WaPo:ISIS Run by Iraqi Baath & Military Fired by Bush

By NCD on Fri, 04/24/2015 - 10:15am |

Former Iraqi military officers and Baathists exploit Jihad, and control ISIS across Iraq and Syria. The shadowy figures send foreign fighters out to die while they run the terrorist organization with utmost secrecy. The blanket exclusion of the Baath from power they were accustomed to by the US and Shiite government, and firing of the Army by order of Paul Bremer and GW Bush, led to the formation of ISIS.

URL:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/middle_east/the-hidden-hand-behind-the-islamic-state-militants-saddam-husseins/2015/04/04/aa97676c-cc32-11e4-8730-4f473416e759_story.html

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Will read with keen interest. I have been hoping somebody would focus on this topic.

by moat on Fri, 04/24/2015 - 7:35pm

This is little more than a rehash of a much more informative Spiegel Online report about the documents recovered in Syria written by an ex Iraqi intelligence officer. The spin of both of these accounts seems to be to paint the Islamic State as more a Stalinist Dictatorship, in the making, than an Islamist Political movement. The IS leadership has already publicly addressed this question about the nationalists ex Baath recruits and what their role will be after the conquest, if there is one.

The important information revealed by the documents shown in the Speigel report is about the depth and completeness of the planning for the conquest and rule of Syria and Iraq right down to the village level. The IS is using these recruits as any intelligently led State would use experts in state building and other necessary areas of governance.

by Peter (not verified) on Fri, 04/24/2015 - 11:34pm

Col. Joel Rayburn's book 'Iraq After America' (2014) which is mentioned in the WaPo link is from 2014 and is a neo-con post-war history rehab : 'the war was legal and noble, we need another surge or America is smoked in the region'.

Along with more Iraqi political history and ethnic connections and details than you would ever want to read.

Saudi Arabia is now bearing the fruit of it's financing of Wahhabi extremism, and the US too for supporting and using them when we thought it was safe. So now it's Sunni vs. Shiite when George W. Bush didn't even know the difference between them when he tossed his cigar into the powder magazine by invading Iraq.

by NCD on Sat, 04/25/2015 - 11:00am

There is certainly a large Sunni/Shiite component in this complicated multi-fronted multi-conflict in the ME. The Islamic State is attacking the Shia power structures in Iraq and Syria but it is also attacking Sunni groups in both countries, such as the Kurds, some of which are supported by al Saud and the US. They also, along with AQAP, have the goal of overthrowing the House of Saud who display a superficial Wahhabi doctrine but are viewed as little more than Western puppets and apostates.

It's true that the US created the conditions for the rise of this new Sword of Islam especially in Iraq but its roots were planted over a hundred years ago with recent history allowing it to grow and bloom.

by Peter (not verified) on Sat, 04/25/2015 - 12:12pm

... 1980 ... A trip in the wayback machine...

I've been studying the Ba'athists since the mid '70s. Please don't ask me why.

With that said, this is from back when many of us here in the West began to "...truly discover what Islam is and what provoked its current "militancy." I have had this book since it's first printing. You can still find it at Amazon:

Militant Islam Paperback – by G.H. Jansen

This Amazon reader review here says it better than I can.

Timeless Relevance Two Decades Later
By hard2please on September 3, 2013 Format: Paperback

It is unusual for an academic critique of current events to remain relevant so long after it was written. In Militant Islam, the author's authenticity and vast practical experience combine with a keen and comparatively unbiased look at the Islamic world and the role that Islamic militancy plays in it.

The biggest difference today...some 24 years after Militant Islam was first published...is that we have a wealth of historical events foreshadowed in this treatise. A quarter century of "I told you so."'

Anyone who wants to understand Islamofascism and Islamic militancy needs to start with this book. It is a seminal work of intellectual criticism of contemporary Islamic culture.

If you wonder why what is happening is the world today is happening, read Militant Islam.

And here's a very fine overview of the book that was published in the CS Monitor in 1980...

Islam past, present, and future; Militant Islam, G. H. Jansen.

By Geoffrey Godspell, February 11, 1980

Geoffrey Godsell was the Monitor's senior roving correspondent.

Ayatollah Khomeini has had Westerners scurrying around for the past year trying to learn more about Islam. Islam, of course, has been a force on this planet for the past 1,300 years, with Muslims the second-biggest religious denomination on earth, after Christians. But it has taken the turmoil of the past 18 months in Iran to jolt people in the Western world into trying to discover what Islam is and what has provoked its current "militancy." G. H. Jansen's "Militant Islam" provides a lot of answers.

Continues here >> http://www.csmonitor.com/1980/0211/021142.html

~OGD~

by oldenGoldenDecoy on Mon, 05/04/2015 - 2:51pm

Interesting book. It's often seemed like Saudi Arabia funded Sunni militant Islam in Pakistan, Afghanistan or anywhere other than itself as an outlet for Jihad.

According to Armies of Heaven, Pope Urban II did the same in supporting the First Crusade, he was tired of knights killing each other and ravaging Europe, and encouraged them to expend their martial impulses in the Levant instead by guaranteeing salvation for crusaders. It didn't work too well as violence, often religious, continued and even increased in Europe over subsequent centuries.

So maybe Islam is a 1000 years behind Christendom in getting over a surfeit of religious violence and fanaticism.

by NCD on Sun, 04/26/2015 - 10:56am

Here's a piece for you...

There's some very good info in this to mine.

By Juan Cole | Jan. 15, 2007

Saddams Execution And Revival Of Baath

Saddam’s half-brother Barzan al-Tikriti and the head of his revolutionary court were hanged early on Monday. An Iraqi government spokesman came out and said that Barzan’s head came off during the hanging. I don’t think most Sunni Arabs will accept that this was an accident, and likely they’ll suspect sectarian revenge again.

These executions and that of Saddam Hussein himself have, according to the Iraqi newspaper al-Zaman, breathed new life into the Iraqi Baath Party and its successors, such as the `Awdah Party.

The four successor parties to the Baath are responsible for a significant amount of the political violence in Iraq.

Continues >>

http://www.juancole.com/2007/01/saddams-execution-and-revival-of-baath.html

~OGD~

by oldenGoldenDecoy on Sun, 04/26/2015 - 8:57pm

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