Announcement

**khushal** · 06-16-2014, 05:23 PM

http://antiwar.com/blog/2014/06/15/a...-them-in-iraq/
Arming ISIS in Syria … Then Bombing Them in Iraq?
Chris Ernesto, June 15, 2014

Barack Obama has a chance to be a hero.
With Republicans and hawks pushing him to do something in Iraq, he could go in front of the nation today and assertively say:
"It was you, Republicans, who got us into this war in Iraq to begin with, based on false assertions and flat out lies. So I will not listen to you now as you tell the American people that the US must again take military action in Iraq. Remember I was opposed to the Iraq war the first time and given the disaster that we see in Iraq today, I was right. So Senator McCain, William Kristol, and all you other "think tank" talking heads who are trying to create more carnage in Iraq, it’s time for you to crawl into your cubbyhole and keep your mouth shut. You got it wrong the first time and you’re getting it wrong again. As the leader of this country, I will not allow the US to make another mistake in Iraq."
If Obama said these things, 80% of America would give him a standing ovation.
The New York Times, the Washington Post, and CNN would all applaud his leadership and American’s reputation around the world would greatly improve. His approval rating would shoot through the roof and it would mean that Obama’s constituency would feel emboldened and proud to be a member of the Democratic Party.
But it’s almost a certainty that Obama will not say this, or anything even remotely close to this, primarily for three reasons.
Firstly, Obama made himself an easy target of Republican critics who claim Iraq is a mess today because the US withdrew too soon. But the troop withdrawal from Iraq was signed into law by George W. Bush – Obama was simply carrying out the law that was in place before his inauguration. By wrongly taking credit for ending the Iraq war, Obama has put himself in a position where he cannot counter Republican criticism of a premature troop withdrawal.

Secondly, Democratic Party leadership would not allow Obama to make this brazen statement because their presumptive candidate for the 2016 presidential elections is Hillary Clinton who, as senator of New York, voted in favor of the Iraq war.
And lastly, because Obama and the Democrats (and Republicans) are imperialists who believe in US world domination, they can’t run the risk of losing control of their puppet government in Iraq by doing nothing.
Arming ISIS in Syria, bombing them in Iraq
So, it looks like the US will ultimately use aerial strikes (and undoubtedly, Special Forces and mercenaries) in Iraq against the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) at the same time it is supplying them with lethal weapons in Syria.
This bears repeating. The US is arming ISIS in Syria and is now considering military action against them in neighboring Iraq.
“President Obama has crossed a moral red line. Recently, he did the unthinkable: He announced that the US government would directly arm terrorist groups in Syria,” wrote Jeffrey K. Tuhner in the Washington Times last September. “Mr. Obama said that he would waive a federal law designed to prevent weapons from being sent to designated-terrorist organizations. Mr. Obama’s actions may be legal, but they are reckless, dangerous and will haunt America for years to come,” warned Mr. Tuhner.
How prophetic his warning turned out to be. Obama’s decision to arm al-Qaeda related groups in Syria has come back to haunt him in Iraq.

**khushal** · 06-16-2014, 05:26 PM

It seems like they just want turmoil vs stability. If one groups become too strong, they automatically support the opposing group. It does not matter what the ideology of the group is.

**Kushan Prince** · 06-16-2014, 06:10 PM

America won't even let Arabs unite and create a united "Arabistan" country so this "islamic caliphate" will be nothing more then the U.S. puppet.

Duh....

**Toramana** · 06-16-2014, 09:36 PM

Access Denied

http://www.ndtv.com/article/world/fugitive-vice-president-says-iraq-violence-part-of-a-sunni-arab-revolt-542696

Fugitive Vice President Says Iraq Violence Part of a Sunni Arab Revolt

Istanbul: The violence in Iraq is part of a broader Sunni Arab revolt that could lead to a holy war in the country, and is not just a rampage by Islamist militants from an al Qaeda splinter group, fugitive vice president Tarek al-Hashemi told Reuters on Monday.

Militants from the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant have routed Baghdad's army and seized the north of the country in the past week, threatening to dismember Iraq and unleash all-out sectarian war.

"What happened in my country ... is desperate people revolted. Simple as that. Arab Sunni communities over 11 years faced discrimination, injustice, corruption," Hashemi said, rejecting the suggestion that militants from ISIL, also known as ISIS, alone were responsible.

"We do have about 11 to 12 armed groups, and they are being reactivated now. And we do also have political parties involved, we have ex-army officers, we have tribes, we have independent people in fact," he said in an interview in Istanbul. Hashemi, a Sunni sentenced to death in 2012 after an Iraqi court convicted him of running death squads while vice president, something he denies, has long accused Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki of a witch-hunt against his Sunni opponents.

"We have many groups beside ISIS. I am not going to deny that ISIS are existing, that ISIS are not influential. No, they are influential, very strong, could be a vanguard even in the whole operation in Mosul and other provinces, but they are not representing the whole spectrum of the groups," Hashemi said.

He warned the situation could descend into a full-blown religious war and said Iraq's most senior Shi'ite Muslim cleric, Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, had fanned the flames when he called at Friday prayers for his followers to take up arms.

"If we leave things developing on the ground there will be a possibility for wide-scale sectarian warfare," said Hashemi, who divides his time between the Gulf Arab state of Qatar and Turkey.

"The fatwa of Grand Ayatollah Sistani just put more fuel on the fire. There will be a reaction from the Arab Sunni communities and at the end of the day we are expecting a holy war between Muslim people, Shi'a and Sunnis," he said.

"We have to stop that, we should try our best to stop the bloodshed. This is the responsibility of everybody and on top of them, the United Nations," he said, calling for Maliki to resign and for the international community to intervene.

Like Hashemi, critics of Maliki say he has gained undue control over the army, police and security services, using them freely against Sunni Muslim and other political foes, while allowing grave abuses in prisons and detention centres.

Maliki has said in the past that his fight is with al Qaeda, not with Sunni Muslims as a community. He lists an end to sectarianism and militias among his core principles.

Hashemi said Maliki's leadership and the international community's abandonment of Iraq had fuelled the extremists' rise. The last US troops left Iraq in late 2011, nearly nine years after the invasion that ousted Saddam Hussein.

"We are not generating ISIS, we are not generating al Qaeda ... They just left things on the ground, and because of the injustice, they pushed our youngest sons to be more extreme," Hashemi said.

"We kept warning the international community but everybody kept his eyes blind to what's going on in Iraq. And all of a sudden, 'why has this happened in Mosul, why this happened in Salahaddin?' You should blame yourself," he said.

**randolph85** · 06-16-2014, 10:04 PM

I don't really buy it.

Why would the west want to redraw the map of the middle east when they already drew the map to begin with? Their plan was a success, Muslims became divided and weak and nothing has changed. Why "fix" what isn't broken in their plan?

**Shah-i-Kot** · 06-16-2014, 10:50 PM

Originally posted by randolph85 View Post

I don't really buy it.

Why would the west want to redraw the map of the middle east when they already drew the map to begin with? Their plan was a success, Muslims became divided and weak and nothing has changed. Why "fix" what isn't broken in their plan?

The globalresearch.ca website also carries articles which portray Assad as some strategic hero, and Iran and Russia in a positive light, ignoring anything that is negative.

It states that Assad's continuous chemical attacks against Syrians is Western propaganda. It ignores the fact that the whole war in Syria began after Assad started firing on on Syrian protesters. It states that Israel is behind all the uprisings in the region, that Assad along with Russia and Iran are fighting a Zionist led insurgency, yet it fails to explain why Assad, Iran, and Hezbollah terrorists fail to respond to Israeli airstrikes on them. Question is why is this so-called Anti-Zionist axis ok with fighting the the Syrian rebels (Zionist agents), but refuse to respond to Israeli provocation?

**randolph85** · 06-16-2014, 11:07 PM

Originally posted by Shah-i-Kot View Post

The globalresearch.ca website also carries articles which portray Assad as some strategic hero, and Iran and Russia in a positive light, ignoring anything that is negative.

It states that Assad's continuous chemical attacks against Syrians is Western propaganda. It ignores the fact that the whole war in Syria began after Assad started firing on on Syrian protesters. It states that Israel is behind all the uprisings in the region, that Assad along with Russia and Iran are fighting a Zionist led insurgency, yet it fails to explain why Assad, Iran, and Hezbollah terrorists fail to respond to Israeli airstrikes on them. Question is why is this so-called Anti-Zionist axis ok with fighting the the Syrian rebels (Zionist agents), but refuse to respond to Israeli provocation?

Yeah I picked up on the bias/lies of the source.

Iraq didn't turn out as what the US wanted but it was a hell of a lot better for US policy than what is happening right now. US policy is not as "conspiracy" as people try to make it, it is pretty straight forward. They want stable and friendly states in the middle east to maintain the status quo which has worked wonderfully for the west for half a century and any destabilization like what is happening now in Iraq puts that in jeopardy.

I also thought it was established that it was the Nusra front in Syria which was supported by the Arab states and not ISIS/ISIL. Arab states and the Saudis in particular are intensely anti Caliphate movements which they cannot control.

**Toramana** · 06-18-2014, 12:12 PM

Iraq Sacks Officers as U.N. Warns of Break-Up – Newsweek Pakistan

http://newsweekpakistan.com/iraq-sacks-officers-as-u-n-warns-of-break-up/

ISIL MILITANTS CONTINUE ASSAULT, AS PENTAGON SPOKESMAN SAYS BAGHDAD HAS ‘WILL’ TO DEFEND CAPITAL.
Iraq’s premier fired several top security commanders in a major shake-up on Tuesday as fighting approached Baghdad in a militant onslaught that the U.N. warned risked breaking up the country.

Washington deployed some 275 military personnel to protect its embassy in Baghdad, the first time it has publicly bolstered the mission’s security. And it was also mulling airstrikes against the militants, who are led by the jihadist Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL), but include loyalists of now-executed dictator Saddam Hussein. A relative calm in Baghdad was shattered by a string of bombings that left 17 people dead, while the bodies of 18 soldiers and police were found near the city of Samarra, shot in the head and chest.

More than a week after insurgents launched their lightning assault, Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki dismissed several senior officers, including the commander for the northern province of Nineveh, the first to fall. Maliki also ordered that one of them face court-martial for desertion.

The dismissals came after soldiers and police fled en masse as insurgents swept into Nineveh’s capital Mosul, a city of two million, abandoning their vehicles and uniforms.

As officials trumpet a counter-offensive, doubts are growing that Iraq’s security forces can hold back the tide. However Pentagon spokesman Rear Admiral John Kirby said Iraqi troops, with help from Shia volunteers, were “stiffening their resistance” around Baghdad. “It certainly appears as if they have the will to defend the capital,” he said.

After taking Mosul, militants captured a major chunk of mainly Sunni Arab territory stretching towards the capital. The offensive has displaced hundreds of thousands of people and sent jitters through world oil markets as the militants have advanced ever nearer to Baghdad, leaving the Shia-led government in disarray.

Officials said Tuesday that militants briefly held parts of the city of Baquba, just 60 kilometers from the capital. They also took control of most of Tal Afar, a strategic Shia-majority town between Mosul and the border with Syria, where ISIL fighters are engaged in that country’s three-year-old civil war.

The overnight attack on Baquba, which was pushed back by security forces but left 44 prisoners dead at a police station, marked the closest the fighting has come to the capital. In Tal Afar, militants controlled most of the town but pockets of resistance remained. Further south, security personnel abandoned the Iraqi side of a key crossing on the border with Syria, officers said. Syrian rebels opposed to ISIL were then able to seize the Iraqi side of the Al-Qaim crossing as well.

Elsewhere, an Iraqi cameraman was killed and a correspondent wounded while covering the unrest, their television channel said.

The swift advance of militants has sparked international alarm, with U.N. envoy to Baghdad Nickolay Mladenov warning that Iraq’s territorial integrity was at stake. “Right now, it’s life-threatening for Iraq but it poses a serious danger to the region,” said Mladenov. “Iraq faces the biggest threat to its sovereignty and territorial integrity” in years.

The violence has stoked regional tensions, with Iraq accusing neighboring Saudi Arabia on Tuesday of “siding with terrorism” and of being responsible for financing the militants. The comments came a day after the Sunni kingdom blamed “sectarian” policies by Iraq’s Shia-led government for triggering the unrest.

The prime minister of Iraq’s autonomous Kurdish region told the BBC it would be “almost impossible” for the country to return to how it was before the offensive, and called for Sunni Arabs to be granted an autonomous region of their own. Senior Sunni and Shia political leaders, including Maliki and his rival parliament speaker Osama al-Nujaifi, however, jointly issued a televised statement pledging continuous dialogue and promising to preserve the country’s unity.

Alarmed by the collapse of much of the security forces in the face of the militant advance, foreign governments have begun pulling out diplomatic staff. U.S. President Barack Obama announced that around 275 military personnel “equipped for combat” were being deployed to Iraq to help protect the embassy in Baghdad and assist U.S. citizens. Washington has already deployed an aircraft carrier to the Gulf, but Obama has ruled out a return to combat in Iraq for U.S. soldiers.

**Badlun** · 06-18-2014, 03:57 PM

USA and the West will never support an Islamist movement. They have learnt from their mistakes of creating Mujahideen and Taliban. If they repeat the same mistake, it will be the climax of their stupidity.

**Toramana** · 06-18-2014, 07:33 PM

US and the West can go for anything that help them further their interest no matter how contradictory. The Wahabi regime of SA as well as Arab Gulf Shiekhdoms are living examples of the fact that for them "it is the end that is important not the means" (end justifies the means).

By the way, who provided and is still providing arms and aid to Syrian rebels?

One source told me in In 1990s, they used to support Maulana Samuil Haq the father of Taleban for training the Ughurs in his seminary. I am not sure whether this is 100% correct but the source that told me this is very authentic and high-profile.

**Toramana** · 06-18-2014, 08:15 PM

The analyst added that the US is portraying the ISIL militants as “enemies of the West” while two weeks ago it was supplying anti-tank missiles to them in Syria.

“ISIL is a proxy for Washington and its Western and Arab allies to wage covert war in the region for strategic objectives,” Cunningham noted, adding, “That proxy force has been directed primarily at destabilizing Syria with the objective of regime change against the Damascus government of President Bashar al Assad.”

Not Found

http://www.presstv.ir/detail/2014/06/17/367371/us-continues-supporting-isil-in-iraq/

**Toramana** · 06-18-2014, 08:22 PM

Not Found

http://www.presstv.ir/detail/2014/06/18/367489/us-ksa-secretly-funding-terrorists/

The United States and Saudi Arabia are secretly funding al-Qaeda militants in Syria and Iraq in an attempt to bring the US military back into the region, a political analyst says.

“And what they did last fall is try to push the sectarian divide and fund al-Qaeda militants in Syria and this is the consequence of getting a very hardcore group of extremists and secretly funding them to dislodge the government of [Prime Minister Nouri] al-Maliki in Iraq,” Colin Cavell, author and lecturer, said in an interview with Press TV.

He warned against the possibility of terrorist groups’ proliferation and stressed the importance of keeping cool heads and looking at where the funding is coming from and who is supporting them.

“In particular, Saudi Arabia is behind it 100 percent and this again reflects the necessity to eliminate these dictatorial monarchical regimes in the Persian Gulf particularly Saudi Arabia, which is the key actor in trying to stem back the calls for democracy and freedom in the Middle East,” the commentator pointed out.

Cavell ruled out the possibility that US President Barack Obama would be able to persuade supporters of terrorism to change their attitude because the “US Congress is so polarized.”

The analyst’s comments came after Iraqi Deputy Prime Minister for Energy Hussain al-Shahristani said in Baghdad on Tuesday that more than two million Iraqis have volunteered to join the fight against Takfiri militants of the al-Qaeda splinter Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL).

On June 10, the ISIL militants took control of Mosul, the capital of Nineveh Province, in a lightning advance, which was followed by the fall of Tikrit, located 140 kilometers (87 miles) northwest of the capital Baghdad.

The ISIL militants have vowed to continue their raid towards Baghdad.

**randolph85** · 06-18-2014, 08:37 PM

I still don't buy the western support angle, this is Russian and Iranian spin at its finest. Though, contrary to the "jihadist" perspective, these spectacular gains have been made possible only by the ISIS courting of the former Baath party officials. Sunnis of all stripes one way or another seem to be involved in this uprising from the religious of ISIS to the tribal and the politically(non religious) Sunni such as the Baath party.

Iran is on the sidelines talking to America about the situation in Iraq today and potential cooperation. Think about it, we talk about American conspiracies on the ground while the nation of Iran who has more eyes and ears in Iraq than anyone else seems to buy the mainstream narrative. Either there is no American support of ISIS or the Iranian have the worst intel on Earth.

**Toramana** · 06-18-2014, 09:04 PM

Listen what Robert Fisk says i.e., US did the same thing with Turkey as it did with Pakistan in 1980s when it used Pakistan as a conduit for supplying arms and aid to Jehadi-terrorists (the so-called Mujahideen).

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vVPzo0WpWsk

Announcement

Towards the Creation of a US Sponsored Islamist Caliphate

Towards the Creation of a US Sponsored Islamist Caliphate

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