There is a charming scene in the film Clerks (1994) in which the sidekick character Randall discusses his misgivings about the film Return of the Jedi (1983) with the protagonist Dante. Randall is upset that the Rebel Alliance destroyed the Empire’s new military space station (the Death Star) while it was under construction, thereby slaughtering tens of thousands of innocent independent contractors.
Return of the Jedi is the third film (and sixth episode) of the Star Wars franchise, a saga about how a republic becomes an empire and its people lose their freedom. The original Death Star was blown up by Luke Skywalker in the first film, Star Wars (1977). Skywalker, the protagonist of the franchise’s first three films, is the character Americans are invited to identify with. However, the Empire represents the American polity itself.
As comedian Matt McCusker put it, “The funniest part about that movie is that like if you even live in America, you’re on the Death Star.”
There is an even funnier element in Star Wars that played out in our real-life empire this week, since the state’s interests are light years away from the interests of the American people. On Wednesday, U.S. President Donald Trump met with Syrian President Ahmed al-Sharaa in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. Al-Sharaa led a “rebel alliance” that toppled the Syrian regime of Bashar al-Assad last December. It was a poetic, full circle moment for al-Sharaa, who was born in Riyadh to Syrian parents in 1982. For the empire, it was another cynical betrayal of the American People and our brave soldiers.
Because once upon a time, al-Sharaa went by the name “Abu Mohammed al-Jolani” (or “Julani”) and was an intifada enthusiast and foot soldier for al Qaeda in Iraq (AQI). AQI, as one may recall, was the tip of the spear for the Sunni-based insurgency against the U.S. military and the Shia regime it installed in Baghdad during the Iraq War.
U.S. soldiers died at hands of al-Jolani and his comrades. That sort of activity could get you blown up by a sky robot, but al-Jolani found opportunity within the chaos of geopolitical complexity.
As Anitwar.com News Editor Dave DeCamp explained:
“Sharaa got his start with al-Qaeda in Iraq, where he fought an insurgency against US troops before being imprisoned from 2006 to 2011. In 2012, he travelled to Syria and formed al-Qaeda’s affiliate in the country, the al-Nusra Front. In 2016, Sharaa claimed the al-Nusra Front was cutting ties with al-Qaeda. At the time, he thanked the ‘commanders of al-Qaeda for having understood the need to break ties.’ In 2017, Julani merged his group with several other Islamist factions to form Hayat Tahrir al-Sham, which the US State Department designated as a foreign terrorist organization in 2018, and it remains on that list.” [Emphasis Added]
And as Institute Director Scott Horton wrote in 2017:
“Before his death, Osama bin Laden had insisted on a name change in order to make al Qaeda seem more palatable. The same group, after a failed “rebranding” as Jaish al-Fatah and then Jabhat Fateh al-Sham, is now known as Hayat Tahrir al-Sham. They have primarily been financed by the Saudis, Qataris and Turks. Many of them are veterans of Iraq War II, where they fought against U.S. forces. Though terrorist advocates such as the Middle East Institute’s Charles Lister sometimes insist it is not so, they are still sworn loyal to Ayman al-Zawahiri and al Qaeda. They publicly insisted so a few days after their leader al-Jolani tried to subtly distance the group from al Qaeda in a TV interview.” [Emphasis Added]
The U.S. State Department placed a $10 million bounty on al-Jolani in 2018. That bounty was lifted days after he seized Damascus. On Tuesday, Donald Trump announced sanctions on Syria would also be lifted and on Wednesday he moved to normalize relations with the new regime as he met with the reinvented, suit wearing al-Sharaa.
Lifting sanctions is a good thing because sanctions are evil. Even a depraved Zionist like Richard Hanania will tell you that much. But removing a bounty and normalizing relations with a former high-ranking al Qaeda member who slaughtered American troops? Why, that would be like Nineteen Eight-Four’s Big Brother shaking hands with Emmanuel Goldstein after years of two-minute hating on the guy. Or, like what actually happened in Star Wars.
Despite blowing up the Empire’s premiere military base and weapons platform, Luke Skywalker is offered a leading role in galactic politics by the Emperor. Luke could have become a Sith Lord, a master of the dark side of the Force, and eventually succeeded the Emperor. Of course, he refused the temptation. al-Sharra did not refuse.
We were once told “Never Forget,” and we really should not forget that al Qaeda knocked down our towers and hit the Pentagon (our Empire’s Death Star) on September 11, 2001. That was the pretext for the unnecessary war in Iraq that gave rise to al-Sharaa and left tens of thousands of American children fatherless at the hands of Sunni crazies. For Trump to offer al-Sharaa a Sith lord position within the imperial order is the kind of diabolical plot twist that Star Wars creator George Lucas foretold more than forty years ago.
It’s on imperial brand, but still disappointing. The American people deserve better.
