Hezbollah gets “terrorist” label for fighting al-Qaeda

Al-Qaeda leader al-Zawahiri: Our next DHS chief?
Press TV
On Monday, the European Union formally labeled Hezbollah a “terrorist” group.
Why? Because Hezbollah has gone to war with al-Qaeda.
But wait a minute – wasn’t al-Qaeda supposed to be the worst terrorist group in the world? Isn’t the West leading a “global war on terror” whose main target is al-Qaeda? Shouldn’t the West be thanking Hezbollah, and showering it with rewards, for turning against global terrorist enemy number one?
Apparently not.

Al-Qaeda is now the West’s darling in Syria. So anybody who resists al-Qaeda – as Hezbollah recently decided to do – is a “terrorist.”

The irony doesn’t get any thicker than that.
US Secretary of State John Kerry hailed the EU’s move. Kerry argued that Hezbollah is indeed a terrorist organization because it “has deepened its support” for Syrian President Bashar al-Assad. What Kerry didn’t say is that Assad is fighting an insurgency led by al-Qaeda.
Translation: John Kerry supports al-Qaeda. He even says that anyone who opposes al-Qaeda is a terrorist.
This comes after Republican leader John McCain sneaked across the Syrian border to join al-Qaeda a little over a month ago.
In today’s USA, al-Qaeda apparently enjoys bipartisan support.
As an American Muslim, I am confused about what my government wants me to believe and say.
I have always opposed al-Qaeda. Does that mean I am a terrorist? Will Homeland Security agents arrest me and send me to Guantanamo because I don’t like al-Qaeda? Will Guantanamo’s cells soon be filling up with anti-al-Qaeda Muslims like me? Will they experiment on us with torture and brainwashing techniques designed to “reform” us by turning us into al-Qaeda supporters?
I supposed I had better say something nice about al-Qaeda quickly, before DHS agents show up on my doorstep.
So listen to me, NSA wiretappers: I am not THAT opposed to al-Qaeda! I think Bin Laden gave some wonderful speeches in his day! (I’m talking about the real Bin Laden, who died in December 2001 – not the fat imposter of the December 2001 “confession video,” or the short, skinny imposter with the jet-black beard who helped re-elect Bush in 2004.)
I even agree with al-Qaeda’s expressed desire to throw the Zionists and Crusaders out of the Islamic world. If you don’t believe me, I can show you my bumper-sticker. It reads: “End the Crusades – give Palestine back!”
So if you are listening to me, NSA wiretappers (if?!) please note that I am not an anti-al-Qaeda fanatic or an anti-al-Qaeda radical or an anti-al-Qaeda extremist.
I am an anti-al-Qaeda moderate.
I am one of the “good Muslims” – the kind you don’t need to cage, torture, or extra-judicially execute.
Really!
But I must be honest with you. I do have a few little problems with al-Qaeda.
One problem is al-Qaeda’s 1998 fatwa telling Muslims that “killing the Americans and their allies – civilians and military – is an individual duty for every Muslim who can do it in any country in which it is possible to do it.”
I am a Muslim. I am also an American civilian. Does that mean I have an “individual duty” to kill myself?
From my point of view, that was an amazingly stupid fatwa.

Al-Qaeda’s claim that killing civilians is okay seems stupid and un-Islamic. Yes, I know the Americans and Israelis kill vast numbers of civilians. But we Muslims have higher standards.

Will the American and European governments label me a terrorist because I oppose killing civilians? I would not put it past them. Orwell could take lessons from these people.
In any event, the EU’s blacklisting Hezbollah is not the first pro-al-Qaeda move by the West.
Al-Qaeda, which means “the (CIA) database,” was created by the CIA with help from its Saudi and Pakistani stooges. Its original purpose was to fight the Russians in Afghanistan on behalf of the US. Since then, it has continued to harass the Russians while smuggling drugs for the CIA.
In 2001, it generously offered its services as a bogeyman for the Zionists and the military-industrial complex, by failing to clearly and unambiguously state that 9/11 was obviously an inside job. Subsequently, al-Qaeda has turned increasingly toward attacking Muslims in an effort to incite sectarian strife and weaken the Islamic world.
Every one of those activities has furthered Western – and especially Zionist – policy goals.
No wonder the West loves al-Qaeda. No wonder they think that anyone who opposes al-Qaeda is a terrorist.
It is hard to imagine how Western hypocrisy on the subject of terrorism could sink any lower.
Will the West start hiring al-Qaeda fighters to staff airport security checkpoints? Will Obama appoint Ayman al-Zawahiri as his next Homeland Security chief? Will the US military bring Syrian al-Qaeda chief Abu Mohammad al-Julani to tour US military bases and load him with stinger missiles, as they did with Tim Osman (a.k.a. Osama Bin Laden) in the 1980s? Will they decide to provide al-Julani with nuclear weapons?
I wish all of this were just satire. But it is impossible to satirize the West’s “war on terrorism.” The reality is always more absurd than any conceivable product of the imagination.

Kevin Barrett

Dr. Kevin Barrett, a Ph.D. Arabist-Islamologist is one of America’s best-known critics of the War on Terror.

He is the host of TRUTH JIHAD RADIO; a hard driving weekly radio show funded by listener donations at Patreon.com and FALSE FLAG WEEKLY NEWS (FFWN); an audio-video show produced by Tony Hall, Allan Reese, and Kevin himself. FFWN is funded through FundRazr.

He also has appeared many times on Fox, CNN, PBS, and other broadcast outlets, and has inspired feature stories and op-eds in the New York Times, the Christian Science Monitor, the Chicago Tribune, and other leading publications.

Dr. Barrett has taught at colleges and universities in San Francisco, Paris, and Wisconsin; where he ran for Congress in 2008. He currently works as a nonprofit organizer, author, and talk radio host.

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