Isilanity, The Genesis

THE ABSURD TIMES

So we agree? God is great, you and me, King.

So you agree? We got your back, Saddam, you have our word.

ISILANITY

BY

CZAR DONIC

The illustrations above will become relevant as we proceed.

One of the more predictable results of the recent attacks on western targets by the religion if Isilanity is that mainly Republican Governors of American States are demanding that only "Proven Christians" be admitted as refugees. This leaves our state department with a singular problem or question: "What is a "proven Christian"?

I confess that I am unable to answer this as it has never been "proven" one way or another. So, for example, how am I to know what a proven Christian is? I suppose I could ask the Pope and I consider him to be a proven Christian, especially as he is supposedly an official successor of one of the original twelve disciples, but then my opinion, so far as the Republican Governors are concerned, is worthless as I would not trust the opinion on one who is not a "proven Christian." Perhaps a Lutheran or Calvinist would suffice but, again, without first being proven to be a Christian, my opinion, and hence theirs, would be worthless. The entire concept leaves us in pointland. I have borrowed this approach of reasoning from C. S. Lewis, another "proven Christian," but once again, his line of reasoning is worthless as well.

Moreover, what about Atheists and Agnostics? Should they not be deported? If so, to where? Yes, I've hear about the First Amendment, but who believe everything they read, eh?

So now, I can talk about the Genesis of Isilanity, however, as the facts are apparent.

The first step was in reaction to the Marxist definition of religion as the "Opiate of the Masses" and our desire to recruit the Sunni populations' governments to our side in our war against the Soviet Union, which had been considered as conducting its own "war on drugs," opiates, such as the God Bomb. As far back as the Reagan administration, the strategy was to elicit the Saudi or Wahabbi forces' support against the Soviet Union as the two of us both believed in God, while the Soviets did not. They were willing allies. A few of the mid-eastern leaders did not follow, people such as Nassar and Gaddafi, but eventually the all were defeated.

One of the more troubling forces for us was Saddam Hussein. Now he was valuable and welcome to us so far as he attacked the "bad Muslims" (Shias), but not when he helped the oil-rich ones (Kuwait and thus Sunni). Bush I attacked him with United Nation's approval, but left him alive. The quasi-Marxist Ba'ath party remained intact. Bill Clinton saw no point in invading to overthrow Saddam as he had his own war in support of Islam in the Balkans (and against Serbia, the atheists). Bush II came along and with some sort of Oedipal ferocity used the 9/11 attack (by Bin Laden who we first supported). He was in Afghanistan at the time and so we attacked them, but also made the case that Saddam had weapons of mass destruction (we knew this as we had the receipts). The fact that Osama regarded Saddam as an "infidel" notwithstanding, Rumsfield and others helped support the idea that Saddam was now bad, not good, and therefore must be eliminated.

Georgie sent Bremer in with order to "de-Ba'athify" (in other words, get rid of the Sunnis) and put the Shia in power. Since all the competent apparatchiks were Sunni, they found themselves out of favor and power and a job.

Then Camp Bucca was turned from an agricultural college into a torture palace and faced much unrest. Then a man named Abu Bakir Al-Bagdadi was given the position of religious teacher, or Imam, for Ba'athists and Sunnis. Bush II saw that it was good and he rested, landing on a ship, "Mission Accomplished".

Now Isilanity is not Moslem, Christian, not Judaism. It is unlike any religion that has ever existed with the possible exception of the Norse "Berserkers," a subject best left to the imagination.

The specific tenets of Isilanity are still not all that clear, but as soon as the times has them codified, we will pass them along. It is certain that one need not be able to understand Arabic nor be able to read any language, nor need one be able to understand Arabic. There is, I am told by our media, a 800 number for the Isil "hotline," but nothing further than that so far.

Here are a few interviews on the various subjects mentioned:

TRANSCRIPT

This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form.

AMY GOODMAN: France and Russia have staged a series of new airstrikes on the Syrian city of Raqqa, the de facto capital of the self-proclaimed Islamic State, or Daesh. Russia announced earlier today it would intensify strikes in Syria after Russian intelligence service said they had found conclusive proof that a bomb had brought down the Metrojet airliner in Egypt's Sinai Peninsula, killing all 224 people on board last month. Meanwhile, French President François Hollande vowed to step up attacks in Syria following Friday's attacks in Paris that killed 129 people.

PRESIDENT FRANÇOIS HOLLANDE: [translated] The need to destroy Islamic State is an issue that faces the whole of the international community. I have therefore asked the Security Council to hold a meeting as quickly as possible to adopt a resolution to mark this goal shared by all to fight against terrorism.

AMY GOODMAN: Earlier today, Secretary of State John Kerry traveled to Paris to meet Hollande one day after President Obama announced the U.S. and France have agreed to step up their exchange of intelligence on potential targets. France also has invoked the European Union's mutual assistance clause for the first time, asking its partners for military help and other aid in missions in the Middle East and Africa after the Paris attacks.

Overnight, French police conducted 128 searches. France is currently in a state of emergency, which allows authorities to search homes any time without court approval. Hollande is seeking to extend the state of emergency for three months.

A massive manhunt is still underway for Salah Abdeslam, a prime suspect in the Paris attacks. He's a Belgian-born French national. French authorities have also identified Abdel-Hamid Abu Oud as the possible mastermind of the attacks. He's a Belgian of Moroccan origin believed to be in Syria.

While France, Russia and the United States bomb Syria, the United Nations is warning against escalating the regional war in the Middle East. Zeid Ra'ad al-Hussein serves as the U.N. human rights commissioner.

ZEID RA'AD AL-HUSSEIN: This is a dark time, a time of great turmoil in the international—in the world of international relations. Paris bleeds. So, too, does Beirut and Aleppo and Sana'a and countless other cities. And it seems that the defenses against chaos and bloodshed that states erected at the close of the Second World War, the laws they wrote and swore to abide by, the agreements and treaties they signed, are giving way to increasingly unilateral action bound by no principle or any foresight.

AMY GOODMAN: To talk more about the Islamic State, also known as Daesh, we are joined by longtime Middle East journalist Abdel Bari Atwan in London. He served as editor-in-chief of the London-based daily Al-Quds al-Arabi for 25 years. He now edits the Rai al-Youm website. He is author of the new book, The Islamic State: The Digital Caliphate. He also recently wrote an article for Salon headlined "America Enabled Radical Islam: How the CIA, George W. Bush and Many Others Helped Create ISIS." He interviewed Osama bin Laden twice in the '90s.

Abdel Bari Atwan, welcome to Democracy Now! Can you respond to the Paris attacks and then how Western countries are responding to those attacks?

ABDEL BARI ATWAN: Yes, Amy, it's very nice to be with you again. I remember last time it was after 11th of September attacks. Here, we are talking after a Paris carnage which took place last Friday, Friday evening.

You know, what is happening now, the Islamic State is changing its strategy. Now they are adopting their savagery management phase. When I say that, in the beginning, they wanted to grab land, consolidate their grip on it and then expand. It seems, because of more than 7,000 air sortie against them, they decided to take revenge, to adopt the strategy of al-Qaeda, which they condemned in the beginning of their emergence. When I say to adopt the strategy of al-Qaeda, to export their terrorism to outside Middle East to the heart of Europe, to hit the industry, to hit the economy, to terrorize people, to take revenge from French, from United States, maybe Britain, who are bombarding their positions in Raqqa in Syria and also in Mosul and other parts in Iraq. So, this is their new strategy. It is not surprising, actually, that they are turning to this. It was expected.

And they are very, very organized in this field. You know, many people, they think those people are stupid—you know, sort of rusty beard, dirty beard, baggy trouser. No, they are not like that. You know, they are very, very intelligent. They are the remnant of Saddam Hussein security institutions, also the Republican Guards, the army. Those people, you know, when the army was dissolved, when the security organization were dissolved, the Republican Guards, they were dumped in the streets by Paul Bremer, the American ruler of Iraq, first ruler of Iraq. You know, they—actually, they were dumped, humiliated, frustrated. So, they were behind the establishment of this Islamic State.

Now, they move to the second stage, which is to take revenge. And that's why we see this eight people, eight people, a very organized cell, to attack six positions, six places in Paris in the same time, the same night. It means they are lethal, they are dangerous. And this kind—these attacks is one of four attacks which took place by the Islamic State. The first thing was in Tunisia in a resort, where about 40 people were killed. And then, you know, this—the downing of the Russian tourism aircraft—224 people were killed—to destroy the tourism industry in Egypt and in Tunisia. Now they are attacking the tourism or the jewel of the crown of Europe, which is Paris, where $70 billion, actually, the revenue of the tourism industry for France. So they know what they are doing. They are adopting, as I said, the strategy of al-Qaeda. Al-Qaeda attacked the World Trade Center. Here they are attacking the center of Europe, the capital of Europe, which is Paris. And that's why it is devastating.

AMY GOODMAN: Can you explain the term "Daesh"? You see even, well, Secretary of State Kerry is continually now talking about ISIS as what he calls "Daesh." Explain what that term means.

ABDEL BARI ATWAN: To be honest, you know, I am really surprised when the French president used the word "Daesh." What it means, Daesh? In Arabic, it means Islamic State in Syria and Iraq. This is it. It is exactly. Now they shorten the name to Islamic State. So they don't want to call it Islamic State. You know, I have been arguing, because my book is The Islamic State: The Digital Caliphate. I was really bombarded by a lot of criticism because I used the term "Islamic State." I said to them, "Look, if your name is Amy, shall I call you Carole, for example?" They named themselves the Islamic State, and there is Islamic Army, and there is Islamic Front. Why here, when it comes to this, you know, they want to change its name to Arabic name, which has the same meaning? It is really silly. And it's—I'm really shocked by this. Its name is Islamic State. We have to call it Islamic State. Like with United States, we call it United States. So, we can't say, "No, this is barbaric," America, for example, or this is barbaric to, you know, planet or whatever. So, this is—this is the problem. Daesh, in Arabic, it is a shortening of Islamic State in Iraq and Syria. That's it, you know? So, many people in the Arab world, actually, they hide the sun, you know, by a little—what we call it, you know, just a little piece of cloth or something like that. And so, this—you can't—you can't actually deny them their name.

And you cannot actually avoid—you don't defeat it by saying, "It is Daesh, it is not Islamic State." It is Islamic, and it is a state. When I say Islamic, they are adopting the worst interpretation of Islam, Wahhabism, which was originated in Najd in Saudi Arabia. And it is, you know, a state, because it has all the terminology, all actually the description of a state. They have an army, they have a police, they have an administration, they have a cabinet, they have their own currency, they have their own flag. They have 9 million or 10 million carrying their citizenship, whatever. They have their own border until now. And they are dealing with the neighboring countries. They are selling oil to Kurdistan, north of Iraq. They are selling oil to Turkey. They are selling oil even to Europe. So, people would say, "No, no, they are not a state." OK, good luck to you. But it is a state, and it is Islamic, whether we like it or not. You know, this is not a good beginning, actually. If you want to understand this state or this phenomena, this terrorist organization, this is not a good beginning. We have, actually, to be truthful. We have to be truthful to ourselves. We have to understand this phenomena, terrorism—

AMY GOODMAN: Abdel Bari—

ABDEL BARI ATWAN: —terrorist phenomena. We have to study it, and we have to fight it, not just, you know, say, "No, it's Daesh," or not even to mention its name correctly. Yes, Amy?

AMY GOODMAN: Abdel Bari Atwan, the response since the Paris attacks—the U.S. bomb, the French are bombing Syria, the Russians are bombing Syria. Do you think a military response—how do you think a military response will affect ISIS?

ABDEL BARI ATWAN: Well, Amy, you know, the problem is—sorry—when we talk about military response, you know, military alone—military solution is not actually enough. To using military solution alone, it means we are prolonging the problem. We are strengthening the Islamic State. Seven thousand sorties until now by the American and their allies. What happened? You know, the Islamic State grown up. They managed to capture Ramadi in Iraq, which is their third biggest city, and they managed to capture Palmyra in Syria, which is another very well-known as—you know, of antiquities, of history and legacy. So, this is the problem. Security solution is not good enough. See what happened. You know, the American used, you know, military solution in Afghanistan. And now, after 14 years, they are talking to Taliban, to surrender power to Taliban. And they used to call Taliban as a terrorist organization. "We are not going to talk to them. We have to root them out." They did not root them out. The same thing in Libya. They said, "OK, Gaddafi is a bloody dictator." Yes, he is a bloody dictator. They remove them—they removed him. And what happened? Chaos, anarchy, the vacuum filled by al-Qaeda and filled by the Islamic State and other terrorist militias. So, this is the problem. You know, whenever there is military intervention, whenever there is American intervention in particular, there is failed states. We have more than five failed states in the Middle East. Who will fill the vacuum? The Islamic State. And that's why they have branches in Egypt, in Sinai, they have branches in Afghanistan, branches in Pakistan, now in a very strong state in Syria. And they have also—could be soon in Palestine, the West Bank and Gaza. So, this is the problem. Military solution, intervention, military intervention, it is not actually the only way.

We have first—you know, Amy, if you'll allow me, I'll give you seven keywords, if you want to understand the Middle East and want to understand why this state is very strong and getting stronger and stronger.

First, humiliation. People are humiliated by the military intervention and by their own government, which is, you know, dictatorship.

Frustration. We have more than a hundred young people—a hundred million young people, at least, either full unemployed or partly employed. Those people are frustrated because there is no future.

The third word is marginalization. When the Americans invaded and occupied Iraq, you know, what happened? They marginalized the Sunni sect and gave advantage to the Shia sect, divided the country according to the sectarian life. So this marginalization created the incubator for the Islamic State in Iraq.

Military intervention. And I mentioned, when you intervene by military means in Arab countries, you create failed state.

The lack of—the fifth word is the lack of good governance. We don't have good governance in the Middle East. Corrupt regimes. Look at the Saudi Arabia. Look at the Gulf region. Look at the other parts of the Arab world. It is corruption everywhere. There is no democracy. There is no human rights. There is no, actually—any transparency.

And then, the other word is underestimation. Underestimation—you know, when the Islamic State was growing in Iraq and Syria, we noticed it, and we said, "This is a very dangerous phenomena." I wrote a book, After Bin Laden: Al Qaeda, the Next Generation. I predicted this. I predicted, you know, more radical organization than al-Qaeda, than Osama bin Laden.

And then, the final word is the social media. You know, people are not listening to the mainstream media anymore as they used to be. And the Islamic State is manipulating this social media, the Internet, the Twitter, the Facebook, you know, the Snapchat, everything. And they are using it to their own advantages. They are—you know, Osama bin Laden was actually a poor man, an old man sitting in front of a camera recording a videotape and then begging Al Jazeera or CNN to broadcast it. Now they don't need this. Just a press of a button, they reach millions of people. They have 100,000 tweets every day. They have 50,000 accounts on the Twitter. There are thousands, you know, maybe tens of thousands of pages on the Internet—or, on the Facebook.

So, they are very, very, very—that's why, if you want to understand the Middle East, we have to put these seven words into consideration. We will have better idea, and definitely we will know how to fight this Islamic State, not by military means only, but also by other means, by ideological means, by social means, by economic means.

AMY GOODMAN: Can you talk about the role of Saudi Arabia? President Obama held a bilateral meeting with Saudi Arabia's King Salman at the G20 summit in Turkey Sunday.

ABDEL BARI ATWAN: You know, Saudi Arabia is the origin of radicalism, Islamic radicalism, in the Middle East and the whole world and the whole Islamic world. Why? Because al-Qaeda ideology—sorry, Islamic State ideology is the same Wahhabi ideology which adopted by the Saudi kingdom. This is—you know, they go back to the time of Muhammad ibn Abd al-Wahhab in 1704, you know, so they are doing—doing exactly the same. They are doing in Syria and Iraq this brutality, this savagery, the Wahhabism of the Saudi regime in 1705 and '06, when they actually invaded Karbala and Najaf. They committed the same massacres.

So, Saudi Arabia, actually, now, they are—they are, actually, with Qatar and with Turkey. They have some sort of alliance. And they started the problem in Syria. They poured billions in Syria, hoping to topple the Assad regime for personal revenge, not for political means, not for actually, you know, a strategic move from their side. They just want to take revenge, personal revenge, because Assad insulted them in a way or another, and also because they thought that they can topple him in a few weeks, few months maximum. So they poured billions of weapons. And also, they encouraged a hundred—sorry, tens of thousands of volunteers to go through Turkey to Syria to fight against the Assad regime.

This is—all this was happening while the West actually don't understand. They were misled by Turkey and Saudi Arabia and Qatar. This is a fact. When I said they misled, because they did not actually manage to understand this phenomena. They underestimated the emergence of such a radical organization or a state like the Islamic State, which we are witnessing now. This is—this is the problem. Saudi Arabia, until now, they are saying, "We must topple Assad regime." You know, OK, topple Assad regime, you topple the Gaddafi regime, you topple the Ali Abdullah Saleh regime in Yemen. So what happened? Where is the plan B? Have you built—rebuilt Libya, for example? Did you set a good example in Iraq, in Libya, in Yemen, in Syria? What's the plan after Assad, for example? Who will rule Syria? Is it going to be democracy? Or is it going to be like Libya? Is it going to be like Iraq, divided on the sectarian lines? This is the problem.

Yes, Saudi Arabia now, they managed to influence the American White House, the American position, because in your country—this is the problem. Now—you know, until now, the American policy in the Middle East is a complete shamble. You know, there is no policy, honestly. In six months ago, they said we should give the priority of rooting out the Islamic State. Said, "OK, great." And then, now, because of the Saudi-Turkish-Qatari influence, they said, "No, we have to actually—there is no future for Assad in the political process." Where is this political process? Has it started? Why didn't it start, say, five years ago, when the problem started in Syria? Why we are waiting until now? You had five years to sort it out. You know, you did not sort it out.

AMY GOODMAN: It's not only—

ABDEL BARI ATWAN: And then, when the Russians intervened in Syria to protect their man—

AMY GOODMAN: It is not only—

ABDEL BARI ATWAN: —now they are saying—sorry, yes?

AMY GOODMAN: It's not only, Abdel Bari Atwan, that the U.S. is working with Saudi Arabia. I mean, they just sealed the largest weapons deal in history with Saudi Arabia.

ABDEL BARI ATWAN: Yes. Yeah, you are absolutely right. You know, it's a history there. The problem is, you know, when they were feeding radicalism in the Islamic world, introducing the Wahhabism as the Puritan interpretation of Islam and sharia law, the West used to work with them. They worked with them in Afghanistan, and it was very clear. And what happened after that? They toppled the communist regime in Kabul, and then, you know, they left anarchy there, bloody anarchy, Arab—so-called Arab mujahideen. And al-Qaeda emerged. Now, you know, they intervene in Syria. What happened? The Islamic State emerged. They intervened in Iraq. The same thing, al-Qaeda again, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, al-Tawhid wal-Jihad organization emerged. So, usually, when there is uncalculated and underestimated intervention, actually, that's what will happen in the Middle East. This is the problem.

AMY GOODMAN: How do you think the U.S.—

ABDEL BARI ATWAN: And we keep repeating the same mistakes, one after one. Yes?

AMY GOODMAN: How do you think the U.S. can put pressure on Saudi Arabia?

ABDEL BARI ATWAN: Oh, yes, they can. You know, they can. You know, President Obama was actually absolutely correct when he told to the Saudis, "Look, you know, we are not going to bomb Iran, you know, because you want us to bomb Iran. You know, OK, yeah, we can protect you from any Iranian danger. But, you know, your problem is your people. It is an internal problem. You have a population which is dissatisfied, those population completely marginalized. You know, those people are unemployed, and they have no future. They don't have any role in actually determining their future." So, this is—this is the problem. There are huge problems inside.

The United States can put pressure on Saudi Arabia, and they can put pressure on Qatar, and they can put pressure on Turkey and say, "Look, listen, you know, we can't actually, you know, to continue argument with which is first, the chicken or the egg? The Islamic State or Assad regime?" They have to make up their mind. You know, if it's the Islamic State is a priority, go for it. If Assad is a priority, go for it.

But you cannot actually keep arguing, and while thousands—hundreds of thousands of people are killed, and 7,000 sorties. We don't know what these air sorties are killing, for example. How many innocent people are killed because of it? I don't believe there are these 7,000 air sorties killing al-Qaeda—sorry, Islamic State members. Definitely they are killing innocent people, civilians. Who will tell us how many civilians were killed? It is a completely taboo to talk about the deaths, civilian deaths, because of this allied bombardment of Syria and Iraq, you know, the Islamic State areas, while until now, also, in the same time, we don't have any accurate figures by U.S. administration about how many people were killed in Iraq because of the American invasion of Iraq. This is the problem. You know, once—if the death among your enemy, nobody counts. If the death among the American, among the British, among the French, it is well calculated, one by one. You know, this is discrimination. How can the people of the Middle East believe this kind of policy? How they are not going to fight this kind of hypocrisy in a way or another? We are giving, actually, ammunition to radical terrorist organization like al-Qaeda, like the Islamic State, by this kind of policies.

AMY GOODMAN: Abdel Bari Atwan, I want to get your response—

ABDEL BARI ATWAN: We have to be truthful to our people.

AMY GOODMAN: I want to get your response to the comment made by presidential candidate Bernie Sanders at Saturday's Democratic presidential debate in Iowa.

SEN. BERNIE SANDERS: I would argue that the disastrous invasion of Iraq—something that I strongly opposed—has unraveled the region completely and led to the rise of al-Qaeda and to ISIS.

AMY GOODMAN: Abdel Bari Atwan, can you respond, you who interviewed Osama bin Laden twice?

ABDEL BARI ATWAN: Yes, Amy, he is absolutely correct. I am personally proud to have American candidate saying the truth. We need the truth. Yes, the American invasion of Iraq created al-Qaeda, or strengthening al-Qaeda and created—or it created the incubator for the Islamic State, because, you know, they—as I said, under the banner of de-Baathification, they thrown millions of Iraqi ex-soldiers, ex-officers on the streets, without any hope, without any dignity, without any pension, nothing at all. And this is the hardcore of the Islamic State. That's why those people are full of revenge, full of anger, full of blood. So, this is—yes, the American—I agree with Sanders. This is the invasion which created most of the problems.

OK, maybe it solved one problem—toppling a dictator, who—he was a dictator, no question about that. But what's—how is Iraq now? Iraq is completely dismembered. Iraq is a failed state now. This is the problem. Do you believe that the Americans, the greatest superpower, the most sovereign, the most actually modern power, cannot actually fix Iraq, cannot create a democracy there, cannot create coexistence among the people? And what happened is the opposite, dividing them—this is Sunni, this is Shia. So, this is—this is the problem. Yes, it is—you know, we have to say the truth. The American invasion of the Middle East—Iraq, in particular—creating the environment, the best environment for the Islamic State and for al-Qaeda to continue their savagery, their terrorism, their brutalism against the people of that region.

AMY GOODMAN: Abdel Bari Atwan, I want to thank you for being with us, author of the new book, The Islamic State: The Digital Caliphate, longtime journalist who served as editor-in-chief of the London-based daily Al-Quds al-Arabi for 25 years, now runs the Rai al-Youm website, recently wrote an article, and we'll link to it, atSalon, "America Enabled Radical Islam: How the CIA, George W. Bush and Many Others Helped Create ISIS." We'll have Part 2 of our discussion later this week. We'll be back in a minute.

The Select Idiot Committee

THE ABSURD TIMES

Illustration: When I first saw this, the caption was something like "See, just don't bomb OUR terrorists. It costs too much to create them, ok?"

The Select Idiot Committee

by

Czar Donic

Last week was a demonstration of what we have in charge of our country. All the television "news" networks televised every minute of the absurdity.

We should remind you of what we said several years ago: trying to get rid of Qaddafi was stupid. It was and now just about everyone agrees.

However, a Republican, with a couple exceptions, can not admit that any use of military aggression by the United States is stupid or wrong. I have no doubt that if a President wanted to bomb Brazil the congress would vote in favor of it. Still, they had to find fault with something to do with it, so they focused on e-mails. (She used e-mails.)

For a short time, it almost seemed that something of substance would emerge. A Republican from Illinois, Peter Roskam, read from a list of "talking points" that someone in her office prepared listing a timeline of actions she took to precipitate and foster the invasion. Furthermore, she had complained to her staffer that he had left out a few things and mentioned them. However, it was time for a vote and the matter was dropped with NO indication that he disapproved of those actions anyway.

Nobody mentioned that our stance at the United Nations was that we simply wanted to "protect innocent civilians." Even more, nobody mentioned that it was this blatant lie that led Russia and China to veto any further motions by the U.S. In any other areas. In short, they learned the hard way that they could not, and decided they would not, ever trust us again.

For Putin, it became clear that this was not a new order of things. In fact, it is one of the reasons (others are given in previous editions of the Absurd Times) to actively interfere in Syria and protect its ally.

The rest of the world has seen refugees fleeing Libya and either dying or seeking asylum in Europe. Hundreds of thousands. This did not happen under Gaddafi.

As far as Iraq and Afghanistan, those matters are now understood around the world (with the exception of parts of the U.S.). If anyone thinks there will be some change in attitude now on the part of Putin, or of China, they are subhuman.

As far as Nation Building goes, our guest exclaims "We can't even re-build Baltimore." How do we really think we are going to rebuild some other country? Work on Detroit. Tell Nitwit Yahoo that Palestinians did not start the Holocaust in WWII. Better yet, just send the lot of these morons to a loony bin, or a black site somewhere.

Finally, ISIS decided to tell Palestinians that they should use knives. Now when did they think of that? Maybe Nitwit Yahoo suggested it to them? Makes about as much sense as all the above.

FROM DEMOCRACY NOW:

Former secretary of state and current Democratic hopeful Hillary Clinton underwent a marathon day of testimony Thursday before the House Select Committee probing the 2012 attack in Libya, which killed U.S. Ambassador Christopher Stevens and three other Americans. Throughout the hearing, Clinton defended her record on Benghazi in the face of Republican criticism. Republicans say Clinton ignored pre-attack warnings and mishandled its aftermath, even though seven previous congressional probes have found no wrongdoing. Clinton handled Republican questions with a calm demeanor, and afterward panel chair Trey Gowdy, Republican congressmember of South Carolina, admitted the hearing failed to turn up anything new. Melvin Goodman, former CIA and State Department analyst, says the Benghazi hearing has ignored the real issue for Clinton to address: the U.S. bombing of Libya that destabilized the country and set the stage for the fatal 2012 attack. "What was learned was irrelevant," Goodman says. "What was relevant wasn't discussed."

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TRANSCRIPT

This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form.

AMY GOODMAN: Former secretary of state, current Democratic presidential hopeful Hillary Clinton spent more than eight hours Thursday testifying before the House Select Committee probing the September 11, 2012, attack in Benghazi, Libya, which killed U.S. Ambassador Christopher Stevens and three other Americans. Throughout the hearing, Clinton defended her record as secretary of state on Benghazi in the face of Republican criticism.

HILLARY CLINTON: You know, I would imagine I've thought more about what happened than all of you put together. I've lost more sleep than all of you put together. I have been racking my brain about what more could have been done or should have been done. And so, when I took responsibility, I took it as a challenge and an obligation to make sure, before I left the State Department, that what we could learn—as I'm sure my predecessors did after Beirut and after Nairobi and Dar es Salaam and after all of the other attacks on our facilities—I'm sure all of them, Republican and Democrat alike, especially where there was loss of American life, said, "OK, what must we do better?"

AMY GOODMAN: The panel was the eighth such committee to investigate the Benghazi attacks, and the hearings largely covered much of the same ground as previous proceedings. Clinton supporters have criticized the Republican-led effort as an attempt to damage the Democratic front-runner's presidential campaign. In his opening statement, committee chair Republican Trey Gowdy addressed those charges.

REP. TREY GOWDY: Madam Secretary, I understand there are people, frankly, in both parties, who have suggested that this investigation is about you. Let me assure you it is not, and let me assure you why it is not. This investigation is about four people who were killed representing our country on foreign soil.

AMY GOODMAN: Elijah Cummings and other Democrats pushed back on Gowdy's assertion, casting the continued investigation as politically motivated. Referencing an interview Gowdy did Sunday on CBS's Face the Nation, Cummings said Gowdy wasn't being truthful when he said he had zero interest in investigating the Clinton Foundation and Clinton's emails other than for evaluating them for information. Gowdy and Cummings then had this tense exchange.

REP. ELIJAH CUMMINGS: You issued a subpoena to Sidney Blumenthal on May 19th, 2015, compelling him to appear for a deposition June 16, 2015. You issued this subpoena unilaterally, without giving the Select Committee members the opportunity to debate or vote on it. You sent two armed marshals to serve the subpoena on Mr. Blumenthal's wife at their home without having ever sent him a request to participate voluntarily, which he would have done. Then, Mr. Chairman, you personally attended Mr. Blumenthal's deposition. You personally asked him about the Clinton Foundation, and you personally directed your staff to ask questions about the Clinton Foundation, which they did more than 50 times. Now, these facts directly contradict the statements you made on national television—

REP. TREY GOWDY: No, that's not—

REP. ELIJAH CUMMINGS: —this past Sunday.

REP. TREY GOWDY: No, sir. With all due respect, they do not. We're—we just heard email after email after email about Libya and Benghazi that Sidney Blumenthal sent to the secretary of state. I don't care if he sent it by Morse code, carrier pigeon, smoke signals. The fact that he happened to send it by email is irrelevant. What is relevant is that he was sending information to the secretary of state. That is what's relevant. Now, with respect to the subpoena, if he had bothered to answer the telephone calls of our committee, he wouldn't have needed a subpoena.

REP. ELIJAH CUMMINGS: Well, would the gentleman yield?

REP. TREY GOWDY: I'll be happy to, but you need to make sure the entire record is correct, Mr. Cummings.

REP. ELIJAH CUMMINGS: Yeah, and that's exactly what I want to do.

REP. TREY GOWDY: Well, then go ahead.

REP. ELIJAH CUMMINGS: I'm about to tell you. I move that we put into the record the entire transcript of Sidney Blumenthal. If we're going to release the emails, let's do the transcript. That way the world can see it.

AMY GOODMAN: The Obama administration has been criticized for its handling of the aftermath of the Benghazi attack. The White House initially said the consulate was attacked by protesters denouncing a short American film insulting the Prophet Muhammad. But it later turned out the attack was carried out by well-armed militants. The militants first attacked the diplomatic mission, then a secret CIAannex. Republicans say Clinton ignored pre-attack warnings and mishandled its aftermath. While previous reports have been scathing over security failures and have led to firings at the State Department, none have accused Clinton or other top officials of wrongdoing.

Well, joining us for more is Melvin Goodman, former CIA and State Department analyst, senior fellow at the Center for International Policy and director of the Center's National Security Project. His latest book, National Insecurity: The Cost of American Militarism.

Welcome to Democracy Now!, Mel Goodman. Can you start off by talking about the significance of the hearing yesterday, what was learned, what wasn't learned, and what you think are the key questions to be asked that may have never been asked formally by any of these committees?

MELVIN GOODMAN: Thank you, Amy. What was learned was irrelevant. What was relevant wasn't discussed. And it was those areas that concern me. Why was the CIAoperating a base out of Benghazi? Why was the State Department operating a transitional mission facility, a TMF—it wasn't a consulate—in Benghazi? Why was Ambassador Stevens, who was aware of the security situation, in Benghazi in the first place? So, none of these questions have been asked.

And remember, when the plane flew these survivors out of Benghazi to get them back to Tripoli, for every State Department official on that plane, there were five or six CIAemployees. And my sources tell me that the CIA was there to buy back weapons that we had given to Gaddafi in the first place. So the question all of this begs—and this is where Hillary Clinton's remarks did concern me—is that we created a disaster in Libya. It was the decision to conduct regime change, the decision to go after Gaddafi, which eventually led to his death. And remember, Hillary Clinton welcomed that news with the words "We came, we saw, he died."

Now, there is a link to what Putin is doing in Syria, because, remember, we had to tell the Russians that we had very limited objectives, a very limited mission in Benghazi, so that they would not veto the U.N. resolution. And then, essentially, Putin finds out that our mission really was to go after Gaddafi, creating this instability, this discontinuity, this chaos in Libya.

So what really needs to be discussed is, what is the role of military power in the making of foreign policy? Why does Hillary Clinton think that Libya is not a disaster? And why was Hillary Clinton pushing for the military role in Libya in the first place? These are important issues.

As far as the hearings were concerned, she testified off and on for nearly 11 hours. She handled herself extremely well, and she essentially exposed the fact that these were a group of Republican troglodytes doing their best to marginalize her and humiliate her. And they totally failed.

AMY GOODMAN: Mel Goodman, the justification at the time, that Gaddafi was going to commit a massacre in Benghazi. Can you take us back to—again, it was September 11th—another September 11th—2012. I think there is so little talked about, about what actually was happening there, that people don't realize exactly what the context was.

MELVIN GOODMAN: Well, in the wake of Gaddafi's death, there was total chaos in Libya. And essentially, there was a civil war being waged between forces in the western part of the country, based around the capital, Tripoli, and forces in the eastern part of the country, based around Benghazi. And what we have learned, essentially, over the last 34 years of foreign policymaking, that when you use military power in areas that are not stable, you usually create a worse situation. Israel invades Lebanon in 1982, and the creation of Hezbollah takes place. We arm the mujahideen in Afghanistan in the 1980s, and this leads to groups like the Haqqani faction, the Hekmatyar group, and even al-Qaeda. We go into Iraq, there's the Sunni Awakening. Now we're dealing with the Islamic State. So we took a very bad situation, where there was factionalism in Libya, and made it much worse by removing the only person who seemed to hold it together, even though he did it with incredible violence and threat, but Gaddafi was holding that nation, to the extent it was a nation, holding it together. So, we were a major force and a major reason for the instability that took place. We should never have been in Benghazi. All of the other international institutions, both government and nongovernment, had pulled out of Benghazi.

So, what we need to know is why Stevens was there in the first place, what the CIAwas doing, and why there was no—virtually no security around the diplomatic facility, which was just a transitional facility, and because it was a TMF, it wasn't even eligible for an upgrade in security. It didn't come up on the radar screen. And to blame her for that is ridiculous. But to know what her position was on why military force was a good idea is important, particularly since she is going to be the Democratic candidate—she established that last week in the debate. And there's a very good chance she'll be occupying the White House for four to eight years in the near term.

AMY GOODMAN: We're going to break and then come back to this discussion. We're speaking to Mel Goodman, who is a former CIA and State Department analyst, about the questions, the key questions, about U.S. presence in Libya, to begin with. The real lessons we can learn about what took place on September 11, 2012, don't start and end on that day. This is Democracy Now! We'll be back in a minute.

[break]

AMY GOODMAN: "History Repeating," The Propellerheads, featuring the legendary Shirley Bassey, here on Democracy Now!, democracynow.org, The War and Peace Report. I'm Amy Goodman. In 2012, then-Congressman Dennis Kucinich, a Democrat from Ohio, spoke at a House committee hearing a month after the attack on the U.S. Consulate and CIA annex in Benghazi. He stated, quote, "The security situation did not happen overnight because of a decision made by someone [at] the State Department." He went on to criticize U.S. policy in Libya.

REP. DENNIS KUCINICH: We owe it to the diplomatic corps, who serves our nation, to start at the beginning. And that's what I shall do. The security threats in Libya, including the unchecked extremist groups who are armed to the teeth, exist because our nation spurred on a civil war, destroying the security and stability of Libya. And, you know, no one defends Gaddafi. Libya was not in a meltdown before the war. In 2003, Gaddafi reconciled with the community of nations by giving up his nation's pursuit of nuclear weapons. At the time, President Bush said Gaddafi's actions made our country and our world safer.

Now, during the Arab Spring, uprisings across the Middle East occurred, and Gaddafi made ludicrous threats against Benghazi. Based on those verbal threats, we intervened—absent constitutional authority, I might add. We bombed Libya. We destroyed their army. We obliterated their police stations. Lacking any civil authority, armed brigades control security. Al-Qaeda expanded its presence. Weapons are everywhere. Thousands of shoulder-to-air missiles are on the loose. Our military intervention led to greater instability in Libya.

Many of us, Democrats and Republicans alike, made that argument to try to stop the war. It's not surprising, given the inflated threat and the grandiose expectations inherent in our nation building in Libya, that the State Department was not able to adequately protect our diplomats from this predictable threat. It's not surprising, and it's also not acceptable. ...

We want to stop the attacks on our embassies? Let's stop trying to overthrow governments. This should not be a partisan issue. Let's avoid the hype. Let's look at the real situation here. Interventions do not make us safer. They do not protect our nations They are themselves a threat to America.

AMY GOODMAN: That was Ohio congressman, former Democratic presidential candidate Dennis Kucinich testifying in 2012. This week is the fourth anniversary of the death of Muammar Gaddafi. He died close to a year before the Benghazi attack. Our guest is Melvin Goodman, former CIA and State Department analyst, senior fellow at the Center for International Policy, director of the Center's National Security Project. Can you follow up on what Kucinich is saying and what you think are the critical lessons today that we have or have not learned, Mel Goodman?

MELVIN GOODMAN: Well, I think Kucinich was spot-on. And I would go back to 2003. When we invaded Iraq—under false pretenses, because it was a total corruption of the intelligence process—remember that Gaddafi had been in power for about three decades. Mubarak had been in power for about two or three decades. Libya was stable, Egypt was stable. Saddam Hussein had been in power for several decades, and there was a certain stability in Iraq. The important thing is, these countries were not national security problems for the United States.

Then we use military power in a totally unacceptable fashion in Iraq, and this created the current situation that we're dealing with, in which you have total instability in Lebanon, in Syria, in Iraq. We now have a power we need to deal with: Iran—and I give high praise to John Kerry for the nuclear agreement with Iran, but we helped to make Iran such an important player by going to war in Afghanistan in an extended fashion, which removed Iran's enemy on the east, and then going into Iraq and removing Saddam Hussein, Iran's enemy on the west. So we've been the source of tremendous instability. In many ways, I think, if you look at the Middle East—and there's an apocalyptic character to what we're seeing in the Middle East—we are the major independent variable. And we do that because we use force.

And this belief in regime change—and sadly enough, it goes back to President Eisenhower in 1953, when we used American power in collusion, conspiratorial collusion, with the British, Operation Ajax, to overthrow the only real democratically elected government Iran has ever had. And, of course, Kennedy followed this up in Cuba with the Bay of Pigs, which the CIA IG called a "perfect failure." Then you jump forward or leap forward to Chile, again a democratically elected government, but it was socialist, so Nixon and Kissinger target that. Go to Reagan and Iran-Contra.

So if you look at American history, you have the United States essentially trying to create an empire with a base structure that involves over 800 facilities all over the world. There's no country that has more than a half-dozen facilities. And Britain and France can claim that in former colonial areas. Russia can claim a few facilities in former Soviet republics, plus Tartus in Syria. But it's the United States that has this huge facility, a forward strategy to project power in order to destabilize situations when it becomes convenient for United States' interest.

AMY GOODMAN: Mel Goodman—

MELVIN GOODMAN: And this is essentially wrong.

AMY GOODMAN: I daresay the Obama administration would say they intervened in Libya to prevent Gaddafi—this is before 2012—committing a massacre of the Libyan uprising, in the same way that they would say they have intervened in Syria for the same reason, to prevent Assad from killing his own people. Your response to both? And what would have been a peaceful alternative?

MELVIN GOODMAN: Well, in the case of Libya, I think there could be an alternative, because Gaddafi had negotiated with the United States in the past. In fact, the reference to Gaddafi giving up his nuclear weapons is extremely important, because that was done in very delicate, private negotiations. And the CIA played a major role in that, even though that's not well known.

So, the essential element is that we should realize that the use of military power should always be the last resort, and, frankly, I think President Obama does understand that. I don't think he's been comfortable with the expansion of power. When the so-called surge happened in Afghanistan in 2009 and he went to West Point to give the important speech that he gave, he made it clear that he was putting the troops in, but it was temporary. In 18 months, he was going to start taking them out. And he knew he needed to get troops out of Iraq. He wanted to get all the troops out of Afghanistan. He led from behind, according to his aides, in Libya, so that was somewhat halfhearted. But the fact is, we used military power in these places, and now they're less stable than they were before.

And to talk about nation building is particularly silly. We can't rebuild Baltimore, so what are we going to do in Aleppo and Mosul and Benghazi and Tripoli? We have to be more balanced and more restrained with our use of power. And Hillary Clinton should have been forced to discuss that yesterday, but I don't think that panel was interested in American national security. These were a bunch of "gotcha" questions that got this country nowhere.

AMY GOODMAN: Mel Goodman, you're a former CIA and State Department analyst. Let's talk about the role of the CIA, for example, in Libya. The CIA and the State Department, are they merging? And does that endanger diplomacy, when people in other countries think it's the same thing?

MELVIN GOODMAN: Well, the problem, I think, is even greater than that. The merger that's taking place, particularly under this director, John Brennan, is the merger between the CIA and the Pentagon. I left the CIA in the 1980s because of the politicization of intelligence under Bill Casey and Bob Gates. But what John Brennan has done is created the CIA as a paramilitary institution that is really doing the bidding of the Pentagon. He said in his confirmation hearings he was going to give up drone warfare, that that properly belonged in the Pentagon—if we should be doing it at all, which is another question. But not only has he not done that, we've expanded the use of the drones. Now he's merging intelligence analysts and operatives, which will further politicize intelligence.

So what I worry about is the CIA that was created by Harry Truman to challenge the Pentagon, to challenge intelligence briefings by the Pentagon, to try to get an understanding of why we need arms control and disarmament—and there, the CIAand the State Department, and when we had an Arms Control and Disarmament Agency, which Bill Clinton got rid of, the CIA did some very good work. But if you look at the last 10 years, if you look at politicized intelligence, the phony case to go to war, people like Mike Morell, a deputy director, who was called the "Bob Gates of his generation" by Politico, and we certainly know what that means—the politicization of all the intelligence to invade Iraq, secret prisons, extraordinary renditions, torture and abuse. This is what needs to be addressed, but I think, frankly, President Obama has been intimidated by this process, intimidated by the very military-industrial complex that Eisenhower warned about in 1961.

AMY GOODMAN: Melvin Goodman, I want to thank you for being with us. The issues, some of them, you raise, we're going to raise with our next guest. Melvin Goodman is former CIA and State Department analyst, senior fellow at the Center for International Policy and director of the Center's National Security Project. His latest book is National Insecurity: The Cost of American Militarism.