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Militant Islam
The 12/02/2015 shooting of civilians in San Bernardino has renewed the discussion of militant Islam, and how we should bomb them over there (the Middle East in general, specifically in Syria and Iraq) so they cannot attack us over here (America). What is always missing in this discussion is noting who is backing these militants.
Some of the behaviors of those in ISIS are not unlike those practiced by the Wahhabis in Saudi Arabia. For example, several horrific videos were released of beheadings by ISIS, while Saudi Arabia frequently executes people by beheading for a variety of offenses.
Wahhabism (primarily based in Saudi Arabia) is a rather small segment (estimated at less than 5 million mostly in the Persian Gulf region) of the larger group claiming adherence to Salafism (with about 50 million worldwide), within the much larger Sunni branch of Islam. Salafism is a fundamentalist approach to Islam, rejecting religious innovation. As of 2010, over 1.6 billion of the world's population are Muslims, so numerically this is a rather small sect.
Saudi Arabia has been ruled by the absolute monarchy held by the royal family, the Al Saud, for many years. Prince Bandar bin Sultan, once the Saudi ambassador in Washington and the head of Saudi intelligence, was quoted, around 2000, as implying the Sunni would soon get rid of the Shia.
The Wikileaks release of many diplomatic cables in 2010 revealed the US considered Saudi Arabia to be the financial supporter for many Sunni-based terrorist groups in the world.
America has always supported the Saudi monarchy because the arrangement allows America to maintain its influence over the world's oil supply. Also America has historically preferred authoritarian regimes because they are less likely to allow popular socialist democracies which would favor domestic reforms over foreign corporate predators. The history of Latin America, littered with military dictators, loyal to America, with their police forces trained in the School of the Americas on torture, is a clear demonstration of this observation.
However there is much more to the story of militant Islam than just Saudi Arabia.
In 1973 a coup in Afghanistan replaced the King who had ruled since 1933. This led to interventions both by Russia, supporting the pro-communist groups who eventually came into power, and later by America, supporting the mujahideen. This intervention by America is critical to current events because it marked the beginning of America training and supporting those leading the faction of militant Islam which aided American foreign policy initiatives. Zbigneiv Brzezinski has noted America supported the mujahideen with the intent to cause the Soviet intervention. This would give the Soviets their own 'Vietnam War.' Brzenzenski famously stated he has no regrets about 'some stirred-up Moslems.'
While much of the effort was done in Pakistan including the madrasas, many of these mujahideen candidates were trained in America. With this development, America now had a cadre of trained terrorists. Initially they were given the target of Afghanistan but later other targets were used. They had the name mujahideen in Afghanistan but they were named Al Qaeda in other insurrections. Some pundits have used the alternate name 'al ciada' to indicate the group's lineage.
Al Qaeda was used by NATO to overthrow the Libya regime of Gaddafi. Libya is now a failed state, having difficulty maintaining any semblance of control. Many refugees have fled in the hope of finding a safer place to live.
After our occupation of Iraq ran into problems (unable to establish and maintain a stable US friendly regime) Al Qaeda surfaced, never having been present under the Hussein regime. More recently, in 2014, Al Qaeda in Iraq was rebranded with a new name, ISIS.
In 2015, the hidden truth of America backing ISIS was revealed when Russia began its own campaign of attacking ISIS to support the regime of Assad in Syria. America was clearly having no effect on ISIS for years but Russia had definite results in a few days; as a result America shipped arms and supplies to the rebels they were supporting in the attempt to overthrow Assad - so Russia was attacking the rebels America was supplying (an obvious act of war, violating Syria's sovereignty). Russia also revealed ISIS oil was being moved to Turkey right past the American air baseat Incirlik - with no interdiction efforts by America.
A recent declassified US intelligence report from 2012 revealed the prospect of a Salafist principality in the area of the Syria and Iraq border, which is an accordance with American foreign policy goals of the break up of the various sectarian regimes in the Middle East.
Prior to our invasion of Iraq based on the false claims of WMD, another American effort supporting militant Islam had developed. In 1999 Fethullah Gulen defected to the US (with the help of several neocons) from Turkey where he was charged with seeking 'to destroy the secular apparatus of state and establish a theocratic state.' In less than a decade, his network established over 100 publicly funded charter schools in 25 states from an organization's net worth estimated at over $20 billion, with more than 300 Madrasas around the world, including Pakistan and central Asia and the Caucasas. (There are more links in the article.)
Among the backers of Gulen is Graham Fuller. With an ironic connection to a recent domestic terror attack, Fuller's daughter married Ruslan Tsarni, known as 'uncle Ruslan' having that relationship with the accused Boston marathon bombers, the Tsarnaev brothers. Tsarni incorporated a company called the Congress of Chechen International Organizations, which has been found to support Chechen terrorists.
All of these observations over the past few decades clearly demonstrate that America is a significant contributor to both the development and ongoing support of those claiming allegiance to the most violent form of militant Islam.
America created an enemy and supports it, so its global war on terror has no end (in line with a timely 'hate week' in the mainstream media, rather similar to the practice in the book 1984) and this enemy is clearly the basis for its ongoing regime changes and interventions in the Middle East and Central Asia (Ukraine), the heart of the global chessboard.
While apparently Wahhibism arose without American intervention, militant Islam remains as a global threat to world peace simply because it is such a useful political tool for the American world empire. Islam has become such a convenient opponent for the predominantly Christian American/NATO/EU world empire, though of course both Islam and Christianity have such large constituencies and so both have their extreme militant sects.
For example the KKK began with a predominantly Protestant membership, as it was anti-Semitic, anti-black, and anti-Catholic. However the KKK is always classified as a 'hate group' not as a terrorist group despite its actions. To be a terrorist, one typically has to be anti-American.
2016 will complete another cycle of the American presidential election process. Already candidates are jockeying for position as to who will be most active militarily in the Middle East. A comparison among candidates (12/25/2015) reveals consistent support for continuing the American military intervention in the Middle East. Unless America stops its support for militant Islam for its use in both regime change and instability, world peace is rather unlikely.
It is quite appalling to have the presidential candidates, and the mainstream media outlets in their coverage of the outrageous statements, vilifying all Muslims based on isolated terrorist attacks. What is even more atrocious is American resources are being provided to support the very terrorist groups accused of these actions - and that is never mentioned by the candidates nor by the media coverage of them.
Truth is a casualty of the American political system. Religion is being used as a political tool (again).
created - December 30, 2015
last change - 12/30/2015
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