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Everyone with a brain already knew the Empire did it. Now Seymour Hersh’s bombshell report not only details how Nord Stream 1 and 2 were attacked, but also names names: from the toxic Straussian neoliberal-con trio Sullivan, Blinken and Nuland all the way to the Teleprompter Reader-in-Chief.

Arguably the most incandescent nugget in Hersh’s narrative is to point ultimate responsibility directly at the White House. The CIA, for its part, gets away with it. The whole report may be read as the framing of a scapegoat. A very fragile, shoddy scapegoat – what with those classified documents in the garage, the endless stares into the void, the cornucopia of incomprehensible mumbling, and of course the whole, ghastly, years-long family corruption carousel in and around Ukraine, still to be completely unveiled.

Hersh’s report happened to pop up immediately after the deadly earthquakes in Turkey/Syria. This is an investigative journalism earthquake in itself, straddling over fault lines and revealing countless open air fissures, nuggets of truth gasping for air amidst the rubble.

But is that all there is?

Does the narrative hold from start to finish? Yes and no.

First of all, why now?

This is a leak – essentially from one Deep State insider, Hersh’s key source. This 21st century “Deep Throat” remix may be appalled at the toxicity of the system, but at the same time he knows that whatever he says, there will be no consequences.

Cowardly Berlin – ignoring the nuts and bolts of the scheme all along – will not even squeak. After all the Green gang has been ecstatic, because the terror attack has thoroughly advanced their medieval de-industrialization agenda. In parallel, as an extra bonus, all the other European vassals receive further confirmation this is the fate that awaits them if they don’t follow His Master’s Voice.

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The World’s Deadliest Terrorist Group: Notes From The Edge Of The Narrative Matrix

September 11, 2021

The World’s Deadliest Terrorist Group: Notes From The Edge Of The Narrative Matrix

Listen to a reading of this article:

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The CIA just casually discussed sinking a boat full of Cuban refugees and planting bombs in Miami and blaming Castro, but you’re bat shit crazy if you suspect such agencies may have had similar discussions about other geostrategic situations and decided to go through with it.

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There’s more public criticism of ordinary people taking ivermectin than there is of planet-dominating power structures driving humanity to armageddon.

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Nobody who supports internet censorship does so because they’re worried they themselves might consume dangerous words and believe them, it’s always to protect other people from dangerous words. It’s about the most megalomaniacal, emotionally stunted desire anyone could possibly have.

They see themselves as responsible adults who can be trusted to independently sort out truth from falsehood, but see other people as infants who cannot be trusted to do this. This is nothing other than garden variety narcissism.

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Internet censorship via monopolistic government-tied tech corporations isn’t just a problem because of free speech issues, it’s a problem because the way it’s applied is completely uneven and power-serving: politicians and the mass media circulate disinformation constantly without ever being censored. It’s not just silencing people, it’s actually shifting power upwards.

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There is no path forward for humanity on this planet without complete female reproductive sovereignty.

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Imagine if the world’s deadliest terrorist group got their hands on drones and cruise missiles and nuclear warheads and aircraft carriers and circled the planet with hundreds of military bases and began waging wars and destroying any country which disobeyed their dictates.

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Towers to Heaven: The Alchemy of Prophecy, Terror, and Unity

September 9, 2018

Towers to Heaven: The Alchemy of Prophecy, Terror, and Unity

They had as king over them the angel of the Abyss, whose name in Hebrew is Abaddon and in Greek is Apollyon (that is, Destroyer).

– Revelation 9:11

At the end of last month, I read an article that claimed Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation was foretold by a “20 Year Old Movie”. The film was a 1998 thriller entitled “Enemy of the State” starring Will Smith and Gene Hackman.

My curiosity aroused, I selected the show from my electronic catalog and watched it unwind; similar to the way I once queued up songs on jukeboxes in the halcyon days preceding the matrix.

In the film, Gene Hackman played an Edward Snowden-type National Security Agency (NSA) contractor gone rogue who revealed to the viewers the U.S. government’s high-tech surveillance capabilities. Two decades ago when the film was released, the surveillance grid disclosed therein would have seemed far-fetched. But not today. Now, in the aftermath of 911, the Patriot Act, and the Snowden revelations, those capabilities are not only common knowledge, but are the subjects of ongoing daily headlines.

The antagonist in the film was played by Jon Voight, a power-hungry NSA bureaucrat who assembled a team of technology experts and security agents that blackmailed Congress and even murdered a senator. The politician was killed to aid the passing of a Patriot Act-style bill that would have, in effect, drilled the final screw into the coffin of the Fourth Amendment.

The film called to mind multiple recent news stories ranging from high-tech espionage, to social media spying and censorship, to CIA programs like UMBRAGE which masquerades as computer hacks by foreign governments, to the Awan brothers and the murder of former Democratic National Committee (DNC) staffer Seth Rich. Essentially, the plot demonstrated Senator Chuck Schumer’s warning to President Donald Trump in an MSNBC interview on January 3^rd, 2017:

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Cure Worse Than Disease: Bill to Restrict Trump’s War Powers Would Actually “Endorse a Worldwide War on Terror”

April 21, 2018

RAQQA, SYRIA - AUGUST 18: Smoke rises from a building believed to be housing ISIS, after being hit by a mortar round fired from a United States military base on August 18, 2017 in western Raqqa.The MFS is a group of Assyrian Christians who fight alongside the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) in Raqqa. The SDF was created in 2015 with the specific purpose of fighting ISIL and was armed by former US President Obama. The second Battle of Raqqa was launched in June 2017 and is the fifth and final phase of the Raqqa Campaign by the SDF. (Photo by Rick Findler/Getty Images)

Photo: Rick Findler/Getty Images

CURE WORSE THAN DISEASE: BILL TO RESTRICT TRUMP’S WAR POWERS WOULD ACTUALLY “ENDORSE A WORLDWIDE WAR ON TERROR”

ON MONDAY, THREE Republican and three Democratic senators, led by Sens. Bob Corker, R-Tenn., and Tim Kaine, D-Va., released a draft of a new “authorization for use of military force,” or AUMF.

This AUMF would repeal the AUMF passed on September 14, 2001, which gave the president the power “to use all necessary and appropriate force against those nations, organizations, or persons he determines planned, authorized, committed, or aided the terrorist attacks that occurred on September 11, 2001.” It would also nullify the October, 2002, AUMF that authorized the president to use the military to “defend the national security of the United States against the continuing threat posed by Iraq.”

Not surprisingly, Presidents George W. Bush, Barack Obama, and Donald Trump have each taken this extremely broad language and run with it. A 2016 Congressional Research Service report found 37 examples in 14 different countries of Bush and Obama using the 2001 AUMF to justify the use of military force. When a U.S. jet shot down a Syrian government bomber in June 2017, the Trump administration explained that it could legally do so because the jet was there as part of the U.S. campaign against the Islamic State — which is somehow an organization that committed the 9/11 attacks, even though it didn’t exist before 9/11.

So, something needs to be done about this. “For too long, Congress has given presidents a blank check,” Kaine recently said. “Our proposal finally repeals those authorizations and makes Congress do its job by weighing in on where, when, and with who we are at war.”

That sounds good. But the actual language of the Corker-Kaine bill appears to do almost the opposite of what its authors claim.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Welcome to 2018 – We Are All Connected

January 3, 2018

Welcome to 2018 – We Are All Connected

To see a world in a grain of sand
And to see heaven in a wild flower,
Hold infinity in the palm of your hand,
And eternity in an hour.

A robin redbreast in a cage
Puts all heaven in a rage.

A dove-house fill’d with doves and pigeons
Shudders hell thro’ all its regions.
A dog starv’d at his master’s gate
Predicts the ruin of the state.

A horse misused upon the road
Calls to heaven for human blood.
Each outcry of the hunted hare
A fibre from the brain does tear.

– William Blake, Auguries of Innocence

Over the course of 2017, I spent a lot of time detailing where we stand as a species and where I think we’re going. To summarize, I think the positive impact of the internet and social media on humanity is still very much in its infancy. The more connected we become to one another across the planet, the more we’ll realize we have far more in common with one another than we do with the sociopathic oligarchs and politicians in charge of our respective nation-states.

Much of the 20th century was defined by unimaginable human conflict and terror, unleashed upon the public by crazed elites and rulers who were able to successfully manipulate large populations. The key to preventing a repeat of this sort of thing in the 21st century is billions of human beings across the planet communicating and sharing friendship with one another to the point we can no longer be tricked in killing each other. We need to learn to see “the other” in ourselves and voluntarily collaborate with our fellow humans on the challenges that face us in order to bring our species to the next level. This isn’t just a pipe-dream or insane utopian ramblings, I think it’s entirely possible.

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America’s Gestapo – The FBI’s Reign of Terror

June 18, 2016

America’s Gestapo – The FBI’s Reign of Terror

“We want no Gestapo or secret police. The FBI is tending in that direction. They are dabbling in sex-life scandals and plain blackmail. J. Edgar Hoover would give his right eye to take over, and all congressmen and senators are afraid of him.”—President Harry S. Truman

“Don’t Be a Puppet” is the message the FBI is sending young Americans.

June 14, 2016 “Information Clearing House” – “Rutherford Institute” – As part of the government’s so-called ongoing war on terror, the nation’s de facto secret police force is now recruiting students and teachers to spy on each other and report anyone who appears to have the potential to be “anti-government” or “extremist.”

Using the terms “anti-government,” “extremist” and “terrorist” interchangeably, the government continues to add to its growing list of characteristics that could distinguish an individual as a potential domestic terrorist.

For instance, you might be a domestic terrorist in the eyes of the FBI (and its network of snitches) if you:

–express libertarian philosophies (statements, bumper stickers)
-exhibit Second Amendment-oriented views (NRA or gun club membership)
-read survivalist literature, including apocalyptic fictional books
-show signs of self-sufficiency (stockpiling food, ammo, hand tools, medical supplies)
-fear an economic collapse
-buy gold and barter items
–subscribe to religious views concerning the book of Revelation
-voice fears about Big Brother or big government
–expound about constitutional rights and civil liberties
-believe in a New World Order conspiracy

Despite its well-publicized efforts to train students, teachers, police officers, hairdressers, store clerks, etc., into government eyes and ears, the FBI isn’t relying on a nation of snitches to carry out its domestic spying.

There’s no need.

The nation’s largest law enforcement agency rivals the NSA in resources, technology, intelligence, and power.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

The American Empire: Murder Inc.

January 5, 2016

The American Empire: Murder Inc.

As Indonesia’s former President Suharto lay ill in 2008, a supporter displayed a portrait of him outside the Jakarta hospital where the military dictator died two weeks later. It was in Suharto’s brutal three-decade reign that Indonesia invaded East Timor, where investigative journalist Allan Nairn covered atrocities the general’s troops committed. (Vincent Thian / AP)

Terror, intimidation and violence are the glue that holds empire together. Aerial bombardment, drone and missile attacks, artillery and mortar strikes, targeted assassinations, massacres, the detention of tens of thousands, death squad killings, torture, wholesale surveillance, extraordinary renditions, curfews, propaganda, a loss of civil liberties and pliant political puppets are the grist of our wars and proxy wars.

Countries we seek to dominate, from Indonesia and Guatemala to Iraq and Afghanistan, are intimately familiar with these brutal mechanisms of control. But the reality of empire rarely reaches the American public. The few atrocities that come to light are dismissed as isolated aberrations. The public is assured what has been uncovered will be investigated and will not take place again. The goals of empire, we are told by a subservient media and our ruling elites, are virtuous and noble. And the vast killing machine grinds forward, feeding, as it has always done, the swollen bank accounts of defense contractors and corporations that exploit natural resources and cheap labor around the globe.

There are very few journalists who have covered empire with more courage, tenacity and integrity than Allan Nairn. For more than three decades, he has reported from Central America, East Timor, Palestine, South Africa, Haiti and Indonesia—where Indonesian soldiers fractured his skull and arrested him. His reporting on the Indonesian government massacres in East Timor saw him branded a “threat to national security” and officially banned from occupied East Timor.

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Terror, climate chaos, financial crisis are the costs of ‘doing business’

December 25, 2015

Terror, climate chaos, financial crisis are the costs of ‘doing business’

The techno-narcissism of predatory neoliberal capitalism is locked into an endless war with the bastard monster of its own creation – Islamic State

Fifteen years into the 21st century, humanity has made little progress in addressing major threats to civilisation. In fact, on terrorism, climate change and the economy, we’re not making progress at all, but making things worse.

The “war on terror” has been waged for 14 years since 9/11, but far from terror being defeated, it has metastasised into a regional quasi-state occupying parts of Iraq and Syria.

Despite the much-lauded “binding” climate accord agreed in Paris, the governments most responsible for carbon emissions are still avoiding the reductions necessary to prevent us breaching crucial tipping points into dangerous climate change.

Governments have tried every neoliberal trick in the book to kick-start prosperity, but the legacy of the 2008 banking collapse lives on through tepid growth, astronomical global debt even higher than pre-crash levels, and the perpetual risk of another financial crisis.

At first glance, these failures appear unrelated.

In reality, ineffective hysteria in fighting terror, chronic inertia in tackling climate change, and impotence in the face of looming capitalist meltdown are part of the same structural problem: our civilisational paradigm.

Mind the gaps

Thanks to scientific and technological advances, information has never been so voluminous, and so accessible, to so many people.

But the epistemological gap between our perceptions of the world and how we are affecting it remains as wide as ever.

Sometimes, the gap is manufactured for political convenience. Senior US military commanders, for instance, have deliberately massaged intelligence to promote an image of victory in the war on the Islamic State (IS) – fabrications reminiscent of intelligence manipulation on weapons of mass destruction during the 2003 Iraq War.

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Seeing ‘Evil’ Everywhere

December 22, 2015

Seeing ‘Evil’ Everywhere

Today’s American politics sees demons everywhere – from “evil” foreign leaders to excessive fears about “terrorism” – while more mundane threats like crumbling roads, loss of good-paying jobs and inadequate health care get short-shrift, misplaced priorities addressed by ex-CIA official Graham E. Fuller.

It is depressing to witness the ongoing vitriolic voices of vituperation spewing out over the airwaves these days in what passes as “political debate,” especially in Republican circles. Depressing also to know that we still have nearly a year more to go of this same political circus of infotainment whose chief purpose really is to distract the public from the deeper, darker and more pressing issues that affect the nation and beg urgent discussion.

So history sometimes help us put these things in a little perspective. A fine article from the New York Times a few days ago — “Anger: An American History”— provides some taste of the raucous history of prejudice, paranoia, fear and anger that seems perhaps always to have been part of the American political and social scene.

A drawing of the Salem “witch trials,” with the central figure believed to be Mary Walcott.

It’s unsettling in one sense — you can’t help but wonder if there’s any progress to be perceived over several hundred years. But yet there is progress of a kind. And in another sense it reminds us that things right now are not uniquely bad — and that perhaps much of this simply has to do with the human condition.

And of course no country is without its prejudice, racism, paranoia, xenophobia and discrimination. Only somehow we expected our immigrant society to aspire more to the ideal of “The City on the Hill.”

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Europe – Here we GO Again

November 24, 2015

Europe – Here we GO Again

The European economic crisis just keeps getting worse. The European Commission is now planning to pool all money for bank bailouts among nations. That means the funds set aside in Germany to weather German bank failures can be used in France. Meanwhile, the EU is preparing for relaxing the stability policy (austerity) because of refugees and terror. This emergency position will allow countries to now increase their debt under the exception of “Acts of God”. This clause can be pretty much justify anything.

Furthermore, now tens of thousands of pensioners in Germany have to pay taxes on their pensions for the first time in 2016. Through a pension increase of 2.5%, this will result in a lower net take-home for the first time since this will exceed the basic allowance in the coming year. The Ministry of Finance expects characterized with 310 million euros in additional tax revenue.

How Saudi/Gulf Money Fuels Terror

November 15, 2015

How Saudi/Gulf Money Fuels Terror

Exclusive: With the death toll in the Paris terror attacks still rising, French President Hollande is condemning an “act of war” by the Islamic State, but the underlying reality is that France’s rich friends in the Persian Gulf are key accomplices in the mayhem, writes Daniel Lazare.

In the wake of the latest terrorist outrage in Paris, the big question is not which specific group is responsible for the attack, but who’s responsible for the Islamic State and Al Qaeda in the first place. The answer that has grown increasingly clear in recent years is that it’s Western leaders who have used growing portions of the Muslim world as a playground for their military games and are now crying crocodile tears over the consequences.

This pattern had its beginnings in the 1980s in Afghanistan, where the Central Intelligence Agency and the Saudi royal family virtually invented modern jihadism in an effort to subject the Soviets to a Vietnam-style war in their own backyard. It was the case, too, in Iraq, which the United States and Great Britain invaded in 2003, triggering a vicious civil warfare between Shi‘ites and Sunnis.

Today, it’s the case in Yemen where the U.S. and France are helping Saudi Arabia in its massive air war against Houthi Shi‘ites. And it’s the case in Syria, the scene of the most destructive war game of them all, where Saudi Arabia and other Arab Gulf states are channeling money and arms to Al Qaeda, the Islamic State (also known as ISIS, ISIL and Daesh), and similar forces with the full knowledge of the U.S.

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Globalization and Terror

November 3, 2015

Globalization and Terror

For people in the modern world, there may be nothing more difficult to comprehend than the group calling itself the Islamic State, or ISIS. The beheadings, rapes, and other acts of cruelty seem beyond understanding, as does the wanton destruction of priceless ancient monuments. Perhaps most mystifying of all is the way ISIS has been able to recruit young men — and even some young women — from the industralized West, particularly Europe: the conventional wisdom is that the cure for ethnic and religious violence is “development,” education, and the opportunities provided by free markets. This seems not to be the case.

Because of the mainstream media’s narrow and often misplaced focus, it’s not surprising that most Westerners believe that religious extremism is primarily a problem of Islam. But the fighting in Syria and Iraq is not the only ethnic or religious conflict underway. There has been violence between Sinhalese and Tamils in Sri Lanka, Buddhists and Hindus in Bhutan, Hindus and Sikhs in Punjab, Eritreans and Ethiopians in the Horn of Africa, Hutu and Tutsi in Rwanda, ethnic Russians and Ukrainians in the former Soviet Union, and many more. The fact is, fanaticism, fundamentalism, and ethnic conflict have been growing for many decades—and not just in the Islamic world.

Failure to recognize this trend can lead to the belief that terrorism is a product of nothing more than religious extremism and will end when secular market-based democracies are established throughout the world. Unfortunately the reality is far more complex, and unless we address the underlying causes of conflict and terrorism, a more peaceful and secure future will remain elusive.

To really understand the rise of religious fundamentalism and ethnic conflict we need to look at the deep impacts of the global consumer culture on living cultures throughout the planet. Doing so allows us not only to better understand ISIS and similar groups, but also to see a way forward that lessens violence on all sides.

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The Syrian terror trap

October 21, 2015

The Syrian terror trap

The US, Russia and Iran are fracturing the Levant

Leaked US diplomatic cables show that the US sought to undermine the Assad regime nearly a decade ago. But that’s not the whole story. In 2011, as peaceful protestors rallied across Syria, Assad was courted by the Obama administration as a potential client and regional partner. Only because the US eventually abandoned him, did he revert fully to the trappings of Russian and Iranian power. Yet in supporting Assad’s state-terrorism in the name of fighting terror, the new Russia-Iran military axis in Syria is falling into a trap of its own making. Rather than constituting a new ‘anti-imperialist’ front, the Russia-Iran alliance could see the conflict escalate into a protracted regional, sectarian war of attrition culminating in the permanent dismemberment of Syria.

Russia’s invasion of Syria has provoked excitement amongst some antiwar activists, who see Putin’s macho muscle-flexing in the Middle East as a welcome geopolitical check on American hegemony.

But just because the United States is — as Boston University historian and military veteran Professor Andrew Bacevich has shown — the world’s pre-eminent imperial superpower, that doesn’t make angels out of its rivals.

Russia Today (RT) and Press TV (Iran’s satellite news channel) would have us believe that Russia and Iran are waging a Good ‘war on terror’ in Syria.

In reality, both Russia and Iran are, like the US, neo-imperial state structures engaging in geopolitical expansionism.

Without an ounce of shame, the Russians and Iranians have eagerly co-opted the language of the US-led ‘war on terror’ to justify their own imperial violence in Syria.

It is not the ‘war on terror’ they oppose, but merely US encroachment on their regional interests.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Several shells explode outside Russian embassy in Damascus during pro-Russia rally

October 13, 2015

Several shells explode outside Russian embassy in Damascus during pro-Russia rally

Several shells have exploded outside the Russian embassy in Damascus during a pro-Russia rally. Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said that the shelling of the embassy is an act of terror.

TrendsRussian anti-terror op in Syria, Syria unrest

It was intended to scare supporters of the fight against terrorists, Lavrov added.

Local journalist Alaa Ebrahim, reporting from the scene in Damascus, told RT hundreds of people gathered in front of the embassy on Tuesday, thanking the Russian Air Force for its support of the Syrian Army in its battle against terrorism across the country. According to Ibrahim, about half an hour after the rally started, one of the shells fell about 200 meters from the location of the peaceful demonstration. Luckily, no one was injured.

Alaa Ibrahim said that the participants of the rally, members of the students’ union as well as political parties’ representatives, had been waving Russian flags and were carrying banners saying “We Support Unity between Russia and Syria.” Some chanted slogans in support of the strikes launched by the Russian air force, others held up photographs of Russian President Vladimir Putin.

“The first shell fell at around 10am, some 200 meters from the participants. Police immediately told people to disperse. About 6 minutes later, the other shell hit. Police again tried to force people to disperse for fear those may turn to be just initial shots, and if the new shells are be launched, all of these people would die. People dispersed by about 11am. Most began to disperse immediately after the first shell exploded,” Ibrahim said.

An embassy employee told RIA Novosti news agency that there were no injured among the staff.

“Two shells landed on the territory of the embassy this morning,” First Secretary of the Russian Embassy in Damascus Eldar Kurbanov confirmed in an interview with TASS, adding that there have been no casualty reports.

Unmasking ISIS

September 12, 2015

Unmasking ISIS

INTRODUCTION

Where did ISIS come from? How was it able to gain land, arms and money so quickly?

This book will answer those questions … and unmask ISIS.

Part 1 shows that the U.S. – through bad policies and stupid choices – is largely responsible for the rise of ISIS.

Part 2 reveals the strange history of the leaders of ISIS … Including one who never really existed, and another who – if you read mainstream media drivel – was killed … then arrested … and then killedagain.

Part 3 delves into the little-known, secret history of Iraq and Syria … and discusses the realmotivations behind our current policies towards those countries.

And Part 4 reveals the shocking truth about who is really supporting ISIS.

So grab a cup of coffee, and prepare to learn the real story.

PART 1: OOPS … WE CREATED A MONSTER

President Barack Obama noted in an interview in March 2015:

ISIL [also known as ISIS] is a direct outgrowth of Al-Qaeda in Iraq that grew out of our invasion. Which is an example of unintended consequences. Which is why we should generally aim before we shoot.

He’s correct. After all:

ISIS leaders themselves credit the Iraq war for their success

The New Yorker reports:

ISIS is run by a council of former Iraqi generals …. Many are members of Saddam Hussein’s secular Baath Party who converted to radical Islam in American prisons.

Torture of Iraqis by Americans led to the rise of ISIS … and America’s Guantanamo prison inspired ISIS atrocities

Al Qaeda wasn’t even in Iraq until the U.S. invaded that country, as admitted by President George W. Bush to ABC News in 2008:

Bush: One of the major theaters against al Qaeda turns out to have been Iraq. This is where al Qaeda said they were going to take their stand. This is where al Qaeda was hoping to take …

ABC News Interviewer: But not until after the U.S. invaded.

Bush: Yeah, that’s right. So what?

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

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