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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsSeymour Hersh: US knowingly armed ISIS
WASHINGTON, Dec. 27 (UPI) -- Pulitzer-prize-winning journalist Seymour Hersh reports that the administration of President Barack Obama, in particular the CIA, has knowingly armed militant Islamists in Syria, including the Islamic State.
"Barack Obama's repeated insistence that Bashar al-Assad must leave office -- and that there are 'moderate' rebel groups in Syria capable of defeating him -- has in recent years provoked quiet dissent, and even overt opposition, among some of the most senior officers on the Pentagon's Joint Staff," Hersh writes in the London Review of Books. "Their criticism has focused on what they see as the administration's fixation on Assad's primary ally, Vladimir Putin. In their view, Obama is captive to Cold War thinking about Russia and China, and hasn't adjusted his stance on Syria to the fact both countries share Washington's anxiety about the spread of terrorism in and beyond Syria; like Washington, they believe that Islamic State must be stopped."
Hersh writes that a highly classified 2013 Defense Intelligence Agency/Joint Chiefs of Staff report on Syria forecast that the fall of the Assad regime would lead to "chaos" and possibly to Islamist extremists taking over Syria.
Hersh reports that Lieutenant General Michael Flynn, director of the DIA between 2012 and 2014, told him that his agency sent a "constant stream" of warnings to the "civilian leadership" about the dire consequences of ousting Syrian President Bashar al-Assad.
The DIA's reporting "got enormous pushback" from the Obama administration, Hersh quotes Flynn as saying. "I felt that they did not want to hear the truth."
http://www.upi.com/Top_News/US/2015/12/27/Seymour-Hersh-report-on-Syria-White-House-knew-US-was-arming-Islamic-State/6951451232210/
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libodem
(19,288 posts)I'm not a bit surprised. Fuck.
JDPriestly
(57,936 posts)believe that we directly or indirectly helped to arm ISIS.
onecaliberal
(36,594 posts)Words fail...
geek tragedy
(68,868 posts)You'll note he has zero evidence except for the claims of one disgruntled Pentagon official.
He also claimed the Pentagon was working behind Obama's back with Russia to help Assad.
He's a nutter.
I think he's really gone round the bend.
Notice that the New Yorker (which has very diligent fact-checkers) won't publish this latest stuff of his.
MADem
(135,425 posts)
FarPoint
(14,476 posts)Hersch has dipped into the paranoid abyss as of late....he's just so hungry for another government "got ya" moment..
sharp_stick
(14,400 posts)Nobody can find any of his anonymous sources either.
nyabingi
(1,145 posts)CNN or The Washington Post said it.
If you actually read the article (which I have), you'll see it's not a partisan attack on Obama specifically, but really an indictment of the current state of US foreign policy, particularly since the rise to power of George W. and his band of neocons. Those same neocons still direct or foreign policy, they're still in Washington calling the shots, and the media hasn't really talked about it at all because they're some of the beneficiaries of this foreign policy.
Seymour Hersch is just one of the more known journalists out there who's not afraid to talk about what everyone sees happening. Mainstream American media outlets have been rejecting his more recent work because he's stepping on the toes of their bosses.
Nyan
(1,192 posts)You shouldn't really believe that the major news outlets in America are somehow more credible than any other media especially when it comes to foreign policies.
MSM in general has a pro-war bias. See how they were pissed at Bernie because he didn't beat the war drum hard enough?
nyabingi
(1,145 posts)for the wars they want, and it gives them even more reason to pretend he doesn't exist.
Obama's not a dove by a long shot, but the media has been putting an immense amount of pressure on him to send troops into Syria and Iraq - to generally get a proper war started again. They are frothing at the mouth because he hasn't done that and this is why all of their framing is "Obama is weak on foreign policy". Obama's been pretty much a warmonger in my opinion, but that's still not good enough for the media.
WDIM
(1,662 posts)I believe she was in on the decision to arm and build up ISIL against Assad.
geek tragedy
(68,868 posts)deliberately armed and aided ISIL?
Oy.
KingCharlemagne
(7,908 posts)chalmers
(288 posts)and US foreign policy.
geek tragedy
(68,868 posts)ISIS started in Iraq, and has been hostile to our interests there from the get-go.
Only fringe nutcases--most of them Trump supporters--think Obama has been an ally of ISIL.
You have an "interesting" world view. Keep at it. 
geek tragedy
(68,868 posts)Paranoid cynicism isn't a substitute for knowledge and understanding
Nyan
(1,192 posts)which is to subvert sovereignty and self-determination of states when that goes against the interests of American and western business class or is considered a threat to its hegemonic power.
Arming, funding, and training of militant forces with converging interests is nothing new to the US military apparatus. And at the moment, those in the Pentagon leaking these stories just might be trying to throw Obama under the bus. Because as far as I can tell, they've been on board all along, but now they're seeing it's an utter clusterfuck. And perhaps they figured blaming Obama gives them a way out of this.
Also, I wouldn't say that Obama armed ISIS per se. He armed those forces that later morphed into the current form of ISIS because there had been a fallout from invasion of Iraq, which is Saddam Hussein's generals who know what they are doing in the battlefield; who are pissed as fuck because their families and bretherens have been laid off, discriminated and marginalized by US puppets. So they have nationalist agenda on their part to take back their territories by force, which is helped greatly by crazy people just over the border in Syria awash with Saudi and Gulf monarchies' money and weapons they were handed over by US.
I do understand that these claims have a danger to be co-opted by RW in a very self-serving manner because not only do they so conveniently leave out republicans' fault in all of this, but also they do promote this nonsense that Obama is basically an alien set out to destroy America, to which I say Obama has been doing what just about every other American president has done to varying degrees.
But the stakes happen to be higher than ever because it really is a clusterfuck attributable not only to Obama, but many other predecessors before him, and our traditional allies including Saudis of course, and NATO member countries such as Turkey, and France and England as well, the two countries that had been goading for the bombing campaign in Libya, for instance.
nyabingi
(1,145 posts)People at this site can read a very well-informed post like this one and dismiss it because you didn't link to some article from the Wall Street Journal or some other rag they see as believable and legitimate.
And you're right in that the political partisanship and differences end when it comes to foreign policy - both parties are all in for regime change and increased militarism overseas.
thanks for taking the time to offer an intelligent comment.
TheSarcastinator
(854 posts)There is a very long and well confirmed history of the US acting in this way all over the world, including the funding of Afghan resistance fighters....remember how that one worked out?
Your clueless denialism speaks more to your cognitive bias and weakness than any actual understanding of US history. We've done this type of thing in the past for FRUIT PLANTATIONS, fer chrissakes.
leveymg
(36,418 posts)It's a blowback problem of an ill-conceived policy of assisting terrorists to overthrow adversaries, much as Al-Qaeda and 9/11 were the inevitable and foreseeable result of working with Saudi Arabia and its Jihadi paramilitary against Russia and its allies. Same problem, same policy mistake, same foreseeable consequences.
KingCharlemagne
(7,908 posts)worth it, as the price of sucking the USSR into Afghanistan. People like Brzezinski and Hillary exist at a whole other level than mere mortals like you and me.
chapdrum
(930 posts)Cheney who, when asked by Martha Raddatz on ABC-TV nightly news to comment on the death of the 4,000th U.S. soldier in Iraq/Afghanistan, replied "So?"
Such inspirational patriots.
KingCharlemagne
(7,908 posts)as a foreign policy advisor to Obama in the 2008 campaign. At that point, I had not taken the measure of the black hole at the center of Zbig's Russophobic existence. I now have. What else should one expect from a scion of the Polish aristocracy is my take on Zbig now.
geek tragedy
(68,868 posts)over there for precisely that reason.
It's quite another to allege he knowingly sent arms to ISIS.
leveymg
(36,418 posts)While the President ultimately deserves blame or credit for policy, my take on this is Obama reluctantly armed the opposition and seems not to have fully signed on to the transfer of sophisticated weapons and Jihadi terrorists from Libya.
karynnj
(60,762 posts)but as you say "same problem, same mistake, same foreseeable consequences".
It is really sad that even if we navigate a way to stop the fighting in Syria and give them space to create a government (s), Obama's administration has some blame in both Syria and Libya. However, just as we overstate our credit on international successes, we need to avoid blaming just the US -- there is plenty of blame to go around.
Your responses on threads on this are the ones I have always found the most thoughtful and balanced.
PeoViejo
(2,178 posts)I remember how bin Forgotten got started. The Saud wanted South Yemen and the US wanted to kill a few Soviet and East German advisers in the process.
leveymg
(36,418 posts)after the utter catastrophe of the serial regime change operations in Libya and Syria had become clear in late 2012.
Unfortunately, Obama equivocated, and advisors with neocon views were allowed to again take ascendancy in the White House.
karynnj
(60,762 posts)some to his biographer/lover. As to Clinton,in fairness, it was long before known that she would serve one term only -- which she did. It was also obvious well before 2012 that she would run for President in 2016. You can't be SoS and run for President. Not to mention, given the politics involved, Obama really could never have even pushed Clinton to resign -- without creating chaos in the Democratic party. She was not like Hagel, who Obama could essentially kick out (with many whispers against him even after he was leaving).
I have never been mistaken as pro Clinton, but this insinuation that Obama actually fired her is just completely inaccurate. By 2012, Syria was a huge mess, with no viable option.
Just as all successes in foreign policy are not JUST the US's work, all failures are not all the US's fault. Assad's response to early protests with greater and greater force - even if the US fostered the protests is part of the problem. (Not to mention, there were factors like the millions of people who fled dried up rural lands for the cities where they were then unable to find work creating a pool of mostly Sunni people, totally impoverished, easily pushed to fight.)
leveymg
(36,418 posts)after the new term started. The timing appears to have been affected by the death of Stevens that brought so much unwanted attention to the failure of the policy. She needs to take her fair share of accountability for serial regime change, but hasn't. That shows a basic lack of integrity about Mrs. Clinton.
nyabingi
(1,145 posts)was killed in Libya was transfer Libya's stockpile of weapons to Turkey so that the jihadists trying to overthrow Assad could be armed. We gave weapons to whoever promised to fight against Assad and we didn't care if they were "moderate" or "radical".
Don't shake your head in disbelief, look it up for yourself.
When Obama stated publicly that the CIA had the official green light to start arming "rebels", whom do you think really up with M-16s and convoys of Toyota trucks? I mean really?
dlwickham
(3,316 posts)
KingCharlemagne
(7,908 posts)civil wars (usually the losing side, starting with Vietnam and proceeding to the present). At least the Obama Administration hasn't done what Reagan did -- arming both sides of a conflict. (In the early 1980s, Reagan was supplying military intelligence to Saddam Hussein's Iraq while at exactly the same time selling arms to the Iranians, during the disastrous and bloody Iran-Iraq War.)
Or maybe that will be the next shoe to drop. I sure hope not.
geek tragedy
(68,868 posts)Obama is cooperating with Iran to fight it.
KingCharlemagne
(7,908 posts)where it gets confusing.
I predict 'our side' is going to lose in Iraq. Unclear what the outcome in Syria will be at this point.
geek tragedy
(68,868 posts)Assad.
KingCharlemagne
(7,908 posts)exclusively Shi'a. So unless the U.S. is prepared to throw its weight behind the utter ethnic cleansing of the Sunni Triangle, I predict a long, hard slog for the U.S. Iran and their puppets in Baghdad in 'stabilizing Iraq'.
nyabingi
(1,145 posts)The only thing Washington has been repeating over and over again is that they want Assad to go. They could care less whether Iraq is stable or not, and in fact, many in Washington think it's best to split Iraq into three smaller countries (something proposed by Biden and several high-ranking generals). Smaller, weaker countries to lessen Iran's influence and strengthen Israel's position as the dominant shot-caller in the Middle East.
Fuddnik
(8,846 posts)We were just fine with Assad when we needed some people tortured.
These ISIS fighters are the exact same "moderates" John McCain was on TV "palling around" with.
KingCharlemagne
(7,908 posts)adversary by extension. Hillary and her gang of NeoCons and NeoLibs (of the Nuland and Kagan stripe) have long advocated for regime change in Syria.
I take your point and am remembering Orwell's 1984 as I write: "We have always been at war with EastAsia."
Fuddnik
(8,846 posts)
Oilwellian
(12,647 posts)But ISIS getting their hands on American arms has been known for quite some time. I would not be surprised if the CIA is ultimately responsible. I don't think Obama would knowingly arm them.
happyslug
(14,779 posts)What was called during the American Revolution as the "Old French War" sometimes "King George's War" was the war between Britain and its American Colones against the Native Americans and their French Allies from 1744-1748. It received its name to differentiate it from the French and Indian war of 1754-1763 (Called the Seven Year War in Europe for it lasted Seven Years in Europe, in North America we started that war three years early, after starting late in the previous three wars).
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/King_George%27s_War
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/French_and_Indian_War
Both wars are part of the series of wars between the American Colonies and the French in Canada and their Native American Allies in the "French and Indians WARS" (notice the additional S at the end of War to differentiate the name for the series of wars with the last war of that series):
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/French_and_Indian_Wars
Anyway, I bring up the "Old French War" for during that war the French in Canada did all they could to keep the Iroquois neutral, including giving them arms, at the same time the British and New York Colonial Governments were doing all they could to get the Iroquois to attack the French (Since the French appearance in Canada in the late 1500s, the Iroquois and the French had been fighting for control of the Great Lakes and the beaver trade that went by canoe over those lakes).
Historians have mentioned that in that war, the winner was the Iroquois, who stayed neutral. The Iroquois received arms and other supplies from BOTH sides during the conflict and efforts to take land from the Iroquois all but disappeared during and after that conflict (they would reappear after the end of the final French and Indian War in 1763 but not really reappear till after the American Revolution in 1783).
Thus for a 40 year period (1744-1783) the Iroquois grew stronger then its main opponent (the French who ended up being driven out of North America) and had no conflict with the British till the American Revolution. During the Revolution Iroquois federation had its first serious break up, the largest two tribes of the Iroquois, the Mohawks and Seneca tribes, supported the British, while the headquarter tribe but also the smallest tribe, the Oneida, supported the US (As did the Tuscaroras) . The other three tribes were divided in loyalty, through most members of those tribes favored the British (All of the tribes had members who supported one side or the other in the Revolution, like most of the Colonies had supporters of the revolution OR the King within each colony). This division among the Iroquois lead to the bloodiest battle, in terms of percentage of casualties of participates, in the American Revolution, the Battle of Oriskany).
http://nysparks.com/historic-sites/21/details.aspx
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Oriskany
While the end result was defeat of the Iroquois, I bring up the "Old French War" as an example of a war where the participates are the losers, while the side that stayed neutral is the winner. We saw this again when Bush invaded Iraq. The US forces removed Saddam from power, but then never had enough troops to truly take over Iraq (The US had problems getting recruits and the draft would have been the kiss of death to any support for the war in Iraq). That situation permitted Iran to support their fellow Shiites to take over the Government and win the war without sending in one soldier. The Situation in Iraq was so bad, that the US had to pull out three days early, so that the natives could not move into the former position of the US forces as the US Forces pulled out (The US told the natives what it planned to do that day, without telling them the US was pulling out, it appeared to the Natives a normal day, till the US trucks all left, three days early).
As to Syria, it is like when Argentina took the Falklands in the 1980s. The Argentina were later driven from those islands, giving the British a huge victory, the Argentina a short term victory (and a defeat to mourn over) but the real loser in that war was the US. US had wanted to use Argentina forces in Central America, but that idea died with the Falklands War. The US had been building up its reputation in Latin American as supportive of those countries, but all of those countries supported Argentina and basically asked how the US was going to SUPPORT Argentina. I remember a cartoon of the time period, it showed a huge statute to commemorate the British victory in the Falklands, a huge statute to commemorate the Argentian heroic efforts to win back the Malvinas, and a statue blown to bits marked "US Latin American Policy". Yes, the US was the real loser in that conflict. Argentina at least removed its Military Dictatorship do to that war, the US gain NOTHING and in fact LOST support among the Citizens of Latin America.
I see the same thing happening in Syria, no matter who wins, the US loses. The reason for that is the US is to tied in with the House of Saud. We have to break with that relationship even if it means the price of gasoline goes to $10 a gallon or we will be like the French in Canada in the 1700s, lose everything.
polly7
(20,582 posts)pampango
(24,692 posts)position. Kind of shows how dire the situation really is. Assad is nothing but a brutal dictator but he is also the 'lesser of two evils'. To an extent that represents the success of his strategy since the beginning of the revolt against him, but so be it. It is the reality.
GreatGazoo
(4,411 posts)KSA and Qatar are the biggest backers of ISIS, in effect a proxy army that is depopulating the areas of Syria and Iraq needed for the pipelines.
http://www.counterpunch.org/2015/12/08/syria-ultimate-pipelineistan-war/
When Russia started bombing ISIS, the US complained that the targets were "moderate rebels." Russia asked to coordinate intel on where the "moderate rebels" were so they could avoid them. The US refused.
http://news.yahoo.com/putin-seeks-map-forces-not-bomb-syria-france-081342668.html
red dog 1
(32,339 posts)I've read the entire article and can't find that.
I did find this though:
French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius said:
"If we want to move towards a free, united..Syria, it cannot be that he (Assad) who is at the origin of over 300,000 deaths and millions of refugees can lead (Syria)...Assad cannot be the future of his people," Fabius said.
Also, the Yahoo/Reuters article is dated November 27, 2015..two full months after Russia began targeting anti-Assad fighters.
Why did Putin wait 2 months to ask France to "draw up a map of where troops fighting Islamic State militants operate in Syria in order not to bomb them"?
GreatGazoo
(4,411 posts)and the US and UK said Russia was bombing the FSA and moderate rebels.
“We are looking closely at the Syrian Free Army. We understand there is not a single command centre, and that some of these divisions have different goals. But if among the FSA there are divisions that are really ready to fight with Isis, who is our main enemy in Syria, and if you think there are people or commanders or other contacts which could be useful and to cooperate with them, we would be grateful for such information,” he said. “We were again rejected.”
http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/oct/22/vladimir-putin-accuses-us-backing-terrorism-middle-east
This was part of a PR offensive in which:
He said: “It’s always hard to play a double game – to declare a fight against terrorists but at the same time try to use some of them to move the pieces on the Middle Eastern chessboard in your own favour. There’s no need to play with words and split terrorists into moderate and not moderate. I would like to know what the difference is.”
...
“The so-called Islamic State [Isis] has taken control of a huge territory. How was that possible? Think about it: if Damascus or Baghdad are seized by the terrorist groups, they will be almost the official authorities, and will have a launchpad for global expansion. Is anyone thinking about this or not?”
red dog 1
(32,339 posts)I don't think so.
The Russians started bombing anti-Assad fighters in Syria more than THREE months ago, (in mid-September).
In your post (# 11) which I replied to, you stated:
"When Russia started bombing ISIS, the US complained that the targets were "moderate rebels," Russia asked to coordinate intel on where the "moderate rebels" were so they could avoid them. The US refused."
Your reference for this was the Yahoo.com article; yet nowhere in that article does it say:
"The US refused."
(From your newest post, # 98):
"Yakovenko said he had a meeting at the Foreign Office in London last week in which he asked for intelligence to be shared on the location of Isis targets in Syria, but was rejected."
(Yakovenko goes on)
"But if among the FSA, there are divisions that are really ready to fight with Isis, who is our main enemy in Syria, and if you think there are people or commanders or other contacts which could be useful and to cooperate with them, we would be grateful for such information," he said. "We were again rejected."
These statements by Mr. Yakovenko were about a meeting last week at the Foreign Office in London, so Yakovenko's statement that "We were again rejected." was a reference to being "rejected" by the British, not the Americans.
Or am I missing something?
leveymg
(36,418 posts)Last edited Sun Jan 3, 2016, 11:51 AM - Edit history (2)
The JCS were right to pushback against the covert policy of arming the Jihadi opposition initiated by CIA Director Petraeus and Secretary of State Clinton being pursued at the time.
Hersh reports that Lieutenant General Michael Flynn, director of the DIA between 2012 and 2014, told him that his agency sent a "constant stream" of warnings to the "civilian leadership" about the dire consequences of ousting Syrian President Bashar al-Assad.
The DIA's reporting "got enormous pushback" from the Obama administration, Hersh quotes Flynn as saying. "I felt that they did not want to hear the truth."
http://www.upi.com/Top_News/US/2015/12/27/Seymour-Hersh-report-on-Syria-White-House-knew-US-was-arming-Islamic-State/6951451232210/
Hersh writes that the adviser told him the DIA/Joint Chiefs report took a "dim view" of the Obama administration's insistence on continuing to finance and arm the so-called moderate rebel groups and found that the covert U.S. program to arm and support those "moderate" rebels fighting Assad had been co-opted by Turkey, which then morphed the program into an "across-the-board technical, arms and logistical program for all of the opposition, including Jabhat al-Nusra and Islamic State."
"The assessment was bleak: there was no viable 'moderate' opposition to Assad, and the U.S. was arming extremists," Hersh wrote.
In October, the Pentagon announced that it was discontinuing its program to train and equip moderate rebels in Syria, saying the program cost $500 million and only succeeded in training a "handful" of recruits.
In November, however, the CIA increased its shipments of arms to rebels in Syria, joining with U.S. allies in challenging Russia and Iran's involvement in Syria in support of the Assad regime.
U.S. officials, according to a Nov. 4 article in The Wall Street Journal, said the Obama administration is pursuing a dual-track strategy in Syria, to keep military pressure on Assad while U.S. diplomats "see if they can ease him from power through negotiations."
The White House has not responded directly to the allegations raised in the article in the London Review of Books.
Its author, Seymour Hersh, won a Pulitzer Prize in 1970 for his reporting on the My Lai Massacre during the Vietnam War and has continued to write on national security for many newspapers and magazines, including The New Yorker. He was widely criticized for his The Killing of Osama bin Laden report that accused President Barack Obama and his administration of lying about the circumstances surrounding the killing of Osama bin Laden in 2011. Many media establishments, intelligence analysts and officials, including the White House, rejected the claim.
geek tragedy
(68,868 posts)leveymg
(36,418 posts)He says that Iran was pushing a regional nuclear arms race. But, that ignores the fact that Pakistan built its nuclear weapons program with Saudi money and CIA support. It was part of the deal that then CIA Director H.W. Bush made in early 1976 with his counterparts, Saudi GID Directors, Princes Adham and Turki, along with the heads of several other intelligence agencies to evade Congressional limits on covert action by giving the Saudis and others carte blanche to create a funding mechanism for paramilitary operations, that became BCCI. The paramilitary became AQ, later morphed in ISIS. The deal, if you are interested, was called the Safari Club. You can GOOGLE it. I have written a lot about it here over the years.
I agree with about 75% of what Gen. Flynn says here: http://observer.com/2015/09/lieutenant-general-retired-michael-flynn-and-the-iranian-nuclear-agreement/ Very worth reading.
randome
(34,845 posts)It doesn't matter what past achievements can be attributed to Hersh, he has been on a downslide ever since. The guy lost his way long ago.
[hr][font color="blue"][center]"The whole world is a circus if you know how to look at it."
Tony Randall, 7 Faces of Dr. Lao (1964)[/center][/font][hr]
KingCharlemagne
(7,908 posts)randome
(34,845 posts)No sources, of course, just his vitriolic posturing and editorializing. It happens to great reporters sometimes. Look at Carl Bernstein, for example.
[hr][font color="blue"][center]"The whole world is a circus if you know how to look at it."
Tony Randall, 7 Faces of Dr. Lao (1964)[/center][/font][hr]
KingCharlemagne
(7,908 posts)randome
(34,845 posts)The article in the OP is not an example of that.
[hr][font color="blue"][center]"The whole world is a circus if you know how to look at it."
Tony Randall, 7 Faces of Dr. Lao (1964)[/center][/font][hr]
KingCharlemagne
(7,908 posts)see the light of day, or you'll be giving Hersh credit for a trifecta.
FWIW, Hersh says that the photos and videos that haven't been released depict U.S. personnel raping and sodomizing Iraqi children in front of their parents in an attempt to break the Iraqi resistance. Apocryphal reports independent of Hersh tend to support Hersh's allegations, as it was reported in non-U.S. sources that women detained at Abu Ghraib were begging the resistance to mortar their wing because they had been so shamed by U.S. actions therein.
We shall see If we're willing to look backward instead of only forward, that is.
randome
(34,845 posts)[hr][font color="blue"][center]"The whole world is a circus if you know how to look at it."
Tony Randall, 7 Faces of Dr. Lao (1964)[/center][/font][hr]
truebluegreen
(9,033 posts)that proves "this is not one of those times," by all means share it.
nyabingi
(1,145 posts)is always correct? Remember what they told us about Jessica Lynch and Pat Tillman?
leveymg
(36,418 posts)via a legitimate wire service report and a Pulitzer Prize winning investigative journalist.
If you want to debate interpretations fine, but the facts are now clear. Spare us the rhetorical flourishes.
randome
(34,845 posts)The article in the OP is 90% opinion.
[hr][font color="blue"][center]"The whole world is a circus if you know how to look at it."
Tony Randall, 7 Faces of Dr. Lao (1964)[/center][/font][hr]
leveymg
(36,418 posts)Everyone who wants to understand what really happened in the Mideast needs to read Hersh and this follow-on reporting.
Caretha
(2,737 posts)Where do you get that?
You a lowly internet arm chair mid IQ internet poster....I love it that you think you are even on the same level as a pulitzer prize winner journalist.
You are getting weaker and weaker Randome. Soon you will need to be replaced, because you are less and less effective. In fact you are way obsolete, and you are certainly way over paid.
Happy New year!
treestar
(82,383 posts)groups rebelling against Assad.
The war in Syria has a lot of sides to it.
KingCharlemagne
(7,908 posts)ain't no bad guy. There's only you and me and we just disagree."
jalan48
(14,914 posts)Wall Street and the defense contractors are ecstatic.
KingCharlemagne
(7,908 posts)Spitfire of ATJ
(32,723 posts)Of course they knew what kind of people they were arming and training in Syria through proxies.
As long as it would achieve the goal of overthrowing Syrian government by launching terror campaign and debilitating state infrastructures, they wouldn't have cared at all. Just like they didn't care when John McCain's boys -i.e. the "moderate rebels"- in Libya turned the entire country into a basket case after Gaddafi was killed.
These are the kind of militants that go after relatively secular and multi-cultural Arab states: Afghanistan in the 70s and the 80s. Iraq in the 90s and 2000s. Libya. And now Syria.
valerief
(53,235 posts)
sweetapogee
(1,213 posts)True that^^^^
But this war is our racket. Sorry if that offends.
stupidicus
(2,570 posts)Tierra_y_Libertad
(50,414 posts)KingCharlemagne
(7,908 posts)strategy (Tan Son Nhut, November 1967)
pnwmom
(110,173 posts)
killbotfactory
(13,566 posts)pnwmom
(110,173 posts)So Salafists wouldn't have been perceived as a military threat in 2012.
https://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/syria/2015-11-24/what-salafism
AZ Progressive
(3,411 posts)Which is still a potential political liability.
pnwmom
(110,173 posts)onecent
(6,096 posts)credible here that proves this???????
A bunch of crap in my estimation.
nyabingi
(1,145 posts)especially considering the fact that the US has been waging war on ISIS for a few years now and ISIS keeps expanding and conquering more and more territory. That tells me that the US hasn't really been trying to stop them and it makes claims that the US has been helping highly believable.
Kaleva
(40,116 posts)In Syria, Obama has long backed those forces that later became ISIS in a current shape with expansionist agenda in Iraq, as Saddam Hussein's generals joined forces.
ISIS in Syria has been seeing losses these days, but that credit goes to Russia, Syrian Arab Army, and Hezbollah. Because Obama's No.1 priority in Syria has been to overthrow Assad.
Iraq Obama has needed to manage because the government in Baghdad is aligned with US.
Kaleva
(40,116 posts)Without extensive US air support, the YPG Kurds in Syria would not have made the gains they have made against ISIS.
Nyan
(1,192 posts)But if it had been Obama's true priority to drive ISIS out in Syria, then it wouldn't have metastasized the way it did.
It took what, less than three weeks for US troops to take over the entire state of Iraq? And as far as I can remember, Al Qaeda was all but wiped out in first three months in Afghanistan (and somehow we're still there).
Things are gonna change and it looks like Assad will stay (for now at least), but what's happened in Syria isn't much of a "civil war" than it is a proxy war involving all the Great Powers with different interests and agendas, which serve as a reason for them to go in there, and oftentimes, ISIS is just a good excuse.
Kaleva
(40,116 posts)It was a concentrated effort which saved Kobane and allowed the YPG to go on the counter-offensive and retake large areas of Rojava (Syrian Kurdistan) back from ISIS.
nyabingi
(1,145 posts)since the Russians stepped in back in September and started giving them an honest-to-goodness bombing. This is not thanks to the US-led "anti-ISIS coalition" in the least.
Blue_Tires
(57,596 posts)I'll just leave this here and see myself out:
http://www.sinoturcica.org/seymour-hersh-turns-uyghur-refugees-into-would-be-fighters/
Every time a Hersh link gets posted, I ask for a retraction/apology for the glaring mistakes in his previous piece...
betterdemsonly
(1,967 posts)Where is McCarthy when you need him?
FairWinds
(1,717 posts)and the constant, mostly personal, attacks on him tell that
the PTB see him as a threat.
I'll take him over the MSM or the gummint any day!
Veterans For Peace
Nyan
(1,192 posts)He's stubborn, curmudgeonly, and one of those journalists who are not interested in towing the line for Pentagon-WH-Congress-MIC-Media war machine.
So of course they get smeared and shunned and ostracized for that. Just look what happened to Chris Hedges when he spoke up against IRW. They were all wrong, the NYT was wrong, and he was right. But do you see him on MSM? No. Not to this day.
Matrosov
(1,098 posts)The US has a long history of arming terrorists and calling them rebels.
Perhaps the best example is Afghanistan in the 1980s. We were so concerned about undermining the Soviets, the Reagan administration was more than happy to give plenty of money and weapons to the Islamic radicals who ended up forming the Taliban and terrorizing the country.
Separation
(1,975 posts)Until we get an administration that knows the difference between Sunni, Shia, Kurds & the fact that turkey & Iraq would rather have Isis on their border than the Kurds. Well, I'd imagine we will be seeing nothing new, just more of the same shiate.
Doctor_J
(36,392 posts)could do such a thing, what the fuck are you thinking? Of course they would.
KG
(28,792 posts)EX500rider
(12,132 posts)Actually the Iraqis military forces were armed exclusively with Soviet/Russian weapon systems, T-62/72 tanks. MIGs, AK-47's etc.
Doctor_J
(36,392 posts)He gassed his own people with our gas.
EX500rider
(12,132 posts)As part of Project 922, German firms such as Karl Kolb helped build Iraqi chemical weapons facilities such as laboratories, bunkers, an administrative building, and first production buildings in the early 1980s under the cover of a pesticide plant. Other German firms sent 1,027 tons of precursors of mustard gas, sarin, tabun, and tear gasses in all. This work allowed Iraq to produce 150 tons of mustard agent and 60 tons of Tabun in 1983 and 1984 respectively, continuing throughout the decade.
EX500rider
(12,132 posts)In the early 1980s, five German firms supplied equipment to manufacture botulin toxin and mycotoxin to Iraq. Iraq's State Establishment for Pesticide Production (SEPP) also ordered culture media and incubators from Germany's Water Engineering Trading. Strains of dual-use biological material from France also helped advance Iraq’s biological warfare program. From the United States, the non-profit American Type Culture Collection and the U.S. Centers for Disease Control sold or sent biological samples to Iraq up until 1989, which Iraq claimed to need for medical research. These materials included anthrax, West Nile virus and botulism, as well as Brucella melitensis, and Clostridium perfringens. Some of these materials were used for Iraq's biological weapons research program, while others were used for vaccine development. In delivering these materials "The CDC was abiding by World Health Organization guidelines that encouraged the free exchange of biological samples among medical researchers..." according to Thomas Monath, CDC lab director. It was a request "which we were obligated to fulfill," as described in WHO and UN treaties.
Doctor_J
(36,392 posts)You're trying to hard to justify endless war.
EX500rider
(12,132 posts)If he was our ally they would have been using American made weapons instead of Soviet bloc equipment.
None of what I have said "justifies endless war" lol
EX500rider
(12,132 posts)In February 1984, Iraq's military, expecting a major Iranian attack, issued a warning that "the invaders should know that for every harmful insect there is an insecticide capable of annihilating it whatever the number and Iraq possesses this annihilation insecticide" [Document 41]. On March 3, the State Department intervened to prevent a U.S. company from shipping 22,000 pounds of phosphorous fluoride, a chemical weapons precursor, to Iraq. Washington instructed the U.S. interests section to protest to the Iraqi government, and to inform the Ministry of Foreign Affairs that "we anticipate making a public condemnation of Iraqi use of chemical weapons in the near future," and that "we are adamantly opposed to Iraq's attempting to acquire the raw materials, equipment, or expertise to manufacture chemical weapons from the United States. When we become aware of attempts to do so, we will act to prevent their export to Iraq" [Document 42].
http://nsarchive.gwu.edu/NSAEBB/NSAEBB82/
pa28
(6,145 posts)Seems like I've heard that tune before somewhere.
red dog 1
(32,339 posts)Last edited Wed Dec 30, 2015, 04:20 PM - Edit history (1)
Speaking of "the most senior officials on the Pentagon's Joint Staff," Hersh writes that,
"in their view, Obama is captive to Cold War thinking about Russia and China, and hasn't adjusted his stance to the fact both countries share Washington's anxiety about the spread of terrorism in and beyond Syria; like Washington, they believe that Islamic State must be stopped."
If Russia, "like Washington," believes "that Islamic State must be stopped," then why is Russia bombing anti-Assad fighters instead of Islamic State fighters?
From a Sept. 30, 2015 New York Times article:
"Russians Strike targets in Syria, but Not ISIS Areas"
WASHINGTON -- Russian aircraft carried out a bombing attack against Syrian opposition fighters on Wednesday, including at least one group trained by the CIA, eliciting angry protests from American officials and plunging the sectarian war there into dangerous new territory.
More:
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/10/01/world/europe/russia-airstrikes-syria.html
I realize that the above cited NYT article is 3 months old, but I've not been able to find any proof that Russia has ceased bombing anti-Assad fighters, or that they are now targeting Islamic State forces instead.
betterdemsonly
(1,967 posts)There is good reason to believe they are not and they just pretend to get American weaponry, which Isis obviously has. Furthermore there is a long history of America bankrolling dangerous jihadists in order to fight Russia. They bankrolled bin Laden in Afghanistan. They also bankrolled Chechen jihadists like the Tsarnaev brothers. Their "heroic" Uncle Ruslan was married to the daughter of a cia analyst that argued for doing this.