ISIL new boogeyman to justify wars in Mideast: Analyst

Press TV has conducted an interview with Mimi Al-Laham, a political commentator in Australia, to ask for her take on the activities of the Takfiri ISIL terrorist group involving the destruction of ancient cultural heritage.

This is a rough transcription of the interview.

Press TV: It is interesting, is it not Ms. Laham that we hear so much more about artifacts being destroyed than lives being destroyed when it comes to Syria and Iraq?

Al-Laham: Yes, absolutely. It is also interesting that we are only hearing about the sites being destroyed now; and we are not really looking at the history even before ISIL began its cleansing campaign.

The US-backed Free Syrian Army were digging up archaeological sites and selling them for weapons since 2012 and we never hear anything about that in the media because it is more useful just to attack ISIS as it goes with the US narrative of the current time.

If go back even further, the cultural cleansing was happening at the start of the Iraq war before ISIS even existed and it was happening when looters started to destroy the museums and take the artifacts, which somehow ended up in New York and Israel. And if we want even to go back before that, the Taliban destroyed many sites, cultural and historical sites, in Afghanistan and of course the Taliban was put into power there by the United States.

And I think the reason for this cultural cleansing is that they want to destroy the identity of the nation because that is just part of destroying the nation itself and there are as many interests in the Middle East outside of the brainless Zombies that are ISIS that want to see the nation states destroyed; and these interests lie in Israel and the United States.

Press TV: I want to pick up on a very valid point that you made. This has obviously been going on for a very long time, this sort of cultural cleansing. So, then why now, why is the UN making this word ‘cultural cleansing’ fashionable now?

Al-Laham: Well, I think they have to comment on this now because it has been in the media and the media has been given a green light to speak about ISIS, because ISIS is the current boogeyman that the US is going to use to start wars in the Middle East.

So, because of that green light to talk about all of the crimes the ISIS are committing, the UN has been allowed to make statement in order to not appear completely ineffective, which is what they are because they are not going to do anything about what is happening.

HRM/HJL

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