November 28, 2015

"Moderate" Head Choppers As Defined By Brookings Doha

Charles Lister, a propagandist at Brookings Doha which is financed by the Wahhabi regime of Qatar, has been tasked to sell Islamist radical head choppers in Syria as "moderate" rebels. He isn't good at it but the "western" media love him as a talkative"expert" from a formerly reputable think tank.

The mask comes off when Lister has to find the 70,000 "moderates" the British Premier Cameron promised to support by waging war on Syria. He finds those by ignoring a word's literal meaning. Here is Lister's new Orwellian definition of "moderate":

As diplomatic efforts for Syria gain pace and as Saudi Arabia prepares to host a major conference bringing together 60-80 representatives of a broad spectrum opposition, the definition of “moderate” has been shifting. The most effective definition now must be based upon a combined assessment of (a) what groups are acknowledged as being opposed to ISIL and (b) what groups our governments want, or need to be involved in a political process.

He says that a group is "moderate" when:

it dislikes ISIS for whatever reason some government wants or needs the group to be categorized as "moderate"

The first fits for everyone who claims to be not ISIS including al-Qaeda. The second part is just dependent on who the sponsor of a specific groups is. If Saudi Arabia sponsors al-Qaeda and wants it "moderate", al-Qaeda is "moderate". If Turkey sponsors the Turkistan Islamic Party its head-choppers are "moderate". The Lister definition is completely independent of the observable actions of these groups and of the believes or plans such groups openly or secretly hold. It is bollocks.

Lister goes on to lists two handful of groups, some existing, some mere fantasy, and adds imaginary numbers of how many fighter belong to each of the various groups. Add them up and there you have the 70,000 Cameron was trolling about.

Lister lists, for example, Asala wa-al-Tanmiya with 5,000 fighters as "moderate". It is an Islamist gang sponsored by Saudi Arabia. Its main allies on the battlefield, according to its Wiki entry, are the Islamic Front and the al-Nusra Front. But they do fight the Islamic State and have a government backing them. Thus these al-Qaeda allies are now "moderate".

Lister's original "moderate" table tweeted by him here (backup) even includes Jaish al-Islam with allegedly 12,500 fighters and Ahrar al-Sham with 15,000 fighters. Both of these groups follow the same ideology as the Islamic State and al-Qaeda and commit (incl. video) similar atrocities:

The largest Islamist rebel group “Harakat Ahrar Al-Sham” has posted a video on their multiple social media accounts that show their fighters mutilating the head of a wounded militant from the Islamic State of Iraq and Al-Sham (ISIS) in the northern Aleppo countryside.

...

Harakat Ahrar Al-Sham has attempted to promote themselves as a “moderate” rebel group after their Op-Ed in the Washington Post; however, their behavior and their numerous crimes in northern Syria have made them appear closer to ISIS and Jabhat Al-Nusra in ideology, rather than a “moderate” Islamist group that is simply fighting for the interests of the Syrian people.

These literal head choppers are "moderates" on Lister's list.

Support for al-Qaeda and similar groups is illegal under several UN resolutions. U.S. law is even more stringent. Al-Qaeda allies like the groups Lister lists as "moderate" would surely be guilty under 18 U.S. Code § 2339A - Providing material support to terrorists. The "material" as defined by that law includes "intangible, or service" and "expert advice or assistance". How far from those categories are Lister's propaganda pieces and actions?

Lister ones worked as analyst at IHS Janes, a well known military journal, and did a decent job. He then followed the smell of Qatari money to Brookings Doha and threw away his reputation. It can only go downwards from there.

Posted by b on November 28, 2015 at 19:12 UTC | Permalink

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