Right-wing extremists condemned in Charlottesville, funded and armed in Ukraine and Syria

Having backed a right-wing coup in the Ukraine and right-wing terror groups disguised as “moderate rebels” in Syria, U.S. leaders now confront rising right-wing terror at home. They duly condemn it, but seem blind both to their own hypocrisy and to the domestic reverberations of their cynical foreign policies.

by Whitney Webb

Part 3 - Supporting right-wing religious extremists in Syria

While the U.S.-supported ruling government of Ukraine has the most in common with those who took to the streets in Charlottesville to express their white nationalist views, the U.S. has also supported other militant, right-wing factions of a different stripe, particularly in the Middle East. Though the U.S.’ support for right-wing religious extremists in the Middle East is well-known, Syria is a definitive case study where the U.S. supported – and still supports – right-wing terrorist groups. These groups have specifically targeted ethnic and religious minorities and sought violently to undermine a democratically-elected government of Syria that has long embraced and attempted to protect the country’s ethnic and religious diversity.

The U.S. had long justified its now defunct program of funding and arming anti-government groups in Syria by claiming that these groups comprise the “moderate opposition,” who enjoy popular support in their efforts to overthrow the Syrian government led by President Bashar al-Assad. Analysts knew early on, however, that this justification was a myth. Even the hawkish national security columnist of the CIA-linked Washington Post, David Ignatius, wrote in 2014 that “The problem is that the ‘moderate opposition’ that the United States is backing is still largely a fantasy.”

These supposed “moderate” rebels have – time and again — been shown to share close ties to al-Nusra Front, the Syrian branch of the terror group al-Qaeda. Leaders of al-Nusra themselves have also acknowledged receiving covert U.S. Support.

Similar groups such as Nour al-Din al-Zenki, like al-Nusra and Daesh (ISIS), seek to transform Syria into an “Islamic state” that would effectively criminalize the religious diversity and secularism that have long characterized life in Syria. Despite the fact that these “moderate” groups have beheaded and slaughtered young children and other civilians on innumerable occasions, U.S. politicians such as Obama, Hillary Clinton, and Sens. Graham and McCain were instrumental in funding and empowering these groups and, by extension, enabling the atrocities they have committed.

Source, links:

http://www.mintpressnews.com/right-wing-extremists-condemned-charlottesville-funded-armed-ukraine-syria/230897/

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