Notes

Since so many wanted to read the essay, i have posted it below. I hope you find it as good read. Also the format which i have used for this was specific for my class. It is not a normal intro body conclusion. I had to Analyze 3 sources and this is why it might be a bit confusing.


Mohammed Husain F. Jassem
Dr. Driver
Western Civilization II
Date 11-30-2012


The Road to Backfire
War and revolutions have always been going together hand-in-hand for most countries. If there is revolution, there is war. By war, I do not mean just military warfare and killings but also mental and propaganda war. The United Stated since the Cold War has been going through a propaganda wars. Propaganda movies like War of the Worlds were used to drive US fear of communist through the roof. So? It made us want to crush Communists and Communism by any means possible even if that means supporting terrorism and terrorists. However this support has never done us any good, if it is doing anything it is killing more civilians and costing us more. What exactly do I mean? Looking at our foreign policy since World War II we can see that we have not practiced the policy of isolationism that our founding fathers advised us to practice. Right after WWII we went into Korea, then Vietnam, Iraq, Lebanon, Afghanistan and every other country on EARTH. Did we do so peacefully? Most of the times we didn’t. Not only to do fight these countries, but we also make ourselves some enemies that we can use as figures to hate and blame. Our foreign policy and adding to it the propaganda machine we are using will (hypothetically) be the cause of our destruction, and will bring unto us a bigger hit then 9/11.
The first source to discuss is an essay written by Tony Cartalucci of infowars.com titled “Surreal: Clinton Pledges $45 Million in aid to Al-Qaeda in Syria. The author prepared this document to bring the light US funding for modern Terrorists in Syria under the nice sugarcoated cover of “civilian opposition”. This text is bringing to the table an issue that is controversial and extremely dangerous. He accomplishes the arguing of the topic by using historical evidence from the past aid of the Libyan “Opposition” and current talks of the topic from big sources such as CNN. Cartalucci intended this text for any free-minded human who doesn't believe the propaganda machines and wants to truth behind stories. He tries covertly to convince readers that the USA should stop aid to Syrian opposition because it will backfire. Cartalucci made this point clear by drawing a parallel to the events of Benghazi and the death of Ambassador Chris Stevens post US and NATO intervention to bring down Ghaddafi. Cartalucci is not only reliable, but also courageous to make this connection, in my opinion because everything he is claiming can be traced back by hard evidence. The theme and idea of this source is completely different from the common thinking even though it is written during our age. Why? Because most people don't want to think and believe that the government is trying to kill them and subjugate them. He not only tried to open our eyes, he supposes that we know the current events in the Middle East and the United States. Many readers would like to believe that what Cartalucci discusses is a lie. They carry in their heads the idea of complete truth and knowledge of who the enemy is and who is backing it. This article can definitely be supported by secondary sources. Any history book you flip through, you will always read about the US and the USSR supporting small extremist groups and countries against the other. On of the most famous of the terrorist groups is Al-Qaeda (who according to ex CIA agent doesn’t exist in the form we like to think of it as). In the Civilization in the West textbook Volume 2 Written by Mark Kishlansky, he describes Osama Bin Laden the leader of Al-Qaeda as “a Saudi Arabian millionaire who had been trained by the US. Central Intelligence Agency and who between 1980 and 1989 had fought against the Russians in Afghanistan” (Kishlansky 694). Hillary Clinton, who is trying to get aid for these terrorists in Syria now, even professes in the past that “the people we are fighting today we funded 20 years ago.” The author of this text is saying that this is being repeated over and over with the same consequences as before. He's also trying to reveal in between the lines that our government is supporting our enemies as if trying to kill us through an invisible hand. Through this text we can learn that not everyone the media is calling “civilian opposition" is a good group of people. Cartalucci says, "Deceitfully, European foreign ministries and the US State Department had portrayed these terrorists as ‘Libya’s civilian opposition,’ in order to justify military intervention and regime change just as they are portraying these very same terrorists as “Syria’s civilian opposition. “As in Libya’s case, Syria is the same, they are just people trying to kill us in a slow and fancy manner.
The second source we will be discussing is the Reuters article written by Mark Hosenball titled Obama authorizes secret US support for Syrian rebels. He states that Obama has been recently, along with many other countries sending monetary aid to the rebels even though according to his article, they could be affiliated with Al Qaeda. This article explains the covert American support for rebels in Syria and how neighboring countries such as Qatar and Saudi Arabia are also trying to destabilize Syria. This type of text was intended for anyone who is interested in either Obamas political agenda, and /or anyone interested in Syrian turmoil and the instability in the Middle East. The Reuters agency can’t be fully trusted, since it was trying to minimalize the fact that they could be Al-Qaeda Terrorists, making it seem insignificant. The idea of US support for rebels has been causing controversy. Some people agree with just monetary aid, while others such as Senator John McCain of Arizona wants military aid, almost like the aid given to the Libyans in Benghazi. Upon Writing this, the author expects us to know whom he is talking about and why this is happening. Like the other sources, unless you know anything about this conflict this would make no sense. Secondary sources on all of the articles including this one, includes people's personal opinions posted on blogs and other articles written as a summary of this revolution. Although it is lightly mentioned but near the end of this article Hosenball is trying to reveal a possibility of the aid being sent to terrorists and not necessarily aids to freedom rebels. The author is also foretelling the idea that this is going to be a long war unlike the revolutions in Egypt or Libya
The third resource we are going to use is an interview with Michael Scheur who served in the CIA until 2004 and also served chief of the CIA Bin Laden unit. He wrote a book titled Through Our Enemies Eyes talking about how the enemies of the United States look at the US. In his interview with the Russia Today, he was asked about Washington's main enemy after bin Laden and what he thinks about the Middle East during the Arab Spring. Scheur did this interview to expose some facts people never heard or just overlooked. When asked about American intervention in Syria, Scheur said, “ Oh I think we are interfering unconsciously. Until they removed the U.S ambassador, he was running around the country trying to encourage groups to overthrow their government…” He also Adds that the United States, “Cold Bloodedly urged Syrians to get out in the streets knowing that they will be shot down by their government”. In this quote taken directly out of the interview we can try to analyze that the United States is to some degree raising the turmoil. How? If these Syrians were to go out and be killed, more Syrians would be urged to take a military stance serving Al-Qaeda and forcefully kicking Assad out. Many of the people do not want to believe that the government is not making peace but is fueling the wars overseas. Upon Scheur giving the interview he supposes that the viewers have an outlook of the Middle East and the situation since it is a Powder keg area at the moment. According to the lady doing the interview, this kinds of knowledge and facts can be found on WikiLeaks. We can also use sources such as Tony Cartalucci’s article in which he explains how the US was trying to cause turmoil in Syria pre Arab spring In his article titled Syrian War: The Prequel. This article goes back as far as 2007 through 2010 to try to prove that the so called Syrian Revolution is not a real Nationalistic movement but a planned Execution of the regime by surrounded countries such as Saudi Arabia, Israel and Lebanese Harriri Faction (who blamed Syria and Hezbollah for the Assassination of Rafic Harriri.) This article goes into deep details of how and why these countries wanted to specifically de-stabilize Syria. Texts like these support the United States policy of intervention in other countries to try to overthrow their governments. This is not the first time the US has tried to do this; some examples are Cuba, Nicaragua, Vietnam and many other places in Latin American and around the world. One thing that Scheur reveals without going into details is that if Assad’s regime would end Israel security goes down in which he is revealing that if Assad is overthrown an Islamist Al Qaeda like anti-Israel government will rise. This point specifically shows how the United States is trying to aid Al Qaeda Jihadists in Syria. By saying that this sort of faction will rise, then supporting them, The US has shown how it has before and will continue to back various Terrorist groups around the world.
All three of these mentioned Articles are related, in one way or the other. However the intensity of attacking and truth is different in each one. The Reuters article was almost the least biased of the 3 while the Interview and Cartalucci’s articles a bit more “hard truth” facts. In my opinion the more biased an article (concerning this topic) towards hard facts the more truth and credibility it has. That is why I would consider Cartalucci’s writings as the most credible of the three because he uses many examples from the past and supports them and links them with today’s news.
To use all three articles to prove my point has been my main concern of this essay. Topics like this one is often criticized for the controversy it creates, however some facts have to be said no matter how hurtful and painful they are. In the recent 20 or so years, the United States as mentioned before supported many groups against the USSR. Not everyone the US supported was good and was to the benefit of the US. In the example of Bin Laden and Al-Qaeda we see that although the US completely trained and armed Bin Laden and his group of thugs, these people “bit the hand that fed them” and attacked the United States in one of the biggest atrocities the US has faced on American Soil. But did we take revenge from the people that hurt us? No, sadly. Our propaganda machines started working and our media welcomed new enemies with open arms. We created this myth of Jihadi Terrorist Muslims who were to be the bad guys, and anyone affiliated with Islam was to be stereotyped with them. We then moved on to label all Arabs as Evil, yet the Arab Spring comes up and the US becomes the advocate for democracy that it has un-abled the Middle East to do, because of the support the US gave for the old Dictatorial regimes. The US not only supported the dictatorial evil Saudi Arabian regime that openly supports Al-Qaeda but it became allies with this made enemy. Did we stop here? Again no. We continued out support for Terrorist groups during the Arab Spring. We supported the Libyans whose leaders are classified as TERRORISTS in the US State Department. We gave them weapons and money to go fight. Did that stop these terrorists from again biting the hand that fed them? No. they attacked the embassy and killed the Ambassador of the US, Chris Stevens. Sadly we have not learned from our past mistakes to stop aiding these terrorists, who in return use our money to kill United States citizens and Arabs alike
So in Conclusion, if we continue to aid these terrorists in Syria who not once but twice and more attacked the US, we are setting ourselves up for a bigger hit then 9/11. We are setting ourselves up for WWIII where the de-stabilized Syria, the kingless Saudi Arabia, Iran and Israel will start a conflict that will drag the whole region and the whole world into hell. And at some point soon we will be crossing the Rubicon, a one-way ticket on the Road to Backfire.





















Works Cited
Cartalucci, Tony. "Land Destroyer: Surreal: Clinton Pledges $45 Million in Aid to Al Qaeda in Syria." Land Destroyer: Surreal: Clinton Pledges $45 Million in Aid to Al Qaeda in Syria. N.p., 28 Nov. 2012. Web. 01 Dec. 2012. <http://landdestroyer.blogspot.co.uk/2012/09/surreal-clinton-pledges-45-million-in.html>.
Cartalucci, Tony. "Land Destroyer: Syrian War: The Prequel." Land Destroyer: Syrian War: The Prequel. N.p., 10 May 2012. Web. 01 Dec. 2012. <http://landdestroyer.blogspot.com/2012/05/syrian-war-prequel.html>.
Hosenball, Mark. "Exclusive: Obama Authorizes Secret U.S. Support for Syrian Rebels." Reuters. Thomson Reuters, 01 Mar. 2012. Web. 01 Dec. 2012. <http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/08/01/us-usa-syria-obama-order-idUSBRE8701OK20120801>.
CIA Agent Explains How Al-Qaeda Doesn't Exist
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HSQQlQ66bVg&feature=endscreen&NR=1

Hillary Clinton: We created Al-Qaeda
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dqn0bm4E9yw