"Willful Decision"
Obama Took “Willful Decision” to Support Free Syrian Army (FSA) Islamists that became (ISIS): Former US Intelligence Chief
http://www.globalresearch.ca/obama-to...
By Christopher Black Global Research, August 13, 2015
If one was only to read mainstream news in the West, you would probably be inculcated with the myth that Islamic State (ISIS) appeared almost out of thin air and many governments in the Western world have been completely shocked by the rise of this terror group. Perhaps you would correctly blame the 2003 invasion and occupation of Iraq as a major reason why such extreme groups gained power in the region, in addition to blaming certain governments for supposedly marginalizing Sunni’s.
But what most mainstream readers will be miserably ignorant of is the fact that one of the main opposition groups fighting the Bashar al-Assad government in Syria has been itself, a group that has been trained, funded, aided and armed by NATO countries in collusion with Saudi Arabia, Qatar and Israel (to name a few). This reality has been completely omitted in numerous corporate media publications, once again demonstrating the inept and deceptive nature of mainstream news.
Some Western news outlets are still peddling the fallacy that the Obama administration misjudged the threat of , and was taken by surprise by the groups rise. Obama himself claimed in 2014 when responding to a question asking whether the US underestimated ISIS: “That their advance, their movement, over the last several months has been more rapid than the intelligence estimates and I think the expectations of policy makers both inside and outside of Iraq.”
This narrative runs in stark contrast to a recently declassified US Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) document from 2012 which was released by Judicial Watch after the watchdog group filed Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) lawsuit. The DIA document warned:
ISI [the Islamic State of Iraq] could also declare an Islamic State through its union with other terrorist organisations in Iraq and Syria.” (p.5)
In a recent interview with Mehdi Hasan of Al Jazeera, the former head of the DIA, Michael T. Flynn, reiterates that the Obama administration was warned about the potential of extreme groups gaining influence in the region but instead of halting the support for the Syrian opposition, the administration took the “wilful decision” to support the rebels anyway:
Hasan (Interviewer) (From 11.15 onwards into the interview): “In 2012, your agency was saying, quote: “The Salafists, the Muslim Brotherhood and Al-Qaeda in Iraq [(which ISIS arose out of)], are the major forces driving the insurgency in Syria.” In 2012, the US was helping coordinate arms transfers to those same groups. Why did you not stop that if you’re worried about the rise of Islamic extremism?”
Flynn: “Well I hate to say it’s not my job, but… my job was to ensure that the accuracy of our intelligence that was being presented was as good as it could be, and I will tell you, it goes before 2012. When we were in Iraq, and we still had decisions to be made before there was a decision to pull out of Iraq in 2011, it was very clear what we were going to face.”
Hasan (Interviewer): You are basically saying that even in government at the time, you knew those groups were around, you saw this analysis, and you were arguing against it, but who wasn’t listening?”
Flynn: “I think the administration.”
Hasan (Interviewer): “So the administration turned a blind eye to your analysis?”
Flynn: “I don’t know if they turned a blind eye. I think it was a decision, a willful decision.”
Hasan (Interviewer): “A wilful decision to support an insurgency that had Salafists, Al-Qaeda and the Muslim Brotherhood?”
Flynn: “A wilful decision to do what they’re doing… You have to really ask the President what is it that he actually is doing with the policy that is in place, because it is very, very confusing.”
It is quite obvious that NATO countries in conjunction with regional allies have been funding, arming and training an array of rebel bandits to overthrow the secular Syrian government for years now, although they have been unable to force regime change in Damascus so far.
In the 2012 declassified report from the DIA, the document reveals that the powers supporting the Syrian opposition – “Western countries, the Gulf states and Turkey” – wanted to create a “Salafist principality in Eastern Syria in order to isolate the Syrian regime”:
http://www.globalresearch.ca/obama-to...
