al-Queda...Hidden In Plain View

It’s hidden in plain view. We, the United States of America, are once again backing our alleged boogeyman, al-Queda, this time in Libya. One thing you need to know about this Telegraph story is that the Derna region has been a hotbed for al-Queda recruitment…

In an interview with the Italian newspaper Il Sole 24 Ore, Mr al-Hasidi admitted that he had recruited “around 25″ men from the Derna area in eastern Libya to fight against coalition troops in Iraq. Some of them, he said, are “today are on the front lines in Adjabiya”.

Mr al-Hasidi insisted his fighters “are patriots and good Muslims, not terrorists,” but added that the “members of al-Qaeda are also good Muslims and are fighting against the invader”.

His revelations came even as Idriss Deby Itno, Chad’s president, said al-Qaeda had managed to pillage military arsenals in the Libyan rebel zone and acquired arms, “including surface-to-air missiles, which were then smuggled into their sanctuaries”.

Mr al-Hasidi admitted he had earlier fought against “the foreign invasion” in Afghanistan, before being “captured in 2002 in Peshwar, in Pakistan”. He was later handed over to the US, and then held in Libya before being released in 2008.

So, a mainstream media outlet is reporting that rebel leader al-Hasidi…

…is or, at least, was…al-Queda and that he’s recruiting al-Queda to fight in Libya and that arms for the fight were procured by al-Queda. Hidden in plain view. Yet, not being widely discussed or reported.
And, that’s the way it’s been all along with al-Queda. Go back to the roots; it’s not widely reported or discussed. But, the stuff can be found. From Bill Moyers at PBS…

After Afghanistan was invaded by the Soviet Union, the Afghan Islamist extremists found a rallying call for their cause, as young Muslims from around the world came to Afghanistan to volunteer in what was being called a “holy war,” or jihad, against the invading Soviets. One of these young Muslims was a 23 year old from Saudi Arabia named “Usama” bin Ladin…
…With Saudi Arabia and the United States pouring in billions of dollars worth of secret assistance to rebels in Afghanistan, the jihad against the Soviets was constantly gaining momentum.

So, from the start al-Queda was propped up by the U.S.A. and Saudi Arabia.
Here’s another bit from a story in the Atlantic today…

On December 6, 1984, as the U.S. increased its funding to anti-Soviet Afghan rebels to tens of millions of dollars in weapons and supplies, CIA Director William Casey wrote in a classified memo, “Unless U.S. policy is redesigned to achieve a broader attack on Soviet vulnerabilities it cannot restore independence to Afghanistan.” The next year, he got a quarter of a billion dollars, all quietly siphoned out of leftover Pentagon budgets by secret Congressional authorization. In the search to spend that money, a CIA officer wrote in another classified memo, “analytically, the best fighters — the best organized fighters — were the fundamentalists.” The memo concluded that the best such fundamentalist fighter and target for U.S. funding was one Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, a brutal mujahideen commander who would later join the Taliban, with which he is still battling the U.S.-led coalition in Afghanistan.

So, the Taliban and al-Queda play duel roles, alternating between boogeyman and doing our dirty work. And, they are simultaneously doing both right now. It’s not a left vs. right issue because, it’s spanned the administrations going back to the 80s.

And for some reason, it’s not the big topic of the Libya war…kinetic military action.