Islamic State was born in NATO camps

The West and its client states in the Middle East are now bombing Islamic State (ISIS) positions in Syria, killing both militants and civilians, violating countless international laws and treaties.

Oil installations inside Syria are in flames; the West “informed” Damascus that the bombing campaign could take three years, as if it would be the sole owner of the Middle East.

The fact that it is done with no international endorsement is by now not surprising anybody.

There is nothing standing on the way of this campaign; no air force is defending Syrian territory, no surface-to-air-missiles are fired.

Yet, the US and the UK make no secret that this is not just a campaign to debilitate ISIS positions. The US is openly declaring alliance with the “moderate opposition forces” inside Syria, which essentially means those forces that are fighting to overthrow the government of President Assad.

Damascus’ plea for a broader coalition to fight ISIS is being ignored. No wonder – for years Islamic State (or ISIS) was actually an integrated part of the “opposition movement” supported, trained and financed by the West and its regional allies.

Islamic State was born in NATO camps

The simmering debate about the evolving U.S. military strategy in Iraq and Syria was joined on Tuesday by an unlikely pundit: Army Pvt. Chelsea Manning.

Manning, a former U.S. intelligence analyst convicted last year of leaking classified U.S. information to the anti-secrecy group WikiLeaks, argues in a new piece for the Guardian newspaper that the United States cannot defeat the Islamic State militant group by bombing them, and should focus on containing them instead.

From military prison, Chelsea Manning offers punditry on Iraq

How to make Isis fall on its own sword