[isn't this piece at the Ron Paul Institute a bit off the mark:-( we're to believe that McCain is out of step with the DC cabal? Is RP running for election again? :-( McCain Stands With ISIS? Sen. John McCain has a knack for getting his picture taken with the strangest characters. Though his support for US interventionism is steadfast, does he even know what he is getting himself into when he travels overseas? In the above photograph, we see Sen. McCain, along with his neocon sidekick Sen. Lindsey Graham, cavorting with his good friend Abdelhakim Belhadj. When McCain was cheerleading for the US attack on Libya, Belhadj was among those he promoted as offering the promise of a democratic Libyan future. But Belhadj was at the time a founder of the "Libya Dawn," which was a group of Islamic militia forces tied to al-Qaeda in Libya. Did Senator McCain overlook his Libyan friend's ties with al-Qaeda in his zeal to see Gaddafi overthrown or did he simply not know about it? But that's not even half of it! We now learn that Senator McCain's friend Abdelhakim Belhadj has been promoted from an al-Qaeda operative to his current position as the head of ISIS in Libya! Last year alone, McCain "distinguished" himself by being photographed with both Islamist extremists in Syria and neo-Nazis in Ukraine. His hat trick should really call into question his claimed expertise in foreign policy matters. >>  full piece at above link Washington’s Al Qaeda Ally Now Leading ISIS in Libya Islamic State (ISIS) Mercenary Admits Getting Funds from US The Express Tribune, an affiliate of the New York Times, recently reported in an article titled, “Startling revelations: IS operative confesses to getting funds via US,” that another “coincidence” appears to be contributing to the so-called “Islamic State’s” (ISIS) resilience and vast resources. A recent investigation being conducted by Pakistani security forces involving a captured ISIS fighter has revealed that he and many fighters alongside him, received funds that were routed through the US. “During the investigations, Yousaf al Salafi revealed that he was getting funding – routed through America – to run the organisation in Pakistan and recruit young people to fight in Syria,” a source privy to the investigations revealed to Daily Express on the condition of anonymity. >>  full piece at above link The Relationship between Washington and ISIS: The Evidence Reports that US and British aircraft carrying arms to ISIS have been shot down by Iraqi forces have been met with shock and denial in western countries. Few in the Middle East doubt that Washington is playing a ‘double game’ with its proxy armies in Syria, but some key myths remain important amongst the significantly more ignorant western audiences. A central myth is that Washington now arms ‘moderate Syrian rebels’, to both overthrow the Syrian Government and supposedly defeat the ‘extremist rebels’. This claim became more important in 2014, when the rationale of US aggression against Syria shifted from ‘humanitarian intervention’ to a renewal of Bush’s ‘war on terror’. A distinct controversy is whether the al Qaeda styled groups (especially Jabhat al Nusra and ISIS) have been generated as a sort of organic reaction to the repeated US interventions, or whether they are actually paid agents of Washington. Certainly, prominent ISIS leaders were held in US prisons. ISIS leader, Ibrahim al-Badri (aka Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi) is said to have been held for between one and two years at Camp Bucca in Iraq. In 2006, as al-Baghdadi and others were released, the Bush administration announced its plan for a ‘New Middle East’, a plan which would employ sectarian violence as part of a process of ‘creative destruction’ in the region. According to Seymour Hersh’s 2007 article, ‘The Redirection’, the US would make use of ‘moderate Sunni states’, not least the Saudis, to ‘contain’ the Shia gains in Iraq brought about by the 2003 US invasion. These ‘moderate Sunni’ forces would carry out clandestine operations to weaken Iran and Hezbollah, key enemies of Israel. This brought the Saudis and Israel closer, as both fear Iran. While there have been claims that the ISIS ‘caliph’ al-Baghdadi is a CIA or Mossad trained agent, these have not yet been well backed up. There are certainly grounds for suspicion, but independent evidence is important, in the context of a supposed US ‘war’ against ISIS . So what is the broader evidence on Washington’s covert links with ISIS? Not least are the admissions by senior US officials that key allies support the extremist group. In September 2014 General Martin Dempsey, head of the US military, told a Congressional hearing ‘I know major Arab allies who fund [ ISIS ]‘. Senator Lindsey Graham, of Armed Services Committee, responded with a justification, ‘They fund them because the Free Syrian Army couldn’t fight [Syrian President] Assad, they were trying to beat Assad’. The next month, US Vice President Joe Biden went a step further, explaining that Turkey, Qatar, the UAE and Saudi Arabia ‘were so determined to take down Assad … they poured hundreds of millions of dollars and tens, thousands of tons of weapons into anyone who would fight against Assad … [including] al Nusra and al Qaeda and extremist elements of jihadis coming from other parts of the world … [and then] this outfit called ISIL’. Biden’s admissions sought to exempt the US from this operation, as though Washington were innocent of sustained operations carried out by its key allies. That is simply not credible. >>  full piece at above link How the US Helped Create Al Qaeda and ISIS Much like Al Qaeda, the Islamic State (ISIS) is made-in-the-USA, an instrument of terror designed to divide and conquer the oil-rich Middle East and to counter Iran’s growing influence in the region. The fact that the United States has a long and torrid history of backing terrorist groups will surprise only those who watch the news and ignore history. The CIA first aligned itself with extremist(??)  Islam during the Cold War era. Back then, America saw the world in rather simple terms: on one side, the Soviet Union and Third World nationalism, which America regarded as a Soviet tool; on the other side, Western nations and militant political Islam, which America considered an ally in the struggle against the Soviet Union. The director of the National Security Agency under Ronald Reagan, General William Odom recently remarked, “by any measure the U.S. has long used terrorism. In 1978-79 the Senate was trying to pass a law against international terrorism – in every version they produced, the lawyers said the U.S. would be in violation.” During the 1970’s the CIA used the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt as a barrier, both to thwart Soviet expansion and prevent the spread of Marxist ideology among the Arab masses. The United States also openly supported Sarekat Islam against Sukarno in Indonesia, and supported the Jamaat-e-Islami terror group against Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto in Pakistan. Last but certainly not least, there is Al Qaeda. Lest we forget, the CIA gave birth to Osama Bin Laden and breastfed his organization during the 1980’s. Former British Foreign Secretary, Robin Cook, told the House of Commons that Al Qaeda was unquestionably a product of Western intelligence agencies. Mr. Cook explained that Al Qaeda, which literally means an abbreviation of “the database” in Arabic, was originally the computer database of the thousands of Islamist extremists, who were trained by the CIA and funded by the Saudis, in order to defeat the Russians in Afghanistan. >>  full piece at above link Lieberman: Behead Arabs Who Aren’t Loyal to Israel [might as well make it official and be  transparent: beheading ....and the free-speech-democracy thingy goin on there) Israeli Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman yesterday threatening to cut off with an axe the heads of Arab-Israeli citizens who are not loyal to the state. “Those with us, should receive everything” in terms of rights, he says, according to Israel’s Channel 2. “Those against us, it cannot be helped, we must lift up an axe and behead them – otherwise we will not survive here,” Lieberman said during an election rally in the western city of Herzliya. [btw: he Arab states he refers to? like Jordan? nothing but USRaeli proxies]