US Kills 'Al-Qaeda Leader' in Syria, Forgetting Who Funded Them First
CENTCOM proudly announced it eliminated a leader 'tied to' a deadly ambush in Syria, characterizing him as 'al-Qaeda-affiliated.' This headline omits a rather crucial piece of historical context: a 2012 DIA intelligence report, later declassified, explicitly stated that 'the Salafists, the Muslim Brotherhood, and AQI [Al-Qaeda in Iraq]' were the 'major forces driving the insurgency in Syria' and
that 'Western countries, the Gulf states and Turkey' were supporting the opposition. One might wonder if these 'affiliated leaders' suddenly materialized out of thin air, or if their affiliations were, at one point, just 'moderate rebels' receiving aid from the same Western powers now targeting them. It’s a bizarre geopolitical merry-go-round where the US consistently 'defeats' the very groups its
foreign policy, directly or indirectly, helped empower. The cycle repeats: arm and fund a proxy force to destabilize a region, then declare new 'terrorist leaders' when those proxies turn too inconvenient. The only constant is perpetual war, ensuring a robust budget for CENTCOM and endless headlines about eliminating the latest 'threat' that always seems to have US-made weapons.