How Washington Is Positioning Al-Qaeda's Founder As Its Rebranded 'Asset' | ZeroHedge
ZeroHedge - On a long enough timeline, the survival rate for everyone drops to zero
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Some interesting bits in the article
"The campaign to normalize Jolani was publicly initiated by the International Crisis Group, a Brussels-based think tank with close ties to the Biden administration and NATO. By the time of Smith’s interview, operatives from a network of Gulf-funded, pro-Israel think tanks had spent years quietly lobbying for Washington to support al-Qaeda’s Syrian franchise, and succeeded in securing shipments of weapons from the CIA to some of its battlefield allies."
"Though figures involved in this coordinated lobbying push were featured in Smith’s PBS Frontline report, they were presented to viewers as dispassionate analysts or former officials with no ulterior interests. Framed as hard news yet shaped by one of the most insidious public relations campaigns in recent history, the nationally broadcast PBS special provided an effective vehicle for rehabilitating a jihadist leader and perpetuating the decades-long dirty war against Syria.
Martin Smith recounted this history in his PBS Frontline report, albeit briefly, while neglecting any mention of the scandalous covert US operation that made Nusra’s rise possible."
"Smith, for instance, neglected mention of the prescient August 2012 Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) assessment which stated clearly that "the Salafist, the Muslim Brotherhood, and AQI [al-Qaeda in Iraq] are the major forces driving the insurgency in Syria,: and that the Western-backed opposition would likely create a "Salafist principality in eastern Syria" if weapons were placed in the hands of anti-Assad Islamist militants."
"Despite the warning, in 2013, the CIA launched Operation Timber Sycamore, an arm-and-equip program that funneled up to $1 billion per year (one out of every $15 in the CIA’s budget) into material support for an armed opposition thoroughly dominated by Islamist extremists. It was the agency’s largest covert operation since a similar initiative in Afghanistan in the 1980s, which gave birth to al-Qaeda and the Taliban. Just as the DIA predicted, an extremist "Salafist principality" took root in northeastern Syria, while Al Qaeda’s local franchise quickly emerged as the dominant force within the armed opposition."
Terrorists are used by the Gulf, America and Israel to destabilise and invade Muslim countries. The Gulf provides the ideological framework and money, America provides weapons and Israel provides Intel and influence.
People from the Crisis Group like Rashid Abdi provide "Analysis" as "impartial" or "unbiased" aka propaganda.
