Kaitan Krisis di Libya dan ISIS - Ilmu Pengetahuan & Teknologi

Beberapa hari lalu ada yang membuat video yang mencoba menjelaskan asal-usul ISIS, yan dimulai dari krisis di Libya. Videonya dapat dilihat di bawah ini, sedangkan teksnya dapat dibaca di http://scgnews.com/the-covert-origins-of-isis

Artikel berikut ini adalah terjemahan bebas dari video dan teks tersebut.

Pada tahun 2011 pemerintah Amerika secara terang-terangan berperan aktif di Libya, di antaranya:

dinas rahasia Amerika CIA membantu pemberontak Libya untuk menggulingkan Gaddafi.
Pemerintah Amerika melakukan serangan udara terhadap pemerintah Libya.

Namun jarang disebut siapakah pemberontak Libya yang didukung oleh Amerika tersebut. Ternyata pemberontak di Libya itu terdiri dari berbagai kelompok, termasuk di antaranya adalah militan Al-Qaeda yang pernah bertempur melawan Amerika di Irak. Jadi militan Al-Qaeda ini di Irak diperangi , di Libya malah didukung.

Sebelum pemberontakan dan intervensi Amerika dan NATO, Libya adalah negara paling makmur di Afrika. Ref: (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Libya_under_Muammar_Gaddafi#mediaviewer/File:UN_Human_Development_Report_2010_1.PNG)

Saat ini keadaan di Libya tambah kacau, beberapa waktu lalu lapangan terbang di Tripoli sampai dikuasai pemberontak. Tenaga kerja asing di Libya pun sampai diculik dan dibunuh.

Pemberontak Libya di lapangan terbang internasional Tripoli

Setelah pemerintahan Gaddafi ditumbangkan, gudang senjata di Libya dijarah, dan persenjataan dalam jumlah besar dikirim oleh pemberontak Libya ke Syria melalui Turki.

Situs “The Times of London” memberitakan tentang tibanya kiriman senjata pada tanggal 14 September 2012. (Konfirmasi berita itu di situs New York Times).

Senjata Libya yang ditemukan di Syria, sepertinya tipe rifle M40 kaliber 106mm

Terungkapnya pengiriman senjata ini terjadi hanya 3 hari sejak terbunuhnya dutabesar Amerika, Chris Stevens di kedutaan Amerika di Benghazi. Chris Stevens telah bertindak sebagai perwakilan pemerintah Amerika ke pemberontak Libya sejak bulan April 2011.

Jurnalis Seymour Hersh mengeluarkan sebuah artikel pada bulan April of 2014 yang menyatakan ada perjanjian rahasia antara CIA, Turki dan pemberontak Syria untuk membuat “rat line” atau “jalur tikus”. Jalur tikus ini adalah jaringan rahasia untuk mengirimkan senjata dan amunisi dari Libia ke Syria melalui Turki dan perbatasan Syria. Pendanaan disediakan oleh Turki, Arab Saudi dan Qatar.

Dengan terbunuhnya Chris Stevens maka keterlibatan pemerintah Amerika pada pengiriman senjata tersebut terhapus.

Pada saat yang bersamaan, pejuang dari Libya mulai membanjiri Syria. Bukan saja pejuang biasa, namun banyak dari mereka adalah komandan berpengalaman.

AS dan sekutunya kini sepenuhnya fokus pada menumbangkan pemerintah Assad di Suriah. Seperti di Libya perubahan rezim ini dibingkai dalam kerangka hak asasi manusia, dan dukungan terbuka mulai melengkapi dukungan di belakang layar. Kehadiran pasukan jihad ditutup-tutupi.

Namun sejak pasukan pemberontak mendapatkan kekuatan, laporan kejahatan perang dan kekejaman yang mereka lakukan mulai membuat masalah humas/public relations bagi Amerika. Akhirnya menjadi kebijakan standar di mana AS menyatakan dukungan AS hanya diberikan kepada yang disebut sebagai pasukan pemberontak “moderat”.

Perbedaan ini, bagaimanapun, kenyataannya tidak berdasar.

Dalam sebuah wawancara yang diberikan pada April 2014, komandan FSA (Free Syrian Army) Jamal Maarouf mengakui bahwa para pejuang FSA secara teratur melakukan operasi gabungan dengan Al-Nusra. Al-Nusra adalah cabang Al-Qaeda resmi di Suriah. Pernyataan ini selanjutnya divalidasi oleh sebuah wawancara yang diberikan pada bulan Juni 2013 oleh Kolonel Abdel Basset Al-Tawil, komandan FSA Front Utara. Dalam wawancara ini ia secara terbuka membahas hubungan dengan Al-Nusra, dan mengungkapkan keinginannya untuk melihat Suriah diperintah oleh hukum syariah. (Identitas kedua komandan dapat diverifikasi dari dokumen resmi dari The Institute of the Study of War)

Pemberontak moderat? Agak rumit memang. Reuters melaporkan pada tahun 2012 bahwa kepemimpinan FSA didominasi oleh ekstrimis Islam, dan New York Times melaporkan sebagian besar senjata yang dikirim oleh AS akhirnya sampai di tangan para militan. Selama dua tahun pemerintah AS tahu bahwa hal ini terjadi, namun pemerintah AS tetap melakukannya.

Dan hubungan FSA antara Al-Nusra hanyalah awalnya. Pada bulan Juni 2014 Al-Nusra bergabung dengan ISIS di perbatasan antara Irak dan Suriah.

Jadi menegaskan: FSA bekerja sama dengan Al-Nusra, Al-Nusra bekerja sama dengan ISIS, dan Amerika Serikat telah mengirim uang dan senjata kepada FSA meskipun mereka telah tahu sejak 2012 bahwa sebagian besar senjata-senjata tersebut akhirnya sampai di tangan ekstremis.

[UPDATE 9.03.14]: Pensiunan Letnan Jenderal Tom McInerney mengakui: “Kami Membantu Membangun ISIS”:
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[UPDATE 9.03.14]: Retired Lt. Gen. Tom McInerney admits: “We Helped Build ISIS”:

Link ke video:

http://dai.ly/x2568h5
https://s3.amazonaws.com/scg_site_files/Gen-Mcinenery-We-Built-ISIS-Short-Version.mp4
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_8kKCCnOm1Y

Teks :

Syria, we backed I believe, in some cases some of the wrong people and not in the right part of the Free Syrian Army (FSA) that’s a little confusing to people. So I’ve always maintained, and go back quite some time that we were backing the wrong types. I think it’s going to turn out maybe this weekend in a new special that Brett Baer is going to have Friday that’s gonna show some of those weapons from Benghazi ended up in the hands of ISIS. So we helped build ISIS.

In that context, the sarin gas attacks of 2013 which turned out to have been committed by the Syrian rebels, makes a lot more sense doesn’t it? If it wasn’t enough that U.N. investigators, Russian investigators, and Pulitzer prize winning journalist Seymour Hersh all pinned that crime on Washington’s proxies, the rebels themselves threatened the West that they would expose what really happened if they were not given more advanced weaponry within one month.

By the way, this also explains why Washington then decided to target Russia next.

This threat was made on June 10th, 2013. In what can only be described as an amazing coincidence, just nine days later, the rebels received their first official shipment of heavy weapons in Aleppo.

After the second sarin gas fiasco, which was also exposed and therefore failed to garner public support for airstrikes, the U.S. continued to increase its the training and support for the rebels.

In February of 2014, Haaretz reported that the U.S. and its allies in the region, Saudi Arabia, Jordan and Israel, were in the process of helping the Syrian rebels plan and prepare for a massive attack in the south. According to Haaretz Israel had also provided direct assistance in military operations against Assad four months prior (you can access a free cached version of the page here).

Then in May of 2014 PBS ran a report in which they interviewed rebels who were trained by the U.S. in Qatar. According to those rebels they were being trained to finish off soldiers who survived attacks.

“They trained us to ambush regime or enemy vehicles and cut off the road,” said the fighter, who is identified only as “Hussein.” “They also trained us on how to attack a vehicle, raid it, retrieve information or weapons and munitions, and how to finish off soldiers still alive after an ambush.”

This is a blatant violation of the Geneva conventions. It also runs contrary to conventional military strategy. In conventional military strategy soldiers are better off left wounded, because this ends up costing the enemy more resources. Executing captured enemy soldiers is the kind of tactic used when you want to strike terror in the hearts of the enemy. It also just happens to be standard operating procedure for ISIS.

One month after this report, in June of 2014, ISIS made its dramatic entry, crossing over the Syrian border into Iraq, capturing Mosul, Baiji and almost reaching Baghdad. The internet was suddenly flooded with footage of drive by shootings, large scale death marches, and mass graves. And of course any Iraqi soldier that was captured was executed.

Massive quantities of American military equipment were seized during that operation. ISIS took entire truckloads of humvees, they took helicopters, tanks, and artillery. They photographed and video taped themselves and advertised what they were doing on social media, and yet for some reason Washington didn’t even TRY to stop them.

U.S. military doctrine clearly calls for the destruction of military equipment and supplies when friendly forces cannot prevent them from falling into enemy hands, but that didn’t happen here. ISIS was allowed to carry this equipment out of Iraq and into Syria unimpeded. The U.S. military had the means to strike these convoys, but they didn’t lift a finger, even though they had been launching drone strikes in Pakistan that same week.

Why would they do that?

Though Obama plays the role of a weak, indecisive, liberal president, and while pundits from the right have had a lot of fun with that image, this is just a facade. Some presidents, like George W. Bush, rely primarily on overt military aggression. Obama gets the same job done, but he prefers covert means. Not really surprising considering the fact that Zbigniew Brzezinski was his mentor.

Those who know their history will remember that Zbigniew Brzezinski was directly involved in the funding and arming the Islamic extremists in Pakistan and Afghanistan in order to weaken the Soviets.

By the way Osama bin Laden was one of these anti-Soviet “freedom fighters” the U.S. was funding and arming.

This operation is no secret at this point, nor are the unintended side effects.

Officially the U.S. government’s arming and funding of the Mujahideen was a response to the Soviet invasion in December of 1979, however in his memoir entitled “From the Shadows” Robert Gates, director of the CIA under Ronald Reagan and George Bush Senior, and Secretary of Defense under both George W. Bush and Barack Obama, revealed that the U.S. actually began the covert operation 6 months prior, with the express intention of luring the Soviets into a quagmire. (You can preview the relevant text here on google books)

The strategy worked. The Soviets invaded, and the ten years of war that followed are considered by many historians as being one of the primary causes of the fall of the USSR.

This example doesn’t just establish precedent, what we’re seeing happen in Iraq, Afghanistan and Syria right now is actually a continuation of a old story. Al-Nusra and ISIS are ideological and organizational decedents of these extremist elements that the U.S. government made use of thirty years ago.

The U.S. the went on to create a breeding ground for these extremists by invading Iraq in 2003. Had it not been for the vacuum of power left by the removal and execution of Saddam, Al-Qaeda in Iraq, aka ISIS, would not exist. And had it not been for Washington’s attempt at toppling Assad by arming, funding and training shadowy militant groups in Syria, there is no way that ISIS would have been capable of storming into Iraq in June of 2014.

On every level, no matter how you cut it, ISIS is a product of U.S. government’s twisted and decrepit foreign policy.

Now all of this may seem contradictory to you as you watch the drums of war against ISIS begin to beat louder and the air strikes against them are gradually widened http://www.wjla.com/articles/2014/08/president-obama-considers-possible-…). Why would the U.S. help a terrorist organization get established, only to attack them later?

Well why did the CIA put Saddam Hussein in power in 1963?, Why did the U.S. government back Saddam in 1980 when he launched a war of aggression against Iran, even though they knew that he was using chemical weapons? Why did the U.S. fund and arm Islamic extremists in Afghanistan against the Soviets?

There’s a pattern here if you look closely. This is a tried and true geopolitical strategy.

Step 1: Build up a dictator or extremist group which can then be used to wage proxy wars against opponents. During this stage any crimes committed by these proxies are swept under the rug. [Problem]

Step 2: When these nasty characters have outlived their usefulness, that’s when it’s time to pull out all that dirt from under the rug and start publicizing it 24/7. This obviously works best when the public has no idea how these bad guys came to power.[Reaction]

Step 3: Finally, when the public practically begging for the government to do something, a solution is proposed. Usually the solution involves military intervention, the loss of certain liberties, or both. [Solution]

ISIS is extremely useful. They have essentially done Washington dirty work by weakening Assad. In 2014, while the news cycle has focused almost exclusively on Ukraine and Russia, ISIS made major headway in Syria, and as of August they already controlled 35% of the country.

Since ISIS largely based in Syria, this gives the U.S. a pretext to move into Syria. Sooner or later the U.S. will extend the airstrikes into Assad’s backyard, and when they do U.S. officials are already making it clear that both ISIS and the Syrian government will be targeted. That, after all, is the whole point. Washington may allow ISIS to capture a bit more territory first, but the writing is on the wall, and has been for some time now.

The Obama administration has repeatedly insisted that this will never lead to boots on the ground, however, the truth of the matter is that anyone who understands anything about military tactics knows full well that ISIS cannot be defeated by airstrikes alone. In response to airstrikes ISIS will merely disperse and conceal their forces. ISIS isn’t an established state power which can be destroyed by knocking out key government buildings and infrastructure. These are guerrilla fighters who cut their teeth in urban warfare.

To significantly weaken them, the war will have to involve ground troops, but even this is a lost cause. U.S. troops could certainly route ISIS in street to street battles for some time, and they might even succeed in fully occupying Syria and Iraq for a number of years, but eventually they will have to leave, and when they do, it should be obvious what will come next.

The puppets that the U.S. government has installed in the various countries that they have brought down in recent years have without exception proven to be utterly incompetent and corrupt. No one that Washington places in power will be capable of maintaining stability in Syria. Period.

Right now, Assad is the last bastion of stability in the region. He is the last chance they have for a moderate non-sectarian government and he is the only hope of anything even remotely resembling democracy for the foreseeable future. If Assad falls, Islamic extremist will take the helm, they will impose shari’ah law, and they will do everything in their power to continue spreading their ideology as far and wide as they can.

If the world truly wants to stop ISIS, there is only one way to do it:

1. First and foremost, the U.S. government and its allies must be heavily pressured to cut all support to the rebels who are attempting to topple Assad. Even if these rebels that the U.S. is arming and funding were moderate, and they’re not, the fact that they are forcing Assad to fight a war on multiple fronts, only strengthens ISIS. This is lunacy.

2. The Syrian government should be provided with financial support, equipment, training and intelligence to enable them to turn the tide against ISIS. This is their territory, they should be the ones to reclaim it.

Now obviously this support isn’t going to come from the U.S. or any NATO country, but there are a number of nations who have a strategic interest in preventing another regime change and chaotic aftermath. If these countries respond promptly, as in right now, they could preempt a U.S. intervention, and as long this support does not include the presence of foreign troops, doing so will greatly reduce the likelihood of a major confrontation down the road.

3. The U.S. government and its allies should should be aggressively condemned for their failed regime change policies and the individuals behind these decisions should be charged for war crimes. This would have to be done on an nation by nation level since the U.N. has done nothing but enable NATO aggression. While this may not immediately result in these criminals being arrested, it would send a message. This can be done. Malaysia has already proven this by convicting the Bush administration of war crimes in abstentia.

Now you might be thinking: “This all sounds fine and good, but what does this have to do with me? I can’t influence this situation.”

That perspective is quite common, and for most people, it’s paralyzing, but the truth of the matter is that we can influence this. We’ve done it before, and we can do it again.

I’ll be honest with you though, this isn’t going to be easy. To succeed we have to start thinking strategically. Like it or not, this is a chess game. If we really want to rock the boat, we have to start reaching out to people in positions of influence. This can mean talking to broadcasters at your local radio station, news paper, or t.v. station, or it can mean contacting influential bloggers, celebrities, business figures or government officials. Reaching out to current serving military and young people who may be considering joining up is also important. But even if it’s just your neighbor, or your coworker, every single person we can reach brings us closer to critical mass. The most important step is to start trying.