With Friends Like These: Who Needs Enemies

2013 08 14_3682On Saturday I told how our involvement in the War Against ISIS will be a repeat of the Vietnam War. We’re going in very slowly but as time goes on we will put more and more troops into the area, another surge like we had in Iraq, but this time we’ll be gobble up by the intractable Arab forces who we’ll never be able to please.

The Wall Street Journal (WSJ) on Saturday had a couple of articles that tell of the dire days that lie ahead. It isn’t widely covered but our air attacks against ISIS have built up a great animosity among the Syrian allies we are supposed to be helping. Throughout Syria there were anti-American demonstrations  protesting our attacks.

Of course, the American were caught by surprised. We’re always caught by surprise in the Arab world. Remember how we were told the Iraqi people would be on the streets welcoming our invasion of their country. That never happened.

Now a dozen groups of our Syrian allies denounced our air attacks. “In a heated meeting with the Syrian opposition in Istanbul Thursday, U.S. officials demanded an explanation.  . . . They said ‘friends don’t speak against friends.'”  The Syrians pushed back and said true friendship requires coordination. They are demanding we attack Assad’s forces. They want us to get more deeply involved.

Our “friends” are mad at us killing their women and children and elderly. As smart as our bombs are they not smart enough to avoid killing those folks. Just as Israel was condemned throughout the world for its killings of the Gaza people likewise situated, so we will be condemned as we continue our bombings. How long do you think Arabs are going to be pleased with this type slaughter?

Our “friends” are irate that we have attacked the so-called Khorasan group. According to one person, “In Syria, the Khorasan group moniker means little. It is a label created by officials in the United States and has no recognition within Jabhat al-Nusra or al Qaeda circles.”  You do recall we extolled our attacking that group alleging they were planning immediate terrorist attacks on the United States. Here’s what is reported about the group. “One U.S. Official said the Khorasan’s group’s makeup is fluid and estimated its size at more than a handful and less than a few dozen.”  This group who may have no more than forty or fifty people is presented as a new threat to America. What’s even more weird is that it’s not even clear there is such a group.

The Syrian allies consider the people we call Khorasan to be part of the Jabhat al-Nusra group. They are fighting Assad. By killing them the Syrian allies believe we help Assad who is their enemy. We are now pushing two enemies: ISIS and Nusra closer together.

Meanwhile our Syrian allies are demanding more arms including anti-aircraft and anti-tank missiles. We don’t trust them enough to give them that which is another point of friction. A spokesman for our allies Mr. Almarie is quoted as saying: “The U.S. needs to realize this isn’t a war they can win without friends on the ground.”

That’s true. Someone has to go in on the ground and bring the fight to ISIS in Syria. Our allies there are not so much against ISIS as they are against Assad. Some of these allies like the Jabhat al-Nusra group are associated with al Qaeda. They won’t fight ISIS because they recognize ISIS is also interested in bringing down Assad. They and ISIS are Sunnis while Assad is Shiite.

Who then is going to fight ISIS on the ground? Have you ever seen such a mess? None of it augurs well when we are already fighting with the people we are supposed to be working with. It looks like that will leave the Americans to do the ground fighting if we are to win. Shades of Vietnam.

One thing the Americans must realize. When we said to these Syrian groups “friends don’t speak against friends” we were assuming that they are our friends. When are we going to realize we have no friends in those countries. Any friendship we think we have will last only as long as we are useful to them. .

 

 

 

13 Comments

  1. Friends, we agree to disagree, at times. But please, do not use the mind as a sieve; use it as a filter. Not everything that comes into our brains—especially Globe stories, Howie Carr’s fantasies or serial killers’ fabrications motivated by the Feds’ carrots and sticks—-needs to see the light of day. Please filter out the irrelevancies and absurdities, and I’ll try to do likewise.

  2. Flemmi is Msfreeh’s source. Flemmi said Connolly got Edison to give electricity to the Boston Globe at a reduced price. Flemmi said that the retired Connolly’s motive was to get the Globe to say good things about him. If Msfreeh quotes another maniacal serial killer serial perjurer serial predator serial drug pusher who’s been offered leniency from the FEDs for his lunatic rants, then we’ll begin to doubt his credibility.

    • I hear you and second that Bill

      just google whitey Bulger c4 explosives FBI

      in other news

      Guns stolen from FBI agent’s car in Union Co.

      http://www.wcnc.com/story/news/crime/2014/10/02/guns-stolen-from-fbi-agents-car/16594705/

      October 2, 2014

      UNION COUNTY, N.C. — Two guns belonging to the FBI were stolen from an agent’s car in a Union County neighborhood.

      It happened Monday between midnight and 8 a.m. in the Hunter Oaks neighborhood off Rea Road.

      One Remington 870 shotgun, one Colt M-4LE rifle and olive color body armor with FBI patches were taken. The agent stored them in a locked trunk in black canvas bags.

      The FBI is working with the Union County Sheriff’s Office to find the weapons and suspects.

      The agent is part of a special response team, who is required to respond to events around the clock. He was authorized to store the weapons in his vehicle. Special Agent John Strong says the FBI will review procedures. This is the third incident of its kind in a little over a year.

  3. “I believe that being despised by the despicable is as good as being admired by the admirable” – Kurt Hoffman

  4. Matt
    The boys were gathered around the Green Mountain Coffee
    dispenser at 6 am this morning at Flying Pond Variety
    discussing the start of the Military Rutting Season….
    In other news I am grateful that Alwakii is on our side

    Since 1990 every major terrorist event in the US. was
    created by a FBI informant.
    The Mumbai attack in India was created by John Headley
    an FBI informant.
    The explosives for the Omargh bombing in Ireland were
    provided by FBI informant Whitey Bulger.

    2. reads

    see link for full story

    http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2014/10 … ated-with/
    Enemy or Asset? FBI documents show radical cleric Awlaki communicated with federal agent in ‘03

    Published October 01, 2014

    Newly released documents further support the conclusion that the FBI was working with radical cleric Anwar al-Awlaki after the 9/11 attacks – in the years before he became the first American targeted for death by a U.S. drone strike.

    As part of an ongoing investigation of the cleric that began after the 2009 Fort Hood shooting massacre, Fox News was first to report that in 2002, al-Awlaki was released from custody at JFK International Airport — despite an active warrant for his arrest — with the okay of FBI Agent Wade Ammerman.
    p
    Watchdog group Judicial Watch has since obtained more than 900 pages of new documents in the course of its federal lawsuit against the FBI under the Freedom of Information Act. They show the cleric was emailing and leaving voice messages with an FBI agent in 2003, a year after Ammerman told customs agents at JFK airport to bypass an outstanding warrant for the cleric’s arrest.

    The documents further support claims that Awlaki, who eventually went overseas and linked up with an Al Qaeda affiliate, worked with the FBI and was likely a U.S. government asset.

    “I have little doubt that President Obama assassinated a terrorist that was an asset of the U.S. government,” Judicial Watch President Tom Fitton said.

    He added: “There have been so many missed opportunities in getting the bad guys, but it’s one thing to have a bad guy working with you and for you and actually in your custody and then letting them go.”

    Fitton questioned whether Obama was even aware of al-Awlaki’s connections to federal law enforcement. “These unanswered questions cast President Obama’s decision to assassinate [al-Awlaki] in a disturbingly different light,” he said.

    In one Oct. 2, 2003 email, an FBI agent whose name is redacted writes to a colleague regarding a voicemail: “Holy crap, [redacted] isn’t this your guy? The aman (imam) with the prostitutes.”

    Three weeks later, after leaving another voicemail, the cleric uses his personal Yahoo account to write directly to an FBI agent, now stationed at the FBI Academy in Quantico, Va., to complain about news reports linking al-Awlaki to the 9/11 hijackers.

    “I was astonished by some of the talk circulating in the media about me. … I am amazed at how absurd the media could be and I hope that the US authorities know better and realize that what was mentioned about me was nothing but lies,” al-Awlaki writes, appearing to scold the FBI agent.

    In another email, an FBI agent bristles at attempts by the 9/11 Commission to locate al-Awlaki and interview him independently, describing the requests as “numerous and unrelenting.” The email says the 9/11 Commission wanted to talk to the cleric after it learned he had been phoning and emailing with FBI agents.

    Significantly, the email traffic shows that while the 9/11 Commission was trying to find al-Awlaki, an FBI agent was in direct contact with the cleric and set up a meeting with him in March 2004.

    “SA [redacted] has had a conversation with Aulaqi and has tentatively set up an interview for mid-March in London. With the VA. Jihad trial scheduled for early Feb. this will be the earliest SA (redacted) can meet Aulaqi … If the 9/11 commission needs to meet with Aulaqi, we will provide the contact information so they can set up their own interview.”

    Previously obtained records show that in 2002, within days of al-Awlaki’s re-entry to the U.S., he showed up in Ammerman’s counterterrorism investigation in Virginia into Ali al-Timimi, who is now serving a life sentence on non-terrorism charges. On Oct. 22, 2002, 12 days after the imam’s return, another FBI memo obtained through the Judicial Watch federal lawsuit (marked “Secret”) includes the subject line “Anwar Nasser Aulaqi” and “Synopsis: Asset reporting.” The existence of the customs entry records was first documented by author Paul Sperry.

    Asked about the FBI’s involvement in al-Awlaki’s release and whether the FBI tried to recruit the cleric, in a September 2013 interview with Fox News, then-FBI Director Robert Mueller did not deny it.

    “I am not personally familiar with any effort to recruit Anwar al-Awlaki as an asset — that does not mean to say there was not an effort at some level of the Bureau (FBI) or another agency to do so,” Mueller said.

    Mueller did not elaborate on a memo he personally sent then-Attorney General John Ashcroft on Oct. 3, 2002 — seven days before the imam suddenly re-entered the U.S., was detained and then released at JFK Airport, by the order of Mueller’s agent — that is marked “Secret” and titled “Anwar Aulaqi: IT-UBL/AL-QAEDA.”

    It is not public whether al-Awlaki’s contact information was provided by the FBI to the commission, but in the 9/11 report into the 2001 terrorist attacks, it states efforts to locate al-Awlaki were unsuccessful.

    Fitton claims federal law enforcement had al-Awlaki in their custody, until the FBI let him walk — and in the years before he was killed by a CIA drone in 2011, al-Awlaki pioneered the digital jihad, now being capitalized upon by the Isla

    2nd read
    Aug 12, 2013 – Accused mob boss James “Whitey” Bulger, who spent 16 years on … Flemmi says FBI agent John Newton gave him and #Bulger a case of C4 …
    How the IRA set up an arms deal with Boston gangster James …

    Aug 20, 2014 – But when it comes to the FBI it is silent about transparency. Don’t the … Whitey Bulger google whitey Bulger C4 explosives Boston FBI IRA
    FBI agent gave Whitey Bulger explosives to send to IRA – Irish Central
    irishcentral…

    • Msfreeh: You wrote that Whitey and an unnamed FBI agent gave c4 explosives to an IRA-breakaway group for the Ormagh bombing? You, my friend, are daft.

      • Oh, I see you named the agent: one John Newton. Was he one of the six machine gun totting FBI agents who did Whitey’s bidding, as Weeks said. Whatever happened to john newton?

        • Anwer: nothing happened to John Newton, I suspect, because not even Fred The Fed believes a damn word that Steve Flemmi says.

      • I apologize Bill.
        I posted the wrong story with my comment.

        BOSTON UPDATE: FBI War on Marathon Bombing Witnesses Continues

        see link for full story

        http://whowhatwhy.com/2014/10/02/boston … continues/

        By James Henry on Oct 2, 2014

        The FBI’s apparent message to Tsarnaev’s defense team

        The Boston Marathon bombing is much more important than has been acknowledged, principally because it is the major domestic national security event since 9-11 and has played a major role in expanding the power of the security state. For that reason, WhoWhatWhy is continuing to investigate troubling aspects of this story and the establishment media treatment of it. So even as it slips from the headlines, we will be exploring new elements of the story regularly as the trial of Dzhokhar Tsarnaev approaches.

        ***

        Since the Boston Marathon bombing a year and a half ago, the FBI appears to be intimidating, harassing, and silencing friends and acquaintances of the Tsarnaev brothers. Dzhokhar Tsarnaev’s lawyers have noticed it too—they’re having trouble getting anyone to talk to them, recent court papers reveal.

        In what WhoWhatWhy previously described as the FBI’s “war on witnesses”, the Bureau seems to be employing a scorched earth strategy of destroying anything that might be of use to the “enemy.”

        On August 29, Tsarnaev’s lawyers filed a motion requesting a continuance for more time to prepare their defense, noting the fact that they were given only half the median preparation time that federal courts have allowed over the past decade for defendants on trial for their lives. (The judge did grant a two-month delay while refusing the defense request to move the trial out of Boston.)

        The lawyers cited “outpaced requirements” in building a proper defense for their client: (1) the international nature of the investigation—including language and geographic barriers, (2) the large amount of evidence that has to be scrutinized, and most tellingly, (3) the climate of intimidation and fear created by the FBI’s investigative efforts since the bombing. They write:

        Domestic defense mitigation investigation has been conducted amid a growing atmosphere of anxiety and agitation generated by highly-publicized arrests, indictments, prosecutions, deportations (and, in one instance, the FBI killing) of members of Dzhokhar and Tamerlan Tsarnaev’s peer groups.

        Most news reports brush over that last part. As if shooting to death an unarmed man involved in this case—as an FBI agent did to Tamerlan’s friend Ibragim Todashev—is not relevant to the difficulties the defense team has had in getting witnesses to talk to them. But even less extreme events are enough to silence potential witnesses, such as the mysterious closing of their bank accounts.
        The father of Ibragim Todashev displays end result of FBI interview.

        The father of Ibragim Todashev displays end result of FBI interview.

        Prosecutors resisted this and an earlier attempt to have the trial delayed. The victims have a right to see justice done—swiftly, the thinking goes.

        The victims and their families certainly deserve justice for this horrible atrocity. True justice should include a full accounting—something a hurried, one-sided investigation is not likely to produce. And of course Boston and the American public deserve, and need, the truth, whatever it may be.

        Yet a close read of the motion document reveals FBI activities that seem more of an effort to conceal than to illuminate.

        The FBI’s March to the Sea

        Tsarnaev’s defense team makes reference to the most troubling—and most anxiety-producing—action by the FBI since the bombing: the shooting to death of Tamerlan’s friend, Todashev. (See our earlier story on the head-scratching circumstances surrounding that shooting, including the questionable history of the agent who pulled the trigger.)

        Some of the FBI’s aggressive tactics described in the defense document look like outright intimidation. For instance, individuals “with lawful immigration status have been detained for hours and required to surrender their electronic devices upon re-entry to the United States.”

        And take a look at this excerpt:

        “The investigation has been further hampered by aggressive FBI follow-up tracking and questioning of potential witnesses, as well as by the unrelenting attention of the news media.”

        It is one thing to be aggressively tracking and questioning individuals suspected of committing crimes, but to be doing this to presumably innocent witnesses reeks of intimidation. Witness intimidation is a tactic ordinarily associated with mafia or drug cartel defendants.

        Notably, this “tracking” must have been brought to the attention of defense lawyers by witnesses themselves, indicating overt surveillance: “We’re watching you.”

        Then, farther down in the document:

        “These difficult circumstances are compounded by a continuing pattern of aggressive FBI re-interviewing of potential witnesses — on occasion within hours of an attempted contact by defense investigator [emphasis added].”

        Within hours of an attempted contact by defense investigator? Is the defense team being watched too? (We reached out to Tsarnaev’s defense team hoping they could expand on that, but have not yet had a response.)

        1It wouldn’t be the first time the FBI was caught spying on defense lawyers in a high-profile terrorism case. Lawyers for accused 9/11 mastermind Khalid Shaikh Mohammed allege that the FBI has been surveilling them.

        Whether legal counsel are being watched directly or simply getting caught up in the surveillance of Tsarnaev’s acquaintances, the effect is the same: the feds know who is talking to whom, and when.

        That’s a Nice Immigration Status You Got There…

        Witnesses who are not U.S. citizens—which describes the majority of Tsarnaev’s friends, family, and many in the local Muslim community—are particularly vulnerable to law enforcement manipulation. The threat of deportation is a clear and present danger to these individuals, “regardless of whether criminal charges are ever brought or proven against them,” Tsarnaev’s lawyers wrote.

        2Indeed, a handful of people loosely connected to the Tsarnaevs have already been deported, or had deportation proceedings initiated against them, despite having nothing to do with the Boston Marathon bombing. These include:

        – Konstantin Morozov: friend of Tamerlan, arrested and jailed pending deportation reportedly after refusing to wear a wire for the FBI as the Bureau sought information on one of Tamerlan’s Chechen friends.

        • Msfreeh: Right on! 1. The terrorists and potential terrorists must be dealt with swiftly, harshly and without remorse or hesitation. They’ve come here, too many of them (them = radical Islamists and their homegrown recruits) to kill us and our children. But we have a system of justice that’s supposed to protect the innocent. It doesn’t. It persecutes innocents, absolves criminals (wealthy: too big to fail; too big to jail. Read Matt Tahibbi’s “Divide” and severely punishes marginal or petty PERSONS OUT OF FAVOR (POOFs, ex. City Councilor Chuck Turner’s accepting a few hundred dollars gets 3 years in prison, while executives/associates of Wall Street corporations laundering $350,000,000 (that’s right 350 million dollars) in drug cartel monies get no jail time. ) 2. Great post illuminating the excesses of today’s FBI: add witness intimidation to legalized extortion and fabricating testimony as crimes laid at the feet of the Department of Justice: Your quote is on point: “It is one thing to be aggressively tracking and questioning individuals suspected of committing crimes, but to be doing this to presumably innocent witnesses reeks of intimidation. Witness intimidation is a tactic ordinarily associated with mafia or drug cartel defendants.”
          3. How are those Congressional oversight investigations going into who leaked Bill Bulger’s Grand Jury Testimony and who sicced two FBI dogs on the Bulger women while Bill was testifying in D.C.? 4. How’s Eric Holder’s promised investigation into Fast and Furious, the IRS and John Connolly’s persecution after A.G. Holder received a formal letter from 100 retired FBI agents asking for an investigation of the Boston Office of the DOJ and its prosecutors? Just asking. Are these rhetorical questions? Are they meant to make us laugh or cry with outrage against the FEDs? Does the word cover-up mean anything to the FEDs?
          4. THE BLAZE had a great story yesterday about the Carswell hotel fiasco, where FEDs and local cops conspired to steal a family’s $2 million dollar motel, because out of 200,000 rentals over ten years, two score involved some guests using or selling grass and other drugs. Heil Holder, who never prosecuted one Wall Street Executive/Official over the 2008 subprime Mortgage Meltdown Scandal! Too big to jail!!! Mockeries of justice!

  5. Absolutely true. BHO was correct when he said the moderate rebels were farmers, lawyers etc. A fantasy not a fighting force. If the rebels prevail ISIS or Nusra rule then the persecution of Christians, Shia and other minorities is guaranteed. Our Government is too obtuse to realize we have no friends there. An Assad victory is the least worse outcome. Our State Department and CIA have become addicted to Intervention. A non intervention approach is needed.

  6. Vietnam, Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya, Yemen, Syria—we, the U.S. Gov’t, blunder into conflicts, exacerbate conditions, increase killing (tens of thousands die; hundreds of thousands die; millions in Vietnam)— then we withdraw and blunder into another hot spot. We don’t belong. ISIS got its weapons from US supplied Iraqis and Syrian opposition forces. If we’d stayed out of Iraq and Syria, there’d be no ISIS. Arguably, if we stayed out of Syria, there’d be no Iraqi. The Neocons, CIA, DOD, McCain-types in Congress, and the Arms Merchant love our international intermeddling, our entanglement in foreign wars and our imperialism. Stop arming insurgents; stop invading; get both our boots and loafers (CIA-types) out of the Imperialism business.
    We have to kill ISIS in great part because it is a Frankenstein Monster that we created. Bomb ISIS to smithereens. No US ground forces. If Arabs-Persians don’t want to help kill ISIS then let them live with that Cancer in their belly. Stop aiding Syrian rebels; their arms will only fall into the hands of ISIS. As with Vietnam, admit our mistakes and withdraw, before thousands of more US soldiers are killed. 2. Strengthen our borders Stop admitting potential terrorists to America; deport suspected Terrorists; 3. Keep our military strong 4. Handcuff and neutralize Lobbyists from the Arms Industry and Neocon Imperialists. 5. Stop international drug traffickers from doing business in America—narcotics’ blood money feeds Muslim Terrorists who traffick but don’t use drugs.