I try to avoid writing too much on the issue of Daesh (ISIS, ISIL, “islamic state”, etc.) and those who might be supporting them financially or in terms of logistics. I do read alternative news sites, knowing that I might be badly misled by “conspiracy” thinking. On the other hand, more and more people are breaking with the propaganda put out by the mainstream press. Naturally, this doesn’t absolve the blogger from being careful what he writes and trying to be as truthful and intellectually honest as possible.
It is now several months that I have read about Daesh being a useful tool to the western world for the purpose of various agendas. I have several times expressed my reserved interest in Mr Putin and the combat by Russia against both barbarianism and complicity for money and political agendas.
This one seems to be quite a game-changer, because the source is mainstream and the author is an academic. Here’s the link: Research Paper: ISIS-Turkey List by David L. Phillips. I don’t have the independent knowledge needed to fisk this piece or give informed opinions.
The questions remain in my mind. To what extent can we trust the governments and political personalities of our own countries? I chuckled yesterday about the play of words on Turkey – the large bird that is eaten on Thanksgiving in the USA or on Christmas Day in other countries, and the country containing the ancient city of Constantinople. Perhaps the Turkey is indeed stuffed and roasted! Since seeing the film Midnight Express, I have never had any desire to travel to that country (by the way, I do not smuggle drugs).
Has the USA, England, Germany and just about everyone else got fingers in this particular pie?
Almighty God, unto whom all hearts be open, all desires known and from whom no secrets are hid… and elsewhere:
Take heed, ye unwise among the people : O ye fools, when will ye understand? He that planted the ear, shall he not hear : or he that made the eye, shall he not see? Or he that nurtureth the heathen : it is he that teacheth man knowledge, shall not he punish? The Lord knoweth the thoughts of man : that they are but vain.
Wars usually happen because of the lies and deceit of those in power. Justice was done in 1946 when Nazism was judged at Nuremberg. I pray that I do not find opportunity in following an evil leader in a country that is not on the side of good! Patriotism and love of our native country has this limit, as has our duty to obey orders if we are in the Armed Forces.
Pray that this does not lead to war, which would kill us all once it goes nuclear. On the other hand, may the secret designs of the wicked be rooted out and brought to justice and may the barbarians be defeated.
Κύριε ελέησον…
The Blue Flower 
Thank you, Fr. Chadwick, for this illuminating essay. More particularly, thank you for giving me one more piece of the jigsaw puzzle which I amusingly call “reading the news, and attempting to get past the narrative to the facts.”
The facts appear, so far, to encompass the following:
1. That from 2008 to the present, the Obama administration has been attempting to accomplish regime change on the cheap in Northern Africa and the Middle East;
2. That as a part of that regime change, that administration had destabilized, among others, the nations of Egypt and Libya, and appears to have supplied various factions in those nations with weapons to assist those factions. This is the real meaning of the fiasco in Benghazi.
3. In addition, that administration has further attempted to destabilize Syria, again by supplying arms to similar factions in Syria, and by attempting, unsuccessfully, to rally an attempt to replace the leader there.
4. Furthermore, that administration has withdrawn military support from Iraq, and has permitted factions within that nation to destabilize it as well.
5. As a consequence of these manifold destabilizations, hundreds of thousands of citizens of those nations have been forced to flee, and to seek refuge in Central and Western Europe.
6. Furthermore, a secondary consequence has been that the factions supported by the Obama administration have used the aid to band together to form a pan-Islamic Caliphate inimical to the United States and to Europe. And the piece that you have helped me to find leads to the following assumption:
7. The United States has either supported Turkey in its efforts to destabilize Syria, or has turned a blind eye to those efforts; regardless of intent, the result has been that Turkey has supported efforts which in turn have supported that Islamic Caliphate.
All of the above would make more understandable Obama’s reluctance either to recognize or to deal with Daesh: such recognition would have to make him admit that he was mistaken, and I fear that it does not appear that that is an admission which the man is capable of making. The result of Obama’s actions, whether malicious or incompetent, however, have been to lead us much closer to a war involving Russia, NATO, and the Islamic Caliphate.
We need to keep an eye on Turkey. Perhaps that is the black heart of the Caliphate and an ambition to revive the Ottoman Empire. Then I hope Russia invades and has the Patriarch of Constantinople (and / or Moscow) celebrate the Liturgy at Hagia Sophia. Then rub is stopping all this from going nuclear.