Does Obama Know He’s Fighting On al-Qa’ida’s Side?

[Purveyor]

BY ROBERT FISK
Tuesday 27 August 2013

If Barack Obama decides to attack the Syrian regime, he has ensured – for the very first time in history – that the United States will be on the same side as al-Qa’ida.
Quite an alliance! Was it not the Three Musketeers who shouted “All for one and one for all” each time they sought combat? This really should be the new battle cry if – or when – the statesmen of the Western world go to war against Bashar al-Assad.

The men who destroyed so many thousands on 9/11 will then be fighting alongside the very nation whose innocents they so cruelly murdered almost exactly 12 years ago. Quite an achievement for Obama, Cameron, Hollande and the rest of the miniature warlords.

This, of course, will not be trumpeted by the Pentagon or the White House – nor, I suppose, by al-Qa’ida – though they are both trying to destroy Bashar. So are the Nusra front, one of al-Qa’ida’s affiliates. But it does raise some interesting possibilities.

Maybe the Americans should ask al-Qa’ida for intelligence help – after all, this is the group with “boots on the ground”, something the Americans have no interest in doing. And maybe al-Qa’ida could offer some target information facilities to the country which usually claims that the supporters of al-Qa’ida, rather than the Syrians, are the most wanted men in the world.

MORE...

http://www.independent.co.uk/voices/comment/does-obama-know-hes-fighting-on-alqaidas-side-8786680.html

[JI7]

1. it's usually better not to look at foreign policy as just 2 sides

[leveymg]

2. It's not the first time. The CIA and Saudi Intel created AQ. It just had a different name

until the mid-1990s. If you will recall, the predecessor when it was still calling itself the Mujahaddin even blew a big hole in the basement of the World Trade Center in '93, but Bin Laden was still useful in fighting the Russians and Serbs, so they kept them on the payroll until they blew up two more American buildings in East Africa during 1998.

Even after that, the CIA managed to allow the 9/11 hijackers visas and entry waivers so a bunch of them could come into the US in 2000 and 2001, and the Agency even ran interference protecting them from FBI investigators.

More recently, Anwar al-Awlaki also worked for the Agency as an agent provocateur.

No, unfortuntely, this is not "the very first time in history" that the US "will be on the same side" as AQ. Not by a long shot. You'd have to ignore practically every major foreign terrorist event in the U.S. going back to '93 to overlook that.

[elehhhhna]

5. it gets worse

the Bin Ladens has/had a stake ( as does the bUsh family) in The Carlyle Group. And see this:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/10023552042 ("So a huge mil contractor (Carlyle Group) provides the NSA data that proves we should bomb Syria?&quot

[leveymg]

7. I noticed that - but I read last night the original source of the intercept was Israel, not NSA.

Anyway, it's bad enough without the Carlyle Group shibboleth crawling in. This caught my eye in the Fisk piece. It seems that SA-7 "Strella" portable missile was used to shoot down a USN attack jet over Lebanon a while back.

I wish that more people understood that when Hillary and Petraeus liberated the Libyans from Khadaffi, the Libyan militias liberated about 15,000 SA-7/SA-16/SA-24 MANPADs from Khadaffi's arms depots, and that many of them have ended up in Syria and elsewhere in the hands of . . . guess who.

Guess who's coming to the Friendly Skies.

[David__77]

3. Of course he knows.

He's not the total al Qaeda fan like McCain or Lindsay Graham (who would surely be annihilated by AQ), but that's why he is reticent. Still today saying he is unsure and wants perhaps only a "shot across the bow," but nothing to really affect anything.

[geek tragedy]

4. So you're either with Assad or with the terrorists?

Very nuanced piece by Fisk.

[elehhhhna]

6. Yep

care to explain otherwise?

[pampango]

11. There are more than two sides to this. Everyone who fights Assad is not a terrorist.

The Center for American Progress put the strength of the Free Syrian Army at 50,000 and the Al Qaeda-supported Nusra Front at 6,000.

The Free Syrian Army, or FSA, is the largest group within the Syrian armed opposition. It is an umbrella group comprising small, ideologically moderate, and uncoordinated militias and battalions operating at local levels. ... The FSA is made up of small, localized battalions from all across Syria, organized loosely through provincial military councils. These battalions tend to fight in small geographic areas in defense of their hometowns and are less ideologically driven than others. It is estimated that there are as many as 50,000 fighters who align themselves with the FSA.

The Nusra Front, also known as Jabhat al-Nusra, is an Al Qaeda-affiliated terrorist group, comprising approximately 6,000 foreign and domestic fighters. The Nusra Front has reportedly been receiving significant funding, arms, and training from Al-Qaeda and the Al Qaeda-affiliated group, Islamic State of Iraq. Some of Nusra’s fighters are foreign jihadists, many of whom are veterans of the Iraqi insurgency; it is unclear, however, what percentage of the Nusra Front’s supporters are foreign fighters as opposed to Syrian nationals.

http://www.americanprogress.org/issues/security/report/2013/05/14/63221/the-structure-and-organization-of-the-syrian-opposition/

None of the Syrians I spoke with knew the exact nature of the relationship between the Regime and the "Islamiyeen" but they strongly believed the Regime wanted them in Syria. "They substantiate the government's story that it is fighting terrorists," explained one man. "But rather than targeting them, the government shells us, its own people." The "Islamiyeen" also became the international community's scapegoat for declining to intervene in Syria or provide weapons to the moderate FSA. "What, the Islamiyeen are only about 9,000 fighters while the FSA are about 100,000 fighters!" told me the same man. "Yet America only talks about the Islamiyeen as if everyone else in Syria doesn't count."

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/reem-salahi/two-and-a-half-years-late_b_3810796.html

[msongs]

8. his drone policies recruit for al queda nt

[fadedrose]

9. The enemy of my enemy is my friend? nt

[WinkyDink]

10. Sorry, not on the AQ-9/11 train.

[AgingAmerican]

12. Gotta hide from the Qaedas

The Qaedas are coming!! Look, it's the Qaedas!!

Bush Rhetoric FAIL.