Surviving Capitalism (Not) : Pentagon report says West, Gulf states and Turkey foresaw emergence of ‘IS

We’ve lived so long under the spell of hierarchy—from god-kings to feudal lords to party bosses—that only recently have we awakened to see not only that “regular” citizens have the capacity for self-governance, but that without their engagement our huge global crises cannot be addressed. The changes needed for human society simply to survive, let alone thrive, are so profound that the only way we will move toward them is if we ourselves, regular citizens, feel meaningful ownership of solutions through direct engagement. Our problems are too big, interrelated, and pervasive to yield to directives from on high.
—Frances Moore Lappé, excerpt from Time for Progressives to Grow Up

Saturday, May 30, 2015

Pentagon report says West, Gulf states and Turkey foresaw emergence of ‘IS

Click here to access article by Nafeez Ahmed from Middle East Eye.

If you are interested in more analysis of the declassified Pentagon document that Judicial Watch, a right-wing foundation, managed to obtain apparently only to smear Hillary Clinton, then you will be interested in Ahmed's analysis and his rebuttal to Juan Cole's take which tries to defend the indefensible.

A declassified secret US government document obtained by the conservative public interest law firm, Judicial Watch, shows that Western governments deliberately allied with al-Qaeda and other Islamist extremist groups to topple Syrian dictator Bashir al-Assad.

The document reveals that in coordination with the Gulf states and Turkey, the West intentionally sponsored violent Islamist groups to destabilize Assad, and that these “supporting powers” desired the emergence of a “Salafist Principality” in Syria to “isolate the Syrian regime.”