by Stephen Lendman

Washington uses ISIS/ISIL/Islamic state (IS), Nusra Front, Al Qaeda and likeminded groups strategically as enemies and allies. At times, simultaneously.

In the 1980s, CIA-recruited mujahideen fighters battled Afghanistan's Soviet occupiers.

Ronald Reagan called them "the moral equivalent of our founding fathers." They're today's Taliban despite distinct differences between them. Longstanding US support enhanced radical Islamic strength. Extremist groups were natural Cold War allies.

Zbigniew Brzezinski had Jimmy Carter sign a secret July 3, 1979 directive. It promised covert aid to Afghan pro-Soviet regime opponents.

Brezinski said Moscow intervention would follow. "What is most important to the history of the world," he asked?

"The Taliban or the collapse of the Soviet empire? Some stirred-up Moslems or the liberation of Central Europe and the end of the cold war?"

"The day that the Soviets officially crossed the border, I wrote to President Carter. We now have the opportunity of giving to the USSR its Vietnam war."

"Indeed, for almost 10 years, Moscow had to carry on a war unsupportable by the government, a conflict that brought about the demoralization and finally the breakup of the Soviet empire."

Today's Taliban gave America its second Vietnam war. Perhaps currently radical Islamist allies will do so in Iraq, Syria and elsewhere.

The fullness of time will tell. Currently they're used strategically against America's enemies.

US special forces and CIA operatives fund, arm, train and direct them in Jordan and Turkey. Israel, Saudi Arabia and Qatar are involved.

They're sent cross border to Syria. Its porous border with Iraq lets them control large parts of both countries.

A previous article explained Obama's phony war on Islamic State militants They're US proxies. Shock troops. Foot soldiers. Boots on the ground.

They're taught effective ways to kill. Dirty ways. Using chemical weapons. Committing atrocities. Including beheadings and other barbarian acts.

Syrian targets struck include vital infrastructure, oil facilities, grain silos, empty buildings, residential homes and noncombatant men, women and children.

In the 1980s, media scoundrels praised radical Islamists. Today, they're vilified. More on this below.

The State Department's Center for Strategic Counterterrorism Communications (CSCC) focuses heavily against what it calls an Islamic State threat.

"We believe countering our adversaries" through social media "is crucial," it said. "We must contest the space by confronting distortion with reality and lies with truth," it claimed.

CSCC spends millions annually "coordinat(ing), orient(ing), and inform(ing) government-wide foreign communications activities targeted against terrorism and violent extremism."

It challenges "extremist propaganda in previously uncontested digital space," it says. It does so with much of its own.

At stake is redrawing the Middle East may. Balkanizing it. Restoring colonial rule. Plundering regional resources. Exploiting its people. Eliminating Israeli rivals.

First by ousting Assad. Replacing him with pro-Western stooge governance. Isolating Iran. Restoring pre-1979 rule. Defeating Hezbollah and containing Hamas.

Propaganda war on Islamic State militants rages. Fear-mongering hypes Big Lies. MSM scoundrels repeat them.

Truth is systematically buried. Deception substitutes for reality. Nonexistent threats make headlines. Regurgitated ad nauseam gets most people to believe them.

Homeland Security officials lied. They manufactured fear-mongering intelligence. They claim a nonexistnet IS plot to enter America through Mexico.

Saying so doesn't rise to the level of bad fiction. Obama ludicrously said the main reason for battling IS is to protect America's heartland.

Media scoundrels repeat this rubbish. Gullible people believe it. Hyperbole substitutes for reality.

It's daily MSM fare. It buries truth. It substitutes lies, damn lies and Big Lies. They masquerade as legitimate news, information and analysis.

Headlines hype a Khorasan Group threat. It's more fiction than fact. It's fake.

Irresponsible fear-mongering claims otherwise. It proliferates. It gets Americans to believe nonsense. A planned major attack against European and/or US targets, it claimed.

Media scoundrels regurgitate this rubbish ad naseam. Without challenging it. Without demanding verifiable evidence.

Without refusing to publish without it. Without reporting what readers and viewers most need to know.

State-sponsored propaganda substitutes. Big Lies bury hard truths. The New York Times is a machine for manufacturing lies.

On October 3, it gave op-ed space to former US Syrian ambassador Robert Ford. He took full advantage. He headlined "Remember Our Syrian Allies."

He claimed nonexistent moderate "Syrian rebels (are) furious that (Washington) had not (directly) targeted the Assad government…"

He lied claiming it "killed far more Syrian civilians than" IS fighters and likeminded groups. He wrongfully accused Assad's government of "atrocities."

He ignored horrendous ones radical Islamists commit. Targeting civilians. Murdering them in cold blood. Using chemical weapons. Torture and other high crimes against peace.

He quoted so-called Free Syrian Army stooge leaders demanding attacks focus on "the forces of tyranny and the patrons of extremism represented by the Assad regime."

Syrians overwhelmingly support Assad. On June 3, they reelected him president with a near 89% majority.

They want no one else leading them. Independent monitors called Syria's process open, free and fair.

It shames America's sham process. Monied interests control things. Republicans and Democrats are two sides of the same coin.

Not a dime's worth of difference separates them on issues mattering most. Voters have no say.

They get the best democracy money can buy. It's in name only. It's nonexistent.

Ford wants stepped up US support for anti-Assad militants. Most are non-citizens or ex-pats. They're recruited from dozens of countries.

They invaded Syria. They did so lawlessly. Syria is Obama's war. He launched it in March 2011. There's nothing civil about it.

Insurgents are Washington proxies. Key NATO partners, rogue Arab League states, and Israel are very much involved.

Most Syrians deplore violence. They oppose elements committing it. Waging war with imported proxies isn't civil.

Washington bears full responsibility. Assad provides Syria's last line of defense.

He's battling foreign invaders. He's acting responsibly doing so. What any leader should do. Nothing less is acceptable.

Syrians depend on his protection. He provides it best he can. Without it things would be far worse.

Syria would be like Afghanistan, Iraq and Libya in perpetuity. Violence, instability, insecurity and unspeakable human misery without end.

Don't expect Ford to explain. Or Times editors publishing his rubbish. So-called "moderate fighters" he cites don't exist.

Washington supports the worst of Islamic extremists. They're proxies against Assad. US special forces and CIA agents teach them the fine art of brutal killing.

Waging war without mercy. Using chemical weapons. Inflicting barbarism of the worst kind. Committing genocidal high crimes against peace. Going all out lawlessly to oust Assad.

Replacing him with what the vast majority of Syrians reject. Doing so without their say. Imperialism works this way. Conquest, control, plunder and exploitation matter most.

Ford is part of America's dirty system. He's currently a Middle East Institute senior fellow. It's an establishment think tank.

Retired General Anthony Zinni chairs its board. It's in lockstep with US foreign policy. Imperial lawlessness defines it.

Ford supports ravaging and destroying Syria. As former US ambassador, he's complicit in high crimes against peace.

He's an unindicted war criminal. Responsible editors wouldn't touch his rubbish. Times ones featured it. They did so disgracefully.

They're propagandists, not journalists. They support generous aid for anti-Assad elements. They want him lawlessly ousted.

They acted the same way against Afghanistan's Taliban, Saddam's nonexistent WMDs and Gaddafi most Libyans supported for good reason.

They consistently endorse lawlessness. They ignore core international, constitutional and US statute law provisions.

They back what demands condemnation. They betray their readers in the process. They do so unapologetically.

On October 2, they headlined "The Fundamental Horror of ISIS." They ignored what readers most need to know.

It bears repeating. It's a US creation. It's used strategically against America's enemies. It's trained, armed, funded and directed to do so.

Don't expect Times editors to explain. Big Lies substitute for hard truths. "The mind rebels at the reports of (IS) cruelty," they said.

Their "beheadings, crucifixions, tortures, rapes and slaughter of captives, children, women, Christians, Shiites."

Atrocities US operative taught them to commit. The fine art of war without mercy. Times editors never quit.

"Even in a part of the world where terror has been perversely enshrined as a legitimate weapon by Islamist zealots, the Islamic State…stands alone in its deliberate, systematic and public savagery," they said.

They hyperventilated over savage beheadings. "Raw evil," they called it.

They practically urged using them as a pretext for war. "The Islamic State seems a model of remorseless clarity," they said.

"We have not seen the last of its horrors. They want it degraded and destroyed.

They want Assad ousted most of all. Mass slaughter and destruction are small prices to pay.

Imperial dominance matters most. Times editors endorse it wholeheartedly. They do so every time America goes to war on plans one.

They mock legitimate journalism doing so. They violate its core ethical standards.

They support wealth, power and privilege. They shame the profession they're part of.

It bears repeating. They do so unapologetically. Disgracefully. They betray their readers in the process.

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Stephen Lendman lives in Chicago and can be reached at lendmanstephen@sbcglobal.net.

His new book as editor and contributor is titled "Flashpoint in Ukraine: How the US Drive for Hegemony Risks World War III".

http://www.claritypress.com/LendmanIII.html

Visit his blog site at sjlendman.blogspot.com.

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