Moon of Alabama Brecht quote
August 29, 2014

ISIS Trained By Whom?

Photos show gruesome Islamic State seizure of base

Dressed in an orange jumpsuit against the backdrop of an arid Syrian landscape, ...

Captives held by Islamic State were waterboarded

At least four hostages held in Syria by the Islamic State, including an American journalist who was recently executed by the group, were waterboarded in the early part of their captivity, according to people familiar with the treatment of the kidnapped Westerners.

Where, one wonders, did they learn such shit?

Posted by b on August 29, 2014 at 0:18 UTC | Permalink

Comments

School of the Americas?
Oh, wait...

Posted by: citizen X | Aug 29 2014 0:43 utc | 1

the usa doesn't like the direct competition whether it be in water-boarding, grabbing assets, shifting borders - you name it..isis is much like the usa without the veneer of diplomacy and pretty words..

Posted by: james | Aug 29 2014 0:54 utc | 2

My theory is that they got their lessons in how to be a righteous jihadi from YouTube ... CNN this morning had a story about an ISIS Jihadi summer camp "" CNN Exclusive: A 13-year-old witness to ISIS' beheadings, crucifixion in Syria""

http://www.cnn.com/2014/08/28/world/meast/syria-isis-atrocities-boy/index.html?hpt=wo_c2

This is a re-tread of several stories coming out of Pakistan 10 years ago ...

Oh, and numerous instances of photos being recycled -- most notoriously a beheaded child photo:

Others maintain that such claims are largely fiction and are just more of the usual exaggerated atrocity stories typically circulated as propaganda during wars to sway public opinion against one side (and in this case provide a prompt or justification for U.S. military intervention). For example, the picture of the decapitated girl shown above had been circulated two years earlier as an example of an atrocity committed by the Assad government in Syria when a helicopter gunship reportedly open fired on unarmed civilians.

Read more at http://www.snopes.com/politics/war/isis.asp#6f9VALHxtsFDZD5Q.99

Most crucifixions apparently are of corpses ... http://www.meforum.org/3833/syria-islamist-crucifixion

oh, and these things have been going on for months .... possibly longer ...

Posted by: Susan Sunflower | Aug 29 2014 0:54 utc | 3

This is one big PR campaign. Orange jumpsuits - I think someone already mentioned in another thread as well - is such a "dog-whistle" for the American people. It brings up memories not just from Guantanamo (though that is very important) but also to common criminality.

Of course maybe its just a happy accident...

Posted by: guest77 | Aug 29 2014 1:00 utc | 4

Dempsey: Dempsey said he thinks U.S. allies including Jordan, Turkey and Saudi Arabia could join the fight against ISIS. "I think ISIS has been so brutal, and has wrapped itself in a radical religious legitimacy that clearly threatens everybody I just mentioned, that I think they will be willing partners," he said.

Willing partners in the battle "against" ISIS. Pretty soon government press conferences are going to have to offer free lobotomies at the door.

Saudis Must Stop Exporting Extremism: ISIS Atrocities Started With Saudi Support for Salafi Hate
America's Allies Are Funding ISIS
ISIS supporters watch from the shadows in Saudi Arabia

Jordan takes wait-and-see approach on Islamic State
Jordan fears homegrown ISIS more than invasion from Iraq
Israeli Experts: U.S. Weapons in Iraq Will Reach ISIS
ISIS elements’ weapons made in Israel, says Birwari
Syrian in Israeli hospital: ‘Most fighters know they will get good care here’ “They could be al-Qaida. We just don’t know,” one staff member said
Turkish Support for ISIS
TURKEY CONTINUES TO BE TARGET OF BLATANT 'AIDING ISIS' ALLEGATIONS
ISIS FIGHTER CLAIMS TURKEY FUNDS THE JIHADIST GROUP

Posted by: guest77 | Aug 29 2014 1:24 utc | 5

Sorry, but I'm just not going to look at gruesome photos but the NYT says they videotaped hours ...

NYT: ISIS Said to Kill 150 Syrian Captives in 2 Days, Videotaping the Horror.

Hours of video tape, but apparently they didn't release the executions (firing squad) just video of the dead bodies all in a row. The article actually discusses ISIS's use of the media. This incident is causing much protest by Assad supporters that the military is not doing enough -- enough to protect its own.

Posted by: Susan Sunflower | Aug 29 2014 1:26 utc | 6

Oh, sorry to be serialing....

The NYT article says -- bafflingly -- that they (ISIS soldiers) too the captives on a long forced march half naked (very hot) while taunting them ... and exhausting them .. brought them back to camp locked them in rooms, then beat them and then brought them out and lined them up and shot them execution style ... anyone else wondering why they expended all that time and effort before just shooting them all? No torture (I guess they'd had their fill)

Yousef said the ISIS fighters made the soldiers run in the desert to tire them out, and then locked them in a room where they were beaten. “Then we took them out and shot them,” he said.

Are these guys really a bunch of hyperactive, out of control speed freaks?

Posted by: Susan Sunflower | Aug 29 2014 1:39 utc | 7

http://www.voltairenet.org/article185085.html

Just ask Senator John McCain (R) - AZ. I am sure he knows how to deactivate the runaway "beast" ISIL.

*As far as initial seed money for ISIL the msm might want to question former Viceroy to Iraq Paul Bremer.

Posted by: really | Aug 29 2014 1:42 utc | 8

"Are these guys really a bunch of hyperactive, out of control speed freaks? "

There have always been rumors of heavy drug use by these "Islamists" (Irony noted). No idea if it is true of course.

Posted by: guest77 | Aug 29 2014 2:34 utc | 9

I actually think ISIS is fruit borne of the same Saudi charity, literally tithing, that spawned the Madrassas and supported the Mujahadeen (against the godless communists) and then the Taliban (against the godless warlord)

I've always been amused at how much "reestablishment of the caliphate" resembles the Jewish "nest year in Jersusalem" that concludes the Seder since the Middle Ages. Did "reestablishing the caliphate" become some Muslim longing for that ancient homeland. See also: comparisons between ISIS, and before that Al-Qa’ida to the crusades and crusader ...

I've wondered just how many hyperactive itchy-trigger-fingered European Jihadis the grown-ups at ISIS have to "keep occupied" (and their blood lust satisfied) or, iow, if there is a My-Jihadi-Junior-Year Abroad kiddy corp that the grownups have to manage. I'm guessing the a fair number of the Europeans and Southeast Asians arrive with plenty of cash -- too good to pass up. Yes, LeCarre's "Little Drummer Girl"

Posted by: Susan Sunflower | Aug 29 2014 3:25 utc | 10

School of the Americas was yesteryear (and still now with Venezuala, etc.):
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article13436.htm
http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=School_of_the_Americas

They have morphed into the "School of the Middle East".....certainly with NATO, British Empire......and Zionist assistance. Castrating China, Russia, BRICS, etc. is the ultimate goal.

Posted by: easy e | Aug 29 2014 3:50 utc | 11


UN warns of escalating ISIL violence against Syrians


The United Nations has warned that the violence by ISIL Takfiri terrorists against Syrian civilians has reached “to a new level.”

Where's the UN's concern about the people of Novorossiya? The violence by neo-nazi terrorists from Nulandistan has long-since reached “to a new level”.

'Strangely' silent on Ukraine ... vocal, of course, on IS/ISIL/ISIS who (may) have slipped the CIA'a leash.

And of course it is Barack the Nobel Peace Prize Obama who is the fomenter of both ... and more to come.

Obama's remarks at West Point


For the foreseeable future, the most direct threat to America at home and abroad remains terrorism. But a strategy that involves invading every country that harbors terrorist networks is ... unsustainable. I believe we must shift our counterterrorism strategy ... to more effectively partner with countries where terrorist networks seek a foothold. ...

So we have to develop a strategy that ... expands our reach without sending forces that stretch our military too thin ... And empowering partners is a large part of what we have done and what we are currently doing ...

... I asked my national security team to develop a plan for a network of partnerships from South Asia to the Sahel. Today, as part of this effort, I am calling on Congress to support a new Counter-Terrorism Partnerships Fund of up to $5 billion ... And these resources will give us flexibility to fulfill different missions ...

... we're now working with NATO allies to meet new missions - both within Europe, where our Eastern allies must be reassured; and also beyond Europe's borders, where our NATO allies have to pull their weight to counterterrorism and respond to failed states, and train a network of partners ...

... the U.N. provides a platform to keep the peace in states torn apart by conflict. Now we need to make sure that those nations who provide peacekeepers have the training and equipment to actually keep the peace ... We are going to deepen our investment in countries that support these missions. Because having other nations maintain order in their own neighborhoods lessens the need for us to put our own troops in harm's way. It's a smart investment. It's the right way to lead.


Unspoken is 'plan b' ... "and if the the forces we fund, arm, and promote only succeed in devastating the countries they operate in and creating chaos, well that's OK too".

The TNCs are very happy to operate where there is no government and cash is king. It's the libertarian wet dream.

Posted by: john francis lee | Aug 29 2014 5:06 utc | 12

CIA even cooperated heavily with a movie about how torture lead directly to Bin Laden. It's so shameful.

Posted by: Crest | Aug 29 2014 5:26 utc | 13

@Susan Sunflower #10:

I actually think ISIS is fruit borne of the same Saudi charity, literally tithing, that spawned the Madrassas and supported the Mujahadeen (against the godless communists) and then the Taliban (against the godless warlord)

Yes, I have run across this theory. It's an intermediate position between "we have no idea where they came from" and "ISIS is a creation of the CIA and Mossad". I have barely followed what the US is doing with respect to ISIS, but I do get the impression that there might be genuine ambivalence.

It is not helpful to USG to have this crisis in the Middle East while it is trying to put pressure on Russia. It's hard to avoid the impression that the US has created more chaos than it can keep track of. (ISIS may be the Saudis' baby, but Britain and the US must have known what the Saudis were up to, and didn't do anything to stop it.)

Posted by: Demian | Aug 29 2014 6:17 utc | 14

It has gone full circle.

This first started with CIA research in the 1950's.

From 1950 to 1962, the CIA conducted massive, secret research into coercion and the malleability of human consciousness which, by the late fifties, was costing a billion dollars a year. Many Americans have heard about the most outlandish and least successful aspect of this research -- the testing of LSD on unsuspecting subjects. While these CIA drug experiments led nowhere and the testing of electric shock as a technique led only to lawsuits, research into sensory deprivation proved fruitful indeed. In fact, this research produced a new psychological rather than physical method of torture, perhaps best described as "no-touch" torture.

The Agency's discovery was a counterintuitive breakthrough, the first real revolution in this cruel science since the seventeenth century -- and thanks to recent revelations from Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo, we are now all too familiar with these methods, even if many Americans still have no idea of their history. Upon careful examination, those photographs of nude bodies expose the CIA's most basic torture techniques -- stress positions, sensory deprivation, and sexual humiliation.

The CIA exported this technology to Third World Secret Services they trained.
So Sayyid Qutb was tortured in Egypt by CIA trained prison guards.

According to the report of the 9/11 Commission, Osama Bin Laden's world-view "relies heavily on the Egyptian writer Sayyid Qutb". Qutb was the foremost spokesperson of the Muslim Brotherhood, and his book Milestones is the best-known modern work of Islamic philosophy in the western world...

Qutb was further hardened by the torture he suffered in prison following the Brotherhood's attempted assassination of Gamal Abdel Nasser in 1954.

ISIS leadership met in US run Camp Bucca.

And, oh yes, while having them tortured, all the while the US supports the Muslim Brotherhood assets to weaken Russia and China by inciting Muslim populations.

One of the leaders, according to Eisenhower’s appointment book, was “The Honorable Saeed Ramahdan, Delegate of the Muslim Brothers.”* The person in question (in more standard romanization, Said Ramadan), was the son-in-law of the Brotherhood’s founder and at the time widely described as the group’s “foreign minister.” (He was also the father of the controversial Swiss scholar of Islam, Tariq Ramadan.)

Eisenhower officials knew what they were doing. In the battle against communism, they figured that religion was a force that US could make use of—the Soviet Union was atheist, while the United States supported religious freedom. Central Intelligence Agency analyses of Said Ramadan were quite blunt, calling him a “Phalangist” and a “fascist interested in the grouping of individuals for power.” But the White House went ahead and invited him anyway.
By the end of the decade, the CIA was overtly backing Ramadan. While it’s too simple to call him a US agent, in the 1950s and 1960s the United States supported him as he took over a mosque in Munich, kicking out local Muslims to build what would become one of the Brotherhood’s most important centers—a refuge for the beleaguered group during its decades in the wilderness. In the end, the US didn’t reap much for its efforts, as Ramadan was more interested in spreading his Islamist agenda than fighting communism. In later years, he supported the Iranian revolution and likely aided the flight of a pro-Teheran activist who murdered one of the Shah’s diplomats in Washington.

Posted by: somebody | Aug 29 2014 8:31 utc | 15

Posted by: JFC | Aug 29, 2014 2:32:32 AM | 15

I agree.

Posted by: Susan Sunflower | Aug 28, 2014 11:25:47 PM | 10

I don't think Saudi madrassas have anything to do with it. Austria has something like 100+ Jihadi teenagers fighting in Syria.

They are recruited in streets and parks - pretty much like scientology used to recruit. Typical recruiting pitch "Do you want to change your life and immerse into a different world?"
Promises are power, adventure and action, a meaningful life, an enemy that will be legitimately killed, money. Recruiters avoid the Muslim communities and work outside of mosques.

Posted by: somebody | Aug 29 2014 9:10 utc | 16

Reviving al-Qaeda branches as clusters. And different nomenclature, such as: ISIS=ISIL=IS.
[ http://www.arabworld360.info/2014/06/reviving-al-qaeda-branches.html]
Moreover, Al-Qaeda affiliated groups are not necessarily share one pyramidal command, instead, they have almost the same ideology.
Undoubtedly, the US government (through intelligence agency- CIA) is not the only player in the Near and Middle East, although it still has the upper hand to organize local proxies (pro-West tyrants). The US influence has been intentionally reduced over the Middle East, allowing Saudi, Qatari, Israeli and Turkish governments to 'deal' with Iranian 'influence'
[http://www.arabworld360.info/2014/06/us-administration-and-local-events.html]

The standard UNIFORM of What-so-called Free Syrian Army (one of Syrian opposition militia, recently almost dissolved )
[ http://www.arabworld360.info/2013/03/symbolism-on-free-syrian-army.html ]

Note to the moderator:
MoA is one of my credible and valuable source of information, and I try to express my opinions written on (The Arab World 360) since I am the editor. i.e, I promote ideas and opinions other than censored/inaccurate website.
Regards,

Posted by: M. Tomazy | Aug 29 2014 9:48 utc | 17

Here's a bit of naïveté (I'm honored b went to the trouble to Google search this word and copy and paste it just for me — it made me feel special and actually made my day) from your local troll.

If you research it further, you'll also find these cretins walk and breath. I wonder who taught them those nasty little tricks? That's right, America.

Whatever these scum do, you can be sure they learned it from America — even their quaint British accents.

America is exceptional. The entire universe revolves around it. Anything you can think of, good or bad, it starts and ends with America.

Where did Putin learn how to conduct his proxy invasion of Ukraine? From America, of course. There are American videos all over YouTube with step by step instructions on how to decimate your neighbors garden and home with all manner of invasive insects and mold diseases until your neighbor sells his home on the cheap and you pick it up in that fire sale.

No one can imagine a world without America and that's because of America's greatness — the concept of it pervades all things. Foreign policy, regardless of the sub-topic, cannot be discussed without mentioning and giving credit to America so great and awesome is its reach.

Thanks for making America great and perpetuating its Exceptionalism.

PS: If the Foley video was fake, as has been asserted at this space by the blog author himself and then expanded upon by his troll brigade in the comment section, then how is this account somehow real? Once again, the American Exceptionalists contradict themselves in their love for all things American.

Posted by: Cold N. Holefield | Aug 29 2014 10:19 utc | 18

@JFC
I must disagree.

The msm is talking about how ISIL has well trained leadership. Well let see who provided that leadership. I also wonder how those former baath party military personnel were surviving as pariahs under maliki. I bam sure they were having a rough time finding gainful employment in maliki's Iraq.

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/yeariniraq/analysis/fuel.html

Posted by: really | Aug 29 2014 10:19 utc | 19

Castrating China, Russia, BRICS, etc. is the ultimate goal.

I'd say the goal is the exact opposite from the looks of things. America has made both China and Russia players on the Capitalist scene. Without America's beneficence, both countries would still be digging grubs out of the soil for their daily sustenance.

Posted by: Cold N. Holefield | Aug 29 2014 10:24 utc | 20

Well let see who provided that leadership.

Correct. No one knows leadership like America knows leadership. America is the preeminent leader of the free world so when people want to learn and foment leadership skills, they emulate America.

They're certainly not capable of anything on their own. They must solicit the aid of superior experts if they want to do anything, and that superior expert in all things is America.

Posted by: Cold N. Holefield | Aug 29 2014 10:28 utc | 21

@25

Yeah you have a point.Maybe my point came across as totally disregarding Patreaus. I should have worded my response more clearly. I am talking about the foundation of the USG makings of ISIL. ISIL in my opinion is nothing more than another chapter of PNAC's neo-con/neo-lib long term ME chaos plan for war profiteers and energy companies.

Posted by: really | Aug 29 2014 11:42 utc | 22

@27 JFC

Your point of missings weapons is avery good starting point. And keeping with that theme, how about the missing weapons in afghanistan. I really am concerned about the future for the people of Turkmenistan. They are beginning to come online economically and seem to be a sitting duck for some more senseless wanton killing and destruction by global profiteers.

As a side note Turkmenistan has the most buildings built out of marble. Hopefully Turkmenistan's citizens can benefit from future untampered prosperity, but I am concerned about that especially with all that missing weaponry next door in Afghanistan.

Posted by: really | Aug 29 2014 12:24 utc | 23

I frequently wonder whether the young post college all brimming with enthusiasm boys and girls in the state department and elsewhere in the government are sat down in rooms and shown countless hours of the vilest forms of human bestiality. Good obedient students they not like the rest of us malcontents who sat glumly in the back rows cursing our fate that we have to live in a world with such people in it!

Then like modern day Alex's they be reformed and come brow beat us all for our betterment the imperative of pursuing an American way of life that actually contributes to said hearts of darknesses, even while excusing their own hypocrisy in the matter as little white lies. It could almost be funny, the coming full circle just like in "the lion king," that they watched in their youth.

Well I suppose they could just use youtube or twitter attrocities for their reform that seems to be where they acquire the gyst of their knowledge and experience of the natural world anyway?

Posted by: geoff29 | Aug 29 2014 12:54 utc | 24

ISIS or ISIL is a direct line from AQI, start of insurgency March 2003. Its leader al-Baghdadi was in U.S. custody but handed over to Iraq authority and likely jailed in Abu Ghraib. Last year there were a number of spectacular jail breaks in Iraq with suicide bombers, truck loaded bombs and AQ fighters which released hundreds of Sunni extremists.

Saudi money and arms were flowing to the Sunni population of Anbar province as the U.S. occupation lasted longer and the Shia majority advanced the Iranian influence.

Evil Prince Bandar took over the military commando of opposition fighters in Syria and released Saudi death-row prisoners for redemption and a short-cut to paradise. The worst of the most evil psychopaths. Bandar stood down earlier this year.

The war in Libya created the opportunity for jihadists and tons of munitions/weapons to de delivered to Syrian opposition until it became a greater power than FSA. The Syrian conflict aggravated by Turkey, NATO partners, US and GCC states provide an excellent opportunity to grow in might, arms, fighters and wealth.

The executions, suicide car bombs have been a trademark of Sunni fighters against Assad for over two years, Secretary Clinton closed her eyes as if these events weren't happening. Interesting thet Obama said yesterday he hasn't decided on bombing ISIS in Raqqa province yet as a strategy has to be developed. A mighty bit late, time to get rid of all the neocons in the White House and Washington DC environs.

Deck of cards #6 Izzat Ibrahim al Duri has the military command over the Baathists fighters who joined ISIS from Ramallah/Tikrit, soldiers from Saddam's old Revolutionary Guard.

How ISIS Was Nurtured In Syria and Matured in Iraq

Posted by: Oui | Aug 29 2014 13:06 utc | 25

Where, one wonders, did they learn such shit?

The short answer is at their old alma maters, where the clothing you see was the school uniform.

The longer answer goes like this:

The first question is why radical Islam?

The US/Anglo joint plan to create and foster the Takfiri apostasy commonly referred to as “Radical Islam” may be thought of as the Middle East counterpart to Operation Gladio in Europe. They both shared the same goals:

*Destabilize societies in order to render them compliantly governable, without democratic demands.
*Provide a right-wing identity and fear based alternative to (often radical) nationalism, or leftist movements and their demands for an improved life.

In Europe, the plan was put into effect after WWII; the Middle East plan begun at about the same time, and was enacted in the 1950‘s due to the emergence of Nationalist leaders like Nasser in Egypt (‘52) and Mohammad Mossadegh (‘53) in Iran, later ousted in a coup directed by Kermit Roosevelt. In other words, it was a conscious long-term US plan to eschew allying itself with the secular forces of progress in the Middle East and the Arab world, and instead foster the most heinous, coercive, and undemocratic alternatives in order to maintain US post-war dominance of the world.

The British first used covert support for pre-radical Islamic Identity movements in modern history in the partition of India, which created the separate state of Pakistan -- a classic example of their divide-and-conquer tactics. The partition was responsible for the forced relocation (ethnic cleansing) of 15 million people, and another 75 years of strife which at times threatened to wipe out a good deal of the planet in nuclear war. Later, the British intensified their methodology by employing the radical Pakistani-based Jamiat-e Ulema-e Islam (JEI) -- a schism of an earlier anti-colonial, nationalist group, which became the Godfather of most later radical pan-islamic (globalized) movements. JEI has been used to destabilize India’s sphere of influence: Bangladesh, Mauritius, and Sri Lanka, and to control Pakistan and India by pitting them against each other.

Another long-term purpose for creating and fostering these monsters was the desire to destabilize the Soviet Union by attacking its soft multi-national Islamic underbelly. This plan was formally put into effect in Afghanistan in the 70‘s, where according to Zbigniew Brzezinski, the American intelligence services began to aid the Mujahadeen in Afghanistan 6 months before the Soviet intervention. During the 1980s, the JEI supported some of General Zia ul Haq’s policies, including his anti-Soviet Jihad in Afghanistan.

The second question is how did radical Islam initially take hold and spread?

There are several strains of radical Islam, the two most important globally being the JEI, and the initially less radical, although equally insistent on apartheid and genocidal policies, Muslim Brotherhood (MB). They often play a good cop (MB)/bad cop(JEI) dynamic in global Muslim geopolitics. Both parties were initially funded by the Saudis, who were essentially functioning as cut-outs in a classic “lead from behind” strategy for the Anglo-Americans in return for being allowed to keep a greater share of their oil revenue than usual for puppet states.

By 1939, the Muslim Brotherhood, whose goal was to eliminate foreign intrusions and establish an Islamic state, had become one of Egypt’s largest and most influential organizations. The MB’s next principal theoretician was the Egyptian-born Sayyid Qutb, who spent several years studying in the US, in DC, Colorado, and at Stanford, during the late 40's into the early 50's. When first formed in the 1930s, the party was dedicated to Islamic revivalism and social, economic, and political equity; under Qutb’s influence, it began taking a more autocratic, pan-islamic, and anti-nationalist turn. In 1954, Qutb’s party attempted to assassinate Nasser, leading to his imprisonment, and execution some ten years later. Anwar Sadat brought the Muslim Brotherhood back to Egypt in the 70‘s -- a move that would lead to his assassination after signing a peace deal with Israel. The MB developed a vast worldwide-network of thousands of schools, charities and social services. Saudi funding was eventually largely replaced by Qatari patronage -- essentially pitting those two countries against each other in a bid for influence in the Islamic world.

In Afghanistan, the Islamist Movement originated in 1958 among faculties of Kabul University. The founders were largely professors influenced by the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood. The liberalization of government attitudes following the passage of the 1964 Constitution ushered in a period of intense activism among students at Kabul University. Professors and their students set up the Muslim Youth Organization (Sazmani Jawanani Musulman) in the mid-1960s at the same time that the leftists were also forming many parties. Initially communist students outnumbered the Muslim students, but by 1970 the Muslim Youth had gained a majority in student elections. The MB membership was recruited from university faculties and from secondary schools in several cities such as Mazari Sharif and Herat. Some of these professors and students became the leaders of the Mujahideen rebels in the 1980s. This conflict between communists and Muslims was a manifestation of the proxy battle for influence in Afghanistan between the US and the Soviets, with the Soviets supporting left wing nationalists and the West supporting right-wing religious fundamentalists under the direction of Osama Bin Laden. Bin laden, in many ways, represented a synthesis of MB and JEI thought.

There are websites that have pictures of Kabul and the rest of Afghanistan in the 60‘s and 70‘s. It was a beautiful place, not the over-grown shithole it is today. People got along, the educated classes were integrating into the world, there were factories opening, and it was an agricultural paradise.

In the early 1980s, the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) provided funding to the University of Nebraska-Omaha and its Center for Afghanistan Studies to develop textbooks (more than 200 titles) in the Dari and Pashtu languages for distribution in Afghanistan. These textbooks sought to counterbalance Marxism through creating enthusiasm in Islamic militancy. During Soviet occupation, regional military leaders helped the U.S. smuggle millions of copies of these primers into Afghanistan. The textbooks are filled with violent images and militant Islamic teachings -- talk of jihad and drawings of guns, bullets, soldiers, and mines -- to stimulate resistance against invasion. Students were taught to count, for example, with illustrations showing tanks, missiles, and landmines. They exhorted Afghan children to “pluck out the eyes of the Soviet enemy and cut off his legs”. The books have served as the Afghan school system's core curriculum ever since, steeping a generation of schoolchildren in violence and hatred. The White House and USAID spokespersons are unapologetic about both the violent and religious content of the textbooks. "I think we were perfectly happy to see these books trashing the Soviet Union," said Chris Brown, head of book revision for USAID's Central Asia Task Force. Although taxpayer funds may not be used for religious instruction overseas, USAID spent $51 million on the University of Nebraska-Omaha's education programs in Afghanistan from 1984 to 1994. These textbooks can still be found in the book bazaars in Rawalpindi and Peshawar, in Pakistan.

Meanwhile, official Pakistani patronage and financial support for JEI madrassas during the Zia years allowed them to build thousands of madrassas, especially in the NWFP. By 1998 Deobandi madrassas across the country had risen to 2,333 and currently the JUI madrassa network is among the largest in Pakistan. This network was largely funded by Saudi and UAE contributions.

The third question is, how have the second generation of radical terrorists been inculcated?

The answer here lies in two networks of training camps. Think of it as the prep school network and the public school network.

The public school network consists of a global network of training camps around the Muslim world. These camps can be set up quickly without large investments and dismantled and moved as needed for political expediency. An example of these camps was the camp in Afghanistan where Clinton “missed” killing Osama Bin Laden a few years before 9-11. These camps, established in impoverished areas, serve a multiplicity of functions: outreach centers, social service agencies, summer camps for kids, local gun clubs, social clubs, etc. They interface with the public, present a benevolent front, teach basic warfare and terrorist skills (even to kids), and normalize terrorism, while indoctrinating people. They also serve as travel agencies when the battles to be fought are elsewhere: Terrorism is glamorized with videos, new foreign friends, and a steady supply of weapons, drugs and sex. Plus there are no school uniforms: Jihadi chic is a highly individualized aesthetic, as long as you have a modicum of facial hair.

After all, terrorism, is the flip side of the coin of political resistance -- and if you do not understand geo-politics, it is easy to believe that you are fighting for greater justice in some form. We see this time and time again, as terrorists who have been caught often do not what they are fighting for or against, or even what country they are in. Israel never gets attacked. (Similar methods have been used with the Ukrainian fascists, who believe they are killing Russians. There are numerous videos on the web of their convulsive remorse at finding out that they were killing their own innocent countrymen.)

The prep school network, the big league, is where the trainers of the “public school” camps, and the elite leadership of jihad international are trained. This network consists primarily of the vast global gulag of US military bases. Three of the more important of these bases are Guantanamo, Camp Bucca in Iraq, and Camp Bondsteel in Kosovo. They are the modern day replacement for the School of the Americas, now renamed as the Western Hemisphere Institute for Security Cooperation (WHINSEC).

The cover story, or legend, is that these are not schools but reformatories, and that unfortunately, despite our best efforts, there has been some, shall we say, “recidivism.” Even wikipedia lists over 80 former Guantanamo Bay detainees alleged to have returned to terrorism. We have all seen how detainees are broken down by being illegally held for years on end without charge, by alternating sensory deprivation with sensory overload, by isolation, and by torture. After being broken down, rebuilding and reprogramming the psyche into a murderous non-feeling pathological automaton is easy. We can be sure that one of the skills they learned was waterboarding. And any picture of the “detainees” at any of the three camps shows them wearing their school uniform, proudly displaying their school colors: orange on orange, looking like modern day Rajneesh disciples, denied of sex and ecstatic self-indulgence.

Under the auspices of Camp Bondsteel, the Syrian terrorists were trained by the KLA in Kosovo.
According to Thierry Meyssan, “The plan provided that the initial Western terrorist actions would create a cycle of provocation / repression justifying international intervention on the model of the KLA terrorism and repression by Slobodan Milosevic, followed by the NATO intervention.” This camp is also used for the more European Muslims, like those meant to destabilize certain parts of the Russian Federation.

Camp Bucca, of course, is notorious for being the alma mater of Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, the ostensible head of the jihadist terror group now known as the Islamic State—formerly the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria, or ISIS. According to an article which appeared in Mother Jones magazine, “In short order, Baghdadi has become Iraq's most prominent extremist leader. But for much of his adult life, Baghdadi did not have a reputations as a fiery, jihadist trailblazer. According to the Telegraph, members of his local mosque in Tobchi (a neighborhood in Baghdad) who knew him from around 1989 until 2004 (when he was between the ages of 18 and 33) considered Baghdadi a quiet, studious fellow and a talented soccer player. When the United States invaded Iraq in 2003, Baghdadi was earning a degree in Islamic studies in Baghdad.”

They continue, “The details of Baghdadi's time in Camp Bucca are murky. Some media reports note that he was held as a "civilian internee" at the prison for 10 months in 2004. Others report that he was captured by US forces in 2005 and spent four years at Camp Bucca.” Clearly, this is where the studious lad learned some of the many skillsets needed for running a large 4th generation terrorist army.

Camp Bucca is another camp where we have been given great insight into the type of mind control indoctrination these “Manchurian Candidates” go through -- a program initiated at Guantanamo. In a technique known as the limited hangout, Mother Jones informs us that “James Skylar Gerrond, a former US Air Force security forces officer and a compound commander at Camp Bucca in 2006 and 2007, says that he believes Baghdadi's stay at the prison contributed to his radicalization—or at least bolstered his extremism. After Baghdadi proclaimed the Islamic State a new nation and himself its leader, Gerrond tweeted, "Many of us at Camp Bucca were concerned that instead of just holding detainees, we had created a pressure cooker for extremism." Gerrond is now a civilian working for the Department of Defense.”

And, “Gerrond notes that US military officials in charge of the prison fretted that prisoners could be radicalized at the facility: "This was something that everyone in the chain of command [for Camp Bucca] (and other detention facilities) were always concerned with." Maj. General Douglas Stone, the deputy commander for detainee operations in 2007, told Newsweek that year that potential radicalization was a "very real concern" at Camp Bucca.”

I am not yet sure which facility had the media studies curriculum. But clearly, somewhere, there were classes in video, web design, communications, and propaganda, among other such elements of the “soft” curriculum. So, there is still a lot we don’t know. But we do know where detainees were turned, trained, and sent back to the field from. That is indicting enough.

After that, school colors and hobbies, are self-evident.

Posted by: Malooga | Aug 29 2014 13:06 utc | 26

No, I'm saying that in many ways ISIS may well be the NEXT GENERATION of all those factors. Wrt to the torture/brutality and other atrocities, they aren't new -- either this year compared to last or this decade compared to last. The dream of reestablishing the caliphate is idealistic and romantic, something often overlooked about Bin Laden, Al-Qa’ida and the forefathers of ISIS, and while the migrant jihadi may be "defending their faith" they are also, like Bin Laden, trying to cleanse the middle east of the infidel so that it may actualize it's greatness ... blah blah blah.

It wasn't that the madrassas were a hot bed of terrorism, they were Wahabbist missionary schools and made heroes out of people the west considers terrorists -- rebel bad-assses -- because within the younger generation and the fundamentalist movement they were. They were fighting the complacent establishment. Under extreme limits on free speech and assembly and organizing, Islamic fundamentalism gained great power as a push back to encroaching western "globalization" that intertwined with government "economic development" (and the corruption and IMF strings-attached indebtedness involved).

I don't know how "the people" viewed Western interventionism in the form of supporting the mujahadin -- either locally in Afghanistan (which had a long-standing very conservative sector that opposed all modernization) or more broadly in the region, although, on the heels of the Iranian Revolution, then as nowI'm guessing few cared very much about what we or the Soviets did in primitive backwater Afghanistan. I may be wrong.

If idealistic American youth join the Peace Corps or do missionary or community organizing or Teach for America, Muslim youth re-visit their roots in "terrorist training camps" to, as they say, "make friends for a lifetime"

I see ISIS as a new iteration ... and I question its durability. I lived through the 1960's and the "dawning of the age of Aquarius" and Guevara's exciting promise of "two,three many vietnams" ( http://www.themilitant.com/1996/6036/6036_33.html )

We cannot evade the call of the hour. Vietnam teaches us this with its permanent lesson in heroism, its tragic daily lesson of struggle and death in order to gain the final victory.

Over there, the soldiers of imperialism encounter the discomforts of those who, accustomed to the standard of living that the United States boasts, have to confront a hostile land; the insecurity of those who cannot move without feeling that they are stepping on enemy territory; death for those who go outside of fortified compounds; the permanent hostility of the entire population. All this is provoking repercussions inside the United States. It is leading to the appearance of a factor that was attenuated by imperialism at full strength: the class struggle inside its own territory.

How close and bright would the future appear if two, three, many Vietnams flowered on the face of the globe, with their quota of death and their immense tragedies, with their daily heroism, with their repeated blows against imperialism, forcing it to disperse its forces under the lash of the growing hatred of the peoples of the world!

And if we were capable of uniting in order to give our blows greater solidity and certainty, so that the aid of all kinds to the peoples in struggle was even more effective - how great the future would be, and how near!...

American intervention is part of the fuel ... but, if you revisit Bin Laden's declaration of war, the goal was always local. It's important to recognize that Isis's victories are still in their infancy and it remains to be seen if they can avoid inspiring a "counterrevolution"

As Zizek put it wrt to Syria, " The ongoing struggle we see is a false one, lacking the kind of radical-emancipatory opposition clearly perceptible in Egypt" [http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2013/sep/06/syria-pseudo-struggle-egypt].

That's what I mean by suggesting that Syria and ISIS are the fruit of the evangelical movement -- for it's adherents, a Syrian victory, reestablishment of the caliphate looks like liberation -- for everyone else looking it ... it looks like hell on earth ... the Taliban on steroids.

Posted by: Susan Sunflower | Aug 29 2014 13:18 utc | 27

@ somebody 16:

I see we were thinking alike. In the interest of brevity, I left out the CIA and Eisenhower stuff, but I forgot about Qutb being tortured. Yes.

Posted by: Malooga | Aug 29 2014 13:18 utc | 28

Posted by: really | Aug 29, 2014 6:19:50 AM | 22

Under Petraeus Baathists were in Camp Bucca. Under Maliki without "US boots on the ground" they were free. How come?

There also is the very intriguing question what happened to the members of the infamous Iraqi Baath secret service.

Posted by: somebody | Aug 29 2014 13:19 utc | 29

Malooga @ 31- may be thought of as the Middle East counterpart to Operation Gladio in Europe. They both shared the same goals:

I have been hammering away at exactly that for some time now at my place- But,since *brand*- operation gladio was Italy specific, many times I call *brand* ISIS, a left behind army- most of the time
Because that is what they are


*Destabilize societies in order to render them compliantly governable, without democratic demands.


Yup, the left behind agenda as envisioned by the NATO global tyranny

A small quibble with this statement

"*Provide a right-wing identity and fear based alternative to (often radical) nationalism, or leftist movements and their demands for an improved life"

The left behinds will pose as right or left. The Red Brigades which were minimally 'left behind' infiltrated, were supposed to be leftists. The use of fear/terror is accurate, but, it can be presented from either side of the coin

Left and right is just another divisive tool and is best left in the garbage heap

Posted by: Penny | Aug 29 2014 13:19 utc | 30

LOL, I should read the preview after the edit and before I post
more coffee...

cleaning up!

I have been hammering away at exactly that for some time now at my place- But, since *brand*: operation gladio- was Italy specific, many times I call *brand*:ISIS simply a left behind army-
Because that is exactly what they are.

Hopefully that's better?

I wrote a rather large piece on this exact subject some time back
ISIS/ISIL/IS, whatever the brand, as a left behind army created in Iraq after the immoral attack on that nation

After all IS/IS/L rose from the dust of Iraq's rubble......

Posted by: Penny | Aug 29 2014 13:25 utc | 31

Susan Sunflower

"I see ISIS as a new iteration ... and I question its durability"

ISIS isn't a new iteration and it's durability has already been shown to be lasting

Posted by: Penny | Aug 29 2014 13:29 utc | 32

@36

Penny's logic gets right to heart of the matter. Penney lays out a thesis and connects the dots in a way that makes the most sense. ISIS - Left Behind, Gladio Styled Outfit. Fully funded, fully equipped, skilled soldlers, etc. And Who Benefits?

YET, many here misdirect or otherwise refuse to accept this most sensible thesis which is heavily based upon the historical record and historical truths.

Why is that?

Posted by: Fast Freddy | Aug 29 2014 13:41 utc | 33

@ Posted by: somebody | Aug 29, 2014 5:10:01 AM | 17

I meant that ISIS is the fruit of an evangelical movement -- not all Saudi financed, not all Wahabbi -- going back more than 20 years ... they aren't "new," they didn't spring fully formed ... the radicalization of kids in Australia and England is also a seamless part ... as is the problem (grossly exaggerated but real) of forced marriages and FGM -- Muslims happily living in the West and visiting their extended family in their home countries have been placed under extreme pressure to conform to ever stricter codes of conduct or be shunned. See the proliferation of hijabs in your local neighborhood -- sometimes on the basis of religious guilt (being a good and observant Muslim), sometimes on the basis of nationalism (being a good and proud Arab). No, it's not that black/white simple, none of it exists in isolation

Posted by: Susan Sunflower | Aug 29 2014 13:52 utc | 34

Everyday I walk the streets of America amongst folk who all of us have determined our own moral supremacy for ourselves, ashamed that I just want a few moments of freedom in this life remaining to me. But as Thoreau once observed, the streets are like running the gauntlet of gossip.

Posted by: geoff29 | Aug 29 2014 14:05 utc | 35

@ penny,

Yes, I largely agree with you. I should have replaced "right-wing" with the more accurate "religious" in that sentence. Also, I was talking about the 50's, when nationalism was considered "left-wing." Now it is considered "right-wing." The concepts have less meaning these days, and I see more and more "syncretic" ideologies, mix-and-match from wherever you like. (Gaddaffi, Dugan, etc.) Politicians always need some sort of ideology to sell to the masses; it's like fashion.

Also, it is often easier speak in terms of functional or moral or who benefits and who loses from an action or policy.

"Left and right is just another divisive tool and is best left in the garbage heap"
Sometimes yes. Sometimes they are just very approximate descriptors: Left being more generally concerned with equality of outcome, like single payer universal healthcare, Right more generally concerned with freedom of choice and liberty, like choosing everything about your healthcare. But, yes, esp. in the MSM they are used to divide needlessly, incite hate, and pit people against each other. Which is why I have no TV. On a daily basis, I have friends of all persuasions (very few interested in the stuff we do on the web, though) without any problem. And collectivism and individuality, in real life, are very mixed. Like a in a family, some decisions have to be made for the collective (where to live), but there is ample space (in a healthy family) for alone time and individuality. Hope that makes sense. I'm a little punchy and off to bed.

Posted by: Malooga | Aug 29 2014 14:09 utc | 36

*Destabilize societies in order to render them compliantly governable, without democratic demands.

Another thing Putin learned well from America and is applying it judiciously as we type. Of course, as always, it's America's fault. The only way for the planet to be truly free is for America and Israel to exist no more.

Chrystal Ball Persuasion

Posted by: Cold N. Holefield | Aug 29 2014 14:12 utc | 37

And yes, Gladio was the name for Italy. Each countries operations had their own unique name, according to Danielle Ganser, but I don't remember the other names or have his book in front of me.

@ Susan Sunflower:

Yes, any description is a simplification. There is that evangelical element to ISIS. Even if something is initially artificially created, like in the fairy tales, it takes on a life of its own afterwards.

Let's not forget that the US was founded on Puritan evangelism, and that the country went through 4 full-blown evangelic movements over the years. It's hard on those who are not part of the movements. Some people think that is why we are so messed up.

Posted by: Malooga | Aug 29 2014 14:27 utc | 38

"The only way for the planet to be truly free is for America and Israel to exist no more."

Well, let's just say it's a start.

Posted by: Malooga | Aug 29 2014 14:29 utc | 39

@ b

"Where, one wonders, did they learn such shit?'

Well, quite a few countries were working on behalf of the US/CIA during the rendition program of John Yoo /Cheney after 9/11, even Bashar Al-Assad ( reference Maher Arar).
Who is to say that those who were trained by the CIA are now "advisors" to ISIS?
Remember that when Ian Henderson left Kenya (where he tortured those who participated in uprisings against "HM The Queen" government) , he went to Bahrain to start the torture chambers of the Emir and then he trained his successors - looks like it is a Jordanian who has taken over and the lackeys are Pakistanis' torturers on loan.
So who ever got trained for extraordinary rendition may be selling their 'in situ in visu" training to Al-Baghdadi. Mercs training killer thugs for $$$$

Posted by: Yul | Aug 29 2014 14:35 utc | 40

easy e @ 11: "Castrating China, Russia, BRICS, etc. is the ultimate goal."

A succinct and "bottom line" description of the world today.

Posted by: ben | Aug 29 2014 14:41 utc | 41

@Malooga #31:

We see this time and time again, as terrorists who have been caught often do not what they are fighting for or against, or even what country they are in. Israel never gets attacked. (Similar methods have been used with the Ukrainian fascists, who believe they are killing Russians. There are numerous videos on the web of their convulsive remorse at finding out that they were killing their own innocent countrymen.)

I don't understand what your point is. You seem to be saying that it is right and proper for Ukrainians to kill citizens of Russia. Also, what are these "numerous videos on the web of their convulsive remorse"? I have not run across a single video which matches that description. I have seen absolutely no remorse on the part of Ukrainians for killing Novorossians, Russians, or "innocent" Ukrainians, for the glory of Ukraine.

And you forgot to mention that most western Ukrainians appear to have totally swallowed the propaganda that any person in the territory of the former Ukraine who does not support the fascist junta is a terrorist, and hence has no right to live, by definition. The only dissent I have seen in the western Ukraine is family members of western Ukrainians not liking their men to be sent into a meat grinder. What they don't want is for their own men to get killed; I have never heard them say that killing people who don't support the junta is wrong.

There may come a time when Ukrainians will feel remorse at inflicting genocide upon their fellow citizens, but it is only going to come when their society collapses, and they gradually come to realize that they were suffering from a collective madness.

Posted by: Demian | Aug 29 2014 14:50 utc | 42

Penny @ 35: "Left and right is just another divisive tool and is best left in the garbage heap"

Mmmmm yep, another speck of truth in a sea of rhetoric. And all in the name of corporate hegemony, AKA the " The Global Plantation", the wet dream of so many elites around the globe.

Posted by: ben | Aug 29 2014 15:02 utc | 43

Posted by: Susan Sunflower | Aug 29, 2014 9:52:37 AM | 41

I consider ISIS a reconfigured Al Qeida.

This here is the way Bin Laden was marketed according to Wikipedia.

Osama bin Laden (1957 – 2011) was a founder of al-Qaeda.[1] In conjunction with several other Islamic leaders, he issued two fatwas—in 1996 and then again in 1998—that Muslims should fight those that either support Israel or support Western military forces in Islamic countries, stating that those in that mindset are the enemy, including civilians and military personnel from the United States and allied countries. His goal was for Western military forces to withdraw from the Middle East and for foreign aid to Israel to cease as it reflected negatively on Palestinians.[2][3] Bin Laden's ideological guides have proven to be Ibn Taymiyya, Ibn al-Qayyim al-Jawziyyah, and Sayyid Qutb. Although perceptions to the contrary abound, bin Laden has not been influenced greatly by Ibn Abd al-Wahhab or the Wahhabi school of thought, and he is not a good example of contemporary Wahhabi Islam as practiced in Saudi Arabia.

This here is ISIS as marketed by Wikipedia

Salafists such as ISIS believe that only a legitimate authority can undertake the leadership of jihad, and that the first priority over other areas of combat, such as fighting against non-Muslim countries, is the purification of Islamic society. For example, when it comes to the Israeli–Palestinian conflict, since ISIS regards the Palestinian Sunni group Hamas as apostates who have no legitimate authority to lead jihad, it regards fighting Hamas as the first step toward confrontation with Israel.

So while Al Qaida has been a tool to draw Western armies to the Middle East, ISIL has the added value of anti Muslim Brotherhood, anti Shia death squads though the alliance with the Naqshbandi seems counterintuitive.

Posted by: somebody | Aug 29 2014 15:14 utc | 44

Yes, and things can take an improbable course. I was reminded yesterday of the rise of an armed Maoist army in India and, of course, the one in Nepal continues even as China is "the enemy" and Maoism in China has faded.

-- No -- I don't believe in some over-riding American coordination, even if traces of vestigial connections and powerlines remain. Our intelligence services aren't that good and the desire for self-determination is too strong. Things go in and out of favor and fashion, and what is fashionable may not achieve significant numerical popularity (remaining merely aspirational or inspirational).

Probably every foreign Jihadi in Syria has his own tale to tell of how he came to be there and it's all about him.

Posted by: Susan Sunflower | Aug 29 2014 15:50 utc | 45

Posted by: JFC | Aug 29, 2014 9:40:52 AM | 39

You sure the weapons did not go to Shia death squads? Petraeus was using the El Salvador option on a Sunni insurgency.
Though of course he might have also equipped Sunnis to battle Shia, US troops being safe as long as both did not turn their guns against US troops.

It does not seem to have worked - 2007 was the year of max US casualties and 2008 was the year US withdrawal was agreed.

Posted by: somebody | Aug 29 2014 16:00 utc | 46

I always figured those weapons were sold -- by organized arms brokers who do that kind of thing -- all over the world -- with the rich and well connected getting richer (and better connected) -- with long-established Swiss bank accounts getting fuller. In Iraq under Saddam everyone was armed and many many adult males were war veteran.
(( It's part of the curiosity of endless calls for "more weapons" and of the Iraqi's people's inability to depose him (which we assumed they wanted)).

I suspect that there, as is true in the united states, guns can be quickly converted to cash no-questions-asked -- good as gold -- and then we get to complain about their corruption ...

Posted by: Susan Sunflower | Aug 29 2014 16:10 utc | 47

Well, let's just say it's a start.

Posted by: Malooga | Aug 29, 2014 10:29:11 AM | 46

How could you so easily betray your own people?

Either way, being the master carpenter you are (haha — that was a good one — you had me in stitches and still do), did you fasion your own cross? Did you make any extras?

IS could use a few. Maybe you can start up a new business venture — you know, get down off that cross and start making them instead of hanging on them.

Being productive will cheer you up and give you a sense of worth. You're much too young to throw in the towel. You still have plenty of earning potential and much happiness ahead, but you have the pick that low-hanging fruit from the tree of prosperity — it won't just fall in your lap.

There's no charge for this valuable advice. It's free as everything should be, most importantly expression.

Posted by: Cold N. Holefield | Aug 29 2014 16:13 utc | 48

@52 I think the death/age of Bin Laden and the rest of the Mujadeen is the larger story. When they were more active, would-be supporters were held back by the cult of Al Qaeda which was motivated by revenge for being cut off in the late 80's. Without their shadow, would-be fighters aren't being forced into attacking symbolic targets or waiting for orders from on high, they can act b on their own which is why ISIS can run crucifixions and organize waste disposal.

The average ISIS member wasn't an official U.S. proxy and has never been cut off, so they can focus on new goals with the previous legends of islamic extremism off the scene.

Posted by: NotTimothyGeithner | Aug 29 2014 16:32 utc | 49

Don't forget all of the "new" Al-Qa’ida's that have been declared -- Boku Haram, several Ansar al'Sharias and AQAP and others the newspapers never bothered to memorialize. Al-Qa’ida has been largely a "banner" for more than a decade ... Al-Zawahiri went from a respected elder during that time to a out-of-touch crank -- insisting Al-Qa’ida was the vanguard when it was obviously hobbled and OLD, OLD, OLD. Al-Qa’ida was hide-bound, bossy and dismissive -- disowned ISIS and didn't think much of Al-Awlaki either ...

FWIW, my theory is that we killed bin Laden as a favor to the Saudis and his family (and by extension, his children, though they may not have seen it that way) so they could all get on with their lives (and financials, and travel)

Posted by: Susan Sunflower | Aug 29 2014 16:55 utc | 50

Posted by: NotTimothyGeithner | Aug 29, 2014 12:32:22 PM | 56
I suspect the waste disposal is German training - seems SWP were teaching the Syrian opposition (participants picked by the opposition itself - Berlin suited as Islamist participants not able to enter the US :-)) how to run their country.
The Day After Project - English description

Posted by: somebody | Aug 29 2014 17:29 utc | 51

@57 The franchised Al Qaedas were the perfect examples of how the cult of Bin Laden and revenge kept the focus on U.S. symbolic targets such as embassies instead of grabbing oil refineries and dams and declaring a state.

Posted by: NotTimothyGeithner | Aug 29 2014 17:57 utc | 52

fascinating -- I wondered what had become of AQAP, since I had last bumped in to Yemen news wrt the Houthis (Shiia) demonstrations -- and on googing about discovered the the Houthis have apparently utterly eclipsed the once "promising" AQAP (which used to be in regular even constant skirmishes with the beleagered Yemeni military). AQAP has pledge support of ISIL.

I discovered in the course of this that there's a new AQAP magazine to supplant "INSPIRE" the Boston Marathon bomb-of-your-mom fame. As you'd expect, FOX has the most extensive coverage:

The online publication, called “Palestine-Betrayal of the Guilty Conscience Al-Malahem” and put out by the media arm of Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, or AQAP, calls for Muslims around the world to follow “the recipe” provided to set off car bombs in crowded venues.

http://www.foxnews.com/world/2014/08/28/al-qaeda-magazine-urges-terrorists-to-hit-vegas-military-academies-and-stores/

Oh, and Britain has upped their security risk status to severe.

Posted by: Susan Sunflower | Aug 29 2014 18:11 utc | 53

I see that, what is being called, Baghdadi Denial Syndrome is still in the feverish stage here and across the ME. While many here and elsewhere are consumed by proving he is just a pawn, the Caliph is ignoring this distemper and getting on with the conquest of the Muslim World and maybe more.

Posted by: Wayoutwest | Aug 29 2014 18:45 utc | 54

I'm confused based on the above discussion by the commentariat.

For example, was an individual like Baghdadi radicalized simply as a consequence of being held prisoner at Camp Bucca or as Malooga seems to assume (but offers no specific evidence)--became radicalized through a conscious effort of unknowns to turn him( initially through some kind o mind control/torture program) and then train him and then send him back to the field to become the eventual head of ISIL?

Posted by: Jim | Aug 29 2014 19:20 utc | 55

Posted by: JFC | Aug 29, 2014 2:55:35 PM | 62

I am not the only one who thinks Petraeus used Shia death squads to beat the insurgency - from Democracy now on a Guardian/BBC documentary

This is the only known Iraqi video footage of Steele, a shadowy figure, always in the background, observing, evaluating. The man on his left is his collaborator, Colonel James Coffman. He reported directly to General David Petraeus, who funded this police commando force from a multibillion-dollar fund. The thousands of commandos that Steele let loose came to be mostly made up of Shia militias, like the Badr Brigades, hungry to take revenge on the Sunni supporters of Saddam Hussein. Steele oversaw the commandos, mostly made up of militias. They were torturing detainees for information on the insurgency.

Posted by: somebody | Aug 29 2014 19:24 utc | 56

Yes, wrt Petraeus and Shiia (often but not always government sanctioned) death squads -- see also WikiLeaks.

There were rumors of Sunni death squads, but rare claims of killings that I recall -- I think it was a matter of "they're doing it tooo" -- Sunns having the some of the same problems with traveling around Baghdad that African-Americans have here in the U.S. -- they were the hunted, which is why - I assume - the Sunni's turned to car bombs and suicide bombers attacking markets and large groups. As an often hated minority, a pack of armed Sunnis would have never made it though the first road block ...

Moqtada Al Sadr's Mahdi Army (Shiia) and others were also said to have death squads that sometimes acted with and sometimes without government approval -- even though he himself was often a "wanted man" with a price on his head and/or in Iran

Posted by: Susan Sunflower | Aug 29 2014 19:31 utc | 57

@63 I doubt Bagdhadi would have been able to organize or gain so many followers without an established reputation or connections to the original Sunni uprising in Iraq.

Posted by: NotTimothyGeithner | Aug 29 2014 19:36 utc | 58

I should add I don't visit jihadi websites, so I don't know what is popular. With the secret nature of that world, the process of rising to leadership isn't rapid American Idol phone-in contests or American elections. Trust has to be built, or one has to be really successful at something.

Look at Hefter in Libya. Despite prominent international backing, the locals in Libya want nothing to with him because he is fundamentally an outsider and known failure.

Posted by: NotTimothyGeithner | Aug 29 2014 19:41 utc | 59

Jim@63

From what I have gleaned about Baghdadi's history he was arrested by US forces for being a civilian member of ISI and already an Islamist cleric. While in prison, which was an ideal enviornment for recruiting, he developed the personnel who would become the core of ISIS.

The nonsense about him being turned into a US zombie with mind-control or torture is pure Hollywood fantisy with a little, the US is indispensable and Arab Muslims are weak minded Sand Ni&&@#$ thrown in to make some people believe we still control the world.

Posted by: Wayoutwest | Aug 29 2014 19:44 utc | 60

The nyt did an extensive profile a couple weeks ago ... read it or don't ... all I remember is that "the story begins" in Fallujah in 2004 during the siege when he was arrested

Posted by: Susan Sunflower | Aug 29 2014 20:06 utc | 61

here: Opening paragraph

When American forces raided a home near Falluja during the turbulent 2004 offensive against the Iraqi Sunni insurgency, they got the hard-core militants they had been looking for. They also picked up an apparent hanger-on, an Iraqi man in his early 30s whom they knew nothing about.

sorry to sully this site with a NYT link: http://www.nytimes.com/2014/08/11/world/middleeast/us-actions-in-iraq-fueled-rise-of-a-rebel.html

Posted by: Susan Sunflower | Aug 29 2014 20:09 utc | 62

and the BBC which says:

Baghdadi is believed to have been born in Samarra, north of Baghdad, in 1971.

Reports suggest he was a cleric in a mosque in the city around the time of the US-led invasion in 2003.

also

But Baghdadi has a reputation as a highly organised and ruthless battlefield tactician, which analysts say makes his organisation more attractive to young jihadists than that of Zawahiri, an Islamic theologian.

In October 2011, the US officially designated Baghdadi as "terrorist" and offered a $10m (£5.8m; 7.3m euros) reward for information leading to his capture or death.

not a newbie, or an unknown

http://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-27801676

Posted by: Susan Sunflower | Aug 29 2014 20:16 utc | 63

Posted by: NotTimothyGeithner | Aug 29, 2014 3:36:22 PM | 66

Do we know he is the leader? Or just employed.

The torture stuff is interesting.

At least officially, the CIA ended its behavioral science program in the mid-1960s, before scientists and operatives achieved total control over a subject. "All experiments beyond a certain point always failed," an operative veteran of the program said, "because the subject jerked himself back for some reason or the subject got amnesiac or catatonic." In other words, you could create a vegetable or a zombie, but not a robot who would obey you against his will. Still, the CIA had gained reliable information about how to derange and disorient a person who was reluctant to cooperate. An enemy could quickly be made into a confused and desperate human being.

However Derren Brown seems to have proven that you can make people act against their intentions.

Posted by: somebody | Aug 29 2014 20:20 utc | 64

I was responding to Jim's query about how/when Baghdadi was "radicalized" ... and how he had established street cred sufficient to be head of ISIS -- he has apparently been very active for over a decade and -- prior to his arrest in 2004, as a cleric was likely not-a-bumpkin, not-a-nobody as a cleric in Baghdad

Posted by: Susan Sunflower | Aug 29 2014 20:23 utc | 65

something completely different from slate: http://www.slate.com/blogs/future_tense/2014/08/29/digitalglobe_worldview_3_sharpest_ever_commercial_satellite_images_show.html

commercial satellite images -- yes you could probably detect mass movement of people (see the bottom image with distinct cars

Posted by: Susan Sunflower | Aug 29 2014 21:19 utc | 66

jfc=lol=foff=idiot with an attitude..

Posted by: james | Aug 29 2014 21:21 utc | 67

@demian 49:

“I don't understand what your point is. You seem to be saying that it is right and proper for Ukrainians to kill citizens of Russia. “

No. I am saying that ignorant people can be easily used to work against their real interests.

“Also, what are these "numerous videos on the web of their convulsive remorse"? I have not run across a single video which matches that description.“

POWs are debriefed. Artillery squads especially are shown video evidence of the innocent people they have killed. Many break down from seeing up close the carnage and suffering they have caused. There are one or two such scenes in the movie, “Ukraine Crisis: Donbass, Chronicle of Genocide.” But there was another specific one I saw in the past week with an artillery team bawling like babies. Unfortunately, I can’t seem locate it now. I probably saw it at Cassad’s, but it could have been at Sakers, or one of the youtube channels, like Anti-Maidan or elektropostman. Sorry, I can’t find it -- it was the example I had in mind while writing. But you are right -- up until now there has been far less remorse, and far more personal concern about being killed.

It is my belief, although I can’t substantiate it, that perhaps the majority of Ukrainians have never been behind this junta, they just want to live their lives. As the tide turns in battle, I expect many of this silent majority to recognize a dead end and make pragmatic choices. The average person is too poor to not be wondering which side of the slice of bread has more butter.

Posted by: Malooga | Aug 29 2014 21:44 utc | 68

@ Cold N. Holefield 55

“How could you so easily betray your own people?”

I could never betray my people. But it does appear that my people are not your people.

Unless you are a member of the elite (which, although unlikely, is possible, as the owner of Whole Foods was caught trolling) the very first spark of political awareness is to perceive that there are class interests involved. My interests are not the same as Bill Gates, Warren Buffett, and Michael Bloomberg’s. My interests are not the same as those who control the corporations which profit from death: the war machine, Monsanto, Raytheon, Lockheed Martin, etc. They may have the same citizenship as me, but their interests are not my interests. The interests of the US ruling elite is to control the world -- even if they have to bring half of the world down with it. My interests are in universal healthcare, schools and houses that people can afford, productive meaningful jobs for everyone, healthy food, media in the public interest, and a peaceful world where all are respected. A country does not have to control the world to provide these things to its citizens; many poor countries do a much better job. I want an America to be number one in all of these indexes, not 46 or 59.

I think it is a shame that instead we are number one in threatening, killing and extorting and spying on people. We spend almost as much on these goals as the rest of the world combined. We are a sick and paranoid country. We have soldiers in every country in the world but three, and yet the world has never been more unstable and closer to ultimate doom. Through NATO, we control our European puppets, and incite them into killing themselves. We created the cesspool that is the Middle East, as I detailed above. We, and our Euro-puppets, destroyed the most humane country in Africa. We funded the death squads that ravaged Central America -- which by the way is where ISIS’s military tactics come from, like cutting heads off and sticking them on pikes at the village limits with their genitals stuffed in their mouths. We installed the military juntas in Latin America who dropped thousands to their deaths from airplanes. Despite our unparalleled propaganda system, we are the most hated country on earth.

The suffering in this country is immense; it is not solved by causing worse suffering in other countries. The genocidal maniacs who run this insane place are more concerned with preparing for a first strike nuclear attack against Russia -- which threatens to kill billions -- then my needs.

If you were really interested in such matters and not either a paid troll, or a fat juvenile masturbating on the couch, you would read your Howard Zinn and Michael Parenti and learn something. Parenti’s talk on super-patriotism (which you suffer from) can be found at TUCRadio. Zinn’s talks can be found there and at radio4all.net. Some of his last talks, where he goes into detail distinguishing between the ruling classes needs and the public’s needs, were very good indeed. Both are also at the Unwelcome Guests radio program.

Your artificial jauntiness betrays a deep moral disconnect from the concerns of the real world.

My people are the people detailed in “The Grapes of Wrath.” My people are the people detailed in “The Salt of the Earth.”

Eugene V. Debs, one of the greatest Americans ever, who was imprisoned until his health was broken by this evil country said the following:

I have no country to fight for; my country is the earth; I am a citizen of the world.
"When I Shall Fight," Appeal to Reason (11 September 1915)

I am opposing a social order in which it is possible for one man who does absolutely nothing that is useful to amass a fortune of hundreds of millions (now billions!) of dollars, while millions of men and women who work all the days of their lives secure barely enough for a wretched existence.

And most importantly:

“Years ago I recognized my kinship with all living things, and I made up my mind that I was not one bit better than the meanest on the earth. I said then and I say now, that while there is a lower class, I am in it; while there is a criminal element, I am of it; while there is a soul in prison, I am not free.”
― Eugene V. Debs, Debs: His Life, Writings and Speeches

I can say no better.

If your people are not my people, than I oppose you and everything you represent with every fiber of my being.

I hope that answers your question.

Posted by: Malooga | Aug 29 2014 21:52 utc | 69

Syria's population is 22.4 million (Iraq 32.5) according to google; 3 million have fled it borders, another 6.5 million internally displaced ... and then there's ISIS

http://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-28977117

Posted by: Susan Sunflower | Aug 29 2014 22:51 utc | 70

@60

Ignorant as I am I had never heard of the Houthis. This morning I see at Press TV, Houthis must end anti-government protests: UNSC

With links to earlier articles ...

Houthis fighting ‘Western imperialism’: Analyst

Houthi MP murder may cause sectarian war: Mark Glenn

Saudi Arabia’s approach to terrorism, hypocritical


Posted by: john francis lee | Aug 29 2014 23:36 utc | 71

OT but...

http://rt.com/usa/183744-elizabeth-warren-gaza-israel/

Liberals' darling Elizabeth Warren defends Israeli attacks on Gaza schools and hospitals

Israel has the right to shell Palestinian hospitals and schools out of self defense as long as Hamas stores rocket launchers next to them, US Sen. Elizabeth Warren said during a town hall meeting in Massachusetts this week.

Warren, darling du jour of American liberals, defended her vote to send more defense funding to Israel in the middle of its recent fierce offensive on Gaza, saying she believes civilian casualties are the “last thing Israel wants,” according to the Cape Cod Times.

"But when Hamas puts its rocket launchers next to hospitals, next to schools, they're using their civilian population to protect their military assets. And I believe Israel has a right, at that point, to defend itself," she said. [emphasis mine]

Well, no hope for this one. Look at the language: But when they put rockets in hospitals, then Israel "has the right to defend itself".

It's all slithery snake language. If you removed the euphemisms and newspeak, she is saying:

  • Israel should not hesitate to kill young children and/or the sick and infirm if it means destroying some part of Hamas' rocket arsenal.
  • Israel should kill innocent children to attack these rockets, even though Israel has other means - means funded directly by the taxes of American citizens - to prevent these same attacks.
  • There is no risk, however small, that Israel should accept should the option of killing Palestinian children alleviate it. Even if it means killing 100 Palestinian children to eliminate a 1/1,000,000 chance that an Israeli should be injured or killed, it is acceptable behavior for the Israelis.

There is absolutely no way this woman has a heart for anyone if she can express such sentiments. She is another phony like Obama. Another counterfeit. Another decoy.

And this is the best hope for America - it has come to this.

Posted by: guest77 | Aug 30 2014 0:05 utc | 72

@84 guest77

Elizabeth Warren thinks it is ok for Israel to bomb hospitals and UN schools being used as shelters because a bottle rocket may have been fired from it vicinity?...I is speechless...dayum...

Posted by: really | Aug 30 2014 0:19 utc | 73

Look Jerko F. Clown,

Once again you've loused up a thread with 95% jackoffery and lies, 4% phony pandering to anyone you can leech onto (like you used to do to Pragma, and even he still called you an asshole), 1% banal content like: "the CIA and Hollywood lie to you!" You think? Thanks, dumbass.

Everyone knows precisely where you're coming from - and it isn't from a place of actually giving a fuck about what is happening in the world, or in telling the truth about events. You're pushing the agenda of the CIA and their proxies every fucking time. You spend 90% of your time attacking people here and you add nothing.

So no one gives a fuck about your entirely phony posturing, nor your pathetic insults. Everyone knows your purpose is just to troll.

Posted by: guest77 | Aug 30 2014 0:23 utc | 74

@85 You shouldn't be.

Much like Obama, people thirsty for any kind of leadership latched onto a bit of honesty when it came to Warren discussion of 1980's credit card legal changes.

http://www.counterpunch.org/2012/10/01/the-problem-with-massachusetts-and-elizabeth-warren/

Massachusetts is full of reactionary pricks. Where else would a family of sexual predators, slum lords, war hawks, and Ted Kennedy gain status as arch liberals? Bobby was on the HUAC committee and made Joe McCarthy godfather to his kids.

The recent shenanigans in Gaza have put the issue in the spotlight, but like all the people who were betrayed by Obama despite his aggressive support of thugs such as Joe Lieberman, you only saw what you wanted to see.

Posted by: NotTimothyGeithner | Aug 30 2014 0:33 utc | 76

http://www.mediaite.com/online/ron-paul-the-u-s-government-knew-911-was-going-to-happen/


Ron Paul tells it like it could have been and separates the plausible from the crankish.

Posted by: truthbetold | Aug 30 2014 0:35 utc | 77

@88

yup. just wishful thinking...

Posted by: really | Aug 30 2014 0:45 utc | 78

Massachusetts has probably the sixth strongest Jewish lobby in the country -- after New York, Florida, New Jersey, California, and Illinois.

It also has arguably the strongest concentration of global elites in the nation, outside of the DC area, with Harvard, Tufts, MIT, etc., along with tons of think tanks and "analysts." There is a ton of corporate wealth here.

These are the people who can make and break political candidates here. The way they destroyed Jane Swift, an honest Conservative who was not beholden to the good boy network that controls all contracts and disbursements in the State, was execrable.

Warren might be good on some domestic austerity related issues -- and that's how she was marketed -- but she has no real local base, so regardless of what she believes (and I don't intend to make excuses for her) she has no power to go against the tide. The elite knew this, and that's why they supported her. Malleability, baby -- clay in the hands that count.

Now, Joe Kennedy, had the base, and could have stood up to the elites. But after witnessing two more members of his family dead or murdered, he saw the handwriting on the wall and exited gracefully. The good members of the Kennedy clan have eschewed electoral politics, choosing instead to work in the non-profit sector.

Massachusetts, like Illinois, is a strong political machine State. Left and Right are just marketing features -- its the machine that works as the flywheel, with money as the grease. So much for representative democracy.

It is no more, and probably a good deal less, reactionary (whatever the commenter meant by that) than anywhere else in America.

The second, third, and fourth generations of Kennedys bear little relationship, and should not be held to account, for the crimes of the first. If Jack and Bobby were as reactionary pricks as the Bush clan (or more importantly, vainly self-aggrandizing), then they would still have the dynasty, and not the indefensible Bushs, or the hypocritical and equally murderous, Clintons. Jack Kennedy grew up fast, and changed an awful lot in a few years in office, as did his younger brother, and after standing up to the global dominance group during the Cuban missile crisis, he was a marked man. He is one of the few, if not only, Presidents who actually gave his life for his country, if not the entire world. If one had to pick a President for a hero, one could do a lot worse. That doesn’t mean that he was exemplary in any other way. But even Eisenhower from those days, comes across almost as a raving commie, compared to the political spectrum today. Regulate business? Huh?

There is also a strong radical, and anti-imperialist movement in the State, but like everywhere else in America, we are talking a few percent, certainly not more than ten percent, at most. From Massachusetts: Noam Chomsky, Howard Zinn, Jill Stein, Michael Alpert, Joe Gerson, Charlie Derber, John Walsh, Daniel Patrick Welch, Keith Harman Snow, Mary Daly, Helen Caldicott used to live here, South End Press, and many others.

Also from Massachusetts, The John Birch Society.

Posted by: Malooga | Aug 30 2014 2:08 utc | 79

What's Left's interpretation of the baloney coming out of the West about Syria:

http://gowans.wordpress.com/2014/08/24/western-leaders-fear-monger-to-mobilize-support-for-air-strikes-on-syria/#comments

Posted by: Hoarsewhisperer | Aug 30 2014 3:34 utc | 80

Sigh, yes ... the column is not bad. Certainty is such a mind-closer, ain't it?

Posted by: Susan Sunflower | Aug 30 2014 4:21 utc | 81

Posted by: Susan Sunflower | Aug 29, 2014 4:23:49 PM | 76

That is the interesting part of Bagdadi's biography.

Reports suggest that he was a cleric at the Imam Ahmad ibn Hanbal Mosque in Samarra at around the time of the US-led invasion of Iraq in 2003

US knowledge from 2003

What's institutional Islam for Iraq's Sunnis? It refers to the official network of Sunni mosques, charities, and schools in Iraq. Unlike Iraq's Shiite clergy, who were persecuted by Saddam, Sunni clergy were largely employed and controlled by the Baathist government. Sunni imams, or preachers, were led by an official mufti, or grand Sunni authority, paid by the Ministry for Religious Endowment, experts say. Some Sunni clerics trained at the elite Saddam University in Baghdad. The recent collapse of this system of patronage has apparently left many clerics searching for sources of funds, Jabar says. Fundamentalist Islamic movements, such as the Wahhabi faction based in Saudi Arabia, appear to be offering money to newly impoverished clerics, which may be increasing support for Sunni fundamentalism.

So Saudi Wahhabis (not necessarily the Saudi state) might have picked up the tab for unemployed Baathist clerics, presumably for Baath military and secret service, too, if they could speak in correct religious code?

Now, what went on in Camp Bucca?

The first time Abu Wissam, 58, was arrested by US troops was in a roundup in December 2003. He was arrested again in September 2007. He has spent most of the latest detention in Bucca's Camp 26, which is known as a takfiri camp, since takfiris--Sunni Muslim extremists who consider Shiites to be heretics and non-Muslims--have been allowed to run it. "Sometimes they wanted to punish a prisoner," Abu Wissam said. "They would put someone in the camp and tell the takfiris, 'This guy worked with the police.' The takfiris hate anyone who works with the Iraqi government or the Sahwa or the police." "The Sahwa people were scared to sleep inside," Abu Wissam said, referring to the movement of former Sunni resistance fighters who have made a marriage of convenience with the US military since late 2006 to battle Al Qaeda. He and other prisoners I interviewed said interrogations mostly focused on general questions. For Abu Wissam it was things such as "did you fight against Israel?" during the 1973 war--apparently considered a mark of suspicion by US interrogators but something that a member of the Iraqi army would have been shot for refusing to do. Abu Wissam said he was given a paper to sign, admitting guilt to a list of charges that included murder, attacking US troops, kidnapping and sectarian cleansing. In July the US military admitted that Islamic extremists had been running courts inside Bucca for years and even carrying out killings inside the prisons.

Posted by: somebody | Aug 30 2014 6:03 utc | 82

Asia Times in 2003 on Saddam Islam

The anonymous official admitted that Saddam Hussein had started building mosques after 1991 as part of a new posture in which he tried to add "spiritual color" to the national fabric. This was the need of the hour, when Saddam realized that the Cold War was over and that his nation needed a new uniting ideology. What it got was the new Islamic crusader Saddam. There were new television programs about Koranic recitations that began broadcasting day and night. At Baghdad's large Saddam Hussein University, courses in Islamic sciences were added. Saddam's newest portraits (which permeate civic life here) now include "Saddam at prayer".

The Islam preached in Iraq today is certainly not the radical, political or fundamentalist sort of the al-Qaeda variety. It is merely a new "addiction" to lull the Iraqi people to sleep. In truth, like other Arab rulers, Saddam also feels threatened by al-Ikhwan al-Muslimun (the Muslim Brotherhood). All publications written by al-Ikhwan are banned, and its leaders are still discouraged from staying in Baghdad despite the fact that they supported Iraq in 1991 and still support Iraq against the US.

So where did the Takfiris running part of Camp Bucca suddenly come from?

Posted by: somebody | Aug 30 2014 6:56 utc | 83

As of April 7 2008, the United States was holding 251 fighters at Camp Bucca, Iraq.
Egypt, Saudi Arabia and Syria contributed each 19 percent ....

Posted by: somebody | Aug 30 2014 7:18 utc | 84

"...It is a truism to say there is no military solution to ISIS. Any strategy must, of course, be comprehensive. It must squeeze ISIS’ finances. It requires an inclusive government in Baghdad that shares power and wealth with Iraqi Sunnis, rather than pushing them toward ISIS.

It requires an end to the conflict in Syria, and a political transition there, because the regime of President Bashar Assad will never be a reliable partner against ISIS; in fact, it has regime of President Bashar Assad will never be a reliable partner against ISIS; in fact, it has abetted the rise of ISIS, just as it facilitated the terrorism of ISIS’ predecessor, Al-Qaida in Iraq. A strategy to counter ISIS also requires a regional approach to mobilize America’s partners in a coordinated, multilateral effort…"
http://www.themalaymailonline.com/print/what-you-think/stop-dithering-confront-isis-john-mccain-and-lindsey-graham

Warmonger-in-chief John McCain and Doily pants Lindsey Graham must have massaging each others genitalia as the co-wrote this impassioned screed to advise President Obama to "stop dithering" and drop some made in the USA ordinance on Assad. You must understand that ISIL is McCain's baby, all the rhetoric in this op-ed sounds like McCain wants to rid the world of ISIL but that could not be further from the truth.

I guess we should expect to see McCain and Graham all over the Sunday news shows tomorrow fear-mongering and war-mongering. Ugh....

Posted by: really | Aug 30 2014 14:30 utc | 85

@ So where did the Takfiris running part of Camp Bucca suddenly come from?

It would depend on how official that "running" was -- was it like the Aryan Brotherhood versus Mexican Mafia in California prisons. In many prisons, the authorities rely on intra-group leadership to provide someone they can negotiate with and someone who can act as an enforcer (since leaders usually have a cadre of lieutenants). Part of the rationale for extreme solitary isolation/containment prisons is to avoid the formation of alliances in a general population.

Per "The Power of Nightmares" and elsewhere, the rise of Muslim Brotherhood because religious assembly and 'good works' could not made "forbidden" when all other organizing was, so they became, sort of "the underground" ... (see also all the outrage -- now passed -- about accommodating Muslim religious observances -- Friday prayers which are supposed to be group services -- in U.S. prisons)

Posted by: Susan Sunflower | Aug 30 2014 16:10 utc | 86

... although "we" claimed prisoners held in the "The War on Terror" were exempt from Geneva/Red Cross (which I believe uphold rights of religious practice) that was, I believe struck down.

HISTORY COMMONS WAYBACK ANNOTATED BIBLIOGRAPHY FROM 2001-2009.

Posted by: Susan Sunflower | Aug 30 2014 16:20 utc | 87

Seems the US divided Iraqi prisons like the Iraqi government "roughly by sect or nationality". And the takfiri camp is almost a form of torture.

Our protagonist is embedded with Iraqi troops as a war correspondent in 2003 when he is brought to Boca with just a notepad and pencil in his pocket.

He quickly learns the order of things at the prison and methodically observes that there are 30 to 35 prisoners per tent, 100 per camp, and they are roughly divided by sect or nationality. The guards move around the prisoners as a form of agitation, with the journalist remarking that to be in the takfiri camp is almost a form of torture.

Posted by: somebody | Aug 30 2014 16:53 utc | 88

There is also this on the internet from 2007

In a report that aired December 21, 2007, Al-Arabiya TV examined how life in U.S. prisons in Iraq is largely controlled by Al-Qaeda members. According to the report, "some of these prisons have turned into factories for converting innocent people into extremists." One former inmate stated, "When you enter prison, either you become one of them, or else they kill you."

Posted by: somebody | Aug 30 2014 17:16 utc | 89

This here is from the Hindustani Times in 2009

Abu Mohammed, a 35-year-old labourer who was arrested after the bombing of a major Shiite Muslim shrine in Samarra in February 2006, offered a similar insight into Bucca's extremists. "The Takfiris focused on those around the age of 24. They welcomed them warmly, questioned them about the motives which had led to them being imprisoned, their relationship with religion," said Mohammed, who spent three years at the camp. "Then they indoctrinated them by encouraging them to grow a beard, dress like the Salafists, including killing policemen and soldiers," he said referring to a group that seeks a purer form of Islam. Abu Yasser, a teacher aged 45 who was also arrested in Samarra, said he was convinced the Americans were aware of the brainwashing carried out by members of Al-Qaeda. "The people of Al-Qaeda used to persuade them that suicide operations against the infidels would lead them to paradise. There were youths from Samarra who were quite moderate but did not to speak to me because they considered me a traitor," he said. But Captain Kimberly insists the allegations are unfounded. "Actually, our theatre internment facilities are some of the best schools to give detainees the tools they need to succeed and contribute to Iraqi society," he said. "Detainees who enter our facilities are kept segregated from the more extremist detainees specifically because we want to ensure the low-threat detainees are not influenced by those who have no issue in perpetrating attacks against the Iraqi people or coalition forces," said the US spokesman.

Posted by: somebody | Aug 30 2014 17:22 utc | 90

And this here is the official description of the Camp Bucca reeducation programme with a very strange definition of extremist.

"Individuals in the amber and red categories are considered extremists and are only referred to as amber or red. The exception is that detainees who claim to be members of Jaysh Al Mahdi (JAM) or al-Qaeda are separated into their own compounds while in detention. Another identified group of extremists who are separated are the Takfiri, who demand a very austere lifestyle, void of modern comforts for its members and all Muslims they come in contact with."

???

Posted by: somebody | Aug 30 2014 17:34 utc | 91

Does this reflect the absolute disregard for Muslim lives -- amount to racism imho -- we've seen again and again in a war where years into it politicians laugh that they can't tell Sunni from Shiia ... and where we think we can "bomb ISIS" as if our bombs can tell what's in someone's heart and/or as if ISIS will not "hide behind" the civilians they live behind (as wars were still being fought on battlefields by soldiers in uniform) ...
A lot of Americans, in uniform and out, seem to advocate letting them kill each other and any attempt to interfere as a fool's errand ... and not worth American resources. Iraqi "hearts and minds" weren't the only ones lost ... Yeah, it seems unbelievably self-defeating -- to be propping up Maliki on one hand and demonstrating benign neglect to Al-Qa’ida recruitment in the prison camps ... "unbelievable" -- but not unusual.

Posted by: Susan Sunflower | Aug 30 2014 18:18 utc | 92

Posted by: Susan Sunflower | Aug 30, 2014 2:18:26 PM | 92

The British were involved, too, in Camp Bucca.

I think it has something to do with a secret service preference for a "religiously crazy" faction that splits the insurgency and can get painted easily as "evil" to a nationalist sane insurgency that might get everbody's sympathies and unite. Pakistan's preference for the Taliban to Pashtun nationalism that would unite large chunks of their country with a part of Afghanistan is similar, as is Israel's preference for Hamas as enemy (and probably Assad's preference for extremist opposition groups). Something similar happened in Cechnya.

Let's assume the British and the US very consciously destroyed the nationalist Sunni insurgency by turning it into Al Qeida. And that is presumably what the torture is for - to make people lose their minds.

The cognitive dissonance of the PR for the Camp Bucca reeduction programme actually is quite comical.

For questions of religious interpretation, Stone's staff has developed a directory of radical refrains, along with responses to each from what they say are moderate passages of text. The directory of moderate arguments was put together, Stone says with no small amount of pride, by "former al-Qaeda guys who now work for me," because "they know the messages". Sattar and Stone are hoping to create what they call "moderate missiles". When someone is identified as a cleric in training, the intelligence teams try to "flip" him. If he flips, Stone says, "I've got a moderate imam in the future." Stone's analysts estimate the average Iraqi has a social network of at least 100 people, which is comparatively quite dense - meaning that the stakes in a war of ideas are high. "I like talking to 24,000 people," Stone says, "because 24,000 people will talk to 2.4 million people. That's viral marketing. And viral marketing works." He adds: "There are one billion in the Ummah [the Islamic diaspora] who are watching Baghdad."

Posted by: somebody | Aug 30 2014 18:54 utc | 93

@somebody

Thanks for digging up all that background on the prison camp at which the leader of the IS was imprisoned by the US occupation of Iraq. The quote @93 is very interesting. Is 'Stone' CIA or M16? I wasn't allowed to read the article at the financial times.

Ever since I'd read that Bagdadi had been imprisoned by the CIA I'd assumed he was 'one of theirs' ... one of their long line of disasters. I think the CIA has sold their incompetence as a 'feature' and not a bug. When they mess up, things get even worse than they were already ... and that has become their 'master plan' : if you cannot subvert it, break it. Leave no nation standing that 'we' do not control. The resulting chaos is just what the TNCs have ordered as plan b to their TPP and TTIP ... actually it seems to be plan a, with the TPP and TTIP as plan b.

Posted by: john francis lee | Aug 30 2014 19:57 utc | 94

whoa -- blast from the past Independent via Times of India:
Lady al-Qaida: On the trail of the world’s most wanted prisoner
.

Aafia Siddiqui became quite an internet cause celebre in 2008-ish -- of the unjustly charged with aiding and abetting terrorism variety as I recall -- her child went missing. Ultimately, she was convicted and has been serving her sentence ("sentenced to 86 years in prison for trying to shoot US military officers") in Texas (where she lived before decamping to Pakistan after 09/11)

In March 2003, Siddiqui and her three children disappeared, just after the FBI announced a global "wanted for questioning" alert for her and her first husband. (Mr Khan was questioned over alleged terror links and released without charge.) It is believed she was mentioned as a possible al-Qa'ida operative by Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, who was repeatedly questioned and tortured by the US after he was arrested in Rawalpindi at the beginning of March 2003. There remains an intense and ongoing debate about what happened to Siddiqui and her children during the next five years. Some believe they were held by the Pakistani authorities, while her family say she was a "ghost prisoner" of the US and was kept in a secret prison at Bagram air base in Afghanistan.
Anyway -- apparently she's the prisoner ISIS wanted to swap for Foley .... I had missed that detail. As I recall, the back in 2003-ish, the theory was that it was a trumped up charge ... Bizarre. ((Independent has gone pay-to-play, but I was able to find this article for "free" mirrored via Google))

Posted by: Susan Sunflower | Aug 30 2014 20:50 utc | 95

Tomdispatch comprehensively outs the US-ISIS axis and puts it into chillingly comprehensive context/perspective...

The Escalation Follies
http://www.tomdispatch.com/post/175888/tomgram%3A_engelhardt%2C_the_escalation_follies/

Posted by: Hoarsewhisperer | Sep 3 2014 5:23 utc | 96

@96 Hoarsewhisperer

Thanks for posting that, good overall analysis.

Posted by: really | Sep 3 2014 9:52 utc | 97

I don't think this will happen and that is because it is logical and geo-political logic does not fit into the west's grand scheme of global domination.

http://journal-neo.org/2014/09/03/us-and-russia-possible-cooperation-over-the-isil-threat/

Posted by: really | Sep 3 2014 11:23 utc | 98

The Covert Origins of ISIS ... I suspect this will tell you everything you need to know about every post on MOA, today, w/regards to Russian, Ukraine etc. Can you say, PNAC?

Posted by: Uncle $cam | Sep 4 2014 3:24 utc | 99

"Head of ISIS Abu Bakr Baghdadi spent five years in an American detention facility, and also three of the four military commanders were also in detention by the US forces."

Islamic State Is US Covert Intelligence Operation - Law Professor
http://en.ria.ru/politics/20140813/191982447/Islamic-State-Is-US-Covert-Intelligence-Operation---Law.html

Posted by: Markus | Sep 5 2014 21:40 utc | 100

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