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<h1 class="title">Secret Pentagon Report Reveals US "Created" ISIS
As A "Tool" To Overthrow Syria's President Assad</h1>
<span class="submitted">Submitted by <a
href="http://www.zerohedge.com/users/tyler-durden">Tyler Durden</a>
on 05/24/2015<br>
<b><small><small><small><a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2015-05-23/secret-pentagon-report-reveals-us-created-isis-tool-overthrow-syrias-president-assad">http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2015-05-23/secret-pentagon-report-reveals-us-created-isis-tool-overthrow-syrias-president-assad</a></small></small></small></b><br>
</span><br>
<span class="taxonomy"></span>
<div class="content">
<p>From the first sudden, and quite dramatic, appearance of the
fanatical Islamic group known as ISIS which was largely unheard
of until a year ago, on the world's stage and which promptly
replaced the worn out and tired al Qaeda as the world's
terrorist bogeyman, we suggested that the "<em>straight to
beheading YouTube clip</em>" purpose behind the <a
href="http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2014/06/14/america-s-allies-are-funding-isis.html">Saudi
Arabia-funded Islamic State </a>was a simple one: use the
Jihadists as the vehicle of choice to achieve a political goal:
depose of Syria's president Assad, who for years has stood in
the way of a <a
href="http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2013-05-16/mystery-sponsor-weapons-and-money-syrian-rebels-revealed">critical
Qatari natural gas pipeline</a>, one which could dethrone
Russia as Europe's dominant - and belligerent - source of
energy, reaching an interim climax with the unsuccessful
Mediterranean Sea military build up of 2013, which nearly
resulted in quasi-world war.</p>
<p>The narrative and the plotline were so transparent, even Russia
saw right through them. <a
href="http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2014-09-11/russia-warns-obamas-two-faced-strategy-syria-will-lead-huge-escalation-middle-east-a">Recall
from September of last year</a>:</p>
<blockquote>
<div class="quote_start">
</div>
<div class="quote_end">
</div>
<p>If the West bombs Islamic State militants in Syria without
consulting Damascus, <a
href="http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=760_1410383985#Iv1gTyxwvHzlfUFs.99">LiveLeak
reports</a> that the anti-ISIS alliance may use the occasion
to launch airstrikes against President Bashar Assad’s forces,
according to Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov. Clearly
comprehending that <a
href="http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2013-05-16/mystery-sponsor-weapons-and-money-syrian-rebels-revealed"><strong>Obama's
new strategy against ISIS in Syria is all about pushing
the Qatar pipeline through</strong> (as was the impetus
behind the 2013 intervention push)</a>, Russia is pushing
back noting that the it is <span style="text-decoration:
underline;"><strong>using ISIS as a pretext for bombing
Syrian government force</strong>s </span>and warning that
"<strong>such a development would lead to a huge escalation of
conflict in the Middle East and North Africa</strong>."</p>
</blockquote>
<p>But it's one thing to speculate; it's something entirely
different to have hard proof.</p>
<p>And while speculation was rife that just like the <a
href="http://www.nytimes.com/2015/03/15/world/asia/cia-funds-found-their-way-into-al-qaeda-coffers.html?_r=0">CIA-funded
al Qaeda </a>had been used as a facade by the US to achieve
its own geopolitical and national interests over the past two
decades, so ISIS was nothing more than al Qaeda 2.0, there was
no actual evidence of just this.</p>
<p id="df15" class="graf--p graf--first">That may all have changed
now when a declassified secret US government document obtained
by the public interest law firm, Judicial Watch, shows that
Western governments <strong>deliberately allied with al-Qaeda
and other Islamist extremist groups to topple Syrian dictator
Bashir al-Assad</strong>.</p>
<p id="3685" class="graf--p">According to investigative reporter
Nafeez Ahmed in Medium, the "leaked document reveals that in
coordination with the Gulf states and Turkey, the West
intentionally sponsored violent Islamist groups to destabilize
Assad, despite anticipating that doing so could lead to the
emergence of an ‘Islamic State’ in Iraq and Syria (ISIS).</p>
<blockquote>
<div class="quote_start">
</div>
<div class="quote_end">
</div>
<p class="graf--p">According to the newly declassified US
document, <strong>the Pentagon foresaw the likely rise of the
‘Islamic State’ as a direct consequence of the strategy, but
described this outcome as a strategic opportunity to
“isolate the Syrian regime.”<strong class="markup--strong
markup--p-strong"> </strong></strong></p>
</blockquote>
<p class="graf--p">And not just that: <a
href="http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2015-05-22/how-you-boost-gdp-us-sells-over-4-billion-weapons-israel-iran-and-saudi-arabia">as
we reported last week</a>, now that ISIS is running around the
middle east, cutting people's heads of in 1080p quality and
Hollywood-quality (perhaps literally) video, the US has a
credible justification to sell billions worth of modern,
sophisticated weapons in the region in order to "modernize" and
"replenish" the weapons of such US allies as Saudi Arabia,
Israel and Iraq.</p>
<p class="graf--p">But that the US military-industrial complex is
a winner every time war breaks out anywhere in the world
(usually with the assistance of the CIA) is clear to everyone by
now. What wasn't clear is just how the US predetermined the
current course of events in the middle east.</p>
<p class="graf--p">Now, thanks to the following declassified
report, we have a far better understanding of not only how
current events in the middle east came to be, but what America's
puppermaster role leading up to it all, was.<strong
class="markup--strong markup--h4-strong"> </strong></p>
<p class="graf--p"><em>From Nafeez Ahmed: <strong>Secret Pentagon
report reveals West saw ISIS as strategic asset Anti-ISIS
coalition knowingly sponsored violent extremists to
‘isolate’ Assad, rollback ‘Shia expansion', </strong>originally
<a
href="https://medium.com/insurge-intelligence/secret-pentagon-report-reveals-west-saw-isis-as-strategic-asset-b99ad7a29092">posted
in Medium</a>.</em></p>
<p class="graf--p"><strong class="markup--strong
markup--h4-strong">Hypocrisy</strong></p>
<div class="section-content">
<div class="section-inner layoutSingleColumn">
<p id="d732" class="graf--p">The revelations contradict the
official line of Western government on their policies in
Syria, and raise disturbing questions about secret Western
support for violent extremists abroad, while using the
burgeoning threat of terror to justify excessive mass
surveillance and crackdowns on civil liberties at home.</p>
<p id="b5ac" class="graf--p">Among the batch of documents
obtained by Judicial Watch through a federal lawsuit,
released earlier this week, is a <a
href="http://www.judicialwatch.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/05/Pg.-291-Pgs.-287-293-JW-v-DOD-and-State-14-812-DOD-Release-2015-04-10-final-version11.pdf"
class="markup--anchor markup--p-anchor" rel="nofollow">US
Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) document</a> then
classified as “secret,” dated 12th August 2012.</p>
<p id="f5b8" class="graf--p">The DIA provides military
intelligence in support of planners, policymakers and
operations for the US Department of Defense and intelligence
community.</p>
<p id="6e48" class="graf--p">So far, media reporting has
focused on the evidence that the Obama administration knew
of arms supplies from a Libyan terrorist stronghold to
rebels in Syria.</p>
<p id="0924" class="graf--p">Some outlets have reported the US
intelligence community’s internal prediction of the rise of
ISIS. <strong>Yet none have accurately acknowledged the
disturbing details exposing how the West knowingly
fostered a sectarian, al-Qaeda-driven rebellion in Syria.</strong></p>
<p id="755c" class="graf--p">Charles Shoebridge, a former
British Army and Metropolitan Police counter-terrorism
intelligence officer, said:</p>
<blockquote id="8013" class="graf--blockquote
graf--startsWithDoubleQuote">
<p>“Given the political leanings of the organisation that
obtained these documents, it’s unsurprising that the main
emphasis given to them thus far has been an attempt to
embarrass Hilary Clinton regarding what was known about
the attack on the US consulate in Benghazi in 2012.
However, the documents also contain far less publicized
revelations that raise vitally important questions of the
West’s governments and media in their support of Syria’s
rebellion.”</p>
</blockquote>
<h4 id="3e69" class="graf--h4"><strong class="markup--strong
markup--h4-strong">The West’s Islamists</strong></h4>
<p id="ea8b" class="graf--p">The newly declassified DIA <a
href="http://www.judicialwatch.org/document-archive/pgs-287-293-291-jw-v-dod-and-state-14-812-2/"
class="markup--anchor markup--p-anchor" rel="nofollow">document</a>
from 2012 confirms that the main component of the anti-Assad
rebel forces by this time comprised Islamist insurgents
affiliated to groups that would lead to the emergence of
ISIS. Despite this, these groups were to continue receiving
support from Western militaries and their regional allies.</p>
<p id="8107" class="graf--p">Noting that “<strong>the Salafist
[sic], the Muslim Brotherhood, and AQI [al-Qaeda in Iraq]
are the major forces driving the insurgency in Syria,” the
document states that “the West, Gulf countries, and Turkey
support the opposition</strong>,” <strong>while Russia,
China and Iran “support the [Assad] regime.”</strong></p>
<p id="a99a" class="graf--p">The 7-page DIA document states
that al-Qaeda in Iraq (AQI), the precursor to the ‘Islamic
State in Iraq,’ (ISI) which became the ‘Islamic State in
Iraq and Syria,’ “supported the Syrian opposition from the
beginning, both ideologically and through the media.”</p>
<p id="2c49" class="graf--p">The formerly secret Pentagon
report notes that the “rise of the insurgency in Syria” has
increasingly taken a “sectarian direction,” attracting
diverse support from Sunni “religious and tribal powers”
across the region.</p>
<p id="5994" class="graf--p">In a section titled ‘The Future
Assumptions of the Crisis,’ <strong>the DIA report predicts
that while Assad’s regime will survive, retaining control
over Syrian territory, the crisis will continue to
escalate “into proxy war.”</strong></p>
<p id="e84b" class="graf--p">The document also recommends the
creation of “safe havens under international sheltering,
similar to what transpired in Libya when Benghazi was chosen
as the command centre for the temporary government.”</p>
<p id="2856" class="graf--p">In Libya, anti-Gaddafi rebels,
most of whom were al-Qaeda affiliated militias, were <a
href="http://www.middleeasteye.net/columns/good-news-uk-counter-extremism-plans-could-be-used-silence-katie-hopkins-1353190385"
class="markup--anchor markup--p-anchor" rel="nofollow">protected</a>
by NATO ‘safe havens’ (aka ‘no fly zones’).</p>
<h4 id="dab4" class="graf--h4 graf--startsWithSingleQuote"><strong
class="markup--strong markup--h4-strong">‘Supporting
powers want’ ISIS entity</strong></h4>
<p id="ed72" class="graf--p">In a strikingly prescient
prediction, the Pentagon document <span
style="text-decoration: underline;">explicitly </span><strong><span
style="text-decoration: underline;"> forecasts the
probable declaration of “an Islamic State through its
union with other terrorist organizations in Iraq and
Syria</span>.”</strong></p>
<p id="e9de" class="graf--p">Nevertheless, “Western countries,
the Gulf states and Turkey are supporting these efforts” by
Syrian “opposition forces” fighting to “control the eastern
areas (Hasaka and Der Zor), adjacent to Western Iraqi
provinces (Mosul and Anbar)”:</p>
<blockquote id="cf31" class="graf--blockquote
graf--startsWithDoubleQuote">
<p>“… there is the possibility of establishing a declared or
undeclared Salafist Principality in eastern Syria (Hasaka
and Der Zor), and this is exactly what the supporting
powers to the opposition want, in order to isolate the
Syrian regime, which is considered the strategic depth of
the Shia expansion (Iraq and Iran).”</p>
</blockquote>
<p id="80aa" class="graf--p"><strong>The secret Pentagon
document thus provides extraordinary confirmation that the
US-led coalition currently fighting ISIS, had three years
ago welcomed the emergence of an extremist “Salafist
Principality” in the region as a way to undermine Assad</strong>,
and block off the strategic expansion of Iran. Crucially,
Iraq is labeled as an integral part of this “Shia
expansion.”</p>
<p id="13bb" class="graf--p">The establishment of such a
“Salafist Principality” in eastern Syria, the DIA document
asserts, is “exactly” what the “supporting powers to the
[Syrian] opposition want.” Earlier on, the document
repeatedly describes those “supporting powers” as “the West,
Gulf countries, and Turkey.”</p>
<p id="9764" class="graf--p">Further on, the document reveals
that Pentagon analysts were acutely aware of the dire risks
of this strategy, yet ploughed ahead anyway.</p>
<p id="c140" class="graf--p"><strong>The establishment of such
a “Salafist Principality” in eastern Syria, it says, would
create “the ideal atmosphere for AQI to return to its old
pockets in Mosul and Ramadi</strong>.” Last summer, ISIS
conquered Mosul in Iraq, and just this month has also taken
control of Ramadi.</p>
<p id="ae5f" class="graf--p">Such a quasi-state entity will
provide:</p>
<blockquote id="c3ed" class="graf--blockquote
graf--startsWithDoubleQuote">
<p>“… a renewed momentum under the presumption of unifying
the jihad among Sunni Iraq and Syria, and the rest of the
Sunnis in the Arab world against what it considers one
enemy. ISI could also declare an Islamic State through its
union with other terrorist organizations in Iraq and
Syria, which will create grave danger in regards to
unifying Iraq and the protection of territory.”</p>
</blockquote>
<p id="0b90" class="graf--p">The 2012 DIA document is an
Intelligence Information Report (IIR), not a “finally
evaluated intelligence” assessment, but its contents are
vetted before distribution. The report was circulated
throughout the US intelligence community, including to the
State Department, Central Command, the Department of
Homeland Security, the CIA, FBI, among other agencies.</p>
<p id="16e1" class="graf--p">In response to my questions about
the strategy, <strong>the British government simply denied
the Pentagon report’s startling revelations of deliberate
Western sponsorship of violent extremists in Syria. </strong>A
British Foreign Office spokesperson said:</p>
<blockquote id="9b79" class="graf--blockquote
graf--startsWithDoubleQuote">
<p>“AQ and ISIL are proscribed terrorist organisations. The
UK opposes all forms of terrorism. AQ, ISIL, and their
affiliates pose a direct threat to the UK’s national
security. We are part of a military and political
coalition to defeat ISIL in Iraq and Syria, and are
working with international partners to counter the threat
from AQ and other terrorist groups in that region. In
Syria we have always supported those moderate opposition
groups who oppose the tyranny of Assad and the brutality
of the extremists.”</p>
</blockquote>
<p id="c1eb" class="graf--p">The DIA did not respond to
request for comment.</p>
<h4 id="44f6" class="graf--h4"><strong class="markup--strong
markup--h4-strong">Strategic asset for regime-change</strong></h4>
<p id="5134" class="graf--p">Security analyst Shoebridge,
however, who has tracked Western support for Islamist
terrorists in Syria since the beginning of the war, pointed
out that the secret Pentagon intelligence report exposes
fatal contradictions at the heart of official
pronunciations:</p>
<blockquote id="4118" class="graf--pullquote pullquote
graf--startsWithDoubleQuote">
<p>“Throughout the early years of the Syria crisis, the US
and UK governments, and almost universally the West’s
mainstream media, promoted Syria’s rebels as moderate,
liberal, secular, democratic, and therefore deserving of
the West’s support. Given that these documents wholly
undermine this assessment, it’s significant that the
West’s media has now, despite their immense significance,
almost entirely ignored them.”</p>
</blockquote>
<p id="ac7e" class="graf--p">According to Brad Hoff, a former
US Marine who served during the early years of the Iraq War
and as a 9/11 first responder at the Marine Corps
Headquarters in Battalion Quantico from 2000 to 2004, the
just released Pentagon report for the first time provides
stunning affirmation that:</p>
<blockquote id="7b66" class="graf--blockquote
graf--startsWithDoubleQuote">
<p>“US intelligence predicted the rise of the Islamic State
in Iraq and the Levant (ISIL or ISIS), but instead of
clearly delineating the group as an enemy, the report
envisions the terror group as a US strategic asset.”</p>
</blockquote>
<p id="3ca7" class="graf--p">Hoff, who is managing editor of <a
href="http://levantreport.com/2015/05/19/2012-defense-intelligence-agency-document-west-will-facilitate-rise-of-islamic-state-in-order-to-isolate-the-syrian-regime/"
class="markup--anchor markup--p-anchor" rel="nofollow"><em
class="markup--em markup--p-em">Levant Report</em></a><em
class="markup--em markup--p-em"> </em>— ?an online
publication run by Texas-based educators who have direct
experience of the Middle East?—?points out that the DIA
document “<strong>matter-of-factly” states that the rise of
such an extremist Salafist political entity in the region
offers a “tool for regime change in Syria.”</strong></p>
<p id="2d9d" class="graf--p">The DIA intelligence report
shows, he said, that the rise of ISIS only became possible
in the context of the Syrian insurgency?—?“there is no
mention of US troop withdrawal from Iraq as a catalyst for
Islamic State’s rise, which is the contention of innumerable
politicians and pundits.” The report demonstrates that:</p>
<blockquote id="5f99" class="graf--blockquote
graf--startsWithDoubleQuote">
<p>“The establishment of a ‘Salafist Principality’ in
Eastern Syria is ‘exactly’ what the external powers
supporting the opposition want (identified as ‘the West,
Gulf Countries, and Turkey’) in order to weaken the Assad
government.”</p>
</blockquote>
<p id="54a5" class="graf--p">The rise of a Salafist
quasi-state entity that might expand into Iraq, and fracture
that country, was therefore clearly foreseen by US
intelligence as likely?—?but nevertheless strategically
useful?—?blowback from the West’s commitment to “isolating
Syria.”</p>
<h4 id="0010" class="graf--h4"><strong class="markup--strong
markup--h4-strong">Complicity</strong></h4>
<p id="f447" class="graf--p">Critics of the US-led strategy in
the region have repeatedly raised questions about the role
of coalition allies in intentionally providing extensive
support to Islamist terrorist groups in the drive to
destabilize the Assad regime in Syria.</p>
<p id="1f49" class="graf--p">The conventional wisdom is that
the US government did not retain sufficient oversight on the
funding to anti-Assad rebel groups, which was supposed to be
monitored and vetted to ensure that only ‘moderate’ groups
were supported.</p>
<p id="6ef2" class="graf--p">However, the newly declassified
Pentagon report proves unambiguously that years before ISIS
launched its concerted offensive against Iraq, the US
intelligence community was fully aware that Islamist
militants constituted the core of Syria’s sectarian
insurgency.</p>
<p id="7aed" class="graf--p">Despite that, the Pentagon
continued to support the Islamist insurgency, even while
anticipating the probability that doing so would establish
an extremist Salafi stronghold in Syria and Iraq.</p>
<p id="1fcd" class="graf--p">As Shoebridge told me, “The
documents show that not only did the US government at the
latest by August 2012 know the true extremist nature and
likely outcome of Syria’s rebellion”?—?namely, the emergence
of ISIS?—?“but that this was considered an advantage for US
foreign policy. This also suggests a decision to spend years
in an effort to deliberately mislead the West’s public, via
a compliant media, into believing that Syria’s rebellion was
overwhelmingly ‘moderate.’”</p>
<p id="0bad" class="graf--p"><a
href="http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2014/oct/24/mi6-whistleblowers-accuses-intelligence-agencies-annie-machon"
class="markup--anchor markup--p-anchor" rel="nofollow">Annie
Machon</a>, a former MI5 intelligence officer who <a
href="http://www.theguardian.com/world/2002/nov/15/gender.uk"
class="markup--anchor markup--p-anchor" rel="nofollow">blew
the whistle</a> in the 1990s on MI6 funding of al-Qaeda to
assassinate Libya’s former leader Colonel Gaddafi, similarly
said of the revelations:</p>
<blockquote id="d77c" class="graf--blockquote
graf--startsWithDoubleQuote">
<p>“This is no surprise to me. Within individual countries
there are always multiple intelligence agencies with
competing agendas.”</p>
</blockquote>
<p id="96a2" class="graf--p">She explained that MI6’s Libya
operation in 1996, which resulted in the deaths of innocent
people, “happened at precisely the time when MI5 was setting
up a new section to investigate al-Qaeda.”</p>
<p id="7e5e" class="graf--p">This strategy was repeated on a
grand scale in the 2011 NATO intervention in Libya, said
Machon, where the CIA and MI6 were:</p>
<blockquote id="4cc6" class="graf--pullquote pullquote
graf--startsWithDoubleQuote">
<p>“… supporting the very same Libyan groups, resulting in a
failed state, mass murder, displacement and anarchy. So
the idea that elements of the American military-security
complex have enabled the development of ISIS after their
failed attempt to get NATO to once again ‘intervene’ is
part of an established pattern. And they remain
indifferent to the sheer scale of human suffering that is
unleashed as a result of such game-playing.”</p>
</blockquote>
<h4 id="bc66" class="graf--h4"><strong class="markup--strong
markup--h4-strong">Divide and rule</strong></h4>
<p id="8a23" class="graf--p">Several US government officials
have conceded that their closest allies in the anti-ISIS
coalition were funding violent extremist Islamist groups
that became integral to ISIS.</p>
<p id="3e04" class="graf--p">US Vice President Joe Biden, for
instance<strong>, <a
href="http://www.middleeasteye.net/columns/cancer-modern-capitalism-1323585268"
class="markup--anchor markup--p-anchor" rel="nofollow">admitted</a>
last year that Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Qatar and Turkey had
funneled hundreds of millions of dollars to Islamist
rebels in Syria that metamorphosed into ISIS.</strong></p>
<p id="36bb" class="graf--p">But he did not admit what this
internal Pentagon document demonstrates?—<span
style="text-decoration: underline;"><strong>?that the
entire covert strategy was <a
href="http://www.middleeasteye.net/columns/cancer-modern-capitalism-1323585268"
class="markup--anchor markup--p-anchor" rel="nofollow">sanctioned
and supervised</a> by the US, Britain, France, Israel
and other Western powers.</strong></span></p>
<p id="0fc4" class="graf--p">The strategy appears to fit a
policy scenario identified by a recent US Army-commissioned
RAND Corp <a
href="http://www.middleeasteye.net/columns/pentagon-plan-divide-and-rule-muslim-world-1690265165#sthash.N7UEf4Dc.dpuf"
class="markup--anchor markup--p-anchor" rel="nofollow">report</a>.</p>
<p id="3ceb" class="graf--p">The report, published four years
before the DIA document, called for the US “to capitalise on
the Shia-Sunni conflict by taking the side of the
conservative Sunni regimes in a decisive fashion and working
with them against all Shiite empowerment movements in the
Muslim world.”</p>
<p id="a016" class="graf--p">The US would need to contain
“Iranian power and influence” in the Gulf by “shoring up the
traditional Sunni regimes in Saudi Arabia, Egypt, and
Pakistan.” Simultaneously, the US must maintain “a strong
strategic relationship with the Iraqi Shiite government”
despite its Iran alliance.</p>
<p id="1cbf" class="graf--p">The RAND report <a
href="http://www.rand.org/content/dam/rand/pubs/monographs/2008/RAND_MG738.pdf"
class="markup--anchor markup--p-anchor" rel="nofollow">confirmed</a>
that the “divide and rule” strategy was already being
deployed “to create divisions in the jihadist camp. Today in
Iraq such a strategy is being used at the tactical level.”</p>
<p id="af69" class="graf--p">The report observed that the US
was forming “temporary alliances” with al-Qaeda affiliated
“nationalist insurgent groups” that have fought the US for
four years in the form of “weapons and cash.” Although these
nationalists “have cooperated with al-Qaeda against US
forces,” they are now being supported to exploit “the common
threat that al-Qaeda now poses to both parties.”</p>
<p id="dcd2" class="graf--p">The 2012 DIA document, however,
further shows that while sponsoring purportedly former
al-Qaeda insurgents in Iraq to counter al-Qaeda, <strong>
Western governments were simultaneously arming al-Qaeda
insurgents in Syria.</strong></p>
<p id="f0e7" class="graf--p"><span style="text-decoration:
underline;"><strong>The revelation from an internal US
intelligence document that the very US-led coalition
supposedly fighting ‘Islamic State’ today, knowingly
created ISIS in the first place, raises troubling
questions about recent government efforts to justify the
expansion of state anti-terror powers.</strong></span></p>
<p id="bc54" class="graf--p">In the wake of the rise of ISIS,
intrusive new measures to combat extremism including mass
surveillance, the Orwellian ‘prevent duty’ and even plans to
enable government censorship of broadcasters, are being
pursued on both sides of the Atlantic, much of which
disproportionately targets activists, journalists and ethnic
minorities, especially Muslims.</p>
<p id="b512" class="graf--p graf--last"><strong>Yet the new
Pentagon report reveals that, contrary to Western
government claims</strong>, <strong> the primary cause of
the threat comes from their own deeply misguided policies
of secretly sponsoring Islamist terrorism for dubious
geopolitical purposes.</strong></p>
<p class="graf--p graf--last"> </p>
</div>
</div>
<div class="section-divider layoutSingleColumn">
<hr class="section-divider"></div>
<div class="section-content">
<div class="section-inner layoutSingleColumn">
<p id="cae5" class="graf--p graf--first"><em class="markup--em
markup--p-em">Dr </em><a
href="http://www.nafeezahmed.com" class="markup--anchor
markup--p-anchor" rel="nofollow"><em class="markup--em
markup--p-em">Nafeez Ahmed</em></a><em class="markup--em
markup--p-em"> is an investigative journalist, bestselling
author and international security scholar. A former
Guardian writer, he writes the ‘System Shift’ column for
VICE’s Motherboard, and is also a columnist for Middle
East Eye. He is the winner of a 2015 Project Censored
Award, known as the ‘Alternative Pulitzer Prize’, for
Outstanding Investigative Journalism for his Guardian
work, and was selected in the Evening Standard’s ‘Power
1,000’ most globally influential Londoners.</em></p>
<p id="2206" class="graf--p graf--last"><em class="markup--em
markup--p-em">Nafeez has also written for The Independent,
Sydney Morning Herald, The Age, The Scotsman, Foreign
Policy, The Atlantic, Quartz, Prospect, New Statesman, Le
Monde diplomatique, New Internationalist, Counterpunch,
Truthout, among others. He is the author of </em><a
href="http://www.crisisofcivilization.com/"
class="markup--anchor markup--p-anchor" rel="nofollow"><em
class="markup--em markup--p-em">A User’s Guide to the
Crisis of Civilization: And How to Save It</em></a><em
class="markup--em markup--p-em"> (2010), and the scifi
thriller novel </em><a href="http://zro.pt/"
class="markup--anchor markup--p-anchor" rel="nofollow"><em
class="markup--em markup--p-em">ZERO POINT</em></a><em
class="markup--em markup--p-em">, among other books. His
work on the root causes and covert operations linked to
international terrorism officially contributed to the 9/11
Commission and the 7/7 Coroner’s Inquest.</em></p>
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