What a World

by | Oct 24, 2016

It’s been going on far too long to be surprising, but still isn’t it a bit shocking to read major media organs like the Washington Post openly discussing what amounts to a long-standing, not-even secret set of discussions over how much CIA support is just the right amount of CIA support for al Qaeda forces in Syria?

What’s that you say, U.S. backed forces are indistinguishable from the al Qaeda veterans of Arar al Sham and Jabhat al Nursa (AKA Jabat Fatah al Sham) who have sworn bayat to Ayman al Zawahiri, the Butcher of New York City? Yeah, well but that’s okay. They changed their name a couple times and are “on our side” (again).

Liberation

Liberation

Don’t get America wrong now, when part of al Qaeda breaks off and takes over part of (Iran-backed) Iraq for awhile, that is a huge problem that must be dealt with. But when they head back to Syria to take the fight to the last (Iran-backed) secular army in the region, that’s somehow a whole other thing.

Washington’s completely self-contradictory slogans of the past five years still remain the consensus:

“Amid the setbacks in Syria in recent months, key figures in the administration have advocated prioritizing the fight against the Islamic State, rather than against the Assad government. But agency officials disagree with this rationale, saying that the Islamic State can’t be eradicated until a new government emerges capable of controlling the terrorist group’s territory in Raqqa and elsewhere.

“’You can’t defeat ISIL without removing Assad,’ the second U.S. official said, using an alternative name for the Islamic State. ‘As long as there is a failed state in Syria, ISIL will have a homeland.’”

And the quickest path to a stable state then is to continue to back al Qaeda’s allied “rebels,” or even strike Ba’ath government and military targets to destroy the current one, and then at some point after the resulting next chapters of sectarian war of all against all, then a benevolent Clintonian Democratic state will emerge under Golani’s rule — is that it? We know she knows better.

“What has this program become, and how will history record this effort?” anonymous Obama White House guy rhetorically asks the Post reporter. It’s treason. And don’t give me Lysander Spooner: these men do owe allegiance, and have betrayed all Americans in favor of serving the interests of their allies.

About Scott Horton

Scott Horton is director of the Libertarian Institute, editorial director of Antiwar.com, host of Antiwar Radio on Pacifica, 90.7 FM KPFK in Los Angeles, California and podcasts the Scott Horton Show from ScottHorton.org. He's the author of the 2021 book Enough Already: Time to End the War on Terrorism, the 2017 book, Fool's Errand:Time to End the War in Afghanistan, editor of the 2019 book The Great Ron Paul: The Scott Horton Show Interviews 2004–2019 and the 2022 book Hotter Than The Sun: Time to Abolish Nuclear Weapons. He’s conducted more than 5,800 interviews since 2003. Scott lives in Austin, Texas with his wife, Larisa Alexandrovna Horton.

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