I Helped Create ISIS

TeleSur TV – by Vincent Emanuele

For the last several years, people around the world have asked, “Where did ISIS come from?” Explanations vary, but largely focus on geopolitical (U.S. hegemony), religious (Sunni-Shia), ideological (Wahhabism) or ecological (climate refugees) origins. Many commentators and even former military officials correctly suggest that the war in Iraq is primarily responsible for unleashing the forces we now know as ISIS, ISIL, Daesh, etc. Here, hopefully I can add some useful reflections and anecdotes.  

Mesopotamian Nightmares

When I was stationed in Iraq with the 1st Battalion, 7th Marines, 2003-2005, I didn’t know what the repercussions of the war would be, but I knew there would be a reckoning. That retribution, otherwise known as blowback, is currently being experienced around the world (Iraq, Afghanistan, Yemen, Libya, Egypt, Lebanon, Syria, France, Tunisia, California, and so on), with no end in sight.

Back then, I routinely saw and participated in obscenities. Of course, the wickedness of the war was never properly recognized in the West. Without question, antiwar organizations attempted to articulate the horrors of the war in Iraq, but the mainstream media, academia and political-corporate forces in the West never allowed for a serious examination of the greatest war crime of the 21st century.

As we patrolled the vast region of Iraq’s Al-Anbar Province, throwing MRE (Meal Ready to Eat) trash out of our vehicles, I never contemplated how we would be remembered in history books; I simply wanted to make some extra room in my HUMVEE. Years later, sitting in a Western Civilization history course at university, listening to my professor talk about the cradle of civilization, I thought of MRE garbage on the floor of the Mesopotamian desert.

Examining recent events in Syria and Iraq, I can’t help but think of the small kids my fellow marines would pelt with Skittles from those MRE packages. Candies weren’t the only objects thrown at the children: water bottles filled with urine, rocks, debris, and various other items were thrown as well. I often wonder how many members of ISIS and various other terrorist organizations recall such events?

Moreover, I think about the hundreds of prisoners we took captive and tortured in makeshift detention facilities staffed by teenagers from Tennessee, New York and Oregon. I never had the misfortune of working in the detention facility, but I remember the stories. I vividly remember the marines telling me about punching, slapping, kicking, elbowing, kneeing and head-butting Iraqis. I remember the tales of sexual torture: forcing Iraqi men to perform sexual acts on each other while marines held knives against their testicles, sometimes sodomizing them with batons.

However, before those abominations could take place, those of us in infantry units had the pleasure of rounding up Iraqis during night raids, zip-tying their hands, black-bagging their heads and throwing them in the back of HUMVEEs and trucks while their wives and kids collapsed to their knees and wailed. Sometimes, we would pick them up during the day. Most of the time they wouldn’t resist. Some of them would hold hands while marines would butt-stroke the prisoners in the face. Once they arrived at the detention facility, they would be held for days, weeks, and even months at a time. Their families were never notified. And when they were released, we would drive them from the FOB (Forward Operating Base) to the middle of the desert and release them several miles from their homes.

After we cut their zip-ties and took the black bags off their heads, several of our more deranged marines would fire rounds from their AR-15s into their air or ground, scaring the recently released captives. Always for laughs. Most Iraqis would run, still crying from their long ordeal at the detention facility, hoping some level of freedom awaited them on the outside. Who knows how long they survived. After all, no one cared. We do know of one former U.S. prisoner who survived: Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, the leader of ISIS.

Amazingly, the ability to dehumanize the Iraqi people reached a crescendo after the bullets and explosions concluded, as many marines spent their spare time taking pictures of the dead, often mutilating their corpses for fun or poking their bloated bodies with sticks for some cheap laughs. Because iPhones weren’t available at the time, several marines came to Iraq with digital cameras. Those cameras contain an untold history of the war in Iraq, a history the West hopes the world forgets. That history and those cameras also contain footage of wanton massacres and numerous other war crimes, realities the Iraqis don’t have the pleasure of forgetting.

Unfortunately, I could recall countless horrific anecdotes from my time in Iraq. Innocent people were not only routinely rounded-up, tortured and imprisoned, they were also incinerated by the hundreds of thousands, some studies suggest by the millions.

Only the Iraqis understand the pure evil that’s been waged on their nation. They remember the West’s role in the eight year war between Iraq and Iran; they remember Clinton’s sanctions in the 1990s, policies which resulted in the deaths of well over 500,000 people, largely women and children. Then, 2003 came and the West finished the job. Today, Iraq is an utterly devastated nation. The people are poisoned and maimed, and the natural environment is toxic from bombs laced with depleted uranium. After fourteen years of the War on Terror, one thing is clear: the West is great at fomenting barbarism and creating failed states.

Living with Ghosts

The warm and glassy eyes of young Iraqi children perpetually haunt me, as they should. The faces of those I’ve killed, or at least those whose bodies were close enough to examine, will never escape my thoughts. My nightmares and daily reflections remind me of where ISIS comes from and why, exactly, they hate us. That hate, understandable yet regrettable, will be directed at the West for years and decades to come. How could it be otherwise?

Again, the scale of destruction the West has inflicted in the Middle East is absolutely unimaginable to the vast majority of people living in the developed world. This point can never be overstated as Westerners consistently and naively ask, “Why do they hate us?”

In the end, wars, revolutions and counterrevolutions take place and subsequent generations live with the results: civilizations, societies, cultures, nations and individuals survive or perish. That’s how history works. In the future, how the West deals with terrorism will largely depend on whether or not the West continues their terroristic behavior. The obvious way to prevent future ISIS-style organizations from forming is to oppose Western militarism in all its dreadful forms: CIA coups, proxy wars, drone strikes, counterinsurgency campaigns, economic warfare, etc.

Meanwhile, those of us who directly participated in the genocidal military campaign in Iraq will live with the ghosts of war.

Vincent can be reached at vincent.emanuele333@gmail.com

This content was originally published by teleSUR at the following address:
http://www.telesurtv.net/english/opinion/I-Helped-Create-ISIS-20151218-0016.html“.

12 thoughts on “I Helped Create ISIS

  1. This is evidence for the trials that are coming, the grand juries and 12 man juries are going to use this information, and the American nationals are going to go straight to the top and get those who gave the orders and used the treasure of the American nationals to pay for it. I suspect that many of them at the top will be eliminated without a trial, because they are continuously threatening the American nationals. Lord, may judgement be swift!

  2. Iraq is only one example in the war FOR terror, more specifically, for zion. I know it’s said a lot and it must be. People need to understand when I speak of zionism, it’s not just zionist jews but their goyim whores as well who are just as zionist and might as well be talmudic jews themselves. I make this point again because I hope to see those trials and part take in their punishment but also I hope that all guilty parties will be brought to that justice. Do not let them go. Not a single one.

  3. COMPLETE BS.

    What we have here is the “blowback” theory being used as a “limited hang-out” to help hide the direct funding of ISIS by the USA

    What about the munitions we intentionally allowed to “fall into their hands”? What about their wounded being treated in Israeli hospitals?

    This nonsense makes the creation of ISIS look like part of a big mistake rather then the obvious treason that it is.

    It’s not “blowback”. ISIS is a terrorist organization created and funded by the USA and/or Israel (it’s hard to differentiate between the two), and this “Marine” is trying to hide that fact by claiming their creation was the result of bad foreign policy.

  4. With all due respect Jolly Roger, blow back is an effect of “cause and effect” and is part of the energy that drives the vengeance that is wreaked on innocents and not so innocents. This is an individual acknowledging that his actions stirred a desire for vengeance in the heart of some people as it does even in me even just hearing about it. I can imagine some family member seeing the mistreatment of relatives and setting a vengeance in their heart that may take years to accomplish. ISIS being a creation of the u.s. corporation uses that energy to it’s ends.

  5. As usual Jolly Roger, you are spot on in your assessment of this article. I couldn’t have said it any more correctly.

  6. That is not to say that there is no blow-back from our meddling in the middle east, but this article uses that as an excuse for ISIS. Of course there is blow-back. That’s why we have no business being involved in the middle east, except for the fact that we are controlled by zionists to do their bidding.

  7. Blowback from locals due to murder, rape, torture and occupation by u.s. forces is directed at u.s. military and any govt officials “representing” u.s.

    ISIS does it’s work directly at the behest of the zionists as it targets only Muslims.

    It has been proven through documentation and photographs repeatedly who created them, who they serve, who they attack, and who claims to be at war with them but for some odd reason, never ever seems to be genuinely attacked or suffers any severe losses inflicted by zionist controlled modern militaries.

    Meanwhile, this enemy is being falsely propped up to further attack OUR rights here and the “stupid card” gets pulled out of the sleeve for culpable deniability. Accepting that same card repeatedly as they win again and we lose AGAIN is insanity defined and naive to the point of hopeless.

    1. Absolutely right. Just recently Iraqi troops fighting isis were bombed by the U.S. airforce. Does anyone think this won’t bring “blowback”? How could it not? Imagine going through what the iraqis did and then see the u.s. air Force bomb them when gaining ground against isis. I don’t think this article is b.s. at all, just another vet coming forward about what is actually coming out of the war for terror. And quite a few have.

      1. ISIS attacking Muslims makes as much sense as IRA killing Irish countrymen to gain independence from britain. That was MI6’s doing and bbc reporting IRA as the culprit and then flooding Ireland with dope to distract the masses. Sound familiar? That’s why IRA 45’s your kneecaps for dealing dope and makes you walk home as your fair warning to give you time to think on how you aid the enemy occupying force.

      2. Oopsie daisy. They looked like terrorists! “blowback”? I don’t get it Jamal. We are ISIS and we’re the guys fighting against them.

        Will someone please explain our long term foreign policy plan? Throw billions to defense contractors who should all be swinging in the breeze by now.

        Then, dammit, they become so outraged by our blasphemy and ignorance, they throw it back in our face by lopping a few heads off, and resorting to evil only we can top.

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