Saturday, January 09, 2010

The World’s Worst Terrorists Based In Washington

AMERICANS MUST ASK; WHO IS BREEDING TERRORISM?

The above-captioned article was written by John Pilger in the daily The Yumiuri Shimbun, of Japan, dated 30th August, 1998. He says “In recent years Muslims have been the greatest sufferers from state terrorism.” The excerpts of his above-mentioned article are as below.

“By knowingly killing innocent people, for political ends, President Clinton is a terrorist. By supporting his actions, the Prime Minister and the Defense Secretary, of Britain, are accomplices. The dictionary meaning of terrorism allows no other interpretation; the rest is willful obfuscation, or propaganda. What matters now is our informed reaction.

In 1986, there was an ‘evil’ Colonel Gaddafi, whose country President Reagan bombed from bases in Britain, killing mostly women and children, including Gaddafi’s 16- month-old daughter.

In 1990, there was the ‘evil’ General Noriega, said to be a dangerous drug trafficker, whose capture by US Marines required a full-scale invasion of his country and the death by bombing of at least 2,000 Panamanians, mostly the poorest of the poor in their barrios. Noriega and drugs had precious little to do with it. The aim was to put Panama, its canal and its US base under direct American sovereignty, managed by other Noriegas.

I the same year, there was ‘the truly evil’ Saddam Hussein, another one of Bush’s and Reagan’s old pals, whose regime they had armed and backed (along with Margaret Thatcher, who sent most of her cabinet to Baghdad as supplicants of arms salesmen). Saddam’s use of American and British weapons in his attack on the “evil” Mullas in Iran in 1980 was perfectly acceptable. A million people died in that ‘forgotten’ war; and the Americans and British arms industries never looked back. Then Saddam Hussein attacked the wrong country, Kuwait, which was effectively an Anglo-American oil protectorate. “An uppity bastard” as one (US) State Department briefer described him more in sorrow than anger. Punishing Saddam Hussein cost as many as 200,000 Iraqi lives, according to a study by the Medical Educational Trust. These were ordinary Iraqis who died during and immediately after a period of military and economic carnage whose true scale has never been appreciated outside the Middle East.

The old fashioned colonial massacre was called the Gulf War. The dead included thousands of Kurdish and Shia people who were Saddam’s bitter opponents and whom Bush had called upon to rise up against their oppressor. Long after it was over New York Newsday revealed, from official sources, that three brigades of the US 1st Mechanized Infantry Division – “The Big Red One” had used snow ploughs mounted on tanks to bury alive Iraqis conscripts in more than seventy miles of trenches. A brigade commander said, “For all I know we have killed thousands”. This is a war crime.

The following year, Bush attacked Somalia in what was called a “humanitarian intervention”. He was in the midst of his re-election campaign. Bush said the marines were doing “God’s work saving thousands of innocents”. Like this moralizing over the Gulf war, this was generally accepted by the British media, with honorable exceptions.

American television crews were waiting as the Marines landed in a beautiful African pre-dawn: “prime time” at home. From the Somalian side there was perpetual darkness; “chaos” and “tribalism” and “warlords”. When the American warlords had completed their adventure in Somalia and taken the media home with them, the story died, as we say. According to CIA estimates, the Marines had left between 7,000 and 10,000 Somalis dead. This was not news.

Soon after he was elected in 1992, Clinton attacked Baghdad with 23 Cruise missiles which destroyed a residential area, killing, once again mostly women and children, including Iraq’s most distinguished artist, Leila al-attar. Interviewed on his way to church with his wife, Clinton said, “I feel quite good about this, and I think the American people feel quite good about it.” The pretext for attack was an Iraqi “plot” to kill George Bush on a visit to Kuwait. There was no hard evidence and the plot story widely regarded as fake.

In 1996, Clinton attacked Iraq again, this time insisting that he was “defending” Kurds against Saddam Hussein, who must pay the price”. Once again thousands of civilians, mostly innocent women and children paid the price.

In earlier 1998, Clinton very nearly attacked Iraq again. Virtually the same footage of missiles looking sleek against the dawn light, courtesy of the Pentagon, appeared on British television. What stopped him..?.

Like spontaneous combustion, public opinion all over the world raised its voice. The cameras have also shown glimpses of Iraq’s silent holocaust, the consequences of the imposition of “economic sanctions” by the United States and Britain (under the usual UN flag of convenience) against the Iraqi civilian population.

Tony Blair said he wept for the children who were killed in Omagh by the terrorist act; but he was silent on the children who died in Iraq as a result of one of the most enduring terrorist acts of the late 20th century, conducted largely by his government and its principal ally, the USA. According to the Food and Agriculture Organization and the World Health Organization, both UN agencies, more than half a million children have died as a direct result of sanctions. Other sources put the figure at over a million which could be more authentic as compared to of UN organizations which could more likely be biased. Baby food and enriched powdered milk were blockaded along with vital hospital equipments.”

What an irony of fate that Iraqi people whose country was the 2nd biggest oil producing country in the world, had been invaded by US on false pretexts, to rob off their oil and genocide of millions of Muslim Iraqi people, mostly women and children, who were slaughtered by indiscriminate bombing by US Air Force and dozens of cruise missiles by US Naval aircraft carriers. The only fault of theirs was that they belonged, to the 2nd biggest oil producing country in the world. Their one million children died of starvation because of non-availability of baby food, milk powder; ordinary medicines, not to speak of life-saving drugs and hospital equipments. Could there be a bigger terrorism of 20th and 21st centuries committed by USA and its allies, than this, and yet these countries call themselves as the flag carriers of Human Rights..? shame on them.

And when “Oil for Food” programme was launched for Iraqi people by UN, of course with the ‘permission’ from USA, number of people including then UN Secretary General’s son, Indian ex foreign minister and many other notables of the world made millions of dollars in this biggest world-fame scam. The then UN Secretary General announced for a high-level enquiry into it which is s but the enquiry into, the ‘Report’ of which is still awaited or has been hushed-up. UNO is a totally biased against Muslims as well as the most corrupt organization in the world. Muslim countries should better say ‘goodbye’ to UNO and give a stealth spine to OIC to counter terrorism of USA and its allies effectively, as a Muslim Nations Organization.

As John Pilger came out with the facts and has criticized USA and its main ally, Britain, for state terrorism and genocide of Muslims, renowned American scholar, thinker and an intellectual superstar of the 20th century, a philosopher of languages and political campaigner of towering academic reputation, Dr. Noam Chomsky, has also declared “US a terrorist state and the US foreign policy is straight out of mafia”. By the way what does he mean of “mafia”…? He means the American Jews in White house, US administration, CIA, and the Pentagon. Dr. Chomsky also said, “United States did not seek authorization for launching air strikes on Afghanistan from the United Nations because the involvement of the world body could have limited its unilateral power to act.” He did not agree that the American people had supported US attacks on Afghanistan and accused US and Britain of abusing power in ‘war’.

In addition to the above statements, from John Pilger and Dr. Noam Chomsky, a British journalist, George Monblot has said, “US treats the rest of the world as its doormat”, in Guardian News Service. He further said, “Since Bush, Jr. came to office, the United States has torn up more international treaties and disregarded more UN conventions than the rest of the world has done in 20 years. It has scupper-ed the biological weapons convention while experimenting, illegally, on its own. It has permitted CIA hit squads to recommence covert operations of the kind which included, in the past, the assassination of foreign head of state. It has sabotaged the small arms treaty, undermined the international criminal court”.

After taking-over as the President of USA, George W. Bush has also been following the footprints not only of his father but of his predecessors, as well. He also attacked Iraq on illogical pleas as he changed the justification on attack on Iraq twice. At first, Iraq was named as potential target because it was “assisting Al-Qaida”. This turned out to be untrue. Then the US government claimed that Iraq had to be attacked because it could be developing weapons of mass destructions (WMDs), and was refusing to allow weapons inspectors to find out if this was so. Whereas, in fact Saddam Hussein had only a few lame Scud missiles. This allegations also proved to be untrue when Bush himself confessed that he acted on a false and unconfirmed report from CIA, but the damaged had been done as at least half-a-million innocent Iraqis had be massacred, so what…? Iraq had a few lame Scud missiles and nothing else whereas US, Britain, Israel have multiple types of WMDs in abundance but that can’t be questioned. This is terrorism of USA, Britain and Israel. Moreover, according to George Monblot, US have to remain on war with any country so that its war-ammunition factories keep on working, throughout the year. After Iraq it is Afghanistan and Pakistan, then its Iran or Sudan, and Yemen, on USA’s agenda of war.

The Muslim states are always ‘suspected’ of making WMDs, by USA and its allies, whereas the blamers have stored numerous types of WMDs piled up in their respective countries, their ammunition factories running 24 hours preparing WMDs to be used on weaker Muslim civilians/countries with the only objective of genocide, of Muslims, and to have control on their natural resources as they are getting oil for free by printing dollars which is NOT backed by gold which means that it’s just a piece of printed paper.

Similarly, under the guise of “War-on-terror”, Bush Jr. invaded Afghanistan, in the name of “Crusade”, killing at least about a million innocent Afghan civilians in the process while unleashing the rain of cruise missiles, Daisy Cutter bombs, the Cave-busters and also experimented the Mother-of-all bombs on poor Afghan civilians, treating them as “collateral damage’ and afterward the files closed. Isn’t it biggest terrorism of the century…?

As a matter of fact the post WW-II generation of US leaders, specifically the Presidents, CIA and Pentagon chiefs, have developed the psyche of terrorism, in the name of “US Interests”, all around the world, compared to of pre-WW-II era. The majority of hawks, mostly Jews who crept into the important organizations, US administration, CIA, Pentagon, US Justice Dept, FBI, National and Homeland Security, the Police, as a planning and succeeded in their objectives of taking control of these important pillars of US government, and thus running the US government as they want. In other words the Jews are ruling the world that is why a vast difference could be observed between the psyches of the generations of US leaders of pre and the post WW-II generations, as said earlier, and this phenomenon occurred, after the birth of Israel, in 1948. As a matter of fact Israeli intelligence agency, Mossad, is more active in USA than anywhere else in the world as it’s an anytime-life-threat to non-Jewish politicians of USA as the American Jews have spread in almost all the important domestic organizations of the US, like FBI, the Justice Dept; the Police, National/Homeland security, like cancer.

According to Hesham Tillawi’s (Ph.d.) Report, John F. Kennedy and his brother, “Bobby”, Robert Kennedy, who were against Israel’s nuclear development programme, were killed by Israel, in collaboration with some Jewish CIA agents, as proved by him. The documentary could be viewed on the video.

By virtue of being US citizens the Jews have also taken-over control of international financial and media communication. On the media front the Jews own 6 out of 9 international media organizations including all TV channels of USA, hence, they control the world media and give fabricated news of their interest only. They can not tolerate and let survive Muslims in these two fields, for example they couldn’t tolerate fast expansion and popularity of Al-Jazira TV network, therefore, by taking some bogus pleas they arranged (CIA) sponsored attack on the head office of Al-Jazira TV because this (Muslim) TV net-work used to telecast the news without any fabrication and used to give the true picture of events and the news which and was against the western (Jewish) media. Isn’t it terrorism…?

Then, on financial side, the western (Jewish) bankers and financial top guns, became afraid of the fast expansion and patronization, of BCCI, by Muslims states i.e. Gulf and the M.E. Therefore, foreseeing that all the Muslim wealth which they were using from decades may out-flow from their banks to this Islamic bank, BCCI, so, they leveled and framed false allegation of money laundering and malpractices in the money markets. Whereas, on the other, almost all the banks of Switzerland and Britain are openly involved in money laundering and other malpractices but these banks have never been pointed out for ‘crimes’, BCCI was punished. It’s a well known fact that Britain, Switzerland and Spain are the main hubs of money laundering. According to a survey only in London 50% of global money laundering is being done by the banks in London, having their head offices in US and Israel, so, where are those “Policemen of the world Financial markets” who got BCCI closed for money laundering and irregular banking practices..?. Isn’t it terrorism against Muslim countries by US…?

The Jews own world biggest banks and the financial institutions which lend to the third world countries on their terms and conditions. The big question is from where they got so much money to control finance of the world. The answer is simple; they made fool of the Sheikhdoms and sucked their wealth of oil by giving them paper-money, printing dollars, after de-linking with equivalent gold reserves, in 1970, so that they may print as much (paper) dollars as possible as the dollar had become the only currency in the world which was always in demand because the world finance controllers, the Jews, had put conditions on international trading, through US administration, that the payments of not only oil but also of all the business transactions, will be made in dollars, therefore, they printed dollars as much as they could as they were NOT supposed to keep equivalent reserves in gold, and sucked-in the whole worlds’ resources, particularly and, in fact, practically they started getting oil almost for free, against ‘paper money’. The Arab Sheikhs did not realize that the dollar they are getting against selling trillions of barrels of oil has no backing of gold reserves, that is how the Jews, in US administration made fool of these Arab Sheikhs and sucked their oil wealth sitting in US.

There is an open ended excuse of US administration, given by the ‘Hawks’, the American Jews, is to safeguard “US Interests” which, predominantly, is a big threat not only to the third world countries but to those EU countries, as well, which oppose US against its discriminatory policies. I have written in one of my previous articles that the US may even bomb a EU member country under the garb of “US Interests” as the ‘war-on-terror’ is going on in Afghanistan and Pakistan as, Obama has recently said, Somalia, Yemen, Afghanistan and Pakistan may attack USA. Is it really believable that tiny countries like Somalia, Yemen, Afghanistan and Pakistan may attack US, in the presence of her bases in the whole of Europe, M.E and the Far East, plus the 9 roaming naval fleets equipped with all sorts of WMDs and even nukes …? These US bases in Britain and also in almost all European countries plus the year-round roaming USA’s 9 naval fleets, are there to terrorize the weak and the third world countries, specially the Muslim.

The US economic terrorism could also be vouched through its’ economic policies for the third world countries so that these countries may not be able to stand on their feet, ever, and keep begging before US, IMF or the World Bank. The book “Confessions of an Economic Hit Man”, written by John Perkins, a former respected member of the international banking community: John Perkins verifies it as he described “How the U.S. Uses Globalization to Cheat Poor Countries out of Trillions. And how as a highly paid professional, he helped the U.S. cheat poor countries around the globe out of trillions of dollars by lending them more money than they could possibly repay and then take over their economies.” While giving an interview to Amy Goldman he disclosed, “I was initially recruited while I was in business school back in the late sixties by the National Security Agency, the nation’s largest and least understood spy organization; but ultimately I worked for private corporations. The first real economic hit man was back in the early 1950’s, Kermit Roosevelt, the grandson of Teddy, who overthrew of government of Iran, a democratically elected Mossadegh’s government, who was Time‘s magazine person of the year; and he was so successful at doing this without any bloodshed—well, there was a little bloodshed, but no military intervention, just spending millions of dollars and replaced Mossadegh with the Shah of Iran. At that point, we understood that this idea of economic hit man was an extremely good one. We didn’t have to worry about the threat of war with Russia when we did it this way. The problem with that was that Roosevelt was a C.I.A. agent. He was a government employee. Had he been caught, we would have been in a lot of trouble. It would have been very embarrassing. So, at that point, the decision was made to use organizations like the C.I.A. and the N.S.A. to recruit potential economic hit men like me and then send us to work for private consulting companies, engineering firms, construction companies, so that if we were caught, there would be no connection with the government.”

Exactly, the same US/CIA has created “Blackwater”, the mercenary force to get USA achieve its’ (heinous) objectives against smaller and weaker states like Iraq, Pakistan and Afghanistan. In Pakistan the “Blackwater” is known as “Xe-Services”, hired by DynCorp through a Pakistani sub-agency, so that USA could not be blames of its’ direct involvement in “Blackwater” or Xe-Services’s activities of killing, abduction, bombing the crowded market through remote controlled car/truck bombings as had been done in Iraq and now going on in Pakistan.

Perkins further writes, “The book was to be dedicated to the presidents of two countries, men who had been his clients whom I respected and thought of as kindred spirits–Jaime Roldós, president of Ecuador, and Omar Torrijos, president of Panama. Both had just died in fiery crashes. Their deaths were not accidental. They were assassinated because they opposed that fraternity of corporate, government, and banking heads whose goal is global empire. We Economic Hit Men failed to bring Roldós and Torrijos around, and the other type of hit men, the CIA-sanctioned jackals who were always right behind us, stepped in.”

John Perkins goes on to write: “I was persuaded to stop writing that book. I started it four more times during the next twenty years. On each occasion, my decision to begin again was influenced by current world events: the U.S. invasion of Panama in 1980, the first Gulf War, Somalia, and the rise of Osama bin Laden. However, threats or bribes always convinced me to stop.” But now Perkins has finally published his story. The book is titled Confessions of an Economic Hit Man. John Perkins joins us now in our Firehouse studios.

USA has developed a complex of all types of ammunition producing factories, including WMDs, and in order to keep these factories working throughout the year she needs to use the ammunition, as briefly mentioned earlier. The British journalist George Monblot, of The Guardian News Service, writes, “The United States also possess a vast military-industrial complex which is in constant need of conflict in order to justify its’ staggeringly expensive existence. Perhaps more importantly than any of these factories, the hawks who control the White House, perceive that perpetual war results in the perpetual demand for their services. Therefore, the hawks know that they will win, whoever loses. In other words, if the US were not preparing to attack Iraq, it would be preparing to attack another nation. The US will go to war with that country because it needs a country with which to go to war.” He was totally justified in saying it as US took false pleas to attack Iraq and simultaneously also attacked Afghanistan, after finishing the ‘jobs’ of genocide of Muslims and continuously sucking in Iraqi oil for free. Isn’t it US terrorism…?

Now US eying to have control of worlds largest gold and copper reservoirs of Balochistan apart from vast gas, oil and rich mineral resources of Afghanistan, and that could only be achieved by denuclearizing Pakistan, first. Since India and Israel will be the prime beneficiaries so US/CIA also using their “investment” in the shape of supply of ammunition to militants, the TTP, US mercenary army, military training of Afghans gorillas in India, exactly as India trained 300,000 Mukti Bahinis, sent inside E. Pakistan, to attack (E. Pakistan) from 9 inside. Whereas, US is apparently ‘partner’ of it’s an old ally, Pakistan but stabbing in the back (of Pakistan) to achieve the desired objectives, which are as under, therefore, the hawks, the Jews, giving their total attention to Afghanistan and Pakistan.

* Denuclearize Pakistan, in order to provide security to Israel and India, USA’s two hands for terrorism in the third world.
* Take control of worlds’ largest gold and copper reservoirs, apart from other rich metals & minerals in Balochistan whereas Afghanistan is rich in having big reservoirs of precious stones, as well.
* Genocide of the world’s greatest warrior race, the Pashtuns, whom US have seen fighting with USSR, therefore, is afraid of and wants either to tame them or turn them into a very small tribe, and
* Prepare India as a Super power in the S.E to bring her at par and be a threat to China.

The hawks, the American Jews, in US administration, CIA and in Pentagon, just can not tolerate a Muslim country with Nukes so they are now after Pakistan and keeping the bogy of Osama Bin Laden and Al-Qaida, alive under the slogan of “war-on-terror’, on. But they are also afraid of Pakistan’s nukes that is why they are reluctant to attack on Pakistan as Pakistan has the capability to attack Israel with all its might as Pakistan’s missile are capable to hit Israel to the extent of wiping it off from the map of the world. Pakistan army and the people are prepared of a backlash of nukes but they are in favor of to defend the country at all costs, come what may. Although India will also face thousands of casualties if there is s nuclear war in this region but the US is NOT concerned about casualties of any other nation/s except of Americans or Jews, in any war.

Another glaring example of US‘s terrorism was Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto, of Pakistan about whom Kissinger said in an interview to Oriana Falaci, who asked him, “which head of the state impressed him most..?” Kissinger paused for a moment and said, “Ali Bhutto of Pakistan, I used to think twice before talking to him”. In view of Indian hegemonies after she successfully detonated the first nuclear test in Oct;1974, Bhutto made lot of hue and cry before the world but no country spoke against India and rather no sanctions were applied on her, therefore, Bhutto also decided to go for nuclear telling the west clearly, “India has become a nuclear power and constantly threatening and terrorizing Pakistan, therefore, we also want to go for nuclear but for peaceful purposes as this is our right to use nuclear technology, to produce electricity, for medical treatments and to enhance agriculture output by enhancing yield, apart from meeting the balance of power in the region, which has been tilted towards India.”

But the US hawks, the American Jews, did not want that a Muslim country to go for nuclear, therefore, they first tried to bribe him to not to go for nuclear but when they failed they threatened and terrorized him of dire consequences, through Henry Kissinger in a crucial meeting at Lahore on 15 August, in 1976. Bhutto remained adamant and Pakistan had almost succeeded in achieving the desired results of nuclear capability, Bhutto was overthrown by Chief of army, Gen. Ziaul Haq, on lame excuses but, as said, CIA bought a bunch of generals, including Ziaul Haq and also a religious political party which had strong street power, and got Bhutto overthrown in the mid night of 4th & 5th July, 1977. Bhutto was invited by US ambassador, on the evening of 4th July, 1977, the USA’s Independence Day party and at the midnight between 4th & 5th July,1977, the US ambassador told Bhutto that the “party is over”. Bhutto, being sharp enough, took the lead and went back to his residence and enquired if all is well but the ISI and the MI chiefs, had already bargained their loyalties, therefore, it was too late to do anything, as according to John Perkins, “the CIA-sanctioned jackals had stepped-in”..

As a matter of fact rampant terrorism flourished after the birth of Israel as USA, Britain, Australia, Canada and France have played a key role in making Israel a real terrorist state in the Middle East. Israel is an undeclared nuclear power with more than 150 nukes in her stocks, a permanent threat and a terror in the region, for Palestinians, Egypt, Lebanon, Jordan, Syria, Saudi Arabia, and the tiny Gulf states. But, on the other, another Islamic state, Iran, is under heavy threats of attack from US, Israel and Britain for being accused of developing nukes, therefore this is an open terrorism of US and Britain that no Muslim country can become a nuclear power. Bhutto has written in his book, “If I am assassinated”, “Why is it so that Muslims, despite being the richest nation in the world, have no nuclear umbrella for their safety and security”, that is why he wanted to go for nuclear which the US and its’ allies did not like and they got him overthrew, by buying off a dozen top generals of Pakistan army in 1977, as said.

Likewise Israel, now USA preparing India to be practically a dominant regional super power and keep on terrorizing her neighbors, particularly Pakistan and Bangla Desh as Afghanistan is already in her lap, plus the Central Asian States, if required, moreover, USA also wants India to match China which is asking too much, I believe. But probably USA betting on a wrong horse as India, despite being a big country and having one of the largest armies in the world, won’t be able to deliver the desired results as the Hindus are NOT a warrior race, as compared to the Muslims of Pakistan and Afghanistan, therefore, even if Hindus are many times more in numbers, compared to Muslims of Pakistan and the Pashtuns tribes of Afghanistan, but they can’t stand before Muslims, which is a proven fact.

There are four evils states in the world i.e. USA, Britain, Israel and India, as these countries carrying on genocide of innocent Muslim civilians labeling them as ‘terrorists’, but in view of the ruthless slaughter of Muslims in Iraq, Somalia, Afghanistan and now going on in Pakistan, the readers could very well imagine which are the real terrorist states in the world, US, Israel, India and Britain or Iraq, Somalia, Yemen, Afghanistan and Pakistan, the small weak and meager states..? What the US and its arch allies, Britain and Israel, have been doing since 1956 when Britain Israel and France attacked Egypt to take control of the Suez Canal. In 1967 Israel invaded Jordan, Syria, Egypt and Lebanon and extended her borders. Apparently that was only Israel’s war with Arabs but in fact the US army and USAF fully participated in it. An air bridge had been made between Washington and Tel Aviv of aircraft bringing in ammunition and the army personnel to Israel. Syria captured 20 USAF pilots and “presented” to the US ambassador.

Israel has become a real terrorist state not only for Palestinians but also for all Muslim states in the M.E and the Gulf. The massacre in Gaza, in 2008 of innocent men, women and children and particularly the way Israel killed innocent school children through the rain of white sulpheuric powder is a vital proof of it, whereas, US, Britain, Canada, Australia and other EU countries, the champions of Human Rights, are keeping quite on Israel’s terrorism as it is backed by US. Moreover, Israel’s terrorist activities, through Mossad, have been extended to Pakistan and Afghanistan, in collaboration with India, backed by US, Britain and other EU countries.

The US have labeled false and baseless allegations against the Muslims states, under the garb of “war-on-terror”, taking the plea of 9/11 about which former Italian President Francesco Cossiga, who revealed the existence of Operation Gladio, has told Italy’s oldest and most widely read newspaper that the 9-11 terrorist attacks were run by the CIA and Mossad, and that this was common knowledge among global intelligence agencies. The details of the proofs could be viewed by visiting this link. and this link.

“On September 10, 2001, the Army School of Advanced Military Studies issued a report written by elite US army officers, which was made public just prior to 9/11. The report gave the following description for the Mossad: “Wildcard. Ruthless and cunning. Has capability to target US forces and make it look like a Palestinian/Arab act.” [Washington Times, 9/10/01]

But US slaughtered millions of Muslims civilians by indiscriminate bombing through its’ forces, in Iraq and Afghanistan, under the wake of 9/11 and “war-on-terror”, and the killing, of civilians, declared as ‘collateral damage’, a new terminology to hush-up the killing of innocent civilians. Well, if it was so then the civilians killed in Twin Tower, on 9/11, could also be considered as ‘collateral damage’ because the US considers 9/11 affair as a ‘war’ against US and then why cases have been filed in the US courts against Saudis, blocking their 3.4 trillion dollars until decision of the cases. Then, likewise, should Iraqis, Afghans and Pakistanis killed in Drone attacks, also file cases against the US in their respective countries’ courts and also get the US assets, in these countries, be blocked, until decision of the cases.

The massacre of Muslims in Iraq, Sudan, Somalia, Yemen, Afghanistan and now in Pakistan, apart from the massacre of Palestinian Muslims through mini USA, the Israel, is a glaring example of genocide of Muslims by USA through sheer terrorism, as rightly declared by the independent journalists, John Pilger, George Monblot and many others, including the living legend, thinker and scholar Noam Chomsky that USA is the world’s worst terrorist state, can’t be wrong.

The US Presidents and their accomplices can’t be tried at The Hague for War crimes or Crime against Humanity as the US cunningly did not sign The Hague protocols, because she knew that US will have to go for illegal wars, on reasons beyond logic. So what if they are not punished, in this world, for their crimes against humanity, but they will be tried by Allah on the day of judgment as it is very clearly written in Quraan, “the cruel will be dragged to the Hell with chains in their necks by fiercely looking angels. They will be thrown in the bottom of the hell for ever after”, and Quraan speaks the truth, believe it or not.

The Boiling Frogs Presents Daniel Ellsberg

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Dan Ellsberg provides us with his analysis of Barack Obama’s presidency, shares with us what led him to cast his vote for Obama, and how and why he’s been let down and betrayed by our current president. He discusses the stark similarities between the previous administration and Obama’s Whitehouse on issues and abuses related to civil liberties, and questions the possibility of ‘hoping’ again. Mr. Ellsberg talks about his experience as a whistleblower, the futility of disclosure to Congress then and today, the current sorry state of the US media, and more!


Ellsberg Dan Ellsberg graduated from Harvard in economics in 1952, served in the US Marine Corps from 1954-57, and obtained a PhD in economics from Harvard while working for the Rand Corporation in 1962. In 1964 he joined the Defense Department to work principally on decision-making in the Vietnam War. Mr. Ellsberg precipitated a national political controversy in 1971 when he released the Pentagon Papers, a Top-Secret Pentagon study of US government decision-making about the Vietnam War, to the New York Times and other publications. Ellsberg has ever since campaigned for peace and encouraged others to speak truth to power.


Here is our guest Dan Ellsberg unplugged!

icon for podpress Interview with ;Daniel Ellsberg [69:35m]: Hide Player | Play in Popup | Download (45)

Friday, January 08, 2010

CIA Killings Spell Defeat In Afghanistan



By Douglas Valentine

January 08, 2010 "Information Clearing House" -- Why?

“Why?” The grieving family members ask. “Why did the terrorists kill our loved ones?”

The hardnosed colleagues of the four fallen CIA officers comfort the wives and children (and one husband). They shake off their sorrow, huddle together by the graves, and vow vengeance. They bathe themselves in their seething anger like it was the blood of the lamb.

Why? The American public and its officials ask. Why? The media repeats, adding in shock and awe, “Don’t the terrorists know that you can’t kill CIA officers?”

Why, everyone wonders, did a Jordanian suicide bomber target the CIA, knowing that the wrath of the biggest, baddest, bloodthirstiest Gang on Planet Earth is going to start dropping bombs and slitting throats until its lust for death and suffering is satisfied?

Over the course of its sixty year reign of terror, in which it has overthrown countless governments, started countless wars costing countless lives, and otherwise subverted and sabotaged friends and foes alike, the CIA has lost less than 100 officers.

On a good day, one CIA drone, and one CIA hit team, kills 100 innocent women and children, and nobody bats an eye.

Why would the terrorists suddenly deviate from the norm – the sacred accommodation – and throw the whole game into chaos?

Why?

OK, I’ll Tell You Why

There is a phenomenon called The Universal Brotherhood of Officers. It exists in the twilight zone between imagination and in reality, in the fog of war. It is why officers are separated from enlisted men in POW camps and given better treatment. It is why officers of opposing armies have more in common with one another than they have with their own enlisted men.

Officers are trained to think of their subordinate ranks as canon fodder. Their troops are expendable. They know when they send a unit up a hill, some will be killed. That is why they do not fraternize with thee lower ranks. This class distinction exists across the world, and is the basis of the sacred accommodation. No slobs need apply.

It is why the Bush Family flew the Bin Laden Family, and other Saudi Royals, out of the United States in the days after 9-11. If anyone was a case officer to the 9-11 bombers, or had knowledge about the bombers or any follow-up plots, it was these “protected” people.

CIA officers are at the pinnacle of the Universal Brotherhood. They are the Protected Few, blessed with false identities and bodyguards, flying in jet planes, living in villas, eating fancy food and enjoying state of the art technology. CIA officers tell army generals what to do.They direct Congressional committees. They assassinate heads of state and innocent children equally, with impunity, with indifference.

In Afghanistan they manage the drug trade from their hammocks in the shade.They know the Taliban tax the farmers growing the opium, and they know that Karzai’s warlords convert the opium into heroin and fly it to the Russian mob. They are amused by the antics of earnest DEA agents, who, in their ignorant patriotic bliss, cannot believe such an accommodation exists.

CIA officers are trained to exist in this moral netherworld of protected drug dealers, for the simple reasons that the CIA in every conflict has a paramount need to keep secure communication channels open to the enemy. This is CIA 101. The CIA, as part of its mandate, is authorized to negotiate with the enemy, but it can only do so as long as the channel is secure and deniable.

No proof will ever exist, so the American public can be deceived.

Take Iran Contra, when Reagan vowed never to negotiate with terrorists, then a team to Tehran to sell missiles to thee Iranians and use the money to buy guns for the drug dealing Contras.

There’s stated and unstated policy – and the CIA is always pursuing the unstated, which is why it relies so heavily on its patriotic and witless assets in the mainstream media.

In Afghanistan the accommodation is the environment that allows the CIA to have a secure channel to the Taliban to negotiate on simple matters like prisoner exchanges.

The exchange of British journalist Peter Moore for an Iraqi “insurgent” in CIA custody was an example of how the accommodation works in Iraq. Moore was held by a Shia group allegedly allied to Iran, and his freedom depended entirely on the CIA reaching an accommodation with America’s enemies in the Iraq resistance. The details of such prisoner exchanges are never revealed, but involve secret negotiations by the CIA and the resistance over issues of strategic importance to both sides.

The accommodation is the intellectual environment which provides a space for any eventual reconciliation. There are always preliminary negotiations for a reconciliation or ceasefire, and in every modern conflict that’s the CIA’s job.

And the Afghanis want reconciliation. Apart from the US and CIA, Karzai and his clique at every level have filial relations with the Taliban.

No matter how powerful the CIA is, it can’t overcome that.

Ed Brady, an Army officer detailed to the CIA and assigned to the Phoenix Directorate in Saigon in 1967 and 1968, explains how the accommodation worked in Vietnam.

While Brady and his Vietnamese counterpart Colonel Tan were lunching at a restaurant in Dalat, Tan pointed at a woman eating noodle soup and drinking Vietnamese coffee at the table next to them. He told Brady that she was the Viet Cong province chief’s wife. Brady, of course, wanted to grab her and use her for bait.

Coolly, Colonel Tan said to him: “You don’t understand. You don’t live the way we live. You don’t have any family here. You’re going to go home when this operation is over. You don’t think like you’re going to live here forever. But I have a home and a family and kids that go to school. I have a wife that has to go to market…. And you want me to go kill his wife? You want me to set a trap for him and kill him when he comes in to see his wife? If we do that, what are they going to do to our wives?”

“The VC didn’t run targeted operations against them either,” Brady explains. “There were set rules that you played by. If you went out and conducted a military operation and you chased them down fair and square in the jungle and you had a fight, that was okay. If they ambushed you on the way back from a military operation, that was fair. But to conduct these clandestine police operations and really get at the heart of things, that was kind of immoral to them. That was not cricket. And the Vietnamese were very, very leery of upsetting that.”

Obama’s Dirty War in Afghanistan relies largely on such clandestine CIA operations, in which wives and children are used as bait to trap husbands – or are killed as a way of punishing men in the resistance.

The CIA plays the same role in Afghanistan that the Gestapo played in the cities and the Einsatzgruppen performed in the countryside for the Nazis in World War Two – killing and terrorizing the urban resistance and partisan bands.

Its unstated object is to rip apart working and middle class families and thus the whole fabric of Afghan society, until the Afghan people accept American domination, through its suppletif ruling class.1

And this is why the CIA was targeted.

The CIA is utterly predictable. It will invoke the “100-1 Rule” used by the Gestapo and Einsatzgruppen and go on a killing spree until its vengeance is satisfied. At the end of the day, the Afghan people will only hate the Americans more. This makes the CIA happy, on the premise that terror will make the people submit. But in Afghanistan it spells protracted war, and as in Vietnam, eventual defeat.

Threats to Yemen prove America hasn't learned the lesson of history

Extraordinarily, the US is making exactly the same mistake as in Iraq and Afghanistan

We are the Awaleq

Born of bitterness

We are the nails that go into the rock

We are the sparks of hell

He who defies us will be burned

This is the tribal chant of the powerful Awaleq tribe of Yemen, in which they bid defiance to the world. Its angry tone conveys the flavour of Yemeni life and it should give pause to those in the US who blithely suggest greater American involvement in Yemen in the wake of the attempt to destroy a US plane by a Nigerian student who says he received training there.

Yemen has always been a dangerous place. Wonderfully beautiful, the mountainous north of the country is guerrilla paradise. The Yemenis are exceptionally hospitable, though this has its limits. For instance, the Kazam tribe east of Aden are generous to passing strangers, but deem the laws of hospitality to lapse when the stranger leaves their tribal territory, at which time he becomes “a good back to shoot at”.

The Awaleq and Kazam tribes are not exotic survivals on the margins of Yemeni society but are both politically important and influential. The strength of the central government in the capital, Sanaa, is limited and it generally avoids direct confrontations with tribal confederations, tribes, clans and powerful families. Almost everybody has a gun, usually at least an AK-47 assault rifle, but tribesmen often own heavier armament.

I have always loved the country. It is physically very beautiful with cut stone villages perched on mountain tops on the sides of which are cut hundreds of terraces, making the country look like an exaggerated Tuscan landscape. Yemenis are intelligent, humorous, sociable and democratic, infinitely preferable as company to the arrogant and ignorant playboys of the Arab oil states in the rest of the Arabian Peninsula.

It is very much a country of direct action. Once when I was there a Chinese engineer was kidnapped as he drove along the main road linking Sanaa to Aden. The motives of the kidnappers were peculiar. It turned out they came from a bee-keeping tribe (Yemen is famous for its honey) whose bees live in hives inside hollow logs placed on metal stilts to protect them from ants. The police had raided the tribe’s village and had damaged hives for which the owners were demanding compensation. The government had been slow in paying up so the tribesmen had decided to draw attention to their grievance by kidnapping the next foreigner on the main road and this turned out to be the Chinese engineer.

Yemen is a mosaic of conflicting authorities, though this authority may be confined to a few villages. Larger communities include the Shia around Sanaa in the north of the country near Saada, with whom the government has been fighting a fierce little civil war. The unification of North and South Yemen in 1990 has never wholly gelled and the government is wary of southern secessionism. Its ability to buy off its opponents is also under threat as oil revenues fall, with the few oilfields beginning to run dry.

It is in this fascinating but dangerous land that President Barack Obama is planning to increase US political and military involvement. Joint operations will be carried out by the US and Yemeni military. There will be American drone attacks on hamlets where al-Qa’ida supposedly has its bases.

There is ominous use by American politicians and commentators of the phrase “failed state” in relation to Yemen, as if this some how legitimised foreign intervention. It is extraordinary that the US political elite has never taken on board that its greatest defeats have been in just such “failed states”‘, not least Lebanon in 1982, when 240 US Marines were blown up; Somalia in the early 1990s when the body of a US helicopter pilot was dragged through the streets; Iraq after the overthrow of Saddam Hussein; and Afghanistan after the supposed fall of the Taliban.

Yemen has all the explosive ingredients of Lebanon, Somalia, Iraq and Afghanistan. But the arch-hawk Senator Joe Lieberman, chairman of the Senate Committee on Homeland Security, was happily confirming this week that the Green Berets and the US Special Forces are already there. He cited with approval an American official in Sanaa as telling him that, “Iraq was yesterday’s war. Afghanistan is today’s war. If you don’t act pre-emptively Yemen will be tomorrow’s war.” In practice pre-emptive strikes are likely to bring a US military entanglement in Yemen even closer.

The US will get entangled because the Yemeni government will want to manipulate US action in its own interests and to preserve its wilting authority. It has long been trying to portray the Shia rebels in north Yemen as Iranian cats-paws in order to secure American and Saudi support. Al-Qa’ida in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP) probably only has a few hundred activists in Yemen, but the government of long time Yemeni President Ali Abdulah Salih will portray his diverse opponents as somehow linked to al-Qa’ida.

In Yemen the US will be intervening on one side in a country which is always in danger of sliding into a civil war. This has happened before. In Iraq the US was the supporter of the Shia Arabs and Kurds against the Sunni Arabs. In Afghanistan it is the ally of the Tajiks, Uzbeks and Hazara against the Pashtun community. Whatever the intentions of Washington, its participation in these civil conflicts destabilises the country because one side becomes labelled as the quisling supporter of a foreign invader. Communal and nationalist antipathies combine to create a lethal blend.

Despite sectarian, ethnic and tribal loyalties in the countries where the US has intervened in the Middle East, they usually have a strong sense of national identity. Yemenis are highly conscious of their own nationality and their identity as Arabs. One of the reasons the country is so miserably poor, with almost half its 22 million people trying to live on $2 a day, is that in 1990 Yemen refused to join the war against Iraq and Saudi Arabia consequently expelled 850,000 Yemeni workers.

It is extraordinary to see the US begin to make the same mistakes in Yemen as it previously made in Afghanistan and Iraq. What it is doing is much to al-Qa’ida’s advantage. The real strength of al-Qa’ida is not that it can “train” a fanatical Nigerian student to sew explosives into his underpants, but that it can provoke an exaggerated US response to every botched attack. Al-Qa’ida leaders openly admitted at the time of 9/11 that the aim of such operations is to provoke the US into direct military intervention in Muslim countries.

In Yemen the US is walking into the al-Qa’ida trap. Once there it will face the same dilemma it faces in Iraq and Afghanistan. It became impossible to exit these conflicts because the loss of face would be too great. Just as Washington saved banks and insurance giants from bankruptcy in 2008 because they were “too big to fail,” so these wars become too important to lose because to do so would damage the US claim to be the sole superpower.

In Iraq the US is getting out more easily than seemed likely at one stage because Washington has persuaded Americans that they won a non-existent success. The ultimate US exit from Afghanistan may eventually be along very similar lines. But the danger of claiming spurious victories is that such distortions of history make it impossible for the US to learn from past mistakes and instead it repeats them by fresh interventions in countries like Yemen.

Thursday, January 07, 2010

Rahm Emanuel conducting pogroms within Obama administration and Democratic Party

WMR's White House press sources have revealed that President Obama's Chief of Staff, Rahm Emanuel, is conducting a virtual political pogrom within the administration and the Democratic caucus in Congress. WMR has learned that the National Security Agency's warrantless wiretapping program, once known as STELLAR WIND but changed after the classified code name was leaked to the media, is being used by Emanuel to force administration officials and Democrats in Congress to "toe the line" in their support of Obama's policies, including health care. the surge in Afghanistan, and the bail out of Wall Street.

From STELLAR WIND's successor, Emanuel and his cohorts have collected political intelligence that is either damaging or potentially embarrassing to Democratic office holders. One such member of Congress who has faced the consequences of warrantless wiretapping is House Judiciary Committee Chairman John Conyers of Michigan. The indictment of Conyers's wife, former Detroit City Council member Monica Conyers, who was convicted of accepting a cash bribe in 2007 in return for awarding a contract to Synagro Technologies, a Houston firm. Mrs. Conyers's sentencing has been postponed by US Judge Avern Cohn, a former president of the Jewish Welfare Federation of Metropolitan Detroit, until March 10 and the threat of a long prison sentence for the House Judiciary Chairman's wife has been communicated by Emanuel to Conyers if he continues his public criticisms of Obama.

Others who have been threatened with exposure of damaging information obtained from illegal NSA wiretaps include House Ways and Means Committee Chairman Charles Rangel and House Defense Appropriations Subcommittee Chairman John Murtha. Emanuel has let it be known that members of Congress who sway away from the party line will "end up like Blagojevich." WMR has learned from Chicago sources that Emanuel and the US Attorney for the Northern District of Illinois Patrick Fitzgerald conspired to leak STELLAR WIND wiretaps to the media even before Fitzgerald could convince a federal grand jury to indict the later-impeached Illinois governor.

Emanuel and Fitzgerald decided to try Blagojevich in the media and the court of public opinion before Blagojevich could expose Emanuel's backroom deal to have White House adviser Valerie Jarrett appointed to fill Obama's vacant Senate seat. Jarrett was hoping to use the Senate seat to help steer the 2016 Summer Olympics to Chicago. Jarrett and her real estate friends stood to make billions of dollars from the sale of public lands to build Olympic venues. WMR has also learned that Chicago Mayor Richard Daley, Jr. was originally opposed to the Olympics in Chicago but was pressured into it by Emanuel, Jarrett, and Michael Scott, the late Chicago School Board President whose body, last November, was found floating in the Chicago River with a gunshot wound. Although Scott's death was ruled a suicide, WMR has learned from Chicago sources that Scott was eliminated because he posed a threat to Jarrett, Emanuel, and Jarrett's friend Michelle Obama.

The constant threats of exposure by Emanuel of personal information obtained from private communications has led Democrats like Senators Byron Dorgan of North Dakota and Chris Dodd of Connecticut, as well as Colorado Democratic Governor Bill Ritter, to abandon their re-election bids. Our White House sources report that some Democrats were "directly threatened and some were not, but a threat was implied."

WMR has also learned of a schism that has opened up between Obama's political team of Emanuel, Jarrett, David Axelrod, and White House pollsters and focus group specialists who meet at the White House every Wednesday and the national security team of National Security Adviser Jim Jones, Defense Secretary Robert Gates, and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. The national security team is convinced that the political team is only focused on the 2012 re-election campaign and not on pressing national security issues. Brawls have reportedly broken out between the two groups with Emanuel looking for ways to threaten Jones, Gates, and Clinton with retaliation if their criticisms of the political team continues.

The schism has resulted in a whispering campaign being started that Emanuel's time within the White House is finite. The Washington Post's Sally Quinn recently wrote that Emanuel may be leaving the White House to run for mayor of Chicago. The only part of that rumor which may be true is that the long knives are out for Emanuel by Democrats who see him as threatening the Democrats' chances of holding the Senate in this year's election. Since Mayor Daley shows no signs of declining a re-election bid and still being miffed that Emanuel was largely behind the decision not to appoint his brother William Daley as ambassador to China, Mayor Daley's relations with Emanuel are already strained.

The Inevitability of PTSD


Welcome Home, Hold Your Tongue

By BRUCE PATTERSON

The late comedian George Carlin did a bit about Post-Traumatic Stress Syndrome (back then it wasn’t called a Disorder). During WW1, Carlin reminded us, we called it “shell shock.” Now those two words pack some punch, don’t they? It’s shocking language, really. So during WW2 we started calling it “combat fatigue.” As if war makes a soldier sleepy and, after a nap, milk and cookies, he’s as good as new. During Vietnam we started calling it Post-Traumatic Stress Syndrome. Has a nice ring, doesn’t it? You’re given a choice between “trauma” and “post-trauma” — which are you going to take? Experiencing “stress” is some­thing we can all sympathize with. Getting stuck in traffic is stressful. And who knows what a “Syndrome” is? Yet it’s a pretty word that rolls off the tongue… Carlin’s riff was a lot more elaborate and entertaining, but — if memory serves me right — that was the gist of it.

Today PTS is a scientifically established Disorder. Still I intensely dislike the term and resent how it is used and abused. Nowadays getting your legs blown off by a landmine in some outrageously foreign, povertty-stricken place is like being a New York City supermodel, falling down in your bathtub and knocking your teeth out. War wounds have become every­day injuries and everyday injuries provide individuals with the opportunity to excel in the Special Olympics and star in a hometown parade.

2,600 years ago the Chinese philosopher Lao Tzu wrote, “Victory in war is a funeral procession.” As a young boy in Vietnam, I won my victory and I shuffled in the procession. Beginning in the spring of 1968 I spent three months in various military hospitals and during that time I saw a ghoul’s gallery of the hide­ously wounded. I saw the psychological impacts of physical mutilation and how phony the distinction is between the two. If you wish to experience not just “trauma” but real pain and suffering, whack your thumb with a roofer’s hammer. Smash you thumb and see how that affects your psychological well-being. Now imagine taking three machine gun rounds through the belly and surviving. Imagine getting your jaw and nose blown off and surviving. When you’re young and looking forward to a lifetime of pain, disability and poverty, wearing your battlefield Badges of Honor doesn’t feel like such a privilege. Almost inevitably, PTSD is the result.

This isn’t to say that war doesn’t create plenty of purely psychological casualties. While I was in An Khe Field Hospital I saw a teenaged, round-eyed, GI nurse Breaking like a twig in a monsoon gale. The poor girl surren­dered to her pent-up agony and she ran wailing from the ward. Struck dumb, all of us bloody cot-covers felt deeply ashamed. Here we were on the wrong side of the world and we couldn’t even protect an American girl. In that instant the nurse became our mothers and sisters, neighbors, classmates, girlfriends and every­body else we’d willingly left behind. Now we couldn’t even return to them with all of our fingers and toes.

I was just passing through the hospitals but GI nurses were forced to pull full tours. What must that have done to them? I’ll never forget the blackened midnight wards echoing with delirious, drug-induced moaning, raging and begging. And I’ll never forget that American girl. Is it possible she has forgotten? If so, at what cost? At whose cost?

It’s telling that combat nurses, medics and doctors never get listed as casualties of war. Like war correspondents and combat photographers, flag-draped coffins, helpless civilians slaughtered wholesale, the massive, gold-plated “contractor” dungeons crammed with rats and illiterate, penniless native boys, the junkyard refugee camps stretching for miles and teeming with millions of the terrorized, destitute, broken and defiant — like the entire blood-drenched and despicable military history of the 20th Century — nurses and doctors are erased from public conscious­ness. “Heroes,” civilians in the mother country call them, absolutely oblivious to the fact that heroes get wasted.

We have “re-invented war for the 21st Century” by making it as bloodless as a video game or an Exxon commercial. So when an American girl walks into an ambush up in the Hindu Kush and she gets her brains sprayed on an ancient adobe wall, we don’t want to see it. When an American boy spills his intestines into the dust of a village square surrounded by shrieking, barefoot little boys and girls, don’t show us the video. Yet, when an extended family of dirt poor dirt farm­ers sits down to supper and gets blown into smoking chunks of meat by an American Predator Drone, please show us the “battle” from the robot’s perspec­tive. Show us the beautiful greenish tint of the machine’s night vision cameras, its high-tech gunsight, space age, BMW dashboard and the purifying flash of its white ball of flame. We can identify with Predator Drones.

The dirtiest little secret about war is that they are always fought for domestic political reasons. LBJ invaded Vietnam because, facing an election, he wished to cut the legs out from under his red-baiting, warmongering opponent, Barry Goldwater. George Bush junior invaded Iraq because he knew if he blamed Saddam Hussein for the attacks on 9/11, and for all sorts of other crimes and fiendish plots, then the great bulk of Americans would line up behind him like newly-hatched ducklings. Having won the hearts and minds of the American people, the Bush regime, their party and sponsors would reap a bonanza.

Regarding the “opposition party” in the Senate and House, they’d never allow themselves to be put on record as being against “preemptive” war. Nor would they ever stand up for the Charter of the UN, the Nuremburg Principles, American ideals (not prac­tices), the US Constitution or — least of all — the American Bill of Rights. The American people (think Germans, Chinese, English, etc., etc.) wouldn’t stand for it. Not when they’ve been convinced by those in the castle keep that the barbarians are at the gate.

So it is that the current President is escalating the not just losing but self-defeating wars in Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan. If the President wants voting Americans to like him enough to maybe re-elect him, he must make his bones. Peace is a filthy word when Victory means National Security.

We cling to so many illusions about war because we have learned how to lie to ourselves. We are able to sleep easy because of the vast distance we maintain between ourselves and our actions. It’s only our soldiers who get to roll around in the mud, blood and guts, and it’s only they who have no say in the matter. We have made them expendable, after all. To the extent that we can allow ourselves to even acknow­ledge their existence, we bury them under layers of self-serving rituals and myths.

Take the notion of “survivor’s guilt” and how it’s twisted out of shape. Sharing foxholes supposedly makes you a Band of Brothers and, having watched your brothers getting wasted in the most gruesome ways, the rest of your life you can never live it down. Like, why did you survive but not them? That’s a part of survivor’s guilt, sure. But it’s a very small part and it only hits you after you are back home all safe and sound. In real life, if you’re lucky enough to survive an ambush but your partner gets zapped, the first thing you think is, “better him than me.” Whether or not you are in a place where at anytime you can be killed, that’s just human nature. In combat, if your partner gets zapped, you don’t feel guilty or anything resem­bling guilty. Getting a partner zapped reinforces your hatred of the enemy. Humping around a huge load of homicidal hatred makes fighting a war a whole lot easier. Your buddy didn’t die for nothing. You’d even the score and then some if lived long enough.

Or take these pious numbskulls who declare that “there are no atheists in foxholes.” What a crock. I was an “atheist” and so were plenty of my holemates. We knew the shit we were going through was man­made. And if by some chance there was some supernatural force lurking in the bushes and swarms of bugs, it wasn’t God but the Devil. For every frontline soldier convinced that God has his back, there’s another soldier just as convinced that God has deserted the field of battle. Or — at the very least — has washed his hands of it.

While the realities of PTSD are twisted out of shape, one thing is proven: the likelihood and severity of the disorder increases according to the intensity and duration of the combat a soldier (or civilian) has endured. Since the world’s war literature has illuminated this very point for thousands of years, I don’t think these Pentagon and VA Mental Health Profes­sionals should pat themselves on their backs too hard. Now there’s MHPs getting paid hundreds of millions of tax dollars to probe the human psyche for ways to make multiple combat tours palatable. As if the exis­tence of the human conscience amounts to battlefield cowardice and, like homosexuality, pacifism and feminism, it undermines the Martial Spirit of the Manly Race. Which goes to show that for every five of America’s warmongering Bible-thumpers on the public dole, there is a least one mad scientist.

Already there are over one million American war veterans who, unlike their fathers and grandfathers, have pulled multiple combat tours. According to the VA (they lie), at least 20% of them are already suffering from PTSD. Because it is a whole lot easier to salute an upside-down rifle, an empty steel helmet and a pair of empty boots than it is to fix what you have broken, few of them will ever be made whole. Welcome home, forget, hold your tongue and join the unemployment line. How many generations of vets have gone through that? There’s no reason for today’s crop to expect any different. If wishes were horses, beggars would ride.

Bruce Patterson is a regular contributor to the Anderson Valley Advertiser (www.theava.com) in Boonville, California (where this article also appears). Comments can be sent via the Advertiser at ava@pacific.net..

Shooting Handcuffed Children

David Swanson on the Recent Massacre of 8 Children in Kunar Province

SwansonThe occupied government of Afghanistan and the United Nations have both concluded that U.S.-led troops recently dragged eight sleeping children out of their beds, handcuffed some of them, and shot them all dead. While this apparently constitutes an everyday act of kindness, far less intriguing than the vicious singeing of his pubic hairs by Captain Underpants, it is at least a variation on the ordinary American technique of murdering men, women, and children by the dozens with unmanned drones.

Also this week in Afghanistan, eight CIA assassins (see if you can find a more appropriate name for them) were murdered by a suicide bombing that one of them apparently executed against the other seven. The Taliban in Pakistan claims credit and describes the mass-murder as revenge for the CIA’s drone killings. And we thought unmanned drones were War Perfected because none of the right people would have to risk their lives. Oops. Perhaps Detroit-bound passengers risked theirs unwittingly.

The CIA has declared its intention to seek revenge for the suicide strike. Who knows what the assassination of sleeping students was revenge for. Perhaps the next lunatic to try blowing up something in the United States will be seeking revenge for whatever Obama does to avenge the victims (television viewers?) of the Crotch Crusader. Certainly there will be numerous more acts of violence driven by longings for revenge against the drone pilots and the shooters of students.

In a civilized world, the alternative to vengeance is justice. Often we can even set aside feelings of revenge as long as we are able to act so as to deter more crime. But at the same time that the puppet president of Afghanistan is demanding the arrest of the troops who shot the handcuffed children, the puppet government of Iraq is facing up to the refusal of the United States to seriously prosecute the Blackwater assassins of innocent Iraqis. Justice will not be permitted as an alternative to vengeance — the mere idea is anti-American.

No one so much as blinks at the CIA’s avowal of vengeance for the recent suicide attack, never mind the illegality, because the entire illegal war on Afghanistan/Pakistan was launched and is still maintained as a pretended act of revenge for the crimes of 9-11. Of course, we’re not bombing the flight schools or the German and Spanish hotels. Of course , we admit that there are fewer than 100 members of Al Qaeda in Afghanistan. Of course we openly seek massive permanent bases and an oil pipeline. Of course, Obama’s decisions are all electoral calculations computed by the calculus of cowardice. Of course, we’re prosecuting the Butt Bomber as a criminal, just as we always used to prosecute criminals as criminals. Of course, revenge would not be a legal justification for war even if we could persuade ourselves it was a sane one. But the war is publicly understood as revenge, the resistance by its victims is understood as revenge, the escalation is understood as revenge for the resistance, and an eye for an eye slowly makes the whole world blind.

But here’s what we’ve forgotten: nothing is ever remotely as horrible as war. So, nothing can ever constitute a justification for launching or escalating or continuing a war. Dragging children out of bed and killing them is not a freak blip in the course of a war. It is war reduced to a comprehensible scale. It’s less war, not worse war. Everything we are spending our grandchildren’s unearned pay on, borrowed from China at great expense, all of it is for the murdering of human beings. And it will remain so for eternity, no matter how many times you chant “Support Duh Troops.”

I know many soldiers and mercenaries had few other options, given our failure to invest in any other industries. I know they’ve been lied to. I know they’re scared and tired. But they wouldn’t be there if we brought them home. And I support a full investment in their physical and mental and economic recovery. What I don’t support is anyone participating in these wars, and that includes every single American who is not putting every spare moment into demanding that Congress stop forking over the money.

It’s blood money. It’s payment for murder. It cannot be defended. It cannot be permitted. We must stop it now [1]. We must shut down [2] the place it comes from.

Not another dime. Not another dollar. Not another death. Not another thought of revenge.

UPDATE:

By David Swanson

Silly me. I thought I could comment on something that was in the news without proving that it was in the news. Maybe this will help:

UN says Afghans slain in troop raid were students

By DUSAN STOJANOVIC, Associated Press Writer, Thu Dec 31, 1:26 pm ET
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20091231/ap_on_re_as/as_afghanistan_un [3]

KABUL – The United Nations said Thursday that a weekend raid by foreign troops in a tense eastern Afghan province killed eight local students and warned against nighttime actions by coalition forces because they often cause civilian deaths.

The Afghan government said its investigation has established that all 10 people killed Sunday in a remote village in Kunar province were civilians. Its officials said that eight of those killed were schoolchildren aged 12-14. . . .

UN special representative in Afghanistan Kai Eide said in a statement that the preliminary UN investigation showed “strong indication” that there were insurgents in the area at the time of the attack.

But, he added, “based on our initial investigation, eight of those killed were students enrolled in local schools.” . . .

Eide said the UN remained concerned about nighttime raids by coalition troops “given that they often result in lethal outcomes for civilians, the dangerous confusion that frequently arises when a family compound is invaded.” . . .

A statement issued Thursday by the Afghan National Security Directorate said the government investigation showed no Afghan forces were involved and “international forces from an unknown address came to the area and without facing any armed resistance, put 10 youth in two rooms and killed them.

“They conducted this operation on their own without informing any security or local authorities of Afghanistan,” the statement said.

___

Associated Press writer Rahim Faiez in Kabul contributed to this report.

I’ve excerpted much of the above article, but not the military denials. Go read them at the link above. Here’s the Los Angeles Times:

Western troops killed civilians, Afghan investigators say

The government investigators say eight of those killed over the weekend in a remote eastern province were boys under 18. Western military officials say there is no evidence to back the claim.
By Laura King, Los Angeles Times, December 31, 2009

Reporting from Kabul, Afghanistan – Afghan government investigators asserted Wednesday that foreign troops had killed 10 civilians in a raid this week, including eight students younger than 18. Western military officials called the charge unsubstantiated and urged a joint investigation. . . .

A statement from the presidential palace said Karzai had offered condolences to the families of the dead, and endorsed the initial findings of an investigative panel that had traveled to Kunar at his behest.

The head of the Afghan delegation, Asadullah Wafa, said 10 males, all civilians, were taken from their homes in Ghazikhan village, in the Narang district, and then shot dead by foreign troops. The report cited the village schoolmaster as identifying eight of them as pupils between the ages of 12 and 17. . . .

Wafa, a close aide to Karzai, suggested that an informant had provided misleading information to Western forces, triggering the strike. Afghan villagers have sometimes tried to settle scores with rival clans or tribes by falsely reporting insurgent activity to the authorities. . . .

laura.king@latimes.com [4]
Copyright © 2010, The Los Angeles Times

The above article has been dismissed by commenters on progressive websites because it was posted by the progressive website Common Dreams. Never mind that Common Dreams has been right far more often than the Los Angeles Times. Below is a collection of sources put together (and presumably thereby tarnished) by Talking Points Memo:

Afghan Children Handcuffed, Then Killed By American Soldiers
January 1, 2010, 7:38AM
Talking Points Memo
http://tpmcafe.talkingpointsmemo.com/talk/blogs/r/u/rutabaga_ridgepole/2… [5]

TPM starts with the Times:

From the London Times, December 31, 2009…
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/Afghanistan/article6971638.ece [6]

President Karzai sent a team of investigators to Narang district, in eastern Kunar province, after reports of a massacre first surfaced on Monday.

“The delegation concluded that a unit of international forces descended from a plane Sunday night into Ghazi Khan village in Narang district of the eastern province of Kunar and took ten people from three homes, eight of them school students in grades six, nine and ten, one of them a guest, the rest from the same family, and shot them dead,” a statement on President Karzai’s website said.

Assadullah Wafa, who led the investigation, said that US soldiers flew to Kunar from Kabul, suggesting that they were part of a special forces unit.

Mr Wafa, a former governor of Helmand province, met President Karzai to discuss his findings yesterday. “I spoke to the local headmaster,” he said. “It’s impossible they were al-Qaeda. They were children, they were civilians, they were innocent. I condemn this attack.”

In a telephone interview last night, the headmaster said that the victims were asleep in three rooms when the troops arrived. “Seven students were in one room,” said Rahman Jan Ehsas. “A student and one guest were in another room, a guest room, and a farmer was asleep with his wife in a third building.

“First the foreign troops entered the guest room and shot two of them. Then they entered another room and handcuffed the seven students. Then they killed them.”

Directly from Karzai’s website…
http://president.gov.af/Contents/91/Documents/1124/phone_talks_kunar_eng… [7]

President Karzai in a telephone contact expressed condolences and shared grief with the families of the victims of the recent attack in Kunar province.

Following the attack, President Karzai tasked a delegation on Monday led by the Chief of Complaints Commission and composed of representatives from the ministries of Defense, Interior, National Directorate of Security and the Office of Administrative Affairs for an immediate investigation of the incident.

The findings by the delegation concluded that a unit of international forces descended from a plane Sunday night into Ghazi Khan Village in Narang district of the eastern province of Kunar and took 10 people from three homes, eight of them school students in grades six, nine and 10, one of them a guest, the rest from the same family, and shot them dead.

Eight of those shot dead were confirmed as school students by the village school principle.

From the New York Times…
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/12/29/world/asia/29afghan.html [8]

The governor of Kunar, Fazullah Wahidi, said that “the coalition claimed they were enemy fighters,” but that elders in the district and a delegation sent to the remote area had found that “10 people were killed and all of them were civilians.”

From the United Nations…
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/34644227/ns/world_news-south_and_central_asia/ [9]

The United Nations said Thursday that a weekend raid by foreign troops in a tense eastern Afghan province killed eight local students and that it warned against nighttime actions by coalition forces because they often cause civilian deaths.

That last quote is simply from the same AP story I quoted above, but posted on the MSNBC website. The UN special representative, you’ll recall, is named and quoted above.

This site is maintained by a union shop at MayFirst.org

<Links:
[1] http://defundwar.org
[2] http://peaceoftheaction.org
[3] http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20091231/ap_on_re_as/as_afghanistan_un
[4] mailto:laura.king@latimes.com
[5] http://tpmcafe.talkingpointsmemo.com/talk/blogs/r/u/rutabaga_ridgepole/2010/01/afghan-children-handcuffed-the.php
[6] http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/Afghanistan/article6971638.ece
[7] http://president.gov.af/Contents/91/Documents/1124/phone_talks_kunar_eng.html
[8] http://www.nytimes.com/2009/12/29/world/asia/29afghan.html
[9] http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/34644227/ns/world_news-south_and_central_asia/

* This article has been published with direct permission from the author. The original publication site: http://www.davidswanson.org/node/2385


The Lie of Law: Courts Bow to State's Raw Power

Written by Chris Floyd
Wednesday, 06 January 2010 16:47

I.
It is often forgotten how "legal" the Nazi regime in Germany really was. It did not take power in a violent revolution, but entered government through the entirely "legal" procedures of the time. The "legal" vote of the "legally" elected Reichstag gave Adolf Hitler the powers to rule by decree, thus imparting strict "legality" to the actions of his government.

Indeed, there were several cases when those who felt the government had overstepped the bounds of law in a particular instance actually took the Nazi regime to court, and won. Why? Because the government was bound by "the rule of law." And the fact is, almost the entire pre-Nazi judicial system of the German state remained intact and operational throughout Hitler's reign. The "rule of law" carried on.

Of course, as the Nazi regime plowed forward with its racist, militarist, imperialist agenda, this "rule of law" became increasingly elastic, countenancing a range of actions and policies that would have been considered heinous atrocities only a few years before. This trend was greatly accelerated after the Regime -- claiming "self-defense" following an alleged "invasion" by a small band of raiders -- launched a war which soon engulfed the world.

Naturally, in such unusual and perilous circumstances, jurists were inclined to give the widest possible lee-way to the war powers of the state. After all, as one prominent judge declared, the war had pushed the nation “past the leading edge of a new and frightening paradigm, one that demands new rules be written. War is a challenge to law, and the law must adjust."

-- No, wait. I must apologize for my mistake. That last quote was not, in fact, from a German jurist during the Nazi regime, but from a ruling issued this week by the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit -- one of the highest courts in the land. The quoted opinion -- written by the legally appointed Judge Janice Rogers Brown -- was part of a sweeping ruling that greatly magnified the powers of the government to seize foreigners and hold them indefinitely without charges or legal appeal.

The court denied the appeal of Ghaleb Nassar al-Bihani, who has been held in captivity for more than eight years. What was his crime? He served as a non-combatant clerk for a unit on one side of the long-running Afghan civil war. This war was fought largely between factions of violent extremists; Bihani had the misfortune to be serving in the army of the "wrong" faction when the United States intervened on behalf of the opposing extremists in 2001. Jason Ditz summarizes the case well at Antiwar.com:

Bihani was a cook for a pro-Taliban faction fighting against the Northern Alliance before the 2001 US invasion, and his unit surrendered during the initial invasion.

The Yemeni citizen is accused of “hostilities against the United States” even though he arrived in Afghanistan nearly six months before the US invasion. Not only did his unit never fight against American forces, he was a cook who doesn’t appear to have ever participated in any combat at all. Despite this, he was declared an enemy combatant.


Let's underscore the salient fact: Bihani never took up arms against the United States, was involved in no combat against the United States (or anyone else, apparently), played no part in any attack on the United States. Yet the court ruled that the United States can arbitrarily declare Bihani an "enemy combatant" and hold him captive for the rest of his life.

But the eminent judges did not stop there in their entirely "legal" ruling. As the New York Times reports, they went to declare that "the presidential war power to detain those suspected of terrorism is not limited even by international law of war." And later: "the majority’s argument [is] that the president’s war powers are not bound by the international laws of war."

Think of that. Let it sink in. The president's war powers cannot be constrained by the international laws of war. Whatever the Leader (no points for translating this term into German) decides to do in the course of a war is thus rendered entirely "legal." He cannot be accused of international war crimes because such things do not apply to him.

With this ruling -- which is all of a piece with many more that have preceded it -- we are well and truly "past the leading edge of a new and frightening paradigm." What is most frightening, of course, is the obscene philosophy of machtpolitik -- the craven kowtowing to the demands of brute force -- that is embodied in Judge Brown's chilling words: "War is a challenge to law, and the law must adjust."

Again, remember the context of this ruling. It deals with the Leader's power over foreign citizens in lands that the Leader's armies are occupying. The judicial "reasoning" expressed by Judge Brown could apply, without the slightest alteration, to the Nazi regime's various programs of mass killing and "indefinite detention" of "enemy" foreigners in occupied lands.

The "resettlement" of Eastern Europe -- in order to provide for the "national security" of the German people and the preservation of their "way of life" -- did indeed require a pathbreaking advance into a "new paradigm" on the part of the law. The exigencies and challenges of the war demanded, as Judge Brown would put it, that "new rules be written."

And so they were. Under the duly, officially, formally constituted German "law" of the time -- as interpreted and applied by obsequious jurists in the mold of Judge Brown and her fellow war power expander, Judge Brett Kavanaugh -- there was little or nothing that was "illegal" in the vast catalogue of Nazi wartime atrocities, including the Holocaust itself. The perpetrators were "only following orders," which had been issued by "legal" entities, acting through "legal" processes, under the direction of the "legal" executive authority, whose unrestrained war powers had been established and upheld by the "rule of law."

Now this legal philosophy -- the primacy of raw, unaccountable power -- is being openly established by the highest courts of the United States. President Barack Obama, whose legal minions fought so ferociously to deny the appeal of the non-combatant captive, has been an ardent proponent and practitioner of this philosophy since his first days in office. His administration has proclaimed that the torturers of the Bush administration will not be prosecuted, because they were just following orders -- orders which had been issued by legal entities, acting through legal processes, under the direction of the legal executive authority, whose unrestrained war powers had been established and upheld by the "rule of law."

II.
It was not always thus. A few years ago, when writing of the "constitutional and moral issues raised by Bush's liberty-gutting 'unitary executive' dictatorship" (which Obama has enthusiastically continued and expanded), I ran across a Supreme Court ruling from December 1866 -- more than 140 years ago: Ex Parte Milligan. In this ruling, which grew out of the wartime excesses of the Lincoln Administration, the Court -- dominated by five Lincoln appointees -- was unequivocal:

Constitutional protections not only apply "equally in war and peace" but also – in a dramatic extension of this legal shield – to "all classes of men, at all times, and under all circumstances." No emergency – not even open civil war – warrants their suspension. Even in wartime, the President's powers, though expanded, are still restrained: "he is controlled by law, and has his appropriate sphere of duty, which is to execute, not to make, the laws."


As I noted earlier in the piece:

It was a decisive ruling against a government that had far overreached its powers, stripping away essential liberties in the name of national security. The Justice who authored the majority opinion was a Republican, an old friend and political crony of the president who had appointed him. Even so, his ruling struck hard at the abuses set in train by his patron. He stood upon the law, he stood upon the Constitution, even in the aftermath of a shattering blow that had killed more than 600,000 Americans and almost destroyed the nation itself.

This is what the Court decided:

"The Constitution of the United States is a law for rulers and people, equally in war and in peace, and covers with the shield of its protection all classes of men, at all times, and under all circumstances. No doctrine, involving more pernicious consequences, was ever invented by the wit of man than that any of its provisions can be suspended during any of the great exigencies of government. Such a doctrine leads directly to anarchy or despotism, but the theory of necessity on which it is based is false; for the government, within the Constitution, has all the powers granted to it, which are necessary to preserve its existence."

The author was Justice David Davis, an Illinois lawyer appointed by Abraham Lincoln after helping run the campaign that gave his old colleague the presidency in the fateful 1860 election. (Davis was also, by a strange quirk of history, the second cousin of George W. Bush's great-grandfather.) By the time the Court issued its ruling, Lincoln was dead, but the after-effects of his ever-expanding suspension of civil liberties during wartime were still roiling through the courts, and through America's fractured society. The Milligan ruling was, in the words of legal scholar John P. Frank, "one of the truly great documents of the American Constitution," a "bulwark" for civil liberties, expansive and exacting in the Constitutional protections it spelled out.

The ruling acknowledged that there are times when the writ of habeas corpus may have to be suspended in an area where hostilities are directly taking place – but even this power, they noted, was highly circumscribed and specifically delegated to Congress, not the president. Lincoln exceeded this authority on numerous occasions, increasing the scope of his powers until the entire Union was essentially under martial law, and anyone arbitrarily deemed guilty of never-defined "disloyal practices" could be arrested or silenced – in the latter case by having their newspaper shut down, for instance. (Lincoln would sometimes – but not always – seek ex post facto Congressional authorization for these acts.) Some parts of the Union that the Lincoln administration thought particularly disloyal were officially put under martial law -- such as southern Indiana, where anti-war agitator Lambdin Milligan and four others were accused of a plot to free Confederate prisoners, and were summarily tried and sentenced to death by a military tribunal.

It was this case that the Court – five of whom were Lincoln appointees – overturned in such a decided fashion.


As noted, that ruling was made in a nation still reeling from a savage, titanic war fought on its own territory. Even in the midst of such turmoil, the idea that "the laws must adjust" to the exigencies of war -- even the extremity of ruinous civil war -- was considered anathema, even to conservative jurists with close ties to the government.

But no longer. Although, unlike a civil war, even the worst terrorist attack imaginable would pose no existential threat to the nation, today the merest whisper of the possibility of a limited terrorist incident shakes the United States to its foundations -- and people willingly line up to be stripped naked by machines, while courts crawl on their bellies before the terrible majesty of unrestrained executive power.

Be assured: the "rule of law" means nothing, protects nothing, sustains nothing. It can always be twisted and stretched by cowards, courtiers and power-seekers. Arthur Silber, as he does so often, cuts to heart of the matter in this powerful essay from 2009, "Concerning the State, the Law, and Show Trials":

The law is not some Platonic Form plucked from the skies by the Pure in Heart. Laws are written by men, men who have particular interests, particular constituencies, particular donors, and particular friends. ... Laws are the particular means by which the state implements and executes its vast powers. When an increasingly authoritarian state passes a certain critical point in its development, the law is no longer the protector of individual rights and individual liberty. The law becomes the weapon of the state itself -- to protect, not you, but the state from threats to its own powers. We passed that critical point some decades ago. The law is the means by which the state corrals its subjects, keeps them under control, and forbids them from acting in ways that the overlords might perceive as threatening. In brief, today, in these glorious United States, the law is not your friend.


Indeed it is not. In our "low dishonest" century, the "rule of law" has become the "lie of Authority" that Auden speaks of. It will not save us. What matters -- as always -- is moral courage in the face of power's encroachments. Sometimes this can be found within an institutional framework, as in the Supreme Court's bold expansion of legal rights to all people, "at all times, and under all circumstances" back in 1866; and of course it can be found in the lives and actions of individuals, acting singly or in concert. Auden again:

Defenseless under the night
Our world in stupor lies;
Yet, dotted everywhere,
Ironic points of light
Flash out wherever the Just
Exchange their messages:
May I, composed like them
Of Eros and of dust,
Beleaguered by the same
Negation and despair,
Show an affirming flame.