{"id":162162,"date":"2015-06-26T15:39:54","date_gmt":"2015-06-26T15:39:54","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/newswire\/neocons-urge-embrace-of-al-qaeda\/"},"modified":"2015-06-26T15:39:54","modified_gmt":"2015-06-26T15:39:54","slug":"neocons-urge-embrace-of-al-qaeda","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/newswire\/neocons-urge-embrace-of-al-qaeda\/","title":{"rendered":"Neocons Urge Embrace of Al Qaeda"},"content":{"rendered":"<div readability=\"309.09409292552\">\n<p><strong>Exclusive:<\/strong> The latest neocon gambit is to build support for\u00a0\u201cregime change\u201d\u00a0in Syria by downplaying the evils of\u00a0Al Qaeda, rebranding it as some sort of \u201cmoderate\u201d terrorist force whose Syrian affiliate is acceptable to Israel and supported by Saudi Arabia. But this audacious argument ignores reality, writes Daniel Lazare.<\/p>\n<p><span id=\"more-15333\"\/>By Daniel Lazare<\/p>\n<p>Just nine days after the fall of the World Trade Center, George W. Bush <a href=\"http:\/\/georgewbush-whitehouse.archives.gov\/news\/releases\/2001\/09\/20010920-8.html\"><u>announced<\/u><\/a> that he was imposing a radical new policy on virtually the entire globe: \u201cEvery nation, in every region, now has a decision to make. Either you are with us, or you are with the terrorists. From this day forward, any nation that continues to harbor or support terrorism will be regarded by the United States as a hostile regime.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>As dramatic as the statement was, just about every phrase was open to question in one form or another. But rather than launching into a long and vigorous debate about the meaning of terrorism or America\u2019s right to impose <em>diktat<\/em> on the world at large, congressmen turned their minds off and gave Bush a standing ovation.<\/p>\n<div id=\"attachment_15335\" style=\"width: 310px\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\" readability=\"34\"><a href=\"http:\/\/consortiumnews.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/06\/World-Trade-Center-3-500x313.jpg?55ac53\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-15335\" src=\"https:\/\/consortiumnews.com\/wp-content\/plugins\/lazy-load\/images\/1x1.trans.gif?55ac53\" data-lazy-src=\"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/06\/World-Trade-Center-3-500x313-300x188.jpg\" alt=\"The second plane about to crash into the World Trade Center towers in New York City on Sept. 11, 2001.\" width=\"300\" height=\"188\"\/><noscript><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-15335\" src=\"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/06\/World-Trade-Center-3-500x313-300x188.jpg\" alt=\"The second plane about to crash into the World Trade Center towers in New York City on Sept. 11, 2001.\" width=\"300\" height=\"188\"\/><\/noscript><\/a><\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-caption-text\">The second plane about to crash into the World Trade Center towers in New York City on Sept. 11, 2001.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p>Today, the same Bush Doctrine is sinking beneath the waves as a growing portion of the punditocracy declares that some forms of terrorism are better than others and that harboring a terrorist may not be so bad if it advances U.S. interests.\u00a0But once again, the response is not questioning, debate, or even applause, but silence.<\/p>\n<p>The latest evidence of a sea change in establishment thinking is a blog that Ahmed Rashid, a prominent Middle East correspondent, recently published on <em>The New York Review of Books<\/em> website.\u00a0Entitled \u201c<a href=\"http:\/\/www.nybooks.com\/blogs\/nyrblog\/2015\/jun\/15\/why-we-need-al-qaeda\/\"><u>Why We Need al-Qaeda<\/u><\/a>,\u201d it argues that Al Qaeda and its Syrian affiliate, Al Nusra, are evolving in a more moderate direction in growing contrast to its rival, the super-violent Islamic State. So why not use Al Nusra as a counterforce against both Bashar al-Assad and ISIS?<\/p>\n<p>As Rashid puts it: \u201cUnlike ISIS, which demands absolute subjugation of the inhabitants of any territory it conquers (surrender or be executed), al-Nusra is cooperating with other anti-Assad groups&#8230;<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p> <a href=\"https:\/\/consortiumnews.com\/2015\/06\/26\/neocons-urge-embrace-of-al-qaeda\/\">Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Exclusive: The latest neocon gambit is to build support for\u00a0\u201cregime change\u201d\u00a0in Syria by downplaying the evils of\u00a0Al Qaeda, rebranding it as some sort of \u201cmoderate\u201d terrorist force whose Syrian affiliate is acceptable to Israel and supported by Saudi Arabia. But this audacious argument ignores reality, writes Daniel Lazare. By Daniel Lazare Just nine days after [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[519],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-162162","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-newswire"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/162162","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=162162"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/162162\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=162162"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=162162"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=162162"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}