Thank you for your wonderful piece on ISIS laying the sole blame on Obama for allowing ISIS to grow.
I really like how you question such all-knowing, all-being people such as Leon Panetta to provide a very serious person to establish your very serious point that if only Obama had fully supported the moderate opposition from day one, the Middle East would be fine.
I do have just one or two minor little quibbles.
You do know the U.S. was behind installing Malaki? Right?
But there is one other minor quibble. You touched on Gulf State funding for ISIS. How about their ideology? How about their acceptance?
HRW says about 20 opposition groups took part in the offensive and that five were involved in the attacks on civilians - the al-Nusra Front, the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIS), Jaysh al-Muhajirin wa al-Ansar, Ahrar al-Sham and Suqour al-Izz.
None are affiliated to the Western-backed Supreme Military Council of the Free Syrian Army, though SMC chief Gen Salim Idris did say at the time that fighters under his command participated in the assault.
BBC
So our secular, moderate Idris was all happy on the assault on Latakia until it became blatantly obvious that the forces were killing and raping with abandon. Then the weasel decided that the 'victory' didn't look good so he backed away from his fellow fighters. This is a two-faced media frontman we like. (The Western media didn't really mention all the nasty bits that went on in Latakia, in fact, the Western media has been quite silent on many of the nasty bits of the 'insurgents'.)
I'll get back on how ISIS was conducting massacres on the Syria people later, but lets go back to some basics.
So your piece starts with the premise that Malaki in Iraq (being confrontational with Sunnis) and Obama in Syria (not supporting the moderates despite very serious people supporting it) is the reason ISIS grew.
Considering the leader of ISIS started his movement years before either Malaki or Obama had their hands on foreign policy, this would really need a much stronger statement than you present. In fact, this is really what the whole problem is about and why your pathetic piece will do nothing to enlighten people or solve the problems.
Yes, it does go back to our support of the Mujahideen in Afghanistan. And our relationship with Saudi Arabia. Since then, we have not confronted the root of the problem. Even after 9/11 when really could have, we published the 9/11 commission that did everything they could to involve Hizballah and ignore the blatant fact that the majority of the terrorists were from Saudi Arabia.
So some very serious people decided to remove Bashar Al Asad from power in continuation of our stupid policy to remake the Middle East. We once again enlisted our dear dear friends the Saudis to accomplish the goal.
(On a side note, a very serious person by name of Bernard Henri-Levi in France pushed his country to take out Qaddafi. Now very serious person Bernard Henri-Levi is persona-non-grata in the Libya based merely on him being Jewish after the country was weakened and a bunch of Islamic militias have taken over. Dumbass. But I'm sure France has the same rules as the U.S. Once you are a very serious person, you are always a very serious person.)
So after the Gulf States reached out and found the most 'enthusiastic' Islamic fighters in the world to remake in Syria, it has bit them in the ass. So what do we do? Why the same thing we do when Wall Street screws up. Get the same people that screwed up to 'find and fix' the problems.
Will this actually fix the problems?
No.
Billions from various Gulf States actors will continue to push their extremists views in the region. We will be forced to polish the turd that is their psycho Wahhabi version of Islam, and we will continue to blame everyone but us and the Gulf States.
So nice job of deflecting the blame of ISIS. Because if you had actually reported the full version of events, Obama would look smart and all the idiot pundits would look like fools.
And if the media hadn't been harping the 'establishment' message that Bashar was fighting unarmed civilians we might have a clearer version of what is going on in Syria.
Instead, the media (and neo-liberals such as Susan Rice) are allowed to say that Syria isn't doing enough to fight ISIS, but is being too brutal when it fights ISIS. And despite the ISIS massacres on Syrians and many dead Syrian troops fighting ISIS, that Bashar supports ISIS. And what really gets my goat is that Western Media and pundits and politicians are once again calling Islamic Jihadists, even those affiliated with Al Qaeda, moderate. Assholes one and all.
Assholes that will all continue the problems.
But at least the Saudis pay them nice.-