Chuck Spinney & Gareth Porter: US to Blame for Rise of Islamic State and Syria Disaster UPDATE 1: WikiLeaks Documents US Perfidy

04 Inter-State Conflict, 05 Civil War, 07 Other Atrocities, 09 Terrorism, 10 Transnational Crime
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Chuck Spinney
Chuck Spinney

Below is a very important report describing how a string of US covert operations reaching back to the 1980s has created the bloody shambles in Iraq, Syria and the emergence of ISIS.*

The author, Gareth Porter, is one of the finest investigative reporters now operating in the United States.  Most importantly, IMO, Porter ends by connecting these covert operations to the money flowing through the political-economy of Military-Industrial-Congressional Complex.  Understanding this connection is key to understanding and correcting pathological militarism now distorting US behaviour at home as well as abroad.

A necessary, if not sufficient, condition for reaching this kind of understanding is to recognize a gritty reality ignored in the beard stroking ivory towers of policy wonkdom: Namely, that all foreign policy is a reflection of domestic politics and that domestic politics is about money — where it comes from and where it goes.**

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* To which I would add the bloody shambles in Afghanistan, where local clones of ISIS are making inroads, and the Taliban appears to be on the cusp of defeating the far larger Afghan National Security Forces we spent $65 billion to train and equip.

** New readers can go to this link for a detailed case study describing the opaque flows of money and domestic politics of the MICC shape foreign policy.  A broader explanation of how this shadow government shapes domestic and foreign policy can be found at this link.

By Gareth Porter, TruthDig.com, October 8, 2015

Pundits and politicians are already looking for a convenient explanation for the twin Middle East disasters of the rise of Islamic State and the humanitarian catastrophe in Syria. The genuine answer is politically unpalatable, because the primary cause of both calamities is U.S. war and covert operations in the Middle East, followed by the abdication of U.S. power and responsibility for Syria policy to Saudi Arabia and other Sunni allies. Read more.

See Also:

Syria @ Phi Beta Iota

UPDATE 1:

WikiLeaks Reveals How the US Aggressively Pursued Regime Change in Syria, Igniting a Bloodbath

Phi Beta Iota: At TruthOut, in paragraphs marked S/NF and C, the article documents US funding of subversive activities directed against the state — war by other means.

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