US-Armed Syrian Opposition "Surrenders" to Al Qaeda?

New Eastern Outlook
Ulson Gunnar
November 18, 2014

Al Qaeda affiliates are suddenly now Islamic State (ISIS) affiliates, and entire groups of militants the US has been arming, funding, and training are "surrendering" to Al Qaeda, bringing along with them a large number of US weapons. Is this a failure of US foreign policy? Or is this simply a rhetorical means to explain away what appears to be an immense army of extremists the US is once again building up to direct at one of its enemies, just as it did in Afghanistan in the 1980's? 

Al Qaeda Morphs into ISIS

In late September, just in time to aid the US in its fumbling justification for bombing Syria, terrorists allegedly beheaded a French tourist kidnapped in the North African nation of Algeria. The timing, as with previous ISIS executions, was impeccable, lending maximum propaganda value, not to the terrorist organization, but to the United States which has utilized each grisly murder as a means for direct and continued military intervention on both sides of the Syrian-Iraqi border. 

The BBC in their article, "French hostage Herve Gourdel beheaded in Algeria," would report that: 

The beheading, the spokesman says, is to "avenge the victims in Algeria... and support the caliphate" proclaimed by IS in Iraq and Syria.

Jund al-Khilafa (Soldiers of the Caliphate) pledged allegiance to IS on 14 September. 

Until then it had been known as part of al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM), which grew out of an Algerian militant group and is now active across North and parts of West Africa.

Al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb, or AQIM, was directly associated with terrorist groups armed and backed by NATO in the 2011 invasion and bombardment of Libya in efforts to overthrow the government of Muammar Qaddafi in Tripoli. 

From Ukraine to Syria: UN's Selective Defense of Human Rights

New Eastern Outlook
Ulson Gunnar
October 5, 2014

For the past several years, the United Nations has served as a platform for Syria's enemies to air allegations of human rights abuses and even attempts to use such allegations to justify military aggression against Syria itself. Tales of "barrel bombs" being used against civilians, the bombardment of enemy positions at the cost of civilian lives and the destruction of vital infrastructure have all been constructs in the West's narrative against the Syrian government.

Now that the US is itself bombing Syria, killing Syrians including innocent men, women and children, as well as vital infrastructure local populations depend on for their survival, the UN has grown suddenly quiet. The Western press too seems to have reverted to its observance of the notion of "collateral damage." Suddenly, the very terrorists the Syrian government has tried to warn the world about for years as it fought them in its city streets and countrysides, are now bad enough for the end of defeating them to justify the means of occasionally killing civilians, so long as they are killed with US rather than Syrian weapons.

The startling hypocrisy combines with the fact that Syria's military is operating within its territory, conducting security operations to secure its own borders and all territory within it, while the US is operating thousands of miles from its own shores, in a foreign country, with both a doubtful pretext and an even more doubtful agenda in mind as it does so.

Where is the United Nations? The airstrikes in Syria carried out by the US, Persian Gulf states, and several European nations are done so without the Syrian government's approval, no recognized opposition party has approved of them, and certainly no UN resolution has provided the West with a mandate to exercise military force inside of Syria. On this point alone, the UN should be standing up in vocal protest, leveling sanctions against those participating in this act of unilateral, illegal military aggression. Additionally, the UN should be speaking out against the loss of civilian lives, just as it did during the past several years of chaos in Syria's ongoing conflict, as well as preparing monitoring teams and investigations into the impact of these attacks.

Aside from Syria, there is another battlefield the UN is suspiciously absent from. Ukraine. In Ukraine, Kiev has been carrying out increasingly atrocious campaigns of violence against its own people. As it steadily loses control over territory in the east of Ukraine, grisly scenes of mass murder, torture, and extrajudicial executions are being uncovered. Yet there is no protest voiced within the UN, no teams being mobilized to investigate unearthed crime scenes and no measures taken against the perpetrators which include ultra-right wing militant groups espousing modern-day Nazism like the notorious Right Sector.

As in Libya, So in Syria: The Folly of Interventionism

New Eastern Outlook
Ulson Gunnar
August 26, 2014

The United States has been inching its way toward intervention in Syria since hostilities began in 2011. From the beginning the US State Department admitted that terrorist armies were waging war against Damascus, but both the US government, its allies in Europe, and prominent media organizations across the West repeatedly claimed that the conflict was not an invasion by multinational terrorist organizations, but rather a "pro-democracy uprising." Now, years into the conflict, the US is finally at the threshold of direct military
intervention, announcing that it would begin flights over Syria to gather "intelligence."

As in Libya...  

The familiar narrative taking shape should sound strikingly familiar to the lead up to NATO intervention in Libya in 2011. There, just as in Syria, heavily armed terrorists, not "pro-democracy activists" were waging war against Tripoli. Intentionally misrepresenting the facts on the ground and the greater geopolitical context the Libyan conflict fit into, NATO successfully sold direct military intervention in Libya to the world. The "democratization" of Libya included daily NATO sorties into Libya, bombing the North African nation from air, while terrorist armies marched below, fully armed and equipped by NATO member states.

As the conflict drew to a close, with the Libyan government decimated, infrastructure nationwide destroyed, and very real atrocities (including genocide) unfolding just as NATO had falsely claimed were being perpetrated by Tripoli months earlier, it was clear that decimation, not democracy was the end result. Years after the decimation of Libya, the country remains in flames. There exists no stable government and the "pro-democracy freedom fighters" NATO assisted into power are now clearly exposed as sectarian extremists.

The West’s War on Middle East Christians

New Eastern Outlook 

Ulson Gunnar 

April 28, 2014 

TIME Magazine’s article, “Christians and Tyrants: Why the Middle East’s Persecuted Minority is Making Unholy Choices,” is an attempt to explain to impressionable Western audiences why Christians (and other minorities) have stalwartly backed both the military-led government in Egypt and the government of President Bashar al-Assad in Syria for now over 3 years.

TIME implies in title alone, that they’ve erred or compromised themselves by doing so. But as we will soon see, nothing could be further from the truth, and the support these minorities exhibit for their respective protectors now is a result of protection offered to them by secular leaders against foreign-backed sectarian extremists for decades.

TIME’s Tall Tale 

TIME begins by describing the overrunning of the Syrian town of Raqqa. It claims that the Islamic State of Iaq and Greater Syria (ISIS aka Al Qaeda in Iraq ‘AQI,’ a US designated terrorist organization) overpowered “more moderate rebel brigades,” and subsequently subjected Christians to persecution under their rule.

Some 3,000 Christians fled, leaving only small number behind to be beheaded, flogged, and otherwise abused, tortured, and systematically exterminated. TIME claims Al Qaeda has even disavowed ISIS for its extreme violence, perhaps hoping readers don’t realize ISIS is in fact Al Qaeda, and that Al Qaeda’s other brands in Syria, including the al-Nusra front, is similarly abusing other minorities across Syria, including most recently in Kessab in the north, with NATO backing.

Continue reading at New Eastern Outlook...

The Battle for Iraq and the Myth of Sectarian Divide

New Eastern Outlook 

Ulson Gunnar 

April 8, 2014 

A battle rages across Iraq, forcing the government and the Iraqi people to make decisions, alliances, and policies that will have a long-lasting effect on the fate of the nation for many years to come. Articles by the BBC, including “Revisiting Baghdad: How bad are the sectarian tensions?” reveal that while broad strokes frequently paint a picture of a sectarian divide, the violence is in fact driven by a small minority of hardline extremists hailing from Al Qaeda’s various Iraqi franchises.

Iraq’s sectarian narrative has been so deeply engraved in the psyche of global audiences, few can scarcely remember the days when Sunnis and Shia’a stood shoulder to shoulder in the opening days of US occupation. In fact, it was because of the initial solidarity exhibited across Iraq’s diverse cultural and religious tapestry that necessitated the sectarian narrative in the first place.

Imperialism 101: Divide and Conquer 

Prominent Shia’a cleric Muqtada al-Sadr had in 2006 proposed a united front, including both Shia’a and Sunnis, as well as members of Iraq’s smaller minority groups, in an attempt to speed up the withdrawal of US troops and diminish foreign influence over Iraq. It is clear that the “sectarian” strife sowed across Iraq and the US’ proposed “surge” to solve it was another case of “problem, reaction, solution” where as the US intentionally created a problem only they could solve. Thus the US and its coalition of collaborators, were able to continuously renew their lease on occupation while keeping the indigenous government weak and needy.

Such a narrative can also be seen utilized in neighboring Syria where in fact many of the extremists visiting havoc upon Iraqi territory have also spent time fighting and terrorizing the Syrian population. The goal of creating a “sectarian divide” is to explain the violence in terms global audiences can understand and accept, without needing a further in-depth explanation.

Continue reading at New Eastern Outlook...

US Expels Syrian Diplomats – Dangerous Desperation in the Air

New Eastern Outlook
Tony Cartalucci
March 19, 2014

The United States has officially told the Syrian government to immediately suspend its diplomatic and consular missions in the country, and ordered its diplomats to leave the country if they are not US citizens.

 

“We have determined it is unacceptable for individuals appointed by that regime to conduct diplomatic or consular operations in the United States,” US special envoy for Syria, Daniel Rubinstein, said in a statement issued on Tuesday.

 

The move is suspected by many to be in retaliation for the permanent reversal of fortunes for US-backed militants operating inside of Syria, and perhaps the prelude to an act of Western aggression in response to other geopolitical loses elsewhere, including Crimea.

 

West Arrives at a Dangerous Turning Point 

 

It was a turbulent week for Western hegemons. First the teetering regime they thrust into power in Kiev, Ukraine was exposed globally as led by armed Neo-Nazis. Next, the people of Crimea fled en masse via a referendum that overwhelming chose for the strategic peninsula to join with Russia rather than be left subjected to the Western-backed fascists occupying Kiev.

 

The West’s response was impotent sanctions quickly brushed off by both the Russians and Ukrainians they targeted, with military posturing by both NATO and their new regime in Kiev also appearing feckless and altogether desperate.

 

And finally, in Syria, a complete reversal of fortunes for the Western-orchestrated bloodbath, now in its third year, culminated in Syrian forces retaking the pivotal city of Yabroud, northwest of Damascus and very near the Lebanese-Syrian border.

 

The retaking of Yabroud seemed perhaps a greater symbolic victory than a strategic one – and strategically, it was a very important victory. It is yet another step in stemming the flow of foreign militants, weapons, and cash into Syria, effectively isolating militants within the country to be sweep away by the Syrian Arab Army. Symbolically, it represents the irreversible momentum gained by the Syrian government and its security forces in retaking the country and restoring order within and along its borders.

 

In light of this reversal, one that has been ongoing since the beginning of 2013, Saudi Arabia has now apparently abandoned or at the least reduced its extraterritorial involvement in Syria, meaning Western attempts to geopolitically and economically reorder Syria while stripping neighboring Iran and Lebanon of an important ally have been all but effectively ended.

 

For the West, who has enjoyed global hegemony for so long, the slipping away of its power and prestige – all based on the illusion of its strength – leaves the world facing a dangerously desperate entity willing to do anything to reestablish that illusion. The sitting heads of state across the West, including, and perhaps most symbolically, US President Barack Obama, endlessly creating “red lines” the world boldly walks across exemplifies just how diminished that illusion is.

 

An example must be made, and with the expulsion of Syrian diplomats from the US, that example may be Syria.

 

Striking Syria Will Be the Ultimate Act of Weakness 

Continue reading at New Eastern Outlook...