Showing posts with label terrorism. Show all posts
Showing posts with label terrorism. Show all posts

2008-12-31

The US Army Document That Proves the US is the World’s Number One Sponsor of World Terrorism

In a ‘manual’ which is officially to be released only to ’students from foreign countries on a case-by-case basis only’, the US Army outlines a program of what it now calls ‘irregular warfare’, in fact US state sponsored terrorism, insurgency, and PSYOPS.

1-21. Waging protracted IW depends on building global capability and capacity. IW will not be won by the United States alone but rather through combined efforts with multinational partners. Combined IW [Irregular Warfare, euphemism for TERRORISM] will require the joint force to establish a long-term sustained presence in numerous countries to build partner capability and capacity. This capability and capacity extends U.S. operational reach, multiplies forces available, and provides increased options for defeating adversaries. The constituent activities of IW are:

  • Insurgency.
  • COIN.
  • UW.
  • Terrorism
  • CT.
  • FID.
  • Stability, security, transition, and reconstruction (SSTR) operations.
  • Strategic communication (SC).
  • PSYOP.
  • Civil-military operations (CMO).
  • Information operations (IO).
  • Intelligence and counterintelligence (CI) activities.
  • Transnational criminal activities, including narco-trafficking, illicit arms dealing, and illegal financial transactions that support or sustain IW.
  • Law enforcement activities focused on countering irregular adversaries.

1-22. The above list of operations and activities can be conducted within IW; … –Headquarters, Department of the Army, Army Special Operations Forces Unconventional Warfare, September 2008[PDF]

Ignoring 1) the mountainous body of evidence that US policy and the CIA, specifically, is the root-cause of the vast majority of the what is commonly called ‘world terrorism’; and 2) the equally impressive body of hard evidence that 911 was an inside job, the Army cites 911 as the pretext by which the US should embark above the policy as outlined above.[See: Terrorism is Worse Under GOP Regimes ] 1-18. The 9/11 terrorist attack on the United States highlighted the increased danger of warfare conducted by other-than-state enemies. Recognizing that such irregular threats by nonstate actors would be a likely and even dominant pattern throughout the 21st century, national policy makers dictated that planners must analyze and prepare for such irregular threats. It was clear that previous assumptions about the terms “conventional,” “traditional,” or “regular” warfare, and reliance solely on a “regular” or “conventional warfare” doctrine were inadequate. IW was a significant theme in the 2006 Quadrennial Defense Review Report. In April 2006, the Pentagon drafted the execution roadmap for IW as a means of combating this growing threat from actions beyond conventional state-to-state military conflict. –Headquarters, Department of the Army, Army Special Operations Forces Unconventional Warfare, September 2008 [PDF]

Elsewhere, the document cites the threat posed to the US by “WMD—such as nuclear, chemical, or biological weapons. But I have yet to find a single word, phrase, sentence or paragraph in which the manual mentioned the threat posed the rest of the world by some forty years or more of US meddling, threats, covert operations, US sponsored assassinations, and overt threats of bombing and/or war and invasion. Instead, we get platitudes that are made absolutely meaningless by the remainder of this arrogant, imperialistic document.

A-64. Democracy and the protection of fundamental liberties were the basis for the creation of the United States more than 200 years ago. Since then, a central goal of U.S. foreign policy has been to promote respect for democracy and human rights throughout the world. The DOS— .. Promotes democracy as a way to achieve security, stability, and prosperity for the entire world. .. Helps establish and assist newly formed democracies. op cit

It is odd that as the US is said to be ‘defending’ Democracy, it is subverting it. It is said that the United States must be concerned about the possibility that terrorists may acquire WMD, ignoring the fact that the US leads the world in the manufacture, sale and distribution of WMD. Let’s put this another way: the US military spending is greater than that spent by the rest of the world’s nations combined. If terrorists should ever obtain WMD, the chances are good that they will get them from the US, perhaps with monies raised selling cocaine to the one of the largest drug dealers on the planet Earth: the CIA!

During the 40s and 50s, most of the public was unaware of what the CIA was doing. Those who knew thought they were fighting the good fight against communism, like James Bond. However, they could not keep their actions secret forever, and by the 60s and 70s, Americans began learning about the agency’s crimes and atrocities. (3) It turns out the CIA has:

  • Corrupted democratic elections in Greece, Italy and dozens of other nations;
  • Been involved to varying degrees in at least 35 assassination plots against foreign heads of state or prominent political leaders. Successful assassinations include democratically elected leaders like Salvador Allende (Chile) and Patrice Lumumba (Belgian Congo); also CIA-created dictators like Rafael Trujillo (Dominican Republic) and Ngo Dinh Diem (South Vietnam); and popular political leaders like Che Guevara. Unsuccessful attempts range from Fidel Castro to Charles De Gaulle.
  • Helped launch military coups that toppled democratic governments, replacing them with brutal dictatorships or juntas. The list of overthrown democratic leaders includes Mossadegh (Iran, 1953), Arbenz (Guatemala, 1954), Velasco and Arosemena (Ecuador, 1961, 1963), Bosch (Dominican Republic, 1963), Goulart (Brazil, 1964), Sukarno (Indonesia, 1965), Papandreou (Greece, 1965-67), Allende (Chile, 1973), and dozens of others.
  • Undermined the governments of Australia, Guyana, Cambodia, Jamaica and more;
  • Supported murderous dictators like General Pinochet (Chile), the Shah of Iran, Ferdinand Marcos (Phillipines), “Papa Doc” and “Baby Doc” Duvalier (Haiti), General Noriega (Panama), Mobutu Sese Seko (Ziare), the “reign of the colonels” (Greece), and more;
  • Created, trained and supported death squads and secret police forces that tortured and murdered hundreds of thousands of civilians, leftists and political opponents, in Guatemala, Honduras, El Salvador, Haiti, Bolivia, Cuba, Mexico, Uruguay, Brazil, Chile, Vietnam, Cambodia, Thailand, Iran, Turkey, Angola and others;
  • Helped run the “School of the Americas” at Fort Benning, Georgia, which trains Latin American military officers how to overthrow democratic governments. Subjects include the use of torture, interrogation and murder;
  • Used Michigan State “professors” to train Diem’s secret police in torture;
  • Conducted economic sabotage, including ruining crops, disrupting industry, sinking ships and creating food shortages;
  • Paved the way for the massacre of 200,000 in East Timor, 500,000 in Indonesia and one to two million in Cambodia;
  • Launched secret or illegal military actions or wars in Nicaragua, Angola, Cuba, Laos and Indochina;
  • Planted false stories in the local media;
  • Framed political opponents for crimes, atrocities, political statements and embarrassments that they did not commit;
  • Spied on thousands of American citizens, in defiance of Congressional law;
  • Smuggled Nazi war criminals and weapon scientists into the U.S., unpunished, for their use in the Cold War;
  • Created organizations like the World Anti-Communist League, which became filled with ex-Nazis, Nazi sympathizers, Italian terrorists, Japanese fascists, racist Afrikaaners, Latin American death squad leaders, CIA agents and other extreme right-wing militants;
  • Conducted Operation MK-ULTRA, a mind-control experiment that gave LSD and other drugs to Americans against their will or without their knowledge, causing some to commit suicide;
  • Penetrated and disrupted student antiwar organizations;
  • Kept friendly and extensive working relations with the Mafia;
  • Actively traded in drugs around the world since the 1950s to fund its operations. The Contra/crack scandal is only the tip of the iceberg –- other notorious examples include Southeast Asia’s Golden Triangle and Noreiga’s Panama.
  • Had their fingerprints all over the assassinations of John F. Kennedy, Robert F. Kennedy, Martin Luther King, Jr., and Malcom X. Even if the CIA is not responsible for these killings, the sheer amount of CIA involvement in these cases demands answers; [editor's note, see: Evidence That the CIA Murdered RFK]
  • And then routinely lied to Congress about all of the above.

The Association for Responsible Dissent estimates that by 1987, 6 million people had died as a result of CIA covert operations. (4) Former State Department official William Blum correctly calls this an “American Holocaust.” –Steve Kangas: The Origins of the Overclass

The US Army document, cited above, is an arrogant, imperialistic and ill-considered response to a growing ‘threat’ –but a threat that is posed only to US monopolists and death merchants, i.e., the Military/Industrial Complex, a fancy name for Murder, Inc. The US has, in fact, squandered the limitless goodwill that had been extended our nation at the end of World War II. The US has failed to make positive use of the world support for allied efforts to codify war crimes, to hold Nazi War Criminals responsibility for heinous crimes. But now –we have a recent US military document that the US Army would prefer to keep secret no doubt because it reveals to the world that those principles espoused at Nuremberg are either no longer operative or they were a fraud, the US didn’t really mean it. Or perhaps they forgot to tell the world that the laws applied to everyone but themselves. The Army has now revealed to the world that no nation is safe from US terrorism, US attack, US subversion of indigenous cultures and governments, US bullying or the US use of WMD against them. That is because the US believes itself to be a world-wide empire, in fact, a single nation that presumes to rule the world.

The well-informed countries –western Europe –know perfectly well what our game is. General de Gaulle took France out of NATO because he suspected that we were in the empire–building business, and he didn’t want to go along with it yet, simultaneously, France remained an ally in case there was a major war with the Soviets. I don’t think we should take too seriously those eastern European countries. In due course, they will wake up, as Turkey did, that we are dangerous. –Gore Vidal, The Erosion of the American Dream

I have repeatedly stated that the US regime of George W. Bush was not legitimate. How can I make it any clearer? “Illegitimate” means that the regime of George W. Bush was no more legitimate than the crooked regimes of tin horn dictators in banana republics. The Bush regime differed little in terms of competence or statesmanship. Now, in a cynical document that the US Army had never intended be disseminated publicly, we have confirmation that the position of the US vis a vis the rest of the world is based not upon Democracy or legitimacy. It is, rather based entirely upon force, aggression and US terrorism. Addendum:

Is the United States going to put dictatorship into effect under the guise of the anti-terrorist struggle? What may trigger another major transformation in 2009? The answer is obvious: another 9/11 in the USA.

Terrible and bloody events are in store for the world in the beginning of 2009. Most likely, the world will witness a reality show with a nuclear blast, which will be used as a reason for the US administration to change the world order again and leave the new Great Depression behind. There is every reason to believe that the Russian Federation may suffer as a result of this possible initiative too.

Joe Biden made a sensational statement on October 19, 2008. He said that Barack Obama would have to undergo an ordeal during the first six months of his stay in the White House. It will be the time of a very serious international crisis, when Obama would have to make tough and possibly unpopular decisions both in home and foreign politics.

Biden said that there were four or five scenarios for the development of the international crisis. Afghanistan, North Korea or the Russian Federation may become the source of one of them.

When Obama learned of Biden’s speech, he tried to explain everything with rhetorical exaggerations. However, Biden’s remarks gave food for thought, taking into consideration the fact that former secretary of state Madeleine Albright described his remarks as statement of fact. –USA needs nuclear explosion to turn the world into dictatorship

Addendum:

A comment amond several found on Buzzflash re this article:

But we already knew the US under sociopathic Bush is a terrorist nation..Bush,Rumsfeld,Rice,Hannity,Limbaugh,Cheney,Bolton,et al are all implicators in this world terrorism by threatening Iraq and Iran.It is certainly a terror to the Iraqui/Iranian people by the US.

My response is that it will be argued in ‘defense’ of the GOP that Bush, Rice et al were just an ‘aberration’. But the SIGNIFICANCE of the Army document is that they were NOT an aberration. It’s the MIC S.O.P.

As I have said numerous times: the Bush administration is illegitimate. Secondly, the MIC is a polite euphemism for a Murder Inc on an international, industrial scale. Death and destruction are the US’s chief exports. Our currency is all but worthless and, like Rome when it invaded Dacia for its gold, the US invades other nations for its resources, primarily oil. At last, The US resembles Rome in that Rome subverted ‘fair wages’ with ’slavery’, in effect, putting working people out of work for good! It became a permanent ‘underclass’. The US has accomplished the same thing by enriching ONLY the uppper one percent of the population –a disparity of both wealth and income that clearly parallels that of Rome in its last throes. Additional resources:

Source: http://www.propagandamatrix.com/articles/december2008/301208Document.htm

2008-12-29

US veto blocks UN anti-Israel resolution


The UN Security Council has been unable to force an end to Israeli attacks against Gaza due to the intervention of the United States.

Washington once again used its veto powers on Sunday to block a resolution calling for an end to the massive ongoing Israeli attacks against the Gaza Strip.

The council has only been able to issue a 'non-binding' statement that calls on Israel to voluntarily bring all its military activities in the besieged region to an immediate end.

The statement comes as Israel has begun a fresh wave of air strikes on Gaza on Sunday, killing at least six people. At least 230 people were killed and 800 wounded in similar attacks on Saturday. The number of Palestinians deaths has so far risen to 271.

The council called on the parties to address the humanitarian crisis in the territory but has not criticized the Israeli air attacks.

Croatian UN Ambassador Neven Jurica read out the non-binding statement on behalf of the 15-member body that "called for an immediate halt to all violence" and on the parties "to stop immediately all military activities."

"The members of the Security Council expressed serious concern at the escalation of the situation in Gaza," he said, as the president of the council.

The council also requested the opening of border crossings into Gaza to address the serious humanitarian and economic needs in Gaza and to ensure medical treatment and a continuous supply of food and fuel.

US representative to the UNSC, Zalmay Khalilzad, defended the Israeli move, saying Tel Aviv has the right to self-defense.

"I regret the loss of any of all innocent life," he said, adding that Hamas rockets precipitated this situation.

Palestinian fighters in the Gaza Strip say they fire rockets into Israel in retaliation for the daily Israeli attacks against them. Unlike the state-of-the-art Israeli weapons and ammunition, the home-made Qassam rockets rarely cause casualties.

The US, a staunch ally to Israel, has so far vetoed over 40 anti-Israeli resolutions sought by the council since 1972.

Since 2004, Washington has prevented the adoption of four other resolutions that called for Tel Aviv to halt its operations in the Gaza Strip.

DB/AA/DT

2008-10-06

How To Win Afghanistan's Opium War

The best way to deprive the Taliban of drug profits? The United States should buy Afghanistan's poppy crop instead of trying to eradicate it.


I used to know Sir Sherard Cowper-Coles, Her Majesty's ambassador in Kabul, and I have no reason to doubt that he was quoted correctly in the leaked cable from the deputy French ambassador to Afghanistan that has since appeared in the Parisian press. I think that he is right in saying that while there cannot be a straightforward "military victory" for the Taliban and other fundamentalist and criminal forces, nonetheless there is a chance that a combination of these forces can make the country ungovernable by the NATO alliance. He may also be correct in his assertion that an increase of troops in the country might have unwelcome and unintended consequences, in that "it would identify us even more strongly as an occupation force and would multiply the targets" for the enemy.

If Afghanistan and Iraq have demonstrated one point over another, it is that the quantity theory of counterinsurgency is very unsoundly based. If a vast number of extra soldiers had been sent to Baghdad before the disastrously conducted war had been given a new strategy and a new command, then it would have been a case of staying in the same hole without ceasing to dig (and there would have been many more "body bags" as a consequence of the larger number of uniformed targets). As it is, we have learned so many lessons in Iraq about how to defeat al-Qaida that we have the chance to apply them in Afghanistan. This is exactly the reverse of the glib and facile argument that used to counterpose the "good" Afghan war to the evil quagmire in Mesopotamia.

Speaking of quagmires, here are a few admittedly quantitative figures (taken from the testimony before Congress of Mark Schneider of the well-respected International Crisis Group). He quoted Adm. Mike Mullen of the Joint Chiefs of Staff as saying that suicide bombings in Afghanistan were up 27 percent in 2007 over 2006, commenting that Mullen "should have added that they are up 600 percent over 2005, and that all insurgent attacks are up 400 percent over 2005." To darken the statistical picture further—this testimony was given last spring—one must also count the number of attacks on World Food Program convoys, on relief workers, and on prominent Afghan women. All of these show a steady upward curve, as does the ability of the Taliban to operate across the Pakistani border and to strike in the middle of the capital city as well as other cities, most notably its old stronghold of Kandahar. The final depressing figure is the index of civilian casualties caused by aerial bombardment from NATO forces: This year will show a large increase in these, as well, and that is one of the chief concerns underlying Sir Sherard's bleakly expressed view that the current U.S.-led strategy is "destined to fail."

Innumerable factors combine to constitute this depressing assessment, and many of them have to do with the sheer fact that Afghanistan, already extremely poor, scorched its own earth further in a series of civil wars and ethnic rivalries. I remember flying from Herat to Kabul on a U.N. plane a few years ago and being depressed by the rarity of even a splash of greenery in the mud-colored landscape. Thirty years ago, what was Afghanistan's most famous export? It was grapes, usually made into exceptionally fine raisins that were esteemed throughout the subcontinent. It was a country of vines and orchards. Now, even the vines and trees have mostly been cut down for firewood. Iraq could well be immensely rich in a decade or less: Afghanistan will be well-down even in "Third World" economic terms for a very long time to come.

This is why it is peculiar of us, if not bizarre and quasi-suicidal, to insist that its main economic lifeblood continues to be wholly controlled by our enemies. The U.N. Office on Drugs and Crime tells us that last year Afghanistan's poppy fields, on 193,000 hectares of land, produced 93 percent of all the world's opium. The potential production could be as high as 8,200 metric tons. And, unsurprisingly, UNODC also reports that the vast bulk of the revenue from this astonishing harvest goes directly to the Taliban or to local warlords and mullahs. Meanwhile, in the guise of liberators, NATO forces appear and tell the Afghan villagers that they intend to burn their only crop. And the American embassy is only restrained by the Afghan government from pursuing a policy of actually spraying this same crop from the air! In other words, the discredited fantasy of Richard Nixon's so-called "War on Drugs" is the dogma on which we are prepared to gamble and lose the country that gave birth to the Taliban and hospitality to al-Qaida.

Surely a smarter strategy would be, in the long term, to invest a great deal in reforestation and especially in the replanting of vines. While in the short term, hard-pressed Afghan farmers should be allowed to sell their opium to the government rather than only to the many criminal elements that continue to infest it or to the Taliban. We don't have to smoke the stuff once we have purchased it: It can be burned or thrown away or perhaps more profitably used to manufacture the painkillers of which the United States currently suffers a shortage. (As it is, we allow Turkey to cultivate opium poppy fields for precisely this purpose.) Why not give Afghanistan the contract instead? At one stroke, we help fill its coffers and empty the main war chest of our foes while altering the "hearts-and-minds" balance that has been tipping away from us. I happen to know that this option has been discussed at quite high levels in Afghanistan itself, and I leave you to guess at the sort of political constraints that prevent it from being discussed intelligently in public in the United States. But if we ever have to have the melancholy inquest on how we "lost" a country we had once liberated, this will be one of the places where the conversation will have to start.