The U.S. has covertly supported people who became terrorists, who were terrorists, who the CIA knew could become terrorists, and who the CIA and other government officials knew could present problems to the U.S. down the line. See, for example, here, here and here for articles about this. I do not attest to the accuracy of every detail therein, but covert support, directly and/or indirectly while knowing the risks being run, is undeniable. These articles have references that can be explored. One can also use google to search further.
The U.S. has consistently used foreign people prone to violence, funded them, supplied them with arms and trained them, knowing that they had their own agendas and could turn against the U.S. or probably would do so. In Syria, The U.S. has consistently done the same for so-called moderate groups, knowing that infiltration by extreme people could occur, that the extremists were the best fighters, that aid and arms would fall into the hands of the extremists, and knowing that the moderates and extremists would form alliances or had them already.
The U.S. and CIA have a system of operation that it has been using to achieve its ends in foreign lands, and it uses that system again and again and again. They know that funding, arming and training certain groups creates future problems, but they figure that when those problems arise, they will squash the groups at that time. They figure that in the near-term they will use these potentially dangerous groups to fight against yet other groups that they currently want to take out in order to achieve some objective.
The U.S. may use an intermediary or several intermediaries to funnel the resources so as not to be seen as doing it directly. It may use a foreign intelligence service as in Pakistan or as in using foreign prison sites for its torture and kidnappings. It may use NGOs. The CIA likes to use all sorts of front organizations and stay in the shadows. In one way or another, the CIA armed bin Laden and his mujahideen in Afghanistan. The same kinds of activities have been going on in Syria behind the scenes and have aided IS to become a force that the U.S. now has decided to squash. Because IS has provided this excuse, the previously muted methods of providing aid to anti-Assad forces have now broken out into overt moves and policies announced by Obama.
Ukraine may seem to present quite a different situation, but it’s very much the same playbook applied to a different set of people. In this case, the U.S. has dispatched military, CIA and mercenary advisers and participants to Ukraine. Some aid was sent by the U.S., but now more arms are being supplied directly through NATO as an intermediary. The government of Ukraine has people in it who are the highly questionable recipients. Foreign Policy magazine even has had an article titled “Yes, There Are Bad Guys in the Ukrainian Government”, pointing to Right Sector, Svoboda and others. These are the ones that the U.S. has supported in making war against their own people in eastern Ukraine. Poroshenko led this war effort, prosecuted unsuccessfully, but resulting in displacement of hundreds of thousands, many deaths and injuries among civilians and some outright massacres.
The U.S., precisely as in Afghanistan, is using violence-prone and dangerous people in the Ukrainian government in order to draw Russia into a prolonged struggle that will weaken Putin, Russia and the Russian government. Even though Russian reaction has been minimal, the U.S. has blamed Russia for “invading” Crimea and Ukraine. According to U.S. doublethink, it’s perfectly all right for Scotland to vote on separation from Great Britain, but it’s horrendous and a violation of international law for Crimea to vote to change its political affiliation with Ukraine.
The cease fire in Ukraine is fragile. There has been some heavy fighting. NATO is arming Kiev. A Russian aid convoy has gone into eastern Ukraine. Both sides are probably preparing for renewed warfare. Certainly Kiev is. Yatsenyuk has made belligerent statements about Ukraine still being at war with Russia. The U.S. doesn’t care about the Ukrainian people and the effects of continued warfare on them. Both sides will suffer. The U.S. aims are to embroil Russia, separate it from Europe and stoke a change in Russian leadership or even government.
The U.S. in the case of Ukraine is using the same technique it used in Afghanistan. The U.S. has manufactured excuses to impose sanctions on Russia and has persuaded the EU to do the same. Rasmussen of NATO and rhetoric coming out of eastern European countries have helped in the persuasion.
The situation in Ukraine remains fluid. There are many political actors involved here (Kiev and its factions, Donbass, Poland, other eastern European countries, NATO, EU and its most influential countries separately, the U.S., and Russia) and their reactions are likely to vary.
8:36 am on September 16, 2014
