“In the wake of the terror attacks in England, France, Germany and elsewhere, can we finally admit that the war on terror is an utter and complete failure? So if the war on terror has failed, what should we do to stop terrorists?”
“The Joint Chiefs felt that a direct challenge to Obama’s policy would have ‘had a zero chance of success’. So in the autumn of 2013 they decided to take steps against the extremists without going through political channels, by providing US intelligence to the militaries of other nations, on the understanding that it would be passed on to the Syrian army and used against the common enemy, Jabhat al-Nusra and Islamic State. Once the flow of US intelligence began, Germany, Israel and Russia started passing on information about the whereabouts and intent of radical jihadist groups to the Syrian army; in return, Syria provided information about its own capabilities and intentions.”
http://www.lrb.co.uk/v38/n01/seymour-m-hersh/military-to-military
“Even if there were such a thing as a ‘right’ or ‘wrong’ side in this 14-century-old blood feud, the fact remains that, under President Obama’s leadership, the United States and its allies are fighting on both sides. In Syria, the U.S. has inadvertently wound up on the Shia side, bombing Sunnis. And, although that was not the intent, the U.S. is giving every strategic advantage to Shia President Bashar al-Assad. In Iraq, the United States is also on the Shia side. But in this case it is deliberate. On the all-important Arabian Peninsula (including Yemen), the United States is on the Sunni side. The U.S. has forever been a major supplier of arms to the Sunni-dominated armed forces on the peninsula.”
http://www.moneyandmarkets.com/sunni-shia-conflict-impact-oil-stocks-70598
“U.S. officials said on Wednesday that a huge cache of American weapons stolen in Libya over the summer was far larger than once thought. The weapons are now with al-Qaida and other terrorist groups linked to the Muslim Brotherhood, according to news reports. The highly sensitive military equipment was stolen in overnight raids on a military training post used by U.S. Special Forces outside Tripoli. The 12-member team was pulled from Libya in August because of the thefts. The missing equipment now includes dozens of highly armored vehicles, called GMVs. Outfitted with GPS technology, the vehicles have weapon mounts and can accommodate smoke-grenade launchers, they said.”
http://www.newsmax.com/Newsfront/libya-weapons-cache-stolen/2013/09/26/id/527810/
“A small but steady flow of money to ISIS from rich individuals in the Gulf continues, say current and former U.S. officials, with Qataris the biggest suppliers. These rich individuals have long served as ‘angel investors,’ as one expert put it, for the most violent militants in the region, providing the ‘seed money’ that helped launch ISIS and other jihadi groups. The U.S. believes ISIS is taking in about $1 million a day from all sources. The largest source of cash now, say U.S. officials, is oil smuggling along the Turkish border, with ISIS leaders willing to sell oil from conquered Syrian and Iraqi fields for as little as $25 a barrel, a quarter of the going world price.”
“As with all US government programs, if the desired result is not achieved they just pump in more resources and continue with the same policies. The past 13 years have been an utter failure, so this past week the US government signed on for ten more years of war! US troops were legally required to be out of Afghanistan by the end of this year, according to a status of forces agreement between the US and Afghanistan. The US was unsuccessful in negotiating a new status of forces agreement with outgoing president Hamid Karzai. The Afghan leader had grown critical of the US military presence – which has actually increased under President Obama. So, the US needed a new puppet.”
“After announcing, on Thursday, that it would seek $500 million to help ‘train and equip appropriately vetted elements of the moderate Syrian armed opposition,’ the White House today posted the following Moderate Syrian Rebel Application Form: ‘Welcome to the United States’ Moderate Syrian Rebel Vetting Process. To see if you qualify for $500 million in American weapons, please choose an answer to the following questions.'”
http://www.newyorker.com/humor/borowitz-report/moderate-syrian-rebel-application-form
“The Senate on Thursday easily approved a $1 trillion government-funding bill that gives President Obama new authority to battle the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS). While the stopgap bill will prevent a government shutdown on Oct. 1, the vote will be remembered for a controversial provision that allows Obama to start a new training program for rebel fighters in Syria. Anti-war liberals and some conservatives balked at that request, with some fearing the vote represented a dangerous march to war. Lawmakers skeptical of helping the rebels are fearful that it could be difficult, if not impossible, to ensure the weapons do not end up in the wrong hands.”
http://thehill.com/policy/finance/218248-senate-approves-obama-request-to-arm-train-syrian-rebels
“Since 2001, the United States and its allies have been on a rampage. In Iraq, at least 700,000 men, woman and children are dead as a result. The rise of jihadists – in a country where there was none – is the result. Known as al-Qaeda and now the Islamic State, modern jihadism was invented by US and Britain, assisted by Pakistan and Saudi Arabia. The original aim was to use and develop an Islamic fundamentalism that had barely existed in much of the Arab world in order to undermine pan-Arab movements and secular governments. By the 1980s, this had become a weapon to destroy the USSR in Afghanistan. The CIA called it Operation Cyclone; and a cyclone it turned out to be.”
http://johnpilger.com/articles/breaking-the-last-taboo-gaza-and-the-threat-of-world-war
“They left behind $25 billion in military training and state-of-the-art warfare equipment, but neither a dictator nor a nation. Indeed, under the latter heading they had endeavored to build a nation where there had been none, but ended up liquidating the machinery—–the Republican Guards and the Baathist political party—that in the most recent era had enforced co-existence with machine guns and poison gas canisters. Foolishly claiming America’s job was done at the end of 2011 when the last GIs boarded transports out of Baghdad, Barack Obama was actually opening the gates of hell without a clue as to the furies that would soon come swarming through.”
http://davidstockmanscontracorner.com/memo-to-washington-iraq-is-not-a-nation-and-you-cant-build-it/