Click here to access article by Alastair Crooke from Consortium News.
What I found particularly valuable in this piece were his use of two sources: one that sources observations by members of the US Special Forces (unfortunately behind a paywall, but Crooke provides extensive quotes from this source) who are in Syria, and one that provides insights on the quixotic right-wing orientation of those attending a recent security/intelligence agency meeting in Texas.
Crooke taps some very interesting sources in an attempt to untangle the mysterious US actions in Syria. By arming different groups who sometimes engage in attacks on each other, the US has exhibited superficially symptoms of schizophrenia and/or a multiple personality disorder often found in mental patients. Recently various analysts have attributed this to different departments of the US government, the Defense Department and the CIA, rather independently directing operations in the area and often working at cross purposes. I don't agree.
Although Crooke doesn't offer any final conclusion, the implication of his analysis seems rather clear to me. The deep state of the capitalist ruling class works its will through all the secret and unaccountable agencies of the state (CIA, NSA, FBI, etc). Thus the meeting in Texas really reflected the views of this guiding directorate. As Obama once said in a brief moment of candor: "the CIA gets what it wants." Clearly this is an admission that he has no control over the CIA because he is only a puppet of the deep state of which the CIA is a part.
The fact that the Defense Department has permitted the deployment of US Special Forces to fight on the other side against terrorist forces was for other reasons that serve the interests of the same deep capitalist state. For example, they support Syrian Kurds who want to establish a separate nation--this conveniently fits with the dismemberment of Syria that has been frequently espoused by administration officials and usually expressed euphemistically as "no fly zones" or "safe zones". Also the resulting confusion serves their long held strategy of chaos to destabilize any targeted state.
