ISIS-R-US

By tdf, March 8, 2015

“ISIL is on the defensive, and ISIL is going to lose” spoke the Hype Man for Death Inc last month when seeking new war powers from Congress.

The ISIL, IS, ISIS conundrum appears far more complex than the oft repeated talk of ‘blowback’ and ‘kidnapping revenues’ and ‘stolen oil sale’. And for several key reasons, I don’t believe a word of what a proven liar such as Obama is telling the world.

Since August of 2014 the US and their partners in the latest coalition of the herded and cowed, have launched apparently 16000 air strikes up until January of 2015. 60% came courtesy of the US army. The most high-tech, well equipped and financed military on the planet.

So with that in mind, it seems at best, somewhat odd, to find that during the same period, ISIS have expanded their territory by 2-3 times. Add to this pondering the terrain and open advertisments of their power which ISIS employs. We are not talking of guerilla warfare waged in forests or caves, with cover aplenty, making the targets hard to hit. We are talking of an enemy whose eagerness to hide is very well publicized…

Countless miles of wide open desert, and there they are, THE ENEMY, avoiding those 16000 air strikes by…such measures as shooting their guns, moving at a sloth pace, in a 100+ column of shiny new Toyotas!

You can choose to believe that ISIS are so well organized, so powerful, so cunning that they can withstand 16000 air strikes from a supremely capable and expansive army led by the US and 18 other countries. Or, you can open your mind to not crazed conspiracy theories, but logical conclusions based on the evidence available. They are diametrically opposed stances.

Isis are not growing out of sheer momentum. Every army, especially an army on the warpath, requires solid lines of supply. These supply lines are one of the most well known elements of any invasion or rebellion. Cut them off and The Enemy shrinks and shrivels.

Iraq is to the East and has been losing ground steadily to The Enemy. Which seems to count them out as suppliers. It is unnatural, to say the least, to encourage armies to steal your land and mass slaughter your people. Which leaves us Syria… Who are very much at war with ISIS, as they were with the US supported ‘moderate rebels’ in recent times. And Turkey.

Surely our NATO ally Turkey would be with us, in the fight against the death cult of ISIS? Unfortunately the answer is a resounding NO.

“I am telling the West—dropping bombs from the air will not provide a solution,” Erdogan told an audience of Syrian refugees in the southeastern province of Gaziantep Tuesday. “The terror will not be over…until there is cooperation for a ground operation.”

Declaring that Kobani “is about to fall,” the Turkish president reiterated his demands for the imposition of a no-fly zone over Syria and a buffer zone along the Turkish-Syrian borders. These measures would entail an intensive bombardment of Syrian military installations and a general offensive to overturn the Syrian government. He also called for the arming and training of Syrian “rebels.”

(http://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2014/10/08/isis-o08.html)

So  Turkey are clearly demanding the Western coalition of Death Inc fights against the Syrian Army who are fighting against our supposed enemy of ISIS.

We must step back in time, for some context. And I call upon celebrated US investigator Seymour Hersh to take the virtual mike…

For months there had been acute concern among senior military leaders and the intelligence community about the role in the war of Syria’s neighbours, especially Turkey. Prime Minister Recep Erdoğan was known to be supporting the al-Nusra Front, a jihadist faction among the rebel opposition, as well as other Islamist rebel groups. ‘We knew there were some in the Turkish government,’ a former senior US intelligence official, who has access to current intelligence, told me, ‘who believed they could get Assad’s nuts in a vice by dabbling with a sarin attack inside Syria – and forcing Obama to make good on his red line threat.’

(The Al-Nusra front were the fiends cutting out and eating hearts in Syria…one of those ‘moderate rebel’ groups Obama and his pals were arming and supporting, before arming and supporting the new rebels…ISIS)

Last May, more than ten members of the al-Nusra Front were arrested in southern Turkey with what local police told the press were two kilograms of sarin. In a 130-page indictment the group was accused of attempting to purchase fuses, piping for the construction of mortars, and chemical precursors for sarin. Five of those arrested were freed after a brief detention. The others, including the ringleader, Haytham Qassab, for whom the prosecutor requested a prison sentence of 25 years, were released pending trial. In the meantime the Turkish press has been rife with speculation that the Erdoğan administration has been covering up the extent of its involvement with the rebels. In a news conference last summer, Aydin Sezgin, Turkey’s ambassador to Moscow, dismissed the arrests and claimed to reporters that the recovered ‘sarin’ was merely ‘anti-freeze’.

(Anti-freeze??? hohoho! This dark comedy breaks new ground on so many scores…A judge suggests a sentence of 25 years, but those above him, let the accused walk free?)

A series of chemical weapon attacks in March and April 2013 was investigated over the next few months by a special UN mission to Syria. A person with close knowledge of the UN’s activity in Syria told me that there was evidence linking the Syrian opposition to the first gas attack, on 19 March in Khan Al-Assal, a village near Aleppo. In its final report in December, the mission said that at least 19 civilians and one Syrian soldier were among the fatalities, along with scores of injured. It had no mandate to assign responsibility for the attack, but the person with knowledge of the UN’s activities said: ‘Investigators interviewed the people who were there, including the doctors who treated the victims. It was clear that the rebels used the gas. It did not come out in public because no one wanted to know.’

In the aftermath of the 21 August attack Obama ordered the Pentagon to draw up targets for bombing. Early in the process, the former intelligence official said, ‘the White House rejected 35 target sets provided by the joint chiefs of staff as being insufficiently “painful” to the Assad regime.’ The original targets included only military sites and nothing by way of civilian infrastructure. Under White House pressure, the US attack plan evolved into ‘a monster strike’

Britain and France were both to play a part. On 29 August, the day Parliament voted against Cameron’s bid to join the intervention, the Guardian reported that he had already ordered six RAF Typhoon fighter jets to be deployed to Cyprus, and had volunteered a submarine capable of launching Tomahawk missiles.

(I put that last part in, solely due to my semblance of pride that the english parliament at least some decency. Not that it meant anything to Cameron.)

Barring a major change in policy by Obama, Turkey’s meddling in the Syrian civil war is likely to go on. ‘I asked my colleagues if there was any way to stop Erdoğan’s continued support for the rebels, especially now that it’s going so wrong,’ the former intelligence official told me. ‘The answer was: “We’re screwed.” We could go public if it was somebody other than Erdoğan, but Turkey is a special case. They’re a Nato ally. The Turks don’t trust the West. They can’t live with us if we take any active role against Turkish interests. If we went public with what we know about Erdoğan’s role with the gas, it’d be disastrous. The Turks would say: “We hate you for telling us what we can and can’t do.”’

(http://www.lrb.co.uk/v36/n08/seymour-m-hersh/the-red-line-and-the-rat-line)

Why not ask Joe Biden, the vice- President of the United Snakes of America, a sparkly eyed charmer…

Not least are the admissions by senior US officials that key allies support the extremist group. In September 2014 General Martin Dempsey, head of the US military, told a Congressional hearing ‘I know major Arab allies who fund [ ISIS ]‘. Senator Lindsey Graham, of Armed Services Committee, responded with a justification, ‘They fund them because the Free Syrian Army couldn’t fight [Syrian President] Assad, they were trying to beat Assad’.

The next month, US Vice President Joe Biden went a step further, explaining that Turkey, Qatar, the UAE and Saudi Arabia ‘were so determined to take down Assad … they poured hundreds of millions of dollars and tens, thousands of tons of weapons into anyone who would fight against Assad … [including] al Nusra and al Qaeda and extremist elements of jihadis coming from other parts of the world … [and then] this outfit called ISIL’. Biden’s admissions sought to exempt the US from this operation, as though Washington were innocent of sustained operations carried out by its key allies. That is simply not credible.

(http://www.globalresearch.ca/the-relationship-between-washington-and-isis-the-evidence/5435405)

The long and short of the above is…

It has long been known that Turkey are arming the very worst of whatever rebels exist in Syria. They want regime change. Well Erdogan does, not the people. The distinction must be made clear. For he is far from Mr Popularity. Still, the fact remains that Turkey are fighting against Assad. So what of that supply line…

There is much more for me to report on our comrades within the ISIS ranks…such gimcracks as the high amount of weapons dropped into ISIS territory by US forces, Saudi and US funded training of ISIS troops in Jordan, the arrest of Israeli and US nationals in ISIS territory by the Iraqi army and the sterling work of the PKK, Peshmerga and IRG in the real war against ISIS. But this piece is already far longer than I had envisioned. If anyone has made it this far, there is surely enough rotten sustenance for disheartening thought.

The nut of the matter is that…as the map alone demonstrates, ISIS have a supply line out of our NATO colleague, Turkey. And as for Obama’s war on ISIS? Assad remains the enemy of Turkey and the US, and 16000 bombs have helped, not thwarted ISIS, and weakened Assad. Strangely Enough.

Israel are of course involved. They cannot stand anyone in the region having any real power to rival them. Especially if their foes have anything to do with Hizbollah. Which they do, for Hizbollah are one of the major reasons why Assad’s forces have regained ground.

Obama, Clinton and Erdogan have long demanded the demise of Assad. They have modified their game plan, but the end aim remains clear.

And before signing off on this emission from my War Desk, I will mention that Assad was re-elected last year, with a phenomenal 88% of the huge turnout of 73% of voters. It was the first open elections held in Syria for many moons. International monitors who attended the elections pronounced them transparent and fair.

(http://www.workers.org/articles/2014/06/24/syria-election-observers-un-elections-big-defeat-u-s/)

The US government, whose own elections showed less than 40% voter turnout last year, denounced the elections in Syria as…

“Today’s presidential election in Syria is a disgrace” – US State Department spokeswoman Marie Harf

A disgrace indeed. Yet the shame is on Obama, Cameron and the leaders of Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Israel, France, Turkey and all other regimes supporting ISIS…

Suggested further reading

http://www.globalresearch.ca/why-syrians-support-bashar-al-assad/5405208

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article40347.htm

http://www.counterpunch.org/2014/09/19/how-the-us-helped-create-al-qaeda-and-isis/

http://www.globalresearch.ca/how-the-us-supports-the-islamic-state-isis-one-accidental-airdrop-vs-billions-in-covert-military-aid/5409449

http://www.counterpunch.org/2014/11/11/turkey-is-supporting-isis/