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The US is playing with fire, supporting Jihadists fighting democratic governments in Egypt, Iran, Syria, Colin Cavell, author of Exporting ‘Made in America’ Democracy, told RT, adding they are going against their values to protect the oil industry.
RT: The US has been fighting Al-Qaeda for more than a decade, but the militant network still exists. Has the war on terror failed?
Colin Cavell: From a perception of the public it would indicate that the war on terror is not succeeding, if of course the original intent was to get rid of Al- Qaeda. Their continued existence raises a question as whether that was the original intention of the United States to get rid of Al-Qaeda.
Al-Qaeda is merely US instrument in the region
RT: Al-Qaeda now operates in places it hadn't accessed before like Syria and Libya. How is it capable of that in the face of US operations against it?
CC: As we see in Syria at present we have the Gulf Kingdoms who have been suffering from the Arab Spring of democratic revolt, people rising trying to remove these monarchies which have been in power for a couple hundred years, and in response these autocratic dictators are spending billions of dollars trying to push the Arab Spring away from the Gulf monarchs.
The most visible example of this is going on in Syria right now whereby the King of Saudi Arabia, Qatar and other Gulf Kingdoms are heavily funding Jihadist fighters to go in as foreign mercenaries, to infiltrate them into Syria through Turkey and wedge a war of terror against the local population in attempt to overthrow the government of Assad. The Syrian government is facing an insurgency that is funded by the King of Qatar and Saudi Arabia and others. It has been facilitated by the intelligence operations of the United States and others who are allied with these Gulf monarchs.
Al-Qaeda is merely and instrument that the US has developed, utilized and facilitated since its origins, as former Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton, admitted publicly back in Afghanistan when the United States sought to remove the president of Afghanistan from his presidency. We funded these foreign mercenaries, these Jihadists because most them come from impoverished backgrounds and were told that the secular government are representatives of evil forces and they need money. The kingdom of Saudi Arabia, Qatar recruits them and funds them to go to this Jihad. It is a misinterpretation of Islam, it is a misinterpretation of Jihad as a struggle for moral virtue, but when you are poor and desperate you can be manipulated as many of these fighters have been, and are steered to commit torture in the name of Allah.
RT: Has US anti-terror policy been a success given there has only been one attack since 9/11 amid what's alleged to be many attempts?
CC: That is assuming that the US’ intent was to rid the region of Al-Qaeda forces. It is the contention of myself and others that, quite to the contrary, that is not the real intention of the US, that is the stated intention that we are at war with Al-Qaeda because they are responsible for the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon from September 11, 2011. But again it is my contention and others that Al-Qaeda is utilized by the United States to achieve certain foreign policy aims of the United States. Right now we are allied with the most anti-democratic reactionary governments on the face of the earth in the Middle East. The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia where women are forced not to leave their house without a relative, cannot drive, the most strict [sic] sexual segregation that exists on the planet. Why would a democratic state like the United States be supporting these Kingdoms? We are doing this because of our addiction to oil and because certain forces within the United States, certain companies, certain economic interests have big stakes and are keeping this oil flowing under the current regime. Should these monarchs be overthrown which was the aim of the Arab spring? Yes. The oil will continue to flow.
It is to the interest of these forces to make the argument that there is no alternative that we have to continue to support these reactionary regimes, King Abdullah in the house of Saud. This agreement between the United States and the House of Saud was established by FDR in the 40s, and it was an agreement whereby we would prop up the House of Saud in exchange for cheap oil. But that oil is no longer cheap, it is costing the US billions of dollars, not only to extract that oil but as well to keep the House of Saud which is hated by the majority of the population. It is up to court followers in Saudi Arabia and it is hard to keep them in power. We have spent loads of money to do so.
US is playing with fire
RT: After the vast efforts expended on trying to destroy the terrorist organization - we now see they have ambitions to create their own state in Syria - is Al-Qaeda growing stronger?
CC: We had a blow back after we supported the mercenary Jihadist forces in Afghanistan. 9/11 was a blowback. You support Jihadists fighters, you think you are going to achieve a goal and of course the US was successful in ousting president Najibullah from power in Afghanistan, but the consequence allowed toll missiles and other armaments to spread to Jihadists throughout the region, and of course the ideology of a Jihadist is against democracy, any secular government.
We had an attack on the United States. There will be more blowbacks. Our security agencies believe that they are so skilled in conjunction with the Israeli security agency, Assad and others that they can manipulate these Jihadists to their own ends, but they may be desperate and they may be willing to be recruited and fight against secular governments, but they are not in cahoots with the US. In fact, one of the groups just issued a directive saying that any Western aid workers who come to Syria are a subject to assassination.
We are playing with fire. That is what the United States is currently finding out with the recent chemical killings. If you supply chemical weapons to these foreign fighters as it has been documented through Turkey, then you are going to get massive amounts of people who are killed, and if these Al-Qaeda forces, mercenary jihadists succeed in expanding their power in Syria then the consequences will be quite grave. They will carry out mass execution and they will kill anyone who doesn’t agree with them and any sort of freedom, freedom of speech, freedom of association, freedom of religion will be destroyed. There are certain interests in the West that are funding this and also the kingdom of Saudi Arabia, who will be quite pleased with this because the goal is to bring down the government of Iran.
Iran is an example of democracy in the Middle East and this is a threat to the monarchies in the Persian Gulf. People want their say in how they want to be governed. They want some form of democracy. They want what the rest of the world wants, basic right of democracy. They look at the United Sates, but who is the United States supporting? We are like drug addicts. We are propping up the House of Saud; we are propping up the Haifa’s. Who is supporting democratic forces there? Iran is a democratic country. Syria is a democratic country. We just overthrew the democratically elected government in Egypt. What is the US standing for? We are going against our values to protect the oil industry.
RT: Why, if the network is so dangerous to the West, does it support groups who are allied with terror groups - in Syria and Libya, for instance?
CC: There is a great contradiction in the United States, there are people who want to continue to support the monarchy and the Persian Gulf and there are others who want to pursue a democratic path and support Democracy in the region. You see in Obama’s, in his first term he tried to establish some form of democratic governments in the region, carrying on, trying to make sense of the war in Iraq with the removal of Saddam Hussein.
The only way to make sense of it was trying to push forward some sort of democratic regimes and the rest of the Arab world. So we shut down Mubarak and Egypt supported that. We have supported the ouster of Ben Ali in Tunisia, we supported the ouster of Gadhafi in Libya, and what we are doing is partly to put a democratic face on these regimes but as well to pursue the US interest. Right now the dominant forces in the United States foreign policy are the reactionary forces with invested interest in oil. And we can see that clearly by president Obama deferring much of US policy in the region right now to the republican leader in the Senate, John McCain. John McCain is not only calling the shots in Egypt and in Syria and elsewhere, he is speaking for the US, and this is unheard of. Where is Obama? Obama made people wonder: has he been stalemated? Yes has. Domestically his policies have been controversial and public opponents want to defund it. As well they want to defund some other projects that the president wants.
RT: Why does Washington persist with a regime change strategy particularly in the Arab world, where it seems to breed instability and help militants?
CC: No, I do not think it helps the US, neither the people in the region. We can say that there is a certain invested interest. It helps the House of Saud to stay in power; it helps the Gulf monarchs to stay in power. However, it is contrary to any kind of aspiration to the democratic values that the United States claims to support. Every American should me appalled at the US policy in the region right now, because we are not living up to our democratic values.
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