If the US wanted to fight against terrorism, they would support the secular regime of President Assad in Syria, not Al-Qaeda, investigative journalist Neil Clark told RT.
RT:How much of the turmoil and violence we're
currently seeing in Iraq and Afghanistan can be directly blamed
on NATO interventions?
Neil Clark: I think they can all be directly blamed on the
NATO interventions. Because we think back at the so-called
interventions, I mean they all were billed as humanitarian
ventures, weren’t they? It was NATO the benign, NATO the powers
led by the United States. We are going to these countries to
liberate the people from these wicked dictators like Saddam
Hussein, Mullah Omar or Colonel Gaddafi. And in every instance of
the so-called interventions the result has been death and
destruction, it has been absolute chaos. In Iraq, a new study
said that at least 500,000 people have been killed since the
invasion and it could be even more. So, I think the consequences
of these interventions have been anything but humanitarian.
They've been war crimes. I think for people living in these
countries it has been a nightmare what has happened since these
NATO interventions. So, I think, yes, NATO is to blame.
RT: Iraq is in the middle of its worst spike of
violence in years.... Has the war in neighboring Syria further
destabilized Iraq?
NC: Absolutely. I think there is no coincidence. There has
been a huge spike in violence in Iraq since the destabilization
of Syria has taken place since 2011, of course, because the US
has been helping the Islamist terrorists there to try to topple
the secular, independently-minded government of President Assad.
There is no coincidence that there has been a huge spike in
violence in Syria and in Iraq at the same time. Al-Qaeda groups
are going from Iraq to Syria, and from Syria to Iraq. The whole
region is in turmoil because of US policies. And this is not a
mistake. Well, it is a mistake to think it is a mistake, if you
like, because whenever the Neo-Cons come on to talk about Iraq,
and of course they are rarely ready to talk about Iraq, they
always like to claim that Tony Blair and George W. Bush wanted
well, but they made a few mistakes along the way. That is
nonsense. The whole aim of the exercise was to destroy Iraq as a
functioning country, to make sure it will never again be a threat
to regional powers that the US backs in that region. The same is
with Syria. I think this is all deliberate. What we are talking
about is a deliberate destruction of independently-minded
countries in that region.
RT:Western powers claim to be fighting against
international terrorism, and yet they've supported rebels in both
Libya and Syria... How would you explain this apparent
contradiction?
NC: It is the biggest myth in the whole of international
relations. The biggest myth is that the United States and its
allies are implacably opposed to terrorist groups around the
world, and particularly Al-Qaeda and Islamic terrorist groups.
They are not. They all use Al-Qaeda and terrorist groups like
them to help them to topple secular independently-minded
governments like President Assad in Syria, Gaddafi in Libya and
elsewhere, but they would also use the presence of Al-Qaeda
groups in order to intervene in the countries where they want a
regime change, like Mali, for example, or Afghanistan. So, in
fact, the West uses Al-Qaeda, uses Islamic groups and is not
implacably opposed to them. That is a great myth. Nobody has done
more to boost the rise of Al-Qaeda in the last 20 years than the
United States. That is a fact.
RT:Al-Qaeda seems to be expanding its network and
becoming more organized – is there any way to stop this
trend?
NC: It goes back to the US. I don’t think the US wants to
stop it. Al-Qaeda serves a very useful purpose for American
foreign policy and for Israel, too, and for Saudi Arabia. The
fact is that if Al-Qaeda did not exist, it should have been
invented. It serves for a lot of good purposes for the Unites
States to push its agenda around the world. I think there is
going to be a sea-change in the US. If the US was really serious
about Al-Qaeda and wanted to deal with it, they would do, they
would not be supporting Al-Qaeda in Syria, they would not be
wanting a secular regime in Syria to be toppled. They would be
actually supporting President Assad in Syria. They would not want
a regime change in Libya, would they? So, to answer the question,
I think that the future Al-Qaeda depends on the US. They US
helped create Al-Qaeda, this Islamic terrorism. It is up to the
US to stop it if it really wanted to. But their policy show that
they are not really interested in doing it, I am afraid.
The statements, views and opinions expressed in this column are solely those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of RT.
The statements, views and opinions expressed in this column are solely those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of RT.