowing triumphantly now, but I give it a few weeks before the reaction sets in and they’re drowned out by questions about just what we’ve gotten ourselves into this time.
http://original.antiwar.com/justin/2014/09/11/iraq-war-iii-obamas-operation-double-talk/
DeleteJustin Raimondo is the editorial director of Antiwar.com, and a senior fellow at the Randolph Bourne Institute.
He is a contributing editor at The American Conservative, and writes a monthly column for Chronicles.
He is the author of Reclaiming the American Right: The Lost Legacy of the Conservative Movement [Center for Libertarian Studies, 1993; Intercollegiate Studies Institute, 2000], and An Enemy of the State: The Life of Murray N. Rothbard [Prometheus Books, 2000].
"The endgame is to destabilize Iraq as a nation state and trigger its partition into three separate entities."
ReplyDeleteEndgame?
It's already been accomplished, by the 'Iraqis' themselves.
The writer seems quite confused to me. But that might be my fault, I admit.
Nothing O has done yet makes much sense to me.
Should I be happy Michelle seems to think it is all well.....?
Obama jumped the shark the last time in Syria and then he managed to get off, only because the British and American people said no. This could finish off both political parties and that would be a real reason to party.
ReplyDeleteI agree that the writer went mostly off the rails at the end with statements like this:
ReplyDelete"The campaign against the Islamic State is being used as a justification to bomb both countries, largely targeting civilians."
We have been Very Precise in our targeting, and Iraq announced just two days ago that they were suspending their bombing campaign for the very reason that they were causing too much "collateral damage."