United States’ policy in Syria, Iraq despicable: Analyst

Press TV has interviewed Scott Bennet, a former US army psychological warfare officer and counter-terrorism analyst, in San Francisco, to ask for his opinion on recent reports noting that some 180 Americans have joined the ISIL Takfiri group.

What follows is a rough transcription.

Press TV: When the US both condones and supports insurgency in Syria, and then simultaneously condemns its own citizens from taking part in it. What kind of mixed message is it sending out?

Bennet: Well, first of all when you look at Ben Rhodes, the character they have cited as giving some of this material, he has got some dubious character and very questionable backgrounds all over the place. I mean he comes out of a 2001 connection with Rudy Giuliani and then became an Obama press guy; but there is a lot of people in press community who have looked at Rhodes and see a lot of emotional, religious, and ethnic ties to his Israeli-Zionist intuitions and family connections. So I discount automatically whatever he says because he has been part of the problem for the past 15 years. The US has followed this neoconservative, amoral, non-religious agenda. You see that in the whole ISIL creation basically, because you have got all these Sunnis, Salafists, and Wahhabists from all over the Sunni world coming from Somalia, Libya, Egypt… that was another thing; Ben Rhodes was instrumental in pulling back support for Hosni Mubarak. So he was very much in tune with Muslim Brotherhood, and was very much a supporter of them. So we have been supporting the very people that are now infecting the Middle East and trying to destabilize the Syrian, Iranian Shia power structure. They are doing it to also weaken Iraq because they have seen Iraq and the whole Shia movement as sort of throwing a monkey wrench in the West’s political ambitions for the Middle East.

Press TV: Right, and when Mr. Rhodes touches on how disconcerting it is that their European allies,... but thousands of people have joined insurgents in Iraq and Syria from the European allies, as well as 180 supposedly from US. When the US and its allies lobby so hard for the militancy in Syria, what kind of influence do you think that Washington thinks this kind of campaign will ultimately have?

Bennet: Well, what the US campaign and the government says in one side of their mouth is totally different from the reality of the other side. Let us just go by the facts; the facts are, the United States is pulling all of these refugees from Somalia and various parts of the world into the United States and now from Minnesota and Arizona, all of these different states, these young men for the most part, or romantically-desperate women, from another part in their early 20s, late teens, without any roots or connection to the American history, are now going to fight in Syria to overwhelm the Alawite Syrian Assad [government] and set up a Sunni Salafist caliphate. Now it is interesting, when you look at some other Muslim authorities like the Chechen Grozny TV, the Mufti Salah Hajj Mediev, just wrote that the majority of the ISIL is not Islamic and is not consistent with Islamic teachings and anyone who participates with the ISIL should by punished to capital punishment or incarcerated. That is very powerful to come from another Islamic authority, especially one of a judicial nature. So we are seeing other Islamic entities condemning the barbarity and the savagery that the ISIL is erecting, and it is sad that the United States government’s official position is to hire and train mercenaries to go over and destabilize the region. A lot of it is based on benefits to Israel and the entire Israeli long-term goal of destabilizing Iran and expanding its tentacles throughout the Middle East.

Press TV: It is funny you should make that point, disenfranchised young men and women you are mentioning. Now one might make the case that between the extremist recruiters coupled with the US propaganda, it is enough to brainwash young disenfranchised men and women to make the decision to head off for Iraq and Syria and take up arms with militants there.

Bennet: Well, it is very easy to brainwash them because they are in such moral vacuum and deficit in the United States. The United States has nothing to offer on a moral fulfilling level or a spiritual nourishment level. You have got all sorts of pornography, you have got addictions and vice of every description, you have got marriage between men and men, and you have got divorce rates out of control; you have got a social wreckage in this country that to a young Muslim from another country who has come in, and is very conservative and for the most part, very rooted in the Islamic tenants of family, and sexual purity and things of that nature, the United States is a very toxic environment. So what do you do when you are in a toxic environment? You leave to go to a more pure environment- a nourishing environment. That is very tempting and if you are good salesman you can reach out into these communities of young men and say come join the Jihad and avoid torments of the grave and your family will all go to heaven and you will be rewarded with all sorts of pleasures. You can come and erect the true caliphate on planet Earth which is God’s city. Now all of that sounds good, but we know the reality is totally different and these directors and these recruiters have no real Islamic, religious identity. They are just car salesman; they are just manipulators; they are pulling in cannon fodder to use and they are paid for by CIA, Islamic Swiss banks. I saw that in my own whistle blowing report when I discovered Swiss banks that were funding terrorists, specifically the Al Qaeda, ISIL types and I sent reports to everybody in Capitol Hill, including military officials. Not a single person did anything with that information. That led me to believe that they are in full favor and support of these Islamic, Sunni, Wahhabist mercenaries that are going forth to just steer trouble. Then when you look at the human trafficking and sexual perversion, and all of the wickedness that they are doing on the women in that area, the Kurds and such; I think it is very despicable that it is an official policy of the United States. Now I am hopeful that good voices are going to rise up, like Senator Rand Paul, and Senator Widen and some of these seasoned wise people that area saying we need to step back as the United States of America and stop waging war on these countries and let the Middle East settle and let the powers that exist over there – Iran, Syria, and Russia – naturally come together and solve their own problems. Nothing good is coming out of the United States meddling over there to such a degree and we have seen that in Iraq; we have seen that in Syria; in Libya; and now we are seeing it with Egypt and some of the Muslim Brotherhood.

MTM/KA

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