Oh yeah. OHHHH yeah. I remember a few years back when certain mainstream news organizations were talking about how Al-Qaeda was defeated and it's goals and aims were not bearing fruit. I laughed because I knew that wasn't true in the least bit. In my opinion such commentary was no better than GW Bush's "Mission Accomplished" grandstanding.
I said then that the Arab Spring was actually an opening for Al-Qaeda because one of their stated goals were to topple regimes that they saw as insufficiently Islamic as well as too closely aligned (or aligned at all) with The West. So far from a rejection, many of the events were in fact
in line with the desired outcomes of Al-Qaeda.
Intensifying sectarian and clan violence has presented new opportunities for jihadist groups across the Middle East and raised concerns among American intelligence and counterterrorism officials that militants aligned with Al Qaeda could establish a base in Syria capable of threatening Israel and Europe.
So NOW these folks are concerned about that? I would have thought these geniuses would have figured that out long ago. And what's this?
“We need to start talking to the Assad regime again” about counterterrorism and other issues of shared concern, said Ryan C. Crocker, a veteran diplomat who has served in Syria, Iraq and Afghanistan. “It will have to be done very, very quietly. But bad as Assad is, he is not as bad as the jihadis who would take over in his absence.”
Which we here at The Ghost knew all along. You know there is a reason why Mubarak was called "Our boy in Egypt" right? Look. It was STUPID to have gotten involved with the Syrian civil war. It is equally bad for the US to be willy nilly turning on former allies. That anybody trusts the words of the US after the recent backstabbing of former allies is beyond me. One minute they're visiting the White House or a diplomat is taking a photo for a photo-op and the next we're talking about who has to go and where we're going to bomb and what red line exists. That's really bad policy, kinda like the new dumb shit going on in the South China sea. I mean really? The US is where? The South China Sea is where? Why does the US think they have the right to fly anywhere and declare who we will and will not notify like the whole world is the US's property.
But rest assured that if the Chinese up and decided to fly a warplane anywhere near the US west or east coast for a couple of hours without notification there would be all kinds of complaining going on.
