New Eastern Outlook
4 November 2017
There are approximately 1.8 billion
Muslims on Earth. That is approximately 24% of the world population.
They live in regions spanning North Africa, the Middle East, Central
Asia, and reaching as far as Southeast Asia. There are Muslim
communities in virtually every nation – and in many – they have played a
pivotal, constructive, and welcomed role in national development.
If
even 1% of the world’s Muslims were violent terrorists bent on
conquering the world, that would constitute an army 18 million strong –
or in other words – larger than the next 20 largest armies on Earth
combined. Most critics of Islam infer that the number is actually much
higher than 1% – many suggesting that the majority of Muslims
either are engaged in or support terrorism. It is logical to conclude
that if even 1% were dedicated to terrorism and the “conquest of
infidels,” the war would have ended in their favor long ago.
It
is clear that there is not even 1% across Islam engaged in or
supporting terrorism. Across the Arab World, the vast majority of
Muslims, Christians, other sects, and the secular, stand united against
terrorism. It is clear that a mountain of lies stands between many and
the truth – a mountain built so tall that it leaves entire segments of
targeted populations in the perpetual darkness of ignorance.
From Whence Terror Flows
The
source of terrorism is not the Qu’ran – a book that few critics of
Islam have even picked up let alone genuinely read – but rather a very
easily traced money trail that leads to Washington and London.
It
is indeed the Western World that has created, branded, and marketed
“radical Islam,” which is for all intents and purposes a strictly
political tool designed to provoke direct Western military interventions
where possible, and fight conflicts by proxy whenever direct military
intervention is not possible.
In
Syria and Iraq, the US has used its terrorist proxies to do both –
first to fight the government of Damascus and its allies by proxy, and
when that failed, to set a pretext for direct US military intervention.
It has also been used domestically, as
one former analyst once put it, “to enlist our obedience for the
construction of the prison planet.” Indeed, under the pretext of
“fighting terrorism,” the United States and much of Europe has been
transformed into an invasive police state and despite stripping away the
freedom and liberty of the Western World for the promise of security –
the peoples of the West find themselves with neither.
For those that have been sucked up into
“radical Islam,” it seems very real. Just as the US uses patriotism to
convince young men and women to devote their lives to foreign invasions,
wars, and occupations against scores of sovereign nations around the
world – predicated on “freedom, democracy, and self-determination” even
as US militarism strips all of the above away from the planet – that
fraction of a fraction of 1% engaged in “radical Islam” truly believe in
their cause – no matter how nonexistent and contradictory it is in
reality.
And “radical Islam” does not exist in a
vacuum. It requires a medium to interact with. That includes a equally
extreme, but opposite “radical ignorance” and fear sown across the
Western population. Together, the two feed each other creating a
perpetual pretext for foreign war, a perpetual sense of injustice
against Muslims to which US-armed and funded terrorists can rally
around, and perpetual fear and hatred spread across the Western World.
It is the age-old political tool of
empires – divide and conquer – honed to perfection and supercharged
through information technology – particularly social media.
Wahhabism – The Key to Arab Conquest
Part of “radical ignorance” includes a
deep and profound ignorance of history. Understanding the actual
inception of “radical Islam,” more accurately known as Wahhabism,
dispels many of the most virulent lies spread about Islam – that is has
always been a barbaric, warlike ideology. Militant Islam is a relatively
new phenomenon, invented by the House of Saud, then cultivated and
exploited to its full potential by the British Empire and its American
heirs.
The Ottoman Empire and mastery over the
Arab World was coveted and contested by the British Empire. The promise
of Arab independence was dangled over the heads of the founders of many
of the dynasties now ruling Arabia – dynasties that were carved out
through cults of personality and a violent misinterpretation of Islam
known as Wahhabism. The British, after betraying the Arabs, would
harness this political tool to do what all empires do best – divide and
conquer – and specifically so regarding the Middle East and North Africa
(MENA).
As the British Empire unraveled, the
Americans picked up where London left off. The Saudis and their
neighboring Persian Gulf kingdoms have been propped up by the West since
the end of World War 1. Since World War 2, many of the same dynasties
have sat in power, armed, funded, protected, and invited into some of
the most lucrative business deals and economic activity in human
history.
It was with members of the Muslim
Brotherhood that the US attempted to overthrow current Syrian President
Bashar Al Assad’s father, Hafez al-Assad with. It was the US with the
Saudis and factions within Pakistan’s military and government who
oversaw the very creation of militant groups like Al Qaeda to fight the
Soviets in Afghanistan.
And it is to this very day still very
much a US-European enterprise perpetuating the Saudi regime in Riyadh,
arming it to the tune of hundreds of billions of dollars in weapons and
military support, and using Riyadh admittedly as an intermediary through
which Washington, London, and Brussels arm and fund the worst, most
virulent terrorist organizations on Earth.
Even current US President Donald Trump –
who regularly cites “radical Islam” as an enduring threat to America’s
national security, has signed off on immense weapon deals to the very
nations the US uses to cultivate and perpetuate global terrorism.
The US and Europe Drive Terrorism, Not Islam
Each and every terrorist attack that
unfolds across North America or Europe is followed by a tidal wave of
propaganda aimed at further bolstering a “clash of civilizations.” The
fearful public either cowers or lashes out against Muslims – led by
establishment voices including the newly christened “alt-right.”
Muslims and Islam are blamed and the
same collection of elementary talking points are rolled out to fan the
flames of hatred and hysteria. Points of logic including the number of
Muslims on Earth versus the actual number of terrorists are never
discussed.
Also never discussed is the fact that
terrorists – particularly those either members of the self-titled
“Islamic State” (ISIS) and Al Qaeda, or those inspired by such groups –
are indoctrinated, radicalized, armed, funded, and supported by
Washington, London, Brussels, and a collection of the West’s closest
allies in the Middle East – namely Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Turkey, Jordan,
and Israel.
It was in a leaked 2012 US Defense
Intelligence Agency (DIA) memo that revealed the US and its allies’
intent to create what it called a “Salafist principality” in eastern
Syria. The memo would explicitly state that (emphasis added):
If the situation unravels 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).
On clarifying who these supporting powers were, the DIA memo would state:
The West, Gulf countries, and Turkey support the opposition; while Russia, China, and Iran support the regime.
The
“Salafist” (Islamic) “principality” (State) would indeed be created
precisely in eastern Syria as US policymakers and their allies had set
out to do. It would be branded as the “Islamic State” and be used first
to wage a more muscular proxy war against Damascus, and when that
failed, to invite US military forces to intervene in the conflict directly.
In 2014, in an e-mail between US Counselor to the President John Podesta and former US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, it would be admitted that two of America’s closest regional allies – Saudi Arabia and Qatar – were providing financial and logistical support to ISIS.
…we need to use our diplomatic and more traditional intelligence assets to bring pressure on the governments of Qatar and Saudi Arabia, which are providing clandestine financial and logistic support to [ISIS] and other radical Sunni groups in the region.
Despite admissions from the United
States military and high-level politicians that ISIS was literally a
creation of its own intentional foreign policy and perpetuated through
state-sponsorship by America’s closest regional allies, both the
administrations of President Barack Obama and President Trump would
continue signing weapon deals, maintaining diplomatic ties, and
strengthening military and economic cooperation with these
state-sponsors of terror.
Simultaneously, the US and Europe also
continue encouraging and protecting Saudi Arabia’s global network of
faux-madrases – centers of indoctrination often under the watch and even
co-management of Western intelligence agencies ensuring a constant,
fresh supply of potential patsies for local terrorist attacks and
recruits for the West’s proxy armies fighting abroad.
In other words, the problem of “radical
Islam” is manufactured and perpetuated by the West. Without the money,
weapons, and support provided by the US and Europe to nations like Saudi
Arabia, their toxic political tools would quickly dull and be swept
into the dustbin of human history. As seen in Syria itself, where
hundreds of trucks per day from NATO territory are no longer able to
supply ISIS positions within the country, ISIS is unable to sustain
itself. It lacks genuine popular support in a region where the vast
majority of Muslims, Christians, and the secular remain united against
it and has no means of sustaining itself without immense and constant
state sponsorship.
“Radical
Islam,” or Wahhabism is no different. Both continue to exist through
the intentional and malicious foreign and domestic policy of Western
governments and the special interests that influence them.
Know Yourself and Know Your (Real) Enemy
For
those that believe that “radical Islam” is real and an enduring threat
to “Western civilization,” they would be wise to heed the words of
ancient warlord Sun Tzu who said, “know yourself, and know your enemy
and you will never be defeated.”
This
means identifying the true source of “radical Islam’s” power by tracing
weapons, money, and leadership to their sources. For those that believe
“Islam” is the fundamental problem, indulging in cherry picked Qu’ran
verses is monumentally irresponsible. A true enemy must be honestly
studied which means cherry-picked versus must be put into context, the
Qu’ran as a whole, must be read, and deep and objective study must be
undertaken to truly “know one’s enemy.”
Meeting and talking with Muslims,
observing their communities, and learning their ways – if one truly
believes Islam is a threat – is also fundamental in order to “know one’s
enemy.”
Yet it is likely that many who blindly
hate Islam do so as a spectator sport. They are disinterested in the
truth because picking a side and rooting is the extent of their
intellectual, physical, and moral depth. For others, it is a means of
profiting. Finding a niche in the West’s massive propaganda machine and
picking up crumbs for one’s bank account and ego has become a viable
business model for many.
But for those with the moral integrity
to do so, a genuine look into “radical Islam” will reveal a much more
troubling and real enemy. One that does not menace us with a foreign
culture, religion, or ideology from abroad, but one that lies right in
our midst, cloaked in patriotism, humanitarianism, and all that passes
for “Western civilization” today.
Tony Cartalucci, Bangkok-based geopolitical researcher and writer, especially for the online magazine“New Eastern Outlook”.
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