In Al Jazeera’s latest Head to Head episode , former director of
the Defense Intelligence Agency Michael Flynn confirms to
Mehdi Hasan that not only had he studied the DIA memo
predicting the West’s backing of an Islamic State in Syria when
it came across his desk in 2012, but even asserts that the White
House’s sponsoring of radical jihadists (that would emerge as
ISIL and Nusra) against the Syrian regime was “a willful
decision.”
Amazingly, Flynn actually took issue with the way interviewer
Mehdi Hasan posed the question—Flynn seemed to want to
make it clear that the policies that led to the rise of ISIL were
not merely the result of ignorance or looking the other way, but
the result of conscious decision making:
Hasan : You are basically saying that even in government at the
time you knew these groups were around, you saw this
analysis, and you were arguing against it, but who wasn’t
listening?
Flynn : I think the administration.
Hasan : So the administration turned a blind eye to your
analysis?
Flynn : I don’t know that they turned a blind eye, I think it was a
decision. I think it was a willful decision.
Hasan : A willful decision to support an insurgency that had
Salafists, Al Qaeda and the Muslim Brotherhood?
Flynn : It was a willful decision to do what they’re doing.
Hasan himself expresses surprise at Flynn’s frankness during
this portion of the interview. While holding up a paper copy of
the 2012 DIA report declassified through FOIA, Hasan reads
aloud key passages such as, “there is the 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.”
Rather than downplay the importance of the document and these
startling passages, as did the State Department soon after its
release, Flynn does the opposite: he confirms that while acting
DIA chief he “paid very close attention” to this report in
particular and later adds that “the intelligence was very clear.”
Lt. Gen. Flynn, speaking safely from retirement, is the highest
ranking intelligence official to go on record saying the United
States and other state sponsors of rebels in Syria knowingly
gave political backing and shipped weapons to Al-Qaeda in
order to put pressure on the Syrian regime:
Hasan: In 2012 the U.S. was helping coordinate arms transfers
to those same groups [Salafists, Muslim Brotherhood, Al Qaeda
in Iraq], why did you not stop that if you’re worried about the
rise of quote-unquote Islamic extremists?
Flynn: I hate to say it’s not my job…but that…my job was to…
was to to ensure that the accuracy of our intelligence that was
being presented was as good as it could be.
The early reporting that treated the DIA memo as newsworthy
and hugely revelatory was criticized and even mocked by some
experts , as well as outlets like The Daily Beast. Yet the very DIA
director at the time the memo was drafted and circulated widely
now unambiguously confirms the document to be of high value,
and indicates that it served as source material in his own
discussions over Syria policy with the White House.
As Michael Flynn also previously served as director of
intelligence for Joint Special Operations Command (JSOC)
during a time when its prime global mission was dismantling
Al-Qaeda, his honest admission that the White House was in
fact arming and bolstering Al-Qaeda linked groups in Syria is
especially shocking given his stature.
Consider further the dissonance that comes with viewing the
Pentagon’s former highest ranking intelligence officer in charge
of the hunt for Osama bin Laden now calmly and coolly
confessing that the United States directly aided the foot soldiers
of Ayman al-Zawahiri beginning in at least 2012 in Syria.
This confirmation is significant to my own coverage of the DIA
report, as I was contacted by a number of individuals who
attempted to assure me that the true experts and “insiders”
knew the document was unimportant and therefore irrelevant
within the intelligence community and broader Syria policy.
This began after a Daily Beast article entitled The ISIS
Conspiracy That Ate the Web cited former NSA officer John
Schindler as an expert source. Schindler concluded of the DIA
document: “it’s difficult to say much meaningful about it…
Nothing special here, not one bit.”
To my surprise, only hours after I published a rebuttal of
Schindler and the Daily Beast article, I was contacted by a
current high level CIA official who is also a personal friend from
my time living in the D.C. area.
This official, who spent most of his career with CIA Public
Affairs, made a personal appeal urging me to drop my
comments attacking John Schindler’s credibility, as I had noted
that Schindler is a highly ideological and scandal-laden
commentator who consistently claims special insider knowledge
in support of his arguments. This CIA official further attempted
to convince me of Schindler’s credibility as an insider and
expert, assuring me that “he has written insightfully.”
Mehdi Hasan’s historic interview with General Flynn should put
the issue to rest—the declassified DIA report is now confirmed
to be a central and vital source that sheds light on the origins of
ISIS, and must inform a candid national debate on American
policy in Syria and Iraq.
As it is now already becoming part of the official record on
conflict in Syria among respected international historians,
knowledge of the declassified document must make it into every
American household.


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SG3j8OYKgn4

http://levantreport.com/2015/08/06/former-dia-chief-michael-flynn-says-rise-of-islamic-state-was-a-willful-decision-and-defends-accuracy-of-2012-memo/

THE MEDIA ALLOW US TO SEE AND KNOW WHAT THEY WANT US SEE AND KNOW