Meanwhile, while no one was looking...

The "rebels" in Syria, fighting to overthrow Assad, with much help from the U.S., have long been fighting alongside an Al-Quaida affiliate called the Al Nusra Front. Last July, they formally cut their ties with Al Quaida (SPLITTERS!) in a move designed to enhance their legitimacy as freedom fighters in Syria.

Two days ago, that all changed. Coinciding, oddly, with Trump's visit to the White House.

The Treasure Department has declared Al Nusra a terrorist organization, making any funding of them illegal.
https://www.treasury.gov/press-center/press-releases/Pages/jl0605.aspx?s...

WASHINGTON – The U.S. Department of the Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) took action today to disrupt al-Nusrah Front’s military, recruitment, and financing operations. Specifically, OFAC designated four key al-Nusrah Front leaders – Abdallah Muhammad Bin-Sulayman al-Muhaysini, Jamal Husayn Zayniyah, Abdul Jashari, and Ashraf Ahmad Fari al-Allak – pursuant to Executive Order (E.O.) 13224, which targets terrorists and those providing support to terrorists or acts of terrorism. As a result of today’s action, all property and interests in property of these designated individuals subject to U.S. jurisdiction are blocked, and U.S. persons are generally prohibited from engaging in transactions with them.

These designations were taken in coordination with the U.S. Department of State, which today named Jabhat Fath al Sham as an alias of al-Nusrah Front – al-Qa’ida’s affiliate in Syria.

Share
up
0 users have voted.

Comments

freedom fighters/terrorists/dictators/royal families to support and then change our minds about later.

Such is American Foreign Policy

up
0 users have voted.
Steven D's picture

not.

Our foreign interventions are so tangled up our government can't see much outside of the inner lining of its many large bowels.

There's a reason The Ugly American was written once upon a time in a galaxy far, far away ...

up
0 users have voted.

"You can't just leave those who created the problem in charge of the solution."---Tyree Scott

riverlover's picture

and that spins daily? Time to bail out. MIC is running these wars. Time to stop funding MIC.

up
0 users have voted.

Hey! my dear friends or soon-to-be's, JtC could use the donations to keep this site functioning for those of us who can still see the life preserver or flotsam in the water.

Citizen Of Earth's picture

Obomba Tying A Bow On His Legacy

He's been funneling weapons and money to Al Nusra throughout his two terms. Now at the 11th hour he declares them terraists so he can add an "achievement" to his legacy. I'm sure there will be a plaque placed next to his Nobel Peace award in the War Room of his library.

up
0 users have voted.

Donnie The #ShitHole Douchebag. Fake Friend to the Working Class. Real Asshole.

WoodsDweller's picture

is going to need to be big enough to park a blimp. He's got a LOT of war to document.

up
0 users have voted.

"The greatest shortcoming of the human race is our inability to understand the exponential function." -- Albert Bartlett
"A species that is hurtling toward extinction has no business promoting slow incremental change." -- Caitlin Johnstone

Unless he knows where the 'data bleach' is kept, and I'm afraid that the Clintons could help with that.

up
0 users have voted.

Psychopathy is not a political position, whether labeled 'conservatism', 'centrism' or 'left'.

A tin labeled 'coffee' may be a can of worms or pathology identified by a lack of empathy/willingness to harm others to achieve personal desires.

ZimInSeattle's picture

are also funding these 'terrorist' groups, does that make them terrorists as well?

up
0 users have voted.

"Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent revolution inevitable." - JFK | "The more I see of the moneyed peoples, the more I understand the guillotine." - G. B. Shaw Bernie/Tulsi 2020

Bisbonian's picture

up
0 users have voted.

"I’m a human being, first and foremost, and as such I’m for whoever and whatever benefits humanity as a whole.” —Malcolm X

a certain well known family, which, I am willing to guess, is secretly despised by Obama, has suffered an abrupt loss of influence.

I imagine Trump's new BF, Mr. Putin, instructed his American buddy in what could be requested and might be doable.

I can't stand T-rumpus either, but we did dodge a bullet. No WWIII over a piece of desert in the Middle East. Maybe it might help if we think of the coming hard times as atonement for the havoc our government has been causing around the world since 1980.

up
0 users have voted.

Mary Bennett

Hillary's bunch thought it would be survivable (for them, in their luxurious bunkers), and were saying a first strike might be OK. Hillary looked furious when Trump said he wouldn't do a first strike, in the last debate.

We would have been back to Bush's doctrine, maybe someday they might do something "we" didn't want (like Qaddafi talking to other African nations about using their own currency instead of ours), which they could declare an "imminent threat" to us, to justify an attack on Russia.

She and her minions were all beating the war drums like crazy. Everything was Russia's fault, and Trump was Putin's puppet. Worse than McCarthy's red-baiting.

And NATO was claiming that any hacking that they claimed was done by anyone in Russia, would justify a physical attack by all NATO countries on Russia. Really insane. They are willing to trade all our lives for what they think might give them more power.

up
0 users have voted.
Bisbonian's picture

is an almost-certainty. And that the second one is a possibility...though I don't really believe they are in regular contact.

up
0 users have voted.

"I’m a human being, first and foremost, and as such I’m for whoever and whatever benefits humanity as a whole.” —Malcolm X

fakenews's picture

operations in the past - that was the gist of the Iran-Contra hearings of old. This law will only mean that operation of supplying ISIS will need a few more cogs in the chain to make it more "plausibly deniable" and perhaps avoiding "made in USA" weapons drops...

Peace
FN

up
0 users have voted.

"Democracy is technique and the ability of power not to be understood as oppressor. Capitalism is the boss and democracy is its spokesperson." Peace - FN

John Brennan at CIA - both of them Obama appointees - have been spearheading the campaign to oust Assad and/or prolong the war, by arming various rebel groups. I think it's likely that Trump's election has forced (or enabled) Obama to alter this strategy. Trump will want nothing to do with neocons like Carter and Brennan. But as for separating al-Nusra from the other rebel groups, I don't see how that would be possible, for as long as the fighting continues.

up
0 users have voted.

native

GreatLakeSailor's picture

...before it's too late and out of his hands? Or did President Teh Donald tell him to drop the NeoCon pipe(line) dream of destroying Syria and murdering Assad for his temerity in not allowing the Qatar pipeline?

Obama has been a bit of a reluctant NeoCon but a NeoCon to be sure.

up
0 users have voted.

Compensated Spokes Model for Big Poor.

dervish's picture

I'd say checkmate to the neocons.

up
0 users have voted.

"Obama promised transparency, but Assange is the one who brought it."