EMPIRE BLOWBACK: THE ISLAMIC STATE NOW EATING THE FORMER IRAQ
The American people are now being subjected to a pro-war propaganda campaign that is quickly drawing the nation back into a war in Iraq. President Obama has become the fourth successive president to bomb Iraq. It is evident that control of Iraq has been a top priority of US foreign policy and now ISIS is the excuse for a new stage of attack. This article seeks to put the propaganda in perspective.
The Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) is a natural outgrowth of 100 years of US and Western domination of the region, breaking the region up into countries that serve the west’s purposes of controlling the oil supply in the region. This ‘divide and rule’ strategy has devolved into a US Empire of Chaos in the region. ISIS is the natural outgrowth of the most recent years since the invasion and occupation of Iraq, the attack on Libya, support for opposition in Syria and drone attacks throughout the region as well as the two major attacks on Gaza during Obama’s presidency. Without US support for the “opposition” in Syria, there might not be a successful ISIS now terrorizing Syria and Iraq.
The mainstream press speak of thousands of refugees atop Mount Sinjar in Northern Iraq, besieged by ISIS, which now calls itself the Islamic State, and which controls much of Northern Syria and Northwest Iraq.
For years ISIS and its jihadist allies have been slaughtering Christians, Kurds, Shiahs and other minorities in Syria but this has received little attention in the US mainstream press because the terrorists committing the acts were allied with US- supported forces involved in a violent insurgency intended to overthrow the government of President Assad.
The propaganda in the mainstream press is so extensive that one must begin with their preposterous assumption that Obama wanted to withdraw US forces from Iraq, and that is what caused the current situation of jihadists overrunning the nation.
The propaganda line is that Obama campaigned for office promising he would shut down the wars and that has been his goal. In fact, one of Obama’s first actions as President was to expand US forces in Afghanistan by 30,000. He went on to increase drone bombing in Pakistan and Yemen, illegally attack and overthrow the government of Libya, and aid foreign forces in undermining the government of Syria.
If we go back to 2011, we find Obama doing everything he could to keep US forces in Iraq. He pleaded with Prime Minister Nouri al Maliki to continue the Status of Forces Agreement which exempted US troops from prosecution for violating the laws of Iraq, and asked for permission to allow US troops to stay in Iraq (several times). This did not work for two reasons.
First, President George W. Bush had signed an agreement with Iraq to withdraw all US forces from Iraq by the end of 2011, which made it difficult for Obama to continue the occupation.
Second, Maliki was aware that the US occupation was about as popular with the Iraqi people as Nazis in a Synagogue, so despite Obama’s kicking and screaming all the way, Maliki held Obama to the Bush agreement for his own survival in office, forcing US occupation troops out of his country. Obama’s only choice would have been to violate the US treaty and continue the occupation by force, which would not have worked well in international diplomatic circles.
Meanwhile in Syria, Obama’s staunch ally Prince Bandar of Saudi Arabia was arming jihadists who wanted to overthrow President Assad because he is allied with their arch enemy, Iran. Obama, politically supporting what he calls “the moderate opposition” in Syria, was allied in this, despite his rhetoric, since the weapons he provided “the moderates” just as often wound up in the hands of the jihadists (al Nusra and ISIS, then directly supported by Bandar).
It is the height of duplicity to claim to support forces participating in a violent insurgency while pretending not to support their officially-classified as terrorist allies committed to the same mayhem in Syria. The USA has been on the side of ISIS by default from the start, demonizing Assad in both US corporate media and State Department briefings as if acting as their spokesperson.
Eventually, the group now calling itself The Islamic State formed from ISIS in Syria and spread back across the border into Iraq where it is rapidly gobbling up territory. An Iraq now ruled by Shiahs since the shaky leadership of a minority Ba’ath political party was overthrown by the illegal US invasion in 2003, governed by Shiah enemies of ISIS.
The corporate press, which, in unity, ignored the formation of The Islamic State, identifying them for years under the umbrella of the Syrian Opposition and ignoring many of their most horrible atrocities in Syria, now in unity call them terrorists. Is there any wonder why the American masses who listen to the mainstream press are confused?
The reason it took so long for Obama to begin bombing ISIS is obvious. First, they were useful in attacking Assad in Syria, and that is still a big part of US Middle East strategy. Second, Maliki is being punished for not letting US troops remain in Iraq, by allowing ISIS to run over some of his territory– a spiteful “I told you so.”
Still, ISIS is now threatening US interests by attacking Iraqi Kurds, who have had close ties with the US National Security State, off and on for many decades. The problem has been to arm the Kurds, frowned upon by Turkey, a NATO ally and the nation responsible for slaughtering more Kurds than any other. Turkey fears a well-armed Kurdish population might attempt revenge. And Iraq’s central government has held back from arming Kurds as well, although just this week the governments of the USA and Iraq appear to have agreed to send more weapons to the Kurds.
The Islamic State is blowback every bit as much as the emergence of al Qaeda from the Mujahadeen created in Afghanistan by Zbigniew Brzezinski, Jimmy Carter’s National Security Advisor. Just as Osama bin Laden worked with the United States to fight the Soviets in Afghanistan, many news outlets report that the leader of ISIS, Abu Bakr Al Baghdadi was also trained by the US and its allies. And, Spiegel and Reuters have reported that ISIS fighters were trained by the US and allies in camps as resistance fighters in Syria in Jordan.
Obama’s War on Terror has created more terrorists than would exist without it. Libya has broken down into a nightmare of jihadist groups at each others’ throats. Afghanistan and the Pakistan frontier have a more united presence of Taliban with the goal of ridding the region of foreigners. And Iraq is a basket case in which the Shiah government can’t trust its own troops who are mixed Shiah-Sunni, some of whom appear to be sympathetic to The Islamic State currently spreading over its Northwest.
Those in the peace movement who were opposed to attacking Afghanistan, Iraq, Pakistan, Yemen, Libya, Syria and all the rest of it have been proven to be right– you can’t achieve peace by dropping bombs, the foreign policy of Bush/Obama, and it definitely appears to make things worse.
The mainstream press, tied as they are to war spending through the investments of their owners, board members and advertisers, will not, however, allow this viewpoint, as Phil Donahue so bluntly discovered when his number-one rated program was scratched by MSNBC management for fear that Donahue might allow guests opposing the invasion of Iraq.
Corporate press microphones are placed these days before anyone who will claim that the rise of The Islamic State is the result of our not bombing enough or supplying enough weapons to various groups (if only we waged even more war, everything would be fine).
“Thank God for the Saudis and Prince Bandar,” Senator John McCain told CNN’s Candy Crowley in January, in supporting the unleashing of terrorists on the people of Syria, terrorists now forming The Islamic State.
McCain’s latest statement sums up the corporate media take, ignoring his role in supporting the jihadists who are now out of control: “If ever there were a time to reevaluate our disastrous policy in the Middle East, this is it. Because of the President’s hands-off approach, the threats in the region have grown and now directly threaten the United States.”
Saying Obama was “hands off” is like saying blitzkriegs are a form of musical chairs, but Jingo John McCain has never seen a war into which he didn’t want to introduce a more extreme level of madness.
On Sunday, Candy Crowley had McCain on again to say that we are not bombing enough and calling for more weapons supplied to more groups, as though his previous support for the Jihadists didn’t show him to be dead wrong on the issue. Crowley did not ask him about this blowback, simply acting as though ISIS came out of the sky in her questioning.
Jack Balkwill is the editor of the independent daily news service, the Liberty Underground News (LUV News). To receive LUV News go here: http://luvnews.info/Join.htmor join its Facebook group here: https://www.facebook.com/groups/461619557192964/You canemail Jack at libertyuv@hotmail.com. Kevin Zeese is an organizer at Popular Resistance.