ISSUE #77: Al Qaeda and ISIS exist because the US exists.
Shouldn't surprise anyone except the ones who trust the media and don't study history.
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“Al-Qaida, literally "the database", was originally the computer file of the thousands of mujahideen who were recruited and trained with help from the CIA to defeat the Russians,” says former British politician Robin Cook.
If you pay even a little bit of attention to what’s happening around the world, you might have come across two very well-known terrorist organizations: Al Qaeda and ISIS.
The media, Whatsapp forwards, and government officials tell you how cruel, evil and homicidal these Islamic extremist organizations are - which is fully true - but do they ever bother to tell you who created them in the first place. Who watered them? Who prepared the ground for these organisations to rise to global prominence? The answer should not astonish anyone; both were the result of US foreign policy and the CIA. Yes, the country that claims to “defend” human rights internationally funded and trained the extremist organisations that throw human rights into the gutter.
In order to trace back to the roots of Al Qaeda, we have to go back to the era of the Cold War - a war between communism and anti-communism or, more specifically, between the USSR and the US.
The year was 1979 and the Soviet Union invaded Afghanistan. Why did the invasion take place? That’s a topic that demands a different article. To put it briefly, the government of Afghanistan - which had a communist ideology - was being attacked by armed Islamic extremists who saw the reforms introduced by the Marxist government as a threat to Islamic culture and religion. Therefore, a guerilla war broke out between Afghanistan’s army and the People’s mujahedeen on the other. Mujahedeen? In the religious context, mujahedeen refer to a person who performs jihad, promotes Islam, or protects the Islamic territory from a foreign power. In this case, the USSR was the foreign power and the communist Afghani government was deemed as a threat to Islam. Therefore, anyone who was fighting against the Soviet Army, and the Afghanistan government was seen as fighting a “holy war” and referred to as mujahedeen.
The US saw it as a great opportunity to fund a proxy war against the communist government of Afghanistan as they interpreted the invasion in terms of the Cold War, with Marxists on one side and anti-Marxists on the other. National Intelligence Officer, Arnold Horelick, highlighted the Cold War sentiment of the US when he said the following in a memo:
“Covert action would raise the costs for the Soviets and inflame Moslem opinion against them in many countries.”
The US launched a proxy war because it deliberately wanted the Soviets to intervene militarily to protect the communist government so that it can do to the Soviets what the Soviets did to them in the Vietnam war: weaken them financially and militarily. Jimmy Carter’s National Security Advisor, Zbigniew Brzezinski, said in a 1998 interview:
“We didn’t push the Russians to intervene, but we knowingly increased the probability that they would.”
And the US successfully provoked the USSR to intervene militarily, to which he said:
“The day that the Soviets officially crossed the border, I wrote to President Carter, essentially: ‘We now have the opportunity of giving to the USSR its Vietnam war.'”
What did the CIA do to raise the costs for the Soviets? The agency launched a covert operation in 1979 by the codename “Operation Cyclone” to arm and fund the Afghan mujahedeen. But there was a problem; how would the CIA reach the mujahedeen? With Iran to the East and the USSR to the North of Afghanistan, the US was left with only one route to enter the country: Pakistan.
Back then, the relations between the US and Pakistan were not very healthy because of the development of the nuclear weapons made by the latter. In order to improve relations, it was decided that Pakistan was given the charge of how the military and financial aid would be distributed to the mujahedeen.
The mujahedeen were divided among two ideological lines:
> one with hardcore fundamentalist views of Islam,
> other embracing secularism.
Although their ideologies differed, their end goal was the same; to remove the communist government from power. Although it was as clear as day that Pakistan would favor the mujahedeen with extreme fundamentalist ideologies over the ones with moderate views, the concern was put aside for the time being and the disastrous consequences that arming and funding religious fundamentalists may lead to were ignored.
The funding started with $695,000 in mid-1979, which skyrocketed to $630 million per year in 1987. It has been described as the “biggest bequest to any Third World insurgency.”
Then-US President Ronald Reagan meeting the Afghan mujahedeen leaders in the Oval Office in 1983:
Many Afghan refugee camps were set up at the Pakistan border where thousands of Muslims were indoctrinated into supporting jihad against the USSR and their minds were hijacked into supporting fundamentalism. The Afghan mujahedeen didn’t inhibit fighters from Afghanistan alone, volunteer fighters from all around the world, mainly Arab countries, joined the Afghan mujahedeen against the foreign enemy, and one of them was the guy who would later turn out to be the most wanted face of terrorism in the world, Osama Bin Laden.
Even worse, instead of projecting what preaching hardcore Islam may lead to in the future, the US set up the Kifah refugee center in Brooklyn to recruit American Muslims into the Afghan mujahedeen. The rise of fundamentalism is not only being ignored but appreciated as shown by the launch of the Reagan doctrine (1981-1988), which was the US saying to the world, “If you are anti-communist and fighting communism in your country, come to us. We’ll provide you with all the assistance you need to fight the Soviets.” Of course, it didn’t matter whether the anti-communist movements were led by terrorists, religious extremists, or dictators.
Of those mujahedeen, fighters that were funded and armed to the eyeballs by the US emerged a number of groups with differing ideologies and one of them was Al Qaeda, formed in 1988 by Osama Bin Laden.
HOW DID AL QAEDA, FUNDED BY THE US, TURN AGAINST THE US?
The Soviets withdrew from Afghanistan in 1989 and Bin Laden returned to Saudi Arabia, and a year later, Iraq invaded Kuwait which threatened the kingdom of King Fahd. Seeing his country in a problem, he offered the services of mujahedeen to King Fahd which the king refused and instead allowed the US and its allies to deploy its troops in Saudi territory.
This can be understood as the turning point which made America an enemy of Al Qaeda because King’s decision angered Laden because he believed the presence of foreign military on the hold land of Saudi Arabia profanes its sacredness. In 1998, Laden along with other Islamic extremists issued a fatwa that declared war on America and its allies.
“The ruling to kill the Americans and their allies – civilians and military – is an individual duty for every Muslim who can do it in any country in which it is possible to do it, in order to liberate the al-Aqsa Mosque [in Jerusalem] and the holy mosque [in Mecca] from their grip, and in order for their armies to move out of all the lands of Islam, defeated and unable to threaten any Muslim. This is in accordance with the words of Almighty Allah, 'and fight the pagans all together as they fight you all together [and] fight them until there is no more tumult or oppression, and there prevail justice and faith in Allah.”
But whether America supports or opposes Al Qaeda depends on whether the group promotes or demotes the US’s interests. For example, in Syria, Al Qaeda wants the government of Assad removed from power, which is what the US wants too. Consequently, we see Biden’s National Security Advisor, Jake Sullivan, saying something like this:
And what about other head-chopping extremists, the ISIS?
ISIS was a direct result of the US invading Iraq based on false accusations and toppling the secular leader Saddam Hussein which created a power vacuum there to be filled by religious fanatics like ISIS. There was no ISIS or Al Qaeda in Iraq prior to the invasion. That’s a fact. The country was much more peaceful and stable than what the US has turned it into.
Both Al Qaeda and ISIS are the symptoms of the disease, real cancer - which is American imperialism. Saying that both Al Qaeda and ISIS are evil organisations while bootlicking the US empire translates into nothing other than hypocrisy, ignorance, and a lack of knowledge.
If you hate Al Qaeda, you should hate the US foreign policy too.
If you hate ISIS, you should hate the US foreign policy too.
If you hate terrorism, you should hate the US foreign policy too.
Otherwise, you are just an empire apologist who cares not about world peace and harmony but about whether the US successfully maintains its global hegemony or not.
My work is 100% supported by readers like YOU. If you like the idea of independent reporting, you can SUBSCRIBE to this newsletter for FREE. You’ll receive an unbiased analysis of the International Affairs and a way to look past the media’s smoke screen. LONG LIVE THE TRUTH.