DIANA WEST: THE MAD HATTER’S ARAB SPRING….
http://www.dianawest.net/Home/tabid/36/EntryId/2465/The-Mad-Hatters-Arab-Spring-Next-Place-Setting-Syria.aspx
Moving right along from soiled place setting (Libya…) to setting (Syria), the Western powers continue to muck up the Islamic world royally, powering the engine of Sunni jihad in a Grand Effort to isolate Iran and its ally Syria, or so it might appear.
It’s easy to imagine NATO leaders patting themselves on the backs over their clever little wars on the “cheap” which require “only” Western arms and training and secret operations and money (but they can touch the Saudis and Qataris for much of the money, illegal/schmillegal), all of which, they maybe think, will ultimately vanquish Iran. When one setting is soiled, move on the next.
What they seem to miss — unless, that is, they are al$o party to it — is that they are leaving in their wake an equally if not far more dangerous monster: an oil-rich, strategic expanse of virulently metastisizing Sunni Shariadom.
Such a policy echoes what, I argue, was Soviet-subverted Allied policy in WWII, which, in vanquishing the Nazi monster, created the even greater Soviet monster, a subject discussed in my forthcoming book, American Betrayal: The Secret Assault on Our Nation’s Character.
Call it the Bandar-Bush-Rice-Obama-Clinton-Kerry-Bandar-Qatari-Turkish Grand Alliance. Maybe some day we will realize it was subverted, too.
Do these American officials running amok with US foreign policy realize the impact of what they are doing? Then again, does anyone? Do the media? The equanimity/ignorance that greets such events is remarkable. Take a look at this recent London Telegraph story about Saudi backing for a rebel-“liberated” enclave in south Syria.
The Kingdom is working with American intelligence officials in Jordan to help build a strong rebel force in southern Syria that can fight to seize control of Damascus, and offer a ‘west friendly’ counterweight to the proliferating hardline Islamist rebel groups, high level Syrian opposition sources and eyewitnesses have told the Daily Telegraph.
Good, ol’ “Kingdom.” “West-friendly.” How nice.
“Saudi Arabia s supporting groups here that are not religious extremists. Americans are supervising the flow of arms and the Saudis pay for them,” said a rebel who called himself Ahmed Masri speaking to the Daily Telegraph from the southern city of Deraa.
Phew. That takes a load off of mind.
Saudi Arabia is also said to be supporting a US-led programme to train Syrian rebel fighters in Jordan. A well-placed opposition lobbyist based in Jordan told the Daily Telegraph that “the Americans are doing the training, but Saudi is paying the money for it”.
Once upon a time, there was Iran-Contra. It was a big deal. Isn’t Saudi-Syria even a little deal?
Those receiving training are mainly moderate Sunni Muslim tribesmen from central and southern Syria, many of whom have served in the Syrian army.
Again, what a relief it is to know that “mainly moderate Sunni Muslim tribesmen” are getting our training.
Many are chosen by local opposition military councils established in southern Syria.
And no doubt they are moderate, West-friendly “tribesmen,” too.
“They are asking us to take part in a 15-day training programme,” said one Syrian fighter in Jordan speaking on the condition of anonymity.
…
The story concludes:
“We are using the road to Jordan as a route to take out our wounded fighters,” said Captain Islam Aloush, a spokesperson for Liwa al-Islam, one of the largest rebel fighting groups in Damascus.
Liwa al-Islam? Wait a minute. How did “Brigade of Islam,” which even the Telegraph has described as a “hardline Islamist group” slip into a piece about West-friendliness and “moderate Sunni tribesmen”? It’s quite a mystery. After all, in the earlier piece, we were hearing about Liwa al Islam’s participation in a sharia court in Aleppo:
But in rebel-held Aleppo a new sharia court is fast becoming a central power in the city. It is shared with the three other hardline Islamist groups operating in rebel territory: Ahrar al-Sham, Fijr al-Islam and Liwa Tawhid, though Jabhat al-Nusra takes the lead. It refuses to employ judges who worked under the regime, choosing religious leaders to pass judgments.
Some sharia rulings, such as cutting off a hand for theft, are not operational in wartime. But locals complain of other rigid strictures being enforced.
Maybe Captain Islam asked to be i.d.’d as a “spokesperson,” which the female reporter took as incontrovertible evidence of bona fide moderate, if not humanitarian (after all, he’s talking about evacuating the wounded) outreach….
And readers turned the page, complacently.
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