>>958655
Why did HUSSEIN PROTECT ISIS?
POTUS ISIS focus and destroy 1 year?
vs HUSSEIN 8 years?
vs GWB?
DC access.
Sold out.
Bring back the gallows!
Q
Why did HUSSEIN PROTECT ISIS?
POTUS ISIS focus and destroy 1 year?
vs HUSSEIN 8 years?
vs GWB?
DC access.
Sold out.
Bring back the gallows!
Q
>>958655
Why did HUSSEIN PROTECT ISIS?
POTUS ISIS focus and destroy 1 year?
vs HUSSEIN 8 years?
vs GWB?
DC access.
Sold out.
Bring back the gallows!
Q
http://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2017/07/truth-uncovered-why-former-head-of-the-dnc-debbie-wasserman-schultz-wanted-it-specialists-hard-drive-from-police/
http://time.com/4156780/president-obama-says-trump-campaign-exploiting-fear-and-anger/
http://www.aei.org/publication/blame-barack-obama-not-donald-trump-for-rise-of-isis/
http://www.vvof.org/mccain_hides.htm
PRESIDENT DONALD J TRUMP has my Respect He has Destroyed ISIS in less than a Year, yes there maybe a few left roaming but soon they will be caught. Trump is on a Role in Defeating Evil!!!
https://www.investors.com/politics/editorials/raqqa-victory-means-trump-defeated-isis-in-months-after-years-of-excuses-from-obama/
McCain: Obama not an Arab, crowd boos
Fearing the raw and at times angry emotions of his supporters may damage his campaign, John McCain on Friday urged them to tone down their increasingly personal denunciations of Barack Obama, including one woman who said she had heard that the Democrat was "an Arab."
Each time he tried to cool the crowd, he was rewarded with a round of boos.
"I have to tell you. Sen. Obama is a decent person and a person you don’t have to be scared of as president of the United States," McCain told a supporter at a town hall meeting in Minnesota who said he was “scared” of the prospect of an Obama presidency and of who the Democrat would appoint to the Supreme Court.
“Come on, John!” one audience member yelled out as the Republican crowd expressed dismay at their nominee. Others yelled "liar," and "terrorist," referring to Obama.
McCain passed his wireless microphone to one woman who said, "I can't trust Obama. I have read about him and he's not, he's not uh — he's an Arab. He's not — " before McCain retook the microphone and replied:
"No, ma'am. He's a decent family man [and] citizen that I just happen to have disagreements with on fundamental issues and that's what this campaign's all about. He's not [an Arab]."
The public display of fear and unease over Obama comes at the end of a week in which other Republicans at McCain and Sarah Palin events expressed similar frustrations, a product of exasperation at the prospect of the Illinois senator becoming president and their own nominee not doing enough to prevent it.
McCain’s campaign manager, Rick Davis, sought to tamp down concerns about the audience outbursts on a conference call earlier Friday, saying they were not a “big deal.”
But that was before the highly-charged meeting in a high school gymnasium in Lakeville, Minn., Friday night.
In addition to the man who said he feared Obama as president, another predicted the Democrat would “lead the country to socialism.”
“The time has come and the Bible tells us you speak the truth and that the truth sets you free,” the man added.
Yet another voter implored McCain in plain terms: "The people here in Minnesota want to see a real fight."
McCain promised the audience he wouldn’t back down — but again sought to tamp down emotions.
"We want to fight, and I will fight," McCain said. "But I will be respectful. I admire Sen. Obama and his accomplishments, and I will respect him."
At which point he was booed again.
"I don't mean that has to reduce your ferocity," he added over the jeers. "I just mean to say you have to be respectful."
The anger is plainly worrying McCain and his campaign. Already viewed with skepticism by the conservative base, they don’t want to throw a proverbial wet blanket over the enthusiasm of the worker bees of the party. But they also fear a backlash from less partisan — and still undecided — voters seeing clips of the angry activists on TV and online.
https://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/04/18/john-mccain-guns_n_3113236.html
John McCain Defends Obama’s Emotional Speech After Gun Vote
Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) on Thursday defended President Barack Obama’s emotionally charged speech decrying the Senate’s failure to pass a bipartisan compromise on background checks the previous day.
Obama drew criticism from Republicans after he declared Wednesday a “shameful” day in Washington and accused the senators who voted against the Toomey-Manchin amendment of caving in to the gun lobby and its allies. The president also said the National Rifle Association had “willfully lied” about the legislation, which sought to expand background checks for firearms purchases.
In an interview with CNN’s Jake Tapper, McCain expressed sympathy for Obama, who had been visibly shaken by December’s elementary school shooting in Newtown, Conn., and said he felt compelled to act.
“I’m very familiar with the issue, but I understand how the president felt very strongly,” McCain said. “He was in Newtown. He feels the suffering of the families, and I can certainly understand, given his point of view, why the president got somewhat emotional.”
McCain wouldn’t comment on Obama’s suggestion that pro-gun groups had lied, saying he didn’t pay much attention to what they said.
The Arizona senator, who has enjoyed a favorable rating among gun groups throughout his career, was one of just six Republicans who voted for the background check measure. He said he didn’t know why the majority of his party voted to kill it.
“I don’t know, Jake. You’ll have to ask them. I’ve heard various statements about their concerns about the bill, but I think you’ll have to have them on to tell you that,” McCain said, adding that he didn’t feel any intense pressure to vote against the compromise measure.
“Honestly, I don’t feel much pressure anymore,” McCain said. “I just try to do what I think is right and, unfortunately, it’s not always right.”
How many Times Has John McCain been to Syria?
http://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-22683261
Syria conflict: US Senator John McCain visits rebels
US Senator John McCain has visited Syria to meet rebels in the war-torn country, his office has told the BBC.
Sen McCain has repeatedly called for the US to provide military aid to members of the Syrian insurgency.
He becomes the highest ranking US official to travel to Syria, though McCain spokesman Brian Rogers did not give further details about the visit.
News of the trip came as US Secretary of State John Kerry met his Russian counterpart Sergey Lavrov in Paris.
The US currently provides non-lethal aid to opposition groups in Syria, where an estimated 70,000 people have been killed since violence broke out in March 2011.
Rebels call for arms
Sen McCain, the top Republican on the Senate armed services committee, is understood to have entered Syria through Turkey and was on the ground there for several hours.
He travelled with the Syrian Emergency Task Force and met General Salim Idris, chief of staff of the rebel Free Syrian Army, as well as 18 other rebel commanders, the BBC has learned.
Gen Idris called for weapons to continue their fight, as well as a no-fly zone and air strikes on government targets.
These are all steps that Arizona Sen McCain has previously urged the Obama administration to take.
Gen Idris also urged airstrikes on the forces of Hezbollah, the Lebanese militant group whose forces have been fighting in Syria on behalf of President Bashar al-Assad.
Sen McCain - who was the Republican presidential candidate in 2008 - has repeatedly urged more forceful American support of Syrian rebels, calling for US cruise missiles to target Syrian government forces.
After unverified reports emerged last month that Syrian government forces had used chemical weapons on rebels, the hawkish 76-year-old senator renewed his calls for the establishment of a no-fly zone.
He has also repeatedly urged that the insurgents should be armed.
But the Obama administration has demurred, amid concerns that weapons might fall into the hands of al-Qaeda sympathisers.
Earlier this month, American Ambassador to Syria Robert Ford briefly crossed into northern Syria to meet opposition leaders - in his first visit to the country since he left in February 2012 when the US closed it mission there.
http://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-39500947
More than 80 people were killed in a suspected chemical attack on the rebel-held town of Khan Sheikhoun in north-western Syria on 4 April.
Hundreds suffered symptoms consistent with reaction to a nerve agent after what the opposition and Western powers said was a Syrian government air strike on the area.
Syrian President Bashar al-Assad said the incident was fabricated, while his ally Russia said an air strike hit a rebel depot full of chemical munitions.
What happened?
Witnesses and activists say warplanes attacked Khan Sheikhoun, about 50km (30 miles) south of the city of Idlib, early on 4 April, when many people were asleep.
Mariam Abu Khalil, a 14-year-old resident who was awake, told the New York Times that she had seen an aircraft drop a bomb on a one-storey building.
http://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-39513193
Syria 'chemical attack': What can forensics tell us?
http://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-35806229
Why is there a war in Syria?
A peaceful uprising against the president of Syria seven years ago has turned into a full-scale civil war. The conflict has left more than 350,000 people dead, devastated cities and drawn in other countries.
How did the Syrian war start?
Even before the conflict began, many Syrians were complaining about high unemployment, corruption and a lack of political freedom under President Bashar al-Assad, who succeeded his late father Hafez in 2000.
In March 2011, pro-democracy demonstrations erupted in the southern city of Deraa, inspired by the "Arab Spring" in neighbouring countries.
When the government used deadly force to crush the dissent, protests demanding the president's resignation erupted nationwide.
The unrest spread and the crackdown intensified. Opposition supporters took up arms, first to defend themselves and later to rid their areas of security forces. Mr Assad vowed to crush what he called "foreign-backed terrorism".
The violence rapidly escalated and the country descended into civil war.
How many people have died?
Read the Story on the Link
http://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-35806229
What Ties Do John McCain have with Obama and ISIS?
Search Anons. Q posted so I did. Here are a few links to Stories
https://www.nytimes.com/2014/09/12/world/middleeast/try-as-he-may-john-mccain-cant-shake-falsehoods-about-ties-to-isis.html
Senator John McCain was one of the earliest advocates of American military action against the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria. So it has been vexing for Mr. McCain to be battling persistent — and false — Internet rumors that he not only helped invent the group but also knows its leader, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, the self-proclaimed caliph of the Muslim world and America’s latest Public Enemy No. 1.
The rumors are based partly on images of a Syrian fighter who resembles Mr. Baghdadi, seen in photographs with Mr. McCain — some originally posted on Twitter by the senator — during his visit in May 2013 to northern Syria. He met members of the Free Syrian Army, an insurgent group that opposes ISIS and that President Obama, in a speech Wednesday on his new strategy for battling ISIS, has vowed to strengthen.
Nurtured by conspiracy blogposts, social media and photo-altering tricks, the false rumors of Mr. McCain’s relationship with ISIS have taken on a life of their own. One doctored photo shows the senator, an Arizona Republican, pinning a medal on Mr. Baghdadi’s chest.
Last month the rumors received new vitality when a left-leaning American veterans group asserted that the senator had posed for photographs “with ISIS militants.” The rumors were further bolstered with the news that an American recruit to ISIS shared the senator’s surname. And on Wednesday in Iran, where many people already believe ISIS is an American plot to destabilize their country, the state television asserted that Senator McCain was an ISIS cohort. As proof, it showed one of the photographs.
Brian Rogers, Mr. McCain’s communications director, was not amused. The man who was misidentified as Mr. Baghdadi in the photographs, Mr. Rogers said Thursday, was a commander of the Northern Storm Brigade, a group linked to the Free Syrian Army. Mr. Rogers declined to identify him by name, saying he feared for the man’s safety.
Rand Paul sparks firestorm with claim that John McCain posed with ISIS-linked jihadists in Syria
- McCain snuck into Syria in May 2013 to meet with Free Syrian Army (FSA) rebels and encourage them in their fight against dictator Bashar al-Assad
- Photo shows him with leaders of an FSA ally called the Northern Storm Brigade
- Unconfirmed online claims suggested ISIS fought alongside Northern Storm three months later when they captured an airport
- Rand Paul said McCain 'did meet with ISIS, and had his picture taken, and didn't know it was happening at the time'
- McCain favors arming Syrian rebel groups, while Paul contends it's impossible to know which groups are moderate and which are jihadists
Kentucky Republican Senator Rand Paul was walloped on Thursday by a series of media reports that concluded he was wrong to claim fellow GOP Sen. John McCain of Arizona unwittingly met with ISIS terrorists when he held a secret 2013 meeting with rebel leaders in Syria.
'Here’s the problem,' Paul told The Daily Beast on Tuesday. 'He [McCain] did meet with ISIS, and had his picture taken, and didn't know it was happening at the time.'
Paul contends that the Obama administration's effort to 'train and equip' moderate Syrian rebels against ISIS, the self-proclaimed Islamic State of Iraq and al-Sham, is foolhardy because the U.S. could wind up arming radical jihadis if alliances shift in the future.
The McCain photos, he said, show 'the quandary of determining who are the moderates and who aren’t. ... The objective evidence is that the ones doing most of the fighting and most of the battles among the rebels in Syria are the radical Islamists.'
On the Senate floor Wednesday, Paul doubled down. 'We don't even know who is in charge of the Free Syrian Army,' he said 'They voted out one guy, and in another, and he didn't even know they were voting. There are estimates that half of the Free Syrian Army has defected to al Qaeda and ISIS.'
McCain has long been an advocate of arming rebel groups, arguing even before ISIS became a regional menace that they should have U.S. support to fight dictator Bashar al-Assad.
The Daily Beast immediately shredded Paul's claim, and a Washington Post fact-checker quickly followed suit.
Paul's office did not respond to a request for comment from MailOnline.
Central to the flap is the loyalty of the Northern Storm Brigade, a group aligned with the Free Syrian Army (FSA), a force that the Obama administration considers anti-ISIS.
Congress passed legislation on Thursday authorizing funds to train and equip FSA fighters and other moderate rebel groups.
Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2762680/Feeding-frenzy-debunks-Rand-Paul-claim-John-McCain-met-ISIS-linked-jihadists-Syria.html#ixzz5C8mF4fMO
Follow us: @MailOnline on Twitter | DailyMail on Facebook
https://www.thedailybeast.com/exclusive-john-mccain-slips-across-border-into-syria-meets-with-rebels
Exclusive: John McCain Slips Across Border Into Syria, Meets With Rebels
The leaders of the Supreme Military Council of the Free Syrian Army told the senator they want the U.S. to provide arms, a no-fly zone, and strikes on Hezbollah. Josh Rogin reports.
05.27.13 12:36 PM ET
Sen. John McCain Monday became the highest-ranking U.S. official to enter Syria since the bloody civil war there began more than two years ago, The Daily Beast has learned.
McCain, one of the fiercest critics of the Obama administration’s Syria policy, made the unannounced visit across the Turkey-Syria border with Gen. Salem Idris, the leader of the Supreme Military Council of the Free Syrian Army. He stayed in the country for several hours before returning to Turkey. Both in Syria and Turkey, McCain and Idris met with assembled leaders of Free Syrian Army units that traveled from around the country to see the U.S. senator. Inside those meetings, rebel leaders called on the United States to step up its support to the Syrian armed opposition and provide them with heavy weapons, a no-fly zone, and airstrikes on the Syrian regime and the forces of Hezbollah, which is increasingly active in Syria. Idris praised the McCain visit and criticized the Obama administration’s Syria policy in an exclusive interview Monday with The Daily Beast.
“The visit of Senator McCain to Syria is very important and very useful especially at this time,” he said. “We need American help to have change on the ground; we are now in a very critical situation.” Fighting across Syria has increased in recent weeks, with new regime offensives in several key areas, such as Damascus and the strategic border town of Qusayr. Thousands of soldiers serving Hezbollah—the Lebanon-based and Iran- and Syria-backed stateless army—have joined the fight in support of the regime, as the civil war there has threatened to ignite a region-wide conflagration and amid new reports of chemical weapons attacks by forces loyal to embattled president Bashar al-Assad this week that might cross President Obama’s “red line” for the conflict.
McCain’s visit came as the Obama administration is once again considering an increase of support to the Syrian opposition, while at the same time pushing the opposition council to negotiate with the regime at an international conference in Geneva in early June.
https://www.thedailybeast.com/exclusive-john-mccain-slips-across-border-into-syria-meets-with-rebels
https://theconservativetreehouse.com/2016/09/28/the-emerging-connections-between-the-muslim-brotherhood-and-never-trump/
The Emerging Connections Between The Muslim Brotherhood and “Never Trump”…
Were it not for an fortuitous, albeit innocuous, picture spotted today – a connection would never have been possible. As such please consider this outline an important addendum to The Benghazi Brief…. and bear with me as we attempt to outline something quite remarkable as it relates to the 2016 campaign against Donald Trump.
What you are about to read is specifically how the Muslim Brotherhood, and ISIS, connect to those outlined above – and how their individual behaviors within the 2016 election begin to make sense. Perhaps, like us, you will have an ah-ha moment.
The “Never Trump” coalition has always consisted of a few noisy and indecent politicians within Washington DC. Senator Ben Sasse, Senator Jeff Flake and Representative Adam Kinzinger the most noteworthy and vitriolic.
Whenever CNN, or for that matter any media, want a republican voice to argue against Donald Trump, in the “current days’ outrage du jour”, they call upon Kinzinger first and foremost. He seemingly loves the spotlight as much as he enjoys promoting himself on social media. In essence, he’s a proud #NeverTrumper.
We’ll come back to Kinzinger and McMullin in a moment. But first we must place the second set of puzzle pieces on the table.
When we did all the exhaustive research into the Benghazi Brief three years ago, one of the pictures that continued to draw our interest was this one:
https://geopolitics.co/2016/01/26/visas-for-al-qaeda-cia-handouts-that-rocked-the-world-insiders-view/3/
Atlantic Council, The Future of the Fight against ISIL: A Discussion with General John Allen, Special Presidential Envoy for the Global Coalition to Counter ISIL, March 2, 2015. The Atlantic Council hosts General John Allen, USMC (Ret.), the special Presidential envoy for the Global Coalition to Counter ISIL to discuss what may lie ahead in the US-led fight against the Islamist group that straddles Iraqi and Syrian territory. Ever since General Allen’s appointment in September, he has sought to “help build and sustain the coalition so it can operate across multiple lines of effort in order to degrade and ultimately destroy ISIL.” The coalition of over sixty countries currently contributes in “various capacities…in Iraq, the region, and beyond,” to achieve the stated strategy. How will the coalition sustain the fight against the terrorist group? What role will the United States play as the coalition broadens and deepens its efforts? Can the fight be ultimately won? And if so, how does the coalition define success? To answer these and other questions, General Allen will join Atlantic Council President and CEO Fred Kempe on stage. This event will be on the record and open to press. General John Allen was appointed Sept. 16, 2014 by President Obama. Allen is a retired US Marine four-star General and former Commander of the NATO International Security Assistance Force and US Forces in Afghanistan from July 2011 to February 2013.
Foreign Policy In Focus via Common Dreams, Why ISIS Exists, Adil E. Shamoo, Bonnie Bricker, March 6, 2015. The Middle East is suffering the blowback from rotten U.S. policies, disastrous wars, and cultural turmoil. ISIS and its ilk are one result. ISIS — or the so-called “Islamic State” — is the latest and most horrifying iteration of the modern terror groups that have plagued the region in recent years. With 20,000 to 30,000 combatants and recruits streaming in from all over the globe, the group is unlikely to be significantly degraded by U.S. air strikes — not when political conditions in the Middle East continue to favor it. The media often depicts ISIS recruits as lost souls in search of a cause or suffering from mental illness. That may be true in some cases. But these explanations are not sufficient to explain ISIS’s resilience and recruitment capabilities. No organization, especially a terrorist one, can survive without support. Yes, ISIS has committed unspeakable atrocities. But it’s too easy to forget that the U.S. invasion of Iraq killed some half a million Iraqis by one estimate — most of them civilians — and wounded another million. Looking at the numbers, we can only imagine the thousands of Iraqi children killed by bombs who may have actually been burned alive or smashed by rubble. They died the sort of deaths that inflame Arabs and Muslims around the world. As a nation, the United States likes to tout its moral superiority. Yet the bleak contrast between what Iraqis experienced and America’s self-proclaimed exceptionalism led many Iraqis to join a group that made its own set of promises — ISIS — and the results have been terrifying. Meanwhile, America’s allies in the Middle East aren’t much better.
John McCain Controversy Over 2013 Secret Trip To Syria
P.J. Tatler, U.S.-Backed Free Syrian Army Operating Openly with ISIS, Al-Qaeda’s Jabhat al-Nusra, Patrick Poole, Sept. 3, 2014. As the Obama administration struggles to address the threat from ISIS and plans to go to Congress in the coming weeks to up its commitment against ISIS in Syria and Iraq, multiple media reports indicate that the U.S.-backed Free Syrian Army (FSA) is operating openly with ISIS and other designated terrorist groups. And yet
http://www.breitbart.com/big-government/2014/09/18/alleged-isis-photo-controversy-engulfs-sen-john-mccain/
Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) and his aides swear the Syrian “rebels” he was pictured last year with weren’t ISIS members or supporters, and the mainstream media is by and large buying the 2008 GOP presidential nominee’s story.
Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY) has endured brutal criticism–media fact checkers, reporters, and political figures have shredded him–for questioning just who McCain posed with.
But a closer look at the situation tells perhaps a different story than McCain’s office or the mainstream media have pushed.
The criticism of McCain centers around how the Arizona senator met with Syrian rebel leaders in May 2013 when he visited the country. McCain posed for photographs with those people, and since then rumors have sprouted up across the Internet that he met with ISIS or some other terrorist kidnappers or nefarious forces.
“The people in the pictures with Senator McCain in Syria included General Salim Idris, then-Chief of Staff of the Supreme Military Command of the Free Syrian Army (FSA), Mouaz Moustafa, the Executive Director of the DC-based Syrian Emergency Task Force (which supports the moderate opposition and helped arrange some of the trip), and fighters and commanders from the Northern Storm Brigade, a FSA-aligned group,” McCain’s spokesman Brian Rogers told Breitbart News.
Rogers said that the senator and his team aren’t naming the “fighters and commanders from the Northern Storm Brigade, a FSA-aligned group,” because “ISIS actually threatened to kill them all, and we don’t want to put their lives at risk.” Rogers provided Breitbart News with a link to the ISIS threat to those fighters.
“ISIS targeted the Northern Storm because ISIS considers them apostates and because Northern Storm met with Sen. McCain,” Rogers said. “ISIS actually wrote out a statement that accused Northern Storm of treachery for reasons including: ‘Meeting with U.S. Senator John McCain in the hangar and making a contract with him against the Islamists.’ The statement goes on to demand that Northern Storm surrender and repent to ISIS or be killed.”
“ISIS actually killed many Northern Storm members, and we’re not going to put them at any further risk by naming them,” Rogers added.
http://www.breitbart.com/big-government/2014/09/18/alleged-isis-photo-controversy-engulfs-sen-john-mccain/
http://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-29152590
Obama protects ISIS calling it ISIL. Same shit Obama Potota or Potato.
https://www.blackagendareport.com/no_us_war_against_isis
Two years ago, President Obama said he had no strategy to combat the Islamic State. The U.S. is still not waging war against ISIS or “jihadists of any brand in Syria.” The international iihadist network is a U.S. imperial asset. “The general aim of the Obama administration’s jihadist policy, now deeply in crisis, is to preserve the Islamic State as a fighting force for deployment under another brand name, under new top leadership.”
There is No U.S. War Against ISIS; Instead, Obama is Protecting His “Assets”
by BAR executive editor Glen Ford
“Washington has no substitute for the jihadists, who have been a tool of U.S. policy since the last days of President Jimmy Carter’s administration.“
The U.S. claim that it is waging a global “war on terror” is the biggest lie of the 21st century, a mega-fiction on the same historical scale of evil as Hitler’s claim that he was defending Germany from an assault by world Jewry, or that the trans-Atlantic slave trade was a Christianizing mission. In reality, the U.S. is the birth mother and chief nurturer of the global jihadist network – a truth recognized by most of the world’s people, including the 82 percent of Syrians that believe “the U.S. created the Islamic State.” (Even 62 percent of Syrians in Islamic State-controlled regions believe this to be true.)
Only “exceptionalism”-addled Americans and colonial-minded Europeans give Washington’s insane cover story the slightest credibility. However, it is dangerous in the extreme for any country to state the fact clearly: that it is the United States that has inflicted Islamic jihadist terror on the world. Once the charade has been abandoned; once there is no longer the international pretense that Washington is not the Mother Of All Terror, what kind of dialogue is possible with the crazed and desperate perpetrator? What do you do with a superpower criminal, once you have accused him of such unspeakable evil?
“It is the United States that has inflicted Islamic jihadist terror on the world.”
President Vladimir Putin came closest last November, after Russia unleashed a devastating bombing and missile campaign against the Islamic State’s industrial scale infrastructure in Syria – facilities and transportation systems that the U.S. had left virtually untouched since Obama’s phony declaration of war against ISIS in September of 2014. The Islamic State had operated a gigantic oil sales and delivery enterprise with impunity, right under the eyes of American bombers. “I’ve shown our colleagues photos taken from space and from aircraft which clearly demonstrate the scale of the illegal trade in oil and petroleum products,” said Putin . “The motorcade of refueling vehicles stretched for dozens of kilometers, so that from a height of 4,000 to 5,000 meters they stretch beyond the horizon.” Russian bombers destroyed hundreds of the oil tankers within a week, and cruise missiles launched from Russian ships on the Caspian Sea knocked out vital ISIS command-and-control sites.
Putin’s derision of U.S. military actions against ISIS shamed and embarrassed Barack Obama before the world – an affront that only a fellow nuclear superpower would dare. Yet, even the Russian president chose his words carefully, understanding that deployment of jihadists has become central to U.S. imperial policy, and cannot be directly confronted without risks that could be fatal to the planet. Simply put, Washington has no substitute for the jihadists, who have been a tool of U.S. policy since the last days of President Jimmy Carter’s administration.
“The Islamic State had operated a gigantic oil sales and delivery enterprise with impunity, right under the eyes of American bombers.”
That’s why, in August of 2014, President Obama admitted “We don’t have a strategy yet” to deal with ISIS. It had been thirteen years since 9/11, but none of the U.S./Saudi-sponsored jihadists had ever “gone off the reservation,” spitting on the hands that fed them, attacking the al-Qaida fighters (al-Nusra) that are the real force behind so-called “moderate” anti-Assad “rebels,” and threatening to overthrow the Saudi and other Persian Gulf monarchies. Obama had no strategy to combat ISIS, because the U.S. had no strategy to fight jihadists of any brand in Syria, since all the other terrorists worked for the U.S. and its allies.
Obama is still not waging a “war” against the Islamic State – certainly not on a superpower scale, and not nearly as vigorously as did the far smaller Russian forces before their partial withdrawal in March of this year. The New York Times last week published an article that was half apology, half critical of the U.S. air campaign in ISIS territory. The Americans blamed their lackadaisical air campaign on “poor intelligence,” “clumsy targeting,” “inexperienced planners,” “staffing shortages,” “internal rivalries” and – this from a nation that has caused the deaths of 20 to 30 million people since World War Two – “fear of causing civilian casualties.” However, the Pentagon now claims to have hit its stride, and is concentrating on blowing up the Islamic State’s money, targeting cash storage sites, resulting in reductions in salaries of about 50 percent for ISIS troops. The U.S. military says it has destroyed about 400 ISIS oil tankers. (The Russians claim to have destroyed a total of 2,000.)
As a counterpoint, the Times quoted David A. Deptula, a retired three-star Air Force general who planned air campaigns in Afghanistan in 2001 and in the Persian Gulf in 1991. He called the current U.S. air campaign against the Islamic State “symbolic” and “anemic when considered relative to previous operations.”
“The Russian president chose his words carefully, understanding that deployment of jihadists has become central to U.S. imperial policy.”
The U.S. has averaged 14.5 air strikes a day in the combined Syrian and Iraqi theaters of war, with a peak of 17 a day in April. That’s far lower than NATO’s 50 strikes a day against Libya in 2011, 85 strikes a day against Afghanistan in 2001, and 800 a day in Iraq in 2003. It’s way below Russia’s 55 Syrian strikes a day – 9,000 total strikes over a five and a half month period – by an air force a fraction of the size of the 750 U.S. aircraft stationed in the region (not counting planes on aircraft carriers, or cruise missiles).
The numbers tell the tale: the U.S. is not carrying on a serious “war” against ISIS troop formations, which remain aggressive, mobile and effective in Syria. The Pentagon’s claim that fear of inflicting civilian casualties should be dismissed outright, coming from an agency that has killed between 1.3 million and 2 million people since 9/11, according to a 2015 study by Physicians for Social Responsibility.
American excuses concerning “poor intelligence,” “clumsy targeting,” “inexperienced planners,” “staffing shortages,” and “internal rivalries” might even contain some kernels of truth, since one would expect gaps in gathering intelligence and targeting information on jihadists that were considered U.S. assets, not enemies. And, there is no question that “internal rivalries” do abound in the U.S. war machine, with CIA-sponsored jihadists attacking Pentagon-sponsored jihadists in Syria – the point being, the U.S. backs a wide range of jihadists that have conflicts with one another.
“The U.S. is not carrying on a serious ‘war’ against ISIS troop formations, which remain aggressive, mobile and effective in Syria.”
The U.S. plays up the killing of Islamic State “leaders” and the blowing up of money caches. This is consistent with what appears to be the general aim of the Obama administration’s jihadist policy, now deeply in crisis: to preserve the Islamic State as a fighting force for deployment under another brand name, under new top leadership. The Islamic State went “rogue,” by the Americans’ definition, when it began pursuing its own mission, two years ago. Even so, the U.S. mainly targeted top ISIS leaders for elimination, allowing the main body of fighters, estimated at around 30,000, to not only remain intact, but to be constantly resupplied and to carry on a vast oil business, mainly with NATO ally Turkey. (The U.S. has also been quite publicly protecting the al-Qaida affiliate in Syria, al-Nusra, from Russian bombing, despite U.S. co-sponsorship of a UN resolution calling for international war against al-Nusra.)
To a military man like retired general Deptula, this looks like a “symbolic” and “anemic” campaign. It’s actually a desperate effort to balance U.S. interests in preserving ISIS as a American military asset, while also maintaining the Mother Of All Lies, that the U.S. is engaged in a global war on terror, rather than acting as the headquarters of terror in world. To maintain that tattered fiction, at least in the bubble of the home country, requires the maintenance of a massive and constant psychological operations apparatus. It’s called the corporate news media.
BAR executive editor Glen Ford can be contacted at Glen.Ford@BlackAgendaReport.com .
BRING BACK THE GALLOWS
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