Jon Stewart repairing the gay away!

The June 17, 2014 episode of the magnificent Jon Stewart is here or pasted below. It is absolutely hysterical and brilliant but a warning there is a bit of an ick factor.  Still worth watching for how he satirizes the idiotic gay reparative religious wacko therapy "cure" for homosexuality as the right wingnut morons own the ick.  If you easily blush then beware. Stewart reached a new height of satire that might have made even Lenny Bruce blush but be oh so jealous of the very talented great Jon Stewart!


http://thedailyshow.cc.com/full-episodes/6vda7v/june-17--2014---daniel-schulman

Cheney and the Neo Con CONS

KUDOS to Megyn Kelly of Fox News someone with whom I usually do not agree but on this she went out on a limb to state FACT to the over inflated murderer Dick Cheney and his neocon gang. Bush rode along with his circus. SHAME ON ALL OF THEM.  They are war criminals and they know it. How dare he say what he did against  president Obama that inherited this vile Iraq debacle that those sickening mendacious horses posteriors that were the Neo CONS, emphasis on CON,  perpetrated.

 If hell exists he and they should get a free pass to it.

Make sure this never happens again by electing Democrats across the board who will make sure it never does!

Megyn Kelly Totally Owns Dick Cheney Over His Terrible Iraq Track Record

The Huffington Post  | By Jack Mirkinson

Posted: 06/19/2014 7:24 am EDT Updated: 1 hour ago

Print Article

Fox News' Megyn Kelly mercilessly confronted former Vice President Dick Cheney on her Wednesday show about his track record in Iraq. Posted here and below.

After quoting Cheney's recent op-ed on the war, in which he said of President Obama, “Rarely has a U.S. president been so wrong about so much at the expense of so many,” she put this scorcher of a question to him:

"Time and time again, history has proven that you got it wrong as well in Iraq, sir. You said there was no doubt Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction. You said we would be greeted as liberators. You said the insurgency was in its last throes back in 2005, and you said that after our intervention, extremists would have to 'rethink their strategy of jihad.' Now, with almost a trillion dollars spent there, with almost 4,500 American lives lost there, what do you say to those who say you were so wrong about so much at the expense of so many?"

Kelly didn't drop any mics, but she might as well have. Fox News viewers who were expecting something different might have wondered whether they were watching another network.

"No, I just fundamentally disagree, Reagan — I mean, Megyn," Cheney replied.

Luckily for Cheney, the questions got much easier after that.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/06/19/megyn-kelly-dick-cheney-iraq_n_5510635.html

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Straw is for Horses

The latest Supreme Court decision Abramski v. United States involved the limitation of so called “straw” purchases of guns.  I paste the article written by NBC News here and below.  In summary:

[Abramski] involved a Virginia resident, Bruce Abramski, who was convicted of committing a "straw" purchase of a Glock 19 because he answered 'yes' on the background check form 4473 when asked if the gun was being purchased for himself. In fact, he purchased the gun for his uncle, a resident of Pennsylvania, who sent him the money because Abramski was able to pay a discount price for the gun at a store near his own home. Abramski then took the gun to Pennsylvania, gave it to his uncle who gave him a receipt. The receipt turned up in Abramski's possession when his home was searched by police investigating an unrelated offense and it was this receipt that led to his ultimate conviction for lying on the 4473.

…

In other words, this case really was about whether or not the government could regulate firearm transactions at all [in this case “straw” purchases], not just about the behavior of a particular individual at the time he purchased a gun.

Barring “straw” purchases of guns, obviously, is not going to stop everyone from getting a gun and then giving it to someone unregistered, unknown to the state and to whom the gun should not be given. The point is to make it harder for those unfit to have guns to get them and easier for the state to know in whose hands all guns lie.  When one purchases a gun for another (a “straw” purchase) the state can have no idea for whom it was purchased or to whom it was given.  This SCOTUS decision will and should make it more difficult to make a purchase yourself as a legal gun owner and then give it to just anyone no questions asked.

Would one be permitted to not register a car? No, of course not, we register all cars as the state, for obvious reasons, must have the ability to see and, if necessary, to track down the owner of the car.  If a car did not have to be registered one can only imagine the mayhem that could and would take place.

Guns, yes, are used for sport and for defense BUT they are, in reality, killing machines. A gun even more than a car, is used to kill.  Guns are lethal weapons. Because of that they must be registered and straw purchases not allowed.  Moreover, the mentally ill and those felons convicted of a violent crime should not have them either.  Have I left anything out?  Yes, a ban on extra magazine clips used to make it easier for an inordinate number of bullets to kill more humans more quickly and AK47's used for nothing but mayhem. SCOTUS has, through the Heller decision and now the Abramski decision left an open door for the state to regulate guns and we should do so everywhere post haste.

Rightwingnut Second Amendment geniuses you are NOT -- I repeat NOT -- going to overthrow the US government of 350 million people.  You need to get that out of your overinflated heads. Unless climate change or a domestic, Christian or Islamic terrorist commits a mind numbing sickening act then the structure of what government you see is what government you will, in the future, get with the ability to institute legal change. It is amazing it has worked often well and, yes, sometimes not so well for nearly 250 years.

May it be the world's last best hope for those who want equality, justice and democracy to prevail 250 years and well beyond that! Our Founders would want no less!

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/mike-weisser/the-nra-supreme-court_b_5503353.html

Benghazi Suspect Said He Was Moved To Take Revenge For American-Made Video

Oh yes, Republicons are SO trustworthy -- NOT.  From the murder's mouth! Why it is important to elect Democrats; yet another reason as if we needed any more!  Please forward this to the immediate world!

Benghazi Suspect Said He Was Moved To Take Revenge For American-Made Video

The Huffington Post  | By Paige Lavender

 

Benghazi attack suspect Ahmed Abu Khattala, who was captured by U.S. forces on Sunday, told people the move against the U.S. consulate in Benghazi, Libya was intended as revenge for an American-made online video that was seen as an attack to Islam, according to the New York Times.

The New York Times reported Tuesday:

What he did in the period just before the attack has remained unclear. But Mr. Abu Khattala told other Libyans in private conversations during the night of the attack that he was moved to attack the diplomatic mission to take revenge for an insult to Islam in an American-made online video.

An earlier demonstration venting anger over the video outside the American Embassy in Cairo had culminated in a breach of its walls, and it dominated Arab news coverage. Mr. Abu Khattala told both fellow Islamist fighters and others that the attack in Benghazi was retaliation for the same insulting video, according to people who heard him.

In an interview days after the attack, he pointedly declined to say whether he believed an offense such as the anti-Islamic video might indeed warrant the destruction of the diplomatic mission or the killing of the ambassador. “From a religious point of view, it is hard to say whether it is good or bad,” he said.

The day after the September attack, the New York Times' David Kirkpatrick reported fighters involved in the effort were moved "by anger over a 14-minute, American-made video that depicted the Prophet Muhammad, Islam’s founder, as a villainous, homosexual and child-molesting buffoon." The Times did have a reporter -- not Kirkpatrick -- on the ground that night.

The publication stood by that reporting in October 2012 and again in December 2013, and were subsequently attacked by conservatives.

White House emails made public in April 2014 supported reports that the Obama administration wanted Susan Rice, U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations, to “underscore these protests are rooted in an Internet video, and not a broader failure of policy.” In September 2012, Rice said the attack was not premeditated.

 

Unity in USA Soccer Win

The soccer game for the FIFA World Cup was so much fun to watch. USA defeated who Ghana?  Yep, Ghana.  We were in a fingernail-biting competition against nations other than Russia!  How refreshing that was.  The World Cup of soccer creates an equal playing field (pardon the pun) as nations have a chance to compete with even the strongest of other nations.  All have a chance even Ghana!  The sport of soccer seems to be taking hold in the US too.

I had little idea of the rules and never heard of most of the players.  In truth I heard of none of them but the enthusiasm of the USA chanting crowd was incredible to see. It was infectious. I keep saying to myself it is a lot of hype to make what else -- money.  In truth, though, I am as hyped as anyone is when team USA wins. I love to see it.

Yes, I love my country even though am oh so critical of policy. In the end I want our nation to win and now soccer provided that win as one huge world-wide sport begins to draw as much enthusiasm here as our traditional sports historically have. It is Olympic in nature sparking gobs of nationalistic pride. 

America is changing as the sport begins to appeal. The demographics here are changing too from exclusively Anglo white to many hues of brown.  To this unabashed liberal that is a good -- no a very good -- thing.

If we could only get policy right as the world is blowing up and climate change is killing us. Two twin epic Biblical proportion tornadoes struck the American west that rivaled for our attention against the triumphant USA win. It is a metaphor.  We have a lot -- a very lot -- of hard work to do.  The hardest job of all, though, is to unite us. I thought for one joyous moment in Brazil it had!

Where is the Outrage?

ASTOUNDING -- Below reminds me of Einsatzgruppen the German killing squads grouped in Eastern Europe killing Jews during World War II. This is utterly disgusting.  And let's see what is this tribal Hatfield/McCoy 1000 year war over ideology? NO not much over that, although there are differences, but rather its etiology lay over the line of succession to the prophet (in respect: peace be upon him.) Are you kidding me?

Wikipedia: 

The historic background of the Sunni–Shia split lies in the schism that occurred when the Islamic prophet Muhammad died in the year 632, leading to a dispute over succession to Muhammad as a caliph of the Islamic community spread across various parts of the world which led to the Battle of Siffin. The dispute intensified greatly after the Battle of Karbala, in which Hussein ibn Ali and his household were killed by the ruling Umayyad Caliph Yazid I, and the outcry for his revenge divided the early Islamic community.

Can one imagine if the US were photographically on film caught doing this OR Israel? The outrage would be deafening.  This is a human catastrophe of immense proportions, in my opinion, a war crime rivaled by Nazi Germany; hundreds of thousands have been killed already all over the Middle East, thousands of American deaths, tens of thousands more maimed for life and millions more displaced.  Where is the outrage from every corner of the globe left wing and right wing alike? Read the article below and do not hide from images we all need to see and then speak out for the sake of humanity speak out!


Militants post apparent images of mass killing in Iraq

By Qassim Abdul-Zahra and Sameer N. Yacoub

 | Associated Press   June 15, 2014

AP

This image posted on a militant website appears to show members of the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant leading away captured Iraqi soldiers in plain clothes.

MILITANTS CLAIM MASS EXECUTION

Rebels Post Gruesome Photos Of Alleged Mass Murder... Claim 1,700 Killed... 'Look At Them Walking To Death On Their Own Feet'... Insurgent Offensive Appears To Slow... Baghdad Prepares For An Attack... Rebels Seize Northwest Town In Heavy Battle... U.S. Begins To Evacuate Embassy Staff... Plans Talks With Iran... Explosions Kill At Least 19... Lightning Strike Was Years In The Making... FEAR: 'Multinational War Fought Along 500-Mile Front'...

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/

Israel, Anti-Semitism and Me

Eric Cantor is through.  Did his Jewishness play a part in his defeat as Huff Post is asking?  Well, before one says absolutely not let's take another look at the hysteria of world wide anti-Semitism.

My left of center politics was formed in the late 1960's in large part because of the Holocaust.  I was not born when it happened but it did consume a major part of my thoughts when tying to decide where I belonged on the political spectrum. It became rather easy -- Nazism was the political extreme of the right and Communism was the political extreme of the left.  Both extremes hated one another.  I knew that while I would never be an extremist of any stripe I would rather be associated with a movement whose goal was universal equality for all irrespective of race and I wanted a more egalitarian society where economics was more universally distributed. The Nazis near extermination of all the Jews -- my Jews -- of Europe nearly became reality.  Thus, my politics was born out of near genocide.

Helping me arrive at my philosophical and political decisions were campus anti-war movements dedicated to rethinking this nation's post WWII foreign policy and proclivity for war.  There were books, movies, plays, professorial lectures by left of center intellectuals and there was a new form of music dedicated to creating a more just world -- folk artists like Peter, Paul and Mary, Bob Dylan, of course the Beatles and many others.  Among these musicians were political satirists whose music I loved.  One such satirist was Tom Lehrer.  In his 1967 song "National Brotherhood Week" audio here or below one stanza of the lyrics reads:

Oh, the Protestants hate the Catholics,
And the Catholics hate the Protestants,
And the Hindus hate the Muslims,
And everybody hates the Jews.

Surely, everybody hating the Jews is not reality.  Alan Dershowitz, however, makes an interesting case for not only German and Eastern European anti-Semitism but western European anti-Semitism as well. He indicts the left and the right for this obsession too.  He wrote what I thought was an interesting piece on it to give some alternative perspective on this 2000 year old pathology.  I paste his thoughts below.

Europe's Alarming Push to Isolate Israel

By Alan Dershowitz

Why are so many of the grandchildren of Nazis and Nazi collaborators who brought us the Holocaust once again declaring war on the Jews?

Why have we seen such an increase in anti-Semitism and irrationally virulent anti-Zionism in western Europe?

To answer these questions, a myth must first be exposed. That myth is the one perpetrated by the French, the Dutch, the Norwegians, the Swiss, the Belgians, the Austrians, and many other western Europeans: namely that the Holocaust was solely the work of German Nazis aided perhaps by some Polish, Ukrainian, Latvian, Lithuanian, and Estonian collaborators.

False.

The Holocaust was perpetrated by Europeans - by Nazi sympathizers and collaborators among the French, Dutch, Norwegians, Swiss, Belgians, Austrians and other Europeans, both Western and Eastern.

If the French government had not deported to the death camps more Jews than their German occupiers asked for; if so many Dutch and Belgian citizens and government officials had not cooperated in the roundup of Jews; if so many Norwegians had not supported Quisling; if Swiss government officials and bankers had not exploited Jews; if Austria had not been more Nazi than the Nazis, the Holocaust would not have had so many Jewish victims.

In light of the widespread European complicity in the destruction of European Jewry, the pervasive anti-Semitism and irrationally hateful anti-Zionism that has recently surfaced throughout western Europe toward Israel should surprise no one.

“Oh no,” we hear from European apologists. “This is different. We don’t hate the Jews. We only hate their nation-state. Moreover, the Nazis were right-wing. We’re left-wing, so we can’t be anti-Semites.”

Nonsense.  The hard left has a history of anti-Semitism as deep and enduring as the hard right. The line from Voltaire, to Karl Marx, to Levrenti Beria, to Robert Faurisson, to today’s hard-left Israel bashers is as straight as the line from Wilhelm Mars to the persecutors of Alfred Dreyfus to Hitler.

The Jews of Europe have always been crushed between the Black and the Red - victims of extremism whether it be the ultra-nationalism of Khmelnitsky to the ultra-anti-Semitism of Stalin.

“But some of the most strident anti-Zionists are Jews, such as Norman Finkelstein and even Israelis such as Gilad Atzmon. Surely they can’t be anti-Semites.” Why not? Gertrude Stein and Alice Toklas collaborated with the Gestapo. Atzmon, a hard leftist, describes himself as a proud self-hating Jew and admits that his ideas derive from a notorious anti-Semite.

He denies that the Holocaust is historically proved but he believes that Jews may well have killed Christian children to use their blood to bake Passover matzah. And he thinks it’s “rational” to burn down synagogues.

Finkelstein believes in an international Jewish conspiracy that includes Steven Spielberg, Leon Uris, Eli Wiesel, and Andrew Lloyd Webber!

“But Israel is doing bad things to the Palestinians,” the European apologists insist, “and we are sensitive to the plight of the underdog.”

No, you’re not! Where are your demonstrations on behalf of the oppressed Tibetans, Georgians, Syrians, Armenians, Kurds, or even Ukrainians? Where are your BDS [Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions] movements against the Chinese, the Russians, the Cubans, the Turks, or the Assad regime?  Only the Palestinians, only Israel? Why? Not because the Palestinians are more oppressed than these and other groups.

Only because their alleged oppressors are Jews and the nation-state of the Jews. Would there be demonstrations and BDS campaigns on behalf of the Palestinians if they were oppressed by Jordan or Egypt?

Oh, wait! The Palestinians were oppressed by Egypt and Jordan. Gaza was an open-air prison between 1948 and 1967, when Egypt was the occupying power. And remember Black September, when Jordan killed more Palestinians than Israel did in a century? I don’t remember any demonstration or BDS campaigns — because there weren’t any.

When Arabs occupy or kill Arabs, Europeans go ho-hum. But when Israel opens a soda factory in Maale Adumim, which even the Palestinian leadership acknowledges will remain part of Israel in any peace deal, Oxfam parts ways with Scarlett Johansson for advertising a soda company that employs hundreds of Palestinians. Keep in mind that Oxfam has provided “aid and material support” to two anti-Israel terrorist groups, according to the Tel Aviv-based Israeli Law Group.

The hypocrisy of so many hard-left western Europeans would be staggering if it were not so predictable based on the sordid history of Western Europe’s treatment of the Jews.

Even England, which was on the right side of the war against Nazism, has a long history of anti-Semitism, beginning with the expulsion of the Jews in 1290 to the notorious White Paper of 1939, which prevented the Jews of Europe for seeking asylum from the Nazis in British-mandated Palestine. And Ireland, which vacillated in the war against Hitler, boasts some of the most virulent anti-Israel rhetoric.

The simple reality is that one cannot understand the current western European left-wing war against the nation-state of the Jewish people without first acknowledging the long-term European war against the Jewish people themselves.

Theodore Herzl understood the pervasiveness and irrationality of European anti-Semitism, which led him to the conclusion that the only solution to Europe’s Jewish problem was for European Jews to leave that bastion of Jew hatred and return to their original homeland, which is now the state of Israel.

None of this is to deny Israel’s imperfections or the criticism it justly deserves for some of its policies. But these imperfections and deserved criticism cannot even begin to explain, must less justify, the disproportionate hatred directed against the only nation-state of the Jewish people and the disproportionate silence regarding the far greater imperfections and deserved criticism of other nations and groups - including the Palestinians.

Nor is this to deny that many western European individuals and some western European countries have refused to succumb to the hatred against the Jews or their state. The Czech Republic comes to mind. But far too many western Europeans are as irrational in their hatred toward Israel as their forbearers were in their hatred toward their Jewish neighbors.

As author Amos Oz once aptly observed: the walls of his grandparents’ Europe were covered with graffiti saying, “Jews, go to Palestine.” Now they say, “Jews, get out of Palestine” - by which is meant Israel.

Who do these western European bigots think they’re fooling? Only fools who want to be fooled in the interest of denying that they are manifesting new variations on their grandparents’ old biases.

Any objective person with an open mind, open eyes, and an open heart must see the double standard being applied to the nation-state of the Jewish people. Many doing so are the grandchildren of those who lethally applied a double standard to the Jews of Europe in the 1930s and 1940s.

For shame!

This article first appeared at NEWSMAX.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CgASBVMyVFI

Block Out

A dear friend of mine recommended a wonderful HBO documentary I post here and below on the political cartoonist and satirist Herb Block.  He drew the most prescient politically satirical cartoons that made, in their way, a most weighty influence on our history.  He began his drawing in the early 20th century; working through the Great Depression until his death in 2001.  That's a lot of history to draw.  I paste a famous one he drew of Nixon during Watergate:

Nixon hanging between the tapes

[Nixon hanging between the tapes], May 24, 1974 Reproduction of original drawing. Published in the Washington Post (79)

http://www.loc.gov/exhibits/herblock/images/hblock11.jpg

"

[Nixon hanging between the tapes], May 24, 1974 Reproduction of original drawing. Published in the Washington Post (79)

I loved this documentary and if you care anything about the trajectory of our nation you will, I think, love it too.  The film was made for me as I try to, in my own small way through my writing, unprofessional that it may be, place a stake in what I think is the most humane and just policy while pointing out grave hypocrisies when I can. My mantra has been to question everything, as Howard Zinn instructed, by always asking who does policy benefit and why.

I wanted to be a voice for the little guy, to erase terrible injustice and to add to the fairness in life and not detract from it.   There is, an ethical cement in which I place my opinion to try.  Maybe I will not be able to fill the aisles when I depart the planet but someday if someone is reading a history of our time my point of view -- liberal humane points of view -- will get a just hearing.

Herb Block before his death sums up his hope for our nation's future through Truman's famous "The Buck Stops Here" sign on his desk except Herbblock (as he liked to spell his name) rephrased it.  He said "Anything FOR a buck stops here"  Amen, Mr. Block, from your words into God's ears!

http://www.hbo.com/documentaries/herblock-the-black-and-the-white#/

For they Have Sown the Wind

Hosea 8:7 "For they have sown the wind, and they shall reap the whirlwind: it hath no stalk: the bud shall yield no meal: if so be it yield, the strangers shall swallow it up."

This is what Bush I and II have wrought with both their Iraq wars.  Sadam Hussein kept the lid on this beast until the US foreign policy architects stupid got their neocon big ideas put into motion.  It is a tragic thing.  Such an incalculable waste of blood in gallons and money in trillions.

They have empowered ISIS one of the most ultra radical religious fundamentalist groups ever created.   ISIS is moving on Baghdad, the rest of Iraq and who knows where else soon.  God forbid coming to a theater near you?  US Foreign policy gone haywire. Are you surprised?  I'm NOT!  What a colossal unadulterated MESS!

See Josh Rogin's article below.

AP

Josh Rogin

World News

06.14.14

America's Allies Are Funding ISIS

The Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS), now threatening Baghdad, was funded for years by wealthy donors in Kuwait, Qatar, and Saudi Arabia, three U.S. allies that have dual agendas in the war on terror.

The extremist group that is threatening the existence of the Iraqi state was built and grown for years with the help of elite donors from American supposed allies in the Persian Gulf region. There, the threat of Iran, Assad, and the Sunni-Shiite sectarian war trumps the U.S. goal of stability and moderation in the region.

It’s an ironic twist, especially for donors in Kuwait (who, to be fair, back a wide variety of militias). ISIS has aligned itself with remnants of the Baathist regime once led by Saddam Hussein. Back in 1990, the U.S. attacked Iraq in order to liberate Kuwait from Hussein’s clutches. Now Kuwait is helping the rise of his successors.

 As ISIS takes over town after town in Iraq, they are acquiring money and supplies including American made vehicles, arms, and ammunition. The group reportedly scored $430 million this week when they looted the main bank in Mosul. They reportedly now have a stream of steady income sources, including from selling oil in the Northern Syrian regions they control, sometimes directly to the Assad regime.

But in the years they were getting started, a key component of ISIS’s support came from wealthy individuals in the Arab Gulf States of Kuwait, Qatar and Saudi Arabia. Sometimes the support came with the tacit nod of approval from those regimes; often, it took advantage of poor money laundering protections in those states, according to officials, experts, and leaders of the Syrian opposition, which is fighting ISIS as well as the regime.

“Everybody knows the money is going through Kuwait and that it’s coming from the Arab Gulf,” said Andrew Tabler, senior fellow at the Washington Institute for Near East Studies. “Kuwait’s banking system and its money changers have long been a huge problem because they are a major conduit for money to extremist groups in Syria and now Iraq.”

Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki has been publicly accusing Saudi Arabia and Qatar of funding ISIS for months. Several reports have detailed how private Gulf funding to various Syrian rebel groups has splintered the Syrian opposition and paved the way for the rise of groups like ISIS and others.

“The U.S. has made the case as strongly as they can to regional countries, including Kuwait. But ultimately when you take a hands off, leading from behind approach to things, people don’t take you seriously and they take matters into their own hands.”

Gulf donors support ISIS, the Syrian branch of al Qaeda called the al Nusrah Front, and other Islamic groups fighting on the ground in Syria because they feel an obligation to protect Sunnis suffering under the atrocities of the Assad regime. Many of these backers don’t trust or like the American backed moderate opposition, which the West has refused to provide significant arms to.

Under significant U.S. pressure, the Arab Gulf governments have belatedly been cracking down on funding to Sunni extremist groups, but Gulf regimes are also under domestic pressure to fight in what many Sunnis see as an unavoidable Shiite-Sunni regional war that is only getting worse by the day.

“ISIS is part of the Sunni forces that are fighting Shia forces in this regional sectarian conflict. They are in an existential battle with both the (Iranian aligned) Maliki government and the Assad regime,” said Tabler.

Donors in Kuwait, the Sunni majority Kingdom on Iraq’s border, have taken advantage of Kuwait’s weak financial rules to channel hundreds of millions of dollars to a host of Syrian rebel brigades, according to a December 2013 report by The Brookings Institution, a Washington think tank that receives some funding from the Qatari government.

“Over the last two and a half years, Kuwait has emerged as a financing and organizational hub for charities and individuals supporting Syria’s myriad rebel groups,” the report said. “Today, there is evidence that Kuwaiti donors have backed rebels who have committed atrocities and who are either directly linked to al-Qa’ida or cooperate with its affiliated brigades on the ground.”

Kuwaiti donors collect funds from donors in other Arab Gulf countries and the money often travels through Turkey or Jordan before reaching its Syrian destination, the report said. The governments of Kuwait, Qatar, and Saudi Arabia have passed laws to curb the flow of illicit funds, but many donors still operate out in the open. The Brookings paper argues the U.S. government needs to do more.

“The U.S. Treasury is aware of this activity and has expressed concern about this flow of private financing. But Western diplomats’ and officials’ general response has been a collective shrug,” the report states.

When confronted with the problem, Gulf leaders often justify allowing their Salafi constituents to fund Syrian extremist groups by pointing back to what they see as a failed U.S. policy in Syria and a loss of credibility after President Obama reneged on his pledge to strike Assad after the regime used chemical weapons.

That’s what Prince Bandar bin Sultan, head of Saudi intelligence since 2012 and former Saudi ambassador in Washington, reportedly told Secretary of State John Kerry when Kerry pressed him on Saudi financing of extremist groups earlier this year. Saudi Arabia has retaken a leadership role in past months guiding help to the Syrian armed rebels, displacing Qatar, which was seen as supporting some of the worst of the worst organizations on the ground.

The rise of ISIS, a group that officially broke with al Qaeda core last year, is devastating for the moderate Syrian opposition, which is now fighting a war on two fronts, severely outmanned and outgunned by both extremist groups and the regime. There is increasing evidence that Assad is working with ISIS to squash the Free Syrian Army.

But the Syrian moderate opposition is also wary of confronting the Arab Gulf states about their support for extremist groups. The rebels are still competing for those governments’ favor and they are dependent on other types of support from Arab Gulf countries. So instead, they blame others—the regimes in Tehran and Damascus, for examples—for ISIS’ rise.

“The Iraqi State of Iraq and the [Sham] received support from Iran and the Syrian intelligence,” said Hassan Hachimi, Head of Political Affairs.