The Legendary Lowell Thomas

Dr. Gary North’s timely republication and commentary concerning Dr. Jack Wheeler’s insightful article on the little-remembered but continuing impact of journalist Lowell Thomas in creating and shaping the legend of Lawrence of Arabia (British intelligence officer T. E. Lawrence) was fascinating.

Although sectarian strife in the region has existed for hundreds of years, the fundamental central problems in the Middle East can be traced back to the aftermath of the First World War. The Sykes–Picot Agreement, officially known as the Asia Minor Agreement, was a secret agreement between the governments of the United Kingdom and France, with the assent of Russia; defining their proposed spheres of influence and control in the Middle East should the Triple Entente succeed in defeating the Ottoman Empire during World War I. The negotiation of the treaty occurred between November 1915 and March 1916. The agreement was concluded on 16 May 1916. The agreement effectively divided the Arab provinces of the Ottoman Empire outside the Arabian Peninsula into areas of future British and French control or influence. The terms were negotiated by the French diplomat François Georges-Picot and British Sir Mark Sykes. The Russian Tsarist government was a minor party to the Sykes–Picot agreement, and when, following the Russian Revolution of October 1917, the Bolsheviks exposed the secret agreement, ‘the British were embarrassed, the Arabs dismayed and the Turks delighted.’ The agreement is seen by many as a turning point in Western–Arab relations. It did negate the promises made to Arabs through Colonel T. E. Lawrence (‘Lawrence of Arabia’) for a national Arab homeland in the area of Greater Syria, in exchange for their siding with British forces against the Ottoman Empire.

Almost 100 years later (2015), the jihadist organization ISIS uses Sykes-Picot as their rallying cry and have conquered Mosul and parts of northern Syria to form an Islamic Caliphate along sectarian lines rather than definitions of European diplomats.

The agreement’s principal terms were reaffirmed by the inter-Allied San Remo Conference of 19–26 April 1920 and the ratification of the resulting League of Nations mandates by the Council of the League of Nations on 24 July 1922. The creation of the artificial entity “Iraq” by Gertrude Bell and Winston Churchill after World War I, with the destruction of the Ottoman Empire, served the imperial interests of the British.

For the past decade, the destruction of the centralized state of Iraq has been the new strategic goal of the British and the Americans.

The war criminals in the Bush and Blair administrations lied about the pretexts and reasons for their preemptive, illegal and unconstitutional invasion of Iraq, aided by the disinformation and propaganda by regime stenographers in the establishment mainstream media to hoodwink and bamboozle their hapless electorates. The lies and dissembling concerning the war of aggression in Iraq have continued by the murderous drone-master Obama and his cohort.

Lowell Thomas was a legend himself, as a pioneer broadcaster, prolific author and regime propagandist for decades. He was also instrumental in creating the legend of USMC Major General Smedley Darlington Butler, with his 1933 biography, Old Gimlet Eye: The Adventures of General Smedley Butler.  Above is an excellent History Channel documentary, The Plot To Overthrow FDR, based on Jules Archer’s brilliant book, The Plot To Seize The White House, which details the 1933 Wall Street/American Legion attempted fascist coup d’état against FDR by plutocratic militarists heroically exposed by Smedley Darlington Butler before a congressional investigative committee.

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