U.S. Created ISIS

Glenn Greenwald: I would look to the U.S. government first, because they failed to find the plot despite huge amounts of money and unlimited power to do so, and because they’ve done all sorts of things to strengthen the group that apparently bears responsibility for this attack.

NERMEEN SHAIKH: Well, I’d like to turn to a clip from an Al Jazeera interview in August with the former head of the U.S. Defense Intelligence Agency, Michael Flynn. The host, Mehdi Hasan, questions Flynn about how much the U.S. knew about the rise of the so-called Islamic State in Syria.

MEHDI HASAN: Many people would argue that the U.S. actually saw the rise of ISIL coming and turned a blind eye, or even encouraged it as a counterpoint to Assad. In a secret analysis by the agency you ran, the Defense Intelligence Agency in August 2012 said—and I quote—"there is a possibility of establishing a declared"—

MICHAEL FLYNN: Not so secret.

MEHDI HASAN: —"or undeclared Salafist"—it’s not secret anymore. It was released under FOI. The quote is: "there is a possibility of establishing a declared or undeclared Salafist Principality in Eastern Syria ... and this is exactly what the supporting powers to the opposition want, in order to isolate the Syrian regime." The U.S. saw the ISIL caliphate coming and did nothing.

MICHAEL FLYNN: Yeah, I think that what we—where we missed the point—I mean, where we totally blew it, I think, was in the very beginning. I mean, we’re talking four years now into this effort in Syria. Most people won’t even remember—it’s only been a couple years—the Free Syrian Army, that movement. I mean, where are they today? Al-Nusra, where are they today, and what have—how much have they changed? When you don’t get in and help somebody, they’re going to find other means to achieve their goals. And I think right now what we have allowed is—

MEHDI HASAN: Hold on, you were helping them in 2012, while these groups—

MICHAEL FLYNN: Yeah, we’ve allowed this—we’ve allowed this extremist—you know, these extremist militants to come in—

MEHDI HASAN: But why did you allow them to do that, General?

MICHAEL FLYNN: Those are—those are—

MEHDI HASAN: You were in post. You were the head of the Defense Intelligence Agency.

MICHAEL FLYNN: Yeah, right, right. Well, those are—those are policy—

MEHDI HASAN: I took the liberty—

MICHAEL FLYNN: Those are policy issues.

MEHDI HASAN: I took the liberty of printing out that document.

MICHAEL FLYNN: Yeah, yeah.

MEHDI HASAN: This is a memo I quoted from. Did you see this document in 2012? Would this come across your table [inaudible]?

MICHAEL FLYNN: Yeah, yeah, yeah. I paid very close attention to all the [inaudible]—

MEHDI HASAN: OK, so when you saw this, did you not pick up a phone and say, "What on Earth are we doing supporting these Syrian rebels?"

MICHAEL FLYNN: Sure. I mean, that—that kind of information is presented, and—

MEHDI HASAN: And what did you do about it?

MICHAEL FLYNN: —those become—those become—I argued about it.

MEHDI HASAN: In 2012, your agency was saying, quote, "the Salafists, the Muslim Brotherhood and [al-Qaeda in Iraq] are the major forces driving the insurgency in Syria."

MICHAEL FLYNN: Mm-hmm.

MEHDI HASAN: In 2012, the U.S. was helping coordinate arms transfers to those same groups. Why did you not stop that, if you’re worried about the rise of, quote-unquote, "Islamic extremism"?

MICHAEL FLYNN: Yeah, I mean, I hate to say it’s not my job, but that—my job was to ensure that the accuracy of our intelligence that was being presented was as good as it could be. And I will tell you, it goes before 2012—I mean, when we were in Iraq, and we still had decisions to be made before there was a decision to pull out of Iraq in 2011. I mean, it was very clear what we were going to face.

NERMEEN SHAIKH: That was the former head of the U.S. Defense Intelligence Agency, Michael Flynn, being interviewed by Mehdi Hasan of Al Jazeera. So, Glenn Greenwald, could you respond to that interview? And also explain—you’ve said repeatedly that the U.S. media tends to simply echo what U.S. government and military officials say. Explain what you think accounts for that.

GLENN GREENWALD: Well, first of all, that clip is unbelievable. It is literally one of the three most important military officials of the entire war on terror, General Flynn, who was the head of the Defense Intelligence Agency. He’s saying that the U.S. government knew that by creating a vacuum in Syria and then flooding that region with arms and money, that it was likely to result in the establishment of a caliphate by Islamic extremists in eastern Syria—which is, of course, exactly what happened. They knew that that was going to happen, and they proceeded to do it anyway. So when the U.S. government starts trying to point the finger at other people for helpingISIS, they really need to have a mirror put in front of them, because, by their own documents, as that extraordinary clip demonstrates, they bear huge responsibility for that happening, to say nothing of the fact that, as I said, their closest allies in the region actually fund it.

And then, just to take a step further back, The Washington Post six months ago reported what most people who pay attention to this actually know, which is that what we call ISIS is really nothing more than a bunch of ex-Baathist military officials who were disempowered and alienated by the U.S. invasion of Iraq, and the subsequent instability that it caused, and then the policies of the—the sectarian policies of Prime Minister Maliki in basically taking away all of the power of those ex-Baathists in favor of Shiite militias and Iran-aligned militias and the like. And so, essentially, what I think everybody at this point understands is that the reason there is such a thing as ISIS is because the U.S. invaded Iraq and caused massive instability, destroyed the entire society, destroyed all of the infrastructure, destroyed all order, and it was in that chaos that ISIS was able to emerge. So, again, if you’re looking for blame, beyond ISIS, the U.S. government is a really good place to look.

So, as far as why the media is willing to sort of spread these claims so uncritically, I mean, you know, there are complicated reasons. I mean, one is that the media itself is very nationalistic, and they get wrapped up and caught up in the sort of uber-patriotism and jingoism as much as non-journalists do, and see the world through that lens. Another is that they spend a huge amount of time with these government officials. They are in the same socioeconomic sphere. They talk to them all day and night, because that’s where they get their stories from, is the ones that are fed to them by officials. And so they see the world through their lens and also, at the same time, want to serve them and please them in order to continue to get sources. A lot of these people are people who work for large corporations, and large corporations want to keep positive relations with the U.S. government, and so report favorably on them rather than in a way that would anger the government, because that’s not in their interest to do.

And then, finally, there’s a lot of resentment and bitterness to the Snowden reporting among lots of journalists, because they were excluded from the story, though journalism won a lot of awards that they themselves have never won. And they hate Edward Snowden, and they hate the journalism that he enabled, and so this is sort of their chance to demonize not just him, but the journalism. And so, they’re eagerly giving a platform to any U.S. officials who want to say that the person who has blood on their hands is Edward Snowden.

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