THE CIA TAKES OPPOSITE SIDES IN SYRIA AND IRAQ; Congressional Record Vol. 159, No. 40

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THE CIA TAKES OPPOSITE SIDES IN SYRIA AND IRAQ

Mr. McDERMOTT. What, really, could be more bizarre than this: as the

United States ramps up its aid to Syria's ragtag rebels, whose backbone

is comprised of radical Islamists and Sunni fundamentalists, some with

ties to Al Qaeda, the CIA is busily engaged in combat inside Iraq with

the very same radical Islamists and Sunni fundamentalists, some with

ties to Al Qaeda.

Yep, that's right.

We're backing the same guys in Syria that we're fighting in Iraq.

Of course, we shouldn't be involved in Iraq in any way, shape or

form, but try telling that to the CIA. According to the Wall Street

Journal:

The Central Intelligence Agency is ramping up support to

elite Iraqi antiterrorism units to better fight al Qaeda

affiliates, amid alarm in Washington about spillover from the

civil war in neighboring Syria, according to US officials.

The stepped-up mission expands a covert US presence on the

edges of the two-year-old Syrian conflict, at a time of

American concerns about the growing power of extremists in

the Syrian rebellion.

The Journal notes that this isn't an accident. It was the result of a

carefully thought-out White House decision:

In a series of secret decisions from 2011 to late 2012, the

White House directed the CIA to provide support to Iraq's

Counterterrorism Service, or CTS, a force that reports

directly to Iraqi Prime Minister Nourial-Maliki, officials

said.

The CIA has since ramped up its work with the CTS--taking control of

a mission long run by the U.S. military, according to administration

and defense officials. For years, U.S. special-operations forces worked

with CTS against al Qaeda in Iraq. But the military's role has dwindled

since U.S. troops pulled out of the country at the end of 2011.

The paradox, obviously, is that Maliki, the guy we're helping in

Iraq, is an ally of Iran's and is sympathetic to President Assad of

Syria. That's because were the Sunni-led rebels in Syria to seize

Damascus and topple Assad, they'd turn their wrath next door against

the Shiite-led Maliki regime, and funnel weapons and fighters to

support the Sunni-led rebels in Iraq.

That's not stopping the United States, though, from boosting the

fortunes of the Syrian rebels by funneling aid and support to them and

coordinating the flow of weapons from Saudi Arabia, Qatar and Turkey.

Meanwhile, as The New York Times has been reporting for a while, the

same CIA that is trying to squash the Sunni rebels in Iraq is actually

training Sunni rebels in a secret program in Jordan, to fight in Syria.

Oddly enough, the rest of the media hasn't picked up on the Times

reports on the CIA training efforts in Jordan, and the Times itself

hasn't elaborated. How many gangsters are is the CIA training in

Jordan? What are they doing?

It all comes together in the recent reports that dozens of Syrian

soldiers, loyal to Assad, who fled into Iraq recently, were then

massacred by Iraqi Sunni crazies.

We blundered, bungling, into Iraq in 2003 without knowing really a

damn thing about the country we invaded. When will the United States

learn that it doesn't know enough about the Middle East to go charging

in there with guns, seemingly without a clue about what it all means?

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