Political Orientation of ISIS

[BollocksICantThinkOfAName]

i have been wondering about this for a while
by the way i am pretty new to this whole forum.

[Sasha]

Apocalyptic reactionary religious fundamentalism

Here is a long but excellent article from the atlantic; http://www.theatlantic.com/features/archive/2015/02/what-isis-really-wants/384980/

This is a good critique of above linked piece from the intercept; https://firstlook.org/theintercept/2015/02/20/atlantic-defines-real-islam-says-isis/

[Ethics Gradient, Traitor For All Ages]

I dunno about that article from the atlantic. Maybe I've missed it, but precious few words were spent mentioning western involvement in the creation of their ideology. The political orientation of daesh is essentially capitalist, regardless of whatever ideological imagery they choose to drape themselves in. The western educated volunteers live as Elites amongst the common local folk who have been conquered, voluntarily in some instances. Deash strikes me as a flashy but brutal process of accumulation, perhaps even something akin to colonization in regards to the foreigners.

[BollocksICantThinkOfAName]

Thanks People for the answers.

[John Nada]

Here's some articles:
http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/jan/25/inside-isis-training-camps
http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/feb/21/islamic-state-capital-raqqa-syria-isis
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/02/16/opinion/every-insurgency-is-different.html
It's kind of interesting. They're described as a vanguard group. Daesh appoints Imams to rule a town, often from another town to deflect blame on anything that goes bad. They seem to be pitting different tribes against each other, though only to a point that they control. The foreigners don't have much interaction with the locals(besides taking slaves). There's various regulations and even welfare they carry out, though it's still a capitalist economy with private enterprise. Bimetallism seems to be the official currency. Mosques are ran by them. They've banned work for kids under 13, who must recieve education according to their doctrine. And of course there's the fuck up Sharia law.

I wonder what the class character of them is? Because it's off the wall, it seems similar to some parts of fascism or even the Khmer Rouge. It's very bizarre, groups like the Taliban already had a semi-feudal base in the rural areas to start from. But they're seemingly building up their world from scratch.

[Prof. Oblivion]

They aren't "apocalyptic". Let's be Marxist and not buy into that sensationalist right-wing crap, okay?

They are essentially a Sunni extremist group that has gained massive ground in Iraq because of how the US-backed Maliki Shi'a government has marginalized Sunni Iraqis economically, politically and culturally. This is also why Iran is so involved in fighting the group.

[Tim Cornelis]

Why do you think they are not apocalyptic? Why do you think this is a sensationalist right-wing perspective? Why is considering them a Sunni extremist group involved in a sectarian war a "Marxist" view, but recognising/thinking they are preoccupied with Judgement Day is "unMarxist"?

Do you think that Sunni extremism and this are somehow incompatible, or are those two paragraphs unrelated?

[Creative Destruction]

I wonder what the class character of them is? Because it's off the wall, it seems similar to some parts of fascism or even the Khmer Rouge. It's very bizarre, groups like the Taliban already had a semi-feudal base in the rural areas to start from. But they're seemingly building up their world from scratch.

A lot of the kids going over there to fight or be wives of the fighters seem to come from petty-bourgeois backgrounds. The leaders themselves are highly educated, former professors and managers of some sort. I'm sure many of the fighters are or were working class, but it seems to be a petty-bourgeois thing at the source of it all. Which I suppose isn't too surprising.

[Ethics Gradient, Traitor For All Ages]

I imagine the leadership and western intelligentsia of daesh believes in Judgement Day to the same extent that the Communist Party in the USSR believed in communism. Daesh is not some 'from below' movement, so what the average sucker thinks is happening does not seem entirely relevant when investigating their political orientation.

What I think is interesting is the general theme of sacrifice that the foreign fighters wallow in. The act of them shedding their privileged existences in Canada, the UK or wherever and then lowering themselves to live in war ravaged territories is clearly deeply important to them and is reminiscent of the 'proletarianization' of the new left period. One can only imagine what a person who has lived through Saddam's regime, a decade of American occupation, and then Maliki's regime, thinks of some idiot from the west who comes to talk to them about "sacrifice".

[blake 3:17]

Analogies to Khmer Rouge seem fitting in terms of nihilistic ideology. That's close to how to some of saw the Taliban in Afghanistan.

There seem to be some departures -- primarily in terms of terms of how of $$$ oriented they are and secondarily in the recruitment of foreign fighters.

There is a very interesting class analysis of the Khmer Rouge in Jonathan Neale's fine book about the war against the Vietnamese people: http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/189766.The_American_War

[John Nada]

Maybe everyone's looking in the wrong places: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michel_Aflaq He was Christian, however he viewed Islam as an inherent part of the Arab nation. Though Ba'athism was superficially secular, there was a revival starting after the Iraq-Iran War. This was later than other countries and not as strong. It grew after the Gulf War, with Saddam Hussein putting the Takbir(God is Great) on the flag as a gesture.

Then the US and their allies invaded Iraq, sparking a sectarian war that took 109,032 to 1,033,000 deaths. The Sunnis, once the ruling sect, were marginalized by the Shiite government installed by the US. Corruption and oppression drove many of them to Daesh. In fact, much of their members are ex-Baathist. The Ummah replaced the Arab national identity.

Here an article that views them not as apocalyptic fundamentalists, but as having a shared Muslim identity: http://www.newstatesman.com/world-affairs/2015/03/mehdi-hasan-how-islamic-islamic-state A lot of them don't know shit about Islam, nor are they particularly religious.

It seems that there supporters come from the petty-bourgeoisie, lumpenproletariat and ex-military. Much of the leadership are ex-Baathist. This is a reaction to the destruction at the hands of the US, and the marginalization by the Iraqi government.

[khad]

They aren't "apocalyptic". Let's be Marxist and not buy into that sensationalist right-wing crap, okay?
Is sensationalist right wing crap the Islamic State's official magazine which talks incessantly about creating the conditions for "The Hour?" Read Dabiq and see for yourself.

[Sharia Lawn]

Doesn't one of the posters on this board also describe his politics as apocalyptic?

[bricolage]

they spend an inordinate amount of time ensuring that their trousers are not too long, that their beards are trimmed in some areas and shaggy in others
Social Salafism or Lifestyle Salafism: An Unbridgeable Chasm

[bcbm]

Doesn't one of the posters on this board also describe his politics as apocalyptic?

millenarian/apocalyptic as a descriptor can be right or left

[Prof. Oblivion]

Is sensationalist right wing crap the Islamic State's official magazine which talks incessantly about creating the conditions for "The Hour?" Read Dabiq and see for yourself.

If we took everyone at their word we would sound quite silly, wouldn't we? America is all about spreading democracy, Israel is a perpetual victim merely defending itself against the onslaught of "apocalyptic" extremists, North Korea wants to nuke the US, etc.

The reality is that the organization has leadership who have tangible objectives. Those objectives are not apocalyptic, they are to gain power and influence. They have proven extremely proficient in negotiating support in the form of munitions and money, they have been able to gain political support from a significant portion of the population (through means wider than simple coercion) and they are looking to be a perpetual power in the region.

This is international politics 101.

[Tim Cornelis]

If we took everyone at their word we would sound quite silly, wouldn't we? America is all about spreading democracy, Israel is a perpetual victim merely defending itself against the onslaught of "apocalyptic" extremists, North Korea wants to nuke the US, etc.

The reality is that the organization has leadership who have tangible objectives. Those objectives are not apocalyptic, they are to gain power and influence. They have proven extremely proficient in negotiating support in the form of munitions and money, they have been able to gain political support from a significant portion of the population (through means wider than simple coercion) and they are looking to be a perpetual power in the region.

This is international politics 101.

Saying that ISIS' leadership just wants power and influence for the sake of power and influence, as an end in itself, is a bit ridiculous in my opinion. Kinda like those people that claim that Hitler and Stalin were just evil for the sake of being evil.

Of course they want power and influence, this is basically axiomatic, but to what end? To establish a Caliphate in an era where Muslims have forgotten the principles of Islam and where Syria is disintegrating, which are both prophesied to be interludes to the Day of Judgement. Is it really that unbelievable that Islamic extremists seek to bring about what the Qur'an and Hadith prophesied?

Also, what you say is not "international politics 101". And in international politics, or international relations, your theory would closest resemble 'realism' and not 'Marxism'.

[ckaihatsu]

http://www.socialistproject.ca/bullet/1119.php


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A Disaster Waiting to Happen:

Expanding the U.S.-led ISIS War to Other Countries

Gregory Shupak

According to a 29 April report in The New York Times, leaders from the U.S.-led coalition at war with the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS) will meet in the coming weeks to consider broadening the mission to other countries. At present, the Obama administration is attempting to secure congressional support for a measure that would authorize expanding the war to such nations as Algeria, Egypt, Lebanon, Libya, Tunisia, and Yemen. Extending U.S.-led military operations would be disastrous and should be resisted.

http://www.socialistproject.ca/bullet/b1119.jpg

Western military intervention is not the way to solve the ISIS crisis. Thus far it has made few gains against the group and ISIS is still strong – despite the coalition being at war against them since the U.S. began carrying out airstrikes in August of last year. The coalition has gone on more than 3,700 bombing runs in Iraq and Syria but still ISIS holds important territories such as Mosul in Iraq and Deir Ezzor in Syria.

Recently ISIS has advanced on Damascus and attacked both Ramadi, the capital of Iraq's Anbar province, and Baiji, Iraq's largest oil refinery. There is also evidence that the number of people leaving Europe to join ISIS has actually increased in recent months. Meanwhile, there are signs of ISIS and Jabhat al-Nusra working together at Yarmouk, the Palestinian refugee camp in Syria. Therefore, coalition bombings are facilitating cooperation between ISIS and al-Nusra, as some earlier reports also suggest.

It's possible that all this might change and that the Western-led coalition might eventually help disperse ISIS from the territories it controls. But unless the underlying conditions that enable a group like ISIS to flourish are addressed, another similarly ruthless organization will simply take its place. Furthermore, it is absurd to expect that the killing and oppression carried out by ISIS or any other actor will by halted by U.S.-led military action, because ending tyranny and violence is plainly not the objective of the U.S. and its allies’ approach to the Middle East.

Goals of U.S. Policy: Follow the Money

As the Canadian scholars Greg Albo and Jerome Klassen write in Empire's Ally, U.S. strategy in the region has long been guided by three goals: “(1) to liberalize the economic space of the Middle East through the Gulf Cooperation Council and the ‘normalization’ of Israel; (2) to access and regulate the distribution of oil supplies in the face of increased competition with Europe and Asia; (3) to implant U.S. military bases for the purpose of regional stabilization under U.S. hegemony.” These goals are incompatible with peace and justice and in fact undermine prospects for these.

There is no reason to believe that U.S. policymakers have moved away from these objectives since ISIS's rise to power. Available evidence suggests, in fact, a continuity of U.S. priorities. The enrichment of American weapons manufacturers in Middle Eastern markets is a long-time feature of relations between the U.S. and the region. This is continuing to happen during the coalition's war against ISIS. The New York Times reports that U.S. arms sales are fuelling war in “a boom for American defence contractors looking for foreign business” as Saudi Arabia spent $80-billion on weaponry in 2014 and Qatar signed an $11-billion deal with the U.S. that same year.

The United Arab Emirates are using American F-16s to bomb Yemen and Syria and want to purchase U.S.-made Predator drones; while representatives from the defence industry have told Congress that they expect a request for weapons from other “Arab allies fighting the Islamic State” such as Bahrain, Egypt and Jordan.

Addressing root causes

As the Times’ article points out, U.S. weapons makers are “following the money”: since 2011 both Boeing and Lockheed Martin have opened offices in Doha, Qatar. In December, moreover, the U.S. Defence Security Cooperation Agency informed Congress that it planned to sell the Iraqi government just under $3-billion worth of weapons. Flooding the region with weapons and arming dictatorships demonstrates that U.S. policymakers care about profiting from war and repression rather than combating them.

Ultimately the only way to stop campaigns of rape, exploitation, sectarianism, torture and murder is to address their root causes. Central among these is Western policy toward the Middle East and North Africa as is amply demonstrated by the case of Libya, which NATO destroyed for political and economic reasons, thereby creating conditions that have allowed ISIS to emerge in that country. In Iraq, similarly, the U.S. and its allies have themselves killed far more people than ISIS during the brutal invasion and occupation that gave birth to the group.

There will be terrible consequences if the war on ISIS brings to even more countries the same Western-led forces that have repeatedly undertaken profit-driven slaughters and created conditions for local parties to enslave, kill, terrorize and ethnically cleanse. Given that the U.S. elite has interests in the Middle East that are far from humanitarian, and given the continued power of ISIS, extreme credulity is required to believe that the many civilians killed by the U.S.-led coalition in Iraq and Syria are the necessary costs of defeating ISIS.

As the independent journalist Sarah Lazare writes: if the people of the Middle East are to have a brighter future, “The U.S. government must withdraw and demilitarize its failed war on terror, not only by pulling its own forces from the Middle East, but by putting out the fires it started with proxy battles and hypocritical foreign policies – including its alliances with governments that directly and indirectly support ISIS, from Saudi Arabia to Turkey.” For this to happen, social movements inside the U.S. and allied states against war and for socio-economic equality will need to be revitalized. •

Gregory Shupak is an author and activist who teaches media studies at the University of Guelph in Canada. This article first appeared on the Middle East Eye website.

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#1 Elsie 2015-05-20 13:44 EDT
U.S. military war against ISIS
There needs to be a great deal more research into the relationship between ISIS and U.S. military as the shadow boxing continues. U.S. military conveniently delivered to ISIS and other 'enemies' the military equipment needed to keep them doing the fighting so U.S. can move in when real enemy is defeated.



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[mushroompizza]

I would say Islamo Fascism

[Antiochus]

Ok Bill O'Reilly.

ISIS does indeed follow Islamic eschatology. What is so weird about that? Some Muslims/Christians/Jews genuinely believe that those texts written by desert sheepherders are 'God's word".

Many of ISIS' offensives and brigades are explicitly named after events described in the Quran and copied from Revelations. The situation is highly complex. Really, its the US's fault but ISIS has gained such strength now (in comparison to weak governments like Iraq, Jordan, Syria etc...) that an immediate cutting off of U.S military supplies would mean a nearly instant victory for ISIS.

The incompetence of the Iraqi army is beyond imagining, and frankly I don't think the Jordanian military would fare much better.

[mushroompizza]

Im not saying they represent true Islam, but you could argue Rexism didnt support true catholicism. Either way they are religous fascists.

[Comrade Jacob]

Having read the Qu'ran and listened to a few Islamic apologists I have the conclusion that they are not very good Muslims. And you Islamophobes can look up out of context quotes from the inaccurate Hadiths all they want. (Not saying Islam is a perfect religion at all)
But I would say Fascism under an "Islamic" banner.

[lutraphile]

Ultra-far-right on a 1D spectrum. On a 2D spectrum, probably center-right but ultra-authoritarian.
Overall, very bad.

[ckaihatsu]

http://www.legitgov.org/#breaking_news

http://www.sott.net/article/296809-Secret-Pentagon-report-reveals-West-saw-ISIS-as-strategic-asset


Thu, 28 May 2015

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Alarm Clock


Secret Pentagon report reveals West saw ISIS as strategic asset


Dr. Nafeez Ahmed
Insurge Intelligence
Sat, 23 May 2015 15:58 UTCMap

http://www.sott.net/image/s12/247534/medium/ISIS_proxy.jpg

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, despite anticipating that doing so could lead to the emergence of an 'Islamic State' in Iraq and Syria (ISIS).

According to the newly declassified US document, 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."

Hypocrisy

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.

Among the batch of documents obtained by Judicial Watch through a federal lawsuit, released earlier this week, is a US Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) document then classified as "secret," dated 12th August 2012.

The DIA provides military intelligence in support of planners, policymakers and operations for the US Department of Defense and intelligence community.

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.

Some outlets have reported the US intelligence community's internal prediction of the rise of ISIS. Yet none have accurately acknowledged the disturbing details exposing how the West knowingly fostered a sectarian, al-Qaeda-driven rebellion in Syria.

Charles Shoebridge, a former British Army and Metropolitan Police counter-terrorism intelligence officer, said:

"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."

The West's Islamists

The newly declassified DIA document 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.

Noting that "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," while Russia, China and Iran "support the [Assad] regime."

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."

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.

In a section titled 'The Future Assumptions of the Crisis,' 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."

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."

In Libya, anti-Gaddafi rebels, most of whom were al-Qaeda affiliated militias, were protected by NATO 'safe havens' (aka 'no fly zones').

'Supporting powers want' ISIS entity

In a strikingly prescient prediction, the Pentagon document explicitly forecasts the probable declaration of "an Islamic State through its union with other terrorist organizations in Iraq and Syria."

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)":

"... 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)."

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, and block off the strategic expansion of Iran. Crucially, Iraq is labeled as an integral part of this "Shia expansion."

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."

Further on, the document reveals that Pentagon analysts were acutely aware of the dire risks of this strategy, yet ploughed ahead anyway.

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." Last summer, ISIS conquered Mosul in Iraq, and just this month has also taken control of Ramadi.

Such a quasi-state entity will provide:

"... 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."

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.

In response to my questions about the strategy, the British government simply denied the Pentagon report's startling revelations of deliberate Western sponsorship of violent extremists in Syria. A British Foreign Office spokesperson said:

"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."

The DIA did not respond to request for comment.

Strategic asset for regime-change

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:

"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."

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:

"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."

Hoff, who is managing editor of Levant Report— an online publication run by Texas-based educators who have direct experience of the Middle East — points out that the DIA document "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."

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:

"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."

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."

Complicity

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.'"

Annie Machon, a former MI5 intelligence officer who blew the whistle in the 1990s on MI6 funding of al-Qaeda to assassinate Libya's former leader Colonel Gaddafi, similarly said of the revelations:

"This is no surprise to me. Within individual countries there are always multiple intelligence agencies with competing agendas."

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."

This strategy was repeated on a grand scale in the 2011 NATO intervention in Libya, said Machon, where the CIA and MI6 were:

"... 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."

Divide and rule

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.

US Vice President Joe Biden, for instance, admitted 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.

But he did not admit what this internal Pentagon document demonstrates — that the entire covert strategy was sanctioned and supervised by the US, Britain, France, Israel and other Western powers.

The strategy appears to fit a policy scenario identified by a recent US Army-commissioned RAND Corp report.

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."

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.

The RAND report confirmed 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."

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."

The 2012 DIA document, however, further shows that while sponsoring purportedly former al-Qaeda insurgents in Iraq to counter al-Qaeda, Western governments were simultaneously arming al-Qaeda insurgents in Syria.

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.

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.

Yet the new Pentagon report reveals that, contrary to Western government claims, the primary cause of the threat comes from their own deeply misguided policies of secretly sponsoring Islamist terrorism for dubious geopolitical purposes.

____________

Dr Nafeez Ahmed 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.