ISIS: Remaining and Expanding

[Magda Hassan]

A most curious new video clip from IS. Seems the kidnapped British man John Cantlie is now a Muslim and working with and broadcasting for IS. Stockholm syndrome? Tactical move for preservation of life? Other interpretations?

[David Guyatt]

Consortium News on the sudden virtual silence about events IS related.

The silence is indeed deafening - and reminds me of the sudden quietude that followed the fracturing and then disproving of the BS propaganda story about the Russians and their Ukrainian allies shooting down MH17.

For me it's also about Syria and Act II of the ousting of Al-Assad.

The Silence of the Israelis on ISIS

November 5, 2014

A curious silence in the U.S.-led battle against the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria is coming from Israel, which has advocated the overthrow of Iran's ally in Syria, President Bashar al-Assad, but has had little to say about the brutal Islamists seeking to oust Assad, notes Stephen J. Sniegoski.
By Stephen J. Sniegoski
In the war on the Islamic State, the alleged scourge of humanity, little is heard about the position of America's much-ballyhooed greatest ally in the Middle East, if not the world, Israel. Now the Islamic State has been conquering territory in very close proximity to the border of Israel. But Israel does not seem to be fearful and it is not taking any action.
And the Obama administration and American media pundits do not seem to be the least bit disturbed. This is quite in contrast to the complaints about other Middle East countries such as Turkey that are being harshly criticized for their failure to become actively involved in fighting the Islamic State.

President Barack Obama holds a bilateral meeting with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel in the Oval Office, Oct 1, 2014. The meeting was described as chilly, reflecting the strained relationship between the two leaders. (Official White House Photo by Pete Souza)

For example, a New York Times editorial, "Mr. Erdogan's Dangerous Game," begins, "Turkey's president, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, once aspired to lead the Muslim world. At this time of regional crisis, he has been anything but a leader. Turkish troops and tanks have been standing passively behind a chicken-wire border fence while a mile away in Syria, Islamic extremists are besieging the town of Kobani and its Kurdish population."
An article in the Boston Globe read "Turkey has failed Kobani, Kurds." An editorial in the USA Today was titled "Turkey waits as ISIL crushes Kobani."
Neocon Charles Krauthammer in "Erdogan's Double Game" compared Turkey's failure to come to the defense of the Kurds in the surrounded border town of Kobani to Stalin's unwillingness to aid the uprising of Polish nationalist forces in Warsaw in 1944, thus allowing the latter's destruction at the hands of the Nazis.
"For almost a month, Kobani Kurds have been trying to hold off Islamic State fighters," Krauthammer wrote. "Outgunned, outmanned, and surrounded on three sides, the defending Kurds have begged Turkey to allow weapons and reinforcements through the border. Erdogan has refused even that, let alone intervening directly."
Even the normally antiwar Noam Chomsky expressed support for protecting the Kurds. "With regard to Kobani, it is a shocking situation," Chomsky opined. "This morning's newspaper described Turkish military operation against Kurds in Turkey, not against ISIS, a couple of kilometers across the border where they are in danger of being slaughtered. I think something should be done at the UN in terms of a strong resolution to call for a ceasefire."
"It is hard to impose the use of force," Chomsky continued, "but to the extent that it can be done try and protect Kobani from destruction at the hands of ISIS, which could be a major massacre with enormous consequences." Chomsky added that "the strategic significance of the town in the Kurdish region is pretty obvious, and the Turkish role is critical in this."
Israel's Reticence
Returning to the issue of Israel, the fact of the matter is that Israel acts to protect its own national interests. At the current time, the primary goal of the Islamic State is to purify Islam rather than attack non-Muslims.
In response to Internet queries as to why the militant group wasn't fighting Israel instead of killing Muslims in Iraq and Syria, its representatives responded: "We haven't given orders to kill the Israelis and the Jews. The war against the nearer enemy, those who rebel against the faith, is more important. Allah commands us in the Koran to fight the hypocrites, because they are much more dangerous than those who are fundamentally heretics."
As justification for this stance, the group cited the position of the first caliph, Abu Bakr, who began his caliphate by fighting against those he deemed apostates who still professed to be followers of Islam. (Shiites hold a negative view of Abu Bakr and his policies). Also cited was Saladin, who fought the Shiites in Egypt before conquering Christian-controlled Jerusalem.
Considering the Islamic State is targeting Muslims, the Israeli government does not see it as a significant enemy at this time. And it is reasonable for Israeli leaders to believe that the Islamic State would never move on to attack their country because it will never be able to conquer its major Islamic foes, though American military involvement would further secure Israel from any possible threat from the Islamic State.
Moreover, the fact of the matter is that the Islamic State actually benefits Israel by causing problems for those very states that do actively oppose Israel and support the Palestinians, such as Syria. What the Islamic State is causing in the Middle East is perfectly attuned with the view of the Israeli Right as best articulated by Oded Yinon in 1982 which sought to have Israel's Middle East enemies fragmented and fighting among themselves in order to weaken the external threat to Israel.
Currently, these divisions are not only plaguing Syria and Iraq, but also Turkey, where ethnic Kurds are rioting because of the government's unwillingness to help their brethren in Syria, and Lebanon, where the Shiite group Hezbollah allied with Iran, Israel's foremost enemy is being assailed by the radical jihadist Nusra Front, which has the support of many Lebanese Sunnis. [See Jonathan Spyer, "The Shia-Sunni War Reaches Lebanon," Jerusalem Post, Middle East Forum, Oct. 17, 2014.]
More than this, the Netanyahu government is trying to take advantage of the Islamic State's aggression by falsely claiming that Hamas is its equivalent. In an address to the UN General Assembly on Sept. 29, Netanyahu asserted that "Hamas's immediate goal is to destroy Israel. But Hamas has a broader objective. They also want a caliphate. Hamas shares the global ambitions of its fellow militant Islamists."
Thus, Netanyahu claimed that it is wrong for countries to criticize Israel's brutal treatment of the Palestinians in its conflict with Hamas, pointing out that "the same countries that now support confronting ISIS, opposed Israel for confronting Hamas. They evidently don't understand that ISIS and Hamas are branches of the same poisonous tree. ISIS and Hamas share a fanatical creed, which they both seek to impose well beyond the territory under their control."
In short, Netanyahu maintained that the Islamic State and Hamas were essentially identical, "when it comes to their ultimate goals, Hamas is ISIS and ISIS is Hamas."
[B]National Interest[/B]
[B]Now there is nothing strange about Israel's position here. It is simply acting in its own national interest. There is no reason to fight a group that doesn't threaten it. Furthermore, it is in Israel's interest to try to make it appear that it is acting for the good of all humanity when attacking Hamas, and though these arguments are unlikely to sway any UN members, the prime minister did provide ammunition to the Israel lobby and its supporters that could be used to persuade some gullible Americans.[/B]
[B]It can be argued that if Israel openly entered the fray as a member of the anti-Islamic State coalition, it would be counterproductive. Since many Arabs see Israel as their major enemy, Israel's involvement in the war would turn them against fighting the Islamic State and maybe even cause some of them to support that militant jihadist group as an enemy of Israel.[/B]
[B]So it might be understandable that the United States would not demand that Israel participate in the war against the Islamic State, just as it did not expect Israel to fight against Saddam Hussein. Although this might be understandable, if true it would mean that Israel could not really be an ally of the United States in the Middle East because it could not participate in America's wars in the region, which is the very raison d'état of an ally.[/B]
[B]Conceivably, Israel could covertly support the enemies of Islamic State. Israel has been doing just that in regard to Syria. During the past two years it has launched airstrikes against Assad's forces which has helped the rebels. Israel takes the position that any attacks on its territory from Syria are the responsibility of the Assad government even if they are made by the rebels.[/B]
[B]Moreover, just like the United States, Israel has provided training for Syrian rebels. For example, Abdul-Ilah al-Bashir al-Noeimi, currently the Chief of Staff of the Supreme Military Council (SMC) of the Free Syrian Army, secretly trained in Israel in 2013 after being admitted into the country for medical treatment. [See "Report: Commander of Syrian Rebels Trained in Israel, Jewish Press News Briefs," Feb. 24, 2014. In regard to Israeli participation in training Syrian rebels, see: Jason Ditz, "Report Claims US, Israeli Trained Rebels Moving Toward Damascus," Antiwar.com, Aug. 25, 2013,; Jinan Mantash, "Israeli analyst confirms link between Israel, moderate' Syrian rebels," Alakbar English, Oct. 17, 2014.][/B]
[B][B]Staying Out of the Fray[/B][/B]
[B][B]Israel's pro-rebel activities in the Syrian conflict have not been counterproductive in that they have not caused any of Assad's many Arab enemies to abandon their effort to remove his regime. But it is not apparent that Israel is taking any steps like this regarding the Islamic State, and the United States does not seem to be pressuring it to do so.[/B][/B]
[B][B]What this means is that Israel is not really any type of ally of the United States. It does not bend its foreign policy to aid the United States but only acts in its own interest. It takes actions against the Assad regime because the latter is an ally of Iran and provides a conduit for weapons being sent to Israeli's enemy Hezbollah.[/B][/B]
[B][B]Israel's inaction toward the Islamic State, despite its close proximity, should actually provide a model for the United States to emulate. It shows that the Islamic State should not be regarded as a threat to the faraway United States. And this lesson is further confirmed by the fact that the nearby Islamic countries, which should be far more endangered than the United States, do not seem to be fighting hard against it. It would seem that the fundamental way for the United States to face significant attacks from the Islamic State is to attack it first, which is exactly what it is now doing.[/B][/B]
[B][B]Considering Israel's inactivity, it is ironic that in the United States it is the supporters of Israel, such as the neoconservatives, who have taken the lead in pushing for a hard-line American military position against the Islamic State. [See Jim Lobe, "Project for a New American Imbroglio," LobeLog Foreign Policy, Aug. 28, 2014.][/B][/B]
[B][B]Neocon Max Boot, for example, wrote about the need for "a politico-military strategy to annihilate ISIS rather than simply chip around the edges of its burgeoning empire," which would "require a commitment of some 10,000 U.S. advisors and Special Operators, along with enhanced air power, to work with moderate elements in both Iraq and Syria."[/B][/B]
[B][B]Fred and Kimberly Kagan have developed a strategic plan involving up to 25,000 American ground troops to combat the Islamic State, which I have already discussed at length. Some of the other noted members of the neocon war-on-the-Islamic-State chorus include Bill Kristol, John Podhoretz, Dan Senor, David Brooks, John Bolton, Richard Perle, Danielle Pletka (vice president for foreign and defense policy studies at the American Enterprise Institute), and, as noted earlier, Charles Krauthammer.[/B][/B]
[B][B]Needless to say, neither the neocons, nor any other mainstream commentators for that matter, have uttered a word about Israel's inaction. As Scott McConnell wrote in August in The American Conservative, "over the past two generations thousands of articles have been written proclaiming that Israel is a vital strategic ally' of the United States, our best and only friend in the volatile' Middle East. The claim is a commonplace among serving and aspiring Congressmen. I may have missed it, but has anyone seen a hint that our vital regional ally could be of any assistance at all in the supposedly civilizational battle against ISIS?"[/B][/B]
[B][B]However, it would be far wiser for the United States to follow the example of Israel here and, in fact, always follow the example of Israel by adhering to national interest (that of the United States, of course, not Israel) than to follow the advice of those American supporters of Israel who have, because of their influence on American Middle East policy, involved the United States in endless wars creating a regional environment beneficial to Israel from the perspective of the Israeli Right.[/B][/B]
[B][B][B]Stephen J. Sniegoski is the author of The Transparent Cabal: The Neoconservative Agenda, War in the Middle East, and the National Interest of Israel.[/B][/B][/B]

[David Guyatt]

General Dempsey seems to be saying that he can and will choose to overrule the President of the United States in terms of overseas policy? Is this just me or does this suggest that the real political power of the USA is now invested in the hands of the Pentagon? Just a question really.

US military considers sending combat troops to battle Isis forces in Iraq

General Martin Dempsey tells House committee that he would consider abandoning Obama's pledge and send troops to fight Isis in Iraq

• Spencer Ackerman and Raya Jalabi in New York
  
• theguardian.com, Thursday 13 November 2014 19.22 GMT
  
• Jump to comments (617)
  

General Martin Dempsey and defense secretary Chuck Hagel testify before the House armed services committee about the ongoing fight against Isis. Photograph: Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images

The top-ranking officer in the American military said on Thursday that the US is actively considering the direct use of troops in the toughest upcoming fights against the Islamic State (Isis) in Iraq, less than a week after Barack Obama doubled troop levels there.

General Martin Dempsey, the chairman of the joint chiefs of staff, indicated to the House of Representatives armed services committee that the strength of Isis relative to the Iraqi army may be such that he would recommend abandoning Obama's oft-repeated pledge against returning US ground troops to combat in Iraq.
Retaking the critical city of Mosul, Iraq's second largest, and re-establishing the border between Iraq and Syria that Isis has erased "will be fairly complex terrain" for the Iraqi security forces that the US is once again supporting, Dempsey acknowledged.
"I'm not predicting at this point that I would recommend that those forces in Mosul and along the border would need to be accompanied by US forces, but we're certainly considering it," he said.
As Dempsey and the US defense secretary, Chuck Hagel, testified, Isis released a new audio message purported to be from its self-proclaimed leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, an apparent refutation of suspicions that Baghdadi was killed or critically injured in air strikes over the weekend.

A video explainer discussing the mysterious leader of Islamic State (Isis), the militant group that has seized swathes of Syria and Iraq since JuneWith last week's ordered US troop increases, designed to aid Iraqi campaign planning against Isis and to prop up 12 Iraqi and Kurdish brigades, US troop levels in Iraq will soon stand at 3,000.
Even with potential US involvement in ground combat looming, Dempsey and Hagel said further troop increases would be "modest" and not on the order of the 150,000 US troops occupying Iraq at the height of the 2003-2011 war.
"I just don't foresee a circumstance when it would be in our interest to take this fight on ourselves with a large military contingent," Dempsey said.
But should the Iraqi military prove unwilling to take back "al-Anbar province and Ninewa province" the majority of territory in Iraq seized by Isis or should the new Iraqi prime minister, Haider al-Abadi, exclude Sunnis from power, "I will have to adjust my recommendations," Dempsey said.
Dempsey has previously described Mosul as potentially the "decisive" battle of the war against Isis, an assessment backed by General Lloyd Austin, the US Central Command chief who is running the war. Austin signaled last month that an Iraqi-led campaign was months away, owing to insufficient combat prowess on the Iraqis' part.
Representative Buck McKeon, the retiring California Republican who chairs the panel, said that he would not support a congressional authorization for the war against Isis that ruled out direct US ground combat.
"I will not support sending our military into harm's way with their arms tied behind their backs," McKeon said, predicting that an authorization explicitly preventing ground combat would be "DOA in Congress".
Hagel said that he did not "know specifically what they will propose" in terms of language for the authorization, which Obama said he would seek after last week's midterm elections drubbing which has handed the Republicans control of Congress.
Dempsey and Hagel were more definitive about a looming expansion of the US air war, which has delivered approximately 800 air strikes since August. Hagel told the panel that "the tempo and intensity of our coalition's air campaign will accelerate" as the Iraqi forces "build strength" under renewed US mentorship.
Over the past week, US officials have indicated openness to adjusting or revising a strategy against Isis in Iraq and Syria that has come under increasing domestic criticism and battlefield pressures. Syrian rebels whom the US hopes to transform into an anti-Isis proxy force have been recently routed, and have expressed frustration with what they consider insufficient US interest in helping them combat their primary adversary, the dictator Bashar al-Assad.
On Wednesday, US Central Command began a 10-day summit with delegates from over 30 partner nations to "further develop and refine military campaign plans", it said.
Hagel has reportedly expressed concern to the White House that its perceived lack of clarity about Assad's future was becoming an obstacle to its planned Syrian recruitment, which has yet to proceed in earnest. While Hagel did not on Thursday advocate expanding war goals to include toppling Assad, he conceded that without a rival government to back or an existing ground force to work with, "our military aims in Syria are limited to isolating and destroying [Isis's] safe havens".
Representative Walter Jones, a North Carolina Republican who opposes a new congressional war authorization, said Hagel's rhetoric about Isis was reminiscent of 2002 arguments for invading Iraq.
"It looks like we're going down the same road that Secretary Donald Rumsfeld told us that we had to do," Jones said.
In a 17-minute audio recording released online on Thursday, which could not be independently verified, Isis leader Baghdadi cited Obama's deployment orders for an additional 1,500 troops in Iraq last week as evidence that the US campaign was failing.
Baghdadi announced the "expansion of the Islamic State" to Saudi Arabia, Yemen, Egypt, Libya and Algeria, claiming that Isis has accepted the pledges of allegiance from various groups within those countries. His proclamation came after Egypt's most active jihadi group, Ansar Beit al-Maqdis, pledged allegiance to Isis on Monday, becoming one of the largest militant groups to affirm its loyalty to Isis outside of Baghdadi's strongholds in Syria and Iraq. This could be an indication that the recording was made as recently as this week.
Before Congress, Dempsey pleaded for "strategic patience" with a US war strategy expected to last for years.
"Progress purchases patience," Dempsey said.

[Magda Hassan]

Pancakes for jihadists: ISIS shares new online cooking tips

Published time: November 29, 2014 01:27
Edited time: November 29, 2014 03:57 Get short URL

Reuters/Mario Anzuoni



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Food, Internet, Iraq, Syria, Terrorism

An Islamic State-run campaign targeting women has released its second recipe online, explaining how to keep jihadists happy and fulfilled by making pancakes after a day of fighting.
Al-Zawra is an online propaganda campaign that was launched in October. It aims to convert women to the cause of the Islamic State (IS, ISIS) by defining their role in day-to-day jihadist life.
The campaign embraces various media platforms including Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube to get its message across.

#ISIS launches "al-Zawra'a for Media Production" devoted for Mojahidat "wives & female relatives of #ISIS fighters" pic.twitter.com/CpoQ9FjHJc
Zaid Benjamin (@zaidbenjamin) October 31, 2014

ISIS is presenting the campaign as an institute for women, designed to "prepare sisters for the battlefields for jihad" and to support Islamic State fighters, Vocativ cited the group's mission statement as saying.
The latest update from Al-Zawra published a step-by-step method of preparing jihadist-style pancakes. The precise instructions are accompanied by pictures.
The ingredients include: one egg, four tablespoons of sugar, one tablespoon of oil, 4 teaspoons of salt, one cup of milk, and one cup of flour.

Or any jihadi on a lazy Sunday MT @El_Grillo1: ISIS Issues Pancakes Recipe http://t.co/5VFzGFEfTh what every aspiring Jihadi wife must know
Aki Peritz (@AkiPeritz) November 28, 2014

The recipe is quite strict in terms of how to serve the dish, specifying that it goes with honey and can be eaten for breakfast or dinner.
Earlier in November, Al-Zawra published its first ever recipe for women attending to jihadist men who are fighting in Syria and Iraq: "balls of date mush."
Aside from publishing recipes, the campaign teaches women how to sew and stay fit. It also urges the importance of cooking. "You are going to cook for Allah's soldiers," Al-Zawra said.
The campaign has proved somewhat successful. In October, the FBI confirmed that three American teenage girls had allegedly attempted to travel to Syria to join the Islamic State. They were discovered in Frankfurt, Germany after their parents reported them missing.
"FBI Denver Division is aware of the situation and assisted with bringing the individuals back to Denver," the International Business Times quoted a spokeswoman for the FBI, Suzie Payne, as saying. "The juveniles are safe and reunited with their families."

http://rt.com/news/209915-isis-pancakes-recipe-women/

[Lauren Johnson]

Global Research, Prof. Michel Chossudovsky, Nov. 19, 2014

The US led war against the Islamic State is a big lie.

Going after " Islamic terrorists", carrying out a worldwide pre-emptive war to "Protect the American Homeland" are used to justify a military agenda.

The Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) is a creation of US intelligence. Washington's "Counter-terrorism Agenda" in Iraq and Syria consists in Supporting the Terrorists.

The incursion of the Islamic State (IS) brigades into Iraq starting in June 2014 was part of a carefully planned military-intelligence operation supported covertly by the US, NATO and Israel.

The counter-terrorism mandate is a fiction. America is the Number One "State Sponsor of Terrorism."

The Islamic State is protected by the US and its allies. If they had wanted to eliminate the Islamic State brigades, they could have "carpet" bombed their convoys of Toyota pickup trucks when they crossed the desert from Syria into Iraq in June.

\

The Syro-Arabian Desert is open territory (see map below). With state of the art jet fighter aircraft (F15, F22 Raptor, CF-18) it would have been -from a military standpoint- a rapid and expedient surgical operation

In this article, we address 26 concepts which refute the big lie. Portrayed by the media as a humanitarian undertaking, this large scale military operation directed against Syria and Iraq has resulted in countless civilian deaths.

It could not have been undertaken without the unbending support of the Western media which has upheld Obama's initiative as a counter-terrorism operation.

THE HISTORICAL ORIGINS OF AL QAEDA

1. The US has supported Al Qaeda and its affiliated organizations for almost half a century since the heyday of the Soviet Afghan war.

2. CIA training camps were set up in Pakistan. In the ten year period from 1982 to 1992, some 35,000 jihadists from 43 Islamic countries were recruited by the CIA to fight in the Afghan jihad.

"Advertisements, paid for from CIA funds, were placed in newspapers and newsletters around the world offering inducements and motivations to join the Jihad."

3. Since the Reagan Administration, Washington has supported the Islamic terror network.
Ronald Reagan called the terrorists "freedom fighters". The US supplied weapons to the Islamic brigades. It was all for "a good cause": fighting the Soviet Union and regime change, leading to the demise of a secular government in Afghanistan.

Ronald Reagan meets Afghan Mujahideen Commanders at the White House in 1985 (Reagan Archives)

4. Jihadist textbooks were published by the University of Nebraska. ". "The United States spent millions of dollars to supply Afghan schoolchildren with textbooks filled with violent images and militant Islamic teachings."

5. Osama bin Laden, America's bogyman and founder of Al Qaeda was recruited by the CIA in 1979 at the very outset of the US sponsored jihadist war against Afghanistan . He was 22 years old and was trained in a CIA sponsored guerilla training camp.

Al Qaeda was not behind the 9/11 Attacks. September 11, 2001 provided a justification for waging a war against Afghanistan on the grounds that Afghanistan was a state sponsor of terrorism, supportive of Al Qaeda. The 9/11 attacks were instrumental in the formulation of the "Global War on Terrorism".

THE ISLAMIC STATE (ISIL)

6. The Islamic State (ISIL) was originally an Al Qaeda affiliated entity created by US intelligence with the support of Britain's MI6, Israel's Mossad, Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) and Saudi Arabia's General Intelligence Presidency (GIP), Ri'āsat Al-Istikhbārāt Al-'Āmah ( رئاسة الاستخبارات العامة‎).

7. The ISIL brigades were involved in the US-NATO supported insurgency in Syria directed against the government of Bashar al Assad.

8. NATO and the Turkish High Command were responsible for the recruitment of ISIL and Al Nusrah mercenaries from the outset of the Syrian insurgency in March 2011. According to Israeli intelligence sources, this initiative consisted in:

"a campaign to enlist thousands of Muslim volunteers in Middle East countries and the Muslim world to fight alongside the Syrian rebels. The Turkish army would house these volunteers, train them and secure their passage into Syria. (DEBKAfile, NATO to give rebels anti-tank weapons, August 14, 2011.)

9.There are Western Special Forces and Western intelligence operatives within the ranks of the ISIL. British Special Forces and MI6 have been involved in training jihadist rebels in Syria.

10. Western military specialists on contract to the Pentagon have trained the terrorists in the use of chemical weapons.

"The United States and some European allies are using defense contractors to train Syrian rebels on how to secure chemical weapons stockpiles in Syria, a senior U.S. official and several senior diplomats told CNN Sunday. ( CNN Report, December 9, 2012)

11. The ISIL's practice of beheadings is part of the US sponsored terrorist training programs implemented in Saudi Arabia and Qatar.

12. Recruited by America's ally, a large number of ISIL mercenaries are convicted criminals released from Saudi prisons on condition they join the ISIL. Saudi death row inmates were recruited to join the terror brigades.

13. Israel has supported the ISIL and Al Nusrah brigades out of the Golan Heights.
Jihadist fighters have met Israeli IDF officers as well as Prime Minister Netanyahu. The IDF top brass tacitly acknowledges that "global jihad elements inside Syria" [ISIL and Al Nusrah] are supported by Israel. See image below:

"Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Defence Minister Moshe Ya'alon next to a wounded mercenary, Israeli military field hospital at the occupied Golan Heights' border with Syria, 18 February 2014″


SYRIA AND IRAQ

14 The ISIL are the foot soldiers of the Western military alliance. Their unspoken mandate is to wreck havoc and destruction in Syria and Iraq, acting on behalf of their US sponsors.

15. US Senator John McCain has met up with jihadist terrorist leaders in Syria. (see picture right)

16 The Islamic State (IS) militia, which is currently the alleged target of a US-NATO bombing campaign under a "counter-terrorism" mandate, continues to be supported covertly by the US. Washington and its allies continue to provide military aid to the Islamic State.

17. US and allied bombings are not targeting the ISIL, they are bombing the economic infrastructure of Iraq and Syria including factories and oil refineries.

18. The IS caliphate project is part of a longstanding US foreign policy agenda to carve up Iraq and Syria into separate territories: A Sunni Islamist Caliphate, an Arab Shia Republic, a Republic of Kurdistan.

THE GLOBAL WAR ON TERRORISM (GWOT)

19. "The Global War on Terrorism" (GWOT) is presented as a "Clash of Civilizations", a war between competing values and religions, when in reality it is an outright war of conquest, guided by strategic and economic objectives.

20 U.S. sponsored Al Qaeda terror brigades (covertly supported by Western intelligence) have been deployed in Mali, Niger, Nigeria, the Central African Republic, Somalia and Yemen.

These various affiliated Al Qaeda entities in the Middle East, sub-Saharan Africa and Asia are CIA sponsored "intelligence assets". They are used by Washington to wreck havoc, create internal conflicts and destabilize sovereign countries.

21 Boko Haram in Nigeria, Al Shabab in Somalia, the Libya Islamic Fighting Group (LIFG) (supported by NATO in 2011), Al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM), Jemaah Islamiah (JI) in Indonesia, among other Al Qaeda affiliated groups are supported covertly by Western intelligence.

22. The US is also supporting Al Qaeda affiliated terrorist organizations in the Xinjiang Uighur autonomous region of China. The underlying objective is to trigger political instability in Western China.

Chinese jihadists are reported to have received "terrorist training" from the Islamic State "in order to conduct attacks in China". The declared objective of these Chinese-based jihadist entities (which serves the interests of the US) is to establish a Islamic caliphate extending into Western China. (Michel Chossudovsky, America's War on Terrorism, Global Research, Montreal, 2005, Chapter 2).

HOMEGROWN TERRORISTS

23 The Terrorists R Us: While the US is the unspoken architect of the Islamic State, Obama's holy mandate is to protect America against ISIL attacks.

24 The homegrown terrorist threat is a fabrication. It is promoted by Western governments and the media with a view to repealing civil liberties and installing a police state. The terror attacks by alleged jihadists and terror warnings are invariably staged events. They are used to create an atmosphere of fear and intimidation.

In turn, the arrests, trials and sentences of "Islamic terrorists" sustain the legitimacy of America's Homeland Security State and law enforcement apparatus, which has become increasingly militarized.

The ultimate objective is to instill in the minds of millions of Americans that the enemy is real and the U.S. Administration will protect the lives of its citizens.

25. The "counter-terrorism" campaign against the Islamic State has contributed to the demonization of Muslims, who in the eyes of Western public opinion are increasingly associated with the jihadists.

26 Anybody who dares to question the validity of the "Global War on Terrorism" is branded a terrorist and subjected to the anti-terrorist laws.

The ultimate objective of the "Global War on Terrorism" is to subdue the citizens, totally depoliticize social life in America, prevent people from thinking and conceptualizing, from analyzing facts and challenging the legitimacy of the inquisitorial social order which rules America.

The Obama Administration has imposed a diabolical consensus with the support of its allies, not to mention the complicit role of the United Nations Security Council. The Western media has embraced the consensus; it has described the Islamic State as an independent entity, an outside enemy which threatens the Western World.