Former British Prime
Minister and war criminal Tony Blair has written
an essay attempting to deflect blame for the current crisis in both Iraq
and Syria on the actions he and his fellow war criminals, former US president George
W. Bush and former Australian Prime Minister John Howard, committed themselves
to when they lied their way to war against Iraq in March 2003. In his essay
Blair says: “We have to liberate ourselves from the notion that ‘we’ caused
this crisis. We didn't.”
The fact is; ‘we’
did – or, at least, Blair, Bush and Howard and their neoconservative supporters
around the world did.
Blair argues that:
“Three or four years ago al-Qaeda in Iraq was a beaten force”. Blair’s wrong. Firstly,
it wasn’t; it was subdued but it certainly wasn’t beaten. And secondly, why was
‘al-Qaeda’ in Iraq in the first place? It certainly wasn’t there before the
invasion in March 2003. And Saddam Hussein had no more time for the Sunni
extremists we see there today than the West has. The reality is that the
Islamic jihadists that the West decided to put under the umbrella label of ‘al-Qaeda’
evolved as a jihadi movement in Iraq shortly after the invasion and they
evolved because they saw an opportunity to do battle with the West who they saw
as an enemy that had dared invade Islamic lands. They weren't there to protect
Saddam Hussein’s regime, they were there to simply rid Islamic lands of foreigners in their lands.
During the allied occupation
of Iraq, especially in the early days of the invasion and occupation, the
allies treated the Iraqi people with the kind of disdain and brutality that
became typified by the exposure of the horrific treatment of Iraqi prisoners in
places like Abu Ghraib. As a result, young Iraqis became radicalised and joined
the various jihadi and resistance groups that formed during this period. Money and
religion became a toxic mix during this time as various groups changed sides
behaving more as mercenaries rather than jihadists.
As time went on
jihadists from other places in the Middle East moved to Iraq to join them.
Later, when the allies eventually overwhelmed them, most of them simply melted
away. Some quietly returned to their homes while others went off to fight in
other jihad wars. Some went to Libya and elsewhere in North Africa while others
later went to Syria.
Then along came
the next generation of jihadi fighters as the civil war in Syria became a war
between the Syrian government and their supporters and the international
jihadists who flocked from all over the world to fight their holy war. Now the
war has gone full circle in Iraq and that, contrary to Blair’s assertion
otherwise, it most definitely was ‘we’ that caused the current crisis. Before
the invasion there was no ‘al-Qaeda’ in Iraq. Today the jihadists that the
allies wrongly label ‘al-Qaeda’ are stronger than ever in both Syria and Iraq.
Of course ‘we’ are
to blame.
3 comments:
All of those weapons and money that is being 'found' by ISIS was probably left there on purpose.
In the mid-1980s, the President Reagan and his band of criminals were supporting various thugs in C. America that the Congress had voted against giving any support, especially weapons to.
Reagan's band of psychos then had the Pentagon schedule training exercises for the US Army and Marines in those nations. When the troops left, they left behind their weaponry.
That worked until Congress found out and started raising hell.
Tony Blair may yet salvage his place in History. He is still widely admired in the US. If only Dr David Kelly could speak!
He'll have his place in history alright, Steve, but it's unlikely to be a story that covers him in any glory. Widely admired or not, history will expose Blair and the others for the criminals they are.
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