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<big><big><big><font color="maroon" face="Times New Roman"><strong>ROVING
EYE</strong></font><br>
<strong><font size="3"><big><big><big>The killer on the
(Saudi) king's highway</big></big></big></font></strong><br>
By Pepe Escobar<br>
<br>
</big></big></big>
<blockquote><big><big><big><em>There's danger on the edge of town <br>
Ride the king's highway, baby <br>
Weird scenes inside the gold mine <br>
Ride the highway west, baby<br>
</em><strong>The Doors</strong>, <em>The End</em></big></big></big></blockquote>
<big><big><big>
The killer awoke before dawn. He put his American desert boots
on. He took a knife from the ancient gallery. And he walked on
down the hall - bathed in desert sunlight. <br>
<br>
The killer spoke with a British accent (London's East End?)
Father (Saud), I want to kill you. Mother (Langley?) I want
to... <br>
<br>
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yeeeaaahh, c'mon! Then the sartorially composed Man in Black
beheaded American photojournalist James Foley. <br>
</div>
<big><big><big> <br>
This is not the end, beautiful friend. It's just a new
beginning in the never-ending Global War on Terror. Now
starring Papa Saud's brand new bag - The Caliph and his goons.
This is the way Shock and Awe morphs into "Assad must go"
morphs into Islamic State of Iraq and Syria, morphs into The
Caliph's Black Britannia goon responding to "humanitarian"
bombing. I'm my own baby now. Watch me work. Bring it on.<br>
<br>
Choice scenery. Good sound and vision production values.
Careful editing. No unnecessary gore. No blood splattering. No
<em>Allahu Akbar</em> shrieks. "A Message to America", indeed
- but most of all a message to the Ummah. As in we're the Men
in Black badasses. We run The Caliphate. We're no mere death
cult; we're winners. And we take no prisoners. <br>
<br>
<big>And why did Islamic State, formerly ISIS, become winners?
Because the "West" regimented, schooled, trained,
logistically helped and weaponized most of IS's Takfiri
goons with a mission at hand: to destroy Syria. The "West"
lauded them as "Syrian rebels". Freedom fighters. </big><br>
<br>
Washington even promoted Jabhat al-Nusra (the official
al-Qaeda franchise in Syria, and a "terrorist organization",
according to the State Department) as "good" jihadis, as well
as the preferred Saudi combo, the Islamic Front. <br>
<br>
No wonder after photojournalist James Foley was kidnapped in
November 2012 the Washington-sanctioned version was that he
was being kept by "Assad must go" forces in a prison near
Damascus. <br>
<br>
<strong>Slouching towards Mecca </strong><br>
The House of Saud, directly and indirectly, and the proverbial
wealthy Gulf Cooperation Council donors are the Mom and Dad of
ISIS. All duly vetted/approved by the
industrial-military-Orwellian-Panopticon complex. <br>
<br>
And yet "Assad must go" had other ideas for Syria. He didn't
go. He and his army resisted and counter-attacked. So the
original mission in Syria morphed across the (non-existent)
desert border towards Iraq. ISIS kept expanding - via
extortion, kidnapping, captured oil fields, tribal smuggling
networks.<br>
<br>
The killer spoke with a British accent. Yet he may not be just
a well-paid mercenary (500 from Britain, 700 from France, 500
from Belgium… ). He's most certainly a true believer in the
wider IS medievalist ideology as well as its no-holds-barred
sectarian methods. <br>
<br>
How convenient that IS strategy is totally divide and rule.
Totally balkanization of Iraq. Totally mum on Israel's
slow-motion ethnic cleansing of Gaza. Totally useful in
wagging the (beheading) dog to make the world forget about
Gaza. <br>
<br>
Moroever, IS/ISIS strategy, stripped to the bone, is Pentagon
manual; clear, hold and build - then expand (to an area larger
than Great Britain). It's even Pentagon manual redux - as in
building "coalitions of the willing" (see the alliance with
"remnants" - Rummy talk - of the Saddam regime propelling
their northern Iraq summer offensive.) <br>
<br>
How convenient that the mighty Orwellian/Panopticon complex
satellite maze could not identify a long convoy of gleaming
white Toyotas crossing the desert towards their summer
conquests. And how convenient that a Briton beheading an
American - what a "special relationship" plot twist! - fully
sanctions the Return of Iraq Bombing ("for months", in Obama's
words); more strikes; more drones; perhaps more boots on the
ground; perhaps, in the near future, a Syria extension. <br>
<br>
IS also took over Tikrit, the birthplace of Saddam, in their
summer adventure. Now Baghdad's military are trying to take it
back. IS welcomed them with minefields, booby-trapped
buildings, an array of snipers and hardcore mortar fire. How
convenient that Obama's "humanitarian" bombs are not involved
in R2P ("responsibility to protect") Saddam's birthplace. What
really matters is the US consulate in Erbil, scores of CIA
operatives and vast Big Oil interests in Iraqi Kurdistan. <br>
<br>
And then there's this ultimate plot twist; a pearl by a
dissident Saudi researcher (in Arabic). He <a
href="http://www.al-akhbar.com/node/213722">argues, in
detail</a>, that IS is essentially a revival of "pure"
Wahhabism; not only that IS comes from outside the House of
Saud's dominions - in Iraq and the Levant - but tries hard to
shatter the monarchy's legitimacy. <br>
<br>
The House of Saud's counterpunch to the Arab Spring was (and
remains) all about destroying or at least isolating the Muslim
Brotherhood as an alternative Islamic rule/role model. Yet now
comes IS - brimming with religious justification (however
warped); military know-how; and an army of true - and well
paid - believers. <br>
<br>
Ride the king's highway, baby. No staged/not staged beheading
could possibly top the ultimate blowback: the "West" nurturing
the Beast who would slouch towards Mecca to finally behead the
House of Saud. And those killers shall also speak with a
British accent. <br>
<br>
<em><strong>Pepe Escobar</strong> is the author of </em><a
href="http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0978814820/simpleproduction/ref=nosim">Globalistan:
How the Globalized World is Dissolving into Liquid War</a> <em>(Nimble
Books, 2007), </em><a
href="http://www.amazon.com/Red-Zone-Blues-snapshot-Baghdad/dp/0978814898">Red
Zone Blues: a snapshot of Baghdad during the surge</a> <em>(Nimble
Books, 2007), and </em><a
href="http://www.amazon.com/Obama-Does-Globalistan-Pepe-Escobar/dp/1934840831">Obama
does Globalistan</a> <em>(Nimble Books, 2009). </em></big></big></big>
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