Obama admitted in an interview aired last weekend that his unconstitutional warmongering in Syria was “contradictory.” But he was not referring to his half-baked plot to arm and train “moderate” jihadist rebels to fight supposedly less moderate jihadists who have been among the top beneficiaries of his machinations in the region. Ironically, Obama’s own admission of “contradiction” contradicts statements by his own senior officials, as well as the truth. And the contradictions — or outright deception — hardly end there.
In the interview with CBS’ 60 Minutes, the president said that his unauthorized war against the Islamic State (ISIS) and various other militant groups aided by his administration, all of which are at war with Syrian despot Bashar al-Assad, was “contradictory.” The reason, he suggested, is because the policies are somehow helping the regime in Damascus by weakening its enemies. “I recognize the contradiction in a contradictory land and a contradictory circumstance,” Obama claimed.
Just last week, however, Obama’s ambassador to the United Nations, Samantha Power, admitted in a separate TV interview that deposing the strongman was among the goals of the administration’s Syria policy. “The training also will service these troops [Obama’s so-called ‘moderate rebels’] in the same struggle that they’ve been in since the beginning of this conflict against the Assad regime,” Power told NBC’s Meet the Press. In other words, one of the two is not telling the truth: Either the policies will help in the fight against Assad, or they will help the dictator in his fight against foreign-funded jihadists.
Indeed, while purporting to fight ISIS — a threat Obama and his Sunni-Arab dictator “allies” nurtured through unlawful secret programs arming and training jihadist rebels to overthrow Assad — it has become increasingly clear that the Syrian regime remains the primary target. In fact, cables released by WikiLeaks show U.S. government funding for “opposition” forces in Syria began long before the foreign-fueled civil war formally broke out.
Of course, numerous civilians have also died in Obama’s military campaign. But from the start, Western governments and Middle Eastern dictatorships have been focused on toppling Assad — and that remains the case today. In fact, shortly after admitting the “contradictions” in his scheming, Obama suggested as much. “We are not going to stabilize Syria under the rule of Assad,” he continued in the interview, implying that “regime change” remains on the agenda. “On the other hand, in terms of immediate threats to the United States, ISIL, Khorasan Group — those folks could kill Americans.”
Ironically, many of the same militant organizations Obama cited as immediate threats to the United States were openly supported by Obama in another recent “regime change” plot. In Libya, citing “approval” for the scheme by the dictator-dominated UN rather than a constitutionally required declaration of war from the American people’s elected representatives, Obama openly bombed targets on behalf of self-described al-Qaeda leaders to topple strongman Moammar Gadhafi.
Numerous leaders in that Obama-backed uprising, with forces armed and trained courtesy of U.S. taxpayers, publicly boasted of their leadership roles in al-Qaeda organizations such as the Libyan Islamic Fighting Group (LIFG). Now those same jihadists pose such a threat that an unconstitutional war is supposedly needed to stop them? “Contradiction” would certainly seem to be an understatement.
Indeed, the seeming “contradiction” even led some analysts to say that Obama had “switched sides” in the terror war, joining with Islamic terrorists against a former U.S. terror-war ally in Libya. Many of those same al-Qaeda jihadists Obama and NATO supported eventually moved on to wage war on the “apostate” regime of Syria’s Assad, also a former U.S. ally in the never-ending “terror war.”
Since the “regime change” scheme in Libya, that nation has, as The New American predicted, collapsed into non-stop bloody civil war and rule by various terrorist and jihadist groups. Still, claiming that Assad had used chemical weapons, Obama sought to launch direct military strikes on the Syrian regime at one point, too. However, even before the fraud had been exposed — it turns out that Obama-backed rebels had almost certainly used the chemicals — overwhelming public and congressional opposition killed the plot first.
So, instead of pursuing the same ham-handed PR strategy for deposing Assad in Syria — something that would sound utterly ridiculous to the world at this point — Obama now claims to be bombing the jihadists he helped build up (and which the globalist Council on Foreign Relations said would be crucial in the fight to depose Assad). Despite suggesting that the schemes would help Assad, the end result will be essentially the same as in Libya — a deposed secular dictator replaced by various jihadist factions intent on imposing full-blown sharia and exterminating minorities. At that point, other goals, perhaps regime change in Tehran and more globalism, for instance, can be pursued using that chaos as a pretext.
In Obama’s recent interview, also reported by Associated Press “intelligence writer” Ken Dilanian (recently exposed as an actual mouthpiece for the CIA, to the point that the agency reportedly often approves and edits his “articles”), Obama contradicted the truth on numerous other occasions, too. For example, 60 Minutes interviewer Steve Kroft asked Obama how ISIS managed to seize control over so much territory. Obama claimed that U.S. intelligence agencies and officials “underestimated” the threat and “overestimated” the ability of the new Iraqi regime’s armed forces.
In reality, none of that bears any resemblance to the truth. U.S. military and intelligence officials, unsurprisingly, were outraged by Obama’s effort to blame them for the barbarianism sweeping the region, rather than his own “contradictory” policies. At least one ranking Pentagon official, writing under a pseudonym in the Daily Caller, slammed Obama’s “lies” in a piece headlined “The President Is Lying To America — About Us, And About ISIS.”
The real reason ISIS became so powerful, contrary to Obama’s claims, is because its fighters have been armed and many even trained courtesy of U.S. taxpayers. Much of that support was provided under secret programs in recent years aimed at deposing Assad, or by Obama’s “allies” among despots in the region. Middle Eastern officials cited in media reports even said Obama had trained actual ISIS fighters at a secret base in Jordan. Plus, even the supposed “moderate” jihadists being openly armed and trained by Obama proudly boast of their collaboration with al Qaeda and ISIS in major news outlets.
“We are buying weapons from the FSA,” ISIS fighter Abu Atheer was quoted as saying by Al-Jazeera, referring to the oftentimes brutal Obama-backed “Free Syrian Army” jihadists. “We bought 200 anti-aircraft missiles and Koncourse anti-tank weapons. We have good relations with our brothers in the FSA. For us, the infidels are those who cooperate with the West to fight Islam.” Separately, FSA commander Bassel Idriss recently told Lebanon’s Daily Star newspaper that his group is “collaborating with the Islamic State and the [al-Qaeda-linked] Nusra Front by attacking the Syrian Army’s gatherings.” Countless other examples of the “moderates” and the “terrorists” boasting of their links exist.
More recently, multiple reports from human rights groups and news agencies suggest ISIS and some of Obama’s “moderate” rebels — many of whom have come under fire for open calls to genocide against Shia Muslims, cannibalism, war crimes, massacring Christians, and more — signed a non-aggression pact. According to Agence France-Presse (AFP), the deal states that “the two parties will respect a truce until a final solution is found and they promise not to attack each other because they consider the principal enemy to be the Nussayri regime.” The term “Nussayri” is a slur used to describe the Islamic Shia denomination Alawite to which Assad and many Syrians belong — a sect that a spokesman for the Obama-backed FSA vowed on TV to exterminate, along with all other Shias.
It is not just Obama who has been contradicting himself, his fellow administration officials, and the truth. Secretary of State John Kerry, for example, recently claimed the war was not a war, but rather a “very significant counterterrorism operation” in Iraq and Syria. Then, after other Obama officials called the war a war, suddenly Kerry, too, thought it was a war. According to the U.S. Constitution, only Congress has the power to declare war, so there is probably more to the madness and contradictions than simple semantics. It is indeed a war — just not a lawful or constitutional one.
Meanwhile, despite repeatedly claiming there would be “no boots on the ground” amid the war, or non-war, or whatever the administration calls it today, there are, in fact, thousands of U.S. boots on the ground — at least 1,600 multiplied by two (one boot on each foot) that are openly admitted, to be precise. Several officials have said that, if the “mission” is to be successful, many more boots will be required, also requiring yet more contradictions from the Obama administration.
It is indeed true, then, that there are major contradictions between what Obama and the establishment press are telling Americans and what is actually happening in Syria. The notion that Obama’s self-described “contradictory” policy is “accidentally” boosting Assad as an unintended consequence, however, is not one of them. The end goal in Syria is to remove him, as it has been from the beginning, and continue building what globalists call “order out of chaos.”
Alex Newman, a foreign correspondent for The New American, is normally based in Europe. He can be reached at [email protected]. Follow him on Twitter @ALEXNEWMAN_JOU.
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