Syria and Daesh/Isil – What the UK parliament daren’t discuss
The UK government is today discussing joining the Western alliance bombing Syria.
After doing an evening’s research last night I almost feel like an expert on Syria and Daesh/ISIL. I also get regular updates from Juan Cole’s Informed Comment which is an excellent resource. It’s important to check internet sources since there are some misleading accounts out there.
There’s the Neo-Conservative ‘Clean Break’ document published in 1996 proposing an aggressive policy in reshaping the Middle East so that Israel is able to “transend” the Arab-Israeli conflict.
We have a 2012 document 2012 Defense Intelligence Agency Document:
West Will Facilitate Rise of Islamic State “in Order to Isolate the Syrian Regime”. This document shows that Daesh/ISIS/ISIL was created and maintained by Western powers.
It is only since Russia recently commenced air strikes supporting Syria that Daesh/ISIS/ISIL’s illicit oil trading business has been targeted. Russia accuses Turkey of facilitating and profiting from this illicit trade while also supporting Daesh/ISIS/ISIL militants. There are accounts of strange deaths of journalists in Turkey and associated support of the Daesh/ISIS/ISIL militants by Turkey’s MIT secret service.
That it is only recently that Daesh/ISIS/ISIL financing has been targeted by Russia suggests that it was accepted by the coalition allegedly fighting Daesh/ISIS/ISIL i.e. Daesh was tolerated as it attacked the Syrian regime.
ed: Aren’t those who engage in terrorism terrorists?
3/12/15 3.40pm I’ve found that Dr Nafeez Ahmed has also considered the2012 Defense Intelligence Agency Document:
West Will Facilitate Rise of Islamic State “in Order to Isolate the Syrian Regime” document and reached similar conclusions that Western governments were creating, supporting and maintaining extremist terrorists while claiming the opposite. As an aside I notice that Daesh was not mentioned in this document and wonder whether the ‘new’ ISIS is to move on from ISIS/ISIL/ISI.
It follows that those that accuse others of being “terrorist sympathisers” are actual, literal terrorists … while – of course – hiding and pointing the finger at others.
Pentagon report predicted West’s support for Islamist rebels would create ISIS
Anti-ISIS coalition knowingly sponsored violent extremists to ‘isolate’ Assad, rollback ‘Shia expansion’
A declassified secret US government document obtained by the conservative public interest law firm, Judicial Watch, shows that Western governments deliberately allied with al-Qaeda and other Islamist extremist groups to topple Syrian dictator Bashir al-Assad.
The document reveals that in coordination with the Gulf states and Turkey, the West intentionally sponsored violent Islamist groups to destabilize Assad, and that these “supporting powers” desired the emergence of a “Salafist Principality” in Syria to “isolate the Syrian regime.”
According to the newly declassified US document, the Pentagon foresaw the likely rise of the ‘Islamic State’ as a direct consequence of this strategy, and warned that it could destabilize Iraq. Despite anticipating that Western, Gulf state and Turkish support for the “Syrian opposition” — which included al-Qaeda in Iraq — could lead to the emergence of an ‘Islamic State’ in Iraq and Syria (ISIS), the document provides no indication of any decision to reverse the policy of support to the Syrian rebels. On the contrary, the emergence of an al-Qaeda affiliated “Salafist Principality” as a result is described as a strategic opportunity to isolate Assad.
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The newly declassified DIA document from 2012 confirms that the main component of the anti-Assad rebel forces by this time comprised Islamist insurgents affiliated to groups that would lead to the emergence of ISIS. Despite this, these groups were to continue receiving support from Western militaries and their regional allies.
Noting that “the Salafist [sic], the Muslim Brotherhood, and AQI [al-Qaeda in Iraq] are the major forces driving the insurgency in Syria,” the document states that “the West, Gulf countries, and Turkey support the opposition,” while Russia, China and Iran “support the [Assad] regime.”
The 7-page DIA document states that al-Qaeda in Iraq (AQI), the precursor to the ‘Islamic State in Iraq,’ (ISI) which became the ‘Islamic State in Iraq and Syria,’ “supported the Syrian opposition from the beginning, both ideologically and through the media.”
The formerly secret Pentagon report notes that the “rise of the insurgency in Syria” has increasingly taken a “sectarian direction,” attracting diverse support from Sunni “religious and tribal powers” across the region.
In a section titled ‘The Future Assumptions of the Crisis,’ the DIA report predicts that while Assad’s regime will survive, retaining control over Syrian territory, the crisis will continue to escalate “into proxy war.”
The document also recommends the creation of “safe havens under international sheltering, similar to what transpired in Libya when Benghazi was chosen as the command centre for the temporary government.”
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The conventional wisdom is that the US government did not retain sufficient oversight on the funding to anti-Assad rebel groups, which was supposed to be monitored and vetted to ensure that only ‘moderate’ groups were supported.
However, the newly declassified Pentagon report proves unambiguously that years before ISIS launched its concerted offensive against Iraq, the US intelligence community was fully aware that Islamist militants constituted the core of Syria’s sectarian insurgency.
Despite that, the Pentagon continued to support the Islamist insurgency, even while anticipating the probability that doing so would establish an extremist Salafi stronghold in Syria and Iraq.
As Shoebridge told me, “The documents show that not only did the US government at the latest by August 2012 know the true extremist nature and likely outcome of Syria’s rebellion” — namely, the emergence of ISIS — “but that this was considered an advantage for US foreign policy. This also suggests a decision to spend years in an effort to deliberately mislead the West’s public, via a compliant media, into believing that Syria’s rebellion was overwhelmingly ‘moderate.’”
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