Moon of Alabama Brecht quote
November 8, 2014
WaPo Blames Syria But U.S. Iraq Invasion Created The Islamic State

One Missy Ryan at the Washington Post wants her readers to swallow this nonsense:

While the Obama administration is expanding its effort against the Islamic State, it has resisted calls from some of its Middle Eastern allies to more directly pressure Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, whose long civil conflict has created the conditions that gave birth to the Islamic State and other extremist groups.

The conflict in Syria, started by the U.S. and other international supporters of the Muslim Brotherhood, had nothing to do with the "birth" of the "Islamic State and other extremist groups".

Academic accounts of the genesis of the Islamic State, Jabhad al-Nusra and others point to a much earlier creation of these groups:

A popular narrative holds that the surprising recent events in Iraq can be attributed mainly to the unraveling of Syria.

[This] is just part of a picture, one constructed by connecting the dots from events that we can observe, rather than from a careful analysis of the group known as the Islamic State. Consider another possibility: the Islamic State’s resurgence since 2010 in both Iraq and Syria is the result of a carefully crafted plan. The Islamic State counteroffensive in Iraq, conducted under the noses of a waning U.S. presence in the country, created conditions for the Islamic State to establish a new political coalition that remains intact to date. The high-level of military excellence achieved by the Islamic State in their campaign as much as any political factor, has influenced their return and creates a host of challenges for the military, intelligence, and diplomatic professionals tasked with their defeat.

The Islamic State and Jabhat al-Nusra were both part of AlQaida in Iraq (AQI). The were created in reaction to the U.S. invasion of Iraq. After having been temporarily defeated during the "surge" of U.S. troops AQI revived and fought an intense war against the Iraqi government. When the conflict in Syria started the war in iraq was again raging. A part of AQI transferred to Syria under the name of Jabhat al Nusra. It used the eastern part of Syria primarily as a retreat and training space. AQI split in two when the Iraqi part detached itself from AlQaida central in Pakistan as well as from Jabhat al-Nusra and transformed itself into the independent Islamic State.

The conflict in Iraq ignited by the United States is the creation point of these extremists group. The conflict in Syria allowed the growth of these groups into the geographically near eastern parts of Syria but the Syria conflict had no relation to those groups founding. Ahrar al-Shams and the Islamic Front, other extremist group in Syria, were also founded and led by senior AlQaeda members mostly from Iraq. Like the Islamic State and Jabhat al-Nusra these groups do not originate in the Syrian conflict but in a wider and older context.

The origin of these groups lies in the the U.S. war on Iraq. To accuse the Syrian government for their creation is propagandistic nonsense.

Comments

JMcC
It’s funny how at times JMcC can say there is no real distinction between Israel and the United States in this theater, yet say the zionazis haven’t scratched a finger.
This after tens of thousands of US troop lives and limbs lost, and in Afghanistan, and the Elite very tentative about putting more troops on the ground to compensate for Iran’s vastly increased influence as a result of telling the American people Iraq would be a breeze and a pro-American thus pro-Israel puppet installed.
As for the Palestinians, they rallied around Hamas, though Hamas violated the policy of Abbas in engaging in Gaza and occasioning the increased losses. There are Palestinians opposed to BDS too, who are apparently content to make money from the neolib businesses which would be harmed. There are Palestinians who do not want further intifadeh against Israel, not wanting to pay the obvious price freedom via a One State Solution will entail.
I respect their opinions as worth more than mine even though disagreeing. I do not respect the opinions of conspiratological defeatists
in the US or West who just above told, logically, all the Gazans who rallied around Hamas and claimed victory are gobshites.

Posted by: truthbetold | Nov 13 2014 1:39 utc | 101

It’s funny how at times JMcC can say there is no real distinction between Israel and the United States in this theater, yet say the zionazis haven’t scratched a finger.
Oh dear.
The stupid . . . It burns!
I never said theres no distinction between them, you utter moron.
I said theres no daylight between them, regarding setting up fake jihadis to fool morons like you.
Isreals enemies are falling one by one yet israel hasnt had to hardly lift a finger to get it accomplished, you braindead gobshite.
This after tens of thousands of US troop lives and limbs lost
Yes, US troops, NOT ZioNazi Israeli troops, you astoundingly moronic fu*ktard. Its dumbass yanks losing life and limb to fullfil ZioNazi plans.
Few if any ZioNazi Isrealis have to risk their lives, in Iraq etc, just moronic yanks.
Like i said earlier you really are too stupid to argue with.

Posted by: JMcC | Nov 13 2014 2:05 utc | 102

. I do not respect the opinions of conspiratological defeatistsin the US or West who just above told, logically, all the Gazans who rallied around Hamas and claimed victory are gobshites.
Posted by: truthbetold | Nov 12, 2014 8:39:39 PM | 102

Amyone, incl gazans that claims the massacres are some sort of victory for gazans truely is a gobshite
Victory usually does not involve having your whole neighbourhood and your family wiped out, without you managing to cause any real damage to the ones that did the wipingout of your family and neighbourhood
Sane people generally recognise that as a massacre. Only morons like yourself and the gimp are stupid enough to call an obvious total massacre a “victory”

Posted by: JMcC | Nov 13 2014 2:14 utc | 103

Of course it easy for scum like you and the gimp to sit comfortably at your computer screens and pontificate about what a wonderful victory the massacre of gazan men women and children is, when its not your families that are being massacred.
What an utterly sick twisted pair of bloodthirsty fu*ks you both are. Truly nauseating scum.

Posted by: JMcC | Nov 13 2014 2:28 utc | 104

Theres a palestinian living downstairs from my next door neighbour
Every night during july and august this year my neighbour heard him come home, get drunk and scream at tv. Often he said he could hear him sobbing, as the news played out the daily massacre bodycounts
He’ll be delighted, I’m sure, to learn that his despair, upon hearing of another multigeneration household being obliterated, was utterly misguided, and in fact far from being massacred his fellow countrymen and women were in fact merely engaged in securing a glorious victory.
Perhaps i should pay him a quick visit to tell him he had it all wrong, because some vacuous twat on the net has repeatedly assured me that his relatives and compatriots are in fact a victorious army . . . . of corpses.
Whaddya think?

Posted by: JMcC | Nov 13 2014 2:50 utc | 105

“what an unbelievably callous thing to say. not to mention stupid. this could only be the view from an ivory tower. ”
Alright john. Any one who has spent any time on this blog can’t really accuse me of failing to express my indignation about the situation in the Middle East.
Ripping that sentence out of context of the discussion it certainly sounds callous. At issue, though, was wether Iraq will take generations to return to its former level of development. And it wasn’t me who put the situation in those materialistic terms to measure.
You can keep your “I type into boxes on the internet with more feeling than this guy” concern to yourself.
As for the ivory tower comment – I’m not employed in academia. So, not sure what you meant by that except to try and take another cheap shot.

Posted by: guest77 | Nov 13 2014 5:15 utc | 106

I would point out to john that “I’m” not going around declaring that this is a victory for the Palestinian people all alone.
I’M not saying that the resilience of the Palestinian people in the face of Israel’s murder spree is a victory for them. That’s their most respected leaders saying it. That’s their allies saying it. That’s those who lost family members, who braved the bombs that are declaring it a victory.
What those brave people quoted above are NOT doing is going around claiming that (as McClutz is), that all in all, if the Israelis keep killing and keep murdering, the Palestinian people will eventually give up. No. The Palestinians didn’t ask to be bombed. But neither will it make them surrender. That’s what I’m hearing.
That’s the fascist idea – that people value material things (even their lives) more than things like justice. That’s why I’m sure that JMc is seeing as the winner here the side that has caused the obscene bloodshed and not the side that has been standing up against it.

Posted by: guest77 | Nov 13 2014 6:05 utc | 107

Yep, victory most assuredly is just over yonder, beyoned that next pile of pulverised baby corpses. Bargouthi and Press tv and the gimp said so, so it must be true
They havent killed everyone therefore it must be an astounding overwhelming victory for the not dead
Few more victories like that and the 3 or 4 that are left can declare full statehood and take back jerusalem
Yipee.

Posted by: JMcC | Nov 13 2014 7:54 utc | 108

guest77 @ 107
i didn’t take your unbelievably callous statement out of context. i simply cut and pasted your last paragraph. anyway, your point seems to be that the ‘good guys’ are in fact winning and that once they’ve won it’ll be a snap to rebuild things and carry on as if nothing ever happened.
but let’s take your talking points one by one, shall we?
Yemen is out of control. Shia socialists are again making their power felt and control the country nearly. This is not what the US wants to see there at all.
‘out of control’ is always, at the least, a useful default strategy and has been for about as long as i can remember. and if push comes to shove, well, there’s always that ‘secret’ u.s. military buildup on the island of socotra.
Hezzbollah has never been more active and is showing itself as a regional power and emerged from being seen as only a defender of their region. They have given Lebanon an active anti-US foreign policy.
more weapons to lebanon.
Syria has certainly been damaged severely, but the government there has actually managed to establish a democratic legitimacy it never had, and has formed a strong national alliance of all the groups in the country. It is quite strong and getting stronger.
u.s. focus
The Palestinians have never had more international support as they have recently – largely due to Israelis violence and illegal settlement building
the palestinians have never had less land than they have now. their borders are still sealed. nothing has changed since the latest israeli massacre. except for the establishment of ‘buffer zones.’
Libya is a clear failure. Every future NATO aggression will be judged with the Libyan failure in sharp focus. Yes – NATO achieved destruction of the country, but it will never be able to use it as a showpiece for their R2P model. R2P is dead.
“Yes – NATO achieved destruction of the country,…” no further comment necessary
Iran as well has expanded its influence and become a key ally of the opposition in Bahrain, and Yemen, become closer than ever with Syria (actually having troops there could never have happened w/o this war) and has even become an ally with the Kurds in Iraq and Syria
yeah, but…
Russia and presumably (behind-the-scenes) China have made clear where they stand and are actively involved. Their standing up of Syria while the USA and UK threatened to bomb was a watershed moment in post-Cold War history.
ah yes, “watershed moments”

Posted by: john | Nov 13 2014 10:43 utc | 109


At issue, though, was wether Iraq will take generations to return to its former level of development. And it wasn’t me who put the situation in those materialistic terms to measure.
Posted by: The Gimp

Lol the gimps attempts at mock indignation get more and more pathetic
Social development such as womens rights, growth of secularism education etc is now designated “materialism” by the clueless commisar of hatred himself, mr Gimp77
Oh that awful awful materialism, which we know is a “Bad Thing”™
Imagine having the absolute coldhearted callousness to mention “economic and social development”? What a monster!
How dare I refer to the very thing that makes schools, hospitals, houses even possible!
How dare I have the callousness to refer to the very thing that improves the lives of people everywhere! What a complete cold hearted bastard eh?
oh that awful awful horrible human blight, “ecenomic and social debelopment”
The gimps indignation is so sincere and, well, “indignant” that he wants the victims of the ZioNazis not to dare even dream of such horrible non-fake-left things such as economic and social development.
No, those victims of ZioNazi-ism dont need things such as decent houses to, well you know, house themselves in, or hospitals to care for them when they are ill, or even schools to educate their kids in. Such things are not idelogically pure, like the gimp, so are obviously a fascist trick
No no such things are nasty and cannot ever be part of a conversation on the glorious glorious victories that can be achieved by having your country, it people and its infrastructue destroyed.

Any one who has spent any time on this blog can’t really accuse me of failing to express my indignation about the situation in the Middle East.

Yes, your indignation is virtually all anyone ever hears. Currently you are expressing your indignation that someone actually dared refer to the destruction of all the infrastructure that helped improve the lives of the citizens of Iraqi/Syrian/Libyan

Posted by: JMcC | Nov 13 2014 11:39 utc | 110

And the idea that Hezbullah is a regional power is just another retarded comment in a long line of retarded comments
Hezbullah is a local power within the borders of lebanon. It cannot project real military power beyond the local area it already holds, within the borders of lebanon. It is a defensive power only, and cannot even control the nation state within which it resides.
A damn fine defensive power, but certainly not a regional one, no matter what the fake-left retards might have us believe

Posted by: JMcC | Nov 13 2014 11:45 utc | 111

So, houses, schools, hospitals, womens rights, secularism? all utterly fascist, according to the gimp
You heard it here first folks

Posted by: JMcC | Nov 13 2014 11:53 utc | 112

The gimp is so indignant on behalf of Palestinians, Iraqis, Libyans, and Syrians, that hes now advocating on their behalf for a return to an “idelogically pure” anti-“materialistic” stoneage, where all signs of economic and social development, such as housing, healthcare and education, are recognised as the tools of satan (!!!) just like his hero Pol Pot did for cambodians
Actually now that i think of it, the Gimp sounds more and more like a fundamentalist whahabist nutjob, by the day!
Down with housing!
Down with healthcare!
Down with schools!
Tools of the Great Satan!!!
Onward to the Glorious Victory!
(Over the corpses of someone elses kids, natch)

Posted by: JMcC | Nov 13 2014 12:06 utc | 113

…Crickets…
It’s just about almost like no one agrees with you (or more likely gives a fuck) about your transparent concern trolling. Especially after you’ve proved over and over where your real feelings lie.

Posted by: guest77 | Nov 14 2014 23:16 utc | 114