Showing posts with label Bureau of Investigative Journalism. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Bureau of Investigative Journalism. Show all posts

Monday, October 3, 2016

The U.S. and AQI Go Way Back

An eye-opening report by the Bureau of Investigative Journalism (not to be confused with the spooky International Consortium of Investigative Journalists of Panama Papers fame) appeared yesterday. "Fake News and False Flags: How the Pentagon paid a British PR firm $500 million for top secret Iraq Propaganda," by Crofton Black and Abigail Fielding-Smith, describes how Bell Pottinger, the firm responsible for crafting Margaret Thatcher's persona, worked with General David Petraeus to produce Al Qaeda video shorts.
Bell Pottinger’s output was signed off by the commander of coalition forces in Iraq, according to Wells. “We’d get the two colonels in to look at the things we’d done that day, they’d be fine with it, it would then go to General Petraeus," he said.
Some of the projects went even higher up the chain of command. “If [Petraeus] couldn’t sign off on it, it would go on up the line to the White House, and it was signed off up there, and the answer would come back down the line’."
So the fact that the United States is working with Al Qaeda affiliate in Syria Jabhat al-Nusra (re-branded in July as Jabhat Fateh al-Sham,"Front for the Conquest of the Levant") should come as no surprise. The U.S. has been promoting Al Qaeda for quite some time.