Obama's inconsistent foreign policy by Wayne Madsen

Obama's inconsistent foreign policy

President Obama's decision to launch targeted air strikes on Islamic State for Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) forces in northern Iraq comes at the same time his Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) director John O. Brennan is coordinating an increase in weapons and training for ISIL-led Salafist guerrillas in Syria. Obama's foreign policy is akin to President Franklin Roosevelt fighting the German Nazis in northern France while at the same time ordering his Office of Strategic Services to train and arm Benito Mussolini's forces in southern France. 

Northern Iraq's Kurds, Assyrian Christians, Yazidis, Turkomans, Shi'as, and other minorities, as well as Syria's Christians, Alawites, and Kurds, are being massacred because of three major players in the Obama administration: Brennan, who has made no secret of his admiration for Saudi Arabia, the principal financier of ISIL in Syria and Iraq; and Obama's two meddlesome and quite incompetent female foreign policy advisers, national security director Susan Rice and UN ambassador Samantha Power. Rice and Power, who should have never been permitted to smash any gender-pandering "glass ceilings" within the State Department and the White House, have seen the fruits of their George Soros-germinated "Responsibility to Protect" in Syria, Iraq, and Libya play out in the killing fields of all three countries. 

Syria, Iraq, and Libya, once united and string foes of Israel, have been torn asunder, with all the U.S. military deaths and wounded in Iraq now totally meaningless as Takfiri and Salafist radicals seize more territory in Iraq. With Arabs killing Arabs in greater numbers, Israel was given a green light to engage in its own slaughter of Arabs in Gaza.

The success of ISIL in Iraq can be directly linked to the ill-advised "de-Baathification" process initiated by the neocon "Coalition Provisional Authority" imposed on Iraq in the wake of the U.S. invasion and occupation. Former members of the Ba'ath Party, a socialist secular party, saw no other choice but to align with the radical ISIL members against the unpopular Nouri al-Maliki government in Baghdad. Armed with U.S.-supplied weapons, ISIL stormed across the Syrian frontier into Iraq. With ISIL forcess in Iraq supplemented by the arrival of Muslim mercenaries from Britain, France, Germany, and other countries, the alarmed Baathists broke with ISIL and fierce and bloody battles have been waged between ISIL and Ba'athist Saddam Hussein loyalists of the Naqshbandi Army.

Obama ordered the Department of Defense to launch air strikes against ISIL guerrillas in northern Iraq while, at the same time, Brennan has been coordinating CIA and Saudi military and intelligence support for ISIL-led forces in Syria. Rice and Power continue to demonize the Syrian government of recently-reelected President Bashar al Assad, thus giving a propaganda boost to ISIL. The Obama administration seems to believe that there is a difference between ISIL in Iraq and Syria. In fact, as ISIL's name "Iraq and the Levant" indicates, the group wants to overthrow the governments of Iraq, Iraqi Kurdistan, Syria, and Lebanon and impose an Islamic state, with non-Wahhabist minorities being forced to convert to Wahhabism or be slaughtered. 

  

To clean up the mess in the Middle East, two targets must be taken out.

There is only one way for the ISIL juggernaut to be stopped. Brennan, Rice, and Power should be fired immediately. The new CIA director should be authorized, through a Presidential Finding, to arrange for the death, by assassination or "accident," of ISIL's chief promoter, Saudi national security adviser Prince Bandar bin Sultan, aka "Bandar Bush." In June, a Qatari official was quoted as saying ISIL was a "Saudi project." Specifically, ISIL is a Bandar project and one that would not have been successful without the support of Brennan, Rice, and Power.

Prior to the Saudi-coordinated 9/11 attack, Bandar reportedly told the head of MI-6, Sir Richard Dearlove, "The time is not far off in the Middle East, Richard, when it will be literally "God help the Shi'a.'" With Bandar's support for ISIL, the time when God must help the Shi'a and the other minorities of northern Iraq has arrived. But Obama's air strikes against ISIL positions are insufficient and meaningless. Brennan, as CIA director, is in a position to inform his Saudi friends of every Pentagon operation directed against ISIL. That is why it is important that Brennan and Bandar must be eliminated from their respective positions of power within their respective intelligence infrastructures.

The "Trojan horse" computer programs pre-installed in sophisticated U.S. weaponry supplied by the United States to Saudi Arabia should be activated. It has long been rumored that the U.S. National Security Agency installed remote-controlled Trojan horse programs in advanced jet fighters, missile systems, radar units, and reconnaissance aircraft supplied to the Saudi armed forces. These "back doors" were designed to be activated in the event the Saudi royal family was overthrown in a coup by anti-U.S. radicals.

There should also be an immediate cessation of U.S. overt and covert support for ISIL-led forces in Syria. U.S. military forces should begin coordinating their clean up operations of Takfiris and Salafists with the armed forces of the Syrian Arab Republic of Assad. The U.S. should provide weapons to Lebanese Hezbollah to clean up Salafist and Takfiri cells operating inside Lebanon. U.S. military aid should be stepped up for the Kurdistan Regional Government in northern Iraq and the CIA should establish armed self-defense units among Yazidis, Assyrian Christians, and Turkomans in northern Iraq. The United States should also work with the armed forces of the Islamic Republic of Iran to stamp out Takfiris and Salafists who would try to seek safe haven in the border areas of Iraq, Iran, and Turkey. Relations should also be established between the CIA and the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) in Turkey to keep in check the radical Sunni Turkish elements that support ISIL.

And, Israeli intelligence assets who have been working with ISIL in Syria and Iraq should be quietly eliminated by CIA sharpshooters and other "wet affairs" operatives. The Middle East can only return to normal by eliminating the twin threats of Salafism and Zionism.

NATO is desperate for war By Pepe Escobar

NATO is desperate for war
By Pepe Escobar 

The North Atlantic Treaty Organization is desperate; it is itching for a war in battlefield Ukraine at any cost. 

Let's start with Pentagon supremo, US Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel, who has waxed lyrical over the Russian Bear's "threat": "When you see the build-up of Russian troops and the sophistication of those troops, the training of those troops, the heavy military equipment that's being put along that border, of course it's a reality, it's a threat, it's a possibility - absolutely." 

NATO spokeswoman Oana Lungescu could not elaborate if it was "threat" or "reality", absolutely or not, but she saw it all: "We're not going to guess what's on Russia's mind, but we can see what Russia is doing on the ground - and that is of great concern. Russia has amassed around 20,000 combat-ready troops on Ukraine's eastern border." 

In trademark, minutely precise NATOspeak, Lungescu then added that Russia "most probably" would send troops into eastern Ukraine under the cover of "a humanitarian or peace-keeping mission". And that settled it. 

Hagel and his remote-controlled Romanian minion Lungescu obviously have not read this or simply ignored its detailed explanation by Russian Air Force's spokesman: the "threat" or "build-up" happens to expire this Friday, the last day of Russian military exercises announced in advance. 

Fogh of War gets antsy
Right on cue, NATO secretary-general Anders "Fogh of War" Rasmussen arrived in Kiev practically foaming war in his mouth, ready to lay down the groundwork for NATO's summit in Wales on September 4 when Ukraine, enthroned as a major non-NATO ally, could be projected to become, in lightning speed, fully NATO-weaponized. Moreover, NATO is about to seriously "build up" in Poland, Romania, the Baltics and even Turkey. 

But then all sorts of Khaganate of Nulands (as in Victoria Nuland, US Assistant Secretary of State for European and Eurasian Affairs) derivatives started to spin out of control. One can imagine the vain Fogh of War vainly trying to regain his composure. 

That took some effort as he was presented with the spectacle of Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko - a certified oligarch dogged by dodgy practices - trying hard to evict the Maidan originals from the square in the center of Kiev; these are the people who late last year started the protests that were later hijacked by the Banderastan (as in Saudi Prince Bandar bin Sultan)/Right Sector neo-Nazis, the US neo-con masters. 

The original Maidan protests - a sort of Occupy Kiev - were against monstrous corruption and for the end of the perennial Ukrainian oligarch dance. What the protesters got was even more corruption; the usual oligarch dance; a failed state under civil war and avowed ethnic cleansing of at least 8 million citizens; and on top of it a failed state on its way to further impoverishment under International Monetary Fund "structural adjustment". No wonder they won't leave Maidan. 

So Maidan - the remix - has already started even before the arrival of General Winter. Chocolate King Poroshenko must evict them as fast as he can because renewed Kiev protests simply don't fit the hysterical Western corporate media narrative that "it's all Putin's fault". Most of all, corruption is even nastier than before - now with plenty of neo-Nazi overtones. 

With Fogh of War already fuming because "Russia won't invade", the pompously named "Secretary" of Ukraine's National Security and Defense Council, neo-Nazi Andrey Parubiy - who is the most likely candidate for having ordered the hit last month on the MH17 civilian aircraft - decided to step out; a certified rat abandoning a sinking ship move mostly provoked by the fact he did not get an extended ethnic cleansing overdrive in Eastern Ukraine, and had to endure a ceasefire. Poroshenko is not an idiot; after loads of bad PR, he knows his nationwide "support" is evaporating by the minute. 

Compounding all this action, a US missile cruiser enters the Black Sea again "to promote peace". The Kremlin and Russian intel easily see that for what it is. 

And then there's the horrendous refugee crisis building up in eastern Ukraine. This past Tuesday, Moscow during a UN Security Council meeting requested emergency humanitarian measures - predictably in vain. Washington blocked it because Kiev had blocked it ("There is no humanitarian crisis to end"). Russian Ambassador Vitaly Churkin dramatically described the situation in Donetsk and Luhansk as "disastrous", stressing that Kiev is intensifying military operations. 

According to the UN itself, at least 285,000 people have become refugees in eastern Ukraine. Kiev insists the number of internal refugees is "only" 117,000; the UN doubts it. Moscow maintains that a staggering 730,000 Ukrainians have fled into Russia; the UN High Commission for Refugees agrees. Some of these refugees, fleeing Semenivka, in Sloviansk, have detailed Kiev's use of N-17, an even deadlier version of white phosphorus. 

When Ambassador Churkin mentioned Donetsk and Luhansk, he was referring to Kiev's goons gearing up for a massive attack. They are already shelling the Petrovski neighborhood in Donetsk. Almost half of Luhansk residents have fled, mostly to Russia. Those who stayed behind are mostly old-age pensioners and families with small children. 

Humanitarian crisis does not even begin to describe it; there's no water, electricity, communication, fuel and medicine left in Luhansk. Kiev's heavy artillery partially destroyed four hospitals and three clinics. Luhansk, in a nutshell, is the Ukrainian Gaza. 

In a sinister symmetry, just as it gave a free pass to Israel in Gaza, the Obama administration is giving a free pass to the butchers of Luhansk. And there's even a diversion. Obama was mulling whether to bomb The Caliph's Islamic State goons in Iraq, or maybe drop some humanitarian aid. He opted for (perhaps) "limited" bombing and arguably less limited food and water airdrops. 

So let's be clear. For the US government, "there might be a humanitarian catastrophe" in Mount Sinjar in Iraq, involving 40,000 people. As for at least 730,000 eastern Ukrainians, they have the solemn right to be shelled, bombed, air-stricken and turned into refugees. 

The new Somalia 
Moscow's red lines are quite explicit: NATO out of Ukraine. Crimea as part of Russia. No US troops anywhere near Russia's borders. Full protection for the Russian cultural identity of southern and eastern Ukraine. 

Yet the - real - humanitarian crisis (which Washington dismisses) is another serious matter entirely. Kiev's forces are not equipped for prolonged urban warfare. But assuming these forces - a compound of regular military; oligarch-financed terror/death squads; the neo-Nazi-infested "voluntary" Ukrainian national guard; US-trained foreign mercenaries - decide to go for mass carnage to take Donetsk and Luhansk, arguably Moscow will have to consider what NATO types spin as a "limited ground intervention" in Ukraine. 

NATO spinsters are foolish enough to believe that if Putin can disguise the intervention as a peacekeeping or humanitarian mission, he may be able to sell it to Russian public opinion. In fact Putin has not "invaded" because Russian public opinion does not want it. His popularity is at a staggering 87%. Only an - improbable - Kiev-perpetrated mass carnage would change the equation, and sway Russian public opinion. Considering this is exactly what NATO wants, Fogh of War will be working overtime to force his vassals to bring about such carnage. 

Still, considering the latest developments, what facts on the ground point to is the current oligarch dance in Kiev already unraveling - as in this example here. Moscow won't even have to bother to consider "invading". Meanwhile, Poroshenko's slow motion genocide in Eastern Ukraine, as well as his crackdown of Maidan remix in Kiev, will keep getting a free pass. All hail Ukraine as the new Somalia; a fitting Frankenstein created by the exceptionalist Empire of Chaos. 

Pepe Escobar is the author of Globalistan: How the Globalized World is Dissolving into Liquid War (Nimble Books, 2007), Red Zone Blues: a snapshot of Baghdad during the surge (Nimble Books, 2007), and Obama does Globalistan (Nimble Books, 2009).

He may be reached at pepeasia@yahoo.com. 

You wanna be Uncle Sam's bitch? Pay the price! by THE SAKER

You wanna be Uncle Sam's bitch? Pay the price!

Dear friends,

I just took a short break from my life in "meatspace" to comment upon the great news of the day:  Russia is introducing a full 12 months embargo on the import of beef, pork, fruits and vegetables, poultry, fish, cheese, milk and dairy products from the European Union, the United States, Australia, Canada and the Kingdom of Norway.  Russia is also introducing an airspace ban against European and US airlines that fly over our airspace to Eastern Asia, namely, the Asia-Pacific Region and is considering changing the so-called Russian airspace entry and exit points for European scheduled and charter flights. Furthermore, Russia is ready to revise the rules of using the trans-Siberian routes, and will also discontinue talks with the US air authorities on the use of the trans-Siberian routes.  Finally, starting this winter, we may revoke the additional rights issued by the Russian air authorities beyond the previous agreements.  This is such an interesting and major development that it requires a much more subtle analysis than just the crude calculation of how much this might cost the EU or US.  I will attempt no such calculation, but instead I would point out the following elements:

First, this is a typically Russian response.  There is a basic rule which every Russian kid learns in school, in street fights, in the military or elsewhere: never promise and never threaten - just act.  Unlike western politicians who spent months threatening sanctions, the all the Russians did was to say, rather vaguely, that they reserve the right to reply.  And then, BANG!, this wide and far-reaching embargo which, unlike the western sanctions, will have a major impact on the West, but even much more so on Russia (more about that in an instant).  This "no words & only action" tactic is designed to maximize deterrence of hostile acts: since the Russians do not clearly spell out what they could do in retaliation, God only knows what they could do next! :-)  On top of that, to maximize insecurity, the Russians only said that these were the measures agreed upon, but not when they would be introduced, partially or fully, and against whom.  They also strongly implied that other measure were under consideration in the pipeline.

Second, the sanctions are wonderfully targeted.  The Europeans have acted like spineless and brainless prostitutes in this entire business, they were opposed to sanctions from day 1, but they did not have the courage to tell that to Uncle Sam, so each time they ended up caving in.  Russia's message to the EU is simple: you wanna be Uncle Sam's bitch?  Pay the price!  This embargo will especially hurt southern Europe (Spain, France, Italy, Greece) whose agricultural production will greatly suffer from it   These countries also happen to be the weakest in the EU.  By hitting them, Russia is maximizing the inevitable friction inside the EU over sanctions against Russia.

Third, not only will EU carriers suffer from much higher costs and flight times on the very important Europe to Asia route, but the Asian carriers will not, giving the latter a double competitive advantage.  How is that for a way to reward one side while hurting the other?  The EU got one Russian airline in trouble over its flights to Crimea (Dobrolet) and for that the entire EU airlines community could end being at a huge disadvantage vis-à-vis its Asian counterparts.

Fourth, Russia used these sanctions to do something vital for the Russian economy.  Let me explain: after the collapse of the USSR the Russian agriculture was in disarray, and the Eltsin only made things worse.  Russian farmers simply could not compete against advanced western agro-industrial concerns which benefited from huge economies of scale, from expensive and high-tech chemical and biological research, which had a full chain of production (often through large holdings), and a top quality marketing capability.  The Russian agricultural sector badly, desperately, needed barriers and tariffs to be protected form the western capitalist giants and, instead, Russia voluntarily abided by the terms of the WTO and then eventually became member.  Now Russia is using this total embargo to provide a crucially needed time for the Russian agriculture to invest and take up a much bigger share on the Russian market.  Also, keep in mind that Russian products are GMO-free, and that they have much less preservatives, antibiotics, colors, taste enhancers, or pesticides.  And since they are local, they don't need to be brought in by using the kind of refrigeration/preservation techniques which typically make products taste like cardboard.  In other words, Russian agricultural products taste much better, but that is not enough to complete.  This embargo now gives them a powerful boost to invest, develop and conquer market shares.

Fifth, there are 100 countries which did not vote with the US on Crimea.  The Russians have already announced that these are the countries with which Russia will trade to get whatever products it cannot produce indigenously.  A nice reward for standing up to Uncle Sam.

Sixth, small but sweet: did you notice that EU sanctions were introduced for 3 months only, "to be reviewed" later?  By introducing a 12 months embargo Russia also sends a clear message: who do you think will benefit from this mess?

Seventh, it is plain wrong to calculate that EU country X was exporting for Y million dollars  to Russia and to then conclude that the Russian embargo will cost Y million dollars to EU country X.  Why is it wrong?  Because the non-sale of these product with create a surplus which will then adversely affect the demand or, if the production is decreased, this will affect production costs (economies of scale).  Conversely, for a hypothetical non-EU country Z a contract with Russia might mean enough cash to invest, modernize and become more competitive, not only in Russia, but on the world market, including the EU.

Eighth, the Baltic countries have played a particularly nasty role in the entire Ukrainian business and now some of their most profitable industries (such as fisheries), which were 90% dependent on Russia, will have to shut down.  These countries are already a mess, but now they will hurt even more.  Again, the message to them is simple: you wanna be Uncle Sam's bitch?  Pay the price!

Ninth, and this is really important, what is happening is a gradual decoupling of Russia from the western economies.  The West severed some of the financial, military and aerospace ties, Russia severed the monetary, agricultural and industrial ones.  Keep in mind that the US/EU market is a sinking one, affected by deep systemic problems and huge social issues.  In a way, the perfect comparison is the Titanic whose orchestra continued to play music while the sink was sinking.  Well, Russia is like a passenger who is told that the Titanic's authorities have decided to disembark him at the next port.  Well, gee, too bad, right?

'clock' by Josetxo Ezcurra

Last, but most definitely not least, this trade-war, combined with the West's hysterical russophobia, is doing for Putin a better PR campaign than anything the Kremlin could have dreamed of.  All his PR people need to tell the Russian population is the truth: "we did everything right, we played it exactly by the book, we did everything we could to deescalate this crisis and all we asked for was to please not allow the genocide of our people in Novorussia - and what was the West's response to that? An insane hate campaign, sanctions against us and unconditional support for thegenocidal Nazis in Kiev".  Furthermore, as somebody who carefully follows the Russian media, I can tell you that what is taking place today feels a lot like, paraphrasing Clausewitz, the "a continuation of WWII, but by other means", in other words a struggle to the end between two regimes, two civilizations, which cannot coexist on the same planet and who are locked in struggle to death.  In these circumstances, expect the Russian people to support Putin even more.

In other words, in a typical Judo move, Putin has used the momentum of the the West's Russia-basing and Putin-bashing campaign to his advantage across the board: Russia will benefit from this economically and politically.  Far from being threatened by some kind of "nationalistic Maidan" this winter, Putin's regime is being strengthened by his handling of the crisis (his ratings are higher than ever before).

Yes, of course, the USA have shown they they have a very wide array of capabilities to hurt Russia, especially through a court system (in the US and EU) which is as subservient to the US deep state as the courts in the DPRK are to their own "Dear Leader" in Pyongyang.  And the total loss of the Ukrainian market (for both imports and exports) will also hurt Russia.  Temporarily.  But in the long wrong, this situation is immensely profitable for Russia.

In the meantime, the Maidan is burning again, Andriy Parubiy has resigned, a the Ukies are shelling hospital and churches in Novorussia.  What else is knew?

As for Europe, it is shell-shocked and furious.  Frankly, my own Schadenfreude knows no bounds this morning.  Let these arrogant non-entities like Van Rompuy, Catherine Ashton, Angela Merkel or José Manuel Barroso deal with the shitstorm their stupidity and spinelessness have created.

In the USA, Jen Psaki seems to be under the impression that the Astrakhan region is on the Ukrainian border, while the Russian Defense Ministry plans to "open special accounts in social networks and video hosting resources so that the US State Department and the Pentagon will be able to receive unbiased information about Russian army’s actions".

Will all that be enough to suggest to the EU leaders that they have put their money on the wrong horse?

The Saker 

PS: have to leave again.  Will be back on Saturday afternoon.

London turns up propaganda effort ahead of Scottish independence referendum by Wayne Madsen

London turns up propaganda effort ahead of Scottish independence referendum

With just six weeks before Scottish voters head to the polls to vote on their country restoring its once cherished independence from the United Kingdom, British government authorities are turning up the heat on the pro-independence forces led by Scotland's ruling Scottish National Party and First Minister Alexander Salmond.

Not only has London ensured the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) toe an anti-independence editorial line but the American media dutifully got behind President Barack Obama's anti-independence statement while he was in Europe meeting with British Prime Minister David Cameron. Obama said the United Kingdom should remain "united," clearly a tip of Obama's hat to London's "Better Together" campaign against a September 18 yes vote on Scottish independence. The British and American media are working together to paint Scottish independence as a fanciful pipe dream that is unrealistic on a number of fronts. However, an independent Scotland would be a left-leaning nation that would support true social democracy and justice for Palestine, all points enunciated by Salmond, and that prospect has the London bankers and the Zionist-owned and controlled media worried.

Rallying to the Scotland remaining in the UK cause have been Hillary Clinton and Madeleine Albright, both longtime maidens for the House of Rothschild and its multi-billionaire avatar in "progressive" politics, George Soros.

On August 5 there was a televised debate between Salmond and the chief of the "No" vote campaign, Scottish Labor Party member Alistair Dowling, a former Chancellor of the Exchequer and Secretary of State for Scotland who has the backing of the Tory Party of Cameron, the Labor Party of Ed Miliband, and the Liberal Democrats under deputy prime minister Nick Clegg. Just before the independence debate was broadcast, STV (the Scottish branch of the BBC) saw its website crash. After the debate, Britain's establishment and corporate media, which includes the BBC, panned Salmond's performance as poor against the erstwhile lackluster Dowling.

On June 5, Obama, who was in France marking the 70th anniversary of the D-Day invasion, was asked by a BBC reporter about the Scottish independence vote. Former British diplomat Craig Murray wrote that the question was prepared in advance by Number 10 Downing Street and the BBC reporter was carrying out government instructions by asking the question -- a question for which Obama had been pre-briefed by Cameron.

The London government has enlisted the support of J.K Rowling, the author the Harry Potter series, to its anti-independence cause. She joins Eddie Izzard, a has-been transvestite comedian and actor, to lead the cause against Scottish independence. As reports of English organized pedophilia reach closer to Buckingham Palace and 10 Downing Street, having a transvestite as the leading spokesman against Scottish independence has not seen any bounce for the "No" vote in Scotland. To the contrary, support for independence, while still not a majority, has increased into the 40 percentile range from the mid-30s.



Ironically, according to our British intelligence sources, the greatest support for Scotland remaining a part of the United Kingdom comes from the Scottish elite class, which, through the years, has been rewarded with senior positions in Britain's civil service, including science, education, electrical power, medicine, medicine, the royal family, and, most importantly, intelligence. These Scots, who have become comfortable in their subservience to the UK state, fear the loss of special privileges if Scotland votes to break free of its English chains. Therefore, these anglophile Scots are doing everything possible to ensure that the "Yes" vote in the referendum fails.

Salmond has accused London of waging a "fear campaign" against Scottish independence. This campaign is enabled by the half of the members of the Secret Intelligence Service, MI-6, and the MI-5 Security Service, MI-5, who are Scottish. These Scottish members of Britain's intelligence and defense nomenklatura class will stop at nothing to ensure that a "No" vote on independence wins out next month. Our sources report that the outcome of the vote will be skewed against independence even if the yes vote appears to be heading for a majority. The method used by MI-6 and MI-5 against a yes vote will be similar to the hacking by the federal and state governments of voting machines and tabulating computers in the United States to ensure pre-determined outcomes.

CIA's history of dividing the Arab World by Wayne Madsen

CIA's history of dividing the Arab World

The Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL), which also calls itself the "Islamist State" and is led by former Abu Ghraib prison detainee Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, released from U.S. detention in 2004, would not be existence had the CIA abandoned its policy of creating Islamic extremist groups to sow dissension in the Middle East. After training and arming Sunni Islamist guerrillas in Turkey, Jordan, and post-Muammar Qaddafi Libya to overthrow Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, CIA- and Saudi-nurtured jihadist insurgents have taken over large portions of eastern Syria, northern Iraq -- including Kurdish regions -- and are now moving into Lebanon. Targets of the ISIL forces are Kurds, Yazidis, Turkomans, Assyrian and Chaldean Christians, and Shi'a Muslims. These minority religious groups are witnessing their members being slaughtered and their religious shrines and places of worship destroyed by the ISIL radicals who hew to the Wahhabist line dominant in Saudi Arabia.

Islamist mercenaries from the West would not be flocking to join the ranks of ISIL if it were not for the support given them by Saudi national security adviser Prince Bandar bin Sultan, whose fingerprints are all over the 9/11 false flag attack on the United States. Nor would Kurdish towns and dams on the Euphrates River be falling to ISIL forces if it were not for the tacit support given umbrella jihadist guerrilla groups in Syria, Iraq, and Turkey by CIA director John Brennan. Brennan is probably the only senior member of the Obama administration who has been to Islam's holiest shrine in Mecca, something that is only permitted for devout Muslims or "special guests" of the Saudi monarch. Brennan is a former CIA station chief in Riyadh and he is a confirmed Saudophile, a close friend and supporter of the misogynistic and arcane Saudi kingdom.

Brennan's operations on behalf of anti-Christian and anti-Shi'a Islamist radicals would not have been possible without the diplomatic cover provided to him by the female duo of national security adviser Susan Rice and UN ambassador Samantha Power, both students of the George Soros "responsibility to protect" (R2P) school of thought. R2P, in reality, is nothing more than a baked-over neoconservative interventionist foreign policy trimmed with "humanitarian" intentions.

A formerly SECRET CIA reference guide titled "Islam and Politics: A Compendium," dated April 1984, outlines the agency's divide and conquer policies in the Muslim and Arab worlds. Issued when Brennan was a junior-ranking CIA case officer fluent in Arabic, the CIA document, produced by the Near Eastern and South Asian Analysis branch, stressed the importance of the most radical of Muslims being natural allies of the CIA in the competition between the United States and the Soviet Union in the Middle East and South Asia. America's dalliance with extreme Islam reached its pinnacle in the mujaheddin war against the Soviets in Afghanistan. The CIA's involvement in Afghanistan in the 1980s gave rise to the Taliban and Al Qaeda, the latter spawning various Islamist groups now wreaking havoc in Syria, Iraq, Lebanon, Libya, Yemen, Mali, Somalia, and other countries.



America's first Wahhabist CIA director: John Brennan

The CIA document's description of fundamentalist Islam could have been drafted by the pro-Wahhabist Brennan himself. The adoption of draconian Shariah law by Muslim countries is described by the CIAS as "constitutional reform." The CIA states that fundamentalists merely "want society restructured to protect the underprivileged and to institutionalize an equitable distribution of the fruits of labor." In reality, it was the socialist government in Afghanistan supported by the USSR that assisted the underprivileged and provided gender and ethnic equality to the Afghan people. On the other hand, it was the Saudi-supported mujaheddin that wanted Afghanistan transformed into a backward fundamentalist "emirate" practicing Shariah law. And that is exactly what Afghanistan became when the CIA-supported Taliban seized control of the country in the early 1990s. Now, the CIA is watching over the same "Talibanization" process, financed by Saudi Arabia, taking place in Iraq and Syria.

The CIA document also refers to Islamist fundamentalist leaders as the "just ruler" who serves his populace. Fundamentalists are also described as condemning "lax morals of contemporary society" and standing in opposition to the "breakdown of family unity, deviation from the dietary prohibitions of Islam, the immodest dress of females, and the mingling of the sexes in school and commerce."

No where in the CIA document is it mentioned that senior Taliban leaders, many schooled in England's best universities, never gave up their liking for Scotch whiskey, particularly Johnnie Walker Black. Nor does the CIA's "intelligence" primer discuss the drunken debauchery that younger male members of the Saudi royal family often engaged in while visiting London, Paris, Rome, and Marbella on the Spanish Costa del Sol. In fact, the CIA manual of political Islam appears to have been drafted by Saudi Arabia's senior imams.

Rather than pointing out that the CIA's royal friends in the Persian Gulf financially supported the radical Muslim Brotherhood throughout the Middle East and abroad, the CIA document states: "We have little evidence that the innumerable groups of religious revivalists calling themselves the Muslim Brotherhood that exist not only in the Arab states but in such non-Arab countries as West Germany, United Kingdom, Switzerland, and Malaysia are linked in any way. It many only be the name that is the common feature."

In fact, the CIA, itself, was a major link between such radical groups as part of its recruitment and support efforts for the mujaheddin forces in Afghanistan and Pakistan, operations that involved Brennan. The name of the CIA analyst who wrote the monkeyshine about the Muslim Brotherhood, which is described as a "secret society," is redacted, however, such a bogus analysis could have easily come from the pen of John Brennan.

In its discussion of Islamic Sectarianism, the CIA document only refers to two branches of Islam, Sunni and Shia, even though there are a number of others. Moreover, the following is how the CIA viewed the Islamic split: "To the Sunni (which the CIA describes as "more flexible," as if the Saudi Wahhabis could be "flexible" to any degree) or secular leadership in countries such as Lebanon, Bahrain, Saudi Arabia, Pakistan, and Kuwait, Shias have been perceived as a politically destabilizing threat that must be dealt  with -- sometimes delicately, sometimes with political repression." Sufism is dismissed by the CIA as a "heretical" form of Islam, even though it had strong roots in West Africa, particularly in Mali and northern Nigeria, before the CIA-enabled radical Sunni groups like Ansar Dine and Boko Haram, armed with weapons captured from the CIA-instigated civil war in Libya, destroyed Sufi shrines in Timbuktu, Gao, and Kidal and killed Sufi adherents.

The CIA also wrongly attributed militant Islam to Iran and Libya while ignoring the support of Saudi Arabia for the most militant forms of Sunni Islam. In fact, Libya in 1984 was a socialist and largely secular regime that opposed the Wahhabist Islam then being exported by the Saudis.

The document also focuses in on the major factor that attracted the CIA to radical Sunni Islam: "The Arab secular regimes, which have never recognized Islam as a basis for government -- the Ba'thist socialists of Syria and Iraq, the embattled regime of divided and war-torn Lebanon, and Marxist South Yemen -- all face in varying degrees the threat of politicized Islam undermining their unpopular regimes."

The CIA wrongly concluded that secular and socialist regimes were "unpopular" with their people, when, in fact, the opposite was true. The CIA's tilt to Sunni radicalism as opposed to secular governance in the Arab world was a result of the Cold War "black-and-white" view of the world by the neo-conservatives who penetrated the Ronald Reagan administration from top to bottom. In the world of the neocons, there was but one form of Islam -- the most radical variety -- that was the ally of the United States against monolithic communism and socialism. That mindset would continue to destabilize the world long after the end of the Cold War.

The CIA's doctrine, as seen in the 1984 reference guide, has been pro-radical Sunni and very anti-Shia. The overthrow of moderate Sunni regimes in Libya and Iraq, followed by CIA support for anti-Shia and anti-Alawite jihadists supported by the Saudis and Muslim Brotherhood elements funded by Qatar and Turkey is a direct outgrowth of the CIA's misguided analysis of political Islam from the Cold War era. The CIA has provided Saudi, as well as Zionist propaganda, to U.S. policy makers in the guise of "intelligence." And, today, the Middle East burns because of the CIA's erroneous intelligence.