Arab Youth Survey

"Now in its milestone 15th year, the annual ASDA’A BCW Arab Youth Survey is largest study of its kind of the Arab world’s largest demographic – its over 200 million youth. The survey presents evidence-based insights on the hopes, attitudes and aspirations of Arab youth, informing governments, the private sector, multilateral institutions and academics on policymaking, business strategy and emerging trends."

Link here.

Ready, Fire, Aim: U.S. Interests in Afghanistan, Iraq, and Syria

"It is widely claimed that the United States was inadequately engaged in the Syrian maelstrom. Nonsense! Since 2014, we have spent well over $50 billion in appropriated funds to train, arm, and otherwise support various factions in the conflict, including some with direct links to al Qaeda. This fiscal year alone, DoD has budgeted $15.3 billion and the Department of State about $1 billion for Syria. In total disregard of international law, we have carried out well over 11,000 air and missile strikes against both government and rebel forces in Syria and deployed about 2,000 U.S. troops there to support secessionist factions. We cannot escape a considerable measure of moral responsibility for both the perpetuation of the conflict in Syria and some of the 200,000 undocumented and 375,000 documented Syrian dead, about 125,000 of whom have been verified as pro-government, 133,000 as anti-government, and 112,000 as noncombatant, neutral civilians. But we have made it clear we will not contribute to Syria’s reconstruction."

Link here.

Ending America’s Disastrous Role in Syria

"Here are the basics. In 2011, in the context of the Arab Spring, the US government, in conjunction with the governments of Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Turkey, and Israel, decided to bring down Syrian President Bashar al-Assad’s regime, even though overthrowing another country’s government amounts to a blatant violation of international law. We know that in 2012, if not earlier, President Barack Obama authorized the CIA to work with America’s allies in providing support to rebel forces composed of disaffected Syrians as well as non-Syrian fighters. US policymakers evidently expected Assad to fall quickly, as had occurred with the governments of Tunisia and Egypt in the early months of the Arab Spring."

-----------------------------------------

"America’s official narrative has sought to conceal the scale and calamitous consequences of US efforts – in defiance of international law and the UN Charter – to overthrow Assad. While the US vehemently complains about Russian and Iranian influence in Syria, America and its allies have repeatedly violated Syrian sovereignty. The US government mischaracterizes the war as a civil war among Syrians, rather than a proxy war involving the US, Israel, Russia, Saudi Arabia, Iran, and Qatar."

Link here.

The US Role in Sustaining Islamic Terrorists

LETTER FROM WASHINGTON — From the January 2016 issue
A Special Relationship
The United States is teaming up with Al Qaeda, again

By Andrew Cockburn

"Even as we have continued our desultory bombing campaign against the Islamic State, Ahrar al-Sham and Nusra are creeping closer and closer to international respectability. A month after the London Eleven meeting, a group of scholars from the Brookings Institution published an op-ed making the case for Ahrar al-Sham: 'Designating [the] group as a terrorist organization might backfire by pushing it completely into Al Qaeda’s camp.' (The think tank’s recent receipt of a multiyear, $15 million grant from Qatar was doubtless coincidental.)

Over the past year, other distinguished figures have voiced support for a closer relationship with Al Qaeda’s rebranded extensions. David Petraeus, another former head of the CIA, has argued for arming at least the 'more moderate' parts of Nusra. Robert Ford, a former ambassador to Syria and a vociferous supporter of the rebel cause, called on America to 'open channels for dialogue' with Ahrar al-Sham, even if its members had on occasion slaughtered some Alawites and desecrated Christian sites. Even Foreign Affairs, an Establishment sounding board, has echoed these notions, suggesting that it was time for the United States to 'rethink its policy toward al-Qaeda, particularly its targeting of Zawahiri.'”

Link here.

So why does the US consider Turkey an ally?

Turkish President Erdogan and his loser son - proper filth the both of them. Bombing the Kurds, buying oil from ISIS, supplying weapons to terrorists and ambushing their "friends." And that's on top of their election stealing and murdering political opponents.

Inside Isis Inc: The journey of a barrel of oil

Video purports to show Turkish intelligence shipping arms toSyria

"Turkish Air Force F-16s ambushed the Su-24Fencer": here’s Russia’s version of the controversial shootdown