You have much to fear from those people. I am the only one who can save you, so you must vote for me.
The January, 2016 issue of Harper's magazine features an article by Andrew Cockburn titled, “A Special Relationship”, detailing how the CIA has been supporting radical Islamists for nearly forty years; a relationship that continues unabated today.
The biblical phrase, “As ye sow, so shall ye reap”, comes to mind when reading Cockburn's dispassionate and fact-laden piece. Although he doesn't spend time dealing with the CIA's attempts in the past at creating regime change around the world; he does, however, remind us that Syria's democratic government was overthrown, “by a CIA-instigated coup in 1949 at the behest of American oil interests irked at Syria's request for better terms on a pipeline deal.”
Cockburn starts his narrative in the late 1970s, reporting that the CIA had been backing Afghan Islamists, “...well before the Russians invaded the country in December 1979.” He also reports that Jimmy Carter's national security adviser told him that this aid from the CIA would provoke the Russians to invade Afghanistan, which, of course it did. He also quotes Robert Gates, CIA director in 1991 who, after hearing about the “jihadi recruits” flocking to join the fight against the Russians in Afghanistan, wrote that the CIA had looked at ways to increase the number of jihadis in the fight.
Cockburn reports that although Gates denied that anything came of this “examination”, that was hardly the case; in fact there were a number of what he calls “recruiting offices” right here in the United States, openly recruiting jihadists. He also points out that the CIA was encouraging Saudis, Palestinians, Lebanese and others to fight against the Russians in Afghanistan. Concerned about unrest within their borders even then, the Saudis were very much involved and were supplying money to the CIA, who could buy weapons to arm the jihadists more easily then they. (Saudi support for the jihadis in Syria, supplying weapons and other help to the rebel forces began in earnest in 2012 and continues to this day with air strikes.)
Cockburn goes on to say that, by 1994, governments were beginning to realize that the law of unintended consequences was raising its ugly head; the move by countries, led by Saudi Arabia, to rid themselves of malcontents by sending them to fight abroad turned out to be a two-way street. What was coming back were trained, experienced fighters who had tasted blood and liked it. According to Cockburn, the 1993 bombing of the World Trade Center was an example of what he calls “a two-way vent”. This attack was carried out by the very groups that Saudi Arabia and the CIA had funded to fight the Russians. After the Russians pulled out, the groups continued to be funded and maintained for possible use in the future against Iran. He goes on to say that although the CIA, finally realizing “one of their own” was coming back to haunt them, set up a special unit to find Osama bin Laden in 1996. This unit did not, of course, succeed. My personal opinion is that failure is no different than other failures of this agency, failures recounted in more detail by Cockburn in his article.
Although I'm going to skip forward to more recent events, let me note that Cockburn documents the forty years during which the United States has been secretly sending money, weapons, more weapons, supplies, and did I mention weapons, to terrorists? Give this stuff to one group and weeks, months or years later you can catch it coming right back at you, maybe even from the same group you gave it to.
Also Cockburn lets us know all about “rebranding”, telling us that the year before he was killed, Obama bin Laden was concerned that Al Qaeda was getting a bad name because some of the off-shoots of the brand were doing bad things, like beheading people. One of the suggestions made was changing the name. The rebranding was apparently helped by ISIS and its eye-popping cruelty; ISIS broke from Al Qaeda apparently in part because of this rebranding. Now, groups like al-Nusra and Ahrar al-Sham, also off-shoots from al Qaeda, are the new “moderates”, and now we are sending money, weapons, and supplies to terrorist groups now rebranded as “moderates”.
I apologize for this post, which is a only a brief overview of an excellent effort by Andrew Cockburn. I can only encourage anyone who is interested in the ongoing failures, decade by decade, Democratic and Republican, of our so-called “foreign policy”, to read Cockburn's article in its entirety.
I would appreciate any and all comments regarding this post. My comments follow:
In my opinion, the world would be a saner place today if the United States had done just a little less meddling in the affairs of the Middle East, meddling that includes artificial boundaries, letting special interests like Big Oil and the defense industry dictate policy and, finally, trying to transport “Democracy” to countries that are not ready for Democracy. I also think that we, nearly single-handed, made terrorism the world-wide problem it is today. We did it by consciously or accidentally destabilizing governments, by the meddling noted above, and by arming people who should not be allowed to play with guns. Shoveling hundreds of tons of heavy weaponry and millions of dollars to every Tom, Dick and Harry who smiles and holds out his hand is not a foreign policy to be proud of.
Also, to put “boots on the ground” in Syria would make Viet Nam seem like a rousing success. Why? We have an enemy that has nothing to do with war and everything to do with poverty and ignorance. You can't win that war with guns, hate and fear-mongering. “The enemy of my enemy is my friend,” works only until you defeat your first enemy. And, more to the point, if you bomb the ISIS fighters on the battlefield, what's to keep them from going to their computers and stirring up unrest through social media? That tactic is already spreading panic across the country, closing school systems, canceling trips, and stirring up disenfranchised so-called lone wolves to commit acts of terrorism that nobody can defend against.
Republican fear-mongers know that the way to control the population is to scare them half to death, then tell them you are the only one who can save them. Tyrants, dictators and monarchs have known how to do that since before recorded history. We need a wheelchair-bound President to announce, “We have nothing to fear but fear itself.” And have people listen.
Thanks for allowing me to rant once more.
