John Chuckman
COMMENT ON EVENTS IN SYRIA INCLUDING THE KILLING OF ISIS LEADER ABU BAKR AL-BAGHDADI AND THE SENDING OF AMERICAN TROOPS BACK INTO PART OF NORTHEASTERN SYRIA, THIS TIME WITH HEAVY ARMOR
Well, the United States is claiming that it has killed the fabled leader of ISIS, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, in northern Syria.
The United States has made such claims in the past, and they’ve always proved false, so much so that many have speculated that al-Baghdadi was always a Western agent. More than one source has speculated that al-Baghdadi was an American agent or asset, possibly even an Israeli one, and there are some grounds supporting such suggestions.
There are old photographs of the late John McCain with al-Baghdadi and some others. McCain was, after all, America’s tireless peripatetic advocate for bombing runs everywhere.
The ISIS operations in Iraq and in Syria generally served American objectives, giving it a reason for illegally keeping well-armed troops there and building bases in someone else’s country with no permission. There is absolutely no record of ISIS ever attacking even the most minor Israeli or Saudi interests, the very groups, along with any Americans who happened to be around, who would be the prime targets for the kind of Jihadi group ISIS is supposed to be.
Now and then, the United States may have targeted elements of ISIS, but, after all, when you are dealing with kind of rag-tag mercenary killers and adventurers attracted by such outfits, you do get some folks who don’t follow directions well or who get ideas of their own, or who, much like Trump himself at a G-7 meeting, sit with scowling looks on their faces and their arms tightly folded over their chests, refusing even to respond to others in the room.
If so, they are easily enough brought back into line by bombs, and they have no one in the West sympathetic with them. While their past theatrical shows of brutality were deliberate efforts to terrorize the very people the United States wanted terrorized, they served also to advertise to the West what an ugly bunch it was that America “was bravely fighting.”
The Syrian Army, supported by Russia and Iran as legal allies, has done all the heavy-lifting against ISIS, treating it always as the terrorist organization that it is, one consistently working to hurt Syria. The whole past record of what ISIS attacked and who it hurt is very much in agreement with the idea of its serving American and Israeli aims.
Much of America’s past bombing – as also that of its allies, Britain and France - really has been more of a covert operation against Syrian infrastructure, to hurt Syria’s national government while pretending to attack ISIS. America has been sarcastically described in the past as providing an air force for ISIS. And American and Israeli helicopters in the past have been observed moving around ISIS groups. The same for other terror groups, as al-Nusra, doing pretty much the same work.
The Russian military, fairly recently, said that if there was one place al-Baghdadi was not to be found, it was in northern Syria where Trump is claiming to have killed him, and no one has any better intelligence on the region than the Russians who have been so active in the air and on the ground.
The United States just loves blubbering about killing “masterminds,” just as it did for Osama bin Laden, but such talk is often pure comic-book stuff. The notion appeals to the black-and-white thinking Washington loves to foster while it pursues its many shadowy projects. Black-and-white thinking is the thinking useful to propaganda because it is easily absorbed by large numbers of people who appreciate having an “explanation” for what is mysteriously going on.
In a sense, it is almost irrelevant whether the new claim is accurate or not. Al-Baghdadi ‘s “death” now serves a useful purpose. It helps justify America’s turnaround in evacuating all its troops from Syria, sending some back in from the places in Iraq they also illegally occupy, accompanied by heavy armor. “See, we told you, ISIS is still a threat in the region.”
The place where al-Baghdadi is said to have been killed was quickly destroyed by American air strikes. How very convenient.
Just as when Osama bin-Laden’s body was buried unobserved at sea. I don’t think there was any suspicion of Osama’s having worked for American interests, but many believe he actually died long before his “killing” in Pakistan by American special forces. I don’t know or make any claim that way, but such is the stuff that swirls around all of America’s secretive, murderous work in the Middle East.
I should qualify the first part of that last sentence. Osama did effectively work for American interests in the 1980s, when he helped fight the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan. He was with the mujahideen groups who were covertly subsidized and supplied with weapons by the CIA. By all accounts, he was a brave and able fighter, and the Taliban faction, who came later to rule Afghanistan after a post-Soviet period of chaos, gladly gave Osama, a Saudi, refuge in recognition of that fact.
And “we need to protect Syria’s crude oil fields from falling into the hands of ISIS, who would use them to finance their evil operations.” ISIS is an outfit that has served a lot of useful American purposes in the region. Of course, what the United States is doing is undoing much of what Trump has bragged about doing in recent days.
It sure helps to have a big diversion on hand when you reverse yourself as extremely as Trump has, a diversion identifying you with something good in the comic-book world, like killing an evil “mastermind.”
If Trump isn’t going to have quite the withdrawal of troops that he thought he’d have as a key bragging point for his re-election (vis-à-vis any of the war-supporting Democrats who are likely opponents), at least he has this to demonstrate why he needed so quickly to alter his plans.
The real reason is that Israel and its supporters have been extremely unhappy at the idea of the United States returning northeastern Syria back to Syria’s national government. This grabbing with armored columns of an important national resource has no other reason but to weaken Syria and make a little profit while doing so.
Russia spy-satellite photos have shown that the United States has been stealing oil in the region already. Russian officials are calling America’s behavior, “banditry,” and it is hard to see how any informed person can argue with that.
