Devil's Dance

“The Management of Savagery,” by Max Blumenthal, 2019

This investigatory book details the support or enablement of Islamic reactionaries by the U.S. government, military and CIA since Afghanistan in the 1970s.  It does not probe into events before that, such as support for the partition of India by Britain, or of the Muslim Brotherhood against Arab nationalists like Nasser or against left-wing Palestinian organizations like the PLO.  The relationship is conflicted of course, as each side utilizes the other when necessary, but also comes into conflict.  The book title comes from a 2004 Iraqi document by the founder of Daesh (ISIS) as to their plans, which certainly describes the functioning of U.S. policy in the middle east too.

The Eagle and the Scimitar

This is a familiar story with an astonishing wealth of facts that Blumenthal has gathered as a journalist.   He names names – the think tankers, journalists, politicians, cultural figures, advisors, professors, billionaires, generals, organizations, NGOs and lobbyists who promote the imperialist ‘Washington consensus’ - and their allies among the jihadis, the Israelis, the Brits, etc.  He also names the reactionary hacks pushing imperial war and Islamophobia who have grown up in response. 

The template for U.S. bipartisan collaboration with Islamic reactionaries for the purpose of ‘regime change’ is Afghanistan.   The ‘regimes’ are usually leftists of some kind, or partly secular governments that do not toe the U.S. or corporate line. Or allies of an undeclared U.S. ‘enemy’ like Russia or enemies of a ‘friend’ like Israel or Saudi Arabia.  The broad outline of what happened in Afghanistan is well known.  The CIA, the U.S. Congress, both parties, Washington ‘think tanks’ and ruling class organizations politically backed, funded or supplied weapons to the Islamic mujahedin in order to overthrow a Soviet-backed government in Kabul.  In the process, al Qaeda (AQ) was created and bin Laden celebrated by the U.S. and its allies like Saudi Arabia. 

Blumenthal describes how the same sectarian religious strategy was used in Iraq, Libya and Syria, with references to smaller efforts in Russian South Ossetia and Yugoslavia’s Bosnia and Kosovo.  Blumenthal includes the role of U.S. allies like Qatar, Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Israel and NATO as consistently supporting these 14^th century Islamic political fundamentalists as battering rams for imperialism.  Iran, Lebanon and Yemen are involved in these sectarian battle plans, though not addressed in the book.

The relationship is similar to the use the FBI has for the Mafia. Remember, our hero Robert Mueller was the case officer overseeing Whitey Bulger.  It is similar to the relationship the CIA had with death squads in Central America or now, rightists in Venezuela.  Blumenthal calls it ‘humanitarian militarism’ for its use of democratic phraseology to enable bloodshed and reaction.

The blowback caused by these regime change plans include massive migration, the strengthening and spread of armed anti-working class jihadist groups across the world, massive death & destruction, a huge increase in government disinformation and the propping up of Islamophobia, the international 'alt-right' and the false narrative of ‘the clash of civilizations.’  Both political Islam and Western reactionaries feed off this conflict.
 

The British Independent - 1993

Here are some choice quotes from the book:

  1.     Zbigniew Brezinski (Carter’s national security advisor) in Afghanistan: “For Brezinski…the mujahedin and backers like Zia’s Pakistan and the Saudi royals represented a reactionary ‘arc of Islamism’ that could be encouraged to provide a powerful counterweight to communist influence.”

  2.     At “a CIA black site in rural Virginia…special-forces soldiers trained Pakistani officers and visiting Afghan mujahedin…”

  3.     Knight-Ridder reported the main complaint of Afghans in refugee camps:  “What they did not like…was that the Communists in Kabul wanted to send their daughters to school.”

  4.     Saudi-trained Taliban police:  “Throw reason to the dogs.” 

5.     “Muammar Gaddafi’s Libya became the first country to issue an international Interpol arrest warrant for bin Laden.” 

6.     Banjamin Netanyahu:  “A graduate of MIT from suburban Philadelphia who later worked at Boston Consulting with Mitt Romney.” 

7.    1996 “Clean Break” Likud plan:  “…violently replace the leadership of any regional state that challenged Israel’s agenda – a feat that could only be accomplished with direct American military intervention.” 

8.     al Qaeda: “We want the United States to invade Afghanistan.”

9.     Howard Stern on 9/11:  “We gotta drop an atomic bomb.” 

10. Dan Rather on 9/11:  “George Bush is the president…As just one American, wherever he wants me to line up, just tell me where.”

11. al-Arian on the 2000 Florida election and the issue of ‘secret evidence’ against Muslims in courts, which Bush opposed but Gore did not:  “We campaigned around Florida (for Bush) and we said this (election) is not about Iraq or Palestine; it’s about civil rights.”  According to them, they turned out 1,500 more votes for Bush than would have happened otherwise.

12. Clinton’s 1998 Iraq Liberation Act: “…committed the United States to regime change and doled out $97 million to Chalabi’s Iraq National Conference…”

13. Michael Ledeen (arch-conservative):  “Every ten years or so, the United States needs to pick up some small crappy little country and throw it against the wall, just to show we mean business.”

14. The Green Zone in Iraq:  “The Coalition Provisional Authority (CPA) was a study in neo-colonial arrogance, nepotism and libertarianism run amok.” 

15. "In 2006, al Qaeda’s franchise in Iraq declared a caliphate and ordered all Sunni Muslims … to pledge allegiance to its new emir …Abu Umar al-Baghdadi.”  (al-Baghdadi later became a founder of Daesh.)

16. “Islamophobia became the language of a wounded empire.”

17.  "A former Goldman Sachs vice president and longtime Hollywood hack named Steve Bannon…”

18. “Bannon clearly sought to transplant the clash of civilizations narrative into domestic politics, with Muslim immigrants and their ‘cultural Marxist’ defenders as the target of a reborn ‘alt-right.’” 

19.  Obama, February 2011:  “…signed a secret finding authorizing the CIA to provide arms and other support to Libyan rebels.”  (Most of whom were jihadis.)

20.  Military humanism:  “Their brand of interventionism appealed directly to the sensibility of the Democratic Party’s metropolitan base, large swaths of academics, the foundation-funded human rights NGO complex and the NYT editorial board” which allowed them “to mask imperial designs behind a patina of ‘genocide prevention.  With this tactic they neutralized progressive antiwar elements and tarred those who dared to protest their wars as dictator apologists.”

21. Obama, August 2011:  “The time has come for President Assad to step aside.” 

22. 1986 CIA memo on Syria:  “Syria:  Scenarios of Dramatic Political Change: … we believe widespread violence among the populace could stimulate large numbers of Sunni officers and conscripts to desert or mutiny, setting the stage for (sectarian) civil war.”  The authors believed the Muslim Brotherhood would be a key aide in this scenario.

23. Clinton on Libya: She wanted to support “the hard men with the guns” as long as they opposed Gaddafi.  The 'hard men' were jihadis. Weapons from Libyan co-thinkers found their way to Syria, into the hands of AQ, Daesh and other extremist right-wing factions. 

24. CIA lead analyst Douglas Laux of the Syria Task force on the Free Syrian Army in mid-2012:  “There were no moderates.”

25. A former U.S. ambassador to the Middle East:  “The ‘red line’ was an open invitation to a false flag operation.”

al-Nusra, AQ in Syria - Ally of U.S. against Syrian Government

Blumenthal gives short shrift to 9/11 Truthers, as they hide the actual involvement of the Saudis, AQ and CIA/FBI.  9/11 was only partly an ‘inside job’ – it was carried out by U.S. allies and former allies.  He details the extensive links between AQ members in the U.S. who functioned as ‘double-agents’ and the FBI/CIA.  The FBI/CIA did almost nothing prior to 9/11, though they had some foreknowledge on the activities of their sources.  He reminds us that Trutherism was first pushed by Alex Jones, a far-right white nationalist.  Blumenthal shows how the Benghazi hearings ignored the real issue of jihadist control of Sirte enabled by the CIA and NATO bombing.  He also deconstructs the ‘White Helmets’ as a jihadist propaganda group created and financed by Britain and the U.S., a group which gained a Nobel nomination and an Oscar. Blumenthal and other reporters hold the White Helmets possibly responsible for the fabricated chemical attacks attributed to the Syrian military.  

This is a thorough book that documents history since the Afghan war, reminding anyone who paid attention and telling anyone who didn’t what U.S. policy was and still is.  Though, as Blumenthal points out, now the government has real ‘enemies’ – Russia & China.

P.S. - Reflecting religion's reactionary role in the Middle East, a large decline in religious belief in the Middle East is documented by the BBC and Princeton U:  https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2019/jun/24/arab-world-turns-its-back-on-religion-and-its-ire-on-the-us

Other reviews on this topic below.  Use blog search box, upper left:  “Islamophobia and the Politics of Empire,” “Finks,” “War With Russia,” (Cohen) “The Death of the Nation,” (Prashad); Dirty Wars,” (Scahill); “The Terror Factory,” “Slave States,” “Lipstick Jihad,” “The Left and Islamic Literalism,” ‘Argo’ and ‘Zero Dark 30,’ “Rojava,” “What is the War on Terror,” “Erdogan,” “Blow Back to Iraq,” “Warrior Cops.”    

And I bought it at May Day Books!

Red Frog

June 6, 2019