Terrorist designations serve as a mechanism to protect terrorists. The designations are part of the toolkit of deception imperialists use to advance their criminal wars beneath layers of plausible deniability.
Once plausible deniability is established, support for terrorist assets increases exponentially.
The War on Syria is a case-in-point. The fabricated dichotomy between “moderate rebels” and “extremists” was and is false. William Van Wagenen explains in “The Salafist Roots of the Free Syrian Army” , for example, that
“the mainstream narrative about the originally democratic and secular nature of the FSA is simply not correct. Rather than secular and democratic, the largest original FSA factions were Salafist and Islamist from the start (note that the terms Salafist and Islamist tend to be used interchangeably throughout Arabic language media reporting about the Syria conflict).”(1)
Even as the FSA was labelled moderate, it fought alongside al Qaeda (al Nusra Front) and like Nusra and all of the Western-supported terrorist groups, was sectarian.
Yet it was through these falsely-labelled “moderate” groups that al Qaeda and ISIS received covert support from Western agencies. The false label was and is important from a military-intelligence perspective.
Importantly, Van Wagenen points out in his book, Creative Chaos/ Inside the CIA’s Covert War to Topple the Syria Government, that,
“Just as Nusra was placed on the State Department terror list, the CIA was undertaking a massive effort to increase weapons shipments to the FSA, with many of the weapons predictably falling into Nusra’s hands… ” (2)
The 10 Million dollar “bounty” on al-Julani, (3) leader of al Nusra Front/al Qaeda in Syria, and Syria’s current “Interim President” served a similar purpose of plausible deniability. It created the perception that al-Julani/al-Sharaa was Washington’s enemy even as Washington protected and supported him for his current role.
James Jeffrey, Former U.S. Ambassador to Iraq and Turkey, admitted in a 2021 interview that, “We got Mike Pompeo to issue a waiver to allow us to give aid to HTS.” (4)
Criminal war propaganda and Western intelligence strategies deceive Western publics time and again into supporting criminal wars of aggression that they would otherwise not support if the truth was widely known.
Notes:
(1) William Van Wagenen, “The Salafist Roots of the Free Syrian Army” The Libertarian Institute, 28 February, 2022. (The Salafist Roots of the Free Syrian Army | The Libertarian Institute) Accessed 22 September, 2025.
(2)William Van Wagenen, Creative Chaos/ Inside the CIA’s Covert War to Topple the Syria Government, The Libertarian Institute, 2025, page 199.
(3) Dr. Zbigniew Brzezinski, Prof Michel Chossudovsky, Le Nouvel Observateur, “Are Al Qaeda “Freedom Fighters” “Good Guys” or “Bad Guys”? “Yes. The CIA entered Afghanistan Before the Russians”. Zbigniew Brzezinski. Global Research, 22 September, 2025. (Are Al Qaeda “Freedom Fighters” “Good Guys” or “Bad Guys”? “Yes. The CIA entered Afghanistan Before the Russians”. Zbigniew Brzezinski – Global Research Global Research – Centre for Research on Globalization) Accessed 22 September, 2025.
(4) David Miller, “We got Mike Pompeo to issue a waiver to allow us to give aid to HTS.” Voices from Syria website, 15 May, 2025. “We got Mike Pompeo to issue a waiver to allow us to give aid to HTS” / James Jeffrey (“We got Mike Pompeo to issue a waiver to allow us to give aid to HTS” / James Jeffrey – Mark Taliano) Accessed 22 September, 2025.
