US Threatens to Arm Al Qaeda, ISIS with Anti-Air Missiles

Tony Cartalucci, Bangkok-based geopolitical researcher and writer, especially for the online magazine“New Eastern Outlook”.

Column: Politics

Region: Middle East

Country: Syria

US officials have threatened Syria and its allies – including Russia specifically – that the collapse of a US-proposed ceasefire will lead “Gulf states” to arm militants with shoulder-fired anti-aircraft missiles.

A Reuters article titled, “Gulf may arm rebels now Syria truce is dead: U.S. officials,” would elaborate, claiming:

One U.S. official, speaking on the condition of anonymity to discuss American policy, said Washington has kept large numbers of such man-portable air defense systems, or MANPADS, out of Syria by uniting Western and Arab allies behind channeling training and infantry weapons to moderate opposition groups while it pursued talks with Moscow.

But frustration with Washington has intensified, raising the possibility that Gulf allies or Turkey will no longer continue to follow the U.S. lead or will turn a blind eye to wealthy individuals looking to supply MANPADS to opposition groups.

“The Saudis have always thought that the way to get the Russians to back off is what worked in Afghanistan 30 years ago – negating their air power by giving MANPADS to the mujahideen,” said a second U.S. official.

However, in reality, ambitions to down Russian and Syrian aircraft over Syria are not Saudi in origin, but rather come from the highest levels of policy and politics within Washington.  Washington-based corporate-financier policy think tank, the Brookings Institution, in a paper titled, “What to do when containing the Syrian crisis has failed,” would admit (emphasis added):

We must also be clever about employing various options for no-fly zones: We cannot shoot down an airplane without knowing if it’s Russian or Syrian, but we can identify those aircraft after the fact and destroy Syrian planes on the ground if they were found to have barrel-bombed a neighborhood, for example. These kinds of operations are complicated, no doubt, and especially with Russian aircraft in the area—but I think we have made a mistake in tying ourselves in knots over the issue, since there are options we can pursue.

In a 2015 Fox News interview, US Senator John McCain would admit:

I might do what we did in Afghanistan many years ago, to give those guys the ability to shoot down those planes. That equipment is available.

When asked to clarify his statement as to who would be shooting down the planes, McCain would answer:

The Free Syrian Army, just like the Afghans shot down the Russian…

In essence then, the US is merely laundering anti-air weapons and the ambition to use them through Saudi Arabia, as it has done so with all the weapons, terrorists, vehicles, money, and support used to trigger and perpetuate the ongoing war in Syria – with the Saudis at best, merely partners.

The US is Knowingly Going to Arm Al Qaeda, ISIS with Anti-Air Missiles

US politicians and policymakers are already acutely aware that any weapons they send into Syria – including anti-air missiles – will immediately end up in the hands of designated foreign terrorist organizations, including Al Qaeda and ISIS. They are aware of this because thousands of anti-tank missiles the US has sent into the country, as well as fleets of Toyota trucks, ammunition, food, and other supplies have already ended up in Al Qaeda and ISIS’ hands.

This is not only through the seizure of weapons by terrorist organizations from “moderate rebels,” but because America’s “moderate rebels” have either voluntarily joined the ranks of designated terrorist organizations, including Al Qaeda and ISIS – or were affiliated with terrorists from the very beginning and even before the conflict even began.

In a particularly embarrassing episode, it was reported by the pro-war, corporate-financier funded and chaired Foundation for Defense of Democracies (FDD) blog, The Long War Journal in an article titled, “Islamic State used US-made anti-tank missiles near Palmyra,” that:

In a new video released by the Islamic State, the jihadist group shows the capture of the ancient city of Palmyra, also known as Tadmur in Arabic. During the video, at least one US-made BGM-71 TOW anti-tank missile is seen being used against Syrian regime troops near the city.

The report continued by stating:

This is not the first time the Islamic State has shown with TOWs. Last December, the jihadist group also published photos showing its forces using TOW missiles against Free Syrian Army (FSA) forces in the Damascus countryside. The United States has supplied several FSA groups with TOW missiles, which have sometimes fallen into the hands of jihadist groups or have been used to assist jihadist groups. The TOW used in Palmyra was likely captured from battles with the FSA in other parts of Syria.

It is not only possible that any anti-air weapons sent into Syria will end up in the hands of Al Qaeda or ISIS, it is inevitable.

Any nation supplying militants with such weapons is all but intentionally ensuring they eventually end up in the hands of terrorist organizations.

America Sowing the Seeds for New Levels of Global Terrorism for Decades to Come

And what US policymakers seem unaware or unconcerned with is the possibility that such weapons may be turned against their own forces not only in Syria – including US and European warplanes – but across the region, including on the battlefield in Yemen, targeting US-made Saudi warplanes.

Also possible is that these weapon systems are spirited out of the region and used to target civilian aircraft in terrorist attacks around the world.

As the US continues leveraging the downing of MH-17 over Ukraine against Russia, it simultaneously attempts to all but ensure the most dangerous terrorist organizations on Earth gain access to anti-air weaponry. It is a clear indicator that the US, not Russia nor the Syrian government, pose a threat to global peace and stability.

The same US who knowingly created and wielded Al Qaeda against the Soviet Union in Afghanistan in the 1980s before claiming to be victimized by this mercenary force on September 11, 2001 -precipitating a decade and a half of “War on Terror” – is hereby standing up a terrorist mercenary force larger and better armed than ever before. The US is sowing the seeds of global terrorism for decades to come by doing so.

America’s fueling of the Syrian conflict directly and through its Persian Gulf proxies has turned the entire Middle East and North African region into a hotbed of failed states, terrorism, and humanitarian crises. Russia’s failure to prevent US intervention in Libya has left the nation divided and destroyed, hemorrhaging refugees across the Mediterranean Sea into Europe and inviting terrorist organizations like Al Qaeda and ISIS to expand across not only the ruins of Libya, but also across the rest of the region and beyond.

Russia’s failure to stop the division and destruction of Syria will result in a catastrophe greater still – and despite the level of destruction and violence unfolding today in Syria – should Damascus collapse and militant groups be left intact – Syria will face exponentially greater violence and destruction that will make Libya’s ongoing sociopolitical and humanitarian catastrophe pale in comparison.

The US, by erasing the lines of even rhetorical sensibility, does however open a window of opportunity for Syria and its allies to respond with asymmetrical warfare, targeting US and European warplanes illegally operating over Syria in such a way as to make it difficult if not impossible to determine whether or not America’s own anti-air weapons are being used against its and its allies’ warplanes.

US policy which essentially places anti-air missiles into the hands of terrorists – is so ill-conceived and desperate, the fact that it has been tabled in the first place illustrates Washington’s increasingly weak and desperate hand. If this policy is properly exposed for what it truly implies both for Syria and the state of global security for decades to come, and should it be countered intelligently by Syria and its allies, it can be turned back against Washington and add further impetus to finally end this war in the Syrian people’s favor – not Washington’s.

http://journal-neo.org/2016/09/30/us-threatens-to-arm-al-qaeda-isis-with-anti-air-missiles/
http://journal-neo.org/2016/09/30/us-threatens-to-arm-al-qaeda-isis-with-anti-air-missiles/

Why America Doesn’t Believe its Corporate Media Anymore

Jean Périer is an independent researcher and analyst and a renowned expert on the Near and Middle East, exclusively for the online magazine “New Eastern Outlook”    

Column: Society

Region: USA in the World

There’s been a lot of international events lately that have been covered by a wide range of media sources, including TV channels, newspapers and various sites. However, in an effort to attract the attention of a wider audience, some of these media sources start publishing misleading statements, unfounded acussisations or even straightforward propaganda articles, that create a distorted perception of reality among the Western population.

For these reasons, it is sometimes incredibly difficult to tell what is really happening, which prevents both ordinary citizens and politicians alike from getiting the story straight, even though the latter are responsible for taking logical and accurate decisions that would define the lives of a lot of people.

For this reason both Western politicians and citizens started rejecting the US corporate media, which is getting more and more biased by the day, while getting engaged in information campaigns that do only benefit certain political circles of the country.

According to the Gallup Institute, most Americans feel sharp disappointment with their national media, since the number of those who believes in MSM’s ability “to report the news fully, accurately and fairly “has dropped to its lowest level in Gallup polling history.

While it is clear Americans’ trust in the media has been eroding over time, the election campaign may be the reason that it has hit the rock bottom this year. With many Republican leaders and conservative pundits saying Hillary Clinton has received overly positive media attention, while Donald Trump has been receiving unfair or negative attention, this may be the prime reason their relatively low trust in the media has evaporated even more.

A majority of voters believe the media are in the driver’s seat this presidential election and that they define the agenda of this presidential campaign. A total of 74% of US Voters believes that in covering presidential candidates the media is more interested in creating controversies about them than in reporting where they stand on certain issues. Two-out-of-three Americans view political correctness as a threat and say they do not have freedom of speech anymore. It’s been reported that 66% of all Americans still think political correctness is a problem in the US today.

The growing mistrust towards the corporate media is caused by a number of factors, including straightforward lies, attempts to present other states as a US enemy, along with the justification of the short-sighted US policies in the Middle East and Europe.

There’s an illuminating case study because that shows that propaganda can take off on its own and exceed the intentions of its originators. The US establishment is fond of demonising its enemies – in recent times we have seen it happen to Milosevic, Saddam Hussein, bin Laden and many others – but those hate campaigns, once they had whipped up war support, ceased and were forgotten Washington’s current trouble is that it has never tried this technique against someone whom it can not get at, against someone who is not cowed and, worst of all, against someone who outwits it at every juncture. The propagandists have no idea of what to do except turn the volume up higher and higher. So the rhetoric builds and builds, more and more extreme, larger and larger until it bursts into full-blown psychosis and panic.

It’s been noted, that Putin is already the Moriarty, the Voldemort of the US propaganda machine: the hidden power behind everything bad. We were told that Putin had the very same uncanny influence over Donald Trump; in other words, he has such a grip on the American election that Hillary Clinton is the only truly American candidate left the second theme was the extraordinary ability of RT and other Russian media outlets to shape people’s thoughts, far exceeding the effects of the much (much) better funded Western outlets. Moreover, it seems that Putin has the power to cloud minds at a distance, he operates at a more than merely human status and he’s using that power to reshape the world.

By refusing to evaluate American politicians by the standards they apply to foreign leaders, instead they are happy to serve as a mouthpiece of Washington. By blindly obeying the instructions of the White House, Western journalists create the image of an enemy and rally the public in the face of the nonexistent confrontation, which allows the US government to get away with its numerous crimes.

   

http://journal-neo.org/2016/09/30/why-america-doesnt-believe-its-corporate-media-anymore/

US and EU Sanctions are Punishing Ordinary Syrians and Crippling Aid Work, UN Report Reveals

By Rania Khalek

Internal United Nations assessments obtained by The Intercept reveal that U.S. and European sanctions are punishing ordinary Syrians and crippling aid work during the largest humanitarian emergency since World War II.

The sanctions and war have destabilized every sector of Syria’s economy, transforming a once self-sufficient country into an aid-dependent nation. But aid is hard to come by, with sanctions blocking access to blood safety equipment, medicines, medical devices, food, fuel, water pumps, spare parts for power plants, and more.

In a 40-page internal assessment commissioned to analyze the humanitarian impact of the sanctions, the U.N. describes the U.S. and EU measures as “some of the most complicated and far-reaching sanctions regimes ever imposed.” Detailing a complex system of “unpredictable and time-consuming” financial restrictions and licensing requirements, the report finds that U.S. sanctions are exceptionally harsh “regarding provision of humanitarian aid.”

U.S. sanctions on Syrian banks have made the transfer of funds into the country nearly impossible. Even when a transaction is legal, banks are reluctant to process funds related to Syria for risk of incurring violation fees. This has given rise to an unofficial and unregulated network of money exchanges that lacks transparency, making it easier for extremist groups like ISIS and al Qaeda to divert funds undetected. The difficulty of transferring money is also preventing aid groups from paying local staff and suppliers, which has “delayed or prevented the delivery of development assistance in both government and besieged areas,” according to the report.

Trade restrictions on Syria are even more convoluted. Items that contain 10 percent or more of U.S. content, including medical devices, are banned from export to Syria. Aid groups wishing to bypass this rule have to apply for a special license, but the licensing bureaucracy is a nightmare to navigate, often requiring expensive lawyers that cost far more than the items being exported.

Syria was first subjected to sanctions in 1979, after the U.S. designated the Syrian government as a state sponsor of terrorism. More sanctions were added in subsequent years, though none more extreme than the restrictions imposed in 2011 in response to the Syrian government’s deadly crackdown on protesters.

In 2013 the sanctions were eased but only in opposition areas. Around the same time, the CIA began directly shipping weapons to armed insurgents at a colossal cost of nearly $1 billion a year, effectively adding fuel to the conflict while U.S. sanctions obstructed emergency assistance to civilians caught in the crossfire.

An internal U.N. email obtained by The Intercept also faults U.S. and EU sanctions for contributing to food shortages and deteriorations in health care. The August email from a key U.N. official warned that sanctions had contributed to a doubling in fuel prices in 18 months and a 40 percent drop in wheat production since 2010, causing the price of wheat flour to soar by 300 percent and rice by 650 percent. The email went on to cite sanctions as a “principal factor” in the erosion of Syria’s health care system. Medicine-producing factories that haven’t been completely destroyed by the fighting have been forced to close because of sanctions-related restrictions on raw materials and foreign currency, the email said.

As one NGO worker in Damascus told The Intercept, there are cars, buses, water systems, and power stations that are in serious need of repair all across the country, but it takes months to procure spare parts and there’s no time to wait. So aid groups opt for cheap Chinese options or big suppliers that have the proper licensing, but the big suppliers can charge as much as they want. If the price is unaffordable, systems break down and more and more people die from dirty water, preventable diseases, and a reduced quality of life.

Such conditions would be devastating for any country. In war-torn Syria, where an estimated 13 million people are dependent on humanitarian assistance, the sanctions are compounding the chaos.

In an emailed statement to The Intercept, the State Department denied that the sanctions are hurting civilians.

“U.S. sanctions against [Syrian President Bashar al-Assad], his backers, and the regime deprive these actors of resources that could be used to further the bloody campaign Assad continues to wage against his own people,” said the statement, which recycled talking points that justified sanctions against Iraq in 1990s. The U.S. continued to rationalize the Iraq sanctions even after a report was released by UNICEF in 1999 that showed a doubling in mortality rates for children under the age of 5 after sanctions were imposed in the wake of the Gulf War, and the death of 500,000 children.

“The true responsibility for the dire humanitarian situation lies squarely with Assad, who has repeatedly denied access and attacked aid workers,” the U.S. statement on Syria continued. “He has the ability to relieve this suffering at any time, should he meet his commitment to provide full, sustained access for delivery of humanitarian assistance in areas that the U.N. has determined need it.”

Meanwhile, in cities controlled by ISIS, the U.S. has employed some of the same tactics it condemns. For example, U.S.-backed ground forces laid siegeto Manbij, a city in northern Syria not far from Aleppo that is home to tens of thousands of civilians. U.S. airstrikes pounded the city over the summer, killing up to 125 civilians in a single attack. The U.S. replicated this strategy to drive ISIS out of Kobane, Ramadi, and Fallujah, leaving behindflattened neighborhoods. In Fallujah, residents resorted to eating soup made from grass and 140 people reportedly died from lack of food and medicine during the siege.

Humanitarian concerns aside, the sanctions are not achieving their objectives. Five years of devastating civil war and strict economic sanctions have plunged over 80 percent of Syrians into poverty, up from 28 percent in 2010. Ferdinand Arslanian, a scholar at the Center for Syrian Studies at the University of St. Andrews, says that reduction in living standards and aid dependency is empowering the regime.“Aid is now an essential part of the Syrian economy and sanctions give regime cronies in Syria the ability to monopolize access to goods. It makes everyone reliant on the government. This was the case in Iraq, with the food-for-oil system,” explained Arslanian.

“Sanctions have a terrible effect on the people more than the regime and Washington knows this from Iraq,” argues Joshua Landis, director of the Center for Middle East Studies at the University of Oklahoma. “But there’s pressure in Washington to do something and sanctions look like you’re doing something,” he added.

Despite the failure of sanctions, opposition advocates are agitating for even harsher measures that would extend sanctions to anyone who does business with the Syrian government. This, of course, would translate into sanctions against Russia.

“The opposition likes sanctions,” says Landis. “They were the people who advocated them in the beginning because they want to put any pressure they can on the regime. But it’s very clear that the regime is not going to fall, that the sanctions are not working. They’re only immiserating a population that’s already suffered terrible declines in their per capita GDP,” he added.

Read the report:

The original source of this article is The Intercept

Copyright © Rania Khalek, The Intercept, 2016

https://theintercept.com/2016/09/28/u-s-sanctions-are-punishing-ordinary-syrians-and-crippling-aid-work-u-n-report-reveals/

‘Best gift to terrorists’ would be US boycott of Syria peace effort – Moscow

The US’ refusal to cooperate with Russia would be a real “gift” to terrorists in Syria, on a par with its failure to separate “moderates” from jihadists and the recent airstrike against Syrian army, Moscow said in response to a barrage of criticism from Washington.

TrendsGlobal terrorism, Islamic State, Russian anti-terror op in Syria, Syria unrest

US Ambassador to the UN Samantha Power accused the Syrian and Russian governments of carrying out a “soul-shattering” air campaign in Aleppo, saying that their anti-terror efforts would only lead to more “radicalization”and a greater refugee flow out of Syria.

“What they are doing is a gift to [Islamic State] and [al-Nusra Front], the groups that they claim that they want to stop,”Power said Thursday.

Read more

Russian FM spox: US talk of ‘attacks in Russia, body bags, downing jets’ sounds like ‘get ’em’ call

This outburst by the US led Moscow to express puzzlement, with Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova saying that it is the US who is offering “gifts” to terrorists. Commenting on the diplomatic deadlock, Zakharova recalled how Washington denied the existence of terrorists in Syria until the fact became too obvious, and the US had to switch the narrative to accusing Russia and Damascus of bombing so-called “moderates.”

“If we discuss ‘gifts to terrorists’, then those of course are the merger of al-Nusra Front and 'moderate opposition', the deliveries of humanitarian aid to the militants and the bombing of the Syrian army fighting against ISIS,” Zakharova wrote on Facebook. “However, the best gift [to jihadists] would be Washington’s refusal to cooperate with Russia on Syria's settlement."

“If Washington’s threat to terminate interaction is formalized, then there will be no doubt left that White House has taken militants under its wing, and the sun shines down the terrorist street,”Zakharova added.

The latest seven-day truce in Syria brokered by US and Russia expired on September 19 – two days after a US-led coalition airstrike on Syrian army positions near the Islamic State (IS, formerly ISIS/ISIL) frontline at Deir Ezzor killed over 60 soldiers. On Thursday, Moscow offered to impose 48-hour ‘breaks’ in military operations in Aleppo instead of week-long ceasefires, and once again voiced hope that Washington would finally honor their obligations and separate the so-called “moderate rebels” which they support from terrorist units on the ground.

“In general, we express regret at the rather non-constructive nature of the rhetoric voiced by Washington in the past days,”Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said, adding that Russia will “continue the operations of its air force in support of the anti-terrorist activity of Syria’s armed forces.”

Read more

'US has always been main sponsor of Islamic State' - former CIA contractor to RT

Speaking at a public policy conference in Washington, Secretary of State John Kerry told the crowd that the US was “on the verge of suspending the discussion because it is irrational in the context of the kind of bombing taking place to be sitting there trying to take things seriously.”

“It is one of those moments where we are going to have to pursue other alternatives,” he added. No suspension of work has yet been announced by either Moscow or Washington, but Kerry spoke to Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov on the phone on Wednesday and Thursday about salvaging the diplomatic effort in Syria, according to Russia’s foreign ministry.

“Mr Lavrov again emphasized that quite a few anti-government units that Washington calls ‘moderate’ have not merely refused to carry out the September 9 Russian-US agreement on consolidating the truce and providing humanitarian access, but are merging with Jabhat al-Nusra and continue fighting against the Syrian army side by side with this Al-Qaeda affiliate,” the Russian Foreign Ministry said in a statement on the subject of Wednesday call. “Mr. Lavrov drew Mr. Kerry’s attention to the revelations of Jabhat al-Nusra field commanders in the media about the external support they receive, including US arms supplies, and the claim of the Western-backed Syrian opposition leader Riad Hijab that Jabhat al-Nusra is not a terrorist organization.” 

Meanwhile, the US is seriously considering a non-diplomatic solution to the crisis, with Deputy Secretary of State Antony Blinken telling the Senate Foreign Relations Committee that President Barack Obama had asked staff to look at how Washington might respond.

“The president has asked all of the agencies to put forward options, some familiar, some new, that we are very actively reviewing,” Blinken said, adding that officials would “work through these in the days ahead.”

Blinken echoed the words of US State Department spokesman John Kirby who said on Wednesday that US policy makers are discussing options “that don’t revolve around diplomacy” in Syria.

Commenting on Washington’s rhetoric, a former Pentagon official, Michael Maloof, told RT that US diplomats have been voicing “frustration” over their inability “to do [their] job” under the US-Russian agreement and “control the moderates.”While a concrete “Plan B” is yet to be announced by Washington, Maloof believes that the US will simply expand its aid to the rebels.

“There won’t be a direct US action but there will be continued efforts, particularly by the Saudis and Qataris to continue providing a surface to air missiles, for example, to the rebels, as they have been doing and provide other armored type of military assistance to the rebels,” he said.

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‘Safety of Russian citizens, wherever they may be, is not up for bargaining’ – MoD http://on.rt.com/7qlb 

9:57 PM - 29 Sep 2016

Russian MoD: We’re ready for Syria dialogue with US, but threats against our military unacceptable...

Russia is fully ready to continue the dialogue with the US regarding joint actions to combat terrorists in Syria, the Russian Ministry of Defense has said. It stressed, however, that this is only...

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The expert’s assessment is in line with other analyses offered by US officials to Reuters, who claimed that the US might now allow the Gulf states to supply rebels with more sophisticated weapons. Another alternative is for the US to strike Syrian government airbases. Supporting rebel counter-attacks with weapons and air strikes is also on the table. Such a reverse in policy, one official noted, “might not reverse the tide of battle, but might cause the Russians to stop and think.”

As the US threatens to quit diplomacy, German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier in a telephone call with Lavrov called on Moscow and Washington to resume ceasefire discussions and produce at least a temporary truce.

https://www.rt.com/news/361136-syria-peace-gift-terrorists/

Orlando Shooter’s True Motive Finally Revealed, but Why Did the FBI Try to Hide It?

Carey Wedler

(ANTIMEDIA) Months after Omar Mateen’s deeply distressing mass shooting spree in Orlando, which took the lives of 49 innocent people, the full transcripts of his phone calls with emergency services and police have been released. The records of his exchanges with authorities reveal not only his obvious mental instability and inner-turmoil but also provide insight into why the FBI withheld the complete conversations for months.

When the FBI released its heavily redacted snippet of a transcript from Mateen’s 911 call in June, the agency faced widespread outrage for excluding Mateen’s pledge of allegiance to the Islamic State. Following the outcry, the FBI and the Department of Justice claimed the omission was intended to avoid providing a “publicity platform” to would-be terrorists.

Nevertheless, they said the unreleased transcripts were creating an “an unnecessary distraction” from their Orlando investigation and opted torelease the unredacted version of the Orlando shooter’s brief first phone call with a 911 operator. At that time, the FBI also provided summaries of the subsequent calls Mateen had with police. They even admitted — as a witness to the attacks had more or less testified — that the shooter demanded the United States stop bombing Syria and Iraq.

Though that admission in June was a surprising concession from the bureau, which plays a heavy-handed role in the War on Terror,  the Intercept noted in June that the FBI’s summaries were not in life with statements FBI Director James Comey made previously:

“However, based on a previous description of Mateen’s 911 calls given by FBI Director James Comey last week, it appears that the federal investigators continued to withhold details of a second conversation Mateen had with the 911 operator, which was not referred to at all in the government’s timeline.”

The Intercept reported another gap in the FBI’s transcript and summaries, pointing out that Comey had previously acknowledged “Mateen had expressed solidarity with the Tsarnaev brothers, who carried out the Boston Marathon bombings in 2013, and Moner Mohammad Abusalha, a Floridian who carried out a suicide bombing in Syria in 2014 on behalf of al Qaeda’s representatives there, the Nusra Front.”

This information was not included in the summaries or transcript the FBI released in June, and these omissions cast doubt on the transparency of the agency’s summaries.

With the release of the full transcripts last Friday, a better understanding of Mateen’s motives is emerging.

Early in Mateen’s second phone call of the evening, this time with a police negotiator, he made his reasoning clear:

“Can you tell me where you are right now so I can you get some help?” the negotiator asks Mateen.

“No,” Mateen replies. ‘Because you have to tell America to stop bombing Syria and Iraq. They are killing a lot of innocent people. What am I to do here when my people are getting killed over there. You get what I’m saying?”

While this matches up with the FBI’s original descriptions of the calls, Mateen’s resolve on this matter was remarkably persistent. It was a predominant, recurring theme of the phone call, which the FBI failed to emphasize.

After the negotiator says he understands what the Orlando shooter is saying, Mateen again says:

“You need to stop the U.S. air strikes. They need to stop the U.S. air strikes, okay?”

The negotiator tells him he understands, but again, Mateen urges:

“They need to stop the U.S. air strikes. You have to tell the U.S. government to stop bombing. They are killing too many children, they are killing too many women, okay?”

“I understand that,” the negotiator says again. He asks Mateen to tell him “what’s going on.”

“What’s going on is that I feel the pain of the people getting killed in Syria and Iraq and all over the Muslim (unidentified word)” Mateen answers.

Shortly after, he again references the ongoing bombings, this time mentioning America’s collaboration with Russia (it is unclear what collaboration he is referencing as the proposed U.S.-Russia partnership to fight ISIS in Syria was not officially announced until July):

Well, you need to know that they need to stop bombing Syria and Iraq. The U.S. is collaborating with Russia and they are killing innocent women and children, okay?”

Shortly after, Mateen’s references Tamerlan Tsarnaev, one of the Boston bombers, as Comey initially admitted in June.

“My homeboy Tamerlan Tsarnaev did his thing on the Boston Marathon, my homeboy (unidentified name) did his thing, okay, so now it’s my turn, okay?” he says.

The Tsarnaev brothers, particularly Tamerlan, were motivated by the United States’ wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and sought revenge for them. Mateen evidently saw them as models for his own attack.

Mateen, who pledged allegiance to ISIS and their leader, expressed outrage in a subsequent phone call with police over one U.S. strike in particular:

“Yo, the air strike that killed Abu Wahid a few weeks ago… That’s what triggered it, okay?…They should have not bombed and killed Abu Wahid.”

Abu Wahid, also referred to as Abu Waheeb, was a prominent ISIS leader killed by a U.S. drone strike in May. Based on the full transcripts, it appears Mateen was increasingly agitated and radicalized by U.S. attacks on the people of Iraq and Syria, and the final straw was the death of Wahid, who he apparently considered an important force in his tirade against the American military.

Mateen’s pledge to ISIS indicated to many he was a radical Islamic extremist. However, reports from his ex-wife painted him more as a volatile, mentally unstable, potentially gay man who was not particularly religious. He wanted to be a police officer and wore shirts emblazoned with the New York Police Department’s logo.

Considering these varying factors, the full transcripts shed light on just how powerfully U.S. foreign policy factored into the clearly unstable man’s decision to murder dozens of innocent people.

Whether the FBI withheld the full transcripts out of a genuine desire to discourage further attacks or did so for nefarious reasons, Mateen’s repeated references to air strikes should not be discounted. As the U.S. continues to wage air campaigns in Syria and Iraq and the messy, perpetual war continues, the Orlando shooter’s sentiments suggest these bombardments will continue to inspire blowback in the form of hatred and retaliatory violence.

As Mateen continued to stress in his phone calls with police:

“This went down, a lot of innocent women and children are getting killed in Syria and Iraq and Afghanistan, okay?”

He told the negotiator to tell authorities “[t]o stop, tell them to stop.”

“Tell — tell the f*cking — the air strikes need to stop.”

---

This article (Orlando Shooter’s True Motive Finally Revealed, but Why Did the FBI Try to Hide It?) is free and open source. You have permission to republish this article under a Creative Commons license with attribution to Carey Wedler andtheAntiMedia.org. Anti-Media Radio airs weeknights at 11 pm Eastern/8 pm Pacific. If you spot a typo, please email the error and name of the article toedits@theantimedia.org.

http://theantimedia.org/orlando-shooter-motive-fbi-try-hide/