The internet is full of theories about just who controls ISIS
and like-minded groups and why. Many are based only on circumstantial evidence
though others do have some merit. Many more are outlandish however well meaning
and some are just nonsense.
But one needn’t turn to conspiracy theories in order to prove a
deeply frightening link between neo-liberal western elites and ISIS. The facts
are widely available and many are well known, though hardly ever discussed in
western mainstream media.
Here are
the key facts
1.
Self-professed Liberal Democracies Fund, Arm and Go to War for Jihadist
Terrorists
Syria and Libya are the two most strident examples of western
countries funding Salafist terrorists including those openly calling themselves
al-Qaeda and ISIS in western sponsored wars against secular Arab governments.
In Syria, western countries have actively backed terrorists
under the guise that they are ‘moderate rebels’. In reality, these are Salafist
terrorists whose ethos, ideology and terrorist methods are the same as those
calling themselves ISIS. Due to the fluidity of the war in Syria, the names of
various groups, the status of various groups and the particular self-professed
allegiance of individual fighters, changes with extreme rapidity. One can be in
ISIS Monday, al-Qaeda Tuesday and the FSA on Wednesday. The fight and the
ideology remains the same, only the names change.
Last year,
even the liberal leaning Salon magazine published
a detailed report of the crimes against humanity committed by the so-called
‘moderate rebels’ in Syria.
In Libya NATO fought a war on behalf of al-Qaeda and other
Salafist groups to topple the legal government of Libya. Countries like Britain
even used their intelligence services to help bring latent jihadists, some of
whom were under police surveillance, to Libya in order to fight a NATO/Salafist
war.
The result of this is a totally failed state on the southern
Mediterranean. Libya is now the world’s largest open-air terrorist training
camp whose jihadists sneak into Egypt to slaughter civilians and whose arms
smugglers, people traffickers and narcotics rings stretch to southern Europe
and beyond.
Far from realising that such policies create terrorist blow-back
in their own countries which kills their own civilians as it recently did in
the British city of Manchester, western elite leaders pretend that such a thing
doesn’t exist. The US, UK, France, Germany, Netherlands, Belgium and their
allies continue to fund, arm and act as the air force for jihadists in Syria,
all while helping the Saudis to aid the Wahhabist/jihadist cause in Yemen.
It’s not a hidden alliance, it’s an open alliance. Calling the
terrorists ‘moderate rebels’ doesn’t make it a secret, it just makes the
justification duplicitous.
2. They
Both Oppose The Same Things In The Arab World and Beyond
ISIS and al-Qaeda want to destroy secular, progressive, modern
Arab governments whether Ba’athist, Nasserist or in the case of Libya one based
on the Third International Theory–western leaders want the same.
Jihadists believe it is their duty to replace secular
governments with theocracy–western leaders back them up.
Israel which is a western state that only sometimes calls itself
one is fighting on the same side in Syria as the Muslim Brotherhood style
terrorist group Hamas–but neither want to admit it.
Countries like secular France, Israel, Germany the US and UK
don’t like to talk about the fact that Libya was a secular state with mass
literacy, women’s rights, protections and safety for black people and high
living standards.
They likewise totally ignore or even lie about the fact that
Ba’athist Syria under President Bashar al-Assad is a country which protects
Christians and where in government controlled areas Sunni, Shi’a, Orthodox and
Catholic live side by side, share friendships and even marry one another. Of
course in Syria women are free to dress as they want and have roles in
government and all other major professions, including in universities.
The liberal west and ISIS style jihadists both seek to destroy
this.
Beyond the
Arab world, in Philippines President Rodrigo Duterte is a popular,
democratically elected leader who has vowed to crush the terrible drug problem
which kills more people per year than
terrorism. Duterte also realises that drugs fund ISIS.
Duterte, like Assad, Gaddafi and Saddam Hussein before that also
have another thing in common. He is taking Philippines out of the US political
and economic orbit. Is liberal western ideology, like jihad, just an excuse for
a good old fashion war for imperial power? You bet!
3. There
Is An Historical Basis For The Jihadist/Western Alliance
In the 1920s, Britain helped the young Muslim Brotherhood, a
backwards, extremist proto-Salafist political movement which the British
colonial authorities knew could help hold Egypt back from a revolutionary anti-colonial
movement.
By the 1950s, Britain had failed to hold back the revolution and
General Gamal Abdel Nasser. Britain however had more success in The Hejaz when
in the mid 1920s, Britain switched allegiance from its war time ally The
Hashemites who can trace their lineage to the Prophet Muhammad, to the obscure
House of Saud. Britain helped the Saudis win the war where they ultimately
established the Wahhabi Kingdom of Saudi Arabia in 1932, which is the number
one sponsor of terrorism in the modern Middle East.
Britain
however, was not done with secular, revolutionary Nasserist Egypt. In 1956
Britain, France and Israel invaded Egypt in order to ‘take back’ the Suez
Canal. The invasion failed as both the USA
and the USSR in a rare moment of unity, forced the invading countries to
retreat.
But Britain had its revenge on Egypt when during the North Yemen
Civil War of the 1960s, British mercenaries and regulars forced Egypt to
withdraw from the country by the end of the decade.
Britain, like America after it, realised that by allying with
backwards theocratic obscurantists one could prevent post-colonial countries
from becoming wealthy, happy, independent and strong nations. Some things never
change and indeed they have not.
4. Both
ISIS and the West Invoke Universalist Ideologies
While many in the west realise that by helping terrorists (aka
moderate head coppers) the west is engaged in the 21st century version of old
fashioned imperialism, others actually believe what they say.
The liberal ideology like the jihadist ideology (call it
Salafism, Wahhabism etc) is a one-size-fits-all universal theory. According to
western liberals, all countries should practice economic neo-liberalism and
social post-modern liberalism. The lack thereof is justifiable cause for invasion
and regime change. Likewise, ISIS and its copy-cats believe that the entire
world should practice Wahhabism/Salafism and that the lack thereof
is justifiable cause for invasion and regime change.
Neither care for the fact that different societies require
different governmental solutions. It is their way or the highway in both cases.
Universalist ideology is the easiest way to justify imperialism. The Spanish
Conquistadors did it, the French Revolutionaries did it, the Bolshevik
Trotsky did it and now both liberals in the west and Salafists like ISIS are
doing it worldwide. The needs and wishes of real local people are ignored…the
ideologues know best!
5. The
West Turns Muslims Into Salafists and Conservatives Against Muslims–ISIS turns
Sunni Against Shi’a and Christian Against Muslim
Western leaders, in funding jihad abroad have also come to both
actively and tacitly define Islam as equivalent to Salafism. When this happens,
conservatives in the west come to see Islam as a wicked threat to their existence,
instead of understanding that Salafist jihad is a threat to everyone’s
interests, Christian, Muslim, Jew, Hindu, Buddhist and atheist alike.
The
liberal Islamophobia narrative enforces this false dichotomy and has the effect
of shutting up western conservatives or otherwise keeping them in the dark
about the real problem. This allows
little room for a debate on western foreign policy which allies western armed
forces funded by western tax dollars with ISIS like groups.
Likewise in the Middle East, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, al-Qaeda and
ISIS are pushing a narrative which pits Sunni Muslim against Shi’a Muslim,
Christian against all Muslim and Arab against non-Arab.
Both of these propaganda ploys achieve the same goal. It is classic
divide and rule thinking. If you create false hatred, people will be too busy
fighting each other to know what is actually going on.
Who needs a conspiracy theory to prove the west’s alliance with
jihadists when these facts are there for all to see.
