The U.S. and Its Comrade in Arms, Al Qaeda, and other tales of an empire gone mad

[stockholmer]

http://www.foreignpolicyjournal.com/?p=15710

Afghanistan in the 1980s and 90s … Bosnia and Kosovo in the 1990s … Libya 2011 … Syria 2012 … In military conflicts in each of these countries the United States and al Qaeda (or one of its associates) have been on the same side. What does this tell us about the United States’ “War On Terrorism”? Regime change has been the American goal on each occasion: overthrowing communists (or “communists”), Serbians, Slobodan Milosevic, Moammar Gaddafi, Bashar al-Assad … all heretics or infidels, all non-believers in the empire, all inconvenient to the empire.

Why, if the enemy is Islamic terrorism, has the United States invested so much blood and treasure against the PLO, Iraq, and Libya, and now Syria, all mideast secular governments? Why are Washington’s closest Arab allies in the Middle East the Islamic governments of Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Kuwait, Jordan, and Bahrain? Bahrain being the home of an American naval base; Saudi Arabia and Qatar being conduits to transfer arms to the Syrian rebels.

Why, if democracy means anything to the United States are these same close allies in the Middle East all monarchies? Why, if the enemy is Islamic terrorism, did the United States shepherd Kosovo — 90% Islamist and perhaps the most gangsterish government in the world — to unilaterally declare independence from Serbia in 2008, an independence so illegitimate and artificial that the majority of the world’s nations still have not recognized it?

Why — since Kosovo’s ruling Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA) have been known for their trafficking in women, heroin, and human body parts (sic) — has the United States been pushing for Kosovo’s membership in NATO and the European Union? (Just what the EU needs: another economic basket case.) Between 1998 and 2002, the KLA appeared on the State Department terrorist list, remaining there until the United States decided to make them an ally, due in no small part to the existence of a major American military base in Kosovo, Camp Bondsteel, well situated in relation to planned international oil and gas pipelines coming from the vast landlocked Caspian Sea area to Europe. In November 2005, following a visit to Bondsteel, Alvaro Gil-Robles, the human rights envoy of the Council of Europe, described the camp as a “smaller version of Guantánamo”.

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UN Designated "Free Syrian Army" Affiliates as Al Qaeda :

http://www.un.org/sc/committees/1267/NSQE01101E.shtml



From UN.org - LIFG, who is now leading, arming, and funding (via Qatari, Saudi, Turkish, US, and British cash) entire brigades of the so-called "Free Syrian Army," is clearly listed as an integral part of Al Qaeda, with the UN noting several prominent LIFG terrorists occupying the highest echelons of Al Qaeda's command structure. These resolutions reflects other reports previously covered, including the US Army West Point Combating Terrorism Center report: Al-Qa'ida's Foreign Fighters in Iraq

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Bosnia, Kosovo, and Now Libya: The Human Costs of Washington’s On-Going Collusion with Terrorists

http://www.japanfocus.org/-Peter_Dale-Scott/3578

Twice in the last two decades, significant cuts in U.S. and western military spending were foreseen: first after the fall of the Berlin Wall, and then in the wake of the 2008 financial crisis. But both times military spending soon increased, and among the factors contributing to the increase were America’s interventions in new areas: the Balkans in the 1990s, and Libya today.1 Hidden from public view in both cases was the extent to which al-Qaeda was a covert U.S. ally in both interventions, rather than its foe.

U.S. interventions in the Balkans and then Libya were presented by the compliant U.S. and allied mainstream media as humanitarian. Indeed, some Washington interventionists may have sincerely believed this. But deeper motivations – from oil to geo-strategic priorities – were also at work in both instances. In virtually all the wars since 1989, America and Islamist factions have been battling to determine who will control the heartlands of Eurasia in the post-Soviet era. In some countries – Somalia in 1993, Afghanistan in 2001 – the conflict has been straightforward, with each side using the other’s excesses as an excuse for intervention.

But there have been other interventions in which Americans have used al-Qaeda as a resource to increase their influence, for example Azerbaijan in 1993. There a pro-Moscow president was ousted after large numbers of Arab and other foreign mujahedin veterans were secretly imported from Afghanistan, on an airline hastily organized by three former veterans of the CIA’s airline Air America. (The three, all once detailed from the Pentagon to the CIA, were Richard Secord, Harry Aderholt, and Ed Dearborn.)2 This was an ad hoc marriage of convenience: the mujahedin got to defend Muslims against Russian influence in the enclave of Nagorno-Karabakh, while the Americans got a new president who opened up the oilfields of Baku to western oil companies.

The pattern of U.S. collaboration with Muslim fundamentalists against more secular enemies is not new. It dates back to at least 1953, when the CIA recruited right-wing mullahs to overthrow Prime Minister Mossadeq in Iran, and also began to cooperate with the Sunni Muslim Brotherhood.3 But in Libya in 2011 we see a more complex marriage of convenience between US and al-Qaeda elements: one which repeats a pattern seen in Bosnia in 1992-95, and Kosovo in 1997-98. In those countries America responded to a local conflict in the name of a humanitarian intervention to restrain the side committing atrocities. But in all three cases both sides committed atrocities, and American intervention in fact favored the side allied with al-Qaeda.


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A Council On Foreign Relations Love Letter To Al-Qaeda

http://www.activistpost.com/2012/08/a-council-on-foreign-relations-love.html

After Americans have had their Constitution all but eradicated following the damage supposedly done by al-Qaeda on 9/11, a new narrative is being bolstered by globalists and imperialists everywhere that al-Qaeda is our new best friend in Syria. Ed Husain, Senior Fellow for Middle Eastern Studies at the Council on Foreign Relations think-tank, drips with admiration for the once-labeled extremist killers of all things democratic, holy and good. Husain writes for CFR.org: http://www.cfr.org/syria/al-qaedas-specter-syria/p28782

The Syrian rebels would be immeasurably weaker today without al-Qaeda in their ranks. By and large, Free Syrian Army (FSA) battalions are tired, divided, chaotic, and ineffective. Feeling abandoned by the West, rebel forces are increasingly demoralized as they square off with the Assad regime's superior weaponry and professional army. Al-Qaeda fighters, however, may help improve morale. The influx of jihadis brings discipline, religious fervor, battle experience from Iraq, funding from Sunni sympathizers in the Gulf, and most importantly, deadly results. In short, the FSA needs al-Qaeda now.

This morally bankrupt statement, where the enemy of my enemy is my friend even while butchering innocent people, is appalling in the face of documented atrocities and terrorism being committed on the ground by rebel forces. Worse yet, this love letter of support is backed up by the unwitting (but largely unwilling) U.S. taxpayer.

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The US, the UK, NATO, and the despotic absolute monarchies of Saudi Arabia, UAE, Kuwait, Bahrain, Qatar, etc., are knowingly and willfully funding, arming, and politically backing designated affiliates of Al Qaeda contrary not only to US and UK anti-terror legislation, but contrary to numerous UN resolutions as well. http://www.un.org/sc/committees/1267/resolutions.shtml

This constitutes state sponsorship of terrorism by the West and their brutal, oil-soaked allies from the House of Saud, et al. The US is quick to throw anyone (or kill, including its own citizens) into the black-hole of indefinite detention and psy-op torture for providing material support to terrorists. I suggest that many in the US/UK governments, as well as NATO and the other above-listed countries deserve the same. Anything less is pure and rank hypocrisy.

[leveymg]

1. The US is in apparent violation of the EU quarantine against arms transiting to Syria

The EU arms embargo was tightened late July to require European countries to stem flow of arms transiting internationally into Syria. As pointed out, there are some parts of the mandate that limit arms flows to the opposition that date to last year. See, http://news.yahoo.com/europe-tightens-arms-embargo-against-syria-164448697--business.html ; http://www.consilium.europa.eu//uedocs/cms_data/docs/pressdata/EN/foraff/131963.pdf

As recently as this April, the US has led efforts, thus far unsuccessful, to impose an even more one-sided UN arms embargo that singles out the flow of arms to the regime.

BRUSSELS (Reuters) - The European Union tightened an arms embargo on Syria and expanded other sanctions on Monday to try to hasten the end of the conflict between President Bashar al-Assad and rebels that is escalating towards civil war.

The new embargo rules require EU countries to search planes and ships, starting from Tuesday, if they suspect they are carrying arms, dual-use goods or equipment used for repression to Syria.

"These sanctions are important because they will allow ships to be examined to see what cargo they're carrying, and that will prevent, I hope, any arms reaching Syria," EU foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton said at a meeting of EU foreign ministers in Brussels.

The EU decision sharpens differences with Russia, which has provided the Syrian government with weaponry and has blocked Western moves to get a U.N. Security Council resolution threatening Syria with sanctions.

All 27 EU countries must enforce the sanctions - including Cyprus, which some Western diplomats suspect is used by Russia as a shipment route to supply arms to Assad. Cypriot President Demetris Christofias has dismissed this idea as "fairy tales".

Ashton said it would be up to EU governments to implement cargo inspections, which British Foreign Secretary William Hague said should damage Assad's access to weapons.

"I hope it will mean that the European Union will be more effective together at preventing any flow of arms to the Syrian regime," he said.

The tighter EU sanctions could also make it more difficult to supply weapons to Assad's opponents. U.S. intelligence officials say weapons funded by sympathizers in Saudi Arabia and Qatar are crossing the Lebanese border to the rebels.