The Hidden ISIS Policy

https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-62726954

This article reveals (perhaps without meaning to) the nature of NATO relations with ISIS during the movement's first phase. ISIS was rightly presented as a horrific apocalyptic Salafist organisation and its terror was channeled by Western media to reinvigorate support for Western intervention in the Middle East – the so-called War on Terror, even as figures like Obama were attempting to disentangle Western interests from it and 'Pivot to China'.

ISIS was fighting the Assad regime in Syria and as such it was being directly and indirectly supported by the West. The same is true with regard to Al Qaeda, especially by the Syrian phase. This is a complicated story that finds its roots in the American sponsored overthrow of Gaddafi in Libya and then is further complicated by Turkey and other Middle Eastern actors in the Syrian conflict.

The practical result was that the US and its NATO allies (such as Canada) were supporting Salafist militants. This grew complicated when some of these groups began to fight each other and there was further geopolitical overlap in that other groups and factions were involved such as Chechens and Uighurs – their participation widened the circle and provoked responses from other geopolitical actors such as Moscow and Beijing.

But all of this changed when ISIS invaded Iraq and al Baghdadi declared the caliphate in 2014. Then the NATO policy flipped as the unofficial proxy force was now out of control and represented a threat to the wider region and the strategic interests of Washington. The narratives regarding ISIS were washed and re-written as the US suddenly was concerned with Iraqis and Kurds, and Yezidis in particular.

The military campaign against ISIS was itself a tale of ambiguity, propaganda, and deceit as the terrorist forces were clearly allowed to escape from Iraq back into Syria. The World War II-style destruction of Mosul and Raqqa by America and its proxies has also been covered up (or more accurately whitewashed) and the continued US military presence in Syria is for the most part ignored by Western media.

It's a sordid tale and one that has not really ended and yet the world has mostly moved on. It's a tale that belies US claims and official policy concerning the War on Terror but it's a tale that cannot really be told as it effectively makes a mockery of the events of 9/11 which while for the most part misunderstood, retains a solid grip on the American psyche and can still be evoked by the political leadership when convenient.

Begum, the subject of the story was at best an extremely minor player in this tale but her story is a kind 'tip of the iceberg' that testifies to the extensive intelligence network that was running fighters and weapons from Europe to Syria throughout the 2010's. Like the Drug pipelines in North America and Southeast Asia or even earlier Ratlines, these operations reverberated – interacting with and affecting other noteworthy events, happenings, and dynamics of the period. From the refugee crisis of the period, to the various acts of terrorism, there were often ties and overlap with this clandestine NATO operation. Many of the terrorists within Europe were on the radar of the intelligence agencies and it remains an open question as to how many of them went rogue and started attacking Western targets and how many of them were encouraged to do so as part of a larger Psyop directed at the Western public.

Given the off-the-rails nature of conspiracy discussions in light of the Trump/QAnon era, such investigations are now effectively shut down and any journalist who probes them will either be relegated to a niche readership or blacklisted altogether. This is one of the detrimental effects of the Trump period. And even though there is a strong basis for indentifying such false flag operations which were utilised during the Cold War, today such assertions can only be directed toward the likes of Russia and China. They do such things, but Western nations wouldn't dream of it – or so we are told in unequivocal terms.

The Establishment media has never been very friendly or open to such discussions but in light of Trump/QAnon and the way such ideas have proliferated during this social media/Smartphone era, the campaign against any kind of outside the box thinking is unprecedented. And yet in many respects it's backfiring. One might have celebrated such a development twenty years ago but at present it just means more chaos and insanity – more muddying of the waters and it's that much more difficult to get anyone to unshackle their thinking (on either side of the spectrum) and embrace any kind of interpretation that defies all partisan politicised angles and probes the essential questions of power and who benefits from and seeks to capitalize these developments and events.

There was a lot of funny business going on during the height of the Syrian Civil War and NATO's operation against Assad. The other problem with the ISIS story is not just that it's difficult to understand in all its multifaceted and sordid splendour but if the public understood the actions and policies of their leaders – they would certainly be upset but they would also in many cases view these leaders as traitors. And again, it would expose the War on Terror as a farce – and consequently all the engineered social changes it wrought. To suggest that the trillions spent were for nothing and the tens of thousands of Western deaths were also for nothing - let along the million-plus deaths across the Middle East which Westerners don't care about at all, would be too much to swallow. It would potentially bring down the system and so the waters are muddied and everything moves on. Nothing to see here. It's much safer to cover the Queen and the question of who gets her dogs than something like this. But as is often the case, the stories are there if someone bothers to look and is able to connect dots and contextualise articles like this.

Begum was but one of many ISIS members shuttled into Syria. Western governments can try to cover up what they were doing as some kind of data collection and intelligence gathering – even recruiting and using sources to do so it is argued. If pressed, they can present figures like Al Rasheed as rogue or double agents. Even Begum's lawyer either fails to grasp the obvious or has chosen to avoid that line of inquiry and argument, focusing instead on a trafficking defense strategy. I would not doubt that even her legal team has been infiltrated and corrupted.

And so as mentioned, despite all the smoke and mirrors, the stories are there even if outlets like the BBC are attempting to spin and whitewash the story – distracting readers from the real tale, the actual elephant in the room. As a listener and reader of the BBC for many years, this is par for the course. US media is so terrible and such a joke that one has to turn to outlets like the BBC for just some general coverage but that's only the beginning. They cannot be trusted but at least there's some interaction with international events, something that cannot be said for US infotainment outlets that attempt to pass as hard news. At this point the only serious media outlets in the US are newspapers like the New York Times and Washington Post which (while possessing some value) also have their detriments and difficulties. But with paywalls they are becoming less and less accessible apart from those determined to support them or those who are truly committed to their outlooks and the ideas and forces they represent.

And yet even in these news sources, there is truth to be found if one looks and in some cases is willing to read between the lines and press beyond their framing of these stories. Sometimes they reveal more than they would wish.