Blowback

Blowback: How ISIS Was Created by the U.S. Invasion of Iraq

"In Iraq, the U.S. morphed from heroic liberators into brutal occupiers within a matter of weeks. In Fallujah, which would later become an ISIS stronghold, U.S. troops opened fire on a crowd of peaceful protesters in April 2003, killing and wounding dozens of Iraqis. The shootings, the torture, the general chaos, all helped drive thousands of Iraqis from the minority Sunni community into the arms of radical groups led by brutal gangsters, such as Abu Musab al-Zarqawi. Zarqawi’s Al Qaeda in Iraq, formed in 2004 to fight U.S. troops and their local allies, was a precursor organization to … ISIS."

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American Paths, Chosen and Not (1989-2018)

"If I were to pick a single decision by an American president and his team in this century as our own August 1914, I would choose the invasion of Iraq in the spring of 2003. Of course, in that era of the 'sole superpower,' there were no other great powers (as in the World War I moment) ready to leap into the fray, so the unraveling that followed across a significant part of the planet would prove not to be a world war but a one-power hell on Earth. And it’s continued to unfold over nearly a decade and a half."

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Tillerson’s open-ended Syria war proves US is stuck in mideast quicksand

"American forces went to Syria with the declared objective of pushing the ISIS terror gang out of territory it had seized there. This has been accomplished. It is an ideal moment for the U.S. to declare victory and depart. That, however, would be hauling down our flag. By Roosevelt’s logic — and evidently Tillerson’s — American soldiers should not be withdrawn from any country where they have ever been deployed."

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Why the United States will never leave Yemen

"At least 10,000 people have been killed in the conflict, and seven million are in dire need of food assistance. The US began supporting the Saudi-led coalition through a decision by then-US President Barack Obama, who cited the Authorisation for Use of Military Force (AUMF) to justify US involvement. Since taking office, President Donald Trump has done the same."

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Anti-Muslim Bigots Are “Useful Idiots” for ISIS

"The Islamophobes see themselves as politically incorrect truth-tellers; as bold and blunt opponents of the radicals and the extremists. The reality is that they are the accomplices, the unpaid agents, of those very same radicals and extremists. Every terrorist needs a Katie Hopkins. It is one of the great ironies of our time — those who shout loudest about the threat posed by ISIS are often the biggest propagandists for ISIS." Continue reading →

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‘We need a final solution,’ British columnist tweets after Manchester bombing

"A British tabloid columnist faced calls for a police investigation on Tuesday after she used the term 'final solution' to describe how the country should respond to the deadly bombing in Manchester. The phrase is the well-known euphemism used by the Nazis for the genocide of the Jews. In late 2015, during the U.S. presidential election, Donald Trump praised Hopkins on Twitter as a 'respected columnist' and thanked her for her 'powerful writing on the U.K.’s Muslim problems.'" Continue reading →

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Manchester Bomber Was Product of West’s Libya/Syria Intervention

"A radicalized Libyan whose family fled Gaddafi's secular Libya, and later trained to be an armed 'rebel' in Syria, fighting for the US and UK 'regime change' policy toward the secular Assad government, Salman Abedi was the direct product of US and UK interventions in the greater Middle East." Continue reading →

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