White House, I Don’t Believe You

The United States says that it is leading an international coalition against the terrorist organization, “the Islamic State group.” The White House confirms this and stresses its rejection of terrorism and extremism no matter its form, origin or source.

The U.S. president appears gloomy, of course, after having stood in front of the mirror and rehearsing all the movements he is required to make: twitching his eyebrows into a frown, underscoring the condemnation of terrorism and the occasional turn-off expressed due to the bloody acts by the Islamic State group.

The media outlets throw statements made by the White House at each other, making them into fertile media material. We as Arabs are required to believe what the White House tells us, as well as what is uttered by its master and his supporters who are sitting there thoroughly studying the situation of the world and declaring what is required.

And because I hesitate before I believe what the White House states in Washington, I, as allowed and due to the course of nature, believe that what comes out of the White House – whether balanced statements are made by the president, the secretary of state or spokesmen – is revised a few times before it is allowed to reach the media outlets and before it becomes fertile material that cycles around the news bulletins and international agencies.

America instills the delusion upon us that it is Lady Liberty and knows what is going on, but I am still looking for an answer to questions I didn’t find any explanation for until now, neither by Washington nor by any other country. Honestly speaking, I want to know how the Islamic State group, al-Nusra and other organizations obtain weapons; who gives them the weapons; the entities that support these groups; and how the volunteers arrive in Syria and Iraq, especially considering that the funding and support of these organizations is prohibited according to an international UN resolution. Such questions revolve around my mind and surely around others’ minds as well. America itself was responsible for the Amiriyah shelter bombing and imposed a siege around Iraq that lasted for years and years; a bird wasn’t allowed entry unless given permission. America itself has imposed a siege on Cuba for dozens of years. So why doesn’t the U.S. know how the Islamic State group and other groups are funded? I would like to know what their drones are doing in the skies of our region. Are these drones incapable of monitoring the Islamic State group members? Are they incapable of bombing their sites and seeing the show the group performed in the city of Kirkuk a few days ago? Or did they fall asleep?! Did America fail to identify the aircraft that are sending weapons to members of the group?

Or are the American aircraft still sending presumed aid and weapons to the Kurds, and sending them by mistake to the Islamic State group and their comrades, as it has before? Does the White House have an explanation that convinces us that they don’t have a hand, even if hidden, in supplying these bloody organizations with human resources, money and weapons?

Unequivocally, and because history is the best witness, I am still dubious about what Washington says and I am even more dubious about what President Obama says, especially if I recall his 2009 speech at the University of Cairo and his pledge to resolve the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Years have passed and Israel is still raiding, expanding and killing, with American support.

The truth is that Washington is always hiding more than it is revealing. As proof, it wouldn’t hurt to recall that President Ronald Reagan welcomed the seeds of al-Qaida in the ’70s and described terrorists as fighters for freedom. His country provided the fighters with weapons, for a reason Washington perceived as: fighting the Soviet Union, changing the regime and undermining the secular government in Afghanistan. For these purposes, the CIA established training camps in Pakistan and within 10 years (1982-1992) recruited around 35,000 soldiers from 43 Islamic states to fight within the ranks of the Afghan jihad.

This is Washington; it only has restraints when it comes to its interests. Here it is today, sufficing with condemnation against the Islamic State group’s acts without any serious action, although it is the one who knows how this group emerged, who funded it, who supported it and who opened the borders for it; America knows more about it and hides from us a lot of what it knows!