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:
Comments
Post a Comment