Pentagon Report Reveals U.S. Had a Role in Rise of ISIS
36 replies, posted
[quote=The Guardian]A revealing light on how we got here has now been shone by a recently declassified secret US intelligence report, written in August 2012, which uncannily predicts - and effectively welcomes - the prospect of a "Salafist principality" in eastern Syria and an al-Qaida-controlled Islamic state in Syria and Iraq. In stark contrast to western claims at the time, the Defense Intelligence Agency document identifies al-Qaida in Iraq (which became Isis) and fellow Salafists as the "major forces driving the insurgency in Syria" - and states that "western countries, the Gulf states and Turkey" were supporting the opposition’s efforts to take control of eastern Syria.
Raising the "possibility of establishing a declared or undeclared Salafist principality", the Pentagon report goes on, "this is exactly what the supporting powers to the opposition want, in order to isolate the Syrian regime, which is considered the strategic depth of the Shia expansion (Iraq and Iran)".
Which is pretty well exactly what happened two years later. The report isn't a policy document. It's heavily redacted and there are ambiguities in the language. But the implications are clear enough. [b]A year into the Syrian rebellion, the US and its allies weren't only supporting and arming an opposition they knew to be dominated by extreme sectarian groups; they were prepared to countenance the creation of some sort of "Islamic state" - despite the "grave danger" to Iraq's unity - as a Sunni buffer to weaken Syria.[/b]
[b]That doesn't mean the US created Isis,[/b] of course, though some of its Gulf allies certainly played a role in it - as the US vice-president, Joe Biden, acknowledged last year. But there was no al-Qaida in Iraq until the US and Britain invaded. And the US has certainly exploited the existence of Isis against other forces in the region as part of a wider drive to maintain western control.[/quote]
Source: [URL="http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2015/jun/03/us-isis-syria-iraq"]The Guardian[/URL]
The entire source is rather interesting and I recommend reading the whole thing, but I've spliced the parts relevant to the title. I recognize that the piece is [i]technically[/i] an op-ed, but portions quoted are solely factual and the Guardian was the only major news source to even pick up on the release of this document.
Is anyone surprised? I always heavily doubted that the US created ISIS, but i never doubted for a second that anyone didn't think it would happen sooner or later.
The US Government thought giving Al'Quaeda guns was a good idea because it would fuck them commies nice and good.
This isn't shocking at the least :v:.
[QUOTE=Pvt. Martin;47875537]The US Government thought giving Al'Quaeda guns was a good idea because it would fuck them commies nice and good.
This isn't shocking at the least :v:.[/QUOTE]
You're thinking of the Mujahideen. Yes, that did evolve into al Qaeda, but it is specious to say that the US gave al Qaeda guns.
I still don't quite understand why we wanted to get involved in Syria in the first place, especially if we knew it would go so wrong.
[QUOTE=Mr. Someguy;47875650]I still don't quite understand why we wanted to get involved in Syria in the first place, especially if we knew it would go so wrong.[/QUOTE]
Cause money.
War = Weapons
Weapons = Money
Who has the most weapons? USA
[QUOTE=Mr. Someguy;47875650]I still don't quite understand why we wanted to get involved in Syria in the first place, especially if we knew it would go so wrong.[/QUOTE]
We kinda didn't. We heard 'there are "moderates" there who need our support from to revolt against a dictatorship' forgetting "moderate" for the middle-east is still a couple of centuries back in time. And it had major public support.
We have fucking ADHD when it comes to this stuff because we are all with going to war with these people but then forget about all the shit that comes with war and then dip only to find us a new war 6 months later.
Kind of a "no shit" article, the US's war in Iraq created a breading ground for Islamic extremists and it's no surprise that one of the groups in it exploded into growth when it crossed into Syria's civil war.
[QUOTE=ryokenshin;47875727] forgetting "moderate" for the middle-east is still a couple of centuries back in time. [/QUOTE]
I don't know why people say this considering the middle-east has done nothing but reform itself alongside the expectations of the West. Believing the middle-east is a backwards place is itself an idea from a couple of centuries ago.
[QUOTE=thisispain;47875850]I don't know why people say this considering the middle-east has done nothing but reform itself alongside the expectations of the West. Believing the middle-east is a backwards place is itself an idea from a couple of centuries ago.[/QUOTE]
Its quite backward. I conclude this based on the widespread institutional sexism, undeveloped economies and institutions and civil strife plaguing the region.
Any reform almost always gets reversed by radical Islamists. In democracies they form an unbeatable voting bloc and in times of conflict they become the most determined fighters.
The liberals in the region want modern democracies, the tyrants want the modern and without the tyrant and his strong military rule you get neither. Quite a shame.
[QUOTE=Nuggi man;47875683]Cause money.
War = Weapons
Weapons = Money
Who has the most weapons? USA[/QUOTE]
Sure mate, these kind of things always come down to us being evil asshats that love being evil asshats.
Oh wait it doesn't, you're just spouting nonsense.
[QUOTE=thisispain;47875850]I don't know why people say this considering the middle-east has done nothing but reform itself alongside the expectations of the West. Believing the middle-east is a backwards place is itself an idea from a couple of centuries ago.[/QUOTE]
How is the middle east not backwards? Obviously not every country is the same, but I honestly don't get what you're saying here. Stoning and beheadings are accepted punishments, and apostasy is grounds for the death penalty in many places.
These punishments aren't just there because the people in government wants them, in many countries the population is in support of, for example death penalty, for apostasy.
What is you definition of backwards?
Of course, US has such a massive influence all over the world, question is what US is going to do make lives of people better who currently live under ISIS fear.
The US has been arming rebel groups for decades. Why fight your enemy when you can dump your surplus on their enemy. I'd say they're morons for repeating their mistake so often, but clearly there's advantages to be had else they'd stop doing it.
[QUOTE=GoDong-DK;47876067]How is the middle east not backwards? Obviously not every country is the same, but I honestly don't get what you're saying here. Stoning and beheadings are accepted punishments, and apostasy is grounds for the death penalty in many places.
These punishments aren't just there because the people in government wants them, in many countries the population is in support of, for example death penalty, for apostasy.
What is you definition of backwards?[/QUOTE]
Shockingly, when something is systematic and ingrained in society, people tend to support it. It's the same reason slavery was a-okay to a lot of Americans until they started thinking about emancipation, and the same reason many white South Africans didn't have much of a problem with apartheid, and the same reason a lot of British people thought it was okay to invade Africa and subjugate its people, etc etc etc.
Islamic fundamentalism in its current form is a relatively recent trend, which was at least partially motivated by the US and USSR fighting proxy wars in the Middle East (amongst many other factors). Let's not act like the Islamic world has always been an arse-backwards cesspool.
[QUOTE=Parakon;47876321]The US has been arming rebel groups for decades. Why fight your enemy when you can dump your surplus on their enemy. I'd say they're morons for repeating their mistake so often, but clearly there's advantages to be had else they'd stop doing it.[/QUOTE]
I mean the Soviet Union practically died as a credible power in Afghanistan so I'd say that worked.
I'd be perfectly fine with this if it happened within the US, but the reason more than half of the world despises US is because it's government does shit like this and it's not them that pay the consequences of their actions, it's the other innocent people outside the US; And the reason Americans themselves get hate is because their government goes "lol whoops, nothing can be done, ME was always a warzone" or any other dumb reason like that and people buy into their reasoning. The biggest victims of ISIS are actually muslims themselves.
A nation cannot modernise until it embraces secularism and the kind of free thinking that is at the base of all forms of knowledge. The foundational idea behind secularism is that no idea or claim is exempt from critical analysis.
The "strongmen" of the Islamic world such as Saddam and Gaddafi were sowing the seeds of secularism while keeping the Islamists and their imams at bay. So once the "strongmen" were overthrown the Islamists of 7th century mindset eagerly took the opening as they did in Iraq, Afghanistan, and Libya. The U.S. is stubbornly trying the same kind of regime change in Syria.
It's pretty amusing how some people actually get basically brainwashed into going several thousand miles from their home and risk their lives in unknown deserts for the sake of "being patriotic" and everyone plays along in their act, similar to Bush proclaiming he won the War on Terror at first (then this happened [url]http://www.theguardian.com/world/2004/aug/31/uselections2004.september111[/url] )or people celebrating about Bin Laden being dead even tho he was practically irrelevant by the time he got killed. Like that will bring any of those soldiers that died back. If you want to be patriotic and help people, then why are you ignoring poor Mexicans which literally have their corpses hanged on the Mexico-US border thanks to cartels? They are right next door to you and currently a bigger threat than any of ME nations.
[QUOTE=Pvt. Martin;47875537]The US Government thought giving Al'Quaeda guns was a good idea because it would fuck them commies nice and good.
This isn't shocking at the least :v:.[/QUOTE]
Let's play "Who Didn't Pay Attention to History Class"!
[QUOTE=Emperor Scorpious II;47875830]Kind of a "no shit" article, the US's war in Iraq created a breading ground for Islamic extremists and it's no surprise that one of the groups in it exploded into growth when it crossed into Syria's civil war.[/QUOTE]
It brings something new:
[quote] they were prepared to countenance the creation of some sort of "Islamic state"[/quote]
I never heard that before. Usually it's just "we wanted to make a democratic society", no talk of any possible caliphates.
[editline]4th June 2015[/editline]
[QUOTE=Spirit_Breaker;47876579]I'd be perfectly fine with this if it happened within the US, but the reason more than half of the world despises US is because it's government does shit like this and it's not them that pay the consequences of their actions, it's the other innocent people outside the US; And the reason Americans themselves get hate is because their government goes "lol whoops, nothing can be done, ME was always a warzone" or any other dumb reason like that and people buy into their reasoning. The biggest victims of ISIS are actually muslims themselves.
A nation cannot modernise until it embraces secularism and the kind of free thinking that is at the base of all forms of knowledge. The foundational idea behind secularism is that no idea or claim is exempt from critical analysis.
The "strongmen" of the Islamic world such as Saddam and Gaddafi were sowing the seeds of secularism while keeping the Islamists and their imams at bay. So once the "strongmen" were overthrown the Islamists of 7th century mindset eagerly took the opening as they did in Iraq, Afghanistan, and Libya. The U.S. is stubbornly trying the same kind of regime change in Syria.
It's pretty amusing how some people actually get basically brainwashed into going several thousand miles from their home and risk their lives in unknown deserts for the sake of "being patriotic" and everyone plays along in their act, similar to Bush proclaiming he won the War on Terror at first (then this happened [url]http://www.theguardian.com/world/2004/aug/31/uselections2004.september111[/url] )or people celebrating about Bin Laden being dead even tho he was practically irrelevant by the time he got killed. Like that will bring any of those soldiers that died back. If you want to be patriotic and help people, then why are you ignoring poor Mexicans which literally have their corpses hanged on the Mexico-US border thanks to cartels? They are right next door to you and currently a bigger threat than any of ME nations.[/QUOTE]
I agree with you, but I think Saddam and Gadaffi were zealots too. They just were zealous for power (think 17 century Western feudal style). Doubt they were any secular. They area lesser evil than no-brain muslim extremists and probably a nececary step in the right direction, but still not good people.
Doesn't something similar happen every time we give weapons to ANYONE in the middle east. As soon as they get guns and ammo they split a into a faction and then call themselves something new.
[QUOTE=JohnFisher89;47876949]Doesn't something similar happen every time we give weapons to ANYONE in the middle east. As soon as they get guns and ammo they split a into a faction and then call themselves something new.[/QUOTE]
The al-Qaeda were literally spawned into existence because of this exact thing lol, as a means of giving those people arms to defend themselves against soviet expansion.
[QUOTE=Jamsponge;47876375]Shockingly, when something is systematic and ingrained in society, people tend to support it. It's the same reason slavery was a-okay to a lot of Americans until they started thinking about emancipation, and the same reason many white South Africans didn't have much of a problem with apartheid, and the same reason a lot of British people thought it was okay to invade Africa and subjugate its people, etc etc etc.
Islamic fundamentalism in its current form is a relatively recent trend, which was at least partially motivated by the US and USSR fighting proxy wars in the Middle East (amongst many other factors). Let's not act like the Islamic world has always been an arse-backwards cesspool.[/QUOTE]
I didn't say that, though. I just said that the middle east is backwards right now.
Your first and second point are kind of contradictory, though. If liberalism was ingrained in society back in the 19th, why was it so easy to turn the middle east onto a more extreme route (and why has the us not really been ale to turn it around again)? I'm not claiming that there weren't liberal trends in the middle east, but to claim that the middle east was turned towards extremist Islam purely by outside forces is ridiculous.
What I'm saying is that if an idea or concept isn't widely accepted, that idea won't become dominating. Likewise with Germany in the years up to WWII.
[QUOTE=ryokenshin;47875727]We kinda didn't. We heard 'there are "moderates" there who need our support from to revolt against a dictatorship' forgetting "moderate" for the middle-east is still a couple of centuries back in time. And it had major public support.[/QUOTE]
What about Jordan and Lebanon?
They were only created by inaction rather than direct action
If we went and descalated Syria back when it kicked off instead of dragging our feet while we pulled troops out we could have prevented Isis from becoming an army
[QUOTE=Griffster26;47879745]What about Jordan and Lebanon?[/QUOTE]
Jordan is a monarchy and Lebanon is half run by a paramilitary group.
That's kind of moderate for the region, but no where moderate compared to the Western world's standards.
[editline]4th June 2015[/editline]
[QUOTE=Sableye;47879941]They were only created by inaction rather than direct action
If we went and descalated Syria back when it kicked off instead of dragging our feet while we pulled troops out we could have prevented Isis from becoming an army[/QUOTE]
It's possible, but not totally plausible.
Iraq's former Prime Minister Maliki shunned a lot of Sunnis who previously helped the government fight insurgents, which in turn drove many of them into insurgency themselves.
[QUOTE=Nuggi man;47875683]Cause money.
War = Weapons
Weapons = Money
Who has the most weapons? USA[/QUOTE]
obligatory
[video=youtube;5L2Gve7oh_4]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5L2Gve7oh_4[/video]
[QUOTE=Sableye;47879941]They were only created by inaction rather than direct action
If we went and descalated Syria back when it kicked off instead of dragging our feet while we pulled troops out we could have prevented Isis from becoming an army[/QUOTE]
It was going to happen anyway, removing the oppressive dictators set it in motion. Nothing short of establishing new iron-fisted dictators would have prevented it.
[QUOTE=MuffinZerg;47876928]It brings something new:
I never heard that before. Usually it's just "we wanted to make a democratic society", no talk of any possible caliphates.
[/QUOTE]
Well, I mean. Glenn Beck was talking around that time about the possibility of a caliphate forming out of the Arab Spring/All dem infighting.
But no one likes talking about Glenn Beck.
If Glenn Beck guessed a Caliphate would develop, it was from pure luck on the guess from him out of the desire to fear-monger his audience.
[QUOTE=DuCT;47880324]Well, I mean. Glenn Beck was talking around that time about the possibility of a caliphate forming out of the Arab Spring/All dem infighting.
But no one likes talking about Glenn Beck.[/QUOTE]
A broken clock is right twice a day, and Glenn beck might even be a digital one.
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