| Iraq is once again front page news. And once again the picture that is presented to us in the Western mainstream media is a mixture of half truths, falsehoods, disinformation and propaganda. The mainstream media will not tell you that the US is supporting both sides in the Iraqi conflict. Washington is overtly supporting the Iraqi Shiite government, while covertly training, arming and funding the Sunni Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS). Supporting the influx of terrorist brigades in Iraq is an act of foreign aggression. But the mainstream media will tell you that the Obama administration is “concerned” by the actions committed by the terrorists. The preferred narrative in the U.S. and most Western mainstream media is that the current situation is due to the U.S “withdrawal” which ended in December 2011 (more than 200 U.S. troops and military advisors remained in Iraq). This portrait of events in which the US withdrawal is to blame for the insurgency does not draw any connection between the U.S. invasion of 2003 and the occupation that ensued. It also ignores the death squads trained by U.S advisors in Iraq in the wake of the invasion and which are at the heart of the current turmoil. As usual, the mainstream media does not want you to understand what’s going on. Its goal is to shape perceptions and opinions by crafting a view of the world which serves powerful interests. For that matter, they will tell you it’s a civil war. What is unfolding is a process of “constructive chaos”, engineered by the West. The destabilization of Iraq and its fragmentation has been planned long ago and is part of the ”Anglo-American-Israeli ‘military road map’ in the Middle East”, as explained in 2006 in the following article: “This project, which has been in the planning stages for several years, consists in creating an arc of instability, chaos, and violence extending from Lebanon, Palestine, and Syria to Iraq, the Persian Gulf, Iran, and the borders of NATO-garrisoned Afghanistan.Although the divide and conquer strategy is not new, it still works thanks to the media smoke screens and mirrors.
Engineering a civil war is the best way to divide a country into several territories. It worked in the Balkans and it is well documented that ethnic tensions were used and abused in order to destroy Yugoslavia and divide it into seven separate entities. Today we are clearly witnessing the balkanization of Iraq with the help of the favorite imperial tool, namely armed militias, referred to as pro-democracy opposition or terrorists depending on the context and the role they have to play in the collective psyche. Western media and government officials define them not by who they are, but by who they fight against. In Syria they constitute a “legitimate opposition, freedom fighters fighting for democracy against a brutal dictatorship”, whereas in Iraq, they are “terrorists fighting a democratically elected U.S.-supported government”: “Known and documented, Al Qaeda affiliated entities have been used by US-NATO in numerous conflicts as ‘intelligence assets’ since the heyday of the Soviet-Afghan war. In Syria, the Al Nusrah and ISIS rebels are the foot-soldiers of the Western military alliance, which oversees and controls the recruitment and training of paramilitary forces.We knew well before the beginning of the war on terror that Saudi Arabia was a major supporter of Islamic terrorism. But being a staunch U.S. ally Saudi Arabia is the exception to the rule proclaimed by George W. Bush after the 9/11 terrorist attacks: ”We will make no distinction between those who committed these acts and those who harbor them.” The fact of the matter is they always do make a distinction, especially when it comes to Saudi Arabia. But while its support for terrorism is acknowledged by the mainstream media, the latter ignores that the fact that the U.S. is (indirectly) supporting terrorist entities. In addition, mainstream journalists never address the reason why the U.S is not reacting to Saudi support for terrorists. The facts are clear: the US is supporting terrorism through allies like Saudi Arabia and Qatar. If those who shape the discourse in the mainstream media fail to connect the dots, it is only because they don’t want to. In the Middle East, Saudi Arabia has been serving US interests as well as its own. The US alliance with Saudi Arabia shows the contempt the US actually has for democracy. This alliance alone clearly indicates that the goal of the US invasion of Iraq was not to bring democracy and freedom to Iraqis. For Saudi Arabia, a democratic Iraq would be a nightmare and a threat to its repressive monarchic rule: “Ever since the overthrow of Saddam’s regime in 2003, the Saudi regime has been emphatically hostile towards Iraq. This has been largely due to its deeply entrenched fear that the success of democracy in Iraq would undoubtedly inspire its own people. Another reason is the deeply rooted hatred – by Saudi Arabia’s extremist Wahhabi Salafi religious establishment – towards the Shia. The Saudi regime also accuses Maliki, of giving Iran a freehand to dramatically intensify its influence in Iraq. The Saudi regime has made no secret that its overriding priority is to severely undermine what it perceives as highly perilous and yet growing Iranian influence.From Paul Bremer to John Negroponte But the most important piece of the Iraqi puzzle is the Washington’s covert support of the terrorists. To better understand the sectarian violence plaguing the country today, we need to understand what the US has done during the occupation. Paul Bremer, author of “My year in Iraq, the Struggle to Build a Future of Hope”, played an important role while he was Civil Governor of Iraq in 2003-2004. Hopeful future for whom, one might ask when looking back at what he has done during that year. Certainly not for the Iraqis: “When Paul Bremer dissolved the Iraqi National Security and Police Forces, he formed another one from mercenaries and sectarian militias who were backing and supporting the occupation. In reality, the nature of hideous crimes committed by these forces was the major motivation behind the sectarian violence killing of 2006-2007.In 2004-2005, US Ambassador John Negroponte continued Bremer’s work. With his experience in crushing dissent in Central America with the help of bloodthirsty death squads during the 80′s, Negroponte was “the man for the job” in Iraq: “US sponsored death squads were recruited in Iraq starting in 2004-2005 in an initiative launched under the helm of the US Ambassador John Negroponte, who was dispatched to Baghdad by the US State Department in June 2004…Now we are being told that ISIS has managed to put its hands on US-made sophisticated weapons. Make no mistakes. These weapons did not get there accidentally. The US knew exactly what it was doing when it armed and funded the “opposition” in Libya and Syria. What they did was not stupid. They knew what was going to happen and that is what they wanted. Some in the progressive media talk about blowback, when an intelligence asset goes against its sponsors. Forget about blowback. If that’s what it is, it was a very carefully planned “blowback”. US Foreign Policy. Failed, Stupid or Diabolical Some will argue that US foreign policy in the Middle East is a “failure”, that policymakers are “stupid”. It’s not a failure and they’re not stupid. That’s what they want you to think because they think you’re stupid. What is happening now was planned long ago. The truth is that US foreign policy in the Middle East is diabolical, brutally repressive, criminal and undemocratic. And the only way out of this bloody mess is “a return to the law”: “There is only a single antidote to the “civil war” that is now breaking Iraq apart – and that is a return to law and a convening of justice. The war launched by government leaders in 2003 against the people of Iraq was not a mistake: it was a crime. And those leaders should be held to account, under law, for their decisions.” (Inder Comar, Iraq: The US Sponsored Sectarian “Civil War” is a “War of Aggression”, The “Supreme International Crime”, June 18, 2014) Source URL |
