The US government had Nelson Mandela on terrorist watch list until 2008, 14 years after he became president of South Africa. Why, you might ask? Because Mandela fought against racist white-settler minority rule in his homeland. Yet, it seems like headchopping terrorists in Syria won’t have to wait as long as South African freedom fighter.
The US State Department added Al-Qaeda’s 2017 off-shoot Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) to its terror list in May 2018. Yet, today, the mainstream media is actively aiding in rebranding the group, presenting them as supposedly reformed terrorists. The US and the UK have even floated that they may remove HTS from terror lists. What has changed? It’s certainly not the group’s ideology or actions. Still, HTC appears to have seized power in a country that the US and Israel have strategic interests in and already occupy parts of.
It makes you think, is the terrorist designation really about terrorism or more about geopolitical interests at any said time?
Let us know in the below.
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